CHAPTER VI.

THE COURSES OF CHESHIRE AND LANCASHIRE.

Of all the links in the north of England, =Hoylake= comes first on account of its historic traditions, the eminence of its golfing sons, and, as I think at least, its own intrinsic merits. At Hoylake the golfing pilgrim is emphatically on classic ground. As he steps out of the train that has brought him from Liverpool he will gaze with awe-struck eyes upon surroundings in which the irreverent might see nothing out of the ordinary.

"Perhaps it was here," he will muse, "that the youthful Johnny Ball once toddled to school, his satchel on his back. The infant Hilton may have been wheeled by his nurse upon these very paving stones. Nay, Jack Graham may even now, perchance, be seen at this identical station at which I have just got out of my train taking his train to go into Liverpool every morning."

By the time that these remarkable thoughts have flashed like lightning through his mind, the pilgrim will find himself wandering down a straight, dusty, unattractive road, which is flanked by villas of a comfortable though prosaic appearance, and wondering where on earth this famous links can possibly be. Then he will discover that what he thought was another and particularly gorgeous villa was really the Royal Liverpool Club-house, and dashing upstairs, he will see out of the smoking-room window the famous links of Hoylake spread out beneath him.

On a first view they are not imposing. All that appears is a vast expanse cut up into squares and strips by certain cops or banks, partly walled in by roads and houses, with a range of sandhills in the far distance. Yet this place of dull and rather mean appearance is one of the most interesting and most difficult courses in the world, and pre-eminently one which is regarded with affection by all who know it well.

That the course is either interesting or difficult all will not agree, but those who disagree most loudly with the statement will, I venture to assert, usually be found to be the worst of players. "I call Hoylake a rotten course: there are no bunkers to get over; the fellow I was playing with topped all his tee-shots and never got into trouble." Such is a verdict often heard after a first visit to Hoylake. The critic should then further be asked his opinion of St. Andrews, and it will generally be found that he classes St. Andrews and Hoylake together as the two worst courses he has ever seen. He may forthwith be treated with silent contempt, and his opinions may be ignored. He has effectually written himself down an ass. What this person says is absolutely true; there are very few bunkers in front of the tee at Hoylake, and the man who tops his tee-shot does escape condign punishment more often than he would on a golf course designed on principles of perfect equity. Those short drives, however, though they do not plunge the culprit waist high in sand, bring their own penalty by making it practically impossible for him to reach the green in the right number of shots. Some of the holes that we are supposed to reach in two shots are desperately long, and with a top from the tee all hope is straightway gone. At least if Hoylake does not demand that the ball should always be hit into the air--a matter that is not after all of very great importance among the reasonably competent--it does make very exacting demands in the matter of length and straightness. How fiendishly narrow is the third hole, with that fatal cop on the left and rushes on the right. How we do have to press if we are to hit far enough at those last five holes--'Field,' 'Lake,' 'Dun,' 'Royal,' and the home hole; what splendid names they have, and what splendid finish they provide for a match--surely the most exhausting finish to be found on any links in the world.

Then, too, there is always a rich reward at Hoylake for the man who can play his approaches really straight and with a firm, sure touch. There are some courses where the greens are always helping us and the ball is always running to the hole. We may play a most indifferent iron shot on to the outskirts of the green, and behold! a kindly slope has intervened on our behalf, and the ball finishes within comfortable putting range. Hoylake is emphatically not one of those easy and enervating places; there the greens are always fighting against the player, and he must hold his shot straight on the pin from start to finish. If he does not, the chances are that the ball will take a vindictive leap, and his next shot will still come under the category of approaching. There is none of your smug smoothness and trimness about Hoylake; it is rather hard and bare and bumpy, and needs a man to conquer it. The game, as I have said, is not made easy for us, and this is true--a little too true, alas!--of the putting greens. Sometimes they are good enough, though hardly ever easy; but very often, unless I have been exceptionally unfortunate in my experience, they are rather rough and lumpy, and make the holing of short putts a very anxious business. Time was when the greens were the particular pride of the course, and Mr. Hutchinson wrote in the Badminton Library that "The links of Hoylake are associated, in the mind of every golfer who has played upon them, with the most perfect putting greens in all the world." Since that eulogy was written the building of houses and the consequent drainage operations are said to have drained some subtle and beautiful quality out of the greens, and they may now be said to form the weakness rather than the strength of the course. Even now, however, they are not so rough as they often look, and the man who has a delicate and withal a fearless touch of his putter will still be rewarded at Hoylake.

