They ask for a report and plan of suggested improvements, and then imagine they have grasped the ideas of the designer, and proceed to make a horrible hash of it. I do not know a single seaside course which has been remodelled in anything like the way it should have been remodelled.
The best artificially constructed seaside course I know is the Eden (Mr. Colt’s) Course at St. Andrews. There are few of the crowds of players who, notwithstanding its youth, already congregate on it realise how much is due to artificiality and how little to nature. All the best ground at St. Andrews had been previously seized for the three older courses—viz., the Old, the New, and the Jubilee—and yet it compares favourably with any of them. This is entirely due to the fact that not only was it designed by Mr. Colt, but the construction work was done by men who had been trained under him and worked under his supervision.
It is much better that construction work should be done by men without any knowledge of the subject than by those partly trained.
There is a yarn told about two rival constructors of golf courses: one of them was admiring the other’s greens, and remarked that “he never managed to get his green-keeper to make the undulations as natural looking.” The other replied that “it was perfectly easy; he simply employed the biggest fool in the village and told him to make them flat.”
I believe the real reason St. Andrews Old Course is infinitely superior to anything else is owing to the fact that it was constructed when no one knew anything about the subject at all, and since then it has been considered too sacred to be touched. What a pity it is that the natural advantages of many seaside courses have been neutralised by bad designing and construction work!
The architect is the best judge in deciding how often he should visit a course for supervision purposes. How often have I heard from the secretary, who is almost invariably a cheery optimist, that the construction work was going on splendidly, and when too late discovered that hundreds of pounds had been thrown away in doing bad work which had ultimately to be scrapped!
There is an old Persian saying:
“He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool. Avoid him.
“He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, will learn. Teach him.