The Loop
Forge your own set of American-made irons for $200,000
If you play on the PGA Tour, your gorgeous custom forged irons are hand ground by small teams of artisans in California and Texas, but the heads themselves are still produced overseas -- mostly in Asia.
Thanks to low labor costs across the ocean, American club forges have gone completely extinct. The last one, Kalher International, is selling off its club forging equipment and concentrating on its line of forged and electroplated musical instrument parts.
If you feel like joining the whole Buy American/Handcrafted movement and becoming a sort of Hipster Clubmaker -- and have a spare $200k to invest -- you can pick up all of Kahler's equipment, dies and tools, along with 46,000 in-process clubheads.
Load the lot of it into a few semis -- or rent some space near Kahler's Las Vegas headquarters -- and you can be making your own custom forged heads in a matter of weeks.
It might take some research and design work to come up with some more progressive-looking heads -- Kahler's inventory very much befits the "Classic" name stamped on the heads. Still, showing up at your club championship with irons you made yourself on a 550-ton press provides a unique kind of street cred.