Harper's Round Table, August 4, 1896

by Various

This St. Paul's links is situated in a very pretty part of the country, and there are enough natural hazards to make it interesting even for a first-class player. As may well be judged from the brief description I have been able to give here, it is plain that the course is not over a barren, uninteresting table-land, as is the case with many of our American links, but in a locality where there are plenty of woods and hills to make the scenery interesting. There are no impossible bunkers or hazards, so that a round of the links is sure to be interesting. The course is only about four or five minutes' walk from the main school grounds, and is situated on school property, so that the students do not have far to go for their sport, and find no one to interfere with them when they get there.

The interest in the game has been growing steadily ever since the links was first laid out, and it is to be hoped that other schools will take the game up in the near future. There are a few country schools that cannot have links, for even if the school property is not extensive enough for the course to be laid out upon it, there ought to be little difficulty in securing the permission of land-owners to lay out a few putting greens, which would be about the only improvements required. Almost any section of country has a sufficient number of natural hazards to make it unnecessary to construct artificial bunkers and sand-pits.

And now that we are on this interesting subject of golf and bunkers and hazards, it may be well to devote the rest of our space in the Department this week to the answering of questions which have been coming in with greater or less frequency during the year. Most of these questions have concerned links and their construction, and as this is a subject which cannot be treated satisfactorily in short letters, it has seemed best to wait for a convenient time when the laying out of links might be debated in these columns.

It may seem at first a very easy matter to lay out a golf course, but when one begins work upon a links there are several things to be considered. A very hilly country is unsuited to the game, and stony fields or ploughed land is impossible. The best kind of land for a course is pasture land, such as may be found in the neighborhood of almost any town not situated in the mountain country. When a suitable stretch of ground has been found, the first thing to be done is to make a general survey of its salient features in order to determine the general direction of the course and its length.

A links may be laid out with six holes or nine holes or eighteen holes, and such courses would vary all the way from a mile and a half to four miles. The ideal course should be about three miles and a half long. If the available ground is limited, it is much better to lay out nine good holes than to try to get eighteen into the limited space. Having settled upon the starting-point and the number of holes that you are going to have, the general direction of the course should be laid out so that it will swing around in a sort of circular path, and finish up somewhere near the starting-point. In other words, the home green should be placed as near as possible to the first tee.

The length or distance between holes varies anywhere from a hundred up to five hundred yards, the distance being based on the number of full shots that a player must make to reach the next hole. The idea is to make it easy for a good player to reach the green, but difficult for a poor player, whose lack of skill must be penalized. Therefore a distance of two hundred yards is generally bad, for it brings about the objectional combination of a full shot and a short approach.

It is always well to have the holes well guarded with hazards on all sides. Of course few holes can be thus completely surrounded, but when laying out a links it is well to keep this object in mind, for hazards call out the skill of a player. Sometimes there are not enough natural hazards along the course, and it is necessary to throw up banks of earth, or to plant bushes, or to dig ditches. If it becomes necessary to throw up a bank across the course, it is better to build it in a sort of curve rather than along a straight line, for it thus makes a much better golfing hazard. One thing must be remembered in the construction or arrangement of hazards, and that is that they should not interfere with good play.

In the laying out of putting greens one should endeavor to have a space clear of hazards about twenty yards square. The hole should be sunk in about the centre of this green, and lined with an iron or tin cylinder. But on no account should the rim of the cylinder come above or even flush with the edges of the hole, or it will interfere with the play. These cylinders may be bought at almost any shop where sporting goods are for sale, or, if nothing better is at hand, an old piece of tin water-pipe will do.

It is preferable to have level greens, although any slight inclination is no serious disadvantage. It is well to dig up the ground where the putting greens are to be laid out, in the autumn, and sod them in the spring. They should be rolled frequently, and the grass must be kept short.

Teeing-grounds should be marked with whitewash, or with disks of whitewashed tin stuck into the ground. A teeing-ground should be as level as possible, and never hanging—-that is, sloping in the direction from which the shot has to be played from it. Almost any slight elevation will do for a teeing-ground, and it must be within easy walking distance of the hole that has just been played.