THE FUTURE OF GOLF ARCHITECTURE
As the future of Golf Architecture depends on the prospects of golf, it
may be of interest to discuss the probability of its abiding popularity.
Golf has been played in Scotland for several centuries, and there appears
to be no sign of any decreased popularity, but rather the reverse. The
illusiveness of golf is sufficient to ensure its popularity. No one
ever seems to master it. You imagine you have got the secret to-day,
but it has gone to-morrow. This is so in all good games. There are some
games, such as ping-pong and roller-skating, which become merely passing
crazes, and the reason is that one obtains a certain standard which
neither diminishes nor increases, and then the game becomes monotonous.
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. The advent of the golf architect is rapidly curing all these
disabilities.
A good golf course is a great asset to the nation. Those who harangue
against land being diverted from agriculture and used for golf have
little sense of proportion. Comparing the small amount of land utilised
for golf with the large amount devoted to agriculture, we get infinitely
more value out of the former than the latter. We all eat too much.
During the Great War the majority were all the fitter for being rationed
and getting a smaller amount of food, but none of us get enough fresh
air, pleasurable excitement, and exercise. Health and happiness are
everything in this world. Money-grubbing (so called business), except in
so far as it helps to attain these, is of minor importance. One of the
reasons why I, “a medical man,” decided to give up medicine and take to
golf architecture was my firm conviction of the extraordinary influence
on health of pleasurable excitement, especially when combined with
fresh air and exercise. How frequently have I, with great difficulty,
persuaded patients who were never off my doorstep to take up golf, and
how rarely, if ever, have I seen them in my consulting-rooms again! It is
not suggested that golf is the one and only remedy. Men may get equal
results from shooting, fishing, riding, cricket, tennis, etc., and may
even obtain pleasurable excitement from gardening, politics, or their
own business, but for the majority of men, golf is the most convenient
form of pleasurable excitement and exercise to take. Those who rave
against golf courses surely forget that many of the greatest politicians,
thinkers, and business men conserve their health and their mental powers
through golf. As examples we could quote President Wilson, Lloyd George,
Carnegie, A. J. Balfour, Asquith, Winston Churchill, Lord Northcliffe,
and scores of others. I hope to live to see the day when there are crowds
of municipal courses, as in Scotland, cropping up all over England. It
would help enormously in increasing the health, the virility, and the
prosperity of the nation, and would do much to counteract discontent and
Bolshevism. There can be no possible reason against, and there is every
reason in favour of, municipal courses. They are all for the good of the
community, and even from a financial point of view, at the small green
fees of 3_d._ or 6_d._ a round invariably pay.
If this be so that games, and particularly golf, are of such vital
importance to national health and social content, then surely the
provision of adequate and proper facilities for golf should be taken
seriously, and in making this provision the golf architect has a special
part.
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 look upon golf in the
“card and pencil” spirit, and view with resentment anything that has
stopped their steady series of threes and fours.
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. The writer knows examples of the reconstruction of one
or two short holes bringing in over one hundred fresh members to a club
which had been steadily diminishing in numbers for years.
There are many and varied qualities required for the making of a
successful golf architect.
In the first place, he must have an intimate knowledge of the theory of
playing the game. 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.
His knowledge of the game should be so intimate that he knows
instinctively what is likely to produce good golf and good golfers. He
must have more than a passing acquaintance with the best courses and the
best golfing holes. It is not only necessary that he should play them,
but study them and analyse the features which make them what they are.
He must have a sense of proportion and be able to differentiate between
essentials and non-essentials. He should be able to distinguish between
those features which are of supreme importance in the making of a hole
and those which are of less value.
He must have judgment in the choice of features which can be readily
and cheaply reproduced, and not those which are impossible to construct
without an inordinate expenditure of labour.
How frequently has one seen hundreds of pounds wasted in a futile attempt
to reproduce the Alps, the Himalayas, or the Cardinal! Features of this
kind look absolutely out of place unless the surrounding ranges of hills
which harmonise with them are also reproduced. To do this would involve
the expenditure of hundreds of thousands of pounds. 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.
He should be able to put himself in the position of the best player that
ever lived, and at the same time be extremely sympathetic towards the
beginner and long handicap player.
He should, above all, have a sense of proportion and be able to come to a
prompt decision as to what is the greatest good to the greatest number.
[Illustration: THE FIFTH HOLE AT FULFORD, YORKS—APPROXIMATE COST, £35:
the whole of the additional nine holes on this course were constructed on
dead flat land at a total cost of about £300.]
He should not be unduly influenced by hostile criticism, but should give
the most sympathetic consideration to criticism of a constructive nature.
Not infrequently a long handicap man makes a brilliant suggestion which
can often be utilised in a modified form.
A knowledge of psychology gained in the writer’s medical training has
been of great service in estimating what is likely to give the greatest
pleasure to the greatest number.
It by no means follows that what appears to be attractive at first
sight will be permanently so. A good golf course grows on one like good
painting, good music, etc.
The ideal golf architect should have made a study, from a golfing point
of view, of agricultural chemistry, botany, and geology. He should also
have some knowledge of surveying, map-reading, and the interpretation of
aerial photographs.
