Continuing our journey of discovery in a southerly direction, we next took the train to Nottingham, and thence some few miles out to Hollinwell, passing on the way Bulwell Forest, formerly the home of the Notts Golf Club, but now converted into a very popular municipal course. Though Hollinwell is some miles out of Nottingham, the factory chimneys are not so far away, but that the ball, which starts its career on the first tee a snowy white soon passes through a series of varying greys till it is coal black, unless its complexion is renewed by the use of the sponge. The southern caddie’s simple and natural method of cleaning a ball is not here to be recommended.

Hollinwell is a wonderfully sandy course, and when there is a strong wind one may see great clouds of sand blowing down the course after the most approved seaside fashion. The course is rather curiously shaped, since nearly all the holes lie in a long, wide valley. Sometimes we play down the valley, and sometimes we play across it, tacking this way and that, so that we are never hitting monotonously either with or against the wind. Sometimes also we scale the side of the valley and play along the top of the slope, and herein lies a certain weakness of the course, for these upland holes are not quite worthy of the rest. They are of the downland order, with blind shots, big perplexing slopes, and greens cut out of the sides of hills. Luckily there are but few of them, for they are but poor golf, whereas most of the holes in the valley are very good indeed.

I never saw a course that began with fairer promise, for the first hole looks and is delightful—a good long hole of well over 400 yards in length. To the right stretches a line of bracken, while on the left is a small clump of firs, just near enough to the line to induce a slice into the ferns. This first hole is so good that the other holes have a high standard to live up to, and in one important respect they perhaps do not quite succeed. That wilderness of bracken to the right holds out a promise which is not quite fulfilled, because that which Hollinwell lacks is rough ground severe enough to punish the erratic driver. I have no doubt that I was lucky, but I remember several of the most perfect lies for a brassey which were meted out to me, when in common justice I should have been plying my niblick. The rough’s bark is much worse than its bite, and one may often hit very crooked and not be one penny the worse. More bunkers—many more bunkers—at the sides of the course, and perhaps not quite so many in the middle would be no bad prescription for Hollinwell.

If, however, the course has some faults, it also has many merits, and the most attractive, because the most characteristic holes, are those in which the peculiar character of the ground comes into play. Thus at both the seventh and ninth we play across the breadth of the valley into little gullies that run some way in between the spurs of the hill. If we are perfectly straight, the gully receives us with open arms, but to be at all seriously crooked is to be perched on a hillside among thick grass and red sandstone. These are both holes of a fine length, and though with hitting an arrow-like straightness we may hope for fours, we need not make undue lamentations over fives. The eleventh, again, is a charming hole, where the way to the hole follows the contour of a subsidiary valley that wanders away from the main valley on some little expedition of its own; nor, to retrace our steps, must the second be left out, with its pretty background of trees and water.

After the eleventh the golf degenerates for a while, when we leave the lowlands for the highlands; but, just as we are feeling a little sad, comes a marked improvement at the fifteenth, and we end with two really good holes, one short and one long. To justify its existence as a seventeenth hole, a short hole must needs be a very good short hole, and this is an excellent one, save that the inordinately long approach with the wooden putter should be prevented by a bunker on the left. The eighteenth, except that it is a good deal longer, is almost the converse of the first, and the clump of firs that made us slice at the first tee will certainly trap us if we pull our second shot. This last hole lives in my memory from the fact that it gave to my companion a temporarily undeserved reputation among the golfers of Nottingham. Having played a round of almost unbroken sixes, he placed the ball close to the hole with a long iron shot for his third, and holed the putt before an awestruck assembly in the club-house window with an air and manner suggesting that four was the highest rather than the lowest score that he had accomplished during the round. What is more, he only just failed to do the same thing in the afternoon, although the hole is 555 yards long. Such is the inveterate habit that some people have of playing to the gallery.

From Nottingham our way lay to Birmingham, where we were to play at Sandwell Park. A train journey to a melancholy and mysterious place called Spon Lane, followed by “a penny to the left and a penny to the right” (as we were advised) in a tramcar brought us to West Bromwich. West Bromwich is a name calculated to thrill the football devotee with glorious memories of West Bromwich Albion, but it is not in itself a particularly attractive spot. Yet Sandwell Park must once have been a beautiful place before the houses began to crowd round its gates and the colliery chimneys to pour black volumes of smoke across it. It is a fine park still, if one can only blind oneself to the houses and the chimneys; but that, save in one or two secluded corners, is a difficult task—Birmingham is too all-pervading to permit of many illusions.

We did not see Sandwell under very favourable conditions as regards weather. There was every now and again a flurry of snow, and a most piercingly cold wind blew across the course, rendering useless any number of waistcoats and mittens, and robbing the fingers of all power of gripping the club. It is very difficult under such circumstances to judge of the length of any particular hole, for the wind laughs at yard measures, and reduces a good length hole to a drive and a pitch, and converts a drive and a pitch into a three-shot hole.

Perhaps it was the effect of first going out to face the icy blast, but I thought the first few holes at Sandwell rather poor, being of a hybrid length and not particularly exciting. The golf improves wonderfully, however, as it goes on, and from the seventh onward is infinitely more interesting. The eighth needs a very straight drive, followed by a very delicate second shot—a tricky shot in whatever way we start to play it. If we pitch up the hill, we must pitch just up and no further; while if we run the shot, the hill is just steep enough to induce a lively fear that the ball will refuse to climb it. Moreover, when I played it, the hole was cut with fiendish cunning very close to the top of the hill, so that the very nicest judgment was necessary in order to avoid a long, sloping and curly putt. The ninth consists of an absolutely blind pitch with a small crater, reminding one of a very old but not very highly esteemed friend, the ‘Crater’ hole at Aberdovey. Then comes a hole that is really good, and it seemed to me the best on the course—two honest shots along a narrow neck of turf, which tapers perceptibly as it nears the green.

