Cleveland Mashie Hybrid

Roger Cleveland started producing replica of classic golf clubs in 1979  before embarking into making their wedges a household name and then a string of all other types of golf clubs before selling his company to a ski manufacturer Rossignol who were later bought by a company called Quicksilver. Quicksilver sold Cleveland Golf and its sub-company Never Compromise (golf putters) to Japan's SRI Sports who owns Dunlop and they combined Cleveland Golf with their own golf brand Srixon.

Today, I am going to share with you on a Cleveland Hybrid - the Cleveland Mashie. Mashie is an old golf club as in mashie niblick which is an iron with a lofted face to hit high shots onto the green. It comes stock with an ultra-lite 59 gram Miyazaki C. Kua shaft which is supposed to help increase distance by up to 10 yards. All traditionalists would love this club for its colour scheme which is retro and its cover. They are all in the same swing weight of D4 ranging from 15.5 to 26 degrees loft for no. 1 to no. 6.

A tumble process produces an unique throw-back look reminiscence of old golf clubs for cosmetics. It looks rugged and they called it a "bullet-proofed" look. The somewhat raw finish gives it a retro look.

The glide rail sole design has a pronounced dual-rail with a subtle centre keel built for playability and versatility for most lies.

As you can see it, this type of hybrid head shape is more iron-like. The grey retro look is intentional cobined with the black shaft lends it a classic look. The shaft has some artwork by C. Kua to give it an arty farty feel. Here, you can see the face looks like an iron face.

The light shaft gave it a heavier swing weight at D4. Cleveland partnered Miyazaki to offer this as a stock shaft quite simply because Miyazaki shaft is owned by SRI. You do not need to spend more time and money to upgrade your shaft as Miyazaki is a renowned shaft-maker and a Tour-level shaft. C. Kua shafts have been used by Tour pros like Boo Weekley and Vijay Singh. C. Kua 59 flex code has been designed for stability in the top three quarters of the shaft with a slightly more active tip section for a mid-trajectory flight, slight fade-bias and added ball speed. Miyazaki is Japan's no. 1 metal wood brand shaft.

C. Kua does not mean watermelon. C. Kua is the name of a designer. The golf swing is considered one of the most artistic movement in all sports and Miyazaki wanted their design originality artistically expressed on canvas for each series and each series is named after the artistic contributions of talented but unknown artists. Each inaugural design is based on the three phases of fluid - ice, water and steam. Their first was by an artist named Kusala.


The head cover is sock-like. You will either love it or hate it. It has to be this way to be classic but I do like the badge. I love badges especially well-designed ones.

The fitting is pretty good and the material used seems durable but the bunny tail is just stitched on and over time may loosen and dislodge.

The club has some hype about it and is enigmatic but can it really live up to the hype? It has a piercing trajectory and well struck shots come with a deeper sound than usual. As in most clubs, you need to go through that honeymoon period and get used to its idiosyncrasies. Obviously choosing an 18 degrees will be a bit more difficult. Well, after all, golf is also a journey and about discovery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g8dgP1Whng&feature=related

Golf as in life, play as it lies.

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