Aerial photography will become of enormous value in all kinds of
surveying, town-planning, the construction of golf courses, etc.
There are all sorts of details visible in an aerial photograph which are
often omitted after the most careful survey in the ordinary way. The
exact positions of every tree, hummock, natural bunker, tracks, hedges,
ditches, etc., are well defined. The exact areas occupied by permanent
pasture, grass grown for hay, crops, clumps of whins, rushes, etc., can
all be distinguished in an aerial photograph.
These, combined with a good ordnance and geological drift-map, are of
inestimable value, and in many cases would assist even the most expert
golf architect to make such full use of all the natural features that
thousands of pounds might ultimately be saved in reducing the acreage
required and in minimising the cost of labour, upkeep, etc.
In these days when manual labour costs so much, it is of supreme
importance to reduce it to a minimum by the substitution of mental labour.
Golf architecture is a new art closely allied to that of the artist or
the sculptor, but also necessitating a scientific knowledge of many other
subjects.
In the old days, many golf courses were designed by prominent players,
who after a preliminary inspection of the course simply placed pegs to
represent the position of the sites for the suggested tees, greens,
bunkers, etc. The whole thing was completed in a few hours, and the best
results could hardly have been expected, and in fact never were obtained,
by these methods.
The modern designer, on the other hand, is likely to achieve the most
perfect results and make the fullest use of all the natural features by
more up-to-date methods.
After a preliminary inspection or inspections in the calm and quiet
of his own study with an ordnance map and, if possible, aeroplane
photographs in front of him, he visualises every feature. He is then
not so likely to be obsessed by details, but gives everything its due
proportionate value. He then evolves his scheme and pays a second visit
to the ground, and, if necessary, modifies his ideas according to the
appearance on the spot.
There is an extraordinary resemblance between what is now known as the
camouflage of military earthworks and golf-course construction.
The writer was fortunate during the war in being asked to give the
demonstrations to members of the Army Council which were the foundation
of, and led to the establishment of, the first school of camouflage.
These demonstrations were evolved from his experience as a golf-course
architect in the imitation of natural features.
Successful golf-course construction and successful camouflage are almost
entirely due to utilisation of natural features to the fullest extent and
to the construction of artificial ones indistinguishable from nature.
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.
There are many other attributes in common between the successful golf
architect and the camoufleur.
Both, if not actually artists, must have an artistic temperament, and
have had an education in science.
Surprise is the most important thing in war, and by camouflage you are
able to obtain this not only on the defence but in the attack.
In golf architecture and camouflage a knowledge of psychology is
of enormous value. 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. The only man he has been
successful in initiating rapidly into the mysteries of golf-course
architecture was not a golfer but an artist, and one of the greatest, if
not the greatest, of experts on camouflage.
A little knowledge is a specially dangerous thing in links’ architecture.
One of our greatest troubles in dealing with the committees of the
old-established seaside courses is that their world-renowned reputation
(not due to any virtue of their own, but entirely owing to the natural
advantages of their links) makes them think themselves competent judges
of a golf course.
They ask for a report and plan of suggested improvements, and then
imagine they have grasped the ideas of the designer, and proceed to make
a horrible hash of it. I do not know a single seaside course which has
been remodelled in anything like the way it should have been remodelled.
The best artificially constructed seaside course I know is the Eden (Mr.
Colt’s) Course at St. Andrews. There are few of the crowds of players
who, notwithstanding its youth, already congregate on it realise how much
is due to artificiality and how little to nature. All the best ground at
St. Andrews had been previously seized for the three older courses—viz.,
the Old, the New, and the Jubilee—and yet it compares favourably with any
of them. This is entirely due to the fact that not only was it designed
by Mr. Colt, but the construction work was done by men who had been
trained under him and worked under his supervision.
It is much better that construction work should be done by men without
any knowledge of the subject than by those partly trained.
There is a yarn told about two rival constructors of golf courses: one
of them was admiring the other’s greens, and remarked that “he never
managed to get his green-keeper to make the undulations as natural
looking.” The other replied that “it was perfectly easy; he simply
employed the biggest fool in the village and told him to make them flat.”
I believe the real reason St. 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 architect is the best judge in deciding how often he should
visit a course for supervision purposes. How often have I heard from
the secretary, who is almost invariably a cheery optimist, that the
construction work was going on splendidly, and when too late discovered
that hundreds of pounds had been thrown away in doing bad work which had
ultimately to be scrapped!
There is an old Persian saying:
“He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool.
Avoid him.
“He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, will learn.
Teach him.
“He who knows, and knows not that he knows, will fail. Pity him.
“He who knows, and knows that he knows, is a wise man. Follow
him.”
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 material and attach
so much importance to education, attach so little to education in golf
architecture.
The time will surely come, as it has already done in the North of
England, when committees will attach as much importance to the
architecture of the course as to that of the club-house.
In time many of the dull, monotonous, muddy inland London links will be
entirely remodelled under expert supervision, and the turf and subsoil
treated so that it is a pleasure to play on them even during the winter
months.
The time will also come when even some of the championship courses will
be entirely remodelled under expert supervision, and when these clubs
will realise how little they have made of the natural advantages that
Providence has provided for them.
_Printed in Great Britain
by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury,
for Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd._