I have just said that it cannot be that beginners are any better or more careful than they used to be, but this is a statement that needs a trifle of qualification. Your modern beginner has heard from many and diverse authorities of the enormous difficulty of this game, and of the necessity of treating it from the outset with the utmost possible respect; but the neophyte of the olden days was often more of a slapdash, full-blooded fellow, who needed to have two or three strenuous rounds before the spirit in him was fairly broken and he became amenable to the reason of the links. A wonderful story of a wild opening to a golfing career is that of Lord Stormont, when he was initiated at Blackheath some fifty years ago. His lordship had taken too much weight to himself, and Sir William Ferguson, his doctor, being consulted, suggested that he ought to have more exercise, and thought that this might best be administered in the form of golf. Sir William played golf himself, and, like all good doctors, he recommended the game to lazy pale-faced people whenever he thought the occasion opportune. He said to Lord Stormont, “Go down to Blackheath and put yourself in Willie Dunn’s hands,” Dunn then being professional at this historic course.
Lord Stormont had never seen a golf ball driven in his life, but he took kindly to the idea and repaired to Blackheath. Unfortunately he went there for the first time on a club day, and on this day it was impossible for Dunn to give him his services. But he did as well as he could in the circumstances, and selected his very best caddie, one Weever, quite a capable teacher, and intrusted him with the onerous duty of teaching the game of golf to Lord Stormont. Dunn sold his lordship a full set of good clubs by way of outfit, and away the two went. When the first round had been played, the round at Blackheath then, as now, consisting of only seven holes, Weever returned alone to the professional’s shop, with his pockets full of heads and his arms full of broken shafts. My Lord Stormont had broken every one of his clubs, and had sent his mentor back for a new complete set.
In the second round nearly all of these were broken also; and when, after so many trials and tribulations, Dunn espied the noble beginner returning from the seventh green, he was in some anxious doubt as to how he should best make reference to the events of the day. It was at least encouraging that Lord Stormont was smiling, and so Dunn ventured to observe, “I am very sorry, my lord, that such disasters have befallen you to-day in breaking so many clubs.” For answer the new golfer tapped Dunn on the shoulder, and said, “My dear fellow, don’t mention it. I feel this game has done me already a great deal of good, and it is going to do me still more. Have another set of clubs ready for me by Thursday. I shall be down then.” How many sets of clubs went to the making of the game of Lord Stormont no man knows.
III
Sometimes, in the long and dark evenings, golfers like to play their games in thought by the fireside, and one may suggest to them a new kind of reflection and study which may prove at the same time interesting and not without educational profit, particularly if such reflections are uttered in company and comparisons of views are made. A golfer has no sooner come by some sort of a working knowledge of the different strokes of the game than he longs for adventures on strange courses, to play at holes that are new and strange to him, and—if it must be—to niblick his way out of bunkers that are more fearful than anything he ever encountered on his mother links. This spirit is in every way commendable, and the experience that results from it is one of the best means of gaining skill and steadiness at the game. Thus it happens that every player of two or three years’ practice is acquainted more or less with several different courses in various parts of the country, and it will generally happen that he has the kindest memories of certain holes on each, and that, in fact, there are some of these holes which are his special favourites for their particular length and character. Now if by some impossible grant of nature it were to be ordained that a special course should be made up, consisting of eighteen of his favourite holes, due regard being paid to the proper requirements of a golf course as to variety of length, which eighteen would he select for the purpose, and why? Thoughts on these lines will help him towards an understanding of the points of a good course; for the average player, while he knows a good course when he sees it—or thinks he does—rarely troubles to dissect his general appreciation. Even those players whose game has been almost restricted to play on a few courses in the London or some other district, may entertain themselves by piecing up a new and better course than any they know from the materials with which they are supplied in all the holes they have ever played over.
With the idea thus presented, you may go on to making your own ideal course, and that some basis of necessary requirements may be afforded, it may be added that in the opinion of Mr. Harold Hilton such a course should include three short holes, eleven holes requiring two shots to reach the green under ordinary conditions, and four holes which require three shots to reach the green. Mr. Hilton adds that the short holes ought not to be more than 200 yards long, and that in the case of the four very extended holes the minimum of length should be 470 yards. The other holes he thinks should vary from 380 yards to 430 yards. In this connection it is noteworthy that Mr. Hilton’s selections are the Redan at North Berwick and the Himalayas at Prestwick for short holes; the Alps and the eighth at Prestwick, the sixth at Hoylake, the second at St. Anne’s, and the sixth at Sunningdale for two-shot holes; and the fourteenth at Sandwich, the seventeenth at St. Andrews, and the Cardinal at Prestwick for long holes.
In another part of the world there is something now happening that gives a special point to these fancies. It is nothing less than the attempt, backed up by enormous energy and practically unlimited capital, to make “an ideal course,” combining all the best features of the particular holes that it is resolved to copy. A club called the National Golf Club, including among its members many of the best players and many of the richest men in the United States, has been established, and they have taken a big piece of territory on Long Island for the prosecution of their most ambitious scheme. One of the moving spirits, Mr. Charles B. Macdonald, well known to St. Andrews golfers, and the first American amateur champion, spent a long time in this country about a year or two back, making a most exhaustive study of the best holes on our best courses, and he went home to America with large parcels of most minute plans and photographs. The land chosen on Long Island is a fine piece of country for golf, and this is going to be—is being—so pulled about, built up, and given the general appearance of having been acted upon by several earthquakes, to the end that the best possible copies of these holes shall be made. Although anything in the nature of an exact copy is manifestly impossible in a large proportion of cases, despite all the powers of money and energy, it is declared that at least the underlying principles which account for the superlative excellence of the holes chosen as models shall be faithfully and accurately represented. It is prophesied that on these two hundred acres of land which have been bought at Peconic Bay, there will be combined in one eighteen-hole round the best features of the most celebrated courses in the world; in other words, “a course that shall be the best in the world.” This is a vast ambition, and one which only Americans would find it easy to entertain.
Let me mention what conditions Mr. Macdonald made for the selection of these eighteen holes. He decreed that there should be two short holes for iron shots, between 130 and 160 yards in length; two 500-yard holes; two of the “drive and pitch” order, 300 to 320 yards; eight good two-shot holes, 350 to 470 yards; and four long one-shot holes varying from 190 to 250 yards, according to the contour of the ground, the longer holes having the fair green falling towards the putting green. These together would make up a course of about 6000 yards in length.
IV
Once a year there is a great foursome played between a Colonel and a Parson on the one side and an Author and an M.P. on the other, and they always look forward to it with great keenness. It is a compact among them that the match shall be played every year that all four are alive and within the United Kingdom. This is one of the most delightful kinds of matches, and no pleasure of reminiscence is so rich as that of golfers such as these in looking back over ten or twenty years of matches and comparing their recollections of them. All earnest golfers should have some arrangement of the kind with their best friends.