THE CHOICE AND CARE OF CLUBS
Difficulties of choice--A long search for the best--Experiments
with more than a hundred irons--Buy few clubs to begin with--Take
the professional's advice--A preliminary set of six--Points of the
driver--Scared wooden clubs are best--Disadvantages of the
socket--Fancy faces--Short heads--Whip in the shaft--The question
of weight--Match the brassy with the driver--Reserve clubs--Kinds
of cleeks--Irons and mashies--The niblick--The putting problem--It
is the man who putts and not the putter--Recent inventions--Short
shafts for all clubs--Lengths and weights of those I use--Be
careful of your clubs--Hints for preserving them.
The good golfer loves his clubs and takes a great and justifiable pride
in them. He has many reasons for doing so. Golf clubs are not like most
other implements that are used in sport. A man may go to a shop and pick
out a cricket bat or a billiard cue with which he may be tolerably
certain he will be able to play something approaching to his best game
when he is in the mood for playing it. The acquaintance which is begun
in the shop is complete a few days later. But a man may see a golf club
which he strongly fancies and buy it, and yet find himself utterly
incapable of using it to good advantage. He may purchase club after
club, and still feel that there is something wanting in all of them,
something which he cannot define but which he knows ought to exist if
his own peculiar style of play is to be perfectly suited. Until he finds
this club he is groping in the dark. One driver may be very much like
another, and even to the practised eye two irons may be exactly similar;
but with one the golfer may do himself justice, and with the other court
constant failure. Therefore, the acquisition of a set of clubs, each
one of which enjoys the complete confidence of its owner, is not the
task of a week or even a year. There are some golfers who do not
accomplish it in many years, and happy are they when at last they have
done so. Then they have a very sincere attachment to each one of these
instruments, that have been selected with so much difficulty. It is not
always possible to give reasons for their excellence, for the subtle
qualities of the clubs are not visible to the naked eye. Their owners
only know that at last they have found the clubs that are the best for
them, and that they will not part with them for any money--that is, if
they are golfers of the true breed. In these days I always play with the
same set of irons. They are of different makes, and to the average
golfer they appear quite ordinary irons and very much like others of
their class. But they are the results of trials and tests of more than
one hundred clubs.
Therefore no golfer in his early days should run away with the idea that
he is going to suit himself entirely with a set of clubs without much
delay, and though his purse may be a small one, I feel obliged to
suggest that money spent in the purchase of new clubs which he strongly
fancies, during his first few years of play, is seldom wasted. Many of
the new acquisitions may be condemned after a very short trial; but
occasionally it will happen that a veritable treasure is discovered in
this haphazard manner. With all these possibilities in view, the
beginner, knowing nothing of golf, and being as yet without a style to
suit or any peculiar tastes that have to be gratified, should restrain
himself from the desire to be fully equipped with a "complete outfit" at
the very beginning of his career. Let him buy as few clubs as possible,
knowing that it is quite likely that not one of those which he purchases
at this stage will hold a place in his bag a year or two later. As he
can have no ideas at all upon the subject, he should leave the entire
selection of his first bag to some competent adviser, and he will not
generally find such an adviser behind the counter at a general athletic
outfitting establishment in the town or city, which too often is the
direction in which he takes his steps when he has decided to play the
game. In these stores the old and practised golfer may often pick up a
good club at a trifling cost; but the beginner would be more likely to
furnish himself with a set which would be poor in themselves and quite
unsuited for his purpose.
The proper place for him to go to is the professional's shop which is
attached to the club of which he has become a member. Nearly all clubs
have their own professionals, who are makers and sellers of clubs, and I
know no professional who is not thoroughly conscientious in this part of
his business. It pays him to give the completest satisfaction to his
clients, and particularly to the members of his own club. This
professional is also a first-class golfer, who knows all, or nearly all,
that there is to be known about the game, and who in his time has had
imposed upon him the difficult task of teaching hundreds of beginners
their first steps in golf. Thus he knows better than any man the erratic
tendencies of the golfing initiate and the best means of counteracting
them. Experience has given him the faculty for sizing up the golfing
points of the tyro almost at the first glance, and therefore he can
supply him at the beginning with those clubs with which certainly he
will have most chance of success. He will suit his height and his build
and his reach, and he will take care that the clubs in the set which he
makes up are in harmony with each other and will have that lie which
will best suit the player who is to use them. And even though, when the
beginner gathers knowledge of the game and finds out his own
style--which neither he nor the professional can determine in
advance--some of them may gradually become unsuitable to him, they are
nevertheless likely to be in themselves good clubs.
