A. Mackenzie

“ The unobservant player never seems to realise that one of the chief charms of the best seaside links is the undulating fairways, such as those near the club-house at Deal, part of Sandwich, and most of the old course at St. Andrews, where the ground is a continual roll from the first tee to the last green, and where one never has the same shot to play twice; on these fairways one hardly ever has a level stance or a level lie. It is this that makes the variety of a seaside course, and variety is everything in golf. ”

“ Who is to judge what is an ideal hole? Is it one of our leading players, or any golfer who simply looks upon it from his own point of view? I have known of an open champion expressing his opinion that a certain course was superior to any in Britain. As far as this particular course is concerned, it is generally admitted by amateurs that, although the turf and natural advantages were excellent, it had not a single hole of any real merit. ”

“ The finest courses in existence are natural ones. Such courses as St. Andrews, and the championship courses generally, are admitted to provide a fine test of golf. It is by virtue of their natural formation that they do so. The beauty of gold courses has suffered in the past from the creations of ugly and unimaginative design. Square, flat greens and geometrical bunkers have not only been an eyesore upon the whole landscape, but have detracted from the infinite variety of play which is the heritage of the game. ”

“ An ideal golf expert should not only have a knowledge of botany, geology, and particularly agricultural chemistry, but should also have what might be termed an artistic temperament and vivid imagination. We all know that there is nothing so fatal in playing golf as to have a vivid imagination, but this and a sufficient knowledge of psychology to enable one to determine what is likely to give the greatest pleasure to the greatest number are eminently desirable in a golf architect. ”

“ Golf on a first-rate course can never become monotonous, and the better the course the less likely it is to do so. Golf on a good links is, in all probability, the best game in the world, but on the late-Victorian type of inland course, where there is a complete lack of variety, flat fairways, flat unguarded greens, long grass, necessitating frequent searching for lost balls, and mathematically placed hazards consisting of the cop or pimple variety, it not only offends all the finest instincts of the artist and the sportsman, but is the most boring game in existence. ”

“ In the nature of things a course can only be constructed by an individual: “Too many cooks spoil the broth” is a proverb which is more applicable in the case of golf courses than in anything else.
I personally am a strong believer in encouraging the individuality of the green-keeper, and not interfering with, but rather encouraging, his original ideas, unless they are in opposition to sound fundamental principles. ”

“ How often are attempts made to copy a hole and the subtle slopes and undulations which are the making of the original overlooked!
The golf-course architect must have the sporting instinct, and if he has had a training in many and varied branches of sport, and has analysed those characteristics which provide a maximum of pleasurable excitement in them, so much the better. It is essential that he should eliminate his own game entirely, and look upon all constructional work in a purely impersonal manner. ”

“ The test of a good golf architect is the power of converting bad inland material into a good course, and not the power of fashioning excellent seaside material into a mediocre one.
The majority of amateurs are sportsmen, and they welcome anything that increases the sporting element of the game. There are, on the other hand, others, including some of our best players, who [121] look upon golf in the “card and pencil” spirit, and view with resentment anything that has stopped their steady series of threes and fours. ”

“ It is clear that if a gun emplacement or any other object of military importance is made indistinguishable from the most innocent-looking feature on the landscape, it will escape the disagreeable attention of the enemy. And what can appear more innocent than the natural undulations of the ground? Therefore in camouflage, as in golf-course construction, the ability to imitate natural undulations successfully is of special importance. ”

“ He need not be himself a good player. He may have some physical disability which prevents him becoming so, but as the training of the golf architect is purely mental and not physical, this should not prevent him from being a successful golf-course architect. In any case, the possession of a vivid imagination, which is an absolute essential in obtaining success, may prevent him attaining a position among the higher ranks of players. Every one knows how fatal imagination is in playing the game. Let the fear of socketing once enter your head, and you promptly socket every shot afterwards. ”

“ The majority of committees, being composed of men who have made their living out of their brains, are beginning to know that they know not, and this is all to the good of the future of golf.
The most backward committees are those in Scotland, London, and America. They have not yet realised that golf-course architecture is a question of mental and not physical training. It is particularly strange that my own countrymen, who have such a wealth of golfing [135] material and attach so much importance to education, attach so little to education in golf architecture. ”

