It seems a topsy-turvy procedure, but a description of the Deal course ought to begin with the last four holes, for they are its particular joy and pride, and have attained a fame equal to that of the last four holes—the ‘loop’-at Prestwick. Certainly they make a spirited and exciting finish to a round, for they need good play and—this with bated breath—good luck. The difficulty of the fifteenth lies in the second shot, which must be played with a measure of accuracy and fortune on to the crest of a ridge, from which it will totter slowly down a sloping green to the hole. Play the shot the least bit too gingerly and the ball will refuse to climb the ridge; too hard and it will inevitably race across the green into rough grass, while the chances of recovering from a faulty second with a little pitching shot from off the green are not great. Certainly it is a difficult hole, and so is the next; indeed, with the wind in the right quarter, this sixteenth hole is one of the finest imaginable. We see the flag away there in the far distance, waving upon a small plateau. Immediately below the plateau to the left lies a little valley of inglorious security, but away to the right and beyond the green are ruts and long grass, and the second shot has to be as accurate as it is long. That is supposing that we can get there in two at all, but alas! that is often impossible, and therein, to my thinking, lies a certain weakness of the hole. A particularly elastic tee or series of tees seems to be needed so that the hole can be made a two-shot hole, even when the wind is adverse. At present the longest driver must often be content to reach the green with a pitch for his third, and is denied the crowning triumph of a critical second shot successfully accomplished. A wind against us at the sixteenth diminishes sensibly the sum total of enjoyment of the round, for that second shot is such an inspiring one. The green stands there waiting to be won, defying us to reach it, and to abandon the attempt without a struggle is sad work.
Of the seventeenth I feel bound to say, with all just respect, that it appears to be one of the very luckiest holes—in the matter of approaching—that ever was made, but the eighteenth is a noble hole, with that little narrow plateau green that will yield to no mere rule of thumb approaching. If we pitch the ball on the face of the slope, nothing will induce it to go further, while if we pitch on the green we are almost inevitably too far. He reaps a rich reward who can play a low, skimming shot which shall pitch on the flat and then run on full of life and clamber up the hill. It is the hole par excellence for the man who learned to approach at St. Andrews.
There are many holes at Deal which are in every respect as good as the last four, if indeed they are not better. What could be finer than the second, where we travel almost from tee to green along a ridge that kicks away to right or left anything but the perfect shot—what, too, of the sixth, where, with a great shot and a big wind at our backs, we may hope for a three, but where far more often we must play the cunningest of pitches on to the most slippery of table-lands in order to get a four? What a jolly view there is from that green with the sea close beneath us and perhaps a glimpse of a big liner in the distance!
The fourth hole, ‘The Sandy Parlour,’ had for some years a great name, but, like some other blind short holes, has come gradually to live on its reputation. The shot is a blind one over a big sandy bluff, and we shall now have a far more difficult shot at the reformed fourteenth, wherein we can see from the tee exactly where we have to go in order to avoid a very great deal of trouble. When all is said, however, the short holes at Deal are not its strong point, and it is those long, raking holes which we ought to have done in fours that leave the pleasantest memories.
Close to the links of Sandwich, so close that in trying to carry the Suez Canal we may slice to within its precincts, lies another very fine golf course, Prince’s to wit, the newest among the select band of really first-class seaside courses. Here is a course upon which as much care and thought and affection have been spent as on any in the world, and they have certainly not been spent in vain. It was laid out with the very highest of ideals; it was to be the good player’s course, and was to trap and test and worry that self-satisfied person till he became doubtful whether he was a good player at all. A first glance at the course shows that strict attention to business is meant. Here are no fascinating mountains, no spacious water-jumps: but there is fine golfing country, broken and undulating, with smooth strips of fairway showing here and there amid the rough grass and the myriad pot-bunkers.
Those who laid out the course at Prince’s kept one aim very steadily in view, that of compelling the player to place his tee-shot. “It is not enough,” they said in effect, “for him to keep out of the rough; not only must he be on the course, but he must place his ball sometimes to the right-hand side of the course, sometimes to the left. He must, if he desire to play the holes as well as they can be played, often greatly dare, but his great daring shall have its due reward.” Now the best plan, in order to give a practical shape to this high ideal, is to make the hole, to use a familiar expression, ‘dog-legged,’ that is to say, the player does not drive his first ball straight at the hole, but has to turn at an angle to play his second shot. A hole so devised can give a great advantage to the long and daring driver who is likewise straight. The bunkering can be so arranged that he who takes great risks and hugs the rough more closely shall have an easy and an open approach, while the man who either from over-caution or insufficient accuracy has merely gone straight down the middle of the course is confronted by a more difficult second shot over a formidable array of bunkers. For this reason we find at Prince’s the apotheosis of the ‘dog-legged’ or ‘round-the-corner’ holes, and some, nay nearly all of them, are about as good as they can be.
The drive from the eleventh tee
