"This leaves us four drive-and-pitch holes—280, 300, 320, and 340 yards in length. These should have relatively small greens and be closely bunkered, one or two of them having the putting greens open on one side or corner so as to give a powerful, long, courageous driver, who successfully accomplishes the long carry, the advantage of a short run up to the green. The size and contour of the putting green and the bunkering should depend upon the character and length of the hole. The principle of the dog's hind leg can be made a feature of several holes advantageously. The gradients between the tee and the hole should be made use of in bunkering. Whenever it is possible it is best that the bunkers should be in view. A number of the holes should be built with diagonal bunkers, or bunkers en echelon, so constructed that the player who takes the longer carry shall have an advantage over the man who takes the shorter carry. The hazards for the second shot should be so placed and designed as to give a well-placed tee shot every advantage—in other words, should make a man play his first stroke in relation to the second shot. There should be at least three tees for every hole, to take care not only of an adverse or favourable wind, but also of the calibre of the player. It is necessary on a first-class golf course to have short tees for the poorer players, otherwise they are everlastingly in the bunkers. The lengths which I give should be measured from the middle of the middle tee to the middle of the putting green."
There is so much knowledge and good suggestion in this statement, and the matter is of such high consequence, that every player of the game should think well upon it.
CHAPTER VIII
THE U. S. G. A., AND THE METHODS OF THE BUSINESS-MAN GOLFER, WITH A REMARKABLE DEVELOPMENT OF MUNICIPAL GOLF.
People in England or Scotland do not quite understand what a splendid thing for American golf is the United States Golf Association. It is so absolutely necessary for the game in America that I am sure there would be little that is like golf there now if there had been no U. S. G. A., with its loyalty and attachment to St. Andrews. There would be few Americans coming to play on the links of the homeland of the game, and there would be no British golfers wandering happily among the American courses. American golf would have become as much like the old game as American college football is like the football that is played at Oxford and Cambridge, which is to say that it is not at all like it. America is not a country small in space like our own happy islands. There it is in its millions of miles, new everywhere, and with little communities of golfers so far apart as New York and San Francisco, Massachusetts and Arizona, and isolated golfers in the loneliest places trying to bring others to their pastime for the matches they would have. What should all these people, away from all the influences of the home of the game, hot with the spirit of freedom, unrestrained by laws and conventionalities, eager to do things better than they have been done before—what should they care for St. Andrews and traditions, and the preservation of the unity of the game? As sure as eagles fly, and stars are bright, they would have made it to suit themselves in every community. Here they would have abolished the stymie, in another place they would have changed the size of the hole, away in Texas they might have permitted the introduction of the "mechanical contrivance," and soon there would have been a hundred golfs in the States, and not a real one among them. Just when this possibility, without being an immediate probability, was arising the U. S. G. A. came into existence. It joined all the golfers of America together in a republic for the preservation of the unity of the game, and for the promotion of its welfare in the spirit that the game had been cultivated in the homeland. And being thus given power, it has ruled with a strong hand. It has kept American golf in order as nothing else could have done, and as a governmental machine, I who have made some close examination of it, regard it as perfect, which is not to say that we need such a thing in Britain. In America I have had the pleasure of the intimate acquaintance of Mr. Robert Watson, Mr. Silas H. Strawn, Mr. G. Herbert Windeler, Mr. William Fellowes Morgan, Mr. Harry L. Ayer, Mr. John Reid, junior, and many others of the leaders of the Union, and better men for the direction of such a game as golf, in whose hands it is quite safe, there could not be. They hold the right spirit of the game, and they are wise men, conservative in their golfing ways. Mr. Windeler indeed is an old British golfer like Mr. Macdonald, who was one of the original gathering that established the U. S. G. A. In the December of 1894 the representatives of five of the leading clubs met and framed the constitution of the U. S. G. A., and Mr. Theodore A. Havemeyer, of the Newport Club, was chosen president.
The constitution of the U.S.G.A. is an interesting study. There are two classes of members, active and allied, and the difference is that the active members, who exercise control, are clubs that have been steadied by age and experience, and have acquired dignity. The definition in the constitution is made thus: "Any regularly organised club in the United States, supporting and maintaining a golf course of at least nine holes, and whose reputation and general policy are in accord with the best traditions and the high ideals of the game, shall be eligible to election as an Active Member." Then, as to the Allied Members, it is said that—"Any regularly organised club of good reputation in the United States shall be eligible to election as an Allied Member." There are far more allied members than there are active members, and the former are only admitted to the latter when they have thoroughly proved their worth. Thus the allied clubs have always an ambition before them, and they can only achieve it by conducting their golf on the best and oldest plan. At every meeting of the Association each active club is entitled to be represented by one voting delegate whose appointment has to be certified in advance by his club to the secretary of the Association. Allied clubs have no voting privileges, but all members of active and allied clubs have the right to attend all meetings of the Association, and to participate in the discussion of any question. The active clubs pay thirty dollars a year for subscription, and the allied clubs pay ten. Article IX. of the Constitution gives the Association its power and authority. It says: "The acceptance of membership in the Association shall bind each club to uphold all the provisions of the Constitution, bye-laws, and other rules of the Association; and to accept and enforce all rules and decisions of the Executive Committee acting within its jurisdiction. Any club failing in its obligations as above set forth may be suspended or expelled by a two-thirds vote of the Association, or by a two-thirds vote of all members of the Executive Committee; provided such club shall have been given due notice of the charge or charges preferred against it, and an opportunity to be heard in its own defence. Any club thus suspended or expelled by vote of the Executive Committee may appeal from its decision to the delegates at any annual or special meeting of the Association."
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After this about the machinery of American golf, consider the men. There are three classes of golfers in the United States, corresponding to some extent to similar classes in Britain, but they are rather more sharply defined than with us. There is the class that regards the game as a sport for competition, almost as a form of athletics, being mainly but not exclusively the younger class; there is the business-man class that believes in it as the ideal, and indeed the only recreation satisfying the needs of the times as a relaxation from the strain of life and work, and a means of promoting physical and mental efficiency, such people being as with us the largest section and the mainstay in one sense of the game; and there is the humbler class who play upon the public courses.