Of all the race of park courses, it would scarcely be possible, in point of sheer beauty, to beat Cassiobury Park, near Watford in Hertfordshire. Neither by laying too much emphasis on its beauty do I mean to cast an oblique slur upon the golf itself, a great deal of which is very good. Of course you will not think it good if you hate trees, because there are a great many trees; and you will probably be at least once or twice hopelessly stymied by them in the course of the round. Even the most confirmed tree-hater, however, might find his heart softening, because these particular trees are so very lovely. There are the most glorious avenues, elms and limes and chestnuts and beeches, that stretch across the park, and a fine day at Cassiobury comes within measurable distance of heaven. It is even beautiful on a wet day, and the last day that I spent there was wet, quite beyond the ordinary. I remember it very well from the circumstance of having to wade breast high into drenching nettles after a ball which my wretched partner had put there. This occurred at the third hole—a hole which is rather a remarkable one in itself, and was never more remarkably played than on that occasion.
The green can be reached easily enough with one honest blow, but there is a huge tree immediately to the right of the green, and a still more huge and infinitely more alarming pit immediately under the tee. The pit is very deep and its sides precipitous, and it is altogether a very formidable affair. Our opponents drove off, I remember, and perpetrated an ordinary ‘fluff’ or foozle, which left the ball on grass, it is true, but at the very bottom of the pit.
“Now,” said I to my partner, no doubt foolishly, “here is our chance.” By way of answer he struck the ball violently on some portion of the club that lay far behind the heel. The ball dashed away at a terrific pace in the direction of square leg, came into collision with the branch of a tree some fifty yards off the line, whence it bounded back into the bed of nettles before mentioned. By some miracle the ball was dislodged from the nettles, and joined its fellow at the bottom of the pit. Then began a game the object of which an intelligent foreigner would probably have imagined to be the hitting of the ball up the bank in such a way as it should roll down exactly to the place whence it started. Ultimately, for I must pass over the intervening events, I missed a short putt to win the hole in eight.
The first green, looking towards the club-house