A beginner may at the outset limit himself to the purchase of six new
clubs. He must have a driver, a brassy, a cleek, an iron, a mashie, and
a putter. At an early opportunity he may add a niblick to this small
set, but there is no need to invest in it at the outset, and as this
club is one which is least likely to require change, it is best that it
should not be bought until the player has some ideas of his own as to
what is wanted. By way of indicating what will be needful to make this
set complete for the purposes of good golf, when the player has obtained
a fairly complete experience, I may mention the instruments that I take
out when playing an important match. I have two drivers, one brassy, a
baffy or spoon, two cleeks (one shorter than the other), an iron,
sometimes one mashie, sometimes two (one for running up and the other
for pitch shots), a niblick, and sometimes two putters (one for long
running-up putts and the other for holing out). This selection may be
varied slightly according to the course on which the match is to be
played and the state of the weather, but in general principles the
constitution of the bag remains the same, and a player who is equipped
with such a set ought to be able to play any hole in any way, and if he
cannot do so it is his own skill that is lacking and not an extra club.
We may now consider in order a few of the points of these clubs. I shall
have occasion, when dealing with the method of play with each of them,
to call attention to many points of detail which can only be properly
explained when indicating particular objects which it is desired to
achieve with them, so for the present I shall confine myself chiefly to
general features.
Take the driver to begin with, and the preliminary word of advice that I
have to offer concerning the choice of this club is at variance with the
custom of the present moment, though I am confident that before long the
golfing world will again come round to my view of the matter--not my
view only, but that of many of the leading amateur and professional
players. One of the problems which agitate the mind of the golf-club
maker deals with the best and most effectual method of attaching the
head of the club to the shaft. For a very long period this was done by
what we call scaring or splicing, the neck of the club having a long
bevel which was spliced with the shaft and bound round for several
inches with black twine. Latterly, however, a new kind of club has
become the fashion with all but the oldest and most experienced players,
and it is called the socket driver. The continuation of the neck of this
club is shorter than in the case of the spliced driver, and instead of
there being any splicing at all, a hole is bored vertically into the end
of the neck and the shaft fitted exactly into it, glued up, and finally
bound round for less than an inch. This club certainly looks neater than
the old-fashioned sort, and the man who is governed only by appearances
might very easily imagine that it is really more of one piece than the
other, that the union of the shaft with the head has less effect upon
the play of the club, and that therefore it is better. But experience
proves that this is not the case. What we want at this all-important
part of the driver is spring and life. Anything in the nature of a
deadness at this junction of the head with the shaft, which would, as it
were, cut off the one from the other, is fatal to a good driver. I
contend that the socket brings about this deadness in a far greater
degree than does the splice. The scared or old-fashioned drivers have
far more spring in them than the new ones, and it is my experience that
I can constantly get a truer and a better ball with them. When the wood
of the shaft and the wood of the neck are delicately tapered to suit
each other, filed thin and carefully adjusted, wood to wood for several
inches, and then glued and tightened up to each other with twine for
several inches, there is no sharp join whatever but only such a gradual
one as never makes itself felt in practice. Moreover, these clubs are
more serviceable, and will stand much more wear and tear than those
which are made with sockets. Sometimes they give trouble when the glue
loosens, but the socketed club is much easier to break. On club links
generally in these days you will probably see more socketed drivers and
brassies (for these remarks apply to all wooden clubs) than those that
are spliced; but this is simply the result of a craze or fashion with
which neat appearance has something to do; and if you desire to convince
yourself that I am right, take note of the styles of the drivers used by
the best players at the next first-class amateur or professional
tournament that you witness. The men who are playing on these occasions
are ripe with experience, and so long as they get the best results they
do not care what their clubs look like.
The head of the club should be made of persimmon or dogwood--both very
hard and full of driving power. Usually the bare face of such a club is
good enough for contact with any ball on any tee, but the time will come
when the golfer, developing innumerable fads and fancies, will reach the
conclusion that he must have an artificial face of some kind fitted on
at the place of contact with the ball. Or such an artificial face may
become necessary by reason of the wear and tear on the face of the
driver. Why forsake the old leather face? There is an idea abroad in
these days that it is too soft and dead for the purposes of the new
rubber-cored ball; and the impression that the latter likes the very
hardest surface it is possible to apply to it has resulted in horn,
vulcanite, and even steel faces being fitted to drivers and brassies. I
do not think that in actual practice they are any better than leather,
though some golfers may persuade themselves that they are. If a man, who
is a good and steady driver, makes several drives from the tee with a
club which has a leather face, and several more with another possessing
a steel or vulcanite face, I am confident that he will on the average
get at least as far with the leather as with the other, and I shall be
surprised, if the test is fair and reliable, if he does not get further.
