Who we are
A fireman, a lathe, and 24,000 golf clubs
Flanigan Bilt Golf is one craftsman, one bench, and a lifetime spent taking golf clubs apart to find out why the good ones feel good.
Ken Flanigan spent ten years of his life as a fireman in Newbury, Ohio. Putters were the hobby he went home to — soft carbon steel, a lathe, and an obsession with why one head feels dead and the next one feels alive.
In 2010 the downturn took his job, and the hobby had to become the business. Flanigan Bilt has been a bench-built operation ever since: no production line, no outsourced finishing, no club leaving Burton that Ken hasn't had in his hands.
He came to it knowing clubs the way few people do. Over the years Ken has collected or appraised more than 24,000 vintage clubs — hickory through persimmon through the modern forged era. That is where the eye comes from. You cannot fake knowing what a 1960s blade is supposed to look like coming off the buffer.
“With the FB series I wanted to take the most popular putter styles of the last fifty years, the ones people really love and trust, and perfect the balance and weight on them to provide ideal centers of gravity.”
The FB-series putters are milled from soft carbon steel and are the product of years of design research. No insert, nothing hiding the face — just steel worked until the roll and the sound are right.
That work put Flanigan Bilt in Golf Digest's Hot List in both 2013 and 2022, and the FB1 was chosen as the official putter and trophy of the 2012 Amateur Team World Cup.
- Clubs appraised
- 24,000+Collected or appraised over a lifetime
- Years on the engine
- 10Fireman, Newbury, Ohio
- Golf Digest Hot List
- 2013 & 2022FB-series putters
- Built by
- One pair of handsEvery club, every finish
Never forgotten
The FireFighter 343
Three hundred and forty-three firefighters were lost on September 11, 2001. Ken spent a long time working out what a man with a mill could do about that.
The answer was a limited series of 343 putters — one for each of them — with $100 from every putter sold donated to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. Ken also donates clubs outright to fire-company golf outings that raise money for the families of the fallen.
It is the only thing in the shop that was never about golf.
The long version
How the shop got here
Ten years on the engine, a mill in the garage, and two Hot List runs in between.
2000s
Ten years on the engine
Ken serves as a fireman in Newbury, Ohio, and mills putters in his off hours. The firehouse is where the 343 idea starts.
2010
The hobby becomes the business
Laid off in the downturn, Ken turns the bench into Flanigan Bilt Putters — milled putters, built one at a time.
2011
The FireFighter 343
On the tenth anniversary of 9/11 Ken releases the FireFighter 343 — a limited series of 343 putters, one for each firefighter lost, with $100 from every putter going to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.
2012
The FB1 becomes a trophy
The FB1 is chosen as the official putter and trophy of the Amateur Team World Cup.
2013
Golf Digest Hot List
Flanigan Bilt is named to the Hot List — the game's preeminent equipment rating guide — on the strength of the FB series.
2021
343, twenty years on
A second limited edition of the 343 commemorative putter marks the twentieth anniversary.
2022
Hot List, again
A second Golf Digest Hot List nod, nine years after the first.
Today
The shop is mail-in
Players across the country ship in irons, wedges, and putters — Scotty Cameron, Mizuno, Miura, Ben Hogan, Vokey, Ping — and get them back refinished, restored, or customized by hand.
How we work
What you're actually buying
One club at a time
No batching, no production line. Your set is worked through by hand, in order, by the same person every time.
Chrome is the tell
Anyone can spray a black finish. Meticulous chrome work — strip, polish, plate, and no soft edges — is what separates a refinish from a repaint.
Prices you can read
Every finish, service, and price on this site is real text, not a JPEG. No quote-to-find-out, no hidden sheet.
Mail-in, nationwide
The shop is a workshop, not a storefront. Fill out a Work Order, ship your clubs to Burton, and they come back better than new.
Find us
Burton, Ohio
Flanigan Bilt Golf
12105 Crampton Dr.
Burton, OH 44021
(216) 466-1953 · ken@biltgolf.com
Our shop is mail-in only and not open to the public. Please do not ship without completing a Work Order.
Mail-in · Nationwide
Send Ken your clubs
Complete a digital Work Order, print the sheet, and drop it in the box. Everything else happens at the bench in Burton.