Lad, hand me that Mashie

Why 14 clubs? Why not 13 or 15? This is the sort of heartless badgering your beleaguered scribe has had to endure while striving to reorganise his addled mind after the holiday season. And the only excuse offered by my Bray correspondent is that the rule happened to be implemented 60 years ago this month.

In fairness, he also supplied some humorous observations on the subject from Punch magazine under the heading "Letters to the Secretary of a Golf Club." Remember, this was a time when golfers were just getting used to the demise of hickory and the advent of matched sets of steel-shafted clubs.

A typical letter read: "Dear sirs, All this talk about the new rule has just brought home to me the fact that caddies are paid for carrying bags irrespective of their weight. Unless you can see your way to introduce a sliding scale of charges based on the number of clubs used by a player, I shall feel it incumbent on myself to put a few bricks at the bottom of my bag so as to bring up the weight and so get my just money's worth."

Then there was the letter from J Bystander: "Dear sirs, Thank goodness for the new rule, for if it is passed, spectators at competitions will have none of the ghastly delay when the player and his caddy start hunting for the understudy of the understudy of the number four iron."

For the record, this is how the various clubs corresponded: Baffing spoon (wood) - nine-iron/wedge; Baffy - four-wood; Blaster - sandwedge; Brassie - two-wood; Cleek - two-iron; Jigger (also known as a Sammy) - four-iron; Mashie - five-iron; Mashie-niblick - seven-iron; Niblick - eight/nine-iron; Play club - driver; Spoon - three-wood.

Initially, leading players settled for five or six clubs at most, but they soon realised that each shot had its own, special demands. So, clubs like the rut-iron were born, while existing models were given different lofts. Things went so far that Scotty Campbell, a member of the 1936 US Walker Cup team, carried 32 clubs including seven niblicks.

Some would argue that the game lost much of its early romance when, in that same year, the Spalding company introduced matched sets of clubs which were numbered instead of named. And significantly, it was also in 1936 that Robert Harris, the then chairman of the golf-ball sub-committee of the Royal and Ancient's Rules of Golf Committee, had a rather special meeting with John Jackson, president of the US Golf Association. The objective was to limit the number of clubs.

In November 1936, the R and A rejected a proposal from Harris that a limit of 14 be introduced. But the USGA adopted the change in January 1938 and in the interest of uniformity, the R and A followed suit 12 months later. Why 14? "It appears to have been an arbitrary decision, based on the practice of the time," said Simon Gunning of the current R and A Rules of Golf Committee.

His view was confirmed to me by an official of the British Golf Museum. So it was that with matched sets of 14 clubs of similar weight, appearance and feel, a marked improvement took place in the standard of play among golfers of all ranks.

"Must you go off and play that wretched game again, darling, leaving me here, alone and sad, to slave over the microwave oven?" "Yes I must, I have promised to make up a four." "Have you no regard for our marriage? Mother did warn me about golfers, but I never thought it would be like this."

"You are being very selfish. I must keep fit. And in any case, the Club Trophy is next month and I am very out of practice." "One day you will return and find me gone, the house empty, the children on the streets." "Yes, well I must be going now. If we don't get off by two, it gets very crowded. I'll be back in time for dinner."

And off she goes to the club and he returns to the kitchen. From Bluff Your Way In Golf, by Peter Gammond.

It seemed strange this week to be referring to the proposed European Seniors' Tour event next August as the first international professional tournament at Ballybunion. But the truth is that professionals have only occasionally sampled the delights of this great links, even in a domestic context.

So far, it has played host to only three important pro events - the 1957 Irish Championship, the 1967 Carrolls No 1 Tournament and the 1978 Carrolls Matchplay. Still, the club actively encouraged ties in that area, as evidenced in the two-year contract signed with Eamonn Darcy as their touring professional in 1979.

If events were few, they were nonetheless notable. For instance, the Irish Professional Championship there happened to deliver a record 10th victory to Harry Bradshaw, who beat Christy O'Connor by four strokes, 14 months before they won the Canada Cup in Mexico City. The Brad's great friend, Fred Daly, was third.

The Carrolls No 1 was memorable for a course record 65 from the then 28-year-old Castle professional, Jimmy Kinsella. Starting on the present sixth, he shot a front nine of 29 with figures of 3-4-3-4-3-33-4-2. Meanwhile, the Matchplay Championship gave Arnold O'Connor his only important success as a professional.

One of the advantages of owning one's own golf course design company is the scope it affords for personalised Christmas cards. Computers can throw up all sorts of appropriate images, like a smiling captain of Europe's victorious Ryder Cup team, trophy in hands, superimposed on a pastoral background.

"The lads in Trajectory, our design company, put it together," said Roddy Carr, manager of Seve Ballesteros. "We did about 50 of them and Seve sent one to each member of the side, with an appropriate message. The rest went to special friends and associates."

On the way to victory in the World Cup at Kiawah Island last November, Paul McGinley was highly critical of the world golf ranking system. He claimed that by enhancing the status of US events, it became loaded against European players.

McGinley's point would appear to be well made. Entering this year as winner of last October's Oki Pro-Am last October; joint-winner of the World Cup with Padraig Harrington and 21st in the 1997 European Order of Merit, he is ranked 103rd in the world - down one place from his 1996/1997 position.

Two places ahead of McGinley is the American lefthander Russ Cochran. His best performance of last year was to be tied second in the Buick Open at Warwick Hills, four strokes behind the winner, Vijay Singh. Otherwise, he made 23 cuts from 29 events and finished 46th in the US money list.

As it happens, there are only three Irish players in the world's top 200 - Darren Clarke (35th), Harrington (78th) and McGinley (103rd).

Despite Justin Leonard's victory, American TV viewers rated last year's British Open no higher than the Bob Hope Classic. That was in eighth position behind the US Masters. In between were: 2 US Open; 3 Western Open; 4 Colonial; 5 USPGA Championship; 6 AT and T Pro-Am; 7 Byron Nelson Classic.

This day is golf history . . . On January 10th, 1950, Ben Hogan completed a four-under-par 280 which most observers believed would win the Los Angeles Open at Riviera CC. The effort generated enormous excitement insofar as Hogan was making a competitive comeback after a near-fatal car accident the previous February.

But Sam Snead was still out on the 7,029-yard stretch, with the forbidding target of birdies at the last two holes to tie. As it happened, he sank a 20-footer for a four at the long 17th and then reduced the 443yard 18th to a drive, three-iron and a 14-foot putt for a closing 66.

The play-off was postponed for a week so that the players could compete in the Bing Crosby Pro-Am. And when they returned to Riviera, Snead easily won the play-off with a 69 to Hogan's 76. So, having won the Los Angeles Open in 1942, 1947 and 1948 and the 1948 US Open at what became known as Hogan's Alley, the Hawk would never again get so close to success at Riviera.

Teaser: In a match, A played a wrong ball to a green and then found his own ball in the hole. His own ball had been holed in three strokes, which was fewer strokes than B had taken. However, B claimed the hole on the ground that A had played a wrong ball. A did not dispute the claim. A lost the match. Later, A learned that because he had completed the hole when his own ball was holed and before play of a wrong ball, the play of the wrong ball was irrelevant and he was the rightful winner of the hole in question. A then lodged a claim with the committee. Was the claim valid?

Answer: No. Since A did not dispute B's invalid claim before B played from the next teeing ground, B's claim stands and B won the hole in question (Rule 2-5).