WALES.
There are several very excellent courses in Wales, but I am quite
determined to put Aberdovey first--not that I make for it any claim
that it is the best, not even on the strength of its alphabetical
pre-eminence, but because it is the course that my soul loves best of
all the courses in the world. Every golfer has a course for which he
feels some such blind and unreasoning affection. When he is going to
this his golfing home he packs up his clubs with a peculiar delight
and care; he anxiously counts the diminishing number of stations that
divide him from it, and finally steps out on the platform, as excited
as a schoolboy home for the holidays, to be claimed by his own familiar
caddie. A golfer can only have one course towards which he feels quite
in this way, and my one is =Aberdovey=.
I can just faintly remember the beginning of golf at Aberdovey in
the early eighties. Already rival legends have clustered round that
beginning, but the true legend says that the founder was Colonel Ruck,
who, having played some golf at Formby, borrowed nine flower pots from
a lady in the village and cut nine holes on the marsh to put them in.
The first five holes as the visitor knows them now were then but a
wilderness. There was no 'Cader' and no 'Pulpit'; we had a long weary
walk along the road to the level-crossing, and began with the present
sixth hole, which was then guarded by a fine clump of gorse, long
since cut to pieces by merciless niblicks. Then came a period when we
began and ended on the piece of land which now serves Aberdovey as a
cricket ground, and there was a wonderful last hole in which we drove
off from the present eighteenth tee, carried with our second shot
the railway line and a mighty pile of sleepers, and holed out on the
present cricket pitch. Finally, at the time of the first meeting at
Easter, 1893, the course had taken something like the shape which it
has kept ever since, save for the quite recent introduction of the new
home-coming holes. I have in a dusty old album a group taken at that
first meeting by a local photographer. I cannot count more than ten
players, nor do I believe that there were any more. They stand ranged
with their caddies in front of a bunker and a turf wall most curiously
and artistically castellated, while behind is a motley gathering of
local spectators arrayed in bowler hats. That humble little meeting,
with its ten players, was considered a vast success, though I cannot
think that the play was very good, since I remember winning the scratch
medal with 100, and the best actual score returned during the three
days was but three strokes lower. Aberdovey has made great strides
since those days. The golf is very good, and will soon, I suppose,
be made better, although, if one only loves a course well enough,
even the most obvious improvement feels to be almost a desecration.
Moreover, the place has a charm which brings the same people back to it
year after year with a wonderful constancy of affection.
[Illustration: ABERDOVEY
_The village from the second tee_]
Aberdovey stands at the mouth of the Dovey Estuary, and the links are
on a long, narrow strip of turf stretching between the sandhills and
the shore on the one side, and a range of hills on the other. The
sandhills are many and imposing, but nature has not disposed them with
a very kindly hand. There is no turf on the far side of them--nothing
but the shore and the waves--and so, although they make a most
effective series of lateral bunkers, it is not possible to dodge in
and out amongst them in quite the same fascinating way as at Prestwick
or Sandwich. Moreover, till quite lately we could not use them at all
in the home-coming nine holes, owing to the difficulty of properly
draining some of the marshy ground at their foot. That difficulty has
now, however, been done away with, at least as regards the summer, and
there are some fine new holes, still a little rough, but improving
rapidly, where we have to play with something more than ordinary
accuracy between a never-ending range of hills on the right, and thick,
unyielding clumps of rushes on the left.
As I said before, the course lies on a long narrow strip of golfing
country, with the result that the holes have to go straight out and
home again, and we have often either to struggle all the way out
against the wind, and then be blown homewards, or _vice versa_. This
is, of course, a disadvantage, since the holes in one direction are
apt to become too long, and those in the other too short. I remember
that on one occasion there was a Bogey competition, and a terribly
strong wind, which blew dead ahead all the way out; it blew so hard
that no human creature could hope to reach any of the first nine greens
in anything like the right number of shots, and I believe the man who
ultimately won the competition was eight down to Bogey at the turn.
There is probably no course that has its first tee so near the station.
