Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, golf experienced a period of creative intensity that still defines the sport’s material culture.
This was an era when clubs were handcrafted, innovation emerged from close contact with materials, and performance depended as much on craftsmanship as on athletic skill.
The Hickory Golf Masters Museum in Lugano occupies a singular position in preserving and interpreting this chapter of golf history, not as nostalgia but as evidence of a formative technological and cultural moment.
Spanning 380 square metres, the museum tells its story through an exceptional collection centred on the work of Tom Stewart Jr., the Scottish clubmaker widely regarded as one of the great innovators of the hickory era.
Stewart’s significance lies not only in the elegance of his clubs but in his systematic approach to design. At a time when each club was an individual object, he introduced consistency, balance, and performance standards that influenced generations of makers.
His work demonstrates how experimentation with lofts, shafts, and head profiles quietly laid the groundwork for modern club design.
The collection extends far beyond Stewart. Roughly 1,500 clubs, once played by many of the game’s most influential figures, form the backbone of the museum’s holdings, with a carefully curated selection of 360 clubs on display at any one time.
Among them are custom-made clubs belonging to legendary champions, including
- Tom Morris Sr., the 4-time British Open winner, whose influence reshaped the sport. Old Tom Morris was not only a dominant player but also a pioneering greenkeeper, course architect, and clubmaker who helped define standards still in use today. The naming of the 18th hole of the Old Course at St Andrews in his honour reflects the breadth of his legacy. His clubs, preserved alongside those of his contemporaries, provide a rare window into a period when competitive success, course design, and equipment evolution were inseparable.
- Tom Morris Jr. (Scotland, 1851-1875), 4 times British Open champion. Following his hat-trick in 1870, Young Tom Morris was permitted to retain the original belt. As the winner of the 1872 Open Championship, he became the first person to have his name engraved on the Claret Jug, since no Open Championship had been held in 1871.
- Bobby Jones (USA, 1902-1971), 13-time major champion; architect of the Augusta National course and founder of the US Masters.
- Arnaud Massy (France, 1877–1950), British Open Champion 1907, was the first non-British player to win the tournament.
- Francis Ouimet (USA, 1893-1967), 3 times major champion; first amateur to win the US Open.
- Gene Sarazen (USA, 1902-1999), 7 times major champion – one of only six players in history to achieve the career Grand Slam.
- Harry Vardon (Jersey, 1870-1937), 7 times major champion and inventor of the Vardon grip.
- Ted Ray (England, 1877-1943), 2-time major champion.
- Jack White (Scotland, 1873-1949), British Open champion 1904.
- James Braid (Scotland, 1870-1950), 5 times British Open champion.
What distinguishes the Hickory Golf Masters Museum is its insistence that historical artefacts remain connected to living practice.
An on-site workshop, led by Paolo Quirici, focuses on the restoration of historic golf clubs using period-correct techniques.
This is conservation as applied knowledge rather than static preservation. Visitors can see how small variations in wood grain, whipping, or head geometry affect how a club performs, reinforcing the idea that these objects were tools created through deep material understanding.
That philosophy carries over into the museum’s indoor golf facility, equipped with a putting green, a GCQuad launch monitor, and a simulator.
Here, visitors can hit genuine hickory clubs made before 1935 and experience firsthand how the game once felt.
This blend of heritage equipment and contemporary measurement technology creates a powerful contrast.
It underscores both how far modern golf has come and how sophisticated early clubmakers already were in their pursuit of control, distance, and feel.
The museum also traces the evolution of the golf ball from 1900 to 2025, charting parallel advances in materials science and playability.
Together with biographical insights into the greatest hickory-era golfers, these displays frame golf as an adaptive system.
Skill, equipment, and course conditions evolved together, each influencing the other. The hickory era emerges not as a primitive prelude to modern golf but as a phase of refined craftsmanship and thoughtful innovation.
At the heart of this institution lies the collection assembled by Phil Gibbs, an American enthusiast whose dedication over more than 35 years transformed private passion into public heritage.
Gibbs devoted his life to locating, restoring, and preserving authentic hickory clubs, guided by the conviction that they deserved a permanent home where they could be understood and appreciated. His wish has now been honoured.
The founders of Hickory Golf Masters SA promised Gibbs that his collection would one day be housed in a Swiss museum.
That promise was fulfilled just over a year after his collection was acquired. The opening of the Lugano museum on 4 December 2025, less than seven months after Gibbs’ death on 9 May 2025, marked more than the launch of a new cultural institution.
It represented a deliberate passing of the baton between generations, bound by a shared vision of golf as both a sporting discipline and a form of applied cultural history.
In Lugano, golf’s hickory era is not frozen behind glass. It is examined, restored, played, and measured, reaffirming that the sport’s modern precision rests firmly on a foundation of hand-forged ingenuity.
Alongside the exhibition, the laboratory will enable visitors to see restoration techniques firsthand and try the game using original equipment.
The project’s reputation has already extended beyond Swiss borders, attracting collectors and hickory golfers worldwide, even before its official opening on December 4th, 2025.