The Golf Courses of the British IslesDarwin, Bernard
History
The Golf Courses of the British Isles
Darwin, Bernard
Golf courses -- Great Britain
After the turn it seems to me that the golf shows a distinct falling
off. The holes are still long enough and difficult enough, and Mr.
Evans still seemed to require one stroke less to reach the green than
I did, but for the most part they lack the indefinable charm of the
first nine. There is, however, certainly one exception to this general
criticism, and that is the really fascinating seventeenth, which is
emphatically the right hole in the right place. There is a wood and a
stone wall to carry, and the angle at which we play is such that there
is a very real reward for the long ball which is judiciously hooked.
A good as opposed to an ordinary drive may make all the difference
between a four and a five, for the green is full of undulations, and
the nearer we are to it when we take our iron in hand the better.
Taking it altogether the golf is both good and difficult, and besides
that Frilford is essentially one of those places where it is good
to be alive with a golf club in one's hand--even if one uses it
indifferently--and whither one looks forward to returning with a very
keen enjoyment.
The undergraduates of Cambridge, when they have not the time to go to
Worlington, now play golf at Coton, a pleasant little village enough
that lies off the Madingley Road. I must spare a word or two, however,
for the old course at =Coldham Common=, because I am quite sure that it
was the worst course I have ever seen, and many others would probably
award it a like distinction. The way to Coldham was suggestive of the
pleasures that awaited one there, for it led down that most depressing
of Cambridge streets, the Newmarket Road, and through the most
unattractive slums of Barnwell. After voyaging for some distance along
the Newmarket Road, one turned down a particularly black and odorous
lane, crossed a railway bridge, and reached a flat, muddy expanse of
grass, of which the only features were a railway line and some rifle
butts. I should also perhaps include among its features a particularly
pungent smell, which we always believed--I know not with how much
truth--to proceed from the boiling down of deceased horses into glue.
On arriving outside the precincts of the club-house one was at once
surrounded and nearly swept from one's legs by a yelling mob of
caddies of most villainous appearance, who were supposed, quite
erroneously, to be under the control of a well-meaning but deservedly
superannuated policeman. Anyone who played there regularly soon found
himself made over, body and soul, to one of these ruffians, and then
exchanged the solicitations of the general mob for the unceasing
importunities of his own particular henchman in the matter of cast-off
clothing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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