Success in the bag for wedge master Vokey
Speaking before a small crowd in the clubhouse at Glen Abbey Golf Club on Monday afternoon, Mike Weir offered a succinct account of his greatest victory.
“I won Augusta National with my wedge,” Weir said.
Weir, the five-foot-nine short-game wizard, wasn’t bragging. He was giving credit to a lesser-known Canadian who made an undeniable contribution to his landmark win at the 2003 Masters. The wedge with which Weir won that tournament — and seven other titles on the PGA Tour — was designed by Bob Vokey, a 77-year-old native of Montreal. To those unfamiliar with the particulars of golf equipment, it’s probably only a slight exaggeration to say Vokey is to wedges what Kleenex is to tissue. A clubmaker since the 1970s and a wedge specialist for the past 20 years, his creations have been used by a star-studded list of major champions, among them Tiger Woods, Seve Ballesteros and Lee Trevino.
So it’s only fitting that Vokey will be inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame on Tuesday, alongside renowned amateur champion Judy Darling Evans as part of the opening ceremony for the RBC Canadian Open, Canada’s only stop on the PGA Tour.
“Well deserved and well overdue,” Weir said of Vokey’s induction.
Said Vokey of his impending entrance into the hall: “I’m still in a state of shock. It’s such a great honour.”
Weir referred to Vokey as an “artist” whose masterworks have become ubiquitous on golf courses around the world. A cynic might point out that it’s not unusual for golfers to say nice things about the tools they’re paid to use. But Weir, it’s worth noting, has long maintained an equipment contract with TaylorMade, a rival to the Titleist brand for which Vokey has been stamping his name on wedges since 1997. It’s a measure of Vokey’s reputation for making peerless implements that Weir, among a list of players, has long included a stipulation in deals that allows him to use Vokey wedges.
Said Brad Fritsch, the PGA Tour pro from Ottawa who counts him- self as one of Vokey’s many devotees: “In a sport where the demand for precision is so great, he’s the best craftsman in his field.”
The son of a Montreal tool-and-die maker, Vokey was a three-sport athlete as a youngster, golf not among them. His favourite, he said, was baseball, although he was an enthusiastic enough hockey player to lose multiple front teeth to the national winter sport. And Vokey made it furthest in football, playing as a punter and receiver for the semi-pro Montreal Rifles in the 1960s.
“I always thought golf was for women and old men,” Vokey said.
But the golf bug eventually bit him. At his best as an aspiring player, Vokey was a four handicap — not nearly good enough to be a pro. But his passion to keep a hand in the game led him to open a golf shop in California in the 1970s, where he began his long journey through the ever-changing equipment business. On Monday, Vokey, speaking on a panel at a Canadian Open event, told the story of his first meeting with Gary Adams, a club designer who, back in 1980, asked Vokey to help him assemble a new-fangled creation known as a “metal wood.”
“I said, ‘Mr. Adams, I don’t want to say nothing, but that club you have will never, ever replace persimmon woods,’ ” Vokey said with a laugh, poking fun at himself for his lack of prescience in a sport where, a few decades later, titanium drivers rule the tee box.
Wedge technology hasn’t changed by such quantum leaps; Vokey said he’s been using the same type of carbon steel — number 8620 — since he began designing wedges. But more than one pro has pointed out that Vokey has differentiated himself from competitors by spending countless hours on golf courses and practice ranges, watching the world’s best players use his equipment, listening to their feedback and adjusting the product accordingly. During the peerless reign of Tiger Woods as the world No. 1, Vokey was known to make house calls to Woods’s residence to tweak things to the great player’s liking.
Vokey said his all-time favourite client was the late Ballesteros, the five-time major winner: “So creative. He was my number one.”
Trevino, he of six major titles, remains another beloved collab-
“The perfect wedge doesn’t exist. But that’s why, even at my age, I’m still out there trying …”
BOB VOKEY, 77
orator.
“So good with a wedge. He was a one-wedge player. He played with a 56-degree wedge. He could do all the shots with one club,” Vokey said. “I customized his stuff, but not much.”
And Vokey included Weir, 47, in his all-time top 10 of wedge savants.
“I get ripped for this all the time, because I always say Weirsy’s in my top 10. He’s probably five or six. Everybody says, ‘You’re just saying that because he’s a Canadian.’ No way. How’d he win the Masters? Wedge. His wedge was his golf game. It’s still amazing,” Vokey said.
Weir, like many top players, was an exacting customer.
“He was never afraid to hurt my feelings. He’d say, ‘Voke, it’s not quite right,’ ” Vokey said. “And that’s what I needed, because I was learning the whole time. I learned with every different player.”
Even at 77, Vokey said he’s still learning, still working.
“The perfect wedge doesn’t exist. But that’s why, even at my age, I’m still out there trying to design and grind the perfect wedge,” Vokey said. “And I haven’t succeeded as yet.”
On that point a roster of silver-trophy-carrying, green-jacket-wearing legends would probably beg to differ.