Obsolete golf clubs

Early golf clubs were all made of wood. They were hand-crafted, often by the players themselves, and had no standard shape or form. As the sport of golf developed, a standard set of clubs began to take shape, with different clubs being fashioned to perform different tasks and hit various types of shot. Later, as more malleable iron became widely used for shorter range clubs, an even wider variety of clubs became available.

Woods

They were:

• Play Club: Driver
• Brassie: 2-Wood
• Spoon: Higher-Lofted Wood
• Baffing Spoon: Approach Wood

These were made of wood and were used until being replaced by the numbered system used today.

Irons

They were:

• Cleek: 2 Iron
• Mid Mashie: 3 Iron
• Mashie Iron: 4 Iron
• Mashie: 5 Iron
• Spade Mashie: 6 Iron
• Mashie Niblick: 7 Iron
• Pitching Niblick: 8 Iron
• Niblick: 9 Iron
• Jigger: Very low lofted iron, shortened shaft

The Mashie Niblick was not a wedge.

The traditional set of irons was invented by Archibald Barrie and were used from 1903 up until about the 1940s. The introduction of the standardized numbered iron set produced by the Spalding Sporting Goods Company in the early 1930s caused the traditional set of irons to gradually give way to numbered convention.

The traditional irons varied greatly in loft (+/- 5 degrees). The shape of the head determined some of the playing characteristics of the club; most traditional heads were roughly egg-shaped.

Sabbath sticks

Sunday or Sabbath sticks were the golf enthusiasts' answer to the Church of Scotland's discouraging golfing on Sundays. Clubs were disguised as walking sticks, the club head comfortably fitting in the palm of the golfer's hand, until feeling unobserved, the stick was reversed and a few strokes were played.^[1]

References

1. ^ http://www.teetimescotland.com/teetime/history.php?historyid=57

External links

• http://golf.about.com/cs/golfterms/g/bldef_mashienib.htm
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport/hi/english/static/in_depth/golf/2001/the_open/masterclass/jargon_busting/mashie_niblick.stm
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0236310/
• http://www.p4a.com/item_images/medium/04/83/38-01.jpg