By this time we have reached the highest point of the links, and now descend into the lowlands again, driving from the ‘Pulpit’ tee to a green which lies in front of the big, white, gloomy house, whence the owner has long since retired, smoked out by the colliery chimneys. A good two-shot hole follows, and next comes one of the most amusing of short holes, which, whether intrinsically good or bad, deserves to escape the zeal of the iconoclast because of its singular character. One hundred and thirty are all the yards it can boast, but between tee and green a terrible monster rears its head in the form of some ancient rifle butts. They tower so high above and so close to us that even with a mashie and a teed ball we are all too likely to err. Moreover, it is not merely a matter of getting over at any price. The hole is quite close to the butts on the far side, and only the ball that shall just drop over and no more should satisfy us. Circumstances alter cases, of course, and with his opponent having the honour and failing to get over, a man may well play his shot with a brassey if he have a mind to it. Then, indeed, it is a case of over at any price, for the ground short of the butts is terribly rough, and a brilliant recovery is not in the least probable. It is the hole that must have been the grave of many hopes, perhaps even of some foursome friendships; and yet, if we were out practising with half a dozen old balls and no one to look at us, we could do as many twos and threes as ever we wanted.

There are some other good holes to follow, but they appear comparatively orthodox and ordinary after that quaint little thirteenth. One of the best things about the course is the turf, which is very springy and pleasant to walk upon. This old park turf very often proves sadly disappointing when it comes to making putting greens out of it, but the Sandwell greens are excellent, and in more propitious weather must be delightful to putt upon.

Another hazard that plays an important part, especially in those holes that come in the middle of the round, is a stream. Full and ingenious use has been made of this stream, and there is a good deal of rather cunning pitching to be done in order to circumvent it; anything in the nature of a running shot is, naturally enough, at a discount.

The course begins quite excellently, and the first two holes are two of the best on the way out. At the first there is a big pool on the right and a generous supply of bunkers on the left, so that the very first tee-shot of the day has to be hit quite unpleasantly straight. If it is so hit, an iron shot of moderate length should see us safely on the green with the orthodox two putts for a four; if it is not, it would be rash to dogmatize as to what our precise score may be. The second hole, again, has one of those interesting carries from the tee that the player can make just as short or as long as he likes, according as his tactics are those of Fabius or some more dashing hero. The green lies on a hill-top some 380 yards away from the tee, and a bold tee-shot, followed by a really well-struck second, may make a four hole of it, but it is a good four.

The sixth is another good hole, although there is rather an aggravating cart track at just such a distance from the tee as to be likely to trap a respectable shot. The green, moreover, is very well guarded by a brook on the left and some pot-bunkers on the right. At the eighth we come to the first of the regular short holes, of which there are three in all, though there are two more which may on occasion be reached with a particularly shrewd blow, and it may be said in parenthesis that it is something of a weakness in the course that none of the three can be called passionately interesting.

It is to be hoped that we get a three at this eighth, for we shall need a little cheering before facing the prospect of real, honest hitting at the next three holes. The ninth is well over four hundred yards long, and we begin the homeward round with a five-hundred-yarder, or something very little short of it. It is not a very thrilling hole, however, and the fourteenth and seventeenth, both good two-shot holes, are certainly more interesting, and perhaps the best in the homeward nine.

The whole course is in good order, and the greens thoroughly well kept, although they are perhaps rather lacking in variety and err on the side of flatness. The soil is good and light, and that is no small thing to be thankful for in the very centre of England, when the nearest seaside golf is as far off as the coast of Wales.

CHAPTER VIII.
OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE.

The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge are rich in many things, but are very decidedly poor in the matter of golf courses. I should be more precise if I said poor in their own courses, for in Frilford Heath and Worlington (or as it is often called, Mildenhall) they are lucky to possess hospitable neighbours, who provide them with very delightful golf indeed.

The courses of Cambridge I know very well indeed, having played over them at intervals during the greater part of my life. With those of Oxford I have only, comparatively speaking, a bowing acquaintance, founded on the annual match between the University and the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society. Before turning to Frilford there is a word to be said of Cowley, Radley, and Hinksey, the latter of which has now ceased to exist. Cowley, so I have heard my friend Mr. Croome declare, is now rather a good course, and as I have never seen it, I most certainly will not venture to contradict him; but I can take my oath as to both Hinksey and Radley that they call for some other epithet. Hinksey was certainly amusing, and I have spent some not wholly unpleasant afternoons there squelching through the mud and trying vainly to hole putts by cannoning off alternate wormcasts. There was a short hole—the fourth, I think—where one played a pitching shot into the heart of a wood which was distinctly entertaining, but on the whole it was not a good test of golf, or, if it was, then I would rather have my golf tested in some other way.

When Hinksey ceased to exist Radley came into being, and it is most decidedly a longer and more difficult course, but I am not certain that it is such good fun. It is a good deal longer; indeed a great many of the holes are of a very good length. There is a really good seventeenth, where one skirts a wood on the right, and granted a good lie—a thing which rests upon the knees of the gods—one may hit two really fine shots and get a fine four. I imagine, however, that no one will be prepared to deny that it is muddy—I will go so far as to say extremely muddy—and in these days we are so pampered with beautiful sandy inland courses that we no longer suffer mud at all gladly. So if we are at Oxford I think we had better throw economy to the winds and charter a ‘taxi,’ which shall take us up Cumnor Hill to Frilford Heath.

Frilford is only seven miles from Oxford, but it might be a hundred miles from anywhere. It lies on a little unfrequented by-road, and is as utterly rural and peaceful a spot as could be found anywhere. Here is sand enough and to spare—a wonderful oasis in the desert of mud. The sand is so near the turf that out of pure exuberance it breaks out here and there in little eruptions on the surface or flies up in a miniature sand-storm as the ball alights. The ground is for the most part very flat, and there are fir trees and whins scattered here and there. There is also a pretty wood of firs and birches, over which we have to drive at the third hole, of which more anon. The greens are a little rough as yet, and some of the bunkers have still to be made, or at least had not been made when I last played there; but time alone is wanted to make Frilford a very fine course indeed. It is already a wonderfully charming one.

