a club for every occasion
Prior to the introduction of the limit on golf clubs to 14, players were free to carry as many or as few golf clubs as they desired. To give you an idea of the disparency between how many clubs players used before the restrictions came into play, the 1913 US Open was won by Francis Ouimet with 7 clubs but the 1934 British Amateur was won by Lawson Little with an astonishing 31. I bet you can guess which player I’d rather have caddied for.
the need for change
In 1922, steel-shafted golf clubs began to go on sale but weren’t proving to be particularly popular with professional golfers. Until this point, players used hickory clubs and were generally comfortable with them because they knew exactly where each shot with each club would land. The introduction of steel-shafted clubs brought with it the prospect of a longer and more consistent ball flight, however, players would have to invest a great deal of time and effort into getting used to them if they were to switch.
In 1924, Herbert C Lagerblade became the first player ever to use steel-shafted golf clubs during a US Open. Shortly after, other players began to follow suit, however, with no upper club limit in place and to give them the best of both worlds, players often carried both a set of hickory and a set of steel clubs in their bag. On some occasions, caddies were even required to lug two golf bags to ensure they could carry all of the clubs the player needed. One field study at the US Open and Amateur discovered that the average number of clubs used by players was 18 – four more than the current limit.
At the 1935 US Open, things began to come to a head when one player turned up with 32 clubs in their bag, including a full set of both left and right-handed clubs. It was after this event that the USGA began to take a serious look at limiting the number of clubs players could carry and use. They had three main aims in mind:
- Preserve the element of skill in the game of golf
- Ensure a level playing field in terms of access to golf equipment (wealthy players could often afford to buy more clubs than those less well off)
- Look after the welfare of the caddies who were regularly carrying bags weighing more than 15 kgs.
time to mix things up
Officially, the rules changed on September 1939, when the 13th edition of the rules of golf was published which included a limit on the number of clubs a player could carry within Rule 1, stating:
The clubs used by a player during a round shall not exceed 14, and the clubs carried shall be restricted to that number.
why 14 golf clubs?
In all honestly, no one really knows why the USGA decided on 14 clubs as the upper limit. USGA president John Jackson proposed 14 to the USGA Rules of Golf Committee back in 1936, two years before the rule came into effect. It’s suggested that 14 was perhaps chosen as the ideal number after a conversation between Bobby Jones and Tony Torrance at the 1936 Walker Cup about the number of clubs they each carried during their playing careers. Torrance stated that he carried only 12 clubs whereas Jones mentioned that he used 16 en route to his 1930 Grand Slam. Supposedly, they settled on 14 being a suitable limit as a compromise.
The limit of 14 clubs also seemed to suit the players using the now increasingly popular sets of steel-shafted irons. Prior to their introduction, players used hickory clubs which were almost always miss matching and not part of a set. Aside from the length and consistency steel-shafted clubs offered, another benefit was the fact they could be produced as part of a matching set. The first matching set was produced by George Nicoll of Leven (Scotland), with clubs numbered from 1-9. Matching steel sets of irons quickly caught on and almost all major manufacturers began to produce a matching set of 9 irons, numbered 1-9. Players would then often add an additional 4 clubs (woods) and a putter to their bags, taking their total to 14.
I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed researching and writing it. Let me know in the comments area below what you think of the 14 club rule. Should we be allowed to use more clubs, is the limit too high or are things just right as they are? Also, how many clubs do you carry in your bag?
Andy
