(Photograph by Sotheby's.)

Ellis has been a professional collector for three decades, and has learned the tricks of the trade along the way as owner of his eponymous golf memorabilia business in Seattle. But now he is preparing to let it all go. "It was so much fun finding this stuff and tracking it down and taking ownership. It’s sleuthing and being in the right place at the right time," he says.

Considered a guru of this avocation, Ellis wrote both the 190-page The Golf Club, published in 2003, and his pièce de résistance, The Clubmaker’s Art, a 576-page, two-volume history of the golf club first published in 1997; the expanded, 784-page second edition was released earlier this year. With the completion of the second edition, Ellis decided it was time to part with his collection. He still plans to buy and sell the occasional club through his business, but he wants to spend more time with his wife, four children and three grandchildren. Experts hail the 650-lot auction as the most extensive club collection ever offered, and believe it will draw new admirers to the field.

Historic golf clubs range in price from a couple of hundred dollars for plentiful hickory-shaft clubs made in the first half of the 20th century to more than $300,000 for the very oldest. But, despite the huge popularity of the sport of golf, the number of club collectors is rather minuscule, in part, Ellis explains, because of the dearth of clubs. "The golf club market has been a catch-22," he says. "It’s steady and stable, but it hasn’t grown much because there’s no supply. People don’t like to collect something that they can’t collect."

UNUSUAL CLUBS abound in the Jeff Ellis collection, including drivers with a screw to change loft, heads with holes for playing in puddles and clubs designed to be used left- or right-handed.

Kevin McGimpsey, Bonhams’ golf specialist in London, agrees. "There’s a small group of rare golf clubs, and most are in private collections. When they come on market, they command very high prices—$50,000 to $100,000—but those are exceptional," he says. "The majority of collectors buy clubs for $1,000, and maybe in 10 years they’ll get $1,200. It’s really a hobby, not a business for quick bucks and high-flying investments."

Collector Dick Estey’s assortment of golf memorabilia is so extensive that he bought a second condominium next to the one where he lives in Portland, Ore., and converted it into a 2,500-square-foot personal museum for his collection. The owner of an eponymous distribution company that, until a recent sale, was also the concessionaire for guest facilities at Crater Lake and Oregon Caves National Monument, Estey caddied for Sam Snead in 1946 and Henry Cotton, the captain of the British team, in the 1947 Ryder Cup. Between 1987 and 1997, he and his wife, Judy, crisscrossed the globe as he played national senior amateur tournaments, winning the Canadian championship once, the Mexican five times and finishing as British runner-up. In 1995, he met Ellis at Pebble Beach and, with his help, started amassing clubs. Estey’s collection also includes hundreds of other golfing items, including trophies, programs and art.

The True Sport of Kings
When it comes to clubs, as with other collectibles, sheer age contributes to the value. The first written reference to golf was in 1457, and the oldest clubs still in existence date back to the 1600s, when King James I, best known for the Bible translation, legalized the playing of golf on Sundays and appointed the first royal club maker.

Estey’s collection includes a 1700s Andrew Dickson long nose that he bought for about $380,000, as well as one of only three known play clubs made by craftsman Simon Cossar and his son, David, in the late 1700s or early 1800s; he obtained it for $300,000. Estey looks at those prices philosophically. "When it’s the one-and-only, the price will exceed the true value," he says.