The first two holes remind one a little of Muirfield, since there is a stone wall over which a pulled ball will inevitably vanish. The second is a fine long two-shot hole, and at the first, which is somewhat shorter, a highly ingenious use has been made of a solitary tree, which forces the player to drive close to the stone wall if he is to have an open approach. Then comes the third before mentioned, which is a one-shot hole. The wood rises pretty steeply in front of the tee, and the shot is made the more difficult because a cleek is hardly long enough, and so we have to take a wooden club. Many a shot that would under ordinary circumstances fill us with a mild degree of conceit will only send the ball crashing into the forest. It is no hole for the ‘low raker’ which we regard with complacency at Hoylake and St. Andrews. We must hit a fine high towering shot, and then we may hope to find our ball on the green—a pretty little green which nestles close under the lee of the wood on the far side. After this come some long open holes in a country of scattered whin bushes. Exactly how long they are I am not prepared to say. I played them in the company of Mr. A.J. Evans, and he appeared to regard them justifiably enough as two-shot holes, but personally I found myself taking by no means the most lofted of my iron clubs for my third shot. There is a pretty little pitching hole over a stone wall—the seventh—which has a flavour of Harlech about it; and the ninth, which brings us close to the club-house again, is surely one of the most alarming holes in existence. The drive is simple enough, but my goodness, what a second! In front of the green is a mountain, and on either side of the green are deep pits, towards which the ground ‘draws’ most unmistakably. Then the green itself is quite small, and has in its centre a copy of the aforesaid mountain in miniature. The approach shot, moreover, is by no means a short one, but is for the ordinary driver a good firm iron shot, so that a four is really an epoch-making score for the hole.

After the turn it seems to me that the golf shows a distinct falling off. The holes are still long enough and difficult enough, and Mr. Evans still seemed to require one stroke less to reach the green than I did, but for the most part they lack the indefinable charm of the first nine. There is, however, certainly one exception to this general criticism, and that is the really fascinating seventeenth, which is emphatically the right hole in the right place. There is a wood and a stone wall to carry, and the angle at which we play is such that there is a very real reward for the long ball which is judiciously hooked. A good as opposed to an ordinary drive may make all the difference between a four and a five, for the green is full of undulations, and the nearer we are to it when we take our iron in hand the better. Taking it altogether the golf is both good and difficult, and besides that Frilford is essentially one of those places where it is good to be alive with a golf club in one’s hand—even if one uses it indifferently—and whither one looks forward to returning with a very keen enjoyment.

The undergraduates of Cambridge, when they have not the time to go to Worlington, now play golf at Coton, a pleasant little village enough that lies off the Madingley Road. I must spare a word or two, however, for the old course at Coldham Common, because I am quite sure that it was the worst course I have ever seen, and many others would probably award it a like distinction. The way to Coldham was suggestive of the pleasures that awaited one there, for it led down that most depressing of Cambridge streets, the Newmarket Road, and through the most unattractive slums of Barnwell. After voyaging for some distance along the Newmarket Road, one turned down a particularly black and odorous lane, crossed a railway bridge, and reached a flat, muddy expanse of grass, of which the only features were a railway line and some rifle butts. I should also perhaps include among its features a particularly pungent smell, which we always believed—I know not with how much truth—to proceed from the boiling down of deceased horses into glue.

On arriving outside the precincts of the club-house one was at once surrounded and nearly swept from one’s legs by a yelling mob of caddies of most villainous appearance, who were supposed, quite erroneously, to be under the control of a well-meaning but deservedly superannuated policeman. Anyone who played there regularly soon found himself made over, body and soul, to one of these ruffians, and then exchanged the solicitations of the general mob for the unceasing importunities of his own particular henchman in the matter of cast-off clothing.

In addition to the regular corps of caddies there was an irregular body of younger depredators who had no official position, and earned a precarious livelihood by stealing or retrieving balls. They enjoyed considerable opportunities, because there were on the Common a good many muddy ditches—the only natural hazards—and along the edges of these ditches the youth of Barnwell took up strategic positions at stated intervals. Sometimes considerations of policy dictated that they should retrieve the errant ball, and return it to its owner for a penny. Sometimes they would dexterously stamp the ball into the mud, pretend to hunt for it with a great show of energy, and pocket it at their leisure when the owner had abandoned the search. This was an easy matter enough, for the mud was of the softest and thickest, and the ball would frequently bury itself on alighting without any help from the human foot. How our visitors from Blackheath and Yarmouth could bear it I now find a difficulty in understanding, and it says much for their enthusiasm and friendliness that they came to play against us year after year. They put up with it manfully, and very jolly matches we used to have. Indeed, to quote J.K.S., “the smile on my face is a mask for tears,” and I could almost wish to strike another ball at Coldham. I must admit to having enjoyed myself very much there, almost as much as on another course of woeful greens and superlative muddiness—the old Athens course at Eton.

Coton I do not know well, but though an enthusiastic captain of Cambridge once told me that the greens were as good as the best seaside ones, I am disposed to think he was romancing. There is another flourishing course on the Gog-Magog hills, where there is at least a charming view, and twelve or thirteen miles away is Royston. Here there is a truly splendid view over miles and miles of the flat country, for the course lies on a piece of breezy downland perched high above its surroundings. A very jolly place it is whereon to play golf, though the golf perhaps is not of the highest class. It is a course of steep hills and deep gullies, and there is much climbing to be done and much putting on perplexing slopes. Some of these gullies form wonderful natural amphitheatres, and I always like to think that in one of them was fought the battle for the championship of England between Peter Crawley, the ‘Young Rump Steak,’ and Jem Ward, ‘the Black Diamond.’ That the fight took place on Royston Heath we know from Boxiana, but the exact battlefield has become obscured by the mists of time.

