The Complete Golfer Part 11

ON FOURSOMES

The four-ball foursome--Its inferiority to the old-fas.h.i.+oned game--The case of the long-handicap man--Confusion on the greens--The man who drives last--The old-fas.h.i.+oned two-ball foursome--Against too many foursomes--Partners and each other--Fitting in their different games--The man to oblige--The policy of the long-handicap partner--How he drove and missed in the good old days--On laying your partner a stymie--A preliminary consideration of the round--Handicapping in foursomes--A too delicate reckoning of strokes given and received--A good foursome and the excitement thereof--A caddie killed and a hole lost--A compliment to a golfer.

I think it is to be regretted that the old-fas.h.i.+oned foursome, in which the respective partners play together with the same ball, has so completely lost favour of late, and that it has been superseded to a large extent by the four-ball foursome. To my mind the old foursome provided a much more interesting and enjoyable game than its successor, and tended much more to the cultivation of good qualities in a golfer.

It seems to me that this new four-ball game is a kind of mongrel mixture. It is played, I presume, because men feel that they would like to have a game of partners and yet are unwilling to sacrifice half the strokes of a round, as they do in the old game, and also because the man who is on his game desires all his power and brilliancy to count, and that they may not be interfered with by the possibly erratic procedure of his partner. But this is a selfish spirit, and quite opposed to that which should properly animate the men who play in combination. When a golfer is thus anxious for the display of his skill, surely an ordinary single-ball match is the proper thing for him. The four-ball foursome, I admit, has much to recommend it when the partners are equally matched, when both are really good players--more likely to do a hole in bogey than not--and when the course is clear and there is no prospect of their protracted game interfering with other players who may be coming up behind. When a short-handicap man is mated with a long one, the place of the latter in a foursome of the new kind is to my thinking not worth having. Is it calculated to improve his golf, or to afford him satisfaction of any kind whatever, if he plays his ball round in what is for him very good form, and yet only contributes the halving of a single hole as his share of the victory of the combination? Very likely after such a game he will feel that he must fall back once more on that old excuse of the golfer for a disappointing day, that at all events he has had the fresh air and the exercise. The tasting of the pure atmosphere and the working of limb and muscle are splendid things, enough to justify any day and any game, but no golfer is heard to put them in the forefront of the advantages he has derived from his day's partic.i.p.ation in the game unless the golf he has played has been miserably disappointing. This new foursome is also a selfish game, because it is generally played with too little regard for the convenience and feelings of other golfers on the links. It is very slow, and couples coming up behind, who do not always care to ask to be allowed to go through, are often irritated beyond measure as they wait while four b.a.l.l.s are played through the green in front of them, and eight putts are taken on the putting green. The constant waiting puts them off their game and spoils their day.

Another objection that I urge against this kind of game is, that even when there is n.o.body pressing behind and there is no particular reason for hurry, there is a natural tendency on the part of each player to make haste so that he shall not delay the other three. This is the case all the way through the green, and particularly when the hole is reached and the putters are taken out. Then everybody's ball seems to be in the way of the others, there is continual lifting and replacing, more hurrying, and then, to make matters worse, there is a doubt as to what a man should do in order to help his side--whether he should hole out in one or two, or whether there is any use in holing out at all.

Consequently his mind is in a confused state of reckoning and doubt when he makes his putt, and poor putt it is likely to be in such circ.u.mstances. Frequently, when a blind hole is being played, it needs a few minutes' close examination to decide which ball is which after the drive, unless each has been carefully marked to distinguish it from the others. As a final indictment against this species of golf, I would say that even when the partners are equally matched and both good players, there is still a tendency for their individual play to be spoiled, inasmuch as there is the feeling constantly present in the mind of each, that even if he does happen to do a bad hole it will not matter very much after all, as the other man is sure to come to the rescue. When it happens that just the same thought enters the brain of that other man, a lost hole is likely to be the result. Decidedly this is not the sort of game to improve the golfer's play.

The four-ball foursome is so very like two single matches that there is little special advice to offer concerning the playing of it. One of the few special points to be observed by the player who is taking part in such a match is that, without being unduly selfish and grasping, he should as frequently as possible avoid being the last man of the four to make his drive from the tee. The man who drives last is at a very obvious disadvantage. In the first place, if he has seen the other three make really good drives, he is too much tempted to try to beat them all, and the usual result of such temptation is a bad stroke. On the other hand, if he has seen two or three foozles, it is quite possible that he will follow the bad example that has been set him. Thus, whatever has happened before, the last man has no real encouragement offered to him.

In addition to these objections, when three men have driven from the tee they are somewhat impatient to be moving on and playing their second shots, and in this mood they have little care for what happens to the last drive. They have already had quite enough of driving. The fourth man is quite conscious of this impatience on their part, even though it may not be openly expressed by the smallest sign. So he is in a hurry to oblige, and his effort is then disappointing. I seldom hit my best ball when I am driving fourth in a four-ball foursome. Of course somebody must drive last, but not necessarily the same man every time. All that I wish to suggest is, that a player should not be too self-sacrificing, and should not, with too much modesty about his own prowess on the tee, always volunteer to drive after his partner.