“ There are many positions by the seashore where a hole of this kind could be constructed, but it would be possible to make one of a similar type inland, especially [114] if the subsoil consisted of sand and the lie of the land was favourable. The seashore could be replaced by bunkers, old quarry workings, hummocky ground, rough, or even land out of bounds.
Success in construction depends entirely on expert supervision. It is like all successful golf-course construction, a question of making the best use of natural features and the devising of artificial ones, indistinguishable from nature. ”

“ Blind holes on an inland course where there are no surrounding sandhills to locate the green should never be permitted, but an even more annoying form of blindness is that which is so frequent on inland courses—that is, when the flag is visible but the surface of the green cannot be seen. On a green of this description no one can possibly tell whether the flag is at the back, middle, or front of the green, and it is particularly aggravating to play your shot expecting to find it dead, and to discover that your ball is at least twenty yards short. ”

“ Andrews Old Course is infinitely superior to anything else is owing to the fact that it was constructed when no one knew anything about the subject at all, and since then it has been considered too sacred to be touched. What a pity it is that the natural advantages of many seaside courses have been neutralised by bad designing and construction work! ”

“ The great thing in constructing golf courses is to ensure variety and make everything look natural. The greatest compliment that can be paid to a green-keeper is for players to think his artificial work is natural. On Alwoodley and Moortown practically every green and every hummock has been artificially made, and yet it is difficult to convince the stranger that this is so. ”

“ Except where the course has been designed and the construction work supervised by the modern golf architect, there is hardly a golf club of any size which has not frittered away hundreds of pounds in doing bad work, all for the want of the best advice in the first instance.
There can be little doubt that the poorer the club the more important it is for it not to waste its small funds in doing the wrong kind of work, but to get the best possible advice from its inception. ”

“ An ideal hole should provide an infinite variety of shots according to the varying positions of the tee, the situation of the flag, the direction and strength of the wind, etc. It should also at times give full advantage for the voluntary pull or slice, one of the most finished shots in golf, and one that few champions are able to carry out with any great degree of accuracy.
Should an ideal hole be ideal for the plus, scratch, or long handicap player? As players of all handicaps play golf, a hole should as far as possible be ideal for all classes. ”

“ GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMY IN COURSE CONSTRUCTION AND GREEN-KEEPING
Economy in course construction consists in obtaining the best possible results at a minimum of cost. The more one sees of golf courses, the more one realises the importance of doing construction work really well, so that it is likely to be of a permanent character. It is impossible to lay too much stress on the importance of finality. ”

“ In constructing natural-looking undulations one should attempt to study the manner in which those among the sand-dunes are formed. These are fashioned by the wind blowing up the sand in the form of waves, which become gradually turfed over in the course of time. Natural undulations are, therefore, of a similar shape to the waves one sees by the seashore, and are of all kinds of shapes and sizes, but are characterised by the fact that the hollows between the waves are broader than the waves themselves. ”

“ It enables one to judge what is likely to give pleasurable excitement to the golfer and confidence and improvement in moral to the soldier. The writer feels most strongly that his experience in the Great War in visualising and surveying miles of sites for fortifications in this country and abroad, in map-reading, in the interpretation of aerial photographs, in drainage and labour-saving problems, and particularly in the mental training of strategic camouflage and devising traps and surprises for the enemy, was by no means wasted even from a golf-course point of view. ”

“ It is rarely necessary to cart soil from a distance for the purpose of making a hummock or a green. It is much more economical to remove a sufficient area of turf from and around the site of an intended hummock or green, and utilise the soil removed from the area around the hummock for this purpose. This is a double advantage. The surrounding ground is lowered as the hummock is raised, and makes the hummock appear higher, and at the same time it is made to merge imperceptibly into the surrounding hollow or hollows, and has a much more natural appearance. ”

“ It is not nearly as common an error to make blind holes as formerly. A blind tee shot may be forgiven, or a full shot to the green on a seaside course, when the greens can usually be located accurately by the position of the surrounding hummocks, but an approach shot should [34] never be blind, as this prevents an expert player, except by a fluke, from placing his approach so near the hole that he gets down in one putt. ”

