ROBERT CONDIE Hickory Shaft TOM MORRIS Mashie EXCEPTIONAL Restored For PLAY

This is a Robert Condie of St. Andrews, Scotland, "Tom Morris" stamped mashie from circa 1918-1920.  Of course, Robert Condie was considered the cleekmaker who was on a par with the great Tom Stewart, both of St. Andrews, Scotland; and both of whom apprenticed with Robert White of St. Andrews.  Condie died in 1921 and Stewart in 1931---so Stewart produced vastly more clubs and was much better known.While Stewart used a pipe as his cleekmark, Condie used the rose pictured on the back of this club.  Both of their cleekmarks were widely copied by American makers as golfers associated these cleekmarks with the finest quality, hickory shaft golf clubs available.Tom Morris, generally considered the most influential figure in the history of golf, had his shop along the 18th fairway on the Old Course in St. Andrews and so this club has an association with two of the great names of the hickory golf era.  The Tom Morris golf shop is still in the same location today that it was when this club would have been sold out of his shop!  This club has been fully restored for play with a flawless & strong hickory shaft (365 cpms on a frequency analyzer--X flex), D-2 swingweight (270 gram head), 16 ounces total weight, and is just under 37 1/2" in length (37 3/8").  The grip is a brain-tanned buffalo leather, rough-side out. Brain-tanning is a more expensive tanning process that produces a leather that remains supple after it gets wet and then dries out---a standard leather grip hardens up when it dries out after getting wet.  The rough-side out leather grip was first noted by Harry Vardon in his 1905 instruction book where he mentioned that he liked the rough-side out grips while the majority of golfers preferred the smooth-side out leather grips. He failed to mention the huge advantage that the rough-side out grip possesses in wet conditions---it has fantastic gripping power while wet and the smooth leather gets very slick. Think it rains much in the UK? Well, Harry won a record six British Opens.The grip has been treated with a coating of 100% natural pine tar to give it an extra measure of dry weather gripping power (the pine tar does not affect its great wet weather playability and is just slightly tacky to the touch).  Grip size is +1/64"---slightly larger than a standard era hickory grip or the same size as most modern standard grips.The loft is 35 degrees, common for a strongly lofted mashie of the era. The fairly wide sole (pictured) sits flat at this loft with neither bounce nor dig. The lie angle, which is easily adjusted, is currently 58 degrees---unaltered from the original specs, slightly flat by most modern standards.I test played this mashie for several rounds---it hits every bit as good as my 1st team club; and I almost made a hole-in-one with it on a 160 yard par 3! Fantastic player.