The Necessary Equipment part 2

The long-nosed, long-shafted playclub dominated golf in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and by the mid-1800s clubs could be divided into four categories; drivers, spoons, irons and putters. There were two sorts of drivers - the playclub driver which had a flat face, no loft and was designed to hit a ball off a tee, and the grassed driver, slightly lofted to lift the ball from a hazard or downhill lie. There were four types of spoons - long, middle, short and baffing. The baffy, as it was known, was short and stiff with a laid-back face and was used for pitching to the green. The wooden niblick was short, well lofted and made with a small head so that it could cut through heavy grass. Wooden putters were used for centuries and were ideal on rougher greens but, as the playing surfaces improved, the smoother, iron blade became the popular choice.

The early irons were very heavy, rather fearsome looking and ideal for the big hitters. They were hand forged with a socket into which the finely tapered shaft was fitted and driven into the club head to give a tight fit. Initially irons were not widely used because of the delicate nature of the feather balls, but by the mid-nineteenth century and the advent of the gutta percha and rubber balls they came into their own.

The heads of the wooden clubs were made mostly from fruitwoods: hornbeam; thornwood; beech and persimmon, a wood imported from North America. The shafts were joined to the underside of the neck of the clubhead by a simple splice and held tightly using a tarred twine binding. These shafts, made from ash, hazel and hickory, were slender and finely tapered to ensure the "spring" was in the right position. The grips were made of stiff strips of leather and nailed to the shaft.

The arrival of the guttie had a marked effect on club design, and they became shorter, broader and deeper with new clubs like the bulger being developed. This was a driver with a distinctive convex face and was designed to minimise a sliced or hooked stroke. Another new club was the brassie, which took its name from its brass sole and was designed to play off hard surfaces. Iron clubs also increased in popularity, primarily because they were cheaper to manufacture and, as has already been mentioned, could not harm the new style balls.

By the turn of the century a set of irons, each with a different degree of loft, comprised: the driving cleek; iron cleek; lofter; mashie; sand iron; niblick and putting cleek. Clubs with aluminium heads made their first appearance during this period, first as putters and then as a full range of clubs.

The most significant advance in the early part of the twentieth century was the introduction of the steel shaft. The first seamless, steel shafts were produced in Britain in 1912 and during the next two decades steel also became widely used in the United States. Nevertheless, it was only in 1929 that the R&A legalised the use of steel shafts, and only then because the Prince of Wales, later the abdicating Edward VIII, played with a set of steel shafted clubs at St Andrews and it seemed they had little choice but to accede to the wishes of their future king.

Mass-produced clubs followed and with them came matched sets with numbered rather than named clubs. Soon there were clubs for every possible situation and some golfers were carrying huge numbers of clubs on each round. To combat this and force the golfer to rely once more on his skill and not just his clubs, the Unites States Golfing Association imposed a fourteen club limit in 1938 and the Royal and Ancient took similar action a year later.

Recently, most manufacturers have geared production toward game improvement with peripherally-weighted irons and customised clubs which are now widely available. Steel is still the main constituent in making shafts for irons, but carbon fibre and graphite is becoming a more popular choice because of its light weight and high strength.. It is also becoming increasingly used for club heads.

back to part 1.

From the Appletree Press title: A Little History of Golf.
Also from Appletree: Emerald Greens - Holiday Golf in Ireland.