The old-fas.h.i.+oned or two-ball foursome makes a really fine and enjoyable game. It brings golfers together on even more intimate and friendly relations than usual. Partners in a foursome see very deep down into the human nature of each other. They are overwhelmingly conscious of each other's faults and weaknesses. They are enormously dependent upon each other. At the same time I do not think that even this kind of foursome is the best thing in the world for the improvement of a man's game, and I advise the young player to resist the temptation to take part in too many foursomes, to the neglect of ordinary match play in singles. For one thing, the partners, of course, only get half as much golf as they would if they were playing a round in a single match, and for another, they are too constantly anxious to play their best game. The sense of responsibility is frequently a little too much for their nerves, and you often see a man, a most dogged and persistent player in an ordinary match, who is a consistent failure in foursomes, and who in this style of game ought to be rated at six strokes higher handicap than his allowance for ordinary purposes. One feels in a foursome that one must be so very careful, and take so much extra pains, and when that feeling is uppermost in the mind while the stroke is being made, the result is often disastrous.

It is unwise to interfere unduly with a partner's system of play while a match is in progress. He may be missing his drive because his stance is wrong or his swing is faulty, but the state of affairs would probably be worse than ever if an attempt were made to put him right while the game is going on. The hint will be more useful when the match is over. And if he has a particular fancy for playing his bra.s.sy, when experience tells you that an iron club should be taken, it will not generally pay to make the suggestion at the time. The man naturally takes the club with which he has most confidence and with which he believes he can make the shot that is wanted. It is fatal to interfere with confidence of this kind, and to subst.i.tute for it the hesitation and doubt which inevitably take possession of the man when he takes in his hands a weapon with which he rarely does well, and which, whatever you may tell him, he is convinced is utterly inadequate for the purposes of the situation. Let each man play the various strokes that have to be made in a foursome in his own way without interference, for nothing but chaos and a lost match can follow upon the enforcement upon each other of individual ideas and methods.

This, of course, is not saying that each man should not play his game so that it may fit as well as possible into that of his partner. He may play with the club he particularly fancies, and play it in his own way, but there should be some sort of a general understanding about what he is going to do and the exact effect which his performance is likely to have upon the way the hole is played if everything happens according to programme. This makes it very desirable that the partners in a foursome match to which any importance is attached, should have more than a pa.s.sing knowledge of each other's play, and of individual weaknesses and excellences. One partner may be particularly good at making a fairly full iron shot, but shaky indeed when it comes to a little pitch with the mas.h.i.+e over the bunker that guards the green. It is clear, on reflection, that the chief part in this playing up to each other's game should be taken by the man who has the longer handicap, and is therefore the weaker all-round player. The scratch man, being a wise and experienced golfer, will naturally place his nervous 18-handicap friend in as few difficulties as he can, and will constantly exert himself to leave him a comparatively simple shot which he may be depended upon with some certainty to accomplish in a workmanlike fas.h.i.+on. But the junior player must remember that it behoves him to be the most careful and considerate in matters of this kind, for in an emergency it is generally the senior who must be depended upon to win the hole or pull the match out of the fire. Let him, therefore, impose upon himself a considerable measure of self-sacrifice, playing up to his partner for all he is worth, contented in the knowledge that he is doing the proper thing, and that, though he is sinking his own individuality and doing much of what can only be described as donkey work, he is being considerably honoured by being invited to play in such superior company. It is not always the place of the junior partner to take risks; that is the prerogative of the senior. There may be a particular carry on the course which the young player is always doubtful about, but which when playing alone he constantly makes an attempt to accomplish, and very properly so. But if his effort is as often as not a failure--with the result that he is badly bunkered and the hole is lost--it would be madness for him to attempt the carry when he is playing in a foursome with a far better man than himself as his partner. He must depart from his usual custom, and play short for safety. It will be a great relief to his partner. Not lately, but in the early years of my experience, I have seen this principle carried to a curious excess. When there was a difficult carry from the tee, and an inferior player and short driver had the turn to make the stroke, I have seen his partner instruct him to miss the ball altogether--not tap it off the tee, but miss it. Thus the other man, presumably a good driver, had the ball left teed for him. These men reckoned between them that on an average it would prove of more advantage to be well over the far hazard in two strokes, than to take the risk of being short with the tee shot and possibly not getting over with the second or even the third. However, there is no doubt that performances of this kind were a violation of the spirit of golf. It is the game to hit the ball, and it is unsportsmanlike to try to miss it.

Nowadays the golfing world quite realises that this is the case.

In the same way, in playing through the green and in putting, it must be the constant object of the junior to play the safety game and to feed his skilful partner with as many as possible of those strokes at which he is best. Do not let him try for a desperately long second, emulating the example which his partner set him on the tee, in the hope that he may land the ball on the green. He is not expected to do anything of the kind. If he should happen to be successful, his partner would know that it was not his usual custom, that he had played beyond himself, and that therefore there was something of the fluke in the stroke after all. He would be much more likely to fail and foozle, and then what a miserable golfer would he be! His obvious duty is to play a simple, easy stroke which will be practically certain of placing the ball in such a position that his partner will have no difficulty in getting on the green with his third. And on the putting green, when anything over ten feet distance intervenes between the ball and the hole, while always giving the latter a chance, he should remember that his first duty is to lay the ball dead. If he holes out, well and good, but his partner insists first of all that the ball should be laid dead. At this crisis, also, he should be particularly careful that he never commits the unpardonable sin of laying himself, or rather his partner, a stymie. Of all the stymies in the world, that which has been laid you by your own partner in a foursome is the most exasperating.

Of course, for the proper blending of each partner's game with that of the other, it is advisable, or rather necessary, that before the first stroke in the match is taken there should be some kind of general understanding about the policy that is to be pursued. First consideration is given to the turn in which the tee shots are to be taken, and the drives are so arranged that the better player takes them at a majority of the tees where good drives are most wanted. But it seems to me that very often an arrangement of this sort is arrived at without sufficient consideration. For example, it frequently happens that a long-handicap man is a very good driver indeed, better in fact than the man who is his partner and has a handicap of many strokes less.

