Golf hole

“ A hole more satisfactory to do in four than the second it would be hard to imagine, since both the drive and the second must be long and straight and the second must almost inevitably be played from a hanging lie. We may, if we like, approach it in cowardly instalments and play our tee-shot deliberately short of the sloping ground; if we do, we may possibly escape a six, but by no means shall we get a four. It is the hole for a man brave and skilful who can use his wooden club when the ground is not flat, neither is the ball teed. ”

“ The first hole demands two very long, straight shots, for there is a ditch to catch a slice and only a narrow opening to the green. The second, again, is a fine, long driving hole, a little ‘dog-legged’ in character, and at the third, which is a short one, the green is beleaguered with pot-bunkers on every side. Yet this third hole shows that there are limits to what human ingenuity can do, for the hole is as difficult as can be, and yet of so flat and melancholy an appearance that one could scarcely feel any warm affection for it. ”

“ From the high tee to the fifth hole we get a view of a perfect stretch of golfing country, broken and undulating with the sandhills on the left and a vast expanse of rushes on the right, for, in spite of much pruning and uprooting, there are still plenty of the famous rushes left. It is a sight to make glad the heart of man, and at the same time to fill him with gloomy doubts as to whether he is quite good enough to play upon such a course. ”

“ The ordinary golfer, whose head is not too full of modern architectural ideas, would jump with joy on first beholding Prestwick. There is nothing subtle or recondite about it; it has a beauty which explains itself. There are the great sandhills bristling with bents and the little nestling valleys beyond them, a rushing burn and a stone wall, and it is perfectly clear that man was meant to hit the ball over them. All the ground on the near side of the wall, which is the ground of the old twelve-hole course, is of this glorious ‘natural’ character. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The eleventh is another good hole, where, if we push our drive far enough out to the right over the big hills, we may hope to put our second on the green, where it nestles amid a guard of hummocks. Nor must we omit some mention of the short holes, all excellent in their different ways and all fiercely guarded, where a shot has got to be something more than decently straight, since—and this applies to the approaching in general—the ball does not run to the hole unless it is hit there, and the ground falls away towards the edges of the greens. ”

“ In truth, it is a splendid course for which he is bound, and not only is it wonderfully difficult and wonderfully interesting, but it has a charm that is given to but few links. It looks more like a good golf course than almost any other course in the world. Not perhaps when we first emerge from the club-house, for the first three holes lie upon a rather flat and marshy piece of ground, but as soon as we get to the fourth hole it is obvious that the burrows were ordained by providence for no other than their present purpose. ”

“ There is among the old holes a beautiful thirteenth, with a narrow little green beset on every side, so that the tee-shot had to be accurate in order to make the second possible. That hole we shall miss sadly, but otherwise the new holes are far the better: long raking holes between hills and rushes that give the course just the extra touch of length and difficulty that it wanted. We emerge on to the old ground again to play the ‘Crater,’ a hole that we are fond of for old sake’s sake, though it is in reality a bad and fluky one, as ‘punchbowl’ holes generally are. ”

“ The green is away in a corner of the course, tucked up in the shadow of a towering lighthouse, and the bounding waves of Biscay come rolling almost to its very edge. If we are not convinced that it is technically perfect, this is at all events a charming hole, one of the most picturesque we can find in France, At the lighthouse we turn about, play some plainer things along the level of the sea, and then come to a piece of golf which is famous all over the world. The ascent to the higher surface has to be made at the thirteenth, and it is done at what is known to every one as the Cliff hole. ”

“ This tenth is a truly beautiful short hole: in length about a cleek or long iron shot on a still day, with a really horrible bunker, long, deep, and wide, stretching before the green and throwing out a sandy tentacle far to the right to catch a long sliced shot. It is really a better hole than Cader, in that we can see far more clearly where we are going, and, when the wind is against us and we must needs take a wooden club, there is no finer one-shot hole in the world. ”

“ A fine slashing hole again is the sixteenth, where the green is guarded by a grass ground ditch and a low wall of earth, which one would take to be an artificial bunker that has fallen into disuse, except that it dispels the illusion by looking infinitely less ugly and more artistic. When the wind is not too strongly against us, here is a grand chance of hitting out with the brassey and reaping a due reward. Then again, for sheer terrifying splendour of appearance, what could be better than the tee-shots at the thirteenth, commonly called ‘Apollyon,’ and the home hole? ”

“ It is the chief beauty of the hole that it calls imperatively for this most difficult of shots, since the slope of the green is from right to left and a series of graduated horrors await the pulled ball: a mere bunker for the moderate sinner, a tract of wet ruts and hoof-marks for the rather more criminal, and a waste of heather for the utterly depraved. Nor is it sufficient merely to hit the ball somewhere out to the right. Good intentions by themselves are not enough, and there is a bunker lurking on the right-hand edge of the green ”

“ It is a terrible place this double green of Point Garry, worn, bare, and sloping down to the rocks and the beach, and we come to it, besides, at two of the most agitating moments of the round; at the first hole, when we have not had quite enough golf, and at the seventeenth, when, if the match has been a fierce one, we have perhaps had too much. Our terror is perhaps less acute at the first hole, because we are then playing on the part of the green that is furthest from the sea ”

