The course lies among the sandhills under the shadow of Slieve Donard, the tallest of the Mourne Mountains, and so close to the sea that we may reach the shore with our first tee-shot. No amount of reconstruction has done away with the original character of the course; we still have many big carries to compass with the tee-shot, and a good deal more pitching than running to do with our iron clubs. However, we must not run away with the idea that we shall have done all that is demanded of us when we have hit a ball hard and high over a hill somewhere or other into the distance. Trouble lurks at the sides as well as in the centre of the fairway, and for all the boldness and bigness of the hazards it is really a straight rather than a long driver’s course. The greens are good, and sometimes inclined to be slow; they lie, moreover, in a good many instances, in those pleasing little hollows which are the most adroit flatterers in the whole world of golf. The turf on the outward journey is of the ideal sea-side kind, but on the way home we fancy that we detect something more of an inland character about it.
The ninth carry and the club-house
Flitting, like arbitrary bees, from one hole to another, we must pause a moment over the first, which is one of the best of the long holes, and has an admirable tee-shot. So has the second, while there is an approach shot of much interest and delicacy to be played at the third. The sixth again is a memorable hole, of no great length, but considerable difficulty. We need but one shot to go from the tee to the high plateau green where the hole is, but the sides of the plateau fall very quickly away, and there must be plenty of stop on the ball or it will inevitably overrun its mark.
On the way home, again, there is another arresting hole, the sixteenth. We mount a high tee on one side of an enormous bunker, and must hit a sheer carry of goodness knows how many yards on to a green also perched high in the air upon the further side. It is a distinctly heroic hole; and the seventeenth and eighteenth, in trying to live up to its standard, have grown so long as to be just a little bit dull. They are, however, I believe, to be lopped and pruned of their superfluous yards, and should then make a fine finish. It should be added for those who like to play their golf in comfort, that the first tee, the tenth tee, the club-house and the hotel lie, all four of them, close together; not that Newcastle really needs these adventitious advantages, for it is one of the very pleasantest places for golf in all Ireland.