Out-door Games: Cricket and Golf/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
Sea-side Links and Inland Links
When golf was a game played only by a few, at the time when there were no links in Ireland or Wales and only Blackheath in England, practically all the golf that was played was played on sandy links by the sea-side. When, however, the game seized hold of England and the English, it soon became obvious that inland courses would be developed to an extent our forefathers never dreamt of. The Warwickshire and Worcestershire inhabitant would not be baulked of his play, or only content with such play as he could get by a short residence of a month by the sea-side in autumn. Links were made everywhere, on lawns, commons, across hedge and pond, and over trees, with every variety of green and every variety of lie, generally indifferent and seldom good. Clubs were formed and professionals engaged, and a proof of the greatness of the game can be found in the fact that it is not easy, out of the innumerable number of clubs in England and Wales, to find one of them in anything but a sound financial position. In Warwickshire alone clubs and greens are to be found in Warwick, Coventry, Kenilworth, Solihull, Sutton Coldfield, Olton, Stratford-on-Avon, Ward End, and Atherstone. So great has been the demand for golf that it is doubtful if there is not at the present time more play on inland than on sea-side links. Fifty years ago, or even thirty, it would not have been difficult to find many golfers who had never played on any but sea-side links, and who would have scorned the idea of making any links on inland greens. So firmly established, however, is inland golf, that it may be interesting to compare the style of play on such links with those at the sea-side.
First it may be remarked that the two games are so different that a good inland player may find, that when at the sea-side he is entirely off his game for some considerable time, and his difficulties begin in their acutest form at the tee. There are many inland links played on commons where a pulled or sliced ball loses a great deal of distance to the striker, but he nearly always has a chance of recovering himself by the second shot. Of bunkers in front of the tee there are comparatively few, and the grass is no longer in one place than in another. You curse the day on which you were born when you top your drive, but so many holes are about 270 yards in length that unless it is a pronounced foozle you have a chance of landing your second shot near the green. In the case of a good drive an iron club has to be used for the second shot, and a brassey for the topped shot. At North Berwick or Sandwich in the great majority of holes a topped, sliced, or pulled drive means a loss of at least one stroke, and too often this means loss of the hole. The consequence of this is, that though both at St. Andrews and Warwick Common the ball is teed up and the same driver used, a man may find it far more difficult to drive well at St. Andrews than at Warwick. This gives an excellent illustration of the enormous influence nerve and temperament have on the game. A man with a phlegmatic, stolid, Teutonic sort of temperament will address himself to the teed ball at the sea-side, and by repressing the small amount of imagination there is in him, forget the bunker, the ditch, and the beach, all ready to receive the badly-hit ball, and hit the ball well and accurately. There are others who find it impossible to do this. With them the imagination is ever active and ever ready to dwell on the dangerous side of things. The result is, they are so overwhelmed by the presence of danger, that they forget to keep their eye on the ball, and as a consequence the ball is topped or foozled. The nervous player is terribly conscious that the faculty of forgetting—a most useful faculty in other things besides golf—is impossible for him. At a particular hole on one day he sliced the drive, which disappeared comfortably into a bunker. What this unfortunate man should do is to forget this fact and banish it from his mind; but he cannot do this, and as a consequence next day, when again he is on the same tee, it comes vividly before his mind, and being afraid of doing the same thing, he promptly does it. On the inland course the same player has very likely missed his drive at a particular hole, but has recovered himself by the second; and though this second shot may not be forgotten, the foozled drive is, because the striker has lost nothing by it. The inland course does not as a rule punish the bad drive like the sea-side; the player therefore having less to fear drives with a light heart, and with a mind undisturbed by danger and hazards; and though the ball is equally teed up at the sea-side, and he uses the same favourite club, he misses there and succeeds on the inland.
There is another great distinction between inland and sea-side golf. The wind blows far more over the sea-side links. To first-rate players the wind must be very obstreperous to make more than a few strokes' difference in their play; but to inferior players any perceptible wind, especially if it should blow across the course, causes infinite disturbance. The same thing that has just been pointed out occurs here. On the inland course, where there is a cross wind, the badly-hit ball is blown a long way off the line, but not half so often into a hazard as it is at the sea-side. To the inferior player on inland courses, then, the wind, even if it is as strong, has not the same terrors. It seldom, however, blows as hard inland as at the sea, and nothing like so often. At Westward Ho, Littlestone, and Prestwick the wind, apart from the effect it has on the actual game, is often so high that any outdoor game is a burden. If in the east, it chills you to the bone, makes your eyes water and your hands cold, ruffles your temper and makes you lose balls, while you can hardly make your caddie hear what you say. As far as the game itself is concerned, a high wind unsteadies all but good players, and the painful results are more obvious on the sea-side links.
