CHAPTER IVTHE FUTURE OF GOLF ARCHITECTURE
As the future of Golf Architecture depends on the prospects of golf, it may be of interest to discuss the probability of its abiding popularity.
Golf has been played in Scotland for several centuries, and there appears to be no sign of any decreased popularity, but rather the reverse. The illusiveness of golf is sufficient to ensure its popularity. No one ever seems to master it. You imagine you have got the secret to-day, but it has gone to-morrow. This is so in all good games. There are some games, such as ping-pong and roller-skating, which become merely passing crazes, and the reason is that one obtains a certain standard which neither diminishes norincreases, and then the game becomes monotonous. Golf on a first-rate course can never become monotonous, and the better the course the less likely it is to do so. Golf on a good links is, in all probability, the best game in the world, but on the late-Victorian type of inland course, where there is a complete lack of variety, flat fairways, flat unguarded greens, long grass, necessitating frequent searching for lost balls, and mathematically placed hazards consisting of the cop or pimple variety, it not only offends all the finest instincts of the artist and the sportsman, but is the most boring game in existence. The advent of the golf architect is rapidly curing all these disabilities.
A good golf course is a great asset to the nation. Those who harangue against land being diverted from agriculture and used for golf have little sense of proportion. Comparing the small amount of land utilised for golf with the large amountdevoted to agriculture, we get infinitely more value out of the former than the latter. We all eat too much. During the Great War the majority were all the fitter for being rationed and getting a smaller amount of food, but none of us get enough fresh air, pleasurable excitement, and exercise. Health and happiness are everything in this world. Money-grubbing (so called business), except in so far as it helps to attain these, is of minor importance. One of the reasons why I, “a medical man,” decided to give up medicine and take to golf architecture was my firm conviction of the extraordinary influence on health of pleasurable excitement, especially when combined with fresh air and exercise. How frequently have I, with great difficulty, persuaded patients who were never off my doorstep to take up golf, and how rarely, if ever, have I seen them in my consulting-rooms again! It is not suggested that golf is the one andonly remedy. Men may get equal results from shooting, fishing, riding, cricket, tennis, etc., and may even obtain pleasurable excitement from gardening, politics, or their own business, but for the majority of men, golf is the most convenient form of pleasurable excitement and exercise to take. Those who rave against golf courses surely forget that many of the greatest politicians, thinkers, and business men conserve their health and their mental powers through golf. As examples we could quote President Wilson, Lloyd George, Carnegie, A. J. Balfour, Asquith, Winston Churchill, Lord Northcliffe, and scores of others. I hope to live to see the day when there are crowds of municipal courses, as in Scotland, cropping up all over England. It would help enormously in increasing the health, the virility, and the prosperity of the nation, and would do much to counteract discontent and Bolshevism. There can beno possible reason against, and there is every reason in favour of, municipal courses. They are all for the good of the community, and even from a financial point of view, at the small green fees of 3d.or 6d.a round invariably pay.
If this be so that games, and particularly golf, are of such vital importance to national health and social content, then surely the provision of adequate and proper facilities for golf should be taken seriously, and in making this provision the golf architect has a special part.
The test of a good golf architect is the power of converting bad inland material into a good course, and not the power of fashioning excellent seaside material into a mediocre one.
The majority of amateurs are sportsmen, and they welcome anything that increases the sporting element of the game. There are, on the other hand, others, including some of our best players, wholook upon golf in the “card and pencil” spirit, and view with resentment anything that has stopped their steady series of threes and fours.
The advent of the golf architect has done much to increase the sporting and the dramatic element in golf. The true test of the value of his work is its popularity, and judging by the rapid increase in members, even on the mere rumour that the services of a well-known course architect are to be obtained, there can be no doubt the modern constructor of courses has achieved this. The writer knows examples of the reconstruction of one or two short holes bringing in over one hundred fresh members to a club which had been steadily diminishing in numbers for years.
There are many and varied qualities required for the making of a successful golf architect.
In the first place, he must have anintimate knowledge of the theory of playing the game. He need not be himself a good player. He may have some physical disability which prevents him becoming so, but as the training of the golf architect is purely mental and not physical, this should not prevent him from being a successful golf-course architect. In any case, the possession of a vivid imagination, which is an absolute essential in obtaining success, may prevent him attaining a position among the higher ranks of players. Every one knows how fatal imagination is in playing the game. Let the fear of socketing once enter your head, and you promptly socket every shot afterwards.
