PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Ross Steelman worked in a golf repair shop during the winter in Missouri when he was in high school. He didn’t own a new club until he was 14, instead rummaging through 50-gallon bins for used clubs and making them work.
That was the case even this year when he won the Korn Ferry Tour points list.
During a month break in the schedule in late spring, Steelman was so frustrated with his driving that he went on eBay and bought a driver shaft, a 3-wood shaft and a hybrid head. He also bought a putter, an old TaylorMade Rossa Daytona, that he used the rest of the season.
And he wasn’t done.
“Two weeks later, I bought off True Temper’s website a steel fiber graphite iron shaft and put it in an 8-iron and messed around with it on the range at home,” Steelman said. “I took it out on tour and showed the guys this is what I want. 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. I said: ‘Perfect. Can you build a set?’”
He said his approach statistics improved two shots the rest of the year. He figures it worked in part because “I did it myself so I trust it even more.”
But it was how he found it that showed that Steelman isn’t afraid to try anything.
He loved the driver shaft he bought on eBay so much that he went on ChatGPT and wrote, “Is there an iron shaft that has a similar feel?”
“It was perfect,” Steelman said. “I cut it, glued it, put it in and it felt great. I trust it because it came from me. I swing fast, I hit it a long way, I hit it high. No rep in his right mind would say, ‘I think you should use this graphite shaft in your irons.’”
He is the ultimate gear head, developed from his high school days when he worked in a club repair shop in the winter and learned how to build, grind and bend clubs. He got away from it while at Missouri and Georgia Tech, but it never really left him — especially this year.
“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,” he 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.”
Golf Channel Staff