Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/169

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138
OUT-DOOR GAMES

ciated. 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