James Ingles Putters- London Hand Made

Wow! Where has the first half of 2022 gone! I am massively behind in posting and rather than try to do things in chronological order I thought I would instead post the most recent putter we finished.
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A lot of our putters go to the US (which is great, love the USA, U S A! U S A! Etc) but it’s always nice to keep one this side of the pond. Knowing thing one is going to be rolling the greens at Sunningdale makes it all the better!
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It’s our classic 28g shape, 24ct gold hand engraved sight line, hand made brass ferrule and barrel blacked for that deep luxurious look.
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We made a lot of this style of putter once Phil started rocking the full fl**ge sight line but this is our first one like this for a long long time - classic design and I love that if you look really closely at the gold inlay you can see the tiny imperfections that comes from a master craftsmen undercutting the channels of an engraved line.
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I’ll get some of the other departures over the last 6 months posted up soon - but for now - enjoy the photos of this beauty.
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Likewise our bullet casing pitch mark repairers are back in stock if anyone missed out on the last run.

So the sun has set and we are ticking ever closer to midnight in the UK, heralding to the start of 2022.
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As 2021 closes I have reflected back on the year just passed as I would sipping a beer at the 19th after a round and really life is mirrored in that of golf.
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The year has had its ups and downs for me personally, for my family, my friends - people I know outside of golf and those that I have been lucky enough to meet through the putters - and really what stands out is that no matter how many bad shots you hit on a round, when you sit back and dissect it, there is always something in that round to keep the spark ignited and make you think that next time you will have fixed whatever minor swing flaw you had.
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Thank you to everyone that has been involved with the putters this year, whether you bought one or even just exchanged emails/messages about golf - your interest and support is really what matters.
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I hope you and your families have a fantastic 2022 and wish you all good health and good golfing - hopefully I will get to meet even more of you than I managed in 2021!
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So I will sign off from 2021 with one of my favourite golf musings
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Never forget - after every duck hook OB there is an absolute rocket down the middle of the fairway - wishing you all the best in 2022.

I’ll be sad to see this one go but I know it will be very happy in its new home. Imagine waking up on Christmas Day to find your significant other has got you a 1 of a kind colour case hardened putter! Mega kudos.
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This was a mini 12g shape that we made and then sent up to St Ledgers In Birmingham to be colour case hardened - the premier colour case hardeners who have been applying their craft for generations - Richard St Ledger who now runs the business couldn’t be a nicer or genuine guy and always has time for a chat.
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They don’t do email, they rarely answer the phone, you always have to leave a message on voicemail which has a recorded greeting from at least 10 years earlier. You’ll get a call back when they can, make sure the message is short though, the telephone system is so old the recording time before you get cut off is minuscule.
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You can’t see how they do what they do at their workshop on Price Street, their case hardening ‘recipe’ is known only by them. It’s a story like you hear about craftsmen of old - but this is how it is now. And that’s what makes them special.
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This one will be picked up by FedEx within the next 12 hours and within 72 will be in its new home in Texas 🇺🇸- though it’ll be under the Christmas Tree until Christmas Day - Bon voyage - strange that a new putter can already have such a history.

The inside face where the logo is has been re surfaced to repair any machining marks.
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The engraving has been cleaned and touched up where necessary.
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The goldwork has been enhanced.
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All cuts have been inked in for contrast.
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Six coats of Frigilene lacquer have been applied with an airbrush finished off with a mist coat to cut the glare.
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The above list is the very final finishing touches of this spectacular putter that will soon be winging its way to Hong Kong.
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I always find it amusing that the very finishing touches to a putter always seem to take so long. Going from block of metal to ‘putter’ shape by contrast doesn’t seem to take such a disproportionate amount of time.
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Regardless, it’s is these details that really elevate the end product.
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The headcover as ever is by my good friends Scott and Emma at @ . If you’re going to have a hand engraved Griffen on a putter, you may as well have the hand engraving digitised and embroidered onto a hand made cover.
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It’s all about the details.

Tools and jewels - it’s the story and meaning behind what gets created that makes it truly unique and special.

