Golfing News & Blog Articles

I remember that I was a very young man when I first played East Lake, my home course, in 63. Afterward, I confided to my father that I had mastered the secret of the game and that I should never go above 70 again. Next day I had to work my head off to get around in 77. BOBBY JONES

Playing around a golf course is not merely a question of getting around, like traveling over a race course or walking around the block. It’s rather a question of taking nine or eighteen separate and distinct little journeys, each of which presents its own distinct pictures and its own distinct problems as part of the grand tour. CHARLES BANKS

Playing around a golf course is not merely a question of getting around, like traveling over a race course or walking around the block. It’s rather a question of taking nine or eighteen separate and distinct little journeys, each of which presents its own distinct pictures and its own distinct problems as part of the grand tour. CHARLES BANKS

It must be remembered that the great majority of golfers are aiming to reduce their previous best performance by five strokes if possible, first, last and all the time, and if any one of them arrives at the home teeing ground with this possibility in reach, he is not caring two hoots whether he is driving off from nearby an ancient oak of majestic size and form or a dead sassafras. If his round ends happily it is one beautiful course. Such is human nature. A.W. TILLINGHAST

Instead of a golf course providing an adventure of the spirit because of its demand for an intelligent, courageous application of skill, they will be reduced to mere trap shooting galleries, and the card and pencil will become the final arbiter of the golfer’s excellence. MAX BEHR on rough

I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that beauty means a great deal on a golf course; even the man who emphatically states that he does not care a hang for beauty is subconsciously influenced by his surroundings. A beautiful hole appeals not only to the short but also to the long handicap player, and there are few first-rate holes which are not at the same time, either in the grandeur of their undulations and hazards, or the character of their surroundings, things of beauty in themselves. ALISTER MACKENZIE

British golf was first played over links or “green fields.” The earliest of them were sited at points up and down the eastern seaboard of Scotland, of which Dornoch, Montrose, Barry, Scotscraig, St. Andrews, Elie, Leven, Musselburgh, North Berwick, and Dunbar were, and Dornoch, Barry (Carnoustie) and North Berwick are typical. Nature was their architect, and beast and man her contractors. GUY CAMPBELL

The grounds on which golf is played are called links being the barren, sandy soil from which the sea has retired in recent geological times. In their natural state links are covered with long, rank, bent grass and gorse…links are too barren for cultivation; but sheep rabbits, geese and professionals pick up a precarious livelihood on them. WALTER SIMPSON

Muirfield…is curious that it has but little outward attractions. There is a fine view of the sea and a delightful sea wood, with the trees all bent and twisted by the wind; then, too, it is a solitary and peaceful spot, and a great haunt of the curlews, who one may see hovering over a championship crowd and crying eerily amid a religious silence. All this is charming, but there is a fatal stone wall that runs round the course, giving the impression of an inland park, and it is, I believe, this purely sentimental objection that has brought Muirfield so many detractors. BERNARD DARWIN

When we reach Gullane we come upon the four links of greatest interest to us--Gullane, with its threefold choice of courses, Muirfield, Archerfield, and North Berwick--all of them remarkable for the contrasts they offer. They show in the most convincing way how character changes with environment and design follows its natural trend. TOM SIMPSON

The charm of the seaside courses of Great Britain lies in their multiformity, their unconventionality, their infinite variety. There are eighteen holes, and the yardage is up to standard, but comparison largely ends there. The terrain itself has an individuality all its own. In its uneven diversity, its tumbling irregularity, its unrivaled originality, links-land bears no resemblance to any other territory. ROBERT HUNTER

The charm of the seaside courses of Great Britain lies in their multiformity, their unconventionality, their infinite variety. There are eighteen holes, and the yardage is up to standard, but comparison largely ends there. The terrain itself has an individuality all its own. In its uneven diversity, its tumbling irregularity, its unrivaled originality, links-land bears no resemblance to any other territory. ROBERT HUNTER

The Nature the golf architect has in mind is linksland upon which golf has been played for hundreds of years, and remained through a major part of this time uncontaminated by the hand of man except for the cutting of the holes. Whatever beauty such land possessed was inherent in it, and those today who have played golf amidst such primeval surroundings are conscious of a certain charm wholly lacking upon a palpable man-made golf course. MAX BEHR