And in the same way it commonly occurs that a short-handicap man may be decidedly weak with his short approaches. On the average of the play from the tee to the hole the senior player may be fully so much better than the other as the difference in their handicaps suggests, but it by no means follows that in particular features of the game there is the same difference. Therefore the wise partners will adapt themselves to each other, so that they will get all the good out of themselves and leave untouched that which is bad. And when this compact is completed and honourably adhered to, there are at hand the makings of a victory.

When four players have decided among themselves to play a foursome, and there are wide differences in their respective handicaps, there is often considerable difficulty in arranging the best partners.h.i.+ps. It is good to be guided by mutual preferences, for preference means confidence, and that is everything in foursome play. But at the same time it is always advisable to sort out the players in such a manner that there is as little as possible of giving and receiving strokes. For example, where there is a scratch man, two 9's (or a 6 and a 10), and an 18, the best and most enjoyable match is always likely to result from a combination of the scratch man with the 18 against the two players of medium handicaps, although the scratch man, if a selfish player, may not be disposed to saddle himself with the unreliable person at the other end of the scale. It is a point to be borne in mind that the 18 man, if, despite his handicap, he is a real and conscientious golfer, is more likely to play above his handicap than the scratch man. It is much easier for an 18-handicap player to perform like a 12 than it is for a scratch man to play like a plus 3. In my opinion the arranging of strokes to be given and received in foursome play is far too delicate and complicated. In ordinary single-match play handicapping does not always work out very well, and it is often made to look foolish in a foursome. Far better is it than adding up and dividing by clumsy fractions, and then finding that one party gets five strokes or eight, that the players should take a broad view of their respective merits, and then decide that they will either play on level terms or that a third or a half shall be given and received. The best foursome of all is one played on level terms, and an effort should always be made, and even a point strained here and there, to effect such partners.h.i.+ps as will make this arrangement feasible.

A really good foursome, when the partners play harmoniously and the holes are well fought out, is a splendid diversion from the ordinary game of golf. The interest and excitement of each member of the party often seems to affect the others, and to lead up to an intense mutual keenness which is often superior even to that experienced in single play. There is a wholesome satisfaction in the community of interests.

The winning of a hole is coveted as it was never coveted before. Have you heard what should be a cla.s.sical story about the foursome? The match was all square on the sixteenth green, and one excited Scot stood by while his partner made a drive upon which the fortunes of a hard-fought game might rest. The caddies had been sent forward. The tee shot was pulled, and the ball went twisting round in the direction of the driver's boy. It struck him and he fell flat upon the ground. The driving partner dropped his club, and, with his face turned pale, muttered hoa.r.s.ely to his friend, "Tonalt, I've kilt the caddie!" But Donald's mind was fixed upon other matters than the mere question of life and death, and with many excited gestures and a shriek of despair he exclaimed, "Then, tamn it all, we've lost the hole," as under Rule 25 they had.

At the end of this chapter I will make the simple remark, that you can pay a golfer no higher compliment than to say that he is a good foursome player, for such a one must not only be a good golfer and a steady one, but a man of the serenest and even most delightful temperament. You must always feel that you could not play in the company of such a man too often, either with him or against him.

CHAPTER XVIII

GOLF FOR LADIES

As to its being a ladies' game--A sport of freedom--The lady on the links--The American lady golfer--English ladies are improving--Where they fail, and why--Good pupils--The same game as the man's--No short swings for ladies--Clubs of too light weight--Their disadvantages--A common fault with the s.e.x--Bad backward swings--The lady who will find out for herself--Foundations of a bad style--The way to success.

Some people say that golf is not a ladies' game, and from time to time one hears of something in the nature of dissensions within the family circle when there are wives and sisters anxious to take up the sport which palpably affords their male relatives one of the greatest enjoyments of life, and when there are husbands and brothers who, it is said, advance arguments which for number and ingenuity would do credit to a King's Counsel, designed to show the absurdity and the futility of the desire expressed. It is a question upon which it would be out of place for me here to take any side, though it seems to me that there is something to be said for the complete separation of the men's golf from the ladies' golf, particularly in the case of large clubs and crowded courses. Golf is essentially a sport of freedom. Restraint of even the most trivial and conventional character in regard to manners and customs is irksome when there are holes to be played and tight matches to be pulled out of the fire. I like to see a lady go out on the golf links in whatever costume she thinks fit to wear for her own comfort and good play, and generally to do as she likes, as if there were nothing but Nature and a little white ball and the hole with the flag in it in all the world. I have a great admiration for the American lady golfer, whom I have several times had the opportunity of studying on her native tees, and the other day I read the perfectly true story of an American clergyman making a scathing attack from the pulpit one Sunday upon lady golfers, of whom he numbered many in his congregation. The reverend gentleman exclaimed that some of the lady members of his congregation attended divine service in the customary manner on the Sabbath, and then "swore like troopers" on the golf links on the Monday. The conduct of these ladies was no doubt exaggerated; but it appears as if it may have been reprehensible. However, it shows the keenness and the enthusiasm of the American lady golfer; and I am not at all sure that the answer of the English lady player, when she was asked if those bad words were ever uttered in this country, that the Englishwoman made fewer bad shots and had no occasion for an extended vocabulary, was entirely convincing. One hears that the ladies have coined new words for the expression of their disgust at the results of their strokes, and, on the other hand, that the limits of expletive which they permit themselves when bunkered consist of the chiding utterance, "Oh, you naughty, naughty little ball!" However this may be, I know not, and I would only remark, without presumption, to the ladies, as I have done in another place to their husbands and brothers, that golf is a game for thought and silence.

