The Golf Club Balance Trick

By David Cain

 

The balancing stunt known as the Golf Club Trick utilizes three golf clubs and one golf ball in its most common form. It was invented by juggler Joe Marsh in 1930. You can see Joe performing the trick below:

Joe Marsh

As you can see in the above photo, one golf club is placed horizontally on the juggler’s forehead with the club head and most of the shaft behind the juggler. A vertical club is then balanced on the grip of the horizontal club. On top of this club head is a golf ball followed by a second horizontal club. This top club is often spun.

While Joe Marsh created the Golf Club Trick, it was possibly inspired by a much older type of balancing trick performed by jugglers; tobacco pipe balancing. You can read about this form of juggling by clicking here. Going back at least as far as the early 1700s, jugglers used clay pipes in various balancing tricks. Some of these were very long clay pipes that looked very much like golf clubs. You can see the resemblance and similar use of these pipes to golf club balancing in the following illustration of Anthony Madox from 1752.

Anthony Madox 1752

The bowl of the pipe acts in a similar way that the head of a golf club does, preventing the club from rolling or turning along its long axis, thus making the objects more stable.

I would be remiss not to mention that most versions of the Golf Club Trick are slightly gimmicked in regards to the golf ball and its positioning and attachment to the clubs above and below it. This usually involves a divot on the club head below the ball, a hole in the top of the ball, and a pin on the top club that inserts into the ball. Other systems have been utilized as well. Some versions of the trick forgo the ball while others add a second ball between the bottom and middle club.

The Golf Club Trick has been performed by numerous jugglers over the years. Let’s take a look at some of these.

You can see Frankie Ferrer perform the Golf Club Trick at the end of the video below. Click here to learn more about Frankie.

Joe Marsh’s nephew Jon Anton also performed the Golf Club Trick.

Jon Anton

Uno Lanka ended his incredible act by doing the Golf Club Trick with not one, but two golf balls, while playing the flute at the same time. You can see this at the very end of the video below.

Rob Murray, whom you can read about by clicking here, featured the trick in his act.

Gus Lauppe performed the trick, as you can see about half way through the following video.

British juggling legend Steve Rawlings performs the classic trick without a ball in his act. You can see it around the 12:30 mark below.

Modern gentleman juggler Gaston (Robert Dahlström) performs the Golf Club Trick in his act. It can be seen at the 1:10 mark of his promo video.

 

Gaston (Robert Dahlström)

I have performed two versions of the trick that don’t include any gimmicks. The first one uses three clubs, a golf hat, and several golf balls that go in the hat. The top club rests in the bill of the hat and the balls keep the hat from turning. While more complicated, there is no trickery involved. You can see this below.

David Cain

The other version I perform just uses two clubs, forgoing the top club. You can see this below.

David Cain

Ian Marchant does a wonderful version of the trick using three canes, a derby hat, and no gimmicks.

Ian Marchant

A few modern jugglers have taken the Golf Club Trick and expanded on it. One of these is UK juggler Matthew Tiffany, whom you can see below. Make sure you watch all of his variations on the trick.

Vitaliy Ostroverhov performs an incredible version of the trick using 7 golf clubs. Check it out below.

Despite these and many other jugglers performing the trick, for many readers it may be a new discovery. At almost a hundred years old, the Golf Club Trick is still entertaining audiences around the world.