'Scotland's Golf Courses
SCOTTISH thrift and Scottish canniness are not the least obtrusive of the national virtues that flourish " ayont the Tweed." Care of the " bawbees," and an age-long specialism in pawkiness are not, however, inconsistent with the knowledge of a good thing once seen, which may subjectively explain the popularity of golf through the centuries in Scotland. Where the game had its origin is neither here nor there, but I like to think and will continue to do so against any array of old Dutch prints or philological suggestion of Continental parentage, that golf began in Scotland, and that Sir Walter Simpson's shepherds with crook and stone were more likely founders than quaintly plus-foured Hollanders engaged in some sort of ice hockey. At any rate—whether native inven- tion or import—golf found in all respects congenial soil in Scotland, and Scots have from undated times played it-in their own country, and preached it as well as played it in almost every other under the sun.
America has been Scotland's aptest pupil. The players of the New World have been quick in the " uptak," and -as the contents bills and news headlines that blare our daily history in every street affirm, they have out- stripped the master. The process of world education in the game, and its contingent gain to Scottish pockets, has left the home of golf with few great golfers. But what really matters is that there are more golfers and more courses. Scotland is edged with golf courses ; her coast-line somewhere or other produces every day of every year the crack of club on ball. No more wonder- ful natural turf or ideal surroundings are to be found anywhere. St. Andrews, Prestwick, North Berwick, Carnoustie—why, to play on any of these links is to the golfer among the most heavenly of earthly joys, and yet four men will sit far into the night and present to each other dogmatic, analytical, and even inspired considera- tions, why each one of these places is better than the other three.
It is at St. Andrews and other places in Scotland that one sees the democratic quality in the game. You may see there of an evening, after the day's work is done, the artisan striking off with but two or three clubs, and yet all the sartorial resources of Savile Row and the ingenuities of the club factory could not prevail against him. The same severely plain but severely efficient golfer you may see at, say, Leven or old Musselburgh, which, now far removed from its Championship past, looks faded and more than half forgotten. But there is a good deal of golf at Musselburgh still, and the profes- sional man and the coal-miner can be seen taking their round where heroes of old made their names and where, when the Open Championship competitors began to increase, the cards had to be checked by candlelight. The first event in the world's golf was in the " 'eighties " an affair of one day ; five days were needed recently at Muirfield for the Championship. Muirfield it was that took the Championship from Musselburgh, with the migra- tion of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers from one to the other, and a great links Muirfield it to-day.
Nowhere is the game more popular in Scotland than in East Lothian, which has been called " the Holy Land of golf." Of the practically continuous chain of courses that lies along the coast there North Berwick is probably to most people best known, either at first or second hand. World stirring competitive events have no place there. Big crowds which are now the appanage of big golf could not be accommodated on the old links of North Berwick. No human stewarding or marshalling could cope with an army of spectators at the narrow parts of the course. But North Berwick is, I think, the most photographed part of these islands in the season. Society loves North Berwick, and the starter each summer calls many of the best known names in our politics, art, drama, and social life. Lord Balfour was for many years an institu- tion there. See North Berwick once and its popularity will cause you no question. It combines delightful golf with charming scenery, and while you may pit your skill against " Redan " and " Perfection," holes that have been avidly copied in other parts of the world, you may store up memories of sunshine on the near-by sea and on the little close-in islands of the Forth estuary. Golf faces golf across that estuary. On the Fife side there is also a glorious stretch of links—Leven, Lundin, Elie, and Earlsferry that gave the world of golf that great master, James Braid.
Northward there are place names that first and fore- most mean golf—Carnoustie, Montrose, Cruden Bay. All of these are exceedingly popular ; Carnoustie, more famous than the others as a nursery of the game and a source of supply through many years of professional players and teachers for the United States. Aberdeen in its name does not at once suggest golf, but there are hi its vicinity some courses of first-rate excellence, such as the Royal Aberdeen Club's links at Balgownie (where ,Scotland's Amateur Championship will be played in July), Murear and others. Lossiemouth and Nairn are two others among several in the north that always keep their " pull " on the golfer who has played over. their fine turf and is haunted by their scenic memories. The Scottish Ladies' Golf Association will hold their champion- ship at Nairn next month.
Seaside golf in its Scottish terms must at once conjure up for _many lovely visions of summer days by the Clyde firth, and favourite holes along the Ayrshire coast. That is a truly Elysian strip of golf terrain which takes in Prestwick (where the Open Championship was born), Troon, the Galles_ courses, and Turnberry. Each one of them is a landmark for popularity, and if the Ailsa hole, one of the -game's famous " postage stamp " greens, has not been so deeply written into history as the Cardinal or the Alps of old Prestwick, all of them have individual appeals to the golfer both of problem and pictorial interest. Every one of these places I have mentioned, and many others the mere catalogue of which would make large demands upon space, draw town golfers by the thousand at holiday time. The inland golfer feels his stature and status increase when he goes down to the sea with clubs. But inland golf too finds its highest expression in Scotland, and though that is a subject on which much might be said, I would cite only two inland courses of, in their different ways, great fame and popu- larity. One is Gleneagles, the other the Braid Hills of Edinburgh. Carved out of the wild moorland Gleneagles is a triumph of golf architecture, and nobody anywhere within reach of Strathearn should miss having a round on these wonderful courses. The Braid Hills are the most famous example of municipal golf in the whole world. When the visionaries, and they were right, saw the possibilities of the hills for golf, and began their agitation forty years ago to have the hills acquired for the city, their scheme was described as " golf for goats." But of all the courses in Scotland, and even in the world at large, I believe this is the most popular. It sustains an amazing traffic, which, at this time of the year, sets in at dawn and stops only' wheri it is too dark to play.
F.M.
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