On a frosty day one is apt to damage clubs. The clubmaker does not mind
his patrons playing on steely courses. The chances are that one man in a
few will need something doing to his shafts or his wooden heads as the
result of a day’s play. The list of casualties at sunset is
considerable, and somewhat reminds one of the early days when a golf
club was a much less lasting thing than it is at present. Old golfers
are agreed that the breakage of a club by any kind of player is a thing
of infinitely rare happening in comparison with what it used to be only
a very few years ago. How is this? It cannot be that beginners are any
better or more careful than they used to be, and one is very doubtful as
to whether the clubs are made any better (although, perhaps, a trifle
more elegant), or are endowed with any more strength than they were in
the olden days when there were fewer of them to be made, and when so
much time was spent upon their individual perfection. Some people think
that the socketed shafts that have become firmly established are less
reliable than others, and are more likely to give way under severe
strain from misuse, and yet how seldom do we really see a wooden club
give way at the socket? On the whole there can be no doubt that our
modern clubs are thoroughly well made, but that the real cause why we so
seldom see breakages is the lighter work that the clubs have to do with
the rubber ball than they were set to in the old days of the gutta. In
those old days the jar of impact was harder, severer, harsher, and it
sent a shiver through the wrapping of the club that, often repeated,
made for an eventual snap. Certainly the decrease in the breakages seems
to date exactly from the beginning of the use of the rubber ball.
I have just said that it cannot be that beginners are any better or more
careful than they used to be, but this is a statement that needs a
trifle of qualification. Your modern beginner has heard from many and
diverse authorities of the enormous difficulty of this game, and of the
necessity of treating it from the outset with the utmost possible
respect; but the neophyte of the olden days was often more of a
slapdash, full-blooded fellow, who needed to have two or three strenuous
rounds before the spirit in him was fairly broken and he became amenable
to the reason of the links. A wonderful story of a wild opening to a
golfing career is that of Lord Stormont, when he was initiated at
Blackheath some fifty years ago. His lordship had taken too much weight
to himself, and Sir William Ferguson, his doctor, being consulted,
suggested that he ought to have more exercise, and thought that this
might best be administered in the form of golf. Sir William played golf
himself, and, like all good doctors, he recommended the game to lazy
pale-faced people whenever he thought the occasion opportune. He said to
Lord Stormont, “Go down to Blackheath and put yourself in Willie Dunn’s
hands,” Dunn then being professional at this historic course.
Lord Stormont had never seen a golf ball driven in his life, but he took
kindly to the idea and repaired to Blackheath. Unfortunately he went
there for the first time on a club day, and on this day it was
impossible for Dunn to give him his services. But he did as well as he
could in the circumstances, and selected his very best caddie, one
Weever, quite a capable teacher, and intrusted him with the onerous duty
of teaching the game of golf to Lord Stormont. Dunn sold his lordship a
full set of good clubs by way of outfit, and away the two went. When the
first round had been played, the round at Blackheath then, as now,
consisting of only seven holes, Weever returned alone to the
professional’s shop, with his pockets full of heads and his arms full of
broken shafts. My Lord Stormont had broken every one of his clubs, and
had sent his mentor back for a new complete set.
In the second round nearly all of these were broken also; and when,
after so many trials and tribulations, Dunn espied the noble beginner
returning from the seventh green, he was in some anxious doubt as to how
he should best make reference to the events of the day. It was at least
encouraging that Lord Stormont was smiling, and so Dunn ventured to
observe, “I am very sorry, my lord, that such disasters have befallen
you to-day in breaking so many clubs.” For answer the new golfer tapped
Dunn on the shoulder, and said, “My dear fellow, don’t mention it. I
feel this game has done me already a great deal of good, and it is going
to do me still more. Have another set of clubs ready for me by Thursday.
I shall be down then.” How many sets of clubs went to the making of the
game of Lord Stormont no man knows.