I have leather faces on my drivers, and I think that latterly I have
been driving further than I ever did. A point of objection to the
harder surfaces, which at times is very serious, is that the ball is
very much more liable to skid off them than off others, and thus the
golfer may often blame himself for shots that look like a mixture of
foozle and slice when the fault is not his at all, but that of the
peculiarity of the club with which he is so much in love. On the other
hand, it must be admitted that he scores over his opponent with the
leather-faced club when the weather is wet, for the leather is then
liable to soften and becomes very dead.
Never select a club because it has a long head, but let your preference
be in favour of the shorter heads. The beginner, or the player of only
moderate experience, puts it to himself that it is a very difficult
thing always to strike the ball fairly on the face of the club, and that
the longer the face is the more room he has for inaccuracy of his
stroke. But he is wrong. Whatever the length of the face, unless the
ball is hit fairly and squarely in the centre, it will not travel
properly, and the effect is really worse when the point of contact is a
little off the centre in a long-faced club than when it is the same
distance removed from the centre of a short face. Moreover, despite this
fact, which will soon become apparent to the golfer, the knowledge that
he has a long-faced driver may very easily get him into a loose way of
playing his tee shots. He may cease to regard exactness as
indispensable, as it always is. The tendency of late years has been to
make the heads of wooden clubs shorter and still shorter, and this
tendency is well justified.
The question of the whip or suppleness of the shaft must generally be
decided by individual style and preference; but I advise the beginner
against purchasing a whippy driver to start with, whatever he may do
later on. He should rather err on the side of stiffness. When a man is
well on his drive, has a good style, and is getting a long ball from the
tee every time, it is doubtless true that he obtains better results from
a shaft with a little life in it than from a stiff one. But the
advantage is not by any means so great as might be imagined, and many
fine players drive their best balls with stiff clubs. It must always be
remembered that when the stroke is not made perfectly there is a much
greater tendency to slice with a supple shaft than with a stiff one, and
the disadvantages of the former are especially pronounced on a windy
day. It is all a matter of preference and predilection, and when these
are absent the best thing to do is to strike the happy medium and select
a shaft that is fairly supple but which still leaves you in the most
perfect command of the head of the club, and not as if the latter were
connected with your hands by nothing more than a slender rush.
Weight again is largely a matter of fancy, and there is no rule to the
effect that a slender player should use a light club and one of powerful
build a heavy one; indeed, one constantly finds the slim men employing
the most ponderous drivers, as if, as it were, to make up for their own
lightness, while heavy men will often prefer clubs that are like
pen-holders to them. Once more I suggest the adoption of the medium as
being generally the most satisfactory. I have a strong dislike to
drivers that are unusually light, and I do not think that anyone can
consistently get the best results from them. They entail too much
swinging, and it is much harder to guide the club properly when the
weight of the head cannot be felt. Of course a club that is strongly
favoured by a golfer and suits him excellently in all respects save that
it errs on the side of lightness, can easily be put right by the
insertion of a little lead in the sole.
Little need be said in this place about the selection of the brassy.
Whatever may be the amount of whip in the shaft of the driver, the
brassy should not possess any undue suppleness, for it has heavier and
rougher work to do than the club which is used for the tee shots, and
there must be very little give in the stick if satisfactory results are
to be obtained when the ball is lying at all heavily. The head and the
face should be small; but in other respects the pattern of the driver
should be closely adhered to, for it is one of the principles of my
tuition that when the golfer takes his brassy in his hand to play his
second shot, he should be brought to feel as nearly as possible that he
is merely doing the drive over again. Many authorities recommend that
the shaft of the brassy shall be an inch or so shorter than that of the
driver; but I can see no necessity for its being shorter; and, on the
other hand, for the reason I have just stated, I think it is eminently
desirable that it should be exactly the same length. On this point I
shall have more to say in another chapter. Care should be taken that
both the brassy and the driver have exactly the same lie, that is to
say, that when the soles of both clubs are laid quite flat upon the
ground the shafts shall be projecting towards the golfer at precisely
the same angle. If they have not the same lie, then, if the player takes
up the same stance at the same distance from the ball when making a
brassy shot as when he struck the ball from the tee with his driver, the
sole of the club will not sweep evenly along the turf as it comes on to
the ball, and the odds will be against a good shot being made.
