So much for the twelfth hole of blessed memory; and now we must get back to the course in general. To begin with, Ganton is a course of sand and fir trees and gorse bushes. It is a little like Woking, a little like Worplesdon; and, generally speaking, it is the type of course that one would expect to find in Surrey rather than in Yorkshire. Needless to say, however, it has plenty of character of its own, and in particular it possesses by far the vastest and generally most gorgeous bunker that is to be found, as far as I know, on any inland course. It is a huge pit of sand, with just the depths and shallows, the bays and promontories of the genuine seaside article. It is so large that, by its unaided efforts, it provides highly effective bunkering for the tee-shots to the two last holes; and as regards its dimensions, I shall not be flattering it very grossly if I compare it to the bunker in front of the fifth tee at Westward Ho! It is the more striking because it lies on the other side of a road away from the main body of the course; and after a series of trim little pot-bunkers, one comes quite suddenly upon it, rugged, natural, and magnificent.
Nature has done nearly all the bunkering work for these last two holes; at the others she has had to be assisted by man, and man has been very busy cutting pot-bunkers, and mostly towards the sides of the fairway and the edges of the green. The bunkering seems to me, if I may say so, to be exceedingly well done, and for the most part one has to keep reasonably straight—sometimes very straight indeed—from the tee. The sixth, seventh, and eighth I remember particularly as all demanding scrupulously accurate tee shots, and of these perhaps the eighth is the most difficult, with serious bunkers on opposite sides of the course at just the distance of a moderately good drive; it is not unlike the tee-shot to the sixth at Woking, or the eighth at Walton Heath; and to say that is not to call the shot an easy one.
There are whins in fair profusion, and they play an important part at both the second and third holes. The approach to the second is a really difficult one, for the green lies in an angle made by two lines of whins, which are partially protected from the infuriated niblick player by formidable bunkers, so that any perceptible error is likely to bring with it a disaster either sandy or prickly. At the third, again—a very full one-shot hole—the whins guard the entire left-hand side of the course. It is, to be sure, possible to hit over them, but the feat entails a carry of some two hundred yards, and even Ray admits that a long shot is wanted to get clear to the left.
The criticism I feel disposed to make, very tentatively, of the first nine holes at Ganton is that they are a little too much of the same length. There is the third hole aforementioned, and there is the fifth, demanding an extremely pretty little pitch from the tee; nor must I forget the ninth, a really fine two-shot hole that winds its way along the bottom of a little valley. At the other six one seems to be playing the second shot with the same straight-faced iron club. They are individually very good, but the least little bit in the world monotonous, and there is a more attractive variety about the home-coming nine.
Of these last nine nearly all are good; but the last three are, I think, the most attractive, being all interesting and all different. The sixteenth is a fine straight-hitting two-shot hole over undulating country. The seventeenth brings us face to face with the big bunker, and if the wind be favourable we may hope to reach the green with a really good hit, but the green is curly, tricky, and difficult of access. Finally, we have another drive over the big bunker for the last, taking care to avoid being stymied by a clump of firs, and then we may pitch comfortably home across the road with a four well in sight.
The club-house
