A bunker eating into a green is by far the most equitable way of giving a golfer full advantage for accurate play. It not only penalises the man who is in it, but every one who is wide of it. For example, a player who is in the road bunker at the seventeenth at St. Andrews may with a good dunch shot get out and lie dead, but few can pitch over it so accurately that they do so. A bunker, similarly placed to the road bunker, may be made to accentuate this distinction; it may be constructed with so much slope that on occasions it can be putted out of.
Hummocks on the edge of greens are often constructed so that they assist the man who has opened up the hole correctly; they act as a hazard only to those who have failed to do this.
Perhaps the most serious mistake made by a golf committee is the fallacy that they will save money by neglecting to obtain expert advice in regard to fresh construction work.
Except where the course has been designed and the construction work supervised by the modern golf architect, there is hardly a golf club of any size which has not frittered away hundreds of pounds in doing bad work, all for the want of the best advice in the first instance.
There can be little doubt that the poorer the club the more important it is for it not to waste its small funds in doing the wrong kind of work, but to get the best possible advice from its inception.
The seventeenth green at Harrogate: approximate cost £180: an entirely artificial plateau green constructed on flat land. The comparatively heavy cost is due to the character of the subsoil—heavy clay.
THE COURSE FOR THE BEGINNER
I notice a well-known club, in forming a golf course, state that the committee have decided to lay it out themselves, as they are afraid of a golf architect making it too difficult for the average player. Now this is precisely what the modern golf architect does not do; he in particular adopts a most sympathetic attitude to the beginner and long handicap player, but at the same time attempts to make the course interesting to all sorts and conditions of players. It is characteristic of the modern architect that he always leaves a broad and pleasurable road that leads to destruction—that is, sixes and sevens on the card of the long handicap player—but a straight and narrow path which leads to salvation—that is, threes and fours for the plus man.