In the matter of approaching the hole there is also a great difference in the two styles of links, and the good player is considerably handicapped on the inland. To approach well it is essential that the ball be hit nearly straight to the hole. A good player does this, and on the beautiful smooth short grass you find at the sea-side, the ball thus hit goes straight to the hole. But on a clay common, or, indeed, practically speaking, on any inland links, the ball bounds all over the place. In summer there are hard lumps of clay, stones, and every variety of small obstruction, the grass is often longer than it should be, while if it is wet the neat-lofted ball sometimes stops almost dead. Approaching thus on inland courses has elements of luck in it which it does not possess at the sea-side. But luck may, and often does, unduly favour the wild approach shot, and the bad player to his astonishment finds himself holding his own, at what some people think the hardest part of the game—approaching. If the running-up shot is played on rough links it is frequently found to be a case of "as broad as it is long." If a lump of clay or a stone turns the ball to the right one bound, another friendly lump at the next bound turns it to the left, and, on the whole, as the dying lawyer said who was troubled by the idea that he had frequently been the cause of innocent people being found guilty till he remembered that he had been equally fortunate in the case of the guilty being found innocent, justice is done. But the lofting shot is often, from no fault of the striker, badly punished, and this is especially trying to the good player.
On inland greens there is a very great difference between the putting-green and what is not putting-green. On the sea-side links there is some difference, but not nearly to the same extent. At Westward Ho and Machrihanish the whole course outside bunkers is practically putting-green, only the ground is rolled near the hole. But on the clay common, which many of us know so well, the greens are small, and the player in the approach shot is met with the difficulty that if he lofts so that the ball pitches short of the green it may kick to the right or left, and ultimately be almost as far from the hole as a foozled shot. If, on the other hand, he pitches the ball on the green he overruns the hole. On the sea-side you may be short of the green, but the ball will generally run true.
As to the play through the green with the brassey or cleek at the sea-side links, the player is unlucky if he finds himself in a bad lie, unless he has previously driven the ball off the course. Though a great deal may be done by horse-rolling the inland links, there are times in dry or frosty weather when the roller has little if any effect, and then the lies must be seen to be appreciated. It is in this point of bad lies through the green that the real disadvantage of inland greens comes in. At St. Andrews, in several instances, and at the second and seventeenth holes at North Berwick, you will often find the ball in a bad lie, because there is so much play that the turf has been unduly cut up. But frequently these bad lies are caused by the ball lying in a scrape, or place where the turf has been scraped away and not replaced, and though this may be said to lie badly it can be hit a long way. But when horses and cattle are allowed to walk and gallop at their own sweet will, as they often are on inland greens, you will frequently find lies that are practically unknown at the sea-side. The niblick has often to be used, and at the sea-side this ugly-looking club is never used except to play out of a bunker or hazard, and there is no fun or sport to be got by playing a niblick through the green. Some players find a brassey easy to play with, others the cleek; but it seems generally to be essential to the ordinary player that to play the brassey he should have a good-lying ball. It is comparatively rare to find any but a really good player hit a bad-lying ball with any certainty with the brassey. Inland players ought therefore to learn to play a cleek or driving mashie, which will be found most useful in the case of bad-lying balls, or even balls that are not in a really good lie.
Putting-greens are also very different in inland links. At certain times of the year, when not too hard, at any time in short except during a hard frost or a hot summer, they may be made as good as the sea-side greens, though far smaller. But to keep them good, labour in the shape of rolling must be expended. There are some inland greens with chalky subsoil, and in dry weather the grass here becomes a vanishing quantity. There are some first-rate sea-side links where occasional holes are found with clayey soils: these are very much akin to our inland courses, like the seventh hole at Sandwich and several greens at Littlestone, and it needs very little to cause lumps and excrescences to make their appearance on such greens. But, as a general rule, the sea-side putting-greens are far superior, they are smoother and faster, and the grass grows far more evenly. The good putter meets an inferior putter on more equal terms on greens which are rather rough; the crooked putt may go in, the straight one go crooked, the same tendency which I have just remarked on in the case of approaching. It is remarkable, however, how completely off it a sea-side player can be, and frequently is, when he finds himself inland, especially if he plays with a wooden putter. A wooden putter makes the ball run closer to the ground; on inland putting-greens, if you can get accustomed to a very slightly-lofted iron club, you can make the ball go straighter by means of a series of microscopic jumps than if you made it travel right along the ground the whole way, which it does when played with a wooden putter. In ordinary weather there is more grass on inland greens, and you can putt firmer than on sea-side links, especially those on the east coasts of England, where, on the whole, there is a short supply of water and rain. Such greens become painfully keen, and such putting is not the real art that it is when you can hit the ball harder, for you are not so afraid of running the ball out of holing distance.
From what has been said it may be inferred that the real great player is not relatively so great on a roughish inland green as he is on the links of the Sandwich, Westward Ho, and St. Andrews type. I am inclined to think this is the case, for one or two reasons which I have already discussed. The inferior player is not so much bothered by wind, has not the same crowd of bunkers to avoid, has more chance of being helped by luck in the way of devious strokes being kicked the right way by lumps of clay or stones, and may find himself putting fairly well compared with the strong player. There are few inland greens of very great length. It is not easy in the country to get long stretches like those of the sea-side, and yet the scoring, in consequence of the bad lies and inequalities of ground, is far higher than on much longer sea-side links. A player with a big handicap, if he has any intelligence, is an awkward customer to give long odds to on an inland course. He finds it far easier to keep out of difficulties, and this is what kills him at North Berwick. By playing with the clubs he knows and is accustomed to, like the cleek and putter, by having no pride in his constitution and never attempting any risks, he may find himself doing pretty well. His opponent, on the other hand, may not be accustomed to such lies, and his temper becomes a little ruffled, and the putting-greens surprise him, for he finds it so difficult to get the strength. The inferior player is in no way surprised at anything unless a ball almost teed through the green should by some chance await him. He accepts a horse-shoe mark and a niblick stroke as part of the day's work, and is not astonished when his approach shot bounds off at right angles to the hole. When the hedge is 130 yards from the ball he takes his cleek and plays short; the St. Andrews man has a poor lie, but he is too proud to play short, tries to carry it with his brassey, and an ominous crashing of wood is heard.
It is perfectly true that nobody would play on an inland links who could possibly play on the sandy sea-shore; but many of us have had the keenest enjoyment whom fate has compelled to be content with a clay common. You would almost learn to enjoy golf in Piccadilly itself, if you played often enough there. The lies are often bad, but you do enjoy the casual good lie when it comes. You know the course by heart, and have a soft spot in your heart for the very disadvantages. One of the charms of golf is its uncertainty, and on inland greens the uncertainty of the lies may almost be described as a charm. To make a good stroke is always delightful; but the most delightful form of good stroke is when it is played under unfavourable circumstances, out of a bad lie for instance. If you do happen to hit a bad-lying ball, you remember it when you shut your eyes at night; it banishes the office ledger which you cannot get to balance. The man of abundant means and leisure who can afford to go to the sea-side whenever he likes, may not like to play on inland greens; he has in his mind the splendid air and the glorious links of Sandwich and Prestwick. But in regard to the toiler who, nolens volens, must pass ten months of the year inland—the only time he possibly may not enjoy the golf on the old clay common is when he returns to it after a month's uninterrupted play at North Berwick. Then he may wonder if he ever will be able to enjoy the game there again; but in a short time the old affection will return to him.
Lastly, there is the intense enjoyment of a month's sea-side golf. The joy of finding the ball always in a first-rate lie, the capacity of running the ball true and straight to the hole, the sea air—to enjoy these to the full you must have come straight from eight months' play on a clay common with the lumps as hard as stones, and the soil cracked with the heat. Contrast is the essence of enjoyment; the inhabitant of North Berwick has nothing like the same fascination at the game in October as the inland golfer who is there for his holiday. All honour, therefore, to the old clay common which can provide him with the means of play, though it may be of an inferior kind. It has at any rate given him exercise, and the capacity for enjoyment of better things.