I am a strong believer in having reserve drivers and brassies, even if
one is only a very moderate golfer. Everybody knows what it is to suffer
torture during the period when one is said to be "off his drive," and I
think there is no remedy for this disease like a change of clubs. There
may be nothing whatever the matter with the club you have been playing
with, and which at one time gave you so much delight, but which now
seems so utterly incapable of despatching a single good ball despite all
the drastic alterations which you make in your methods. Of course it is
not at all the fault of the club, but I think that nearly everybody gets
more or less tired of playing with the same implement, and at length
looks upon it with familiar contempt. The best thing to do in such
circumstances is to give it a rest, and it will soon be discovered that
absence makes the heart grow fonder in this matter as in so many others.
But the reserve clubs which are taken out while the first string are
resting should be in themselves good and almost as exactly suitable to
the player's style as the others. It is a mistake to take up a club
which has been regarded as a failure, and in which one has no
confidence. Therefore, I suggest that so soon as the golfer has really
found his style and is tolerably certain about it, and the exact kind of
club that he likes best, he should fit himself up with both a spare
driver and a spare brassy, and give them each a turn as occasion
demands. It is hardly necessary to add that whenever an important game
is being played, considerable wisdom will be exercised if the reserves
are taken out in the bag along with the clubs with which it is intended
to play, for though breakages are not matters of everyday occurrence,
they do happen sometimes, and nothing would be more exasperating in such
a contingency than the knowledge that for the rest of the game you would
be obliged to play your tee shots with your brassy or your brassy shots
with your cleek.
The driving cleek, for long shots, should have a fairly straight face
with very little loft upon it. It should have a thick blade, should be
fairly heavy, and its shaft should be stout and stiff. This makes a
powerful club, with which some fine long work can be accomplished. I am
inclined to think that one reason why so many players find it extremely
difficult to get good work out of their cleeks, is that they use them
with heads too thin and light. A large proportion of the cleeks one sees
about are too delicate and ladylike. It is sometimes expected of a cleek
that it will despatch a ball for, say, a hundred and sixty yards, and no
club will do that, no matter how skilful the golfer who wields it may
be, unless there is sufficient weight in it. A second cleek, which will
be found in the bag of the experienced golfer, will have a thinner
blade and much more loft upon it, but in other respects will be very
much like the other one, though not nearly so heavy. This instrument is
for the shorter cleek-shot distances, which are just so long that an
iron cannot reach them.
There is great diversity in irons, and the player may be left in the
first place in the hands of his professional adviser, and afterwards to
his own taste, with the single hint from me that undue lightness should
at all times be avoided. Of the two mashies which the complete golfer
will carry out with him on to the links, one, for pitching the ball well
up with very little run to follow, will have a deep face, will be of
medium weight, and be very stiff in the shaft. I emphasise the deep face
and the rigidity of the shaft. This mashie will also have plenty of loft
upon it. The other one, for use chiefly in running up to the hole, will
have a straighter face, but will otherwise be much the same. However,
not all golfers consider two mashies to be necessary, and I myself
depend chiefly upon one. Of the niblick it need only be said that it
must be strong, heavy, and well lofted.
I have stated that the golfer may carry two putters in his bag; but I
mean that he should do so only when he has a definite and distinct
purpose for each of them, and I certainly do not advise his going from
one kind to the other for the same sort of putt. There is great danger
in such a practice. If he is doing very poor putting with one club, he
will naturally fly for help to the other one, and the probability is
that he will do just as badly with that. Then he returns to the first
one, and again finds that his putts do not come off, and by this time he
is in a hopeless quandary. If he has only one putter he will generally
make some sort of a success of it if he can putt at all, and my private
belief is that the putter itself has very little to do with the way in
which a golfer putts. It is the man that counts and not the tool. I have
tried all kinds of putters in my time, and have generally gone back to
the plainest and simplest of all. I have occasionally used the aluminium
putter. It has much to recommend it to those who like this style of
implement, and Braid always does very well with it. The Travis or
Schenectady putter, which was so popular for a short time after the
Amateur Championship last year, owing to the American player having done
such wonderful things with it, I do not succeed with. When I try to putt
with it I cannot keep my eye away from its heel. But the fact is, as I
have already indicated, that you can putt with anything if you hit the
ball properly. Everything depends on that--hitting the ball
properly--and no putter that was ever made will help you to hole out if
you do not strike the ball exactly as it ought to be struck, while if
you do so strike it, any putter will hole out for you. The philosophy of
putting is simple, but is rarely appreciated. The search for the magic
putter that will always pop the ball into the hole and leave the player
nothing to do will go on for ever.
