Heritage Golf of St Andrews is a respected maker of modern golf clubs. It is also one of the few firms that uses traditional skills to handcraft historically accurate wooden golf clubs and traditional-style golf balls. s

Beginning with wood and metal, Heritage Golf's craftspeople turn, cast, sand, stain, and finish wood and metal into reproductions of early 19th-century golf clubs by such famous Scottish makers as Forgan, McEwan, Philp, and Patrick. Heritage also produces sets of Tom Stewart clubs based on those popularized by golf champions Bobby Jones, Jr., in the 1920s. Modern clubs are pre-molded and assembled in fewer than a dozen steps, but more than 58 separate operations are required to handcraft high-quality traditional wooden golf clubs. Traditional wooden clubs are enjoying a revival, and many of the reproduction sets are used by players today.

Heritage Golf also makes traditional-style golf balls, including gutta percha balls, based on an 1844 original that uses the solidified sap from the Malaysian sapodilla tree. Featherie balls, first introduced in 1618, are made by hand-sewing a leather skin, reversing it, and then stuffing it with enough feathers to fill "one top hat and a half."

Barry Kerr, Heritage Golf's Managing Director, is a fourth-generation golf club maker, who served an apprenticeship in his native Yorkshire before moving to St Andrews more than thirty years ago. Today, Heritage employs 10 craftspeople in its St Andrews shop, including master craftsman Angus McLean, who joins Mr. Kerr in this demonstration.