Ross Steelman ended the Korn Ferry Tour season at the top of the points list using a set of golf clubs he built himself, guided by a background in club repair and a willingness to experiment.
During a break in the schedule this spring, Steelman grew frustrated with his driving. Instead of turning to a coach or a standard equipment upgrade, he logged onto eBay and purchased a driver shaft, a 3-wood shaft, and a hybrid head. He also bought an old TaylorMade Rossa Daytona putter that he used for the rest of the season.
Steelman didn’t stop there. Two weeks later, he ordered a steel fiber graphite iron shaft from True Temper’s website, installed it in an 8-iron, and took the club to the range at home. On tour, he showed his peers the club he had built. Their reaction was skepticism. “They said: ‘This is terrible. It’s too light, it’s no good, you’re going to hate it.’ The swing weight was five weights too light,” Steelman said. “I said: ‘Perfect. Can you build a set?’”
The gamble paid off. Steelman’s approach statistics improved by two shots for the remainder of the year, and he credited the improvement partly to having built and trusted the clubs himself.
Steelman’s gear obsession runs deep. As a high school student in Missouri, he spent winters working in a golf repair shop, learning how to build, grind, and bend clubs. He didn’t own a new club until he was 14, instead rummaging through 50-gallon bins filled with used clubs to find workable options.
“That’s the romantic part of golf, finding something you’re really excited about and knowing you have a special connection to it because it’s something you found,” Steelman said. “It gets lost as a professional because we can text somebody and it (a club) will show up in two days. That’s never been my path in golf.”
His approach to equipment extends beyond traditional methods. Steelman used ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot, to identify an iron shaft with a similar feel to the driver shaft he liked from eBay. “It was perfect,” he said. “I cut it, glued it, put it in and it felt great. I trust it because it came from me.”
Steelman’s swing fits the clubs he built. He swings fast and hits the ball long and high. Most club repair professionals would not recommend using a graphite shaft in irons, but Steelman was undeterred.
The Korn Ferry Tour season finale in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, took place under persistent rain and gloomy skies. Meanwhile, Austin Hitt claimed the tournament victory, and 20 players secured their PGA Tour cards for 2027.
Steelman’s rise to the top of the Korn Ferry Tour points list this year offers a rare story of a player combining technical skill with hands-on craftsmanship to gain an edge on the course.
According to Yahoo Sports.
