FREAK GOLF CLUBS

Evening Star, Issue 19456, 14 January 1927, Page 12

FREAK GOLF CLUBS

WRY'HECKS AND OTHER EFFECTS [Written by Haery Vaedox, for the ‘ Evening Star.’] A lady golfer asks whether I recommend wry-necked chibs. Her question seems to have been inspired by the information which she has received from a friend that Miss D. H. Fowler, who won last year’s English championship, possesses a wonderful wry-necked masliie with which she produces winning shots from all kinds of ranees. I believe it is true that Miss Fowier lias such a club, juif Hint it .s » robe ol the set with which she played dnmig her early days at tne game We all have 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 in general. Some of the clubs which have been barred are, in truth, eery difficult to use, although they may have been temporarily successful in the hands of a player here and there. It is the swing, and not the club itself, that produces the stroke, and all the fancies in the world will not alter that fact.

By the present generation of golfers the wry-neoked club is apt to bo regarded as a freak. Very few players use it, and the others cannot for the life of them imagine what virtue anybody finds in it. But, after all, whims m the choice of clubs, as wri! a. in the principles of making shots, contribute a great deal to the pleasure of playing golf. It is tire very charm of the game that there is nothing stereotyped about it. For this reason it is difficult to understand why the centre-shafted club —as, lor example, the Echenectady putter, with which Mr W. J. Travis, of New York, won our amateur championship in 1904—is barred in Britain, while the wry-necked club is viewed with approval. Presumably the explanation is that the one has no history behind it, for hardly anybody had heard of the centre-shafted club until Mr Travis used it, whereas the other is of a lineage that began two or three generations ago, when golfers were allowed to humor any caprice of the moment in regard to implements, and when club-makers were free to introduce any novelties calculated to produce business. IN THE FREE OLD DAYS.

The birth of the wry-necked club may justly be ascribed to the eapritiousness of a keen amateur and the business instincts of a keen professional in an era when the 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 the form and make of clubs were unknown; and having thus established themselves as pioneers in a tree country, they handed over their work to future generations, who, zealous for that truly salutary influences which wo call tradition, gave it absolution. But, truth to tell, the distinction lietween 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 ocasional imagination. And it is impossible to legislate for imagination. It must have been a brain-racking operation for tho Rules Committee to draw up the present regulation in regard to the “ Form and Make of Golf Clubs,” so as to patronise tho wrynecked articles and excommunicate its centre-shafted imitation. The /ommittee intimates that it “ regards as illegal tho 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 tho club, or (as, for example, in the case of the Park and Fairlie chibs, a point opposite the heel, either to. left or right, when the club is soled in the ordinary position for play.” Only a connoisseur in golf complications could understand what this really means. At any rate, it means that in order to give sanctity to tho old-fashioned kind of wry-necked dubs, and condemn the centre-shafted ones, it has been necessary to name designer and maker—the only instance in which this has been found necessary in the rules. A LAST HOPE.

la it worth while? There is no special aid in the wry-necked priih ciple. If such an influence existed it would have been discovered ere now by millions of golfers. There is none in the centre-shafted putter. In point of fact, Mr Travis only took to it as a last desperate resource. Ho happened to do wonders with it. but that was only because ho struck the week’s putting of his life. Some of the best British putters who tried it found it singularly ill-adapted to the purpose, because, with its centre shaft., it called for an awkward manner of gripping and standing. It would 1)0 simplifying to abandon many of the modern restrictions concerning golf dubs, and prescribe particularly “ a plain shaft and a head which does not contain any mechanical contrivance such as springs,” which is a small excerpt from the present rule. Legislation has gone far beyond the stage. But what is the real value of excluding the centrc-sliaftcd club, with which Mr Travis was successful, or even the ribbed-faced mashio, with which Jock Hutchinson, of Chicago, secured our open championship? To the ordinary golfer these creations would be handicaps rather than helps!