We tee up within the shortest possible stone's throw of the platform,
and drive over a waste of sand and stones, that is still fairly
formidable, though neither so sandy or so stony as it was in the days
when it served as an impromptu football ground for the villagers. A
good drive lands us in a country of those grassy hummocks, which are a
conspicuous feature of the course, and a firm iron shot over a bunker
should get us a four. The pitch, however, has to be an accurate one,
and this applies to the approaching throughout, since the greens are
decidedly small and there is no great chance of recovering by a very
long putt laid dead. To do a low score at Aberdovey a man must either
be keeping his iron shots ruled rigidly on the pin, or he must lay
a number of little chip shots from off the edge of the green within
holing distance; this, moreover, is not a particularly easy thing to
do, since the greens are full of natural dells and hillocks. The second
and third holes have very similar tee-shots; there are several small
sandhills to carry, and severe punishment for a pulled shot. The
approach to the third hole is a particularly attractive one, since the
green is almost entirely circled round with small hills, and there is
only a very narrow opening through which to play; against the wind the
ball may be pitched up boldly enough, but down wind there is nothing
for it but a running shot, and that a very accurate one.
The fourth hole is known to all Aberdoveyites as 'Cader,' and is as
good a specimen of the blind short hole as is to be found. There is a
big hill in front of the tee, shored up with black timbers, and the
green has the transcendent merit for this type of hole that it is not
too big. There is no vast meadow of turf to play on to, like the Maiden
green at Sandwich, and the ball has to do something more than carry the
hill-top. Cader used to be particularly memorable a few years back,
when the small caddies, stationed on the top to watch the fate of the
ball, used to cry out "On the green," with a curiously melancholy,
piping note. Now alas! they have become more sophisticated, and merely
signal with the hand in the orthodox manner. It is but a poor exchange,
and we sadly miss the old familiar cry.
After Cader we must take a short walk along a winding path among the
hills which takes us on to the 'Pulpit' tee, where we stand high above
all the world, with the sea on our left and the whole course stretching
away before us in the distance. The tee-shot is by no means one of the
most difficult, but certainly one of the pleasantest that I know, and
gives a full measure of sensual delight. Then we must leave the hills
for a while and strike inland to play some flatter holes that wind
their way by the side of the railway. The sixth and seventh are both
very fine two-shot holes, and then at the long eighth we meet with a
characteristic Aberdovey hazard, familiarly and affectionately known
as the 'leeks.' They are in fact irises, but they have always been the
'leeks' since Peter Paxton christened them so, under the impression
that the national emblem must naturally be found upon a Welsh course.
Paxton is not the only man who has found sad trouble in the leeks, for
they are wonderfully thick and retentive, and the wise man pulls very
wide away to the left at the eighth and ninth, and does not try to run
things at all fine.
So far we have gone practically straight ahead, but at the tenth we
turn sharply to the left and prepare for our homeward journey. 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.
Now we come to the parting of the ways, where the new holes break away
to the right towards the sandhills, and the old holes are on the flat
ground, over which we journeyed outwards. 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 sixteenth,
however, is a really good one, with a horribly narrow tee-shot between
the railway on the left and a wilderness of sandhills on the right; it
is capable of ruining any score, and no man is a medal winner till he
has played that shot--with a cleek, if he is prudent--and sees the ball
lying safely on the turf. The seventeenth has a fine tee-shot from one
of the spurs of Cader and another punchbowl green, which follows all
too soon after the fifteenth, and then we finish with a fine, long,
free-hitting hole over clumps of rushes.
Thus ends the course, and I know it so well that I find it very hard to
criticize or appraise at its just worth. One thing may safely be said,
that it provides a fine school for iron club shots, whether short or
long. There are a great many holes--perhaps too many--which need a long
iron shot for the second, and these shots have to be played from every
variety of stance and lie on to greens that are good, but uniformly
small. There is, too, no better course for teaching the little chip or
run up, play it how you will, from the confines of the green--the shot
which professionals play so wonderfully well, and many amateurs play so
badly.
The tee-shots are good, without being very remarkable, and there is
perhaps a lack of full brassey shots to be lashed right up to the hole;
that, however, is a criticism to which, in these days of mighty hitting
and rubber-cored balls, many courses are open. Yet when the wind is
adverse, and the iron shots become wooden club shots, the comparative
smallness of the greens makes them wooden club shots of the very best,
and I ask for nothing pleasanter to look back upon than a string of
fours going out against a wind at Aberdovey.
I have tried as a rule to avoid invidious comparisons between course
and course, but it may be pardonable to make a short and wholly
friendly comparison between Aberdovey and Harlech, because, although
near neighbours, they have such very different characteristics. At
Aberdovey the holes go straight out and home again; at Harlech they
tack backwards and forwards, this way and that. In the same way the
Aberdovey sandhills run in one unbroken line, while at Harlech they
are more scattered, and can therefore be used in more different ways.
Aberdovey is a course of small, undulating greens, while Harlech has
larger and flatter ones. Finally, the charms of Aberdovey grow on one
slowly, but also, I think, surely, while Harlech fascinates at the
first glance.
