[Illustration: CARNOUSTIE '_South America_'] Burns, _anglicé_ streams, are a great feature of Carnoustie. Indeed one friend of mine returned from a visit there declaring that he had got burns badly on his nerves, and that the entire course was irrigated by them. However, it is not so much burns as sandhills that are likely to cause our downfall at the beginning. Of these hilly holes, the second, by name the 'Valley,' is a really fine one, and decidedly one of the best on the course. It is dog-legged in character, and has a distinct flavour of some of the holes at Prince's, since with the tee-shot the player carries just as much of the hill in front of him as he dares, and gains a proper advantage for a bold and successful shot. The drive is directed towards a guide flag on a hill top, and if all goes well we are over in the valley. Then follows a beautiful second shot up a narrow neck, with a bunker on the left and other trouble on the right; 385 yards is the Valley's length, and Bogey does the hole in four. It is certainly one of the holes that he plays in his best form, for he very often takes five over holes that are no longer and not nearly so difficult or so interesting. Of the other holes on the way out, most are decidedly long, except the fifth, which is a simple enough short hole, and 'South America,' before described, is as good as any of them. On the way home there is a somewhat awe-inspiring second shot at the tenth, where we have to carry a hill, out of the face of which two bunkers have been cut out and appropriately christened the 'Spectacles.' The twelfth has a pleasing name, 'Jockey's Burn,' and the thirteenth has a pleasing putting green. The fourteenth, by name the 'Flagstaff,' is a good long and narrow hole, where the hills crowd in close upon us, and we must keep straight along the valley. The best hole on the way home, however, is probably the sixteenth, or 'Island,' where there is but one way to secure an easy and comfortable approach, and that consists of pushing your tee-shot out to the right so that the ball comes to rest upon a very narrow neck. Take an easier route from the tee, and you will be left with as unpleasant a pitch as need be, and the greedy waters of a burn running between you and the hole. Burns play an important part at both the last two holes also, for one has to be carried from the seventeenth tee and another menaces the pitch on to the home green. There really is some justification for the nervous golfer who has water on the brain after a round at Carnoustie. CHAPTER XI. THE COURSES OF THE EAST LOTHIAN AND EDINBURGH.