“ Andrews differs from others in that it has always been deemed a sacrilege to interfere with its natural beauties, and it has been left almost untouched for centuries. No green-keeper has ever dared to shave down its natural undulations. Most of the bunkers have been left where nature placed them, and others have originated from the winds and the rains enlarging divot marks left by the players, and some of them possibly by the green-keepers converting those hollows where most players congregated, into bunkers, owing to the difficulty of keeping them free from divot marks. ”

“ The fielders are placed in the positions where the majority of shots go, and it should obviously be easier with a stationary ball to avoid the hazards than to avoid the fielders at cricket.
In both games it is only a proportion of bad shots that get punished, but notwithstanding this the man who is playing the best game almost invariably comes out on top.
It is an important thing in golf to make holes look much more difficult than they really are. People get more pleasure in [47] doing a hole which looks almost impossible, and yet is not so difficult as it appears. ”

“ A green-keeper should attempt to get a sufficient knowledge of botany and chemistry to know by the character of the herbage of his greens the kind and the amount of manure that is required. Green-keepers sometimes think that if they use twice the usual quantity of a manure, it will have double the effect; the exact contrary is the case, as the green may be ruined entirely.
The most important manure of all is cut grass. If the cut grass is always left on the greens and fairways, very little manuring is necessary. ”

“ It should be borne in mind that the most useless turf from a farming point of view is frequently the most valuable for golf. There are many other details which help to lessen the cost of turfing. In an old-established course, turf for new greens or for renovating old ones can frequently be obtained from the sides of a neighbouring fairway, the sods from which may be replaced by those removed from the site of the green. ”

“ We can also eliminate blind greens, blind bunkers, and blind approaches. The greater the experience the writer has of designing golf courses, the more certain he is that blindness of all kinds should be avoided. The only form of blindness that should ever be permitted is the full shot up to a green whose position is accurately located by surrounding sandhills. Even in a hole of this kind, it is not the blindness that is interesting, but the visibility of the surrounding sandhills. ”

“ An important question is the use of manures in turfing. Stable or farmyard manure should almost invariably be placed under the sods: the amount should vary according to the turf and soil. Five loads [79] per green is an average, and on undulating greens the manure should be placed under the raised portions only. The hollows will look after themselves. Manure does more harm than good if dug deeply in: it should be forked in immediately under the sods, and the roots of the finer grasses feed on it at once. If dug in deeply, the coarser grasses are encouraged at the expense of the finer. ”

“ It cannot be too frequently emphasised that in starting a new course or reconstructing an old one it is of the utmost importance that the committee should have a scheme before them of a definite and final nature. It would be sound finance for the majority of golf clubs to pay the expenses of the Green Committee for the purpose of visiting good examples of construction work on other courses. ”

“ One of the objects in placing hazards is to give the players as much pleasurable excitement as possible. On many inland courses there is not a thrill on the whole round, and yet on some of the championship courses one rarely takes a club out of the bag without having an interesting shot to play. This particularly applies to the old course at St. Andrews, and is one of the reasons why it always retains its popularity with all classes of players. ”

“ Andrews is perfect: it has its disadvantages, particularly in the absence of long carries from the tee, and in its blind bunkers, but no links in the world grows upon all classes of players in the same manner. The longer one plays there the keener one gets, and this is a much truer test of a good course than one which pleases at first and is boring later on.
A good golf course is like good music or good anything else ”

“ The advent of the golf architect has done much to increase the sporting and the dramatic element in golf. The true test of the value of his work is its popularity, and judging by the rapid increase in members, even on the mere rumour that the services of a well-known course architect are to be obtained, there can be no doubt the modern constructor of courses has achieved this. ”

“ It also gives great pleasure (or sometimes pain) to see the result of one’s shot.
In an ideal hole, the turf should be as perfect as possible and the approaches should have the same consistency as the greens, but it is by no means advisable to avoid entirely bad lies or irregular stances. There is not only much skill required, but an improvement of one’s game results in occasionally having to play out of a cupped lie, or from an uneven stance. There are few things more monotonous than always playing from a dead flat fairway. ”