[Illustration: HARLECH
_Looking across the fourth hole_]
Small wonder if the visitor falls in love with =Harlech= at first
sight, for no golf course in the world has a more splendid background
than the old castle, which stands at the top of a sheer precipice of
rock looking down over the links. Wherever we go it is never out of
sight, and though we may glance away at the hills with Snowdon in
the distance, we always come back to the castle with a never-satisfied
longing. It is so obviously splendid that we might imagine that we
should in time grow tired of it, but we never do.
The holes at Harlech that have always left the most vivid impression
on my mind, perhaps because, owing to the rather leisurely Cambrian
trains, I have not been there half as often as I should like, are those
at the beginning and end of the course. Those in the middle, possibly
because they have been altered at times or because they are not so
markedly characteristic, are more blurred in the memory. Yet it is, I
hasten to add, that all the golf is good, very good indeed, and fit to
test the very best of players.
At the first hole there is a kind of ditch and bank to carry, a little
severe when the player is stiff and ill at ease with his clubs, and a
particularly excellent green. Then we turn almost directly back and
get rather nearer to the first of those stone walls, which are so
common an object in the landscape in North Wales, and quite one of the
distinctive features of Harlech. At the third we are fighting with
stone walls all the way, and a most effective hazard they make. This
third is a really fine hole, for there is a whole stroke to be gained
by a drive that is long and bold and clings as near to the wall as
safety permits. The first shot has to be played parallel to the wall,
or rather to two neighbouring walls, between which lies a sandy cart
track full of unspeakable ruts. Then at the second we have to make up
our minds whether or not to go for the green, which lies beyond the
two walls, and is further guarded by yet a third wall, which runs at
right angles to the other two. If we have not gone far enough, or if
we have kept too much to the left, there is nothing for it but to play
another shot straight along, and so home with a pitch for our third.
If, however, we have driven far and sure, we may take the brassey,
carrying all three walls at one fell swoop, and accomplish a four.
Moreover, it is a four that is a real joy to do. It is none of your
'Bogey fours,' for the miserable old gentleman would never attempt that
dashing second, but would proceed pawkily and by stages, pitching on
to the green with his third, and getting a commonplace and respectable
five. Thereby he will often win the hole from us who have died a
glorious death in the sandy road, but at least we shall have tried to
quit ourselves like men.
The fourth is a one-shot hole, which likewise calls for hard hitting.
It is never short, and against the wind a really big shot is needed to
carry the bunker, which is made the taller and more frightening by a
timbered face. The green is flat and easy, and if we can reach it there
should be no excuse for more than two putts.
The holes that come after this have undergone a good many alterations
at different times. They are good sound golf every one of them, but
it is when we turn our faces homeward toward the castle, and are
approaching the almost equally famous 'Castle' bunker, that Harlech
becomes most memorable.
At this fourteenth, if we are fighting a fierce match, we feel that
the crucial time is coming, for we are now going to plunge into the
heart of the hills for five eminently critical and exciting holes. The
first of them entails a shot over the 'Castle' bunker, and never was
a bunker that more thoroughly belied its true character by a mild and
harmless exterior. All that we see in front of us is a grassy bank,
with a guiding flag fluttering on the top; and, ignorance being here
most emphatically bliss, we may hit a fine shot as straight as an arrow
and be congratulated on reaching the green. It is only when we have
climbed to the top of that innocent-looking bank that we shall see what
we have escaped, a perfect Sahara of sand that stretches nearly to the
edge of the green. 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.
There is another hill to carry at the fifteenth, while the sixteenth
has a green of almost infinite possibilities in the matter of tortuous
and tricky putts. There is nothing tricky about the seventeenth,
however--nothing but straight, honest hitting, and the chance of a
clean stroke to be gained by it. The green lies in a hollow at the foot
of the hills, and in front of it is a bunker and a most uncompromising
stone wall. Two really fine shots will carry the wall; let the tee-shot
be a little less than good and we must needs play short and be content
with a five: that is the entire story of the hole, and a very fine
seventeenth hole it is. The eighteenth is mild by comparison, but a
good straight tee-shot is needed to reach the green, which is well
guarded by pot-bunkers.
Harlech is rich in the possession of one of the best secretaries in
the world, Mr. More, and also in one of the most popular of handicap
competitions, the Harlech Town Bowl. The fields that enter for this
tournament every August are really enormous, and to win it is no mean
feat. In this same tournament Mr. Hilton, when he was at his very best,
played some of the most extraordinary golf of his life. I am almost
afraid to say how heavily he was penalized, but I am nearly sure that
he owed eight. I know that in one round he had to give a third to Mr.
