The course is the work of Mr. Herbert Fowler, who is perhaps the most daring and original of all golfing architects, and gifted with an almost inspired eye for the possibilities of a golfing country. He is essentially ferocious in his methods, and there is no one else who is quite so merciless in the punishing of shots that are quite respectable, that are in fact so nearly good that the striker of them, in the irritation of the moment, calls them perfect. This fell design he will accomplish either by trapping the long shot that is almost straight but not straight enough or by planting his green amid a perfect network of bunkers. The result is that there will always be found some to call down maledictions upon his head, and in truth some of his devices are almost fiendish, but they are nearly always interesting. The trend of modern golfing architecture is all against the old-fashioned cross-bunkers, which used as a matter of course to be dug at regular intervals across the fairway, but, curiously enough, the cross-bunker plays a not unimportant part at Walton. Two holes in particular come to mind, the long seventh and eighth, where bunkers have to be crossed and cannot be circumvented, while the crossing of them in the proper number of strokes is a very essential matter, since the necessity of playing short often involves the loss of a whole stroke. Wild and bleak and merciless the course looks--a vast tract of wind-swept heather. In truth it is a very long one, and the casual visitor often brings against it a charge of monotonous length, but when he has played there more often he will probably discover that each of these long holes has a very distinct character, and that each is interesting in a way of its own. Some courses impress themselves very quickly on the memory so that each hole stands out quite distinctly, while others leave only a vague and blurred recollection, nor is it merely a question of the holes being absolutely good or bad. When a man has once played the first six holes at Sandwich he is likely to remember them all the days of his life, even if he has avoided the Sahara and the Maiden; whereas he may retain only the haziest recollection of St. Andrews after two or three days' play. So it is with the long holes at Walton Heath; they have in reality plenty of character, but it is hard at first to distinguish one from another. [Illustration: WALTON HEATH _The second shot at the seventeenth hole_]