Mashie, Spoon, or Cleek? A Brief Guide to Vintage Golf Clubs & Balls
With fans dotted all over the globe, golf is a popular sport. It's also pretty old, dating back to 16th century Scotland. The modern game evolved on the links of St. Andrews, reaching new heights of popularity at the turn of the 19th century. From the earliest vintage golf clubs to the simplest feathery, it’s fair to say golf has come a long way.
So if you’ve ever wondered exactly what early golfers used to hack their way around the coasts of Scotland, this blog is for you. Now you’ll know the difference between a mashie and a spoon and be holing twenty footers with the cleek of your dreams.
Vintage Golf Clubs: Earliest Versions
To say that the first golf clubs were primitive would be an understatement. Built by the golfers themselves, or non-specialized tradesmen in their employ (often bowmakers), these entirely-wooden craft projects were little more than glorified walking sticks. Standardization of clubs didn’t come until the early 1500's, but did little to improve the longevity of the clubs themselves. Prone to breaking, and costing far more than any commoner could ever hope to afford, these pricey oversized toothpicks didn't make the challenge of getting a tiny ball into a far away hole any easier. But it did turn the sport into something exclusively for the rich.
The OG's
As golf evolved from a shepherd’s game to the design of actual courses, the pioneers recognized they’d need an assortment of purpose built clubs to get from tee to bottom of the cup. By the time King James IV got into the sport, the typical bag carried several proto-drivers called long nose or long-headed woods, mid-range clubs called grassed drivers, short range clubs called spoons, the wedge-like niblick, and a putting cleek.
With shafts made of flexible European woods like ash or hazel, and club heads made of hard fruitwoods (apple and pear) or thorn woods, these hand sculpted clubs were held together with sturdy 7-ply linen thread and hyde glue. Leather wrapped grips helped the wealthy early golfers keep a hold on these expensive sticks, but the club face itself was as smooth as hand tools could allow. In the early days of golf (and for the next few hundred years), club design was intricately linked to the ball in play which was, like the clubs, expensive and prohibitively fragile.
Interestingly, only golf clubs made over 100 years ago are considered antique, and these would definitely fit that category. While vintage clubs are definitely cool, the value in old golf clubs comes from the ancient iterations.
19th Century Golf Clubs
The industrial revolution brought with it sweeping changes to materials science, manufacturing accuracy, and, for better and worse, international trade. The ash/hazel shafts were replaced with sturdier American hickory, and fruitwoods with a much more robust parquet.
Advancements in ball technology allowed for more "severe" club faces and head designs. This included the distinctive grooves we are all familiar with today, imparting a backspin on the balls while significantly increasing distance and accuracy. While cast and forged iron club heads popped up early in the 1800's, their weight and destruction of the expensive balls limited their adoption until later in the century.
This period in stickmaking also saw the rise of several famous iterations of clubs. The brassie was a large, bulbous (at least compared to egg-shaped play clubs) wood-ancestor, named for the brass plate fastened to the underside that gave it the sturdiness needed to tackle the harder grounds of Scottish courses. The mashie was an iron-headed club with a hickory shaft designed to function as a mid-range club. Imparting backspin like modern wedges, the loft on a mashie varied wildly (standardization would come much later), which means the club was probably used more like modern day 5-7 irons.
The niblick had been in use since the early days of golf, and was one of the first club designs to adopt an iron head. The low swing velocities of approach shots made it safe enough to hit the delicate ball. Again, the widespread, and boutique manufacture of clubs by local artisans meant there was a huge variety in the niblick's loft, but most golf historians would compare its use to a modern 9 iron.
The earliest clubs were glorified walking sticks until the Industrial Revolution
It was common for golfers to carry a vast array of specialized clubs, designed for how they played, and modified by years of use. Standardization would finally come to golf in 1939, where the R&A (golf's governing body that took its name from the Royal and Ancient Club of St. Andrews) limited the golf bag to today's 14 clubs. With the number of clubs firmly locked, specialist clubs like the niblick, brassie, mashie, spade mashie, lofting iron, jigger, and cleek were replaced by numbered woods and irons, each with their own set loft angle.
The Legend of Sabbath Sticks
While it is certainly true that The Church of Scotland frowned upon golfing on Sunday, the use of so-called Sabbath Sticks was the rationalizer’s way around such stuffy vexing. The ban on golf on the Lord's day lasted, surprisingly, to 1925, and was only recalled by a narrow margin from a bill introduced in 1898.
Clubmakers, however, did design walking stick-golf club hybrids that were, as legend goes, used to surreptitiously play a round of golf wherever one presented itself. While having an innocent walk soon-to-be-spoiled, the disguised golfer could look around to assess if they were alone or in the company of friends. If the coast was clear, they’d drop a ball from their pocket, quickly invert their sabbath stick, and use club-head-shaped handle to strike the ball towards the hole.
Vintage Golf Balls
As previously mentioned, golf ball technology was largely responsible for hindering club progression for hundreds of years. Not only were early balls expensive, but they were also prone to splitting open if struck too hard, or to simply falling apart from overuse.
Featheries
Like most sports balls, early golf balls were made of leather. These hand sewn balls were stuffed with "one tophat's worth of down", that was moistened before stuffing inside the stitched leather casing. The delicate work of making golf balls, and the considerable amount of down that went into their manufacture drove the cost of an average featherie so high, that losing or destroying one was simply not an option.
Gutta Percha
Though it could hardly be called a humanitarian victory, Europe's colonial expansion into every corner of the globe introduced home new materials in abundance. Around 1850, the west's discovery of gutta percha rubber advanced golf technology by leaps and bounds. The "gutty" ball was a solid, uncured rubber ball that could be mass produced quickly and easily. They were a great deal heartier than featheries, and therefore promoted the rapid adoption of all the aforementioned club technology of the late 19th century.
Haskell
In 1899, Coburn Haskell and B.F. Goodrich employee, Bertram G. Work created a three-layer ball that would serve as the model for the modern golf ball we know and love today (until TaylorMade went and added TWO extra layers in 2021). The Haskell ball had a solid rubber core, wrapped in rubberized string, and was finished with gutta percha.
These legendary triple-core balls were said to give golfers 20 yards out of thin air, and would begin to revolutionize the modern golf ball industry.
From the Niblick to the Hybrid, One Thing Stays the Same
Golf is still as frustrating and rewarding as it was for the earliest players. Even the highest of high borns swinging the latest and greatest club of their day knew it wasn’t the equipment that discouraged the intended trajectory. While today’s mishits may go farther and farther into the woods thanks to our technology, the mechanics of golf and the one who holds the club is the main difference between success and failure. And that’s one thing about golf that will never change.