One more good quality of the holes at Hoylake deserves a word of mention; it has been called by Mr. Low their 'indestructibleness.' By this most useful, if inelegant, word, he means that they are good whether played with or against the wind, and that is very high praise, particularly as there are few courses on which a change of wind more completely alters the character of each individual hole. Blessed indeed is the hole which can keep its good character whichever way the wind is blowing.

The first hole is so good and difficult that it seems almost a pity that we are compelled to play it before we have got thoroughly into our stride. Whatever the wind, it is our duty to begin with a long, straight drive between the club-house railings on the left and a sandy ditch and cop on the right. At about the distance of a good drive from the tee the cop turns at a right angle to the right, and we must follow the cop, skirting it as near as we dare. The wind cannot be either with or against us for both our first and second shots, and we shall have a fine opportunity of showing our skill in the use of it. If it be blowing strongly against us on the tee we shall hardly get home in two, and our second must needs be played over the corner of the cop and the out-of-bounds region that lies within it. If it blow behind us we shall be well clear of the cop with our drive, and may hope to be home with a low, running second with an iron club, but it must be a parlous straight one. Altogether there are few finer holes to be found anywhere, and it would always find a place in my eclectic eighteen holes.

Passing over the second--good hole though it be--we come to an unpleasantly narrow one--the third or 'Long' hole. If the wind is blowing freshly behind us we may aspire to reach the green in two very long and very straight shots, but as a rule we shall require two drives and a pitch. Along the left-hand side runs a sandy ditch beneath a turf wall with absolutely precipitous sides, and woe betide the man whose ball lies tucked up hard under the face of that wall; he will be lucky if he can get it out backwards, forwards, or at all. I saw Mr. John Ball extricate himself from this predicament by an extraordinary stroke, or so it seemed to me. He stood on the top of the wall, far out of reach of the ball, then leaped down into the ditch, hitting as he jumped, and out came the ball most gallantly; it needs something more than local knowledge to play such a shot as this.

The fourth is a short hole--the 'Cop' by name, so called from yet another bank that guards it. Then follow two good two-shot holes, of which the sixth, or 'Briars,' has the distinction of having been halved in nine in the final of an amateur championship. The tee-shot must be struck straight and true over the angle of hedge, while anything in the nature of an attempt to sneak round by the right entails a prickly death among the whins. Safely over the hedge, we have yet two sandy trenches to carry, and the green is guarded by rushes and pot-bunkers, so that if nine be an excessive total, four is a comparatively small one. Next comes one of the finest short holes in the world, 'The Dowie,' which is not only very good, but really unique. There is a narrow triangular green, guarded on the right by some straggling rushes and on the left by an out-of-bounds field and a cop; there is likewise a pot-bunker in front. To hit quite straight at this hole is the feat of a hero, for let the ball be ever so slightly pulled, and we shall infallibly be left playing our second shot from the tee. Nearly everybody slices at the Dowie out of pure fright, and is left with a tricky little running up shot on to the green. The perfect shot starts out of the right, just to show that it has no intention of going out of bounds, and then swings round with a delicious hook, struggles through the little rushy hollow, and so home on the green; it is a shot to dream of, but alas! seldom to play.