Now, I am glad to see so many ladies taking up the game year by year, and thus giving the best possible answer to the question whether it is a real ladies' game or not. And furthermore, I am pleased to bear witness that the standard of ladies' golf in this country is improving every season, so that now it needs a fine man golfer to give a third to the best of the gentler s.e.x. These good lady players, or some of them, are attiring themselves in these days as I like to see lady golfers attired, that is to say, there is evidence that they think a trifle less of fas.h.i.+on and dainty appearance than they do of security, comfort, and freedom of limb and muscle. But the majority of lady players do not attach the proper amount of importance to these considerations, and that is why one is sometimes a little doubtful as to the prospects of ladies'

golf generally in this country in comparison with those of American ladies' golf. The American girls are adopting the game more whole-heartedly and thoroughly than their English sisters, and their devotion to it will tell. The lady of the States who is a golfer dresses for golf and for golf only. Very seldom do you see in America a lady golfer wearing a hat, or head covering of any description. When she has one, it is almost invariably a light tam o'shanter, or something very small and soft, which clings closely to the hair and does not get in the way of the swing of the club. She tucks up her sleeves like a man, and in the soles of her shoes she has plenty of goodly sized nails. And she does not look a t.i.ttle the worse for any of these things; indeed, the picture of the determined, strenuous, and yet charming lady golfer was one of the most attractive that I saw when in America. The average English girl does not appear willing to make so many sacrifices for golf as the American. She seems too often to say to herself that it is only a little game after all, and there is an end of it; and yet she is always desirous of getting on and reducing her handicap. I need hardly say that this is not the proper spirit in which to achieve success at golf. We see too many ladies on our links with big hats and no nails in their shoes. I have no faith whatever in their future as golfers. It is impossible to play good golf if one is not fitted out properly for the game, whether the player be lady or man. Few players of our s.e.x would dream of going on to the links in a tightly fitting coat and smooth-soled shoes. But the ladies are more venturesome.

After this brief lecture on attire, let me at once declare that there are many points about our English lady golfer that I greatly admire. It has been my privilege to teach the first principles of the game to many of them, and I am bound to say that for the most part I have found them excellent pupils--better generally than the men learners. They seem to take closer and deeper notice of the hints you give them, and to retain the points of the lesson longer in their memories. They are painstaking; and if she begins to play early enough in her life, adopts sensible methods, and is possessed of an average amount of athleticism, I can see no reason why any lady should not become a very fair golfer. Many somewhat spoil their prospects by concluding too hastily that they must play an altogether different game from that of their men friends, that they must have special clubs, special methods, and so forth. This is not the case. No doubt it is well for ladies to admit at once that they cannot drive as far as the men. But otherwise the man's game and the lady's game are the same in principle and in practice. As for the manner in which to play, I have not a single special piece of instruction to offer, and can only refer the lady neophyte to the previous pages, in which I have set forth as well as I am able the precise method in which each of the many strokes in golf should be played. I have merely to insist that they shall not deviate from these methods in one or two special matters in which they are advised or inclined to do.

Ladies are frequently advised that they ought never to take a full swing. Of course in the foregoing pages I have frequently insisted that a golfer should avoid the absolutely full swing with all iron clubs, believing that he gets for the most part at least as good results with a good three-quarter swing. But those people who warn the ladies against the full swing, not only with their irons but with their wooden clubs also, advise the half swing because they say it is better for them for physical reasons, and that their results will be practically as good as if they had taken the three-quarter or the full. Now I am convinced that this is altogether wrong, and, without encouraging any of my lady readers to the development of a big swing and a slas.h.i.+ng style, I do say that they will do well for themselves and for their golf if they will train themselves to the making of at least a full three-quarter. I believe that the half swing entails a severer strain upon the body when made under these circ.u.mstances than the full three-quarter, and that the body does altogether more work than is good for it, while the delusion is entertained by those who recommend the short swing that the opposite is the case. In this half swing the body seems to get too much in front of the club and to labour heavily, while in the three-quarter the arms do most of the work, as they ought to do, and the body comes in at the proper time for the remainder. Though in previous chapters I have strongly advised golfers to play a half shot with one club in preference to a full shot with one more powerful, I only do so obviously when the distance is fixed and the half shot will reach it. In playing from the tee it is an altogether different matter. In this case the distance is not fixed. The object is usually to drive as far as possible, so no half shots are wanted here.

As a general rule, ladies make use of clubs that are far too light for them. Frequently they do so by advice, and then their own instinct suggests to them that they should employ weapons less weighty than those of their male relations. This would be very sensible and proper if the clubs which men make use of were the heaviest that they could swing with effect. But a man only uses a club of a certain weight, because experience has proved that it is the best and most effectual for its purpose, and usually he has a very great reserve of strength which could be employed with heavier clubs if necessary. There is no reason at all why ladies should not employ clubs of good average weight instead of featherweights. By so doing they would spare themselves a great amount of exertion, and they would certainly get better results, for it is always much more difficult to get good results with a light club than with one of medium weight. With the featherweight the swing is very liable to get out of gear. It is cut short, and is apt to wander out of its proper direction. There is, in fact, no such control over the club as there is when one can feel the weight of the head at the end of the shaft. A lady may require clubs a trifle shorter in the shaft, but this is the only difference which need exist, and it is not of itself sufficient to make any perceptible difference in the weight.

