There are, unfortunately, many leading players who wish a course to be designed so that it will favour their own play and will not even punish their indifferent shots, but will put any one below their particular standard out of the running altogether.
There are many leading players who condemn the strategic aspect of golf. They only see one line to the hole, and that is usually the direct one. They cannot see why they should, as in dog-legged holes, be ever compelled to play to one or other side of the direct line. A bunker in the direct line at the distance of their long drives is invariably condemned by them, because they do not realise that the correct line is to one or other side of it. Why should not even an open champion occasionally have a shot that the long handicap man is frequently compelled to play?
Should a course or hole be ideal from a medal or match-playing point of view? If it is necessary to draw any distinction between the two, there can be little doubt that match play should always have prior claim. Nine out of ten games on most good courses are played in matches and not for medals. The true test of a hole is, then, its value in match play.
The majority of golfers are agreed, I think, that an ideal hole should be a difficult one. It is true there are some who would have it difficult for every one except themselves. These, who usually belong to the pot-hunting fraternity, may be left out of consideration. It is the successful negotiation of difficulties, or apparent ones, which gives rise to pleasurable excitement and makes a hole interesting.
What kind of difficulties make interesting golf?
We can, I think, eliminate difficulties consisting of long grass, narrow fairways, and small greens, because of the annoyance and irritation caused by searching for lost balls, the disturbance of the harmony and continuity of the game, the consequent loss of freedom of swing, and the production of bad players.
We can also eliminate blind greens, blind bunkers, and blind approaches. The greater the experience the writer has of designing golf courses, the more certain he is that blindness of all kinds should be avoided. The only form of blindness that should ever be permitted is the full shot up to a green whose position is accurately located by surrounding sandhills. Even in a hole of this kind, it is not the blindness that is interesting, but the visibility of the surrounding sandhills. At the Maiden hole at Sandwich, it was the grandeur and the impressiveness of the Maiden that made it a good hole, and not the blindness of the green.
