What a brilliant club by the one and only Hugh Philp. Delicate file scoring is still on the face. The finish still has great color and the neck whipping is original. The head, which bears two sets of owner’s initials “WC,” is beautifully proportioned with a 5 3/4 length, 2” width, and 1” face depth.  The 42” shaft is original  as is the coated leather grip that shows some wear.   

There is a crack right above the heel side of the lead, It extends out onto the top of the head towards the name stamp. Another crack extends a short distance out from under the lead onto the sole. These two cracks appear tight, as cracks go. They are discreet, but both can be seen if the images of the sole and the back of the head are viewed closely (best seen in magnified images). Overall, the head still looks exceedingly handsome and displays the quality of Philp's skills in spades.

Hugh Philp was born in 1783 and died in 1856.  In 1819 he was appointed the official clubmaker to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. He set up his shop next to the 18th hole of the Old Course (which shop Tom Morris eventually took over and used). Philp's reputation as an outstanding clubmaker was quickly established, and he became renown for his work during his lifetime. His penchant for being meticulous was legendary. His clubs were the gold standard.

in 1897, Harper's Weekly published the following comments about Hugh Philp: "It was Hugh Philp who first departed from these primitive models of the stone age and began to make golf clubs that looked as though they were intended for some gentler work than the crushing in of an enemy's skull or the manufacture of broken flint for road-building. Philp had an eye for graceful lines and curves, and his slim, elegant models remain to-day things of beauty, though their usefulness has long since departed…. The few specimens that sill exist are acknowledged 'old masters' and are only to be exchanged against much fine gold." (Harper's Weekly, October, 2, 1897)

Decades after his death, Golf Illustrated acknowledged Philp's continuing reputation as the finest clubmaker the game had ever seen: "The Prince of putter makers, by common consent, was Hugh Philp, who flourished at St. Andrews more than 50 years ago. This genius made such beautiful and perfect wooden putters that he has come to be regarded as the Amati or Stradivarious of Golf, and a genuine 'Philp' to-day is worth untold gold. The long narrow faces of these clubs and their perfect balance are well known to connoisseurs." (Golf Illustrated, Oct. 6, 1900)

Consider the words from an 1859 Chambers Journal article titled Hugh Philp The Master:  "Could the past be relived, you might enter Hugh's shop with me; as it is, do so in fancy. It is not a very commodious habitation, being a small square box erected on the convenient brink of the course at the commencement of the links....Hugh himself is polishing and stamping his name on some clubheads.  For many and many a year to come these letters which he is branding on the clubs will serve for Hugh's best epitaph, and golfer's yet to be will sigh for the "touch of that vanished hand."

This club demonstrates why Hugh Philp has long been considered the "Stradivarius of Golf," and why Philp's work is still considered the pinnacle of the clubmaker's art. 

For more on Hugh Philp, see TCA2 v1 p54-58