Many golfers carry in their minds a fairly clear picture of a club that
they regard as their ideal. They have some notion as to its looks, the
shape of the head, and the length and the thickness of the shaft.
Particularly do they know what that club feels like in their hands as
they grip it to make the shot for which it, and it alone, is perfectly
adapted. They have never seen such a club, and they fear sometimes that
they never will. Some old favourite of theirs has some of the points
that are possessed by this ideal, but it has not got them in the same
ripe perfection, and it has obvious faults which at times have cost
their master dearly. There is no reproachful word to say against that
old favourite. It is a good club, and it has done a fine service on the
links, and as for its imperfections, are they not what its maker gave to
it, trifling imperfections, too, which we are generously disposed to
overlook when considering that fine record of service. But it is not the
ideal club; it does not feel like that club that we sometimes handle in
our imagination, and then enjoy a glorious sense of power as with no
other.
It is a pleasant thing to treasure in the mind such a club as this; but
let it stop at that. If one grand delusion in which there is nothing
harmful, and which on the whole but makes for good, as most ideals do,
is not to be destroyed, never set out to reduce that club, now made of
but filmy thought, to cold iron or clumsy wood. It will not be the same,
be the fancy ever so exact. The first efforts will bring forth results
that will be far poorer in quality than those made by old favourites of
whom we have spoken, and it will be as if the favourites have jealousy
and resent these new-born interlopers, so that they will for the time
being cease to give their best work to the man who is so plainly
discontented, and who, being so, is lacking in confidence. And the
faults that are in those first models that come thus from the mind only
increase and aggravate the more as attempts are made to repair them. It
is a Will-o’-the-wisp, indeed, is this ideal club, be it driver or
brassey or cleek or iron, and it may lure the golfer to a shocking fate.
Let us cling to the old favourites and be kind and generous to them. It
has been said, and it is no doubt true, that the perfect wife has never
yet been born, and some men may reflect upon the advantages of life if
they had a perfect wife such as one whom they have painted in their
fancy. But in their honesty they will turn their thoughts away from such
conceits, and let them dwell upon the manifold excellences of the wives
they have, who have hearts that beat, and who, kind and patient and
generous, have those human weaknesses which would be faults in the
ideal, but which only seem to give to the being the greater human
completeness and even perfection. Thus, with this tolerant affection and
appreciation, must we look upon our favourite clubs, and leave the ideal
to lie unmaterialised and worthless in the mind, a pretty thing to think
about, but impossible.
Once there was a man who made a grand effort to materialise the ideal
that he had cherished through many seasons. It was a brassey. Some
twenty brasseys had he had made, but none of them was quite the thing
that he craved. There was something wanting, and thus his shots had not
the sting that they ought to have, or that he thought they should
possess. But, so often disappointed, he let alone his search for the
ideal for a while, and made good friends with one of the real. But he
could not forget the ideal brassey, and it grew more and more definite
in his imagination. He would look at it there with a smile on his face
as he would be going home in the train, and he would handle it and make
with it that long carry against the wind that no club of wood and brass
in his hands had ever made. Then he took the professional clubmaker into
his confidence, and in odd moments after rounds, in the shop they would
sometimes talk of this great club, but neither would venture to suggest
that it should be made, though they spoke of it as if it were made. They
would pick a new one from the stand, and the idealist would say, “Now,
Solomon”--he always called it Solomon--“has a shade more hook than that,
and there is a little sharper angle to his nose.” The worthy clubmaker
entered fully into the spirit of the fancy, and seriously, and he would
answer, “Ay, sor, but Sawlaman wasna made by my apprentice!” Another day
the golfer would recount the story of his play at a fateful hole, and of
the narrow margin by which a fine long shot failed to clear the hazard.
It was a moving theme, and after a moment of silence the maker of clubs
would say in summary, “Ay, ay, sir; it was a pity ye no had Sawlaman in
yer bag!” Yes, it was Solomon that was wanted, just Solomon.
Then one day the player fell to temptation again, and, stirred as of
yore by his foolish hopes, he resolved that he would pluck Solomon from
the stronghold of his fancy. It was a desperate thing to do, a mad and a
reckless thing, a defiance of the spirit world of golf. He told the
clubmaker of his resolve, and begged that he would give his closest
attention to the details of the commission and his personal care to the
execution thereof. The clubmaker, a good human man, was afraid.
Awe-stricken, he said, “Ye’ll no have ma try to make Sawlaman--a real
Sawlaman, sir. I couldna do it! I couldna do it! I canna make a
Sawlaman!” But the player had steeled himself to his resolve; and so for
days and days old Sandy laboured in his shop, and head after head was
shaped and rejected, and stick after stick was shaved and thrown away.
It was a weary task. Then the golfer went away for a stay at another
links, and a month later he returned, and on passing Sandy’s shop he was
beckoned in. “Yes, yes, Sandy! Got him? Got him?” In Sandy’s face there
was written a look that was half of disappointment and half of pride.
He whispered, “Not Sawlaman, sir, not Sawlaman; he’ll never be seen on
the links this life. But I’ve got David, and here he is!” And David,
with a black varnished head, most beautifully shaped, a fine greeny
hickory shaft scared on, and a feel and a balance when handled, and a
lie to the ball that spoke well for power and clean hitting. The golfer
fondled the club for a while, for he was pleased with it, but he could
see, despite his pleasure, that it was no Solomon and that the great
ideal had not been realised, and he knew now that it never could be
realised; for while he was conscious that this club was wanting in some
of the points that made Solomon so great, his imagination failed him to
discover them. It was a grand club, but it killed a great hope; and
there was something of sadness in the manner of taking it over. “Never
mind, Sandy,” said he. “It was a fine try, a very fine try; and I’ll
tell you what we will do. We shall never see Solomon, the real Solomon;
but let us have something to remind us of him, and then we will never
talk of him, the real one, again. We will call this one, not David, but
Solomon. He shall be the Solomon,” and so he is to this day, and in his
name he marks the renunciation of that great ideal. And some very fine
things he has done, for he is a most worthy club.