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Collecting a passion for golf
Two Northwest collectors smitten by the golf bug
By Paul Ramsdell, PNGA Media
Photos, including cover, by Dev Khalsa
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| Stoney Brown is quite at home among his large collection of golf items. |
It's not for a love of money that led these two men down their paths. It's because of a love for the game of golf, and the devotion it
can draw out of a person.
Collecting golf memorabilia can come in many forms. Stoney Brown of Bellevue, Idaho, and Dick Estey of Portland are just two of the
many in the Northwest who have been bitten by the golf-collecting bug.
Their collections are vastly different, but quite parallel is how their collecting started by chance and always was for fun and not for
profit.
"If you play the game for the love of the game, you're not a professional. If you collect for money, you're not a real collector,"
said Brown.
"I'm not trying to make a profit off this, I spent a fortune in here," said Estey, sitting among his collection in a condo in a
downtown Portland high-rise. "I've been around the world and I've never seen anybody who had anything like this."
Estey, 74, has possibly the finest collection of rare and old golf clubs, plus historic balls, books and paintings pertaining to golf.
He seriously started collecting at a time when he thought a back problem would keep him from playing the sport any further.
Brown, 57, the head golf professional at The Valley Club in Hailey, Idaho, started when he was in pursuit of insight on how to teach
the game to others, and coveted a return to the early truths of instruction.
"I wasn't inspired to buy my books by anybody in particular, other than I wanted to be the best teacher I could so I collected a lot
of instruction books, and I was really interested in the older stuff because I thought that was kind of neat," Brown said.
"People who taught how to play with your hands instead of rotation, or wherever it's going now. I got interested in that and found after
about four or five years I had a huge collection of instruction books," said Brown, who figures he has every instruction book printed
between 1900 and 1955 that was "worth a hoot."
Brown estimated he bought between 300 and 400 books in a matter of a few years and read every one of them.
"I keep going back to some of the simpler things cause I think as soon as stop-action photography hit the golf swing and they started
dissecting the swing's every move is when instruction went a little haywire. And I don't think it's getting any better," Brown said.
He continually returns to the book, "Live Hands: A Key to Better Golf," written by E.M. Prain and published in 1946.
"It just hit me, that guy was right," Brown said. "And I'm kind of teaching along those lines because it's working," Brown said.
As a result of looking for the simpler truths in a golf swing, Brown now has more than 600 golf books.
And for Estey, as a result of stumbling across one $100 item in an antique shop as he was preparing himself for a future without being
able to swing modern clubs, he now has a collection of more than 400 rare clubs.
Both collections have grown in different ways. Brown has taken his on more of a whimsical path whereas Estey has stayed historical.
"I'm especially keen on little things and unique things," Brown said from the study in his home crowded with display cases featuring
everything from PGA Championship money clips to commercial knickknacks featuring golf.
"If stuff appeals to me I buy it for whatever reason. There's not a whole lot of rhyme or reason to some of my things I collect. For a
while, it was anything that had to do with golf that was old, and then all of the sudden I got more selective."
Brown seeks out antique shops whenever he's on the road either playing in a tournament or officiating at one. His wife, Shawna,
often accompanies him during these excursions.
"I think he has good taste," she said of the whimsical items he's drawn to buy and now almost overrun their home. "Most of it because
it had eye-appeal I think."
One time, though, she was dumbfounded to see the value, real or otherwise, in a coffee cup set painted with stick figures playing golf.
Once Stoney returned home and hit the research books and web sites, he proved to her that the set was worth $450.
Sometimes, it's the search, exploration of their history and finally obtaining the items that motivates collectors the most.
At the start, Estey especially liked the thrill of the auction.
"I'm sweating," he said, re-living his first big auction in 1995 when he became quite interested in building a collection, "and my
palms are wet and damp, and I'm holding this little thing that has my number on it, just so tight so I won't drop it. It was just
like being a kid in kindergarten, I've got to tell you."
Estey said he's gotten more sophisticated since then, knowing now that just a wink or a slight nod is the key to keeping your bids
anonymous. But Estey doesn't hide the fact that the thrill of the hunt and the research is still exciting.
As with Brown, Estey frequently gets calls alerting him to a certain item somewhere. He recently got one about a green ceramic
vase-like item featuring golfers from a bygone era. He went to the antique shop, bought the item, found a spot for it among the
display areas, but the real thrill now is digging through all the research material to discover its origins.
"I've learned a lot more about golf than I thought I knew," Estey said. "I look around the room now at all the different things that
go back in the history of golf."
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| Dick Estey has some of the oldest and most significant antique golf clubs in his
collection in Portland. |
In looking around the 2,500-square foot condo bought solely to house the collection, the interior design work and the custom display
cases to present this priceless collection, it's obvious that money is no object to Estey when it comes to his golf collection.
He could easily buy entire collections elsewhere to quickly beef up his own, but that's not the way he likes to operate.
"There's no fun in collecting like that," he said. "Everything here, every single thing, came in one, two, three, four. And it's taken
me now, I've been in it 13, 14 years. And that's the fun of it, going to the auction, going to a guy's home."
Sometimes, Estey said, the best items don't come from big collections or from auctions. He recently got a call alerting him to
someone in England who has the tournament programs from the four championships Bobby Jones won in 1930 when the term "Grand Slam"
was born for golf. Estey quickly made plans to pay a visit to England and to this man's home.
The art of collecting has taken Estey a long way, and he's amazed at how it all started as a 61-year-old in 1991. Looking back,
he's almost embarrassed by what he bought that day, but not by where it has led him since.
"It's a nothing golf club. It was probably built, my guess, in 1920, 1930. It wasn't even old," Estey said.
"I went into that antique store, and he had one golf club, and it cost $100. And then I was very proud to be a collector."
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