To get from North to South Wales is not so easy a matter as might be supposed. It entails much waiting at junctions, which have been placed in some of the most melancholy and deserted spots on the face of the earth. However, once arrived in South Wales, there is plenty of golf to be had, some of it very good. There is a very fine course near Llanelly, Ashburnham by name, which, alas! I have never seen; and there is Southerndown, in Glamorganshire, which is growing fast into fame. Near Cardiff there is Radyr and Penarth, the latter having a truly glorious view over the British Channel, but being sometimes afflicted with muddiness. Then, also in Glamorgan, there are the very excellent links of Porthcawl.
Links they may worthily be called, for the golf at Porthcawl is the genuine thing—the sea in sight all the time, and the most noble bunkers. True to its national character, the course also boasts of stone walls. Of my visits to Porthcawl I retain two particularly vivid recollections. The first is of a hole that has long since disappeared, since that part of the ground is no more played over. As I remember it, it was by far the longest hole in the world, Blackheath not excepted. Perhaps it has become stretched in my memory, or possibly the reason is that I played the hole against a most prodigious driver, Mr. Edmund Spencer, who was one of the hopes of Hoylake in these days, but has now most reprehensibly given up the game. I do not think there were many hazards in the way; one was simply told to aim at a white rock in the dim distance, and to keep on hitting till one got there. To make matters worse, it was the very first hole, so that one was nearly prostrate before the round had really begun.
My other recollection of a more cheerful nature is of a hole which was far easier to get into than any other hole in the world. The hole was not in itself by any means a simple one, involving a struggle with a stone wall and a long shot up a hill, but the green-keeper had selected a delightful spot for the hole at the bottom of a hollow with shelving sides. Once arrived within approaching distance of the hole, one had only to play the ball some few yards beyond the hole and it would topple gently back, not merely to lie stone dead, but actually to go in. The Welsh Championship meeting was going on at the time, and all sorts of wonders were recorded. One competitor holed a full brassey shot, and threes were as common as blackberries. The putting was becoming almost farcical, when one day there came a day of reckoning. I remember being left with a putt of some eight or ten yards, and, banging the ball past the hole with a light and careless heart, fully prepared to see it come trickling in. Alas! the green was a little wet that morning, and the ball stuck firmly on the opposite slope and refused to come back. I can still see that ball perched upon the bank and grinning at me. “Sold again” it was obviously and impudently saying.
Going to the eighteenth green
At Porthcawl, as it is now, there are some very good holes. Of the two-shot holes, the fourth is excellent, and has a formidable second shot over a big and boarded bunker. The sixth is very similar, both as regards quality and quantity. Then there is the eleventh, where a really long, raking second over a big bunker should entail a four, and the utter destruction of Bogey and other cautious players who duly play short with their second shots. Another good one is the ninth, with a long carry up a hill on to a crater green—a green which I suspect of having been the scene of the putting exploits that I have narrated, though my memory is a little vague on this point.
Of the single-shot holes there is a fine long carry—the shot has to be practically all carry—on to the third green. The sixteenth is another that is good, and the course ends with an exceedingly difficult single-shot hole. There is in the minds of many a prejudice against finishing with a short hole, and it is certainly an ending which is not to be found on many good courses. Nevertheless, if the shot be only difficult enough, it is a little hard to see why a short hole should not make a really fine finish. There is an unpleasant feeling of finality about the tee-shot at any short hole, which never allows us to feel wholly comfortable, and certainly ‘Hades’ or the ‘Maiden’ would be infinitely more alarming if they came at the end of the round instead of in the earlier part of the round, when no mistake is irreparable. From the spectator’s point of view, it is desirable to get the player to the eighteenth tee in the last state of nervous exhaustion, and a tricky, difficult one-shot hole accomplishes that rather inhuman purpose to perfection.