sports

Golf, made to order

Townsend area man named Del. Clubmaker of the Year

By AL KEMP
The News Journal

Bill Bush retired in 2003 as a deputy state fire marshal, but his second career is in full swing. Bush, an avid golfer, owns his own clubmaking business, Bush's Custom Clubs & Repairs at his home near Townsend.

In just three years, he has built a good-as-gold reputation repairing clubs and also building clubs custom-tailored to his clients.

"Once you get sized properly, you can play properly," he said. "You'd be surprised how many golfers try to use their athletic abilities to overcome a technical problem, which is clubs that don't fit."  He ought to know. As long as he's played the game, he had trouble finding clubs that fit his 6-foot-8-inch frame.  "I had to make my own clubs because I can't buy them off the rack," said Bush, who is a certified golf instructor with the United States Golf Teachers Federation.

Because of his expertise in the art of clubfitting, Bush has been honored for the second consecutive year as Delaware Clubmaker of the Year by the Golf Clubmakers Association, which has 5,000 members.  "Bill is well-known in the golf community for sure. These guys are the cream of the crop and the top of the industry," said Blake Leribeus, operation manager at Golfsmith International in Austin, Texas, where Bush obtained his professional accreditations.

Many of the skills Bush used as a state arson investigator are serving him again as a clubfitter.  To size up a golfer's swing, he applies stickers on the heel and face of the club to gather evidence of how and where it impacts the ball.  "I think you have to have the attention to detail and learn to read the picture it paints for you and follow where it leads," he said.

Commercially made clubs are assembled in what Bush terms a "stick-and-glue" process.  But in his workshop, surrounded by steel and graphite shafts and such specialized tools as a frequency meter and a loft and lie machine, Bush produces clubs of top-flight precision.  And each club in a Bush-built set will perform exactly the same in its flex and swing as the others in the set.

Bush estimates he's sold about 90 custom sets, while his club repairs run into the thousands.  "My expertise is really in repair. Any broken club there is, I can put back in the game. I do pickup and delivery from Cavaliers Country Club [near Christiana] to Wild Quail" near Wyoming, he said.  "He does mainly reshafting work for me, and everything he does is perfect," said Dave McNabb, head golf professional at Cavaliers Country Club.

Bush is also an assistant coach in the Wildcat golf program at Wilmington College.

Until recently, he was co-owner of The Perfect Swing Golf Center in Smyrna.  "I sold in October so I can dedicate more time to club repair," he said.

"He does repair work out of love for the game, and not so much for the money," McNabb said.  "This is more of a passion for me than a job," Bush said. "It would be nice if someday I earned enough to pay for my greens fees."

Bush has golfed on more than 100 courses worldwide. His favorites include the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland, and the Tournament Players Club at Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

Contact Al Kemp at 324-2347 or akemp@midstateliving.com.

John Purple had these Cleveland Tour Action Irons that fit his eye.  He simply just liked the way they set up for him; however, he was catching the ball on the toe and asked for help getting these fitted to him.  We quickly learned that John measured out 1/2" under standard length in the static fitting.  John was recently fitted by an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) rep who led him to believe he was standard length, with an adjusted lie angle.  John was adamant about simply bending the sticks to get out those toe strikes based on the OEM information provided to him.  I bent the PW 1º flat and the 9 iron 1º upright and sent John off to the range to test them for himself with the advice that we needed to cut them down a little to get more consistent center contact.  He returned with no noticeable face contact change.  We ended up cutting the 1/2" off of the butt, re-adjusted the lofts and lies for Johns specs and he was dead on center after that.

John used these sticks in their recent victory and was awarded the medalist trophy for low round of the tournament, 73, 76.

John was recently quoted by the News Journal as saying "Coach Bush has been a huge help to me".