A long and reasonably narrow eighth hole takes us to the confines of West Kirby, and we turn our faces once more towards the club-house in the far distance. Two perfect shots that turn neither to the right nor to the left but keep down a narrow valley between two ranges of hills may see us safely on the ninth green, and we have reached the turn possibly, but by no means probably, in some 38 shots. The tenth is another longish hole of no particular features, but the eleventh hole consists of one big feature--the mighty Alps over which we must hit our very best shot if we are to gain a three. In the Amateur Championship of 1898 this hole was done in one in a rather singular way, the ball going full pitch into the bottom of the hole and staying there. The 'Hilbre' we may hope to reach with a drive and a cunning run up, and then we have a chance of another three at the 'Rushes.' Here we have nothing to do but play quite a short pitch over a cross-bunker and a little wilderness of rushes, but the hole is very close to the bunker, and the green is hard and full of unkind kicks, and a three is not to be despised. This is undoubtedly the last chance of a three we shall have, for from now onwards to the finish it will not be surprising if we have an uninterrupted run of fives. First comes the 'Field,' where the hole is most cunningly guarded by a triangle of rushes. A very respectable five is the 'Field,' and so is the 'Lake,' even if we go as straight as a die for the hole through 'Johnny Ball's Gap.' So again is the 'Dun,' where for two shots we have to keep clear of our old enemies, the cop and the sandy ditch, before playing a deft little pitch over a cross-bunker. At the 'Royal' we may hope for a four, since we have a fine wide expanse for the tee-shot, and a really accurate iron-shot should do the rest. There is plenty of room at the last hole again, but we shall need two absolutely clean-hit shots if we are to get home, and once more there is a cross-bunker in front of the green, at just such a distance from the hole that even if we get out in one we are likely to take three putts. And so at last we have finished those last five strenuous holes, and may go to the particularly excellent lunch provided by the Royal Liverpool Golf Club. They are not much to look at, those last five, but they are horribly good golf, and if you are only all square at the thirteenth with one of the Hoylake champions your chances of ultimate success are exceedingly small. As I write about Hoylake I can see it all with a misty and sentimental eye. There are the white railings in front of the club; and Mr. Janion is standing in the porch in benignant contemplation, and Mr. Ball is wandering anon from the seventeenth green with his red-topped stockings, chipping the ball along with his iron as he goes; and I, knowing that somebody is going to beat me by seven up and six to play, yet long to be back there again.

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Next in fame to Hoylake comes =Formby=, and there are many to be found who prefer it to the Cheshire course, though personally I do not consider their judgment a sound one. Formby is at any rate a most delightful course, and with that let us leave comparisons alone.

There is a particularly clear-cut distinction between the two parts of the course, which is in that respect a little like Sandwich. There is the country of the plains, on which the round begins and ends, and there is the country of hills wherein are all the middle holes. There is no doubt which are the prettier and more popular; the sand-hills would come out easily first in a general poll, but I have an uneasy sort of suspicion that the flat holes supply perhaps a better test of golf. There are, for instance, few better seventeenth holes than that which is to be found at Formby; just at the most crucial part of a hard-fought match it is as long and narrow and nerve-wracking as can be. Yet it is as flat as a pancake, and might from its appearance be a great many miles away from the sea. Still it is impossible to get over its intrinsic merits. There is the tee and there is the hole in an exact straight line, distant about two full shots away, and there is literally nothing in the way. That sounds terribly dull, but there would be nothing in the way if we drove down a Roman road, and yet it would be far from easy to keep on the course. To the right is a dreary tract of out-of-bounds, which is, to the morbid imagination, white with the countless balls that have been driven there. To the left is a narrow little ditch, and beyond the ditch rough and tussocky grass. To hit the tee-shot with reasonable accuracy ought not to be beyond our powers, but the second shot is undeniably a beast. We are undecided whether to aim out to the right and try for a hook or to the left for a slice, since for some reason it is horribly difficult to play a perfectly straightforward shot down a straightforward road of turf. We shuffle with our feet, become thoroughly uncomfortable, and--the precise form of disaster must be left to individual fancy.