Palmer, who, if not quite as good as he is now, was at any rate a very
good player, and, what is more, played well in this particular match.
However, Mr. Hilton beat him after a great struggle, fought his way
into the final, and there trampled on an unfortunate and probably
awe-stricken adversary. He was laying his brassey shots within a few
feet of the hole, and generally making light of difficulties which any
visitor to Harlech will find are not to be treated lightly.
To get from North to South Wales is not so easy a matter as might be
supposed. It entails much waiting at junctions, which have been placed
in some of the most melancholy and deserted spots on the face of the
earth. However, once arrived in South Wales, there is plenty of golf
to be had, some of it very good. There is a very fine course near
Llanelly, Ashburnham by name, which, alas! I have never seen; and there
is Southerndown, in Glamorganshire, which is growing fast into fame.
Near Cardiff there is Radyr and Penarth, the latter having a truly
glorious view over the British Channel, but being sometimes afflicted
with muddiness. Then, also in Glamorgan, there are the very excellent
links of Porthcawl.
Links they may worthily be called, for the golf at Porthcawl is the
genuine thing--the sea in sight all the time, and the most noble
bunkers. True to its national character, the course also boasts of
stone walls. Of my visits to Porthcawl I retain two particularly vivid
recollections. The first is of a hole that has long since disappeared,
since that part of the ground is no more played over. As I remember it,
it was by far the longest hole in the world, Blackheath not excepted.
Perhaps it has become stretched in my memory, or possibly the reason
is that I played the hole against a most prodigious driver, Mr. Edmund
Spencer, who was one of the hopes of Hoylake in these days, but has
now most reprehensibly given up the game. I do not think there were
many hazards in the way; one was simply told to aim at a white rock
in the dim distance, and to keep on hitting till one got there. To
make matters worse, it was the very first hole, so that one was nearly
prostrate before the round had really begun.
My other recollection of a more cheerful nature is of a hole which
was far easier to get into than any other hole in the world. The hole
was not in itself by any means a simple one, involving a struggle
with a stone wall and a long shot up a hill, but the green-keeper had
selected a delightful spot for the hole at the bottom of a hollow with
shelving sides. Once arrived within approaching distance of the hole,
one had only to play the ball some few yards beyond the hole and it
would topple gently back, not merely to lie stone dead, but actually
to go in. The Welsh Championship meeting was going on at the time, and
all sorts of wonders were recorded. One competitor holed a full brassey
shot, and threes were as common as blackberries. The putting was
becoming almost farcical, when one day there came a day of reckoning.
I remember being left with a putt of some eight or ten yards, and,
banging the ball past the hole with a light and careless heart, fully
prepared to see it come trickling in. Alas! the green was a little
wet that morning, and the ball stuck firmly on the opposite slope and
refused to come back. I can still see that ball perched upon the bank
and grinning at me. "Sold again" it was obviously and impudently saying.
[Illustration: PORTHCAWL
_Going to the eighteenth green_]
At Porthcawl, as it is now, there are some very good holes. Of the
two-shot holes, the fourth is excellent, and has a formidable second
shot over a big and boarded bunker. The sixth is very similar, both
as regards quality and quantity. Then there is the eleventh, where a
really long, raking second over a big bunker should entail a four, and
the utter destruction of Bogey and other cautious players who duly
play short with their second shots. Another good one is the ninth, with
a long carry up a hill on to a crater green--a green which I suspect
of having been the scene of the putting exploits that I have narrated,
though my memory is a little vague on this point.
Of the single-shot holes there is a fine long carry--the shot has to
be practically all carry--on to the third green. The sixteenth is
another that is good, and the course ends with an exceedingly difficult
single-shot hole. There is in the minds of many a prejudice against
finishing with a short hole, and it is certainly an ending which is
not to be found on many good courses. Nevertheless, if the shot be
only difficult enough, it is a little hard to see why a short hole
should not make a really fine finish. There is an unpleasant feeling of
finality about the tee-shot at any short hole, which never allows us to
feel wholly comfortable, and certainly 'Hades' or the 'Maiden' would be
infinitely more alarming if they came at the end of the round instead
of in the earlier part of the round, when no mistake is irreparable.
From the spectator's point of view, it is desirable to get the player
to the eighteenth tee in the last state of nervous exhaustion, and
a tricky, difficult one-shot hole accomplishes that rather inhuman
purpose to perfection.