Better than all these courses, however, is Worlington, the home of the Royal Worlington and Newmarket Golf Club, who kindly allow the University to use their course and play their matches there. To get from Cambridge to Worlington is rather a serious undertaking, for although the station, Mildenhall, is but a little over twenty miles away, the progress made by the infrequent trains is of the most leisurely. Still, we do get there in time, passing poor deserted Coldham Common on the way, and the golf is good enough to repay us for all our trouble. Worlington is not unlike Frilford in appearance, being extremely solitary, flat, and sandy, and dotted here and there with fir trees. There are only nine holes, but of these several are really excellent, and none can fairly be said to be dull. One curious feature of the course is that one may play a round there which shall be made up almost entirely of fives and threes. This was conspicuously the case in the days of the gutty ball, for there were four holes that could be reached from the tee, although the second hole certainly required a very long shot, and five which were beyond the range of two full shots, save for colossal drivers. Whoever laid out the course clearly had no great opinion of Mr. Hutchinson’s doctrine as to the length of a hole being some multiple of a full drive, and had no objection to two drives and a pitch. Nowadays with the rubber ball some of the old-time fives have become fours, but they are difficult fours requiring in one or two cases fine long-carrying second shots, and fives are still likely to preponderate.

Of all the courses that I know well, none shows so well as Worlington the difference between the solid and the elastic ball, and a particular instance, which is historic in a very small way, may be given. The third hole is an extraordinarily good one, wherein the green lies just beyond a marshy ditch and is also well protected by pot-bunkers. After the tee-shot, one has to carry ditch, bunkers and all, but a weak drive necessitates playing short, and the shot is an extremely difficult one, because the ball has to be placed on a narrow neck of grass which slopes down on either side to a ditch and other horrors. Just before I went up to Cambridge there had been a great foursome between Douglas Rolland, Willy Park, Hugh Kirkaldy, and Jack White, who was then the professional at Worlington; and a certain shot of Rolland’s was spoken of with bated breath as being something altogether superhuman. With a fair breeze against him, he had actually reached the third green with his second shot. The hole is still the same length: the tee is back as far as it will possibly go, and yet one can as a rule get home with an iron club of no inordinate power, while it takes a very strong wind indeed to make it necessary to play short. This third is a wonderfully good hole still, but it was more heroic in the old days.

A hole that does to-day require two heroic shots is the sixth; indeed the green can only be reached in two with a favouring wind. Along the whole length of the hole, on the right-hand side, runs a belt of fir trees, while in front of the green is a ditch. If one clings very closely to the firs with the tee-shot, and then plays a big, high-carrying brassey shot, one may hope to see the ball just clear the last fir tree and drop down close to the hole. Another hole that nobody is ever likely to forget is the fifth. One may reach the green with a pitch from the tee, but what a difficult pitch it is. The green is something in the shape of a hog’s back; immediately on the left of it is a stagnant pool of water, and on the right is a stream, complicated by overhanging willows. To reach the green is one distinct feat; to hole out in two putts, when one has got there, is another. For the most part the whole course is delightfully dry and sandy, in spite of the presence of many ditches, and the greens, when they are good, are very good, though they have sometimes a tendency towards getting a little bare and tricky.

It is no small thing for the Cambridge teams to have this admirable practising ground, and this alone should make for an improvement in Cambridge golf. University golf, however, has naturally improved a good deal in the last few years. Twelve years ago a freshman who should come up to either University and show himself to be already a good or even a goodish golfer was something of a phenomena. Nowadays thousands of school boys play golf, and consequently there is nearly always a supply of freshmen who can play a good game when they first come up. In the last century—to use a formidable expression—there was usually a considerable gap between the first two or three men and the last. In the very earliest days Oxford had two very fine players in Mr. Horace Hutchinson and Mr. Alexander Stuart, while Cambridge had Mr. Welsh, now a tutor at Jesus, and the possessor of a monumental reputation at Machrihanish. The other members of the side were generally of a very different calibre, and some of them would be badly off nowadays with any handicap under eighteen. Later on in the early nineties Cambridge had some fine sides, with Mr. Low, Mr. Colt, Mr. Eric Hambro, and other good players, and to this day probably the best University side that ever played was the much quoted Oxford side of 1900, of which Mr. Mansfield Hunter was the captain.

On the whole, however, the general standard of play is higher to-day, and personally I was enormously struck with the golf in the match at Hoylake in 1910. For one thing, the driving was wonderfully steady and good, and some of it very long, and all the play was well worth the watching, which is more than could have been said for some of it not so very, very long ago.

CHAPTER IX.
A LONDON COURSE.

By a Long Handicap Man.

I should like at the outset briefly to explain who I am and why I am writing this chapter. I am known to every golfer—I play fairly regularly, generally on a Saturday afternoon, sometimes in the evening during the summer; I am genuinely keen on the game, and can honestly say that I devote a good deal of thought and attention to it; I enter for all the competitions at my club, but my name rarely appears on the list of those who have returned scores—my card is generally torn up about the fourteenth hole, frequently earlier. I believe that I come in for a good deal of abuse at the hands of the very low handicap man. “These chaps ought not to be allowed on the course,” or “There should be a special time for starting these long handicap men,” or again, “My good sir, I’ve seen the man in front of me play his third, and he’s not yet reached the bunker yet!” These and similar remarks are samples of what one has to bear.

One might perhaps gently remind the impatient expert that, after all, we long handicap men do serve some useful purpose; they, too, were once even as we are now, and, moreover, without us the spoils of the fortnightly ‘sweep’ would be distinctly lessened; now and again, also, one of us suddenly ‘comes on his game,’ and, if it be in a knock-out competition, spreads havoc and devastation among the players with handicaps of under six.

I am sometimes inclined to think that the long handicap player gets quite as much, if not more, enjoyment from his golf than does the man who receives only a small number of strokes from scratch. We are not so much depressed when we miss our drive, because it happens to us so much more frequently, and the joy we experience when we execute a perfect shot (and this does sometimes happen) is all the keener because of its comparative rarity. Furthermore, our anguish, when we are ‘right off our game,’ can be nothing in comparison with that of the skilled golfer who is in a similar condition (and I understand that this happens to even the greatest—have we not heard of Vardon failing at two-foot putts and Massy missing the ball altogether?)

I have been privileged to read Mr. Darwin’s account of the famous courses of the British Isles, and it has been suggested that the thought might occur to long handicap players like myself that, reading of these fours and threes which figure so frequently, one may be tempted to despair and say, “This is all very fine for the plus man, but what sort of a game could I play on such a course? My low, raking shot will not land me home on to the green; it will, I know, inevitably take me into a bunker—in how many strokes may I reasonably expect to accomplish the hole?”

I propose, therefore, under the kindly veil of anonymity, to describe the course on which I habitually play, from my point of view; the scratch man may skip this chapter or glance at it with amused scorn; it may possibly be of interest to my long-handicap fellows, who will, at any rate, sympathize with my appreciation of dangers and terrors unsuspected by the more expert player.

The course is, like so many links in the neighbourhood of London, essentially a summer course; in the winter it is little better than a mud heap; we have a local rule which allows us (from October to March) to lift and drop without penalty if the ball is buried—and in the ordinary friendly match the wiser players agree to tee their balls through the green rather than laboriously hack them out of the villainous lies, where they are almost inevitably to be found during the winter months.

But in summer it can hold its own with most inland courses; the situation is delightful, the views extensive, and one can scarcely believe that one is not far from the four-mile radius.

The course is crowded on a fine Saturday afternoon, and it is necessary to put down a ball and give our names to a starter. We note that the man who put down a ball just after us whispers to his opponent: we also know quite well what he is saying, though we cannot hear him. “It will be all right, they are sure to lose a ball at the first two or three holes,”—to which the other replies under his breath, “No such luck, they don’t hit far enough to lose a ball!”

Our first drive is of the type described by Mr. Darwin as ‘exhilarating’—that is, we stand on a height and drive down a hill. The plus men take their cleeks (when the wind is behind them), and wait until the party in front is off the green; we do not take a cleek, but we wait, from pride of heart rather than fear of manslaughter, until the starter says, “All right now, sir!”

After our stroke we say, “It’s brutal driving off before a gallery!” After his, he replies, “Yes, it always puts me off.”

There are several other holes of an ‘exhilarating’ character—the eighth, fourteenth and fifteenth—at the first-named there is splendid opportunity of driving out of bounds; at the fourteenth we should strongly advise the player to avoid the wire-netting about twenty yards in front of the tee to the left; the stance for the second shot leaves a good deal to be desired. A really fine slice at the fifteenth will take us comfortably on to the green—but it is the fourteenth green, and, choose we never so wisely the spot on which to drop our ball, there still remains a hedge to negotiate: it is not an easy green to approach—if you elect to play short of the green and run on, your ball stops dead; while if you play a nice, firm shot on to the green, it invariably abandons all idea of being a pitch at all, and suddenly converts itself into a magnificent running approach and careers gaily right across the green towards the ninth flag.

The third is our short hole; a good, honest thump with a mashie lands us in the hedge on the left of the green, whence recovery is somewhat difficult, while the ordinary foozle meets with an even worse fate in a hedge just in front; in the ditch beyond the first hedge is a large heap of cut grass. There is ample opportunity here for skilful niblick work, which compels the admiration of the two or three couples behind us, who have meanwhile collected on the tee.

The ninth is a shortish hole, for which one is popularly supposed to take an iron club. As this course of action always results in our having to play a long second out of the rough, we usually take a wooden club and slice into the tennis courts or the field beyond. With our third we may reach a cross-bunker, and a well-executed niblick shot takes us into a ditch on the other side. We wend our way once more behind the bunker (fortunately, we cannot hear the remarks of the couple behind us), and with a skimming, half-topped mashie shot reach the edge of the green. Three firm putts should see us down, winning the hole from our adversary, who misses a ‘very short one.’

The sixteenth is the long hole; it has, I believe, been done in four; it has also been done in fourteen—I can vouch for the latter figure. There is nothing very terrible about the drive: one may certainly go unpleasantly near a tree and a hedge, but only a very long driver, slicing his best, can hope to reach them; it is true, a bad pull lands us in a ditch which runs parallel to the fairway, but the usual topped ball merely comes to rest in very moderately rough grass. Our second shot needs some ‘placing,’ for the path which runs through the bunker is perilously narrow—we shall probably do better to play short deliberately (in which case I always find that I can hit so much farther than I had supposed); little by little, we make our way up the slope to the ditch in front of the fourteenth tee, and from there you may take any number of strokes to the green, according as you avoid the very long grass.

Perhaps the best hole on the course is the thirteenth. A sliced drive disturbs the equanimity of players coming to the seventeenth green, but a long second takes us out of danger of sudden death, and lands us comfortably in a cross-bunker. If, in addition to our crime of topping, we have added that of slicing, we have brought ourselves well up against some very awkward trees, and, in extricating ourselves from these, anything may happen. If we escape double figures here, we may consider that we are at the top of our form.

It is of no use to hope that your drive will jump the bunker at the fifth: I have tried the long, low, raking shot here many times, but the bunker is too high and too far away to be run through successfully; it is much better to slice unblushingly into comparative safety. Our second shot needs to be spared—my ‘spared’ shots usually travel about ten yards—but a ‘low, scuffling’ shot runs obligingly down the slope, and may (or may not) stop on the green. Another way, as Mrs. Glasse says, is to play violently to the left, strike the bank and run down towards the hole—it is necessary, however, to carry out the second part of the programme, or we may be in serious trouble in the rough.

At the end of our round we return to the club-house, flushed with healthy exercise, with a full and particular knowledge of the bunkers of the course, but with the proud consciousness that we have not been passed, and that we have faithfully replaced every divot.

CHAPTER X.
ST. ANDREWS, FIFE AND FORFARSHIRE.

Really to know the links of St. Andrews can never be given to the casual visitor. It is not perhaps necessary to be one of those old gentlemen who tell us at all too frequent intervals that golf was golf in their young days, that we of to-day are solely occupied in the pursuit of pots and pans, and that Sir Robert Hay, with his tall hat and his graduated series of spoons, would have beaten us, one and all, into the middle of the ensuing week. Such a degree of senile decay is fortunately not essential, but one ought to have known and loved and played over the links for a long while; and I can lay no claims to such knowledge as that. I can speak only as an occasional pilgrim, whose pilgrimages, though always reverent, have been far too few. I do not know by instinct whether or not my ball is trapped in ‘Sutherland’; I only just know the difference between ‘Strath’ and the ‘Shelly’ bunker; I could not keep up my end in an argument as to the proper line to take at the second hole—I am, in short, a very ignorant person, who means thoroughly well.

There are those who do not like the golf at St. Andrews, and they will no doubt deny any charm to the links themselves, but there must surely be none who will deny a charm to the place as a whole. It may be immoral, but it is delightful to see a whole town given up to golf; to see the butcher and the baker and the candlestick maker shouldering his clubs as soon as his day’s work is done and making a dash for the links. There he and his fellows will very possibly get in our way, or we shall get in theirs; we shall often curse the crowd, and wish whole-heartedly that golf was less popular in St. Andrews. Nevertheless it is that utter self-abandonment to golf that gives the place its attractiveness. What a pleasant spectacle is that home green, fenced in on two sides by a railing, upon which lean various critical observers; and there is the club-house on one side, and the club-maker’s shop and the hotels on the other, all full of people who are looking at the putting, and all talking of putts that they themselves holed or missed on that or on some other green. I once met, staying in a hotel at St. Andrews, a gentleman who did not play golf. That is in itself remarkable, but more wonderful still, he joined so rationally, if unobtrusively, in the perpetual golfing conversation that his black secret was never discovered. I do not know if he enjoyed himself, but his achievement was at least a notable one.

I am writing this chapter, when I am but newly returned from St. Andrews, after having watched all the champions of the earth play round the course for three strenuous days. The weather was perfect; there was scarcely a breath of wind, and violent storms of rain had reduced the glassy greens to a nice easy pace. Scores of under eighty were absurdly plentiful, and, indeed, if someone had come in with a score of under seventy I think the news would have been received without any vast degree of astonishment. Yet, with all this brilliant, record-breaking golf being played over it, the course never looked really easy. The champions certainly got their fours in abundance, but they had to work reasonably hard for most of them. Nor did one suffer from the delusion, as one does when playing the part of a spectator upon simple courses, that one could have done just as many fours oneself. St. Andrews never looks really easy, and never is really easy, for the reason that the bunkers are for the most part so close to the greens. It is possible, of course, to play an approach shot straight on the bee line to the flag, and if we play it to absolute perfection all may go well; but let it only be crooked by so much as a yard, or let the ball, as it often will do, get an unkind kick, and the bunker will infallibly be our portion. Consequently the prudent man will agree with Willy Smith of Mexico, who declared that it was unwise to “tease the bunkers”; he will not attempt to avoid these greedy, lurking enemies by inches or even feet, but he will give them a good wide berth and avoid them by yards. The result of this policy is that the man who is getting his string of fours has to be continually laying the ball dead with his putter from a reasonably long way off, and so St. Andrews is a fine course for him who can do good work at long range with a wooden putter.

Let not the reader hastily assume that his only difficulty at St. Andrews will be to keep out of the clutches of the bunkers lying close to the greens; he will find plenty more stumbling-blocks in his path. There is the matter of length, for instance. The holes, either out or home, do not look very long when Braid is playing them with the wind behind him, but it is an entirely different matter when we have to play them ourselves with the wind in our teeth. Then we shall very often be taking our brasseys through the green, and yet be doing tolerably well if we have nothing higher than a five. There are a great many holes that demand two good shots, as struck by the ordinary mortal; there are three that he cannot reach except with his third, and there are only two that he can reach from the tee, of which one by common consent is the most fiendish short hole in existence. Thus we have two difficulties, that the holes are long, and that there are bunkers close to the greens; now, for a third, those greens are for the most part on beautiful pieces of golfing ground, which by their natural conformation, by their banks and braes and slopes, guard the holes very effectively, even without the aid of the numerous bunkers.

Providence has been very kind in dowering St. Andrews with plateau greens, and they are never easy to approach. A plateau usually demands of the golfer that a shot should be played; it will not allow him merely to toss his ball into the air with a lofting iron and the modest ambition that it may come down somewhere on the green. Again, a plateau never gives any undeserved help to the inaccurate approacher, as do the greens that lie in holes and hollows. Even in a more marked degree than at Hoylake, the ground is never helping us; in its kindest mood it is no more than strictly impartial. Finally, the turf is very hard, and consequently the greens are apt to take on a keenness that is paralyzing in its intensity.

Having by alarming generalizations induced in the unfortunate stranger a suitably humble frame of mind, the time has now arrived to take him over the course in some detail. The first thing to point out to him is the historic fact that there were once upon a time but nine holes, and that the outgoing and incoming players aimed at the self-same hole upon the self-same green. That state of things has necessarily long passed away, but the result is still to be seen in the fact that most of the greens are actually or in effect double greens, and consequently the two processions of golfers outward and inward bound pass close to each other, not without some risk to life and much shouting of ‘Fore!’

