Tell me not, in mournful numbers
“Life is but an empty dream!”
A Psalm of Life, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
In 1927, esteemed golf writer/essayist Bernard Darwin took note of what he perceived as a rather dismal trend in the game – the ever building momentum toward numbered clubs rather than the traditional names of mashie, jigger, niblick, etc. It was to be deplored, or, at least, “mourned.” What follows is the great man’s lament over the disappearance of one of golf’s rather more colorful traditions. The essay is from The Times and appears on page 255 of Bound for St Andrews, a compilation of Darwin essays and writings published by Dormy House Press and Dick Verinder.
Mournful Numbers
February 4, 1927
By Bernard Darwin
A polite gentleman has sent me an account of a series of iron clubs which are presently to be exhibited. There are six of them, all irons, and they will cover between them the whole wide field of iron play. In each case, I am told, the blade will be of the same shape, and each club will differ from its fellows only in loft and weight, and, of course, in length of shaft; nothing is said about the not unimportant matter of lie. A particular feature of this band of iron brothers is that each head will bear a number, so that as far as the caddie is concerned they will be fool-proof. You will merely ask for a number and you will get it.
Now I have no manner of doubt that they will be admirable clubs worthy of their maker, and I have, if possible, still less doubt that I shall not buy them. It is not merely that I am not rich enough to buy six irons at a time, but must scrape and save and treat myself to one now and again as an un-birthday present. If I rolled in money like Mr. Rockefeller I should still decline. I dislike this modern fashion of calling an iron by a dull, impersonal number; I hate being told to take my ‘No. 3.’ And invariably reply, not without heat, that I have not got one and don’t know what it means. If, when I am in a bunker, my caddie tells me to take my ‘No. 6,’ which I assume to be some sort of niblick, I will brain him with it and take my chance of the jury returning a verdict of justifiable caddie-cide.
It seems such a soulless, cut-and-dried business. An iron is at least a friend, if not a mistress, and, according to my possibly unorthodox theology, it has an immortal spirit. When my best-beloved mashie grows too light with the cleaning of years or cracks in the neck, I do not cast its body into the dust-heap, and I firmly believe that its soul goes socketing on. Then why should I deny it the meager honour of a name?
Neither is this soullessness confined, under the new dispensation, to our relations with our clubs; it also affects those with our caddies. Caddies are sometimes stupid, but there is no sufficient justification for treating them purely as beasts of burden, who can count up to three or to six. There is a pleasant feeling of fellowship, of common cause against a common foe, in telling out caddie that this is what we call our driving iron and that our light one. Then, too, I am conservative enough to dislike the implication that there is just one kind of shot to be played with one kind of club. I like to be told, even if I am conscious of being unable to play it, that a nice firm half-shot will get me there. I do not want a robot for a caddie, but a ‘soaring human boy’ who will now and again lead me into disaster, or at any rate afford me an excuse for failure.
There is something terribly practical and prosaic in calling clubs only by numbers. Can it be that romance is dead? I want my clubs to have names just as I want them to be decorated with a rose or a pipe, authentic symbols or the artists who forged them. Possibly the names of clubs are not what they were. There is a touch of vulgarity about ‘jigger,’ of underbred familiarity about ‘Sammy’ or ‘Benny.’ ‘Mashie-niblick is an ugly hybrid, and the disappearance of ‘lofting-iron’ is to be regretted. If it were not too consciously archaic I should like to possess a ‘sand-iron’ and a ‘track-iron.’ Still, any names are much better than none at all. Moreover, some people can put something of their own individual character and genius into the names of their clubs. There is Mr. de Montmorency’s ‘push cleek,’ for instance. What memories does it recall of gorgeous shots hit low and straight as an arrow through the turbulent winds of Rye ! Will anyone ever have to prepress his excited tears at the thought of Mr. Snooks’s No. 4? I can hardly think so. There was a club belonging to that fine golfer now too seldom seen, Mr. Harold Beveridge. He used to call it, not with any deceitful intent, but I suppose as an affectionately diminutive term, ‘my little baffy.’ It sent the ball hurtling incredible distances, and the wise man who had to play the like played it with his brassy, and then he was short. I knew one golfer, not quite as eminent as these, but just as full of character, who had a whole mysterious code, as do American football players, and would debate with his caddies the respective merits of a ‘full pipe’ or a ‘half Simpson.’ It would be sad if the golfer had no such outlets for his own individuality or poetic feeling.
It is undeniable that many golfers may be saved from the consequences of their own lack of judgment by thus buying their irons, like the game of croquet, complete in a box. There are many – you may see their bags any day in a club-house rack – whose irons are inhomogeneous to an excessive degree, whose driving irons are long, light and flat, while their mid-irons are short, heavy and upright. This is carrying the grand principle of liberty of choice too far. So much I freely admit, but that is no reason why all the romance, all the sweet familiarity of our lives with our clubs should be taken from us. Even an Eastern potentate, I imagine, does not allude to his wives by numbers. It is bad enough when famous golfing holes lose their names, but clubs – perish the thought! If, when next I go to Hoylake, my caddie says to me: ‘This is the seventh hole and you must take your No. l,’ I shall reply: ‘No, Sir’ (and I shall try to infuse something of Dr. Johnson into my manner), ‘No, Sir. This is the Dowie, and I shall take my driving iron.’