Before metal woods, a driver head was carved from 
persimmon and faced with an insert held by 
screws, right where you wanted the ball.
Find the screws
Tap the face of the old driver, or pick a spot below. The middle of the insert is where the screws sat, and where the good shots came from.
The club behind it
Persimmon is a hard, dense American hardwood. Club makers shaped it into driver heads and set a harder insert into the face to take the wear of impact. Screws held the insert, and they sat in the middle.
What it means
"On the screws" means a shot struck right out of the middle of the club. With a persimmon driver, the middle was easy to see: it was where the insert screws were. Hit them and the ball went long and straight with almost no feeling in the hands.
Nobody has pinned down a first written use, but the meaning has never moved.
Metal heads have no insert screws, and the phrase stayed anyway. It also crossed into baseball, where a hitter who barrels one up has hit it on the screws. Golfers have other words for the same moment:
- pured it
- flushed it
- found the middle
The switch
Old clubs, kept