So far as I have discovered, ladies have no special faults or weaknesses of their own, as distinct from other players, but I have found them more than usually addicted to inaccuracy in the backward swing, causing the toe of the club to be pointing upwards instead of downwards at the turning-point. This is the result of wrong action and loss of control over the wrists, and a study of my remarks on driving, where this matter is specially dealt with, should do much to obviate it. It is possible, however, that the lady's inferior strength of wrist, as compared with a man's, may have much to do with the fault, but even in that case it only needs caution and care to bring about a cure. I should say that fully three ladies out of every five whose play I have watched make this mistake, and it is a fault which has very serious consequences. I should advise all of them to make a periodical examination of the position of the club head at the top of the swing, as I indicated when discussing the drive, and if they find the toe is upwards they must make up their minds to get rid of this bad habit at any cost. If it has already become a part of the player's system, it will not be abolished without considerable difficulty. To begin with, she would try swinging back more slowly, as a too rapid backward swing has often much to do with it.

Finally, I would suggest that any lady who aspires to be a really good golfer should take numerous lessons from those players superior to herself who are qualified to give them. I have already said that I have found ladies exceedingly good pupils, and when they set about learning the game in the right way, they often make really astonis.h.i.+ng progress.

But it must be confessed that in too many cases they do not treat the difficulties of the game with sufficient seriousness, and are inclined to think that they can get on best in their own way and by the adoption of their own methods. When once a lady has been given a couple of lessons in the swing for the drive, she often insists on finding out the rest for herself, and then a bad result is inevitable. All the practice and patience in the world will not make a good lady golfer if she does not learn the game in the right way. The simple fact is that, when a man sets about the game he admits its difficulties from the beginning, and goes about surmounting them in the right manner if he is really ambitious and covetous of a short handicap. But it often seems that ladies will not admit these difficulties, and persist in their attempt to make golfers of themselves unaided. Perhaps that is one reason why ladies do not always continue with the game with that increasing eagerness and enthusiasm which is an almost invariable characteristic of the man golfer. Learn properly, and practise much; and--well, yes, do the rest like a man, and not as if there were a special woman's way.

That is the essence of my counsel to the lady aspirant on the links.

CHAPTER XIX

THE CONSTRUCTION OF COURSES

Necessity for thought and ingenuity--The long-handicap man's course--The scratch player's--How good courses are made--The necessary land--A long nine-hole course better than a short eighteen--The preliminary survey--A patient study of possibilities--Stakes at the holes--Removal of natural disadvantages--"Penny wise and pound foolish"--The selection of teeing grounds--A few trial drives--The arrangement of long and short holes--The best two-shot and three-shot holes--Bunkers and where to place them--The cla.s.s of player to cater for--The shots to be punished--Bunkers down the sides--The best putting greens--Two tees to each hole--Seaside courses.

Many as are the golf courses with which the coast, the country, and the suburbs of the towns and cities of Great Britain are studded, they will no doubt be still more numerous as time goes on, and it is earnestly to be desired that in the laying out of links in the future, more thought and ingenuity may be exercised than has been the case in far too many instances during the past few years, when clubs have been formed and links have been made in a hurry. Certainly some are excellent, and I cast not the least disparagement upon them. I enjoy them. Frequently the hand of the master architect of golf is visible where one observes how shrewdly and exactly the hazards have been placed, and the peculiarities of the conformation of the country turned to the utmost account when useful, or cunningly dodged when it has been considered that they could be no good to the golfer. Without a doubt, generally speaking, those courses are the best which have been designed by good players, because none know better than they what makes the best golf. A man whose handicap is some distance removed from scratch, but who has played golf for many years, and thinks with good reason that he knows a fine course when he sees one, would nevertheless, in designing a new one, be led unconsciously to make holes which would be more or less suited to his own style of play. He might, indeed, in a most heroic spirit, place a bunker at a point which he knew would be more than usually dangerous for him, and he would feel a better and a braver man for this act; but a hundred of its kind would not prevent the course from being the ideal of the long-handicap man and not the ideal of the fine player. If plans were prepared for a new links over a particular piece of territory by a 12-handicap man and a scratch player, it is highly probable that in the most material matters they would differ greatly, and it is fairly certain that a committee of the oldest and most experienced golfers would unanimously pick out the scratch player's plans from all the others as being the best and soundest, and that without knowing who had prepared them. Time and the aggregate of pleasure given to golfers of all degrees would justify the selection.

Therefore, when a new club is established and a new course is to be laid out, I suggest that it is the wiser and the better plan to take time over it and to secure the best advice. A good links is not made in a day or a week. Perhaps the cleverest and most ingenious constructor could not in a whole year make one which was in all respects the best that the land could give. Almost every time that the course was played over during the first hundred rounds, a new thought for its improvement in some small detail would occur. The moving of a tee twenty yards to the right, the addition of a couple of yards to the end of one of the bunkers, the placing of a shallow pot bunker some eight or ten yards across at some particular point--all these and many other matters of equal significance will constantly suggest themselves. My experience tells me that the perfection of a good course is slowly attained. Like wine, it takes time for the richness of its qualities to mature.

Therefore, when the committee of a new club in the country sits in conference with a plan of its newly-acquired land laid on the table, and decides unanimously that a tee shall be placed at a point marked A, a bunker along the line B, another bunker at C, and the hole at D, and so forth, I protest that they are doing poor justice either to themselves or to the game. But on many links made during the past few years--made in a hurry--the results of such mechanical methods are only too apparent. I hope that the few hints that I offer in this chapter may be of service to old clubs with improvable courses and new ones with none as yet, and to those fortunate individuals who contemplate laying out a course in their private grounds for the use of themselves and their friends. Private courses are increasing in number; and for my part, though I must obviously be guilty of prejudice, I can conceive of no more enjoyable acquisition to a country house than a nine-hole course, and a.s.suredly the possessor of it will be envied and his invitations to week-ends much coveted.