The sixteenth, at which we traverse the same flattish country, is no bad hole either; nor are the first two or three, where we drive straight ahead, with plenty of cops and bunkers to keep us on the straight and narrow path. In old days there used to be an attractive tee-shot to the fourth hole over the corner of a group of trees, which seemed to be for ever heeling over under the force of the wind and mesmerically luring the slicer to his fate. That is changed now, however, and we go straight on to the old fifth green, and make our entry into the mountainous country rather earlier. Our first introduction to the hills comes at the old seventh, where there is a blind second shot into a big crater--a type of hole not now so favourably looked upon as it was once. Then comes a hole which we shall always remember, along an ominous gorge with frowning hills on either side of us. There is something romantic and mysterious about it, and if we retained the imagination of our childhood we should inevitably play at being an invading army, with the enemy's sharp-shooters hidden in crevices among the hills.

After this comes the new country which has lately been taken in, and there are some fine two-shot holes--so fine that they will be three-shot holes for some of us--and some that are less strikingly excellent. We continue to dodge about among the great hills, roughly speaking, until we reach the fifteenth hole, but before that we shall have played another and particularly excellent hole along a narrow gully--the thirteenth. The last four holes lie on flatter country, although there is still every opportunity of getting into sand, and we finish with a good two-shot hole on to a fine big green in front of a fine big club-house. The greens are beautifully green; they are likewise very true and keen enough, without ever being bare and hard. The lies, too, are excellent, and it is altogether one of those courses where the player's fate is entirely in his own hands. If he plays well everything will conspire to help him on his way, but he has got to play really well--good, sterling, honest golf: there is no mistake about that at Formby.

* * * * *

=Wallasey=, where we come back to Cheshire again, is another course of mighty hills: indeed I do not think I have ever seen a course on which the contour of the hills and valleys was so infinitely picturesque. At several of the holes we play, or try to play, in the trough of two great waves of sand that tower on either side of us, and feel rather overpowered by the vastness of our surroundings. There was a time when Wallasey, though amusing enough, was too short and blind and tricky to be taken very seriously, but all that is changed now, and, with the addition of heaven knows how many hundreds of yards, the course is a long and punishing one. It is still perhaps a little too blind for those of very rigid and spartan views, but whatever the exact place which may be assigned to it on the day of judgment--and this sort of question will never be settled at any earlier date--it is undoubtedly good golf.

Certainly the first hole is the blindest of the blind. Wallop the first, and the ball vanishes over a hill; wallop the second--this time with a mashie--and it flies over another on to the green. This is not the best of beginnings, but the second has a much more interesting tee-shot, where we try to hug a bank covered with a particularly pestilent form of bush, and then at the third we are in the country of hills and valleys. The view at the third, as we look down the long winding gully that leads to the hole, is one of the most charming in golf; and the fifth is another wonderfully picturesque hole, with a terrifying second shot. After the seventh we leave the sandhills for a while, and play backwards and forwards for a spell along some flat holes that seem to radiate from one solitary house that stands alone in the middle of the course. They are very good holes some of them, and the ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth especially need long, straight hitting, but the last four or five holes take us back to the more characteristic country, and the finish comes in a blaze of glorious sandhills. A rather blind, and to the stranger a puzzling, tee-shot should land us safely on the table-land, and then far away and rather below us to the right we see the promised land, the seventeenth green, and with a good shot the ball will swoop away for an apparently incredible distance, and finish by the hole side. The eighteenth, too, is full of charm, and when we have successfully carried the spur of a big hill and played our second over some more bold and broken ground, we can hole out in a deep hollow, with the eyes of the whole club watching us from above as they sit in front of the club-house. It is quite likely that we have played very far from well, since this country of mountains and deep dells is always difficult for the stranger, and our host has probably ways and means of reaching the green that we are apt to regard as ways of darkness, but we shall have found the golf infinitely pleasant and exhilarating.