“ This green, too, is guarded by a series of knolls and hummocks—there are perhaps rather too many of them—and we may have been very nearly straight and yet be confronted with an extremely awkward little pitch. The hole is a terribly blind one: rather too blind to be classed among the greatest of one-shot holes, but it is impossible not to be swayed by our emotions rather than by pure reason, and our emotions tell us that it is a glorious hole. ”

“ Of the seventeenth I feel bound to say, with all just respect, that it appears to be one of the very luckiest holes—in the matter of approaching—that ever was made, but the eighteenth is a noble hole, with that little narrow plateau green that will yield to no mere rule of thumb approaching. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The next thing to do is to hit the ball, which should be a comparatively easy task, for there is plenty of room at this first hole, as there always should be, and nothing but an egregious top or a wholly unprovoked slice is likely to harm us. It is really, from the point of view of the greatest happiness of the greatest number, a wholly admirable first hole, since not only is there no great opportunity for disaster, but the hole is a long hole and so enables the couples to be despatched quickly and without undue irritation from the tee. ”

“ The hole is perched aloft, too near the tide,
The green is small, and broken is the ground
Which doth that little charmed space surround!
Go not too far, and go not to a side;
Take the short spoon to do your second stroke;
Sandy entreats you will the wind take heed on,
For, oh, it would a very saint provoke,
If you should let your ball plump in the Eden.
You do your best, but who can fate control?
So here against you is another hole.
R. C. Jr.
VIII. THE SHORT HOLE.
Brief but not easy is the next adventure ”

“ This mild hope only infuriated Booverman. He had already teed his ball for the second hole, which was poised on a rolling hill one hundred and thirty-five yards away. It is considered rather easy as golf-holes go. The only dangers are a matted wilderness of long grass in front of the tee, the certainty of landing out of bounds on the slightest slice, or of rolling down hill into a soggy substance on a pull. ”

“ If this third hole is the most terrifying to the habitual foozler, the more mature golfer will be a great deal more frightened of the fourth and tenth, which were really very good holes indeed. That drive at the tenth down a pretty glade between the trees is, as far as appearances go at least, one of the narrowest I know, and the second shot is a good one too, though by no means so long as it used to be, with a gutty. ”

“ The fourteenth is, I think, almost the best hole on the course, and certainly the tee-shot is the most alarming. We can see all our troubles only too clearly here—a sandy road full of the deepest ruts on the right, called in spirit of ostentatious levity the ‘Old Kent Road,’ and on the left a prickly and seductive hedge. If only there was a mountain in the way at this hole, we should probably come less frequently to grief. As it is, we concentrate all our attention on being straight, and are all the more terribly crooked in consequence. ”

“ These park holes are certainly one of the drawbacks to the course. For six holes we are playing excellent golf in the right golfing country, with heather, and sand, and everything as it should be. Then we go through a wicket gate, the whole scene instantly changes, and, behold! we are playing a hole of the typical inland kind. There is no heather and no sand, save such as has been transplanted to fill up a number of conscientious little bunkers, and it is no great injustice to liken the turf to that of a good smooth field. ”

“ By this time we are close to the famous ‘Pebble Ridge,’ and the real golfing country begins with the fourth hole, a fine two-shot hole with a well-guarded green. Next comes the fifth, and in front of the tee there is a bunker so colossal that the carry looks at first sight to be impossible. A good long carry it certainly is, but it is not nearly so appalling as it looks; a well struck ball will career gaily over it, and, if we feel frightened, we can make the carry a little shorter by going to the right. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This hollow has merits, which are not given to all of its kind, for its sides are abruptly precipitous and not possessed of those gentle and flattering slopes, which coax the indifferently struck ball in the direction of the hole. The sixth, on the other hand, which is a one-shot hole, has all the vices which the fifth avoids, for here all roads lead to the flag, and the perfect shot, the paltry slice, and the too vigorous hook, may all meet together at such a range from the hole that a two is by no means improbable. ”

“ The shot is a blind one, and we have not the supreme felicity of seeing the ball pitch and run down into the valley to nestle by the flag. We see it for a long time, however, soaring and swooping over the desert, and, when it finally disappears, we have a shrewd notion as to its fate. If the wind be fresh against us, we must play away to the right for safety, and the glorious enjoyment of the hole is gone, but even so a good shot will be repaid, and every yard that we can go to the left may make the difference between a difficult and an easy second. ”

“ There are, it is true, two blind and mountainous tee-shots over the famous ‘Himalayas,’ but they appear rather esoteric than otherwise. The holes on the far side of the wall are in their nature essentially flat, and in one or two instances a little artificial. As one plays the eighth hole alongside the railway by Monkton Station, one cannot repress the feeling that one might as well have stayed inland. Well bunkered and difficult enough is that particular hole, and yet so utterly lacking in the least breath of the sea, and the fairway is just a smooth avenue mowed out of a big field. ”