The second shot at the ninth hole
Now leaving Norfolk behind, we ought to see one course in Lincolnshire, that of the Seacroft Club at Skegness. Skegness, as is well known to everyone from Mr. Hassall’s delightful poster, is ‘so bracing,’ and I would not for the world dispute the fact. I had, however, the misfortune to visit it on one of the most stifling days in July, when the whole flat expanse of Lincolnshire fen lay panting under a hot haze, and our progress round the links was quite unlike that of the gentleman depicted by Mr. Hassall, skimming buoyantly over the ground with a cooling sea breeze behind him. If, therefore, I have pleasant recollections of Skegness, it must surely be a good course; and so it is, lacking, I think, only one thing, a wind that blows from two places at once. It is one of those courses that runs, roughly speaking, straight out and home, and the nine holes that we play with the wind in our face we think really beautiful, while with the wind behind us we are just a little bit disappointed. This is, of course, only the impression of a casual visitor; and, moreover, it must often happen that wind is neither for us nor against us, but blows straight across the course. Then the golf must be really difficult, for the fairway is uniformly narrow and the rough wonderfully tenacious; indeed, I have only met with more clinging rough at Le Touquet, where is to be found a diabolical undergrowth, which the caddies call by the name of ‘les épines,’ and the golfers by a variety of epithets—all of them unprintable.
The course begins admirably with two narrow and difficult holes, where it is equally easy to heel the ball out of bounds or to hook it into the rough before described. The third is blind but exciting—a drive on to the top of a hog-backed ridge, followed by a little pitch over the brow of the hill on to a green in a dell. Of the other outgoing holes, the two best are perhaps those called respectively ‘Spion Kop’ and ‘Gibraltar,’ and of these ‘Gibraltar’ is the best. Here there is a really fine second shot to be played over a whole range of sandy mountains, and if, perhaps with some mistaken idea of making the ball rise quickly, we impart any cut to the ball, it sails away out of bounds, and we are left with the sandy mountains still uncrossed.
‘Gibraltar’ is certainly the most memorable hole on the way out, and ‘Sea View’ strikes equal terror into the soul on the homeward journey. Here the hole stands on a small plateau, and in front is a big bunker in the face of the hill. With a wind behind we may hope to get home with a high, hard hit with an iron, but on a still day it must need the very best of brassey shots, and a shot, moreover, that shall soar high in the air and then fall comparatively straight to earth. Beyond the green is a waste of sand, and the hole lives up to its name, for there is a view of a big stretch of sea. The sixteenth is a ‘dog-legged’ hole that makes some demand upon our cunning, and we must hit long and straight along the bottom of a gully for the last two holes, so that the course ends as it began, very well.
Given straight hitting from the tee, we should return something better than a respectable score, but the demand for straightness is great, and, indeed, the constant avenues of rough remind one rather of the best of modern inland courses. It is genuine seaside golf, however, with good turf and plenty of sand, and the sea itself, although we do not often see it. Neither do we see—and this is an unmixed blessing—the teeming swarms of trippers that come to Skegness to be braced.