The question of the amount of land that shall be called into service for the fulfilment of a scheme for a new links is one that is usually outside the control of those who project it. They have to cut according to their cloth. I need only say here, therefore, that in a general way some thirty or forty acres of land are necessary to make such a nine-hole course as shall possess a satisfactory amount of variety, and not less than seventy acres for a full-sized eighteen-hole course, this as a matter of fact being the acreage of the South Herts Club's course at Totteridge, with which I am at present a.s.sociated. By great economy of s.p.a.ce and the exercise of unlimited ingenuity, courses might be made from a trifle less land, but they are better when they are made from more. Two or three hundred acres are sometimes utilised for a good links. Where land is very scarce, and there is no possibility of obtaining more of it, I earnestly advise private owners and committees to content themselves with a nine-hole course which will have plenty of length and good sporting quality about it, rather than sacrifice the good golf that is thus within their reach in a desire to possess a regulation eighteen-hole links that could only give complete satisfaction to ladies and children. Too many courses, with scarcely a bra.s.sy shot upon them, have been ruined by this greed for holes.

When the land has been allotted to the purpose, a very thorough and careful survey should be made of all its features. This is not to be done in one morning. The land, no doubt, is very rough, and at the first glance it looks ill-adapted to the golfer's purpose. Many times I have had the task of making a course from materials which at first seemed so unpromising as to be hopeless. There should be no hurry at this time.

Let those who are designing the links walk slowly and meditatively over nearly every square yard of the land at least two or three times before coming to any final decision as to where to place a single tee, bunker, or hole. An open mind is the best to begin with. After one or two of these preliminary surveys, some general idea of the possible formation of the links will begin to shape itself in the mind, and this having been done, it will be practically impossible for an intelligent person to make additional journeys over the land without being struck with an idea for a great improvement at one or other of the holes which he has fas.h.i.+oned in his mind. If it is possible, take two or three weeks over this slow process of creation of the links. They may be altered afterwards to some extent, but for good or ill their main features will probably remain as at the beginning, and may endure for centuries.

Having secured to the mind this general and somewhat vague idea of the plan of the links, it is a good thing to plant a stake at each spot where it is proposed to make a hole; and when the land is all staked out in this manner, there is, as it were, a solid foundation upon which to build up the links. The location of the stakes can be inspected from a distance and from different points of view, and it will constantly happen on these occasions that for the improvement of one or other of the holes its removal to a different place will be suggested. Continue your walks, examining the stakes from north, south, east, and west, and moving them here and there until you begin to feel a trifle weary of the business, and confident that you have planned the best possible holes out of the country that you have to deal with. Then you may proceed with perhaps the more interesting but certainly the harder part of your task.

It is useless to think about fas.h.i.+oning the links from the plan which will now have been formed, until those natural disadvantages of the land, which cannot be allowed to remain, have been removed. Gorse and rocks may have to be cleared, and it is essential that at this stage an effort should be made to rid the course of rabbits and other undesirable vermin if any should infest it. Rabbits help to keep the gra.s.s nice and short; but they make too many holes in the course, and there is no alternative but to regard them as the enemies of golf, and to make out the death warrants of them all accordingly. The quickest and surest way of getting rid of them is to search for every hole, apply the ferrets, stop up the holes afterwards, and to keep a watch for any that return.

If only one or two are left here and there, they will play much havoc with the course in the future. From this point the way in which the work is proceeded with will naturally depend to a large extent on the length of the schemers' purse, and on their optimism or otherwise as to their future prospects; but I am sure that it is best to employ as many men as can be afforded at the outset, and so grapple with the execution of the plans in a thorough and determined manner. In the making of a golf course it is very easy to be "penny wise and pound foolish."

The situation of the greens having been decided upon, the question as to the length of the holes, as to which some general impression will already have been formed, comes up for decision. A proposed teeing ground should be selected for each hole, the lengths of the holes then examined and compared, and the tees moved nearer or further back as seems desirable for the improvement of individual holes or the increase of variety. If at this stage there is any chance of finding a ball afterwards, it is a good thing to drive a few from each tee and play them with the bra.s.sy, cleek, irons, or mas.h.i.+e up to the green. If you drive half a dozen from each tee and play them through the green to the place where the holes will be, there will surely be one or two that have turned out excellently if you are a player of any skill whatever, and a study of the strokes which have been applied to these one or two, the point of pitching, and the final lie, will reveal the entire character of the hole you are making, and tell you plainly how it must be bunkered. In a nine-hole course I think there should be seven medium or long holes, and two short ones to break the monotony and test the golfer at all points. The situation of these short holes in the round will naturally be decided to a large extent by the land and other circ.u.mstances, but when the power of selection is left to the designer, I incline to the belief that Nos. 3 and 7 are the best for these dainties. I like a short hole to come early in the round, as at No. 3, because then a golfer who has made a bad start is given a chance of recovering before he is hopelessly out of the hunt. He has a better prospect of making such a recovery (or thinks he has, which is much the same thing) at a short hole than at a long one, and, being put in a good temper again, he will very likely go on very well for the next two or three, when he will be favoured with another short one. The plight of the player who has discovered at the beginning of a medal round that he is off his drive and bra.s.sy, and that six or seven holes have to be played before a little one is reached, is certainly not pleasant. I call a good short hole one that can be reached by good play at any time with an iron club, because it fails to be a short hole when it is necessary to take wood upon the tee in order to get to the green. In an eighteen-hole course you might have three or four short holes--I think three are sufficient--and it would be well to vary their length so as to test the capacity of the golfer with different clubs, and to bring out all his qualities of resource. For a fourth hole on the short side plenty of sporting chance would constantly be afforded by one of 200 yards length. This could not be called a short hole, because under ordinary circ.u.mstances and on most days it would be too far for even a good driver to reach from the tee, but he would often be tempted to nerve himself to a superior effort, and an occasional strain of this kind is advantageous in the long run. Besides, when the wind was at his back he would frequently be successful, and on such occasions he would experience more pleasure and satisfaction from this particular tee shot than from any other of the whole round.