One other observation that I have to make on clubs in general is, that I
think it is a mistake to have the shafts any longer than is absolutely
necessary. Some golfers think that an iron or a cleek is just the right
length for them when there are still a few inches of stick projecting
inwards, towards their bodies, when they have made their grip. Why that
spare stick? It cannot possibly be of any use, and may conceivably be
harmful. It is surely better to have it cut off and then to grip the
club at the end of the handle. A larger sense of power and control is
obtained in this manner. My own clubs seem to most golfers who examine
them to be on the short side, and this is a convenient opportunity for
giving a few details concerning my favourites, which may prove of
interest to the readers of these notes. I should prefix the statement
with the observation that I am 5 feet 9-1/4 inches in height, and that
normally I weigh 11-1/2 stones. Young players who might be inclined to
adapt their clubs to my measurements should bear these factors in mind,
though I seem to be of something like average height and build. Here,
then, are the statistics of my bag:--
Club. Length. Weight.
Driver 42 inches 12-3/4 oz.
Brassy 42 " 12-1/2 "
Driving mashie 38 " 14-1/2 "
Driving cleek 37 " 13-1/2 "
Light cleek 37 " 13-1/2 "
Iron 35-1/2 " 15-1/4 "
Mashie 36-1/2 " 15-1/4 "
Niblick 37 " 19 "
Putter (putting cleek) 33-1/2 " 15 "
Each measurement was made from the heel to the end of the shaft.
[Illustration: _PLATE I._ MY SET OF CLUBS]
I have two explanations to make concerning this list of dimensions. I
have included the driving mashie, of which I have said nothing in this
chapter. It is an alternative club, and it is better that it should be
discussed exclusively in its proper place, which is when cleek shots are
being considered. Again, on making a critical examination of these
measurements, the golfer of a little experience will promptly ask why my
mashie is an inch and a quarter longer than my iron. It is longer
because one has sometimes to play high lofting shots over trees and the
like, and in such cases the loft of the mashie is necessary and a
considerable amount of power as well--hence the extra stick.
As I have said, the collection of a set of clubs that conform in
essentials to their owner's ideal is a very slow and often an expensive
process. A club that was bought in the shop for six shillings might have
cost its owner six sovereigns when the many unsatisfactory and discarded
articles that were bought while this one perfect gem was being searched
for are taken into account. Therefore it behoves the man who is to any
extent satisfied with his clubs to take a proper pride in them and look
well after them. I like to see a golfer play with bright irons, and
shafts that give evidence of tender and affectionate care. It jars upon
one's nerves to see rusty irons and mashies which have evidently not
been cleaned for months, and which are now past hope. Such a man does
not deserve to have good clubs, nor to play good strokes with them. But
many golfers, even when they have a tender and careful regard for the
excellent merits of their favourites, seem to imagine that the beginning
and end of their duty towards them is to keep their irons bright and
free from the slightest semblance of rust. More often than not the shaft
is never given a thought, and yet a perfect shaft that just suits the
man who has to play with it is one of the rarest and most difficult
things to discover. It would be difficult to replace it, and to keep it
in its best condition it needs constant care and attention. An
unreasoning golfer may play with his clubs on wet days, see that the
irons are brightened afterwards, and store his collection in his locker
without another thought concerning them. And then some time later when
he is out on the links snap goes one of his shafts, and "Confound that
rotten wood!" he exclaims. But it is not a case of rotten wood at all.
When shafts are constantly allowed to get wet and are afterwards merely
wiped with a rag and given no further attention, all the life dries out
of the wood, and they are sure to break sooner or later. It should be
your invariable practice, when you have been out on a wet day, first to
see that your shafts are well dried and then to give them a thoroughly
good oiling with linseed oil, applied with a rag kept specially for the
purpose. This will keep them in excellent condition. The tops of the
club heads may be oiled in the same way; but extreme care should be
taken that not a drop of oil is allowed to touch the face of the wooden
clubs. It would tend to open the grain, and then, when next you played
in the wet, the damp would get inside the wood and cause it gradually to
rot. I counsel all golfers when playing in wet weather to have covers or
hoods attached to their bags, so that the heads of their instruments may
always be kept in shelter. This will do much for their preservation,
and at the same time add materially to the satisfaction of the player,
for he can never feel that he has the means to do himself justice on the
tee when the head of his driver is in a half soaked state. No player,
whatever his abilities as a golfer, should refrain from exercising this
precautionary measure because he has seen only the very best players
doing so, and because he fancies it may be regarded by his friends as
affectation. The fact that it is chiefly the best players who do these
things only indicates that they know better than others what is due to
their clubs and how to look after them. There is no affectation in
copying their methods in this respect.