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Controlled source archive
In St Andrews, golf's history can be read not only across the Old Course, but in the clubs that local craftsmen shaped for the evolving game.
As golf developed in St Andrews, specialist clubmaking grew alongside it. Hugh Philp was appointed clubmaker to the Society of St Andrews Golfers in 1819, followed by makers including Robert Forgan and the Auchterlonie family. Wooden heads, forged irons and hickory shafts evolved into clubs with distinctive purposes and names such as cleek, mashie and niblick. That tradition has not disappeared entirely: traditional hickory clubs are still being made in the St Andrews area today.
The original clubs are much more than sporting memorabilia. They can be read as working tools, shaped for particular problems on the course. The shape, loft, weight and material each helped the golfer overcome a variety of challenges found on the course. Around St Andrews itself, surviving businesses and even the strike marks in the flagstone floor of Old Tom Morris's workshop show how closely playing golf and making its equipment once sat side by side.
This story carries some wonderful old golfing language, much of it rooted in Scotland, alongside the innovation and curiosity of people trying to solve problems and improve the game. Cleeks, mashies, niblicks and spoons sound wonderfully unlike today's numbered sets, but each developed because somebody was trying to solve a problem on the course. I love the audacity of makers and players using the giant niblick. It looks almost like the golfing equivalent of taking a shovel into a sandpit, an attempt to make recovery from a difficult lie that bit easier. In St Andrews you can still connect these sporting relics with the people who made and used them, sometimes only a few steps from the Old Course itself.
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