The remainder of the course should be made up of a variety of two-shot and three-shot holes. The lengths should be varied as much as possible, and with limits of 370 yards, and, say, 530 to work between, it should surely not be so difficult as it appears to have been in so many cases of inland links to get fourteen or fifteen quite different holes. Those of from 230 to 330 yards, with which so many courses abound, are not good holes in my opinion, because they give an almost equal chance to the man who has driven well and the man who has driven badly. Take a common sort of hole, 280 yards in length. A player misses his drive, and his ball travels only for, say, 100 or 120 yards. He may still reach the green with his bra.s.sy, and should be able to do so. Now the man who drove well at this hole would need to make a second stroke with an iron club to reach the green, and would thus gain nothing from his better play. This is unfair, and what is unfair is bad. The good two-shot hole is one of the nicest and best holes on a course when it is really good.

Its length is about 370 to 380 yards. Thus it will be perceived that a first-cla.s.s drive from the tee must be followed up by a fine second, as straight as it is long, if the green is to be reached. The good player who has done all that he ought is thus rewarded by the clear gain of a stroke and the capture of a hole in 4, whilst the man who is a trifle weak with either his drive or his second, or has faltered to the slightest extent at either stroke, has for a certainty to use his mas.h.i.+e before he can call for the putter. When a two-shot hole is to be adjusted to this nicety of perfection, there is plainly not much margin for the variation of its length; but it is not necessary, nor is it even desirable, to demand continually such unerring skill from the golfer. My idea of a good three-shot hole is one that stretches for 500 to 530 yards, three fine shots being wanted. For holes of much greater length than this I have no fancy. Perhaps no serious objection can be laid against an occasional hole of 550 yards length, but what is really gained by such long journeys? Certainly the true skill of the golfer is not being more severely tested. When we come to such monstrosities as holes of 600 yards in length, it is time to call out "Enough!" for by this time we have descended to slogging pure and simple, and the hard field work at which an agricultural labourer would have the right to grumble. So I repeat that the best hole for golfing is that good two-shotter which takes the ball from the tee to the green in two well-played strokes without any actual pressing. As for total length, it should be borne in mind that a links over 6000 yards long is considered a long one, and that there are champions.h.i.+p greens, Prestwick and Muirfield, which are (or were until quite recently; there is a tendency to stretch everywhere since the rubber-cored ball became predominant) shorter than 6000 yards.

In making the plan of the course, a point of interest and importance to decide upon is the direction in which the holes shall be played. Some golfers prefer that the first and succeeding holes shall lie to the right of the starting-point, while others like best to go out on the left-hand side, that is, to play round the course in the same direction as that pursued by the hands of a clock. It is largely a matter of fancy, but personally my choice is for going out to the left because I think in this case the holes are generally more difficult, and the boundary usually being near to the left, constant precautions must be taken against pulling. Another matter particularly to be remembered is that the first tee and the last green should be close together, and neither of them more distant from the club-house than is necessary. A wide separation of these points always seems to be contrary to the proper order of things.

And now we come to the perplexing problem of bunkers and where to place them, and in this connection I would remark that it would be well not to regard the lengths of the holes, as so far arranged, as final and irrevocable, and not to establish permanent teeing grounds accordingly, for it must necessarily happen, as the bunkers come to be formed on the course, and more trial rounds are played, that one's ideas will undergo considerable change, and it is easier to lengthen a hole at this stage of the proceedings, by simply placing the tee further back, than it will be afterwards.

