hon's no mashie. It's jest a driver."
Then the day came when I found to my sorrow that I was off my driving
mashie, and not all the most laborious practice or the fiercest
determination to recover my lost form with it was rewarded with any
appreciable amount of success. After a time I got back to playing it in
some sort of fashion, but I was never so good with it again as to
justify me in sticking to it in preference to the cleek, so since then I
have practically abandoned it. This, I am led to believe, is a fairly
common experience among golfers, so the moral would seem to be, that you
should make the most of your good days with the driving mashie, that at
the first sign of decaying power with the club another and most thorough
trial should be given to the deserted cleek, and that at this crisis
that club should be persevered with in preference to the tool which has
failed. The driving mashie usually demands a good lie if it is to be
played with any amount of success. When, in addition to the lie being
cuppy, the turf is at all soft and spongy--and these two circumstances
are frequently combined--the ball very often skids off the face of the
club, chiefly because of its perpendicularity, instead of rising nicely
from the moment of impact as it would do when carefully played by a
suitable cleek. 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. Even the driving
cleeks have a certain amount of loft on their faces which enables them
to get nicely under the ball, so that it rises with just sufficient
quickness after being struck. And there is far less skidding with the
cleek.

This question of skidding calls to mind another feature of iron clubs
generally, and those which are designed for power and length in
particular, which has not in the past received all the consideration
that it deserves. I am about to speak of the decided advantage which in
my opinion accrues from the use of iron clubs with ribbed faces in
preference to those which are smooth and plain. Some golfers of the
sceptical sort have a notion that the ribs or other marking are merely
ornamental, or, at the best, give some satisfaction to the fancy; but
these are certainly not their limits. The counteraction to skidding by
the ribbed face is undoubtedly very great, and