Economy in course construction consists in obtaining the best possible results at a minimum of cost. The more one sees of golf courses, the more one realises the importance of doing construction work really well, so that it is likely to be of a permanent character. It is impossible to lay too much stress on the importance of finality.
Every golfer knows examples of courses which have been constructed and rearranged over and over again, and the fact that all over the country thousands of pounds are frittered away in doing bad work which will ultimately have to be scrapped is particularly distressful to a true economist. As an example of unnecessary labour and expense, the writer has in mind a green which has been entirely relaid on four different occasions. In the first instance, it was of the ridge and furrow type; the turf was then lifted and it was made dead flat. A new secretary was appointed, and he made it a more pronounced ridge and furrow than ever; it was then relaid and made flat again, and has now been entirely reconstructed with undulations of a more natural outline and appearance.
In discussing the question of finality, it is well to inquire if there are any really first-class courses in existence which have been unaltered for a considerable number of years and still remain, not only a good test of golf, but a source of pleasure to all classes of players. Is there any existing course which not even the rubber cored ball has spoilt? And, if so, what is the cause of its abiding popularity? The only one I know of is one which has been described as “a much-abused old course at a little place called St. Andrews, in the Kingdom of Fife.” This (as well as some of the other championship courses to a lesser extent) still retains its popularity among all classes of amateurs. In fact, it is characteristic of all the best courses that they are just as pleasurable (possibly even more so) to the long handicap man as to the player of championship rank. This fact knocks on the head the argument which is often used that the modern expert tries to spoil the pleasure of the player by making courses too difficult.
The successful negotiation of difficulties is a source of pleasure to all classes of players.
It may be asked, “Who originally constructed St. Andrews?” Its origin appears to be shrouded in mystery: like Topsy, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, it simply “growed.” But the fact of the matter is that St. Andrews differs from others in that it has always been deemed a sacrilege to interfere with its natural beauties, and it has been left almost untouched for centuries. No green-keeper has ever dared to shave down its natural undulations. Most of the bunkers have been left where nature placed them, and others have originated from the winds and the rains enlarging divot marks left by the players, and some of them possibly by the green-keepers converting those hollows where most players congregated, into bunkers, owing to the difficulty of keeping them free from divot marks. The bunkers at St. Andrews are thus placed in positions where players are most likely to go—in fact, in the precise positions which the ordinary Green Committee would suggest should be filled up. This is a significant fact, and tends to show that many of our existing ideas in regard to hazards have been erroneous. Mr. John L. Low pointed out years ago that no hazard is unfair wherever it is placed, and this particularly applies if the hazard is visible, as it should be obvious that if a player sees a hazard in front of him and promptly planks his ball into it he has chosen the wrong spot.
I once heard a Yorkshire tale of an old farmer finding a man in his coal-house during a recent coal strike. He put his head through the window and said, “Now I’ve copped you picking out all the big lumps.” A voice from the darkness came, “You’re a liar, I’m taking them as they come.”
On the old type of course like St. Andrews, the players have to take the hazards as they come, and do their best to avoid them.
There is nothing new about the ideas of the so-called Golf Architect: he simply wishes to reproduce the old ideas as exemplified in the old natural courses like St. Andrews, those courses which were played on before over-zealous green committees demolished the natural undulations of the fairways and greens, and made greens like lawns for croquet, tennis, or anything else except golf, and erected eyesores in the shape of straight lines of cop bunkers, instead of emphasising the natural curves of the links.
In the old view of golf, there was no main thoroughfare to the hole: the player had to use his own judgment without the aid of guide posts, or other adventitious means of finding his way. St. Andrews still retains the old traditions of golf. For example, I have frequently seen four individuals playing the long hole (the fourteenth), and deliberately attacking it in four different ways, and three out of the four were probably right in playing it in the ways they selected.
At St. Andrews “it needs a heid to play gowf,” as the caddie said to the professor.