It has been a great question with some committees of newly-established clubs or of older ones in search of new courses, as to whether, in laying out their greens and settling upon the location of all their nice new bunkers, they should keep more particularly in mind the excellences of the scratch player or the trials and troubles of the 12 to 18 handicap men. On the one hand, the scratch player is the experienced golfer, the man who plays the true game as it should be played, and who finds no real enjoyment in so-called golf wherein he is never called upon to do more than tap the ball over an obstacle ninety or a hundred yards in front. Such links never put up a fight against him, and he finishes his listless round with something as near to the sense of weariness as it is possible for the golfer ever to experience. But these scratch players, in common with the men with all handicaps up to 5 or 6, are in a very heavy and hopeless minority in most clubs to-day. The bulk of the members.h.i.+p is made up of players of from 6 to 24, with a concentration of forces between 12 and 18. These men say, or at all events think, that as they run the club they have a right to be considered, and in their hearts the committee believe that they are justified. These men with long handicaps--some of whom have not even a desire to reduce them to any considerable extent, deriving the utmost pleasure in playing the game in their own way--can find no fun in being always and inevitably in the same bunkers, and regard driving from a tee, when they are either obliged to play short deliberately with an iron or be bunkered for a certainty with their driver, as the most dismal occupation with which a Sat.u.r.day or Sunday sportsman could ever be afflicted. Therefore they cry loudly for shorter carries. They say the others are not fair, and from their particular point of view the remark is possibly justified. Even the young golfer who is determined to be a scratch man some day, though he is eighteen strokes from that pinnacle of excellence as yet, becomes rather tired in the long run of finding constant punishment waiting upon his valiant attempts to drive his longest ball, and thinks the committee should be reminded that there are others in the world besides the immediately coming champions. Amidst these conflicting desires, committees and course designers appear frequently to have attempted a compromise with no particular satisfaction to anybody. It is impossible to lay out a course to suit all the different players in a club, and my own most decided opinion is that the bunkers and other hazards should always be placed to test the game of the scratch player, and not that of the handicap man. A course that is laid out for the latter very often inflicts severe punishment on the scratch player, and it is surely hard that the man who has spent many years in the most patient and painstaking practice should be deliberately treated in this manner when the comparative novice is allowed to go scot free. Moreover, when a bunker is so placed that a long carry is needed from the tee, the handicap man will find his game much improved by playing on the course. At first he finds he cannot carry the hazard, and for a little while contents himself with playing short. But he soon tires of this timidity, takes more pains with his strokes, braces himself up to bigger efforts, and at last the day comes when his ball goes sailing over the obstruction. Afterwards the performance is repeated quite easily, and the views of one man as to the unfairness of that particular carry have undergone a radical change. It is better for the beginner that he should have a hard course to play over than an easy one, and, much as he may grumble at the beginning, he will in the end be thankful to those who imposed a severe experience upon him in his early days as a golfer.

Therefore, if it is decided that there must be a bunker in the centre of the course in the line of the drive, I suggest that it should be placed at a distance of about 130 to 145 yards from the tee. The second bunker, if there is to be another stretching across the course with a view to imposing difficulties on second shots or guarding the green, should be rather less than this distance from the first, so that the man who has topped his drive and is short of the first hazard should still have a chance of clearing the next one with his second shot. Recovery ought never to be impossible. But really I am no believer at all in bunkers placed across the course. Certainly let there be one in front of the tee to catch the bad drive, and another to guard the green; but, generally speaking, the merely short ball carries its own punishment with it in the distance that has been lost and has to be made good again. The straight driver is not the man to be punished. It is the player who slices and pulls and has obviously little command over his club and the ball, and who has taken no pains to master the intricate technique of the drive, for whose careless shots traps should be laid. As often as not the bunker in the centre of the course lets off the ball with a bad slice or pull on it. So I say that bunkers should be placed down both sides of the course, and they may be as numerous and as difficult as the controlling authority likes to make them. But hazards of any description should be amongst the last features to be added to a newly-made golf links. Not until the course has been played over many times under different conditions, and particularly in different winds, can anyone properly determine which is the true place for a hazard to be made. At the beginning it may have been placed elsewhere in a hurry, and it may have seemed on a few trials to answer its purpose admirably, but another day under different conditions it may be made clear that it is in the very place where it will catch a thoroughly good shot and allow only a bad one to escape. I would not have insisted so much on this need for deliberation and patience, if it did not so often happen that as the result of placing the hazards on a new course in too much haste, they are found afterwards to be altogether wrong and have to be moved, with the waste of much time and money.

There is little to the point that I can say about the making of the putting greens, as so much depends upon the natural conditions and opportunities. Sometimes there is nothing to do but to cut the gra.s.s short and pa.s.s the roller over it a few times and the green is made, and a first-cla.s.s green too. At other times there is need for much digging, and the turf with which the carpet is to be relaid may have to be carried to the spot from a considerable distance. Particularly when so much trouble is being taken over the laying of the greens, do I beg the makers of courses to see that they are not made dead level and as much like a billiard table as possible, which often seems to be the chief desire. To say that a putting green is like a billiard table is one of the worst compliments that you can pay to it. By all means let it be true in the sense of being smooth and even, and presenting no lumps or inequalities of surface that are not plainly visible to the eye, and the effect of which cannot be accurately gauged by the golfer who has taught himself how to make allowances. But on far too many greens the man with the putter has nothing to do but gauge the strength of his stroke and aim dead straight at the hole. He derives infinitely less satisfaction from getting down a fifteen-yards putt of this sort than does the man who has holed out at ten feet, and has estimated the rise and fall and the sideway slope of an intervening hillock to begin with and a winding valley to follow, his ball first of all running far away to the right, then trickling across to the left, and finally wheeling round again and rolling into the tin. Only when there is so much calculation to be done and it is so precisely accomplished does the golfer practise the real art of putting, and taste the delights of this delicate part of the game. The other is dull and insipid in comparison. There is the less excuse for making the flat and level greens, inasmuch as even the beginners can appreciate the sporting quality of the others and enjoy practice upon them from the first day of their play. Let there be plenty of undulations, and then with the changing positions of the hole a player can practically never come to any particular green upon which he may have putted hundreds of times without having a problem set him entirely different from any that he has had to work out before. Greens, of course, are of all sizes, from fifteen to fifty yards square, and I beg leave to remark that large size is a fault in them, inasmuch as the bigger they are the less is the skill required in the approach shot.

It is perhaps unnecessary for me to point out as a final word, that when tees have to be specially prepared and turfed, it is a decided improvement to a course to have two at different points for each hole, one nearer and more to one side than the other. Not only do these alternative tees enable each of them to be given a periodical rest for recovery from wear and tear, but they afford an interesting variation of the play, make it possible to impose a more severe test than usual upon the players when it is felt desirable to do so, as on compet.i.tion days, and also in some measure to counteract the effects of winds. Of course when tees have not to be specially made there is endless variety open.