Nevertheless Romford is not a course that one would choose for the doing of a low score, for it is neither short nor easy, and is a great deal better golf than it looks. Its appearance is not particularly attractive, because in the first place it is flat, and in the second there are hedges and trees to be seen. Braid himself speaks of it in Nisbet's _Golf Year Book_ as a "very good park course." The adjective may well be allowed to pass, but to call it a 'park' course conveys a wrong impression, to my mind at least; it is too open for the description to be quite appropriate, though I admit I can think of no better word. If a course has really good putting greens and demands that the ball should be hit consistently far and straight, then there is a good deal to be said for it, and these virtues must be conceded to Romford. You must hit straight or you will be in a bunker, or 'tucked up' behind a tree; you must hit far or you will not get up to the green in the right number of strokes. The fourth and fifth are two as long holes as come consecutively on any course, except Blackheath, and the fifth is an especially good one. Better than either I like the seventh with its narrow tee-shot between the trees and that out of bounds territory that comes creeping in to catch you on the right. It is a hole that, in colloquial language, 'wants a lot of playing.' There are really quite a lot more fine holes--the tenth, for instance, with a tremendous carrying second over a pond, and the fourteenth, where the player is fairly hemmed in with trees and hedges, and must drive as straight as an arrow. When Braid was there he accomplished some ridiculous scores in the sixties, but ordinary people will find that anything in the seventies is quite good enough for them, and that many a hole that ought to be done in four will, in fact, be done in five or more. Especially is this the case when the going is at all heavy, for Romford can on occasions be just a little soft and muddy. It is probably, like a great many other inland courses, at its best in spring or autumn, for then the putting greens are really a pleasure to putt upon.