The strangest golf clubs ever made
A 12-degree iron, square drivers, a shaft with a bulge, a driver sold knowing it broke the rules: eight clubs and rule changes that show how golf equipment got to where it is, each with its sources.
The 0-iron (1996)
Wilson built John Daly a Staff Midsize-RM "Zero" iron with 12 degrees of loft, five or six fewer than a typical 1-iron of the time. Daly used it off the tee on long par 4s and said he could get close to 300 yards out of it. Tommy Armour had made a similar club for Davis Love III a few years earlier. Despite the name it had real loft: "Zero" described its place below the 1-iron.
Sources: Sports Illustrated, June 1996
The first metal driver (1979)
Drivers were made of persimmon wood until TaylorMade's founder, Gary Adams, put a stainless-steel driver with a 12-degree loft into production in 1979, the company's only product at first. He persuaded 47 professionals at that year's PGA Club Professional Championship to play it, and it became known as the "Pittsburgh Persimmon". A patent for a metal driver had been filed back in the 1920s, but nobody had sold one in numbers. Within a few years, metal was the standard. Today's TaylorMade line is on our TaylorMade page.
Sources: Encyclopedia.com, TaylorMade company history · Golf Monthly · National Club Golfer
The Bubble shaft (1995)
TaylorMade's first titanium driver came with a shaft that bulged out below the grip and stayed wider all the way down to the head, the opposite of a normal taper. The idea was a more stable head at impact. The Burner Bubble was a hit and helped make TaylorMade one of the biggest club makers of the mid-1990s; a second version followed in 1997.
Sources: National Club Golfer · Visit Carlsbad, TaylorMade profile
Square drivers (2007)
In 2007 Callaway and Nike both launched drivers with square heads. The aim was moment of inertia, a head's resistance to twisting on off-center hits: square corners let designers put weight farther from the center. Callaway's FT-i used a carbon composite body to move weight into the corners and sold for $625. Nike's SQ SUMO² (short for "super moment of inertia, squared") had a composite crown, cost $480, and Nike claimed it had the highest MOI in golf. Players noticed the sound as much as the shape.
Sources: Golf Channel · Golf365 · Cigar Aficionado
The Ping Eye 2 and its grooves (1984 to 2010)
Ping brought square grooves to market with the Eye 2 irons in 1984. When the PGA Tour banned square grooves from 1990, Ping sued both the Tour and the USGA. The cases settled in 1990 and 1993, and Eye 2 clubs made before April 1990 were grandfathered in. When a new groove rule arrived in 2010, Phil Mickelson and a few other pros put 20-year-old Eye 2 wedges in play, and another player called it cheating; Ping waived its rights for the Tour that spring. Pre-April 1990 Eye 2s are still allowed in amateur play under the USGA's rules. Today's Ping irons are on our Ping page, and how grooves and grinds work is in our wedge guide.
Sources: Golf Compendium · Golf Digest · Geoff Shackelford
The driver sold knowing it broke the rules (2000)
Callaway's ERC II was faster off the face than the USGA's limit on the "spring-like effect" allowed, though it met the R&A's rules then in force outside the US. Callaway announced that for the first time it would sell a driver that didn't conform in the US, aimed at golfers playing for fun rather than in competition, and Arnold Palmer backed the idea and said he'd use one in casual rounds. The original ERC had been sold in 2000 in Japan, Europe and Asia. Today's Callaway drivers are on our Callaway page.
Sources: Callaway press release
The 460cc limit, and the 510cc driver that never was (2004)
Driver heads kept growing until the USGA and the R&A set a limit: from January 1, 2004, a wood's head may be no bigger than 460 cubic centimeters (plus 10cc tolerance), 5 inches from heel to toe and 2.8 inches from sole to crown, and no club but a putter may be longer than 48 inches. Before the limit, one company, Integra, had planned a 510cc driver. Every driver we catalogue is from the 460cc era: see every driver.
Sources: USGA notice to manufacturers, Oct 29, 2003 · Golf Channel · Golf Magic
The anchored putter (banned 2016)
Belly and broomstick putters braced against the body won four of the six majors before the vote, for Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson, Ernie Els and Adam Scott. The USGA and the R&A proposed banning the anchored stroke in November 2012, approved it in May 2013, and the rule took effect on January 1, 2016. The long putters themselves stayed legal: what's banned is anchoring them.
Written from the sources under each section, checked Oct 8, 2026. Found something to correct? Email us.