Not far from Porthcawl--as the aeroplane flies--is another excellent
course, Southerndown. It is perched high aloft and looks down on
Porthcawl, amid the many other glories of a beautiful view. You may
look out far over the sea, or again over a wide stretch of the best
kind of English--or rather Welsh--landscape. The breezes blow cool and
fresh here, and on a still and stifling August day, when the golfer is
almost too limp to crawl round Porthcawl, he will be wise to refresh
himself by a round on the heights of =Southerndown=.
In one way the course is rather singular. Being high in the air and not
down on the level of the shore, it has many of the characteristics of
the typical downland courses. It has their big rolling slopes and deep
gullies, but it has not, curiously to relate, the typical down turf.
The winds of centuries have blown so much sand up from the seashore
that they have practically succeeded in imbuing the turf of the downs
with a second sandy nature. The sand does not go very deep down;
indeed, if you dig far down you come to uncompromising rock; but this,
so to speak, veneer of sand has a great deal to do with making the
course the good and pleasing one that it is. An example of this blowing
of the sand is to be seen in a huge sandhill, which forms a prominent
feature of the landscape in the direction of Porthcawl. It has all
appearance of a natural phenomenon, since out of the sand, where by
all the laws of Nature there should be no trees, a fine clump of trees
nevertheless persist in growing. The explanation apparently is that the
trees grew first and the sand was blown afterwards in such quantities
as entirely to obliterate the soil underneath. That at least is the
story as it is told to me.
[Illustration: SOUTHERNDOWN
_Looking to the last green_]
The course, as I said, has some of the features of downland
courses, but there is one that it mercifully lacks, namely, those
detestable greens which are cut out of the sides of steep hills, and so
have a back wall on one side and a sheer drop on the other. The greens
at Southerndown are for the most part thoroughly natural in character,
and their slopes and undulations are not unduly exaggerated. Another
point wherein the course entirely differs from others on the downs
is to be found in the presence of bracken, which traps the wandering
driver at the sides of the course, and, in the summer at any rate,
punishes him with commendable severity.
Three good two-shot holes begin the course: the second and third being
particularly testing, so that three fours is perhaps a little too
good to expect. Then at the fourth comes our first chance of a three.
This is a good and difficult short hole, and deserves some particular
description. It is 170 yards long, and the ground slopes fairly
briskly from right to left. That being so, one's first instinct would
be to play well out to the right and trust to the ball scrambling and
kicking down on to the green. This simple little plan has, however,
been frustrated by the making of the bunker of the right-hand side.
Therefore, we must not push the ball to the right for fear of the
bunker, and we must clearly not pull it to the left, lest it run down
a steep place away from the green and into troublous country into the
bargain. There is nothing for it but to hit the ball quite straight,
or, if we want to make the game unnecessarily difficult for ourselves,
here is a good chance for trying a 'master-shot.'
Another short hole on the way out, though hardly such a good one, is
the eighth; we have to play a typical downland hole, jumping from
hillside to hillside over a gully. It is one of those shots that is
entirely perplexing to the stranger, who finds the distance almost
impossible to judge correctly. At one time the green lay far down at
the bottom of the very deepest part of the gully, but that had to be
abandoned. To get the ball down was easy enough, but to get it up the
hill again was, on a hot day, too tremendous a task, and so the climb
has now been made less exhausting by playing only across the shallower
part of the ravine. The ninth is a fine two-shotter, where we must hit
a high ball from the tee in order to carry a big bunker cut out of the
face of a hill; and then, after two comparatively uneventful holes, we
come to a third short hole, the twelfth. It is only 130 yards long, but
it is not in the least easy for all that. The green is of the island
type, surrounded by a generous profusion of bunkers, and the fact
that there is usually a fine high wind blowing makes the iron shot a
sufficiently difficult one, short though it be.
The thirteenth, a 'dog-leg' hole, is one of the best on the course,
where we have to play carefully for position from the tee and must
avoid some heavy bracken and thick long grass. The green, too, is well
guarded and full of excellent undulations. The fifteenth brings us
right up to the club-house, and there is some temptation to curtail the
round and fall a victim to lunch, especially as the sixteenth takes in
the length of two full drives up a hill and directly away from the
club. At the seventeenth we get a most lovely view and a four for the
hole, if we play two good shots, and then an easy drive and pitch down
a flattering hill brings us safely home.
INDEX.
Aberdovey, 143, 231-238.
Adair, Miss R., 224.
'Ailsa,' 213.
'Alps,' The, 16, 56, 205, 209.
'Alton,' 213.
Anderson, Mr. Peter, 206.
Andrew, Mr. Robert, 210.
'Apollyon,' 66.
