The Golf Courses of the British IslesDarwin, Bernard
History
The Golf Courses of the British Isles
Darwin, Bernard
Golf courses -- Great Britain
I must go back for a minute to praise the fifteenth, a hole which
has the added interest of alternative routes, according as we drive
to right or left of a formidable hedge of furze, and then we come to
a parlous long hole, the seventeenth. There is a ditch guarding the
green, but before we arrive at the approaching stage, we must hit first
of all a good tee-shot, and then a good brassey shot, over a rampart
of terrible appearance. This is the one bunker on the course which is,
from an artistic point of view, unworthy of it. It does indeed look as
if it had been transplanted from some inland park, but do not let us be
too hard on it, for there is much joy in the carrying of it.
At the last hole we should, with a good second shot, carry the burn and
get a four, but there is a gentleman waiting with a net to fish our
ball out if we fail, and the sight of him is apt to have a horribly
destructive effect. If we go into the burn we shall be reminded of
the fact when we are paying for our caddie, by the demand for the
recognized toll of one penny for its rescue. Finally, no account of
Westward Ho! would be complete without a reference to the tea at
the club-house. There is a particular form of roll cut in half and
liberally plastered with Devonshire cream and jam. Epithets fail me,
and I can only declare that the tea is worthy of the golf.
From Westward Ho! we may cross the border into Cornwall, a thing
infinitely more easy to do in the imagination than in a train. Cornwall
has several pleasant courses--Newquay, Lelant, St. Enodoc, and Bude,
amongst others. Of these, St. Enodoc is a course of wonderful natural
possibilities, and for that matter there is a rather solitary,
inaccessible piece of land near Hale, not far from Lelant, where might
be made one of _the_ golf courses of the world. So at least it seemed
to me as I wandered once on a Sunday morning amongst its hills and
valleys.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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