With this preliminary observation, we may tee up our ball in front of the Royal and Ancient Club-house for one of the least alarming tee-shots in existence. In front of us stretches a vast flat plain, and unless we slice the ball outrageously on to the sea beach, no harm can befall us. At the same time we had much better hit a good shot, because the Swilcan burn guards the green, and we want to carry it and get a four. It is an inglorious little stream enough: we could easily jump over it were we not afraid of looking foolish if we fell in, and yet it catches an amazing number of balls. It is now a part of golfing history that when Mr. Leslie Balfour-Melville won the amateur championship he beat successively at the nineteenth hole Mr. W. Greig, Mr. Laurence Auchterlonie, and Mr. John Ball, and all three of these redoubtable persons plumped the ball into this apparently paltry little streamlet with their approach shots.

The second is a beautiful hole some four hundred yards in length, and with the most destructive of pot-bunkers close up against the hole. Here is a case in point, when the attempt to shave narrowly past the bunker involves terrible risks, and it is the part of prudence to play well out to the right and trust to the long putt. There are, indeed, those who deem the hole unfairly difficult when it is cut in the left-hand end of the green and quite close to the bunker; I have not sufficient experience or pugnacity to argue with them.

The third is something similar in character, though shorter in length; while the fourth again is a little longer. Indeed there is something in these three holes that make them quite ridiculously difficult for the stranger to disentangle one from the other. The fourth is guarded in front by a small grassy mound, which has a wonderfully far-reaching effect, since wherever we may place our drive the mound must needs play some part in our calculations as to the second shot. I should add that at all three of these holes a tee-shot that is badly sliced will be caught in the fringe of rough ground that divides the old course from the new; this rough, however, is not so severe as it once was, and would be none the worse for a little artificial assistance in the way of bunkers.

The fifth is the long hole out, when we shall need our three strokes to reach the green, which stands a little above us on a plateau of magnificent dimensions, where we rub shoulders with the incoming couples who are plying the ‘Hole o’ Cross.’ In ancient days, when the whins were thick and flourishing on the straight road to the hole, the only possible line was away to the left towards the Elysian fields. It was from there, so Mr. James Cunningham has told me, that young Tommy Morris astonished the spectators by taking his niblick, a club that in those days had a face of about the magnitude of a half-crown, wherewith to play a pitch on the green. Till that historic moment no one had ever dreamed of a niblick being used for anything but ordinary spade work.

At the heathery hole we have a fine sea of whins on our right (there are still some whins left at St. Andrews), although only a very bad slice will make us acquainted with them; there are furthermore some pots on the left to trap a pulled ball, but altogether the hole is, if one may venture to say so, of no enormous merit, and by no means as good as the High Hole, where is a green of horrible glassy slopes and bunkers that eat their way voraciously into its borders.

At the eighth we do at last get a chance of a three, for the hole is a short one—142 yards long to be precise—and there is a fair measure of room on the green. So far the golf has been very, very good indeed, but with the ninth and tenth come two holes that constitute a small blot on the fair fame of the course. If they were found on some less sacred spot they would be condemned as consisting of a drive and a pitch up and down a flat field. What makes it the sadder is that ready to the architect’s hand is a bit of glorious golfing country on the confines of the new course. However, we had better play these two holes in as reverent a spirit as possible and be thankful for two fairly easy fours, because the next is the ‘short hole in,’ and we must reserve all our energies for that. The only consoling thing about the hole is that the green slopes upward, so that it is not quite so easy for the ball to run over it as it otherwise would be. This is really but cold comfort, however, because the danger of going too far is not so imminent as that of not going straight enough. There is one bunker called ‘Strath,’ which is to the right, and there is another called the ‘Shelly Bunker,’ to the left; there is also another bunker short of Strath to catch the thoroughly short and ineffective ball. The hole is as a rule cut fairly close to Strath, wherefore it behoves the careful man to play well away to the left, and not to take undue risks by going straight for the hole. This may sound pusillanimous, but trouble once begun at this hole may never come to an end till the card is torn into a thousand fragments. With a stout niblick shot the ball may easily be dislodged from Strath, but it will all too probably bound over the green into the sandy horrors of the Eden. From there it may again be extracted, but as it has to pitch on a down slope, it will almost certainly trickle gently down the green till it is safely at rest once more in the bosom of Strath. This very tragedy I saw befall Massy in the Championship of 1910, and he took six to the hole. Many a good golfer has taken far more strokes than that, and, indeed, it is a hole to leave behind one with a sigh of satisfaction.

The next hole would in any case fall almost inevitably flat, but the thirteenth, the Hole o’ Cross, is a great hole, where having struck two really fine shots and escaped ‘Walkinshaw’s Grave,’ we may hope to reach the beautiful big plateau green in two and hole out in two more. The long hole home comes next, and here we drive along the Elysian fields, taking care to avoid a swarm of little pot-bunkers on the left, which are called the ‘Beardies.’ A second, played cautiously away to the left, will very likely bring us into collision with some outgoing couple, while a bold shot straight ahead of us may see the ball plump down into ‘Hell,’ a bunker that is now hardly worthy of its name. There is a pretty approach to be played, with yet another plateau to climb, and a five means good work, as does a four at the fifteenth, which is a thoroughly admirable two-shot hole.

Although home is now in sight, there are yet two terribly dangerous holes to be played. First of all we must steer down the perilously narrow space between the ‘Principal’s Nose’ and the railway line—the railway line, mark you, that is not out of bounds, so that there is no limit to the number of strokes that we may spend in hammering vainly at an insensate sleeper. We may, of course, drive safe away to the left, and if our score is a good one we shall be wise to do so, but our approach, as is only fair, will then be the more difficult, and there are bunkers lurking by the green-side.