Tools not Jewell’s but why not both? Golf equipment, putters in particular can be a pretty polarising place at times (though on the whole you are the company that you keep and I am very lucky to have each one of the followers I have, who to use a British saying, all appear to be good eggs.
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I understand some of the putters we made, with the price tag and extravagant engraving can appear more Jewell that tool. Which got me thinking on my run today (where all my best thinking is done). There is no reason why a tool cannot also be a Jewell and the reason is the wonder of individuality.
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I had a golf lesson yesterday (first time in probably 5 years) and got asked ‘why are you playing Lynx Black Cats’ - ‘because when I was 15 I wanted a set, never had them and when the opportunity came up to buy a set to build, I took it’.
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The Black Cats along with some other clubs I own, some ‘valuable’, some not. But they are all valuable to me and that’s because they have a story to them. Some are because of who made them, some are simply a happy memory from my youth (a Big Bertha 3 wood that I had to find with clues at Christmas when I was 15 for one).
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Its not how much a club cost or is worth in financial terms that makes it a ‘jewel’, it is the story behind it that means that club is a jewel to whomever is using it.
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So they’re jewels and tools in my opinion - and it is for that very reason that golf club equipment, particularly the smaller manufacturers stuff, is so interesting.
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I would guarantee almost everyone that follows my page, if not all, has at least one club that is a jewel to them and has a kick ass story behind it.
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Stories are what makes golf great, if they didn’t, there would be no need for the 19th hole to dissect the round, the laughter, the tears and embed those memories for future events and meets.
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So here’s to all the small artisanal golf manufacturers providing people with a tiny part of their golfing story. Tools and Jewels.

I apologise, my posts have been far too infrequent lately! But what better putter to put up than this beautiful raw lefty putter. The design was a collaboration based on a putter we had previously made with some tweaks by the client and it came out really nicely.
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Slightly shorter heel to toe than most putters, a swan neck with some offset to get the perfect frame and a braised brass site dot. Teamed up with a Polar Stability shaft👌
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Raw is definitely order of the day at the moment, we’re finding a lot of people are going raw - I’m buying clubs raw and Instagram is full of raw clubs and putters, or browned clubs and putters. It might just be a phase, but I like it!

In the wild! Today was my first time back on the course for 3 months and I managed 6 holes before I lost the light.
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There is something magical about chasing the daylight on the golf course. I think it must bring back those memories of junior golf and the absolutely singular focus on playing golf as long as humanly possible. Nothing else mattered during those hours.
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To be on the course in shorts and a polo in October in the UK is almost unheard of - loved it.

I really like it when a client wants to add some art to the process of getting their putter by commissioning a drawing of the engraving design. Not only does it help to provide absolute clarity over the design, they look great framed and put in the wall as a memento of those design conversations.
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This one is going to be pretty heavily engraved and the client wanted some gold accents, hence the scroll work which will be engraved gold. Likewise the background around the Griffen that was requested on the sole of the putter will be in relief so it’ll frame the picture really nicely.
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It doesn’t have to be an engraved putter that gets drawn either - I’ve long since thought it would be really cool for a putter (or any golf company) to do some really nicely designed sketches of putters or clubs - like those outline architectural sketches you see at the concept stage of a design process - with maybe some water colour pen accents just to add some colour to the art piece.
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That would be a pretty cool addition to the process of acquiring an entirety custom and unique putter.

We finished this putter up right around the time my health was in decline so I never actually posted about it! So here we go.
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It was a one off that we made for our friends and given Penfolds roots are originally in Birmingham in the UK and that is precisely where our forgings are currently made it seemed to be a match made in heaven.
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The black and gold theme was a nod to the Bond film goldfinger where Bond plays at Stoke Park (a course I have enjoyed many times) with a Penfold ball. The other designs were taken from some of the original advertising artwork and then it could only be a Penfold heart for a site dot.
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The cover was a thing of beauty too from Scott and Emma
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I think this is a putter Bond would have been happy to play!

This putter was a while in the making - it’s a long neck 12g model with squarer bumpers akin to a Newport 2 with a sound slot. It was teamed up with a silver sight screw and silver bullet which we’re chosen because we decided to barrel brown it and the colour pallet just screams an classic antique style look.
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I’ve mentioned it a lot before but I am really proud that we use some of the best and oldest gun trade finishes on our putters, companies that have been around for centuries. Matt Johnson of Johnson’s barrel Browners whom I have know for a long time (and is a golf nut too) does the browned finishes for us and while we aren’t the only maker to use the finish, I am fairly confident we are probably one of the few that do it the old fashioned way. This one was over 30 painstaking days of gently encouraging the carbon steel to beautifully brown.
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This one is headed over to the US to someone who has been a big supporter of us since we restarted so I am thrilled it will soon be in his hands across the pond.

This one turned out to be a really nice putter. One of our carbon 28g’s that the client wanted to give as a gift - he had a penchant for a bullet sole and liked the full length Phil style sight line.
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I really like the photographs of this one before it was blacked, the raw grey photographs like it’s from an old movie or magazine - it has a really classic old look to it.
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I picked up another putter today that’s just finished being barrel browned - over 30 days of applying solution, wiping it down, re-applying, wiping it down etc etc and it has come out great - it also has a sound slot and is a long neck - it’s a great putter! But more about that tomorrow.