July 10, 2015 – They are more in fashion than ever. Wouldn’t you love to put some customized Cleveland Golf wedges in your golf bag? On our visit to the Srixon – Cleveland Golf European Tour truck we discovered how they are made. And inside we found the artist, Loïc Monchalin, a French clubmaker with whom we had an interesting conversation.

Loïc Monchalin has his own workshop at Le Golf du Gouverneur, 30 minutes from Lyon, and he was already working for Srixon – Cleveland Golf from 2002 to 2005. “This is my third time, and I’ve come back to the truck to build and customize clubs.” And then he gave us a demonstration of the process.

Basically, he starts off by finding the Cleveland Golf wedge head according to the specifications of the player, and he leaves it well fixed on the workbench while he selects and applies the print blocks for the letters or phrase. He then paints the bas-relief with colours, lets it dry, mounts the ferule and shaft, sands the ferule, puts on the grip and lets it dry.

All of this can take around a couple of hours. And he does it for professionals on the days before the Tour tournament, and for amateurs.

“So, I have two ways of doing it,” says Loïc Monchalin. “If a player comes and asks for something special, for example if it is for his child or for a friend, I print the name or the message on the wedges. Or if I am given carte blanche, I customize using my own inspiration.” This has become a real fashion. And are the players happy with the result? “Yes, of course.”

The professionals must be the players who give you most work. “Yes, wedges get changed every four weeks. They use them a lot, so they need to change them very, very often. And so they are always coming to the truck, to change them for new ones.”

Wedges that have passed through his hands include those of Graeme McDowell and Keagan Bradley, and also those of José María Olazábal, Vijay Singh, Darren Clarke, Colin Montgomerie and Bernard Langer when, ten years ago, they where using Cleveland Golf wedges.

Some amateur golfers come to the truck to request his services, although he can do the same for them perfectly in his own workshop in France. “If an amateur comes in and wants to buy a Cleveland wedge, I can stamp it with anything he wants. It’s the same for the amateurs as for the pros,” says Loïc Monchalin.

“But it has to be in my studio. I am the only one who does this -officially for Cleveland Golf-. So a customer can send me his own wedges, and I can stamp them and then send them back. But at the moment Cleveland doesn’t offer this kind of customization. We are thinking about this service for Europe, but we haven’t yet set it up completely.”

Loïc, thank you very much… And we leave him at the workbench, meanwhile he shows us proudly his last creation. There are 15 events on the European Tour that he will be covering this season, attending the 21 players of the Srixon – Cleveland Golf staff on the circuit, plus all the other many professional golfers who play with Cleveland Golf wedges.