FREAK GOLF, CLUBS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18894, 8 January 1927, Page 13

FREAK GOLF, CLUBS.

WRY-NECKS AND OTHER » EFFECTS. rs. i.smULI.Y WHITTEK TO» TH* Ntlttl tßv HARHY VAIIDOX.) A lady golfer asks whether I recommend wry-wrecked clubs. Her question m'oiiis to have been inapirod by tha information which Bhu has received from a friend that Miss 1\ JR. Fowler, who won last year's English championship, possesses a wonderful wry-neckeil masliie with which she produces winning shots from all kinds of ranges. I believe it is true that Hiss Fowler has such a club, and that it is a rolia of the set with which sho played during her early days at the game. We all havo our fancies in clubs, but for my own part, I am satisfied that there is no particular form or make which simplifies the shots for golfers iu general. Some of tho clubs which have been barred, are in truth, very diflicult to use, although they may hava been temporarily successful in the hand# of a player hero and there. It is tha swing, and not the dub itself, that produces (lie stroke, and all tho fancies in the world will not alter that fact. By the present generation of golfers, the wry-necked club is apt to be regarded as a freak, Vory few use it, and the others cannot for the lifa of them imagino what virtue anybody finds in it. But, after nil, Whims ill the choice of clubs, as well as in the principles of making shots contribute a great deal to tho pleasure of playing golf. It is the very charm of tho game that there is nothing stereotyped about it.

For this reason, it is difficult to understand why tho centre-shafted club —as, for example, the Schenectady putter, with which Mr W. J. Travis, of New York, won our amateur championship in 190-I—is barred in Britain, whila the wry-ncekcd club is viewed with approval. Presumably the explanation is that the one has no history behind it, for hardly iniyboilv had heard of tha centre-shafted club until Mr Travis used it, whereas the other is of a linoage that began two or three generation!) ago, when golfers wore allowed to humour any caprice of tho moment in Tegard to implements, and when clubmakers were free to introduce any novelties calculated to produce business. *

In the Free Old Days. Tlio birth of tlio wry-ncckcd club may justly bo ascribed to the capricious« ncsa of a keen amateur aud the business instincts of a keen professional in an era when tho quest of progress at golf was probably pretty much as it is now. Only they had the advantage of introducing their innovation at a. time when restrictions as to tlio form and mako of clubs wero unknown; and having thus established themselves as pioneers in a. free country, they handed over their work to future generations, who, zealous for that truly salutary influence which w# call tradition, gave it absolution. •But, truth to tell, tho distinction between a wry-necked club and a centreshafted club seems to me to bo very fine, and arbitrary. Probably neither is of special advantage except to an occasional imagination. And it is impossible to legislate for imagination. It must have been a brain-racking operation for the. Rules Committee to draw up the present regulation in regard to the "Form and Make of Golf Clubs,'' 60 os toi» patronise the necked article and excommunicate it» centre-shafted imitation. The committee intimates that it as illegal the use of such clubs as those,of . the mallet-headed type, or such clubs as have the neck so bent as to produce a similar effect." ■ Nevertheless, it permits a measure of distortion in its manner of interpreting the rule.. . . ,• It says that "the lower part of the. shaft shall, if produced,• meet the, heel of the club, or (as for example in the - case of the Park and Fairlie clubs), a point opposite the heel, either to left or right, "when Hie club is soled in tln - ordinary position for play." Only a. ■<. connoisseur in golf complication* could understand what- this really; means. At any rate, it means that,, in order to give sanctity to the old-!, fashioned kind of wry-necked clubs,and;; condemn the centre-shafted Ones, it ha«:' been necessary to name designer and ; maker—the only instance in which thj«!i? lias lieen found necessary in the rules. ) , A Last' Hope. "• ? Ia it worth while? There is no special aid in the wry-necked • principle. If such an influence existed) it would have been discovered ere now by millions of golfers, There isnon® in the centre-shafted putter. In point of fact, Mr Travis only took to it aa a last desperate resource. He happened to do wonders with it, but that waa only because he struck theweek'sputting of his life. Some of the best British putters Tfho tried it fonnd ' itsingularly ill-adapted to tho purpose, because, with its centre shaft, it called for an awkward manjier of gripping and standing. It would be simplifying ,to abandon mauy of the modern restrictions <on» cerning golf clubs and prescribe par- . ticulnrly "a plain shaft and a hea& which dees not contain any meohariical contrivance such as springs''—which is a small excorpt from the present rule,. Legislation has gone far beyond tlia stage. But what is tho real value of excluding tlio cehtre-shafted club. witK wliich Mr Travis was successful; or even the ribbed-faced mnshie, with'' which Jock Hntchinaon, of Chicago, secured our open championship? To 'lie ordinary col for these creations would lie handicaps rather than helps!

Early next .year Can exchange says) v,'e dial] see the "Diary of Lady Frederick Cavendish," and it seems certain to be one if the most interesting records of a woman's life that ever saw the light. A frightful tragedy made her n widow, when her husband was assassinated in t'hoenix Park, but site stood like an angel against the cr.f for vengeance. Of course, there i» very much more. Born a Lyttelton, married to a Cavendish, j-elated to several other of the old Whig house?, especially intimate in the Gladstor/Jan, and at one time Maid of Honour to Queen Victoria. Lady Frederick moved in the central circle; and she liad both an eve and a pen.