His knowledge of the game should be so intimate that he knows instinctively what is likely to produce good golf and good golfers. He must have more than a passing acquaintance with the best courses and the best golfing holes. It isnot only necessary that he should play them, but study them and analyse the features which make them what they are. He must have a sense of proportion and be able to differentiate between essentials and non-essentials. He should be able to distinguish between those features which are of supreme importance in the making of a hole and those which are of less value.
He must have judgment in the choice of features which can be readily and cheaply reproduced, and not those which are impossible to construct without an inordinate expenditure of labour.
How frequently has one seen hundreds of pounds wasted in a futile attempt to reproduce the Alps, the Himalayas, or the Cardinal! Features of this kind look absolutely out of place unless the surrounding ranges of hills which harmonise with them are also reproduced. To do this would involve the expenditure ofhundreds of thousands of pounds. How often are attempts made to copy a hole and the subtle slopes and undulations which are the making of the original overlooked!
The golf-course architect must have the sporting instinct, and if he has had a training in many and varied branches of sport, and has analysed those characteristics which provide a maximum of pleasurable excitement in them, so much the better. It is essential that he should eliminate his own game entirely, and look upon all constructional work in a purely impersonal manner.
He should be able to put himself in the position of the best player that ever lived, and at the same time be extremely sympathetic towards the beginner and long handicap player.
He should, above all, have a sense of proportion and be able to come to a prompt decision as to what is the greatest good to the greatest number.
The fifth hole at Fulford, Yorks—approximate cost, £35: the whole of the additional nine holes on this course were constructed on dead flat land at a total cost of about £300.
The fifth hole at Fulford, Yorks—approximate cost, £35: the whole of the additional nine holes on this course were constructed on dead flat land at a total cost of about £300.
He should not be unduly influenced by hostile criticism, but should give the most sympathetic consideration to criticism of a constructive nature. Not infrequently a long handicap man makes a brilliant suggestion which can often be utilised in a modified form.
A knowledge of psychology gained in the writer’s medical training has been of great service in estimating what is likely to give the greatest pleasure to the greatest number.
It by no means follows that what appears to be attractive at first sight will be permanently so. A good golf course grows on one like good painting, good music, etc.
The ideal golf architect should have made a study, from a golfing point of view, of agricultural chemistry, botany, and geology. He should also have some knowledge of surveying, map-reading, and the interpretation of aerial photographs.
Aerial photography will become of enormous value in all kinds of surveying, town-planning, the construction of golf courses, etc.
There are all sorts of details visible in an aerial photograph which are often omitted after the most careful survey in the ordinary way. The exact positions of every tree, hummock, natural bunker, tracks, hedges, ditches, etc., are well defined. The exact areas occupied by permanent pasture, grass grown for hay, crops, clumps of whins, rushes, etc., can all be distinguished in an aerial photograph.
These, combined with a good ordnance and geological drift-map, are of inestimable value, and in many cases would assist even the most expert golf architect to make such full use of all the natural features that thousands of pounds might ultimately be saved in reducing the acreage required and in minimising the cost of labour, upkeep, etc.
In these days when manual labour costs so much, it is of supreme importance to reduce it to a minimum by the substitution of mental labour.
Golf architecture is a new art closely allied to that of the artist or the sculptor, but also necessitating a scientific knowledge of many other subjects.
In the old days, many golf courses were designed by prominent players, who after a preliminary inspection of the course simply placed pegs to represent the position of the sites for the suggested tees, greens, bunkers, etc. The whole thing was completed in a few hours, and the best results could hardly have been expected, and in fact never were obtained, by these methods.
The modern designer, on the other hand, is likely to achieve the most perfect results and make the fullest use of all the natural features by more up-to-date methods.
After a preliminary inspection or inspections in the calm and quiet of his own study with an ordnance map and, if possible, aeroplane photographs in front of him, he visualises every feature. He is then not so likely to be obsessed by details, but gives everything its due proportionate value. He then evolves his scheme and pays a second visit to the ground, and, if necessary, modifies his ideas according to the appearance on the spot.
There is an extraordinary resemblance between what is now known as the camouflage of military earthworks and golf-course construction.
The writer was fortunate during the war in being asked to give the demonstrations to members of the Army Council which were the foundation of, and led to the establishment of, the first school of camouflage.
These demonstrations were evolved fromhis experience as a golf-course architect in the imitation of natural features.
Successful golf-course construction and successful camouflage are almost entirely due to utilisation of natural features to the fullest extent and to the construction of artificial ones indistinguishable from nature.
It is clear that if a gun emplacement or any other object of military importance is made indistinguishable from the most innocent-looking feature on the landscape, it will escape the disagreeable attention of the enemy. And what can appear more innocent than the natural undulations of the ground? Therefore in camouflage, as in golf-course construction, the ability to imitate natural undulations successfully is of special importance.
There are many other attributes in common between the successful golf architect and the camoufleur.
Both, if not actually artists, must havean artistic temperament, and have had an education in science.
Surprise is the most important thing in war, and by camouflage you are able to obtain this not only on the defence but in the attack.
In golf architecture and camouflage a knowledge of psychology is of enormous value. It enables one to judge what is likely to give pleasurable excitement to the golfer and confidence and improvement inmoralto the soldier. The writer feels most strongly that his experience in the Great War in visualising and surveying miles of sites for fortifications in this country and abroad, in map-reading, in the interpretation of aerial photographs, in drainage and labour-saving problems, and particularly in the mental training of strategic camouflage and devising traps and surprises for the enemy, was by no means wasted even from a golf-course point of view. The only manhe has been successful in initiating rapidly into the mysteries of golf-course architecture was not a golfer but an artist, and one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of experts on camouflage.
A little knowledge is a specially dangerous thing in links’ architecture. One of our greatest troubles in dealing with the committees of the old-established seaside courses is that their world-renowned reputation (not due to any virtue of their own, but entirely owing to the natural advantages of their links) makes them think themselves competent judges of a golf course.
They ask for a report and plan of suggested improvements, and then imagine they have grasped the ideas of the designer, and proceed to make a horrible hash of it. I do not know a single seaside course which has been remodelled in anything like the way it should have been remodelled.
The best artificially constructed seaside course I know is the Eden (Mr. Colt’s) Course at St. Andrews. There are few of the crowds of players who, notwithstanding its youth, already congregate on it realise how much is due to artificiality and how little to nature. All the best ground at St. Andrews had been previously seized for the three older courses—viz., the Old, the New, and the Jubilee—and yet it compares favourably with any of them. This is entirely due to the fact that not only was it designed by Mr. Colt, but the construction work was done by men who had been trained under him and worked under his supervision.
It is much better that construction work should be done by men without any knowledge of the subject than by those partly trained.
There is a yarn told about two rival constructors of golf courses: one of them was admiring the other’s greens, and remarkedthat “he never managed to get his green-keeper to make the undulations as natural looking.” The other replied that “it was perfectly easy; he simply employed the biggest fool in the village and told him to make them flat.”
I believe the real reason St. Andrews Old Course is infinitely superior to anything else is owing to the fact that it was constructed when no one knew anything about the subject at all, and since then it has been considered too sacred to be touched. What a pity it is that the natural advantages of many seaside courses have been neutralised by bad designing and construction work!
The architect is the best judge in deciding how often he should visit a course for supervision purposes. How often have I heard from the secretary, who is almost invariably a cheery optimist, that the construction work was going on splendidly, and when too late discovered thathundreds of pounds had been thrown away in doing bad work which had ultimately to be scrapped!
There is an old Persian saying:
“He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool. Avoid him.“He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, will learn. Teach him.“He who knows, and knows not that he knows, will fail. Pity him.“He who knows, and knows that he knows, is a wise man. Follow him.”
“He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool. Avoid him.
“He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, will learn. Teach him.
“He who knows, and knows not that he knows, will fail. Pity him.
“He who knows, and knows that he knows, is a wise man. Follow him.”
The majority of committees, being composed of men who have made their living out of their brains, are beginning to know that they know not, and this is all to the good of the future of golf.
The most backward committees are those in Scotland, London, and America. They have not yet realised that golf-course architecture is a question of mental and not physical training. It is particularly strange that my own countrymen, who have such a wealth of golfingmaterial and attach so much importance to education, attach so little to education in golf architecture.
The time will surely come, as it has already done in the North of England, when committees will attach as much importance to the architecture of the course as to that of the club-house.
In time many of the dull, monotonous, muddy inland London links will be entirely remodelled under expert supervision, and the turf and subsoil treated so that it is a pleasure to play on them even during the winter months.
The time will also come when even some of the championship courses will be entirely remodelled under expert supervision, and when these clubs will realise how little they have made of the natural advantages that Providence has provided for them.
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