Mr. Low has written that “the new course is probably the second course in Scotland,” but I cannot help thinking that here he is a little too enthusiastic. If we were to light upon the course somewhere else than at St. Andrews, no doubt we should do it ampler justice than we do now, when it is so completely overshadowed, but should we declare it better than Prestwick, to name only one other famous Scottish course? Personally I do not think so.
No doubt the new course does suffer some considerable injustice, and always will do so. It has ‘relief course’ plainly written all over it. On the last occasion on which I played there the daisies were growing freely, and daisies, though extremely charming things in themselves, are not pleasant to putt over, and do not give a workman-like air to a course. It is a pity, because it is a good course, and we should be delighted to play over it anywhere else, but with the old course there—well, it is a waste of time.
Still there occasionally comes a time when we grow sick to death of the crowding and waiting on the old course, and then we are glad enough to steal away on to the new course and have a round, which will probably be at any rate a comparatively quick one. We cross the burn; walk through the middle of the putting course, where are many ladies armed with wooden putters (since the sacrilegious cleek is wholly forbidden), and tee off not far from where they are playing to the second hole on the old course.
The first two holes are not at all exciting, but the course improves as we go along. Three is a good hole, and five is an excellent short one, with a most difficult iron-shot on to a plateau green. Nine, again, is rather an attractive little hole, although there are two opinions about this; a very accurate drive between bents and sand, followed by rather a blind pitch on to a sunk green. Personally I like it, though it is not at all the type of hole one expects to find at St. Andrews, nor, for that matter, is the tenth. This is nevertheless a really fine one, running down a narrow gorge between two ranges of hills, with a fine, slashing second shot with the brassey, albeit more or less a blind one. The twelfth is as good as the eleventh is weak, and sixteen and eighteen are both long and difficult, but the two short holes, thirteen and seventeen, are decidedly not exciting. Quite good, difficult golf it is, but the “second course in Scotland”—no. Perhaps it might be, but, my dear Mr. Low, I am sure on reflection you will admit that, in fact, it isn’t.
Though St. Andrews naturally enough dwarfs them all, there are other courses, and fine courses, in Fife. There is Elie, which has produced at least three very great golfers indeed, Douglas Rolland, Jack Simpson and James Braid; and there are also, amongst others, Crail and Leven. Leven, a truly charming course, has, alas! ceased to exist in its old form. Nine of the old holes now belong to a new and reconstituted Leven, and the other nine belong to Lundin Links. It is a sad pity, but the difficulty of two different starting places made it in these crowded times inevitable.
Forfarshire, too, is a county of many courses. Barry, Broughty Ferry, Edzell, Monifieth, Montrose, and, best known of all, Carnoustie. Carnoustie is comparatively unknown, save by name, to the English golfer, but very popular indeed in its own country. So much so that its popularity has rendered necessary an auxiliary course, and the auxiliary course has taken a piece of good golfing ground that could ill be spared. It is a fine, big, open sandy seaside course; very natural in appearance; and in places, indeed, natural almost to the verge of roughness; but it is none the worse for that, however, and indeed it is altogether a very delightful course.
There is one curious feature, in that the taking in of some new ground has caused one hole to be of a completely inland character. Certainly this hole seems at first sight to be dragged in by the heels, but we readily forgive it its inland character, because it is really a very good hole indeed. This is number seven, ‘South America’ by name. It is a good long hole, well over four hundred yards in length, and the green is on an island guarded by a ditch. The soil is completely inland in character—the green once formed part of an old garden—and as if to emphasize that fact, a solitary tree has been left as a hazard, and naturally plays a prominent part in the landscape.
‘South America’