Wian is a former youth national and provincial golf champion and a member of the Advanced Engineering Design Group (AEDG) in the School of Engineering at Mandela University. In the middle of 2020, he discussed the possibility of designing a bespoke and re-configurable golf putter that he could use in the various golf tournaments with his lecturer, Clive Hands who runs the AEDG.
This would involve the use of metal 3D printing and composites. This was done hand-in-hand with the AEDG’s established relationships with Rapid3D and Custom Works who contributed towards the ultimate physical outcome. The idea was to create a putter that could conform to a golfer’s specific desires in respect of the configuration of the club, be it weight, weight distribution, styling, balance, loft and material.
Wian tackled the design of the club in addition to his academic loading, and was able to produce a prototype that could be manufactured and physically tested out on the greens. This prototype was tested this last Saturday for the first time on the greens at the Royal Port Alfred Golf Club, with excellent results. “We are very proud of how the club came out and it has already attracted envious attention within the local golfing fraternity” said Clive.
The next step in the development of the club is to further test it and further enhance the design with the ultimate intention of registering the club with the Royal & Ancient Golf Club at St Andrews in Scotland (the curators of the rules and regulations of the game) for use in formal competition.
According to Clive, “It is one of the very few 3D metal printed golf putters with forged carbon composite inserts in the world, and, to our knowledge, probably the only current locally manufactured golf club, which is normally left up to the international big players like Calloway, Ping, etc.”
