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It is to meet the difficulties arising from having to strike the ball in its different positions that so many instruments are called into requisition for the purpose. The names of the chief sticks and implements employed in the sport are: driver, brassie, spoon, cleek, iron, mashie, niblick and putter. The driver, brassie and spoon are wooden-headed clubs, but the others have always iron heads.
If at this stage there is any chance of finding a ball afterwards, it is a good thing to drive a few from each tee and play them with the brassy, cleek, irons, or mashie up to the green.
"Man, if I only had that trick of yours in handling the mashie and the niblick, I could do the round a stroke a hole better, for there isn't a rut, or a tuft, or a bunker in any course that I seem to be able to keep out of." I showed him the knack of it as it had been taught me by an old professional at Saint Andrews.
There is no law to enforce the use of the putter, but even when the idea sometimes occurs to a player that it would be best to use his mashie on the green in particular circumstances, he usually rejects it as improper.
The result of an attempt of this kind is always very doubtful. When considering the nature of the backward swing, the question arises as to how far it should be prolonged, and I have already declared myself against making long shots with the mashie.
The joy of driving a ball straight after a week of slicing, the joy of putting a mashie shot dead, the joy of even a moderate stroke with a brassie; best of all, the joy of the perfect cleek shot these things the good player will never know. Every stroke we bad players make we make in hope.
Generally all mashie shots may be separated into three groups. There is what we may call the ordinary mashie shot to begin with meaning thereby a simple lofted stroke, there is the running-up mashie shot, and there is the special stroke which applies extra spin and cut to the ball. There are very pronounced differences between these strokes and the ways of playing them.
The good player who has done all that he ought is thus rewarded by the clear gain of a stroke and the capture of a hole in 4, whilst the man who is a trifle weak with either his drive or his second, or has faltered to the slightest extent at either stroke, has for a certainty to use his mashie before he can call for the putter.
Here there was a pause while Miss Bingley went to the professional's shop to have a tack put into the leather of her mashie, which had worked loose. George Perkins and little Wilberforce, who believed in keeping up their strength, melted silently away in the direction of the refreshment bar, and Ramsden and Eunice were alone.
Of course if the turf is firm there is much greater chance of success with the driving mashie than if it is loose. But one finds by long experience that the cleek is the best and most reliable club for use in all these difficult circumstances.
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