My reputation in the past has been based on the fact that I have endeavoured to conserve existing natural features, and where these are lacking to create formations in the spirit of nature herself.
In other words, while always keeping uppermost the provision of a splendid test of golf, I have striven to achieve beauty.
It may at first appear unreasonable that the question of æsthetics should enter into golf-course design; however, on deeper analysis, it becomes clear that the great courses, and in detail all the famous holes and greens, are fascinating to the golfer by reason of their shape, their situation, and the character of their modelling. When these elements obey the fundamental laws of balance, of harmony, and fine proportion they give rise to what we call beauty. This excellence of design is more felt than fully realised by the player, but nevertheless it is constantly exercising a subconscious influence upon him, and in course of time he grows to admire such a course as all works of beauty are eventually felt and admired.
THE REAL OBJECT OF THE HAZARD
Most of the remaining principles depend on the proper disposition of hazards, and I have a rather wider definition of hazards than is given by the rules of Golf Committee. As a minor kind of hazard undulating ground, hummocks, hollows, etc., might be included.
Most golfers have an entirely erroneous view of the real object of hazards. The majority of them simply look upon hazards as a means of punishing a bad shot, when their real object is to make the game interesting. The attitude of the ordinary golfer towards hazards may be illustrated by the following tale which I have frequently told before, but which will bear repeating:
A player visiting a Scotch course asked his caddie what the members thought of a stream which was winding in and out between several of the holes. The caddie replied, “Weel, we’ve got an old Scotch major here. When he gets it ower he says, ‘Weel ower the bonnie wee burn, ma laddie’; but when he gets in he says, ‘Pick ma ball oot o’ that domned sewer.’”
The writer was recently playing with his brother, who was home on leave from abroad. He was clearly enjoying his game, but at Alwoodley we have one solitary pond into which he topped three balls. On arriving at the club-house he was asked how he liked the course; he simply remarked, “There were too many ruddy ponds about.”
It is much too large a subject to go into the question of the placing of hazards, but I would like to emphasise a fundamental principle. It is that, as already pointed out, no hazard is unfair wherever it is placed.
