HITHERTO we have been discussing the workman rather than his tools. Now for the latter, and particularly the clubs of to-day as compared with those of the old days. In my recollection, which extends over a period of twenty-odd years, there have been many and material changes in the make and shape of the implements in use in the game. Yet, considering the enormous strides the game has made in this period of years and the countless individuals who have from time to time attempted the task of evolving some new principle in the fashioning of golf clubs which would revolutionize the playing of the game, it is truly a little remarkable that the golf club of the present day is in general principle much the same as it was twenty or thirty - in fact, fifty - years ago. Moreover, it must be remembered that these individuals with an inventive turn of mind had, until but a short time ago, an absolutely free hand.

There were no restrictions as to the make and shape of the golf club or bar as to the using of mechanical contrivances. When one sums up the whole of their deliberations we find that except in one or two minor details the golf club of the present day is much as it was away back in the past century, which suggests that our forefathers must have had at least a comparatively shrewd idea as to the most satisfactory form of implement with which to propel through the air a circular object of the size of a golf ball.

To my mind, the most radical change which has taken place in the shape of golf clubs and the one which has been most responsible for improvement in the standard of play was the introduction of the bulger, which happened some twenty-four years ago. This statement may seem somewhat remarkable to many golfers who do not remember the days when the rounded convex face was all the rage, as during recent times this form of club has gone almost clean out of position and one seldom comes across a wooden club with a true bulger face.

Occasionally there is a species of revival of the club invented by the late Henry Lamb, but the revival is never sufficiently strong to suggest that the club has come back to take its old place in the affections of the public. The bulger, as fashioned by its inventor, is a club of the past; but one sees its far-reaching effect in nearly every wooden club which is made in the present day, as literally all modern wooden clubs are fashioned much upon Mr. Henry Lamb's idea, with the face of the club to be seen in front of the shaft.

To put the case plainly, the bulger idea brought the whole structure of the club head forward, distributing the balance more in the center of the head. To my way of thinking this alteration in the principles of balance of the wooden club has been the greatest and most lasting improvement in the make and shape of golf clubs within my recollection of the game.

The recollection which many American golfers will have of the fashion of wooden club heads which preceded the bulger stamp probably harks back to occasional glimpses of prehistoric-looking weapons with long, oblong heads, in shape much like the half of a pear, with an abnormal length of lead space at the back and with concave faces curved inward. Until about 1890 this was the general form of golf club head, and in comparison with modern-day club heads was a somewhat cumbersome and inefficient weapon for hitting a golf ball really hard.

In those days, however, the majority of players did not attempt to hit a ball really hard, not nearly so hard as the general run of players do nowadays. This was not because they were in any sense comparatively deficient in physical strength, but for the reason that the balance of the old stamp of club head did not lend itself to hard hitting, and the man who attempted to apply the maximum of his physical powers with these clubs (or one might go further and say anything approaching the maximum of his physical power) was taking more than a great risk; he was almost courting disaster, as the mere force of the blow and the consequent quickness of the downward swing was sufficient to make the long head with the balance toward the toe of the club swing away. Mistiming was the natural result.

The really long drivers in those days were invariably very wild drivers; they could hardly hope to keep straight. The clubs they used would not allow them to. Nowadays a man can hit literally as hard as he likes without any risk of the club letting him down, and most of the first-class players are quite aware of this fact.

The game of golf twenty-five to forty years ago was more a game of scientific persuasion than sheer force; nowadays it is the scientific application of force, and for this change the alteration in the shape and balance of the club head due to the introduction of the bulger is almost altogether responsible. With the old-fashioned club it would have been quite impossible for a player to hit as hard as the majority of players do nowadays, and at the same time hope to attain even a mediocrity of accuracy; he would have been here, there and everywhere.

An improvement of comparatively recent date in connection with the construction of wooden clubs is the method of fastening the head to the shaft by the means either of running the shaft right through the head or of screwing it into the head. I believe this neat and ingenious method of affixing the shaft to the head originally emanated from America, and as a testimony to its value all club makers in the world now join the shaft and the head of the club together by this means.

Personally, however, I am not at all convinced that these socket clubs, as they are termed, are the most serviceable wooden clubs, and I am decidedly inclined to think that the old-fashioned method of joining the shaft to the head by means of glue and whipping is the better for utilitarian purposes, as there is more stability in this class of club than in the socket club, as the latter are very often too fragile for hard work through the green. It is noticeable in this connection that the majority of the leading British professionals have at least one scared club in their bag.