Getting your niblicks in

A pub sign showing a niblick in Auchterarder, Perthshire, Scotland. From Brian Forbes' Flickr stream.

The OED had a good word of the day a few weeks ago: niblick. It sounded like a creature in a fairy tale to me. Alas, it is just a golf club. The definition:

• An iron (formerly wooden) golf club, originally one with a relatively short face and subsequently applied to most lofted irons with a heavy head, used especially for playing out of bunkers and rough ground. (Equivalent to a modern number 8 iron, 9 iron, or wedge.)

It’s origin is uncertain the OED said it could come from nib, since the clubs has a hooked appearance. For another theory, it  cites David Langdon’s 1975 book of golf terms, How to Talk Golf: “Niblick, old fashioned term for a No. 9 iron. Said to be a corruption of Scottish ‘neb laigh’, a broken nose, referring to the short club-face.”