The fifteenth hole on the City of Newcastle course: constructed on flat, featureless clay land.
A hazard placed in the exact position where a player would naturally go is frequently the most interesting situation, as then a special effort is needed to get over or avoid it.
GIVING THE PLAYER THRILLS
One of the objects in placing hazards is to give the players as much pleasurable excitement as possible. On many inland courses there is not a thrill on the whole round, and yet on some of the championship courses one rarely takes a club out of the bag without having an interesting shot to play. This particularly applies to the old course at St. Andrews, and is one of the reasons why it always retains its popularity with all classes of players. It is quite true that even this course is condemned by some, but this may be due to the fact that they have not brains enough, or have not played on it long enough, to appreciate its many virtues.
There are some leading players who honestly dislike the dramatic element in golf. They hate anything that is likely to interfere with a constant succession of threes and fours. They look upon everything in the “card and pencil” spirit. The average club member on the other hand is a keen sportsman, he looks upon golf in the “spirit of adventure,” and that is why St. Andrews and courses modelled on similar ideals appeal to him.
No one would pretend that the old course at St. Andrews is perfect: it has its disadvantages, particularly in the absence of long carries from the tee, and in its blind bunkers, but no links in the world grows upon all classes of players in the same manner. The longer one plays there the keener one gets, and this is a much truer test of a good course than one which pleases at first and is boring later on.
A good golf course is like good music or good anything else; it is not necessarily a course which appeals the first time one plays over it, but one which grows on the player the more frequently he visits it.
St. Andrews is a standing example of the possibility of making a course which is pleasurable to all classes of golfers, not only to the thirty handicap players, but to the plus fourteen man, if there ever was or will be such a person.
It is an interesting fact that few hazards are of any interest which are out of what is known among medical men as the direct field of vision. This does not extend much farther than ten to twenty yards on either side of the direct line to the hole. Hazards placed outside this limit are usually of little interest, but simply act as a source of irritation.
Hazards should be placed with an object, and none should be made which has not some influence on the line of play to the hole.