NAMES OF GOLF CLUBS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22100, 4 May 1935, Page 2 (Supplement)

NAMES OF GOLF CLUBS

VETERAN CHAMPION EXPLAINS The names of the clubs with which' we play golf were handed down by the old Scottish masters who gave the game to the world. The names are the same to-day m they were a century ago. We still use the driver, brassie, spoon, iron ani niblick. The mashie, as I point out later, is a comparative newcomer, writes J. H. Taylor in The News of the World. In the iron class 1 must include the cleek. Ha disappearance from the set gave me cause to lament a we«ik or so ago. Tho cleek is dead, and everyone who appreciated its sterling merit will for evor regret the fact. The names of driver and spoon are self-explan-atory. The one is to drive the ball, the other to spoon or lift it into the air. The brassie is an olf-shoot of the old wooden niblick, which I remember well, and, although I hato to suggest it, is a product clue to. English conditions.

When the game first made its appearance across the Border it located itself at Blackheath and Wimbledon Common, where the subsoil is of a gravel nature. The lies and small undulations: throughout' the so-called fairway wera full of ilints, which tore the bottoms of an ordinary woodi?n niblick to ribbons. Scotsmen predominated at Bleaekheath, and Wimbledon, and they resented seeing their wooden niblicks so maltreated. They hit upon the economic til idea of screwing a brass plate to the bottom, and in this way the brasnio was evolved. I think this theory is tenable because in the old days there were among the wooden clubs drivers and play-clubs, long, middle and short spoons, and the bnfi'v. There were no brassies, so in putting forward my theory I think I am on safe ground. The name given to the club we now know as the mashie is more or less modern —at least, no more than 50 years old. I never knew of it until the year 1888, It was about this time that thfl word " masher " came into vogue. " Masher " was supposed to be * loudly-dressed young man, -wea.ri.ng » high collar and having the gift of captivating the ladies —a fellow about town, or if provincial, one who desired to be thought worthy of Remember the mashie Was an intruder in the set of staid, respectable irons; and I have every reason to-be-lieve that the name mashie was given to it as a term of reproach for its intrusion. Here ag;iiin I think I am on safe ground. If this explanation is not true. I hslve never heard of one that is more likely. Mv original mashie I won in a competition of the Northain Working-men's Go'f Club in ISSBB. It was a sample club, sent to Gibson, of Westward Ho! for approval. 1 chose it instantly. - , T . . With its short, squat i end T visualised that it was just the club for playing short approaches. T started, ana continued to play with it after I had become a professional, and I cliim to have set a fasluon that hast lasted.