Ashburnham, 243.
Ashdown Forest, 62, 64-67.
Ashford Manor, 27.
Auchterlonie, Mr. Laurence, 170.
Balfour, Mr. A. J., 192, 195.
Balfour-Melville, Mr. Leslie, 170.
Ball, Mr. John, 111, 116, 118, 170, 205, 210.
'Bank,' The, 96.
Barassie, 202.
Barcroft, Mr., 216, 218.
Barnton, 199-201.
Barry, 178.
'Beardies,' The, 173.
Bembridge, 89-92.
'Bent Hills,' 96.
Birkdale, 123.
Blackheath, 1, 38-40.
Blackwell, Mr. Edward, 188.
Bleakdown, 2.
Blundellsands, 123.
Bogside, 202.
Braid, James, 5, 10, 15, 36, 37, 56, 71, 100, 106, 168, 174, 175,
177, 211, 212.
Bramshot, 2.
Bramston, Mr. J. A. T., 72.
Brancaster, 97, 102-6, 107.
'Briars,' The, 116.
Brighton, 62, 98.
Broadstone, 83-87.
Broughty Ferry, 178.
Bude, 77-79.
Buncrana, 223, 225.
Bunkers, Mr. Low on, 216.
'Bunker's Hill,' 94, 95.
Burhill, 5.
'Burmah,' 213.
Burnham, 79-83, 228.
Byfleet, 2.
'Cader,' 232, 235, 236.
Caesar's Camp, 42.
Cairnes, Mr., 220.
Camber, 59.
Cantelupe Club, 67.
'Cardinal,' The, 205, 206.
'Cardinal's Back,' The, 209.
'Care Kemp,' 193, 195.
Carnoustie, 178-180.
Cassiobury Park, 31-33.
'Castle,' The, 240, 241.
'Chalk Pit,' The, 63.
Cheshire and Lancashire Courses, 111-129.
Chingford, 36.
Chorleywood, 34.
Clark, Robert, 199.
Coke, Chief Justice, 28.
Coldham Common, 151.
Colt, Mr. H. S., 8, 11, 157.
Combe Wood, 2.
'Cop,' The, 116.
'Corsets,' The, 49.
Coton, 153.
'Country Club,' 27.
Cowley, 147.
Crail, 177.
'Crater,' 143, 237.
Crawford, 194.
Cromer, 97, 98-100.
Croome, Mr. A. C. M., 130-147.
'Crosbie,' 214.
Cunningham, Mr. James, 171.
Deal, 6, 44, 50-53.
'Death or Glory,' 35.
De Zoete, Mr Herman, 186.
'Dog-legged' holes, 54, 62, 75, 81, 110, 137, 248.
Dollymount, 216-220.
Dormy House, 59, 102.
'Dowie,' The, 116, 117.
'Dun,' 113, 118.
Duncan, George, 174.
Dunn, Tom, 1, 87.
'Dunure,' 212.
East Anglian Courses, 93-110.
East Lothian and Edinburgh Courses, 181-201.
Eastbourne, 62-64, 65, 98.
'Eastward Ho!' 94, 96.
Eden, The, 173.
Edinburgh and East Lothian Courses, 181-201.
Edinburgh Burgess Golfing Society, 199.
Edzell, 178.
Elie, 177.
Ellis, Mr. Humphrey, 72.
Elysian Fields, 171, 173.
Evans, Mr. A. J., 150.
Felixstowe, 93-97.
Ferguson, Bob, 93, 94, 197, 211.
Fergusson, Mr. Mure, 36, 93.
Fernie, Willy, 93, 197, 211.
'Field,' 113, 118.
Fife and Forfarshire Courses, 165-180.
Fixby, 134-138.
'Flagstaff,' The, 179.
Forman's, Mrs. 198.
Formby, 119-121.
Fowler, Mr. Herbert, 11, 17, 72, 75, 84, 137.
'Fox,' The, 212, 213.
Frilford Heath, 147, 148-151.
Gailes, 202.
Ganton, 130-134.
'Gas Works,' The, 198.
'Gate,' The, 94, 95.
'Gate' Hole, N. Berwick, 195.
Gaudin, 129.
'Gibraltar,' 109, 110.
Glennie, Mr. Geo. 68.
'Goose-dubs,' The, 208.
Graham, Mr. John, 111.
'Graves,' The, 197.
'Greenan,' 212.
Greig, Mr. W., 170.
Gullane, 181, 182, 202.
'Hades,' 48, 245.
Hale, 77.
Hambro, Mr. Angus, 10, 191.
-- Mr. Eric, 157.
-- Mr. Harold, 188.
Handsworth, 144.
Harewood Downs, 34.
Harlech, 106, 238-242.
Hay, Sir Robert, 165.
'Hell,' 173.
Henderson, Mr. W. A., 191.
Herd, Alexander, 138, 211.
Hesketh, 123.
Hezlet, Miss M., 224.
High Hole, 171.
'Hilbre,' The, 117.
Hilton, Mr. H. H., 71, 72, 111, 183, 184, 207, 242.
'Himalayas,' The, 204, 207.
Hindhead, 88.
Hinksey, 147, 148.
'Hole o' Cross,' 171, 173.
Hollinwell, 138-141.
Honourable Company of Edinburgh, 183.
Hoylake, 101, 104, 111-118, 124, 149, 157, 169, 205, 217.
Huddersfield, 134.
Hunstanton, 97, 106-8.
Hunter, Mr. Mansfield, 157.
Huntercombe, 5, 86, 198.
Hutchinson, Mr. Horace, 41, 63, 64, 68, 72, 91, 114, 156, 183, 192,
204.
Irish Courses, 215-30.
'Island,' The, 179.
'Island' Hole, 66.
Janion, Mr., 100, 118.
'Jockey's Burn,' 179.
Johnny Ball's 'Gap,' 118.
'Johnny Low,' 20.
Jones, Rowland, 92.
Jubilee Course, St. Andrews, 175.
Kashmir Cup, 72.
Kent and Sussex Courses, 44-67.
Kersal Moor, 127.
Kilspindie, 182.
Kingsdown, 50.
Kirkaldy, Hugh, 155.
Lahinch, 223.
Laidlay, Mr., 191, 206.
'Lake,' 113, 118.
Lassen, Mr. E. A., 124.
Leasowe, 123.
Lees, Peter, 25.
Lelant, 77.
Le Touquet, 109.
Leven, 177.
Littlestone, 44, 56-58.
London Courses, 1-43.
'Long' Hole, 115.
'Long Valley,' 227.
Low, Mr. John, 72, 90, 114, 157, 176, 177, 216.
Lundin Links, 177.
Lytham and St. Anne's, 123-126.
Macamish, 224.
Machrihanish, 156.
'Maiden,' The, 13, 48, 103, 131, 235, 245.
'Majuba,' 83.
'Maponite,' 64.
Martin, 22.
Massy, Arnaud, 173.
Maude, Mr. F. W., 57.
Maxwell, Mr. Robert, 188, 189, 191.
Meyrick Park, 87.
Mid-Surrey, 22, 23-27.
Mildenhall, 147.
Mitcham Common, 42-3.
Mitchell family, 67.
Monifieth, 178.
'Monk,' The, 212, 213.
Montmorency, Mr. de, 61.
Montrose, 178.
More, Mr., 242.
'Morley's Grave,' 94.
Morris, Tom, 211.
Morris, Tom, jr., 171, 211.
Mrs. Forman's, 198.
Muirfield, 100, 149, 183-190, 191, 210.
Munn, Mr. L., 220, 224.
Musselburgh, 183, 196-199, 200.
National Golf Course, Long Island, U. S. A., 194.
New Gullane, 181.
New Luffness, 181, 182.
New Romney, 55.
Newcastle, co. Down, 227-230.
Newquay, 77.
_News of the World_ Tournament, 10, 13, 26.
North Berwick, 130, 183, 185, 190-196.
Northwood, 34-36.
'Nursery Maid,' Hole, 77.
Old Deer Park, Richmond, 23, 24.
'Old Kent Road,' 82.
Old Manchester Golf Club, 127.
Oxford and Cambridge Golf, 147-157.
Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society, 71, 124, 126, 147, 197.
Palmer, Mr. C. A., 144
'Pandy,' 198.
'Paradise,' 63.
Park, Willy, 4, 29, 130, 155, 198, 209.
Parkstone, 87.
Paton, Mr. Stuart, 19.
Paxton, Peter, 236.
'Pebble Ridge,' The, 73.
Penarth, 243.
'Perfection,' 194.
'Point,' The, 94, 95, 96, 97.
Point Garry, 192, 195, 196.
Porthcawl, 243-245.
Portmarnock, 216, 220, 223.
Portrush, 224-227.
Portsalon, 224, 225.
Prestwick, 51, 56, 176, 203-10, 214, 233.
Prince's, 44, 50, 53-55, 179.
'Principal's Nose,' The, 19, 173.
'Pulpit,' 143, 232, 235.
Purves, Mr. James, 200, 201.
Queen's Park, 87-89.
'Rabbit,' The, 214.
Radley, 147, 148.
Radyr, 243.
Ray, Edward, 10, 131, 133.
'Redan,' The, 194, 195.
'Ridge,' The, 96.
Robertson, Allan, 105.
Robertson, Mr. 'Nander,' 213.
Robson, Fred., 26.
Rolland, Douglas, 155, 177.
Romford, 36-38.
Rosapenna, 224.
'Royal,' 113, 118.
Royal Liverpool Club, 71.
Royal North Devon Club, _see_ Westward Ho!
Royal St George's, _see_ Sandwich.
Royston, 153.
Rusack's Hotel, 175.
'Rushes,' The, 117.
Ruck, Colonel, 231.
Rye, 44, 57, 58-62.
'Sahara,' The, 13, 47.
St. Andrews, 4, 13, 19, 52, 59, 61, 68, 69, 85, 104, 105, 112, 149,
165-180, 196, 203, 211, 212, 216, 227.
St. Anne's, 123-126, 212.
St. Augustine's, 50.
St. Cuthbert, 202.
St. Enodoc, 77.
St. Nicholas, 202.
'Sandhills,' 212, 213.
Sandwell Park, 141-144.
Sandwich, 13, 18, 44-49, 50, 53, 55, 103, 106, 192, 204, 218, 233.
Sandy Lodge, 34.
'Sandy Parlour,' The, 53, 131.
Sayers, Bernard, 191.
Seaford, 62.
'Sea-He'therick,' 205, 208.
'Sea Hole,' Rye, 60.
'Sea View' 110.
'Shelly' Bunker, The, 165, 172.
Sheringham, 97, 100-1.
Simpson, Jack, 177.
Skegness, 108-110.
Smith, Willy, of Mexico, 167.
'South America,' 178.
Southerndown, 243, 246-249.
Southport, 123.
'Spectacles,' The, 179.
Spencer, Mr. Edmund, 243.
'Spion Kop,' 109.
'Station-master's Garden,' The, 16.
Stoke Park, 27.
Stoke Poges, 27-31.
Stonham, 29.
'Strath,' 165, 172.
Stuart, Mr. Alexander, 156.
Sudbrook Park, 27.
'Suez Canal,' 49, 53.
Sunningdale, 2, 4-11, 17, 185.
'Sutherland,' 165.
'Switch-back' Hole, 9.
Tait, Mr. F. G., 205, 210.
Taylor, J. H., 68, 189, 212.
'Tel-el-Kebir,' 213.
Toogoods, The, 92.
'Tower,' The, 94-96.
Trafford Park, 126-129.
Trees, 23, 31.
Troon, 202, 211-214.
'Turnberry,' 213.
'Valley,' The, 178.
Vardon, Harry, 130, 131, 189, 207, 210, 212.
Vardon, Tom, 9.
Wales, Courses of, 231-249.
'Walkinshaw's Grave,' 173.
Wallasey, 81, 121-123.
Walton Heath, 2, 4, 11-17, 85, 133, 185.
'Well,' The, 214.
Welsh, Mr., 156.
Welsh Courses, 231-249.
West of Scotland Courses, 202-214.
Westward Ho! 68-77, 132.
Whins, 34.
White, Jack, 9, 155.
Whitecross, Mr., 191.
Wimbledon, 1, 41-42.
Woking, 1, 2, 17-22, 132, 133.
Worlington, 147, 153-157.
Worplesdon, 2, 61, 132, 185, 198.
Yorkshire and the Midlands Courses, 130-146.
GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BY ROBERT MACLEHOSK AND CO. LTD.
Transcriber's Note:
On p. 243, the author comments on Penarth having "a glorious view over
the British Channel". The "Bristol Channel" was no doubt intended, but
"British" is retained.
The following table describes any textual issues encountered, and their
resolution. Where the errors are most likely to be those of the printer,
they have been corrected. Where compound words appear both with and
without hyphens in mid-line, they have been retained. Should the
hyphenation occur on on a line break, the most frequent variant is used.
p. 60 straightforward shot to play[,/.] Corrected.
p. 69 has [is/it] not lately been remodelled Corrected.
p. 85 The bunkering [in/is] something of a patchwork Corrected.
p. 95 I will bold[l]y assert Added.
p. 143 the zeal of the i[n]conoclast Removed.
p. 160 at any[ ]rate Added.
p. 168 he will find plent[l]y more Removed.
p. 243 My other recollection[s] ... is of a.... Removed.
p. 254 'Switch-back['] Hole Added.