The seventeenth hole has been more praised and more abused probably than any other hole in the world. It has been called unfair, and by many harder names as well; it has caused champions with a predilection for pitching rather than running to tear their hair; it has certainly ruined an infinite number of scores. Many like it, most respect it, and all fear it. First there is the tee-shot, with the possibility of slicing out of bounds into the station-master’s garden or pulling into various bunkers on the left. Then comes the second, a shot which should not entail immediate disaster, but which is nevertheless of enormous importance as leading up to the third. Finally, there is the approach to that little plateau—in contrast to most of the St. Andrews greens, a horribly small and narrow one—that lies between a greedy little bunker on the one side and a brutally hard road on the other. It is so difficult as to make the boldest inclined to approach on the instalment system, and yet no amount of caution can do away with the chance of disaster. There was a harrowing moment in the Championship of 1910 when Braid’s ball lay in the little bunker under the green. Even if he got it safely out, it was practically certain he would be two strokes behind Duncan, with one round to go; if he did not get it out, or got it out too far and so on to the road, his chances would be terribly jeopardized. It was, as I say, an agonizing moment, but no one plays the heavy ‘dunch’ shot out of sand quite so surely as Braid. Down came the niblick, up spouted the sand, and out came the ball, to fall spent and lifeless close to the hole and out of reach of that cruel road.

After this hole of many disastrous memories, the eighteenth need have no great terrors. We drive over the burn, cross by the picturesque old stone bridge, and avoiding the grosser forms of sin, such as slicing into the windows of Rusack’s hotel, hole out in four, or at most five, under the critical gaze of those that lean on the railings.

No account of St. Andrews would be complete without some mention of the new course, which runs more or less parallel with the old; the two, to say nothing of the Jubilee course that runs along the spurs of the sandhills, being all squeezed into a wonderfully narrow compass.

The new course has many merits, but it is curiously unlike its next-door neighbour. Partly, of course, this is on account of its youth. Myriads of feet have not trampled it into a state of adamantine hardness, and when the greens on the old course are keen and fiery, the new course remains soft, slow and easy. Besides this, however, there is another difference, in that the new course is infinitely more ordinary, and this comparative commonplaceness, if further inquired into, resolves itself largely into the fact that there are not nearly so many good natural greens. At both the third and the fifth there are plateau greens, and the latter especially has the quality—so characteristic of the old course—of demanding that the shot be played exactly right. Most of the greens, however, are quite ordinary, and lack that priceless gift of being naturally protected by their own conformation.

Mr. Low has written that “the new course is probably the second course in Scotland,” but I cannot help thinking that here he is a little too enthusiastic. If we were to light upon the course somewhere else than at St. Andrews, no doubt we should do it ampler justice than we do now, when it is so completely overshadowed, but should we declare it better than Prestwick, to name only one other famous Scottish course? Personally I do not think so.

No doubt the new course does suffer some considerable injustice, and always will do so. It has ‘relief course’ plainly written all over it. On the last occasion on which I played there the daisies were growing freely, and daisies, though extremely charming things in themselves, are not pleasant to putt over, and do not give a workman-like air to a course. It is a pity, because it is a good course, and we should be delighted to play over it anywhere else, but with the old course there—well, it is a waste of time.

Still there occasionally comes a time when we grow sick to death of the crowding and waiting on the old course, and then we are glad enough to steal away on to the new course and have a round, which will probably be at any rate a comparatively quick one. We cross the burn; walk through the middle of the putting course, where are many ladies armed with wooden putters (since the sacrilegious cleek is wholly forbidden), and tee off not far from where they are playing to the second hole on the old course.

The first two holes are not at all exciting, but the course improves as we go along. Three is a good hole, and five is an excellent short one, with a most difficult iron-shot on to a plateau green. Nine, again, is rather an attractive little hole, although there are two opinions about this; a very accurate drive between bents and sand, followed by rather a blind pitch on to a sunk green. Personally I like it, though it is not at all the type of hole one expects to find at St. Andrews, nor, for that matter, is the tenth. This is nevertheless a really fine one, running down a narrow gorge between two ranges of hills, with a fine, slashing second shot with the brassey, albeit more or less a blind one. The twelfth is as good as the eleventh is weak, and sixteen and eighteen are both long and difficult, but the two short holes, thirteen and seventeen, are decidedly not exciting. Quite good, difficult golf it is, but the “second course in Scotland”—no. Perhaps it might be, but, my dear Mr. Low, I am sure on reflection you will admit that, in fact, it isn’t.

Though St. Andrews naturally enough dwarfs them all, there are other courses, and fine courses, in Fife. There is Elie, which has produced at least three very great golfers indeed, Douglas Rolland, Jack Simpson and James Braid; and there are also, amongst others, Crail and Leven. Leven, a truly charming course, has, alas! ceased to exist in its old form. Nine of the old holes now belong to a new and reconstituted Leven, and the other nine belong to Lundin Links. It is a sad pity, but the difficulty of two different starting places made it in these crowded times inevitable.

Forfarshire, too, is a county of many courses. Barry, Broughty Ferry, Edzell, Monifieth, Montrose, and, best known of all, Carnoustie. Carnoustie is comparatively unknown, save by name, to the English golfer, but very popular indeed in its own country. So much so that its popularity has rendered necessary an auxiliary course, and the auxiliary course has taken a piece of good golfing ground that could ill be spared. It is a fine, big, open sandy seaside course; very natural in appearance; and in places, indeed, natural almost to the verge of roughness; but it is none the worse for that, however, and indeed it is altogether a very delightful course.

There is one curious feature, in that the taking in of some new ground has caused one hole to be of a completely inland character. Certainly this hole seems at first sight to be dragged in by the heels, but we readily forgive it its inland character, because it is really a very good hole indeed. This is number seven, ‘South America’ by name. It is a good long hole, well over four hundred yards in length, and the green is on an island guarded by a ditch. The soil is completely inland in character—the green once formed part of an old garden—and as if to emphasize that fact, a solitary tree has been left as a hazard, and naturally plays a prominent part in the landscape.