* * * * *

There are other Liverpool courses, Leasowe, Blundellsands, Hesketh, Birkdale, and Southport, which are fully worthy of more extended notice, but we must be getting away from Liverpool to the links where the man from Manchester often plays his weekly golf--the course of the Lytham and St. Anne's Club. =St Anne's= is not far from Blackpool, where there is incidentally quite a good course, and after the day's golf we can, if we have sufficient energy, go and dance in the largest dancing hall in the world or climb the highest tower in the world, or, in short, consult the advertisements of Blackpool. This, however, is not business, and we have to play serious golf at St. Anne's, for the opposition is very good and very keen, as the members of the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society have discovered to their cost.

As compared with Hoylake, St. Anne's is very smooth and trim, and just a little artificial. If the day is calm and we are hitting fairly straight, the golf seems rather easy than otherwise; and yet we must never allow ourselves to think so too pronouncedly, or we shall straightway find it becoming unpleasantly difficult. If there is a strong wind blowing we shall not even be tempted to think it easy, for there is plenty of rough grass on either side, and the hitting of a good straight tee-shot, which seemed so simple and made the holes seem simple, will be a cause of considerable anxiety. Whatever the weather and the wind, there is one thing that we ought always to do well at St. Anne's, and that is putt, for the greens are as good and true as any in the world, and can even challenge comparison with those in the Old Deer Park. Given an opponent who is a really fine putter--Mr. Lassen or some other inhuman fiend--and till he has played two more while our ball lies stone dead we can never feel quite happy; the truly-struck putt comes on and on over that wonderfully smooth turf and flops into the hole with a sickening little thud, and there are we left gasping and robbed of our prey. There is no kind of excuse for bad putting at St. Anne's, and in fine weather there is indeed little excuse for any form of error, for the lies are uniformly good and the stances uniformly smooth, save perhaps at two holes, where the land lies in ridges and furrows, and we may need a measure of skill to persuade the ball to fly from the hanging sides of a ridge. The trouble, besides rough grass and pot-bunkers, consists of sandhills, both natural and artificial. To build an artificial sandhill is not a light task, and it is characteristic of the whole-hearted enthusiasm of the golfers of St. Anne's that they have raised several of these terrifying monuments of industry. They are still in their infancy, and look just a little new and raw, but they will destroy the golfer's card and temper just as effectively as those that have stood from time immemorial. They are, moreover, covered with bent grass, which will no doubt increase and multiply to the greater glory of the hills and ruination of the golfer.

The course begins with a short hole of no particularly coruscating virtues, but the second and third are both good, and the railway on the right scares us into a hook: and the hook takes us into a bunker, and the bunker loses us the hole. The fourth has a very pretty green, well and naturally guarded by hummocks; and Nature has been very kind again at the sixth, where there is a deep crater, to be comfortably reached in two good shots. Indeed these natural craters are rather a feature of the course, for there is something of the same kind to be found at the seventh, and a very perfect example at the fourteenth. The worst that is to be said against them is that they give some encouragement to a second shot off the back-wall, but the attendant risks are very great, and the back-wall shot that just misses the mark brings with it a peck of troubles.

The ninth has a fine tee-shot and a long, difficult, and blind second shot, in which the stranger always finds that he has aimed at the wrong chimney pot in a row of houses at Ansdell. The tenth has a hut for drinks and a tee-shot that fully justifies such an indulgence; while at the eleventh we must go on driving and driving till we reach the green, which, contrary to our expectations, we shall ultimately do. The thirteenth is of an unattractive and inlandish appearance, but is as good a hole as is to be found on the course, and needs the very straightest of play to avoid a network of bunkers. Out of a puddle in the bottom of one of these bunkers I once holed a pitch, and have never played the hole so well either before or since. Then comes the crater hole, the fourteenth before mentioned; and after that we may hope to get