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.
On a seaside course there may be a certain amount of pleasurable excitement in running up to the top of a hillock in the hope of seeing your ball near the flag, but this is a kind of thing one gets rather tired of as one grows older.
IMPORTANCE OF BEAUTY
Another common erroneous idea is that beauty does not matter on a golf course. One often hears players say that they don’t care a “tinker’s cuss” about their surroundings: what they want is good golf.
One of the best-known writers on golf has recently been jeering at golf architects for attempting to make beautiful bunkers. If he prefers ugly bunkers, ugly greens, and ugly surroundings generally he is welcome to them, but I don’t think for an instant that he believes what he is writing about, for at the same time he talks about the beauties of natural courses. The chief object of every golf architect or green-keeper worth his salt is to imitate the beauties of nature so closely as to make his work indistinguishable from nature itself.
I haven’t the smallest hesitation in saying that beauty means a great deal on a golf course; even the man who emphatically states he does not care a hang for beauty is subconsciously influenced by his surroundings. A beautiful hole not only appeals to the short handicap player but also to the long, and there are few first-rate holes which are not at the same time, either in the grandeur of their undulations and hazards, or the character of their surroundings, beautiful holes.
It is not suggested that we should all play round the links after the manner of the curate playing with the deaf old Scotsman.
The curate was audibly expressing his admiration of the scenery, the greens, and things in general, until they finally arrived at a green surrounded by a rookery. The curate remarked, “Isn’t it delightful to hear the rooks?” The deaf old Scotsman said, “What’s that?” The curate again remarked, “Isn’t it delightful to hear the rooks?” The old Scotsman replied, “I can’t hear a word you’re saying for those damned crows.”
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.