SPORTING ASPECT
Golfing Views
By BERNARD DARWIN IT is one of golf's oldest and most crusted jokes that the , man who draws his opponent's attention to the beauty of the view is winning his match. And it is regrettably true that we have as a rule to be at least three up before fully appreciating the scenery, either three up or ruined past all hope. Five down with six to play. Yet the golfer must not be too cynical about his weaknesses; he has his impartial moments and he has wonderful views to admire; his battlefields are not surrounded by grandstands or• houses or factory chimneys but by the open country;•often he has, as the lodging-house keepers call it, an ample sea view into the bargain. It must be owned that his admiration of the view is some- times affected by the quality of the course. There are great stretches of sea and sky to be seen from the downs on the top of chalk cliffs; but though I have the tenderest feelings for sonic downland courses, they do not provide ' the real thing,' and I am a little jaundiced about their views accordingly. The best views should by rights belong to the best courses, of sand and short, crisp seaside turf which alone bear the honour-. able name of links. Yet it is one of the ironies of golf that on a genuine seaside course we get only fleeting glances at the sea. It is hidden from us by mighty ranges of sandhills. Heaven forbid that I should do injustice to sandhills which have given us some of the noblest golfing holes in the world and are themselves things of towering beauty. Think of New-. castle in County Down; of Burnham in Somerset where a great range of hills toss their sandy heads as far as the eye can reach to Weston in the distance; think of Saunton, West- ward Ho! and Sandwich. Think certainly not last of Birk- dale, where the stranger holds his breath in wonder at a first sight of perhaps the finest golfing panorama in the world. Sandhills moreover are not merely majestic; they can be full of a secret romance, of little winding paths and hidden dells; but undeniably they mask the sea. At Sandwich we come suddenly upon it after six holes among the mountains, on Pegwell Bay with shining white cliffs beyond. At Portrush at the fifth hole, if I remember rightly, we light upon it with the Giant's Causeway in the distance. It is very exciting and we want to shout, Thalassa, Thalassa,' but too soon the hills have imprisoned us again. There are of course many glimpses of the sea on many famous courses. I love the curve of the bay at St. Andrews where the white horses come chasing one another on that fine flat stretch of beach. Arran and Ailsa Craig at Troon are full of grandeur, and the Bass Rock glitters white in the sun- shine at North Berwick, but for the amplest sea view that I can think of I shall choose Porthcawl in Glamorganshire. Here is the truest seaside golf, yet with no obscuring sandhills; the sea breaks on the rocks some way out from the shore and then comes streaming on in creamy richness. It may be argued that a view almost insists on a height from which it is to be seen and courses of the real seaside quality are not to be found on hill tops. Dutt is nearly true but not quite; I can think of at least two exceptions. One is likewise in Glamorgan, Southerndown. How the sand and the golfing turf climbed to the top of that hill in prehistoric days I do not know, but there it is now, the real thing beyond question; and here is a splendid view, of which T particularly recall one feature; this is a gorgeous wilderness of sandy hills and valleys, by name Merthyr Mawr, where some day, long .after we are all dead, the grass may grow and then may be made one of the great courses of the world.
My other seaside hill top, and this to my mind is indubitably the most glorious of all, is Gullane Hill. Here is so vast an expanse of turf, so thickly dotted with red and white flags, three Gullane courses and one of New Luffncss, that the stranger might lose himself and play at the wrong hole on the wrong course. A rather steep climb and a rather dull hole or so may be needed to get to the summit, but it is many times worth it. and here is a view with a vengeance. In the distance, scarcely visible on a misty day perhaps, is the gaunt tracery of the Forth Bridge. Nearer at hand and below us is the most famous of all this nest of courses, Muirfield, and fringing it are dark,, twisted trees of Archerfield Wood, ' accus- tomed to swing all night long in fierce winter tempests.' This is the Graden Lea Wood of that tremendous story The Pavilion on the Links. There too is Aberlady Bay and its quicksands. I used always to believe that these were the quicksands of Graden Floe but found that I was wrong. They are, I was told, at North Berwick.
Everywhere are turf and sandhills, and for all that there are many golfers at Gullane on a summer day the place is so vast as to seem almost a solitude. I once took a small Gullane caddie to Archerfield (alas! that charming course in miniature is no more), and when he first saw it he said breathlessly, ' This is a bonny wee place—there is nothing to see but the rabbits and their wee white tails.' The baby rabbits whisk in and out of the rough on Gullane Hill and there is much calling of gulls, and there are places that we and the gulls and the rabbits seem to have all to ourselves. This is a truly noble spot on a fine sunny day with a fresh breeze blowing, and yet I think the day must not be too fine. When I have seen that view at its best there has been something of a threat in it, with tall, black clouds banked up beyond the Forth. At such a time Gullane Hill seems a place to turn an ordinary mortal for the moment into a prophet. With that I must leave golfing sea views and go tp one inland, where I once saw a man almost inspired to be a prophet. This is the crest of Royston Beath in Hertfordshire, a downland course that I love much. I was standing there with a Hertfordshire man looking far down below on to the expanse of flat cultivated country, that some people might almost call dull country. Suddenly he stretched out a hand in true prophetic style and declared that some people admired Surrey. For himself he thought little of Surrey. ' Give me this! ' he exclaimed. And it is a great view and a romantic place, once the battlefield for the championship of England between Jem Ward, the Black Diamond, and Peter Crawley, the Young Rump Steak, who hangs facing me on the wall as I write. It is like a piece of Sussex down translated far from the sea but none the less beautiful for that. 1 tLutThose who try to photograph golf courses nearly always some to the saddest grief, for even the most famous holes become as seen by the camera utterly insipid, unless they have some striking and familiar background. A castle is above everything else the photographer's friend, and there is no 9olfing castle so splendid as Harlech, where it stands perched On its rock, frowning down on the links. There seems some- thing almost blasphemous in bombarding the castle wall with golf ball, but that is what a bold Irishman did some thirty ears ago. Moreover, he put £100 in his pocket, as the result of a bet (at the generous odds of 100 to 1) that he could not reach the castle. I believe the height from the spot whence be hit his shot was some 200 feet. This is presumably the exception to prove the rule that Harlech Castle was impreg- Pable. Another fine castle hard by a golf course is Bamburgh in Northumberland and a third is Brancepeth in Durham. They bre both mightily impressive, but Harlech must come first. Finally I must be allowed to dodge about as fancy leads me ver various beloved courses. I must, for instance, have a iew familiar to all who have ever played at Aldeburgh in ffolk, that of the river Aide shining in the distance, with in nt of it a line of little black trees that might have come raight out of a Japanese print. To anyone who knows it that ew instantly summons up the whole charm of Aldeburgh. ence I shall make a big jump to Sussex and Forest Row, the home of the Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club. The course climbs slowly upward and then its best view is looking back Dorn its furthest point which used to be the tenth hole. Here re no profane bunkers to break up the big, open stretch with it artificial sand, for they are not allowed on the forest. ere is nothing but heather, with here and there the narrow green strips of fairway, winding their way through it. It is Old-fashioned, natural golf, and very good for all that, which cannot offend the most rabid lover of nature and hater of golf. I have the deepest sentimental attachment to the lighthouse In Cromer, because I played there as a boy, and the chalkpit d Paradise Wood at Eastbourne for the same reason. The lack, sleepered crest of Cader at Aberdovey and the line of trees at Worlington are my dearest friends; but these are hot golfing views but only bits of golf courses, and I grow audlin as well as irrelevant. At any rate, if any other game an produce a finer view than that from Gullane Hill I shall glad to hear from it, and man and money are ready at the og and Gun. Edward Crankshaw's ' Sporting Aspect ' (on ' Autumn Salmon Fishing') has been unavoidably held over and will CIPpear in next week's Spectator.—Editor, Spectator.
Previous page
