ted and lighter.
Making a broad classification, there are driving cleeks, ordinary
cleeks, pitching cleeks, and cleeks with the weight in the centre. For
the last-named variety I have little admiration, excellent as many
people consider them to be. If the ball is hit with absolute accuracy in
the centre of the club's face every time, all is well; but it is not
given to many golfers to be so marvellously certain. Let the point of
contact be the least degree removed from the centre of the face, where
the weight is massed, and the result will usually be disquieting, for,
among other things, there is in such cases a great liability for the
club to turn in the hands of the player.

As an alternative to the cleek the driving mashie has achieved
considerable popularity. It is undoubtedly a most useful club, and is
employed for the same class of work as the cleek, and, generally
speaking, may take its place. The distinctive features of the driving
mashie are that it has a deeper face than that of the cleek, and that
this depth increases somewhat more rapidly from the heel to the toe. By
reason of this extra depth it is often a somewhat heavier club, and
there is rather less loft on it than there is on the average cleek. When
you merely look at a driving mashie it certainly seems as if it may be
the easier club to use, but long experience will prove that this is not
the case. In this respect I think the driving cleek is preferable to
either the spoon or the driving mashie, particularly when straightness
is an essential, as it usually is when any of these clubs is being
handled. It frequently happens that the driving mashie is used to very
good effect for a while after it has first been purchased; but I have
noticed over and over again that when once you are off your play with
it--and that time must come, as with all other clubs--it takes a long
time to get back to form with it again,--so long, indeed, that the task
is a most painful and depressing one. Five years ago I myself had my
day with the driving mashie, and I played so well with it that at that
time I did not even carry a cleek. I used to drive such a long ball with
this instrument, that when I took it out of my bag to play with it, my
brother professionals used to say, "There's Harry with his driver
again"; and I remember that when on one occasion Andrew Kirkaldy was
informed that I was playing a driving mashie shot, he was indignant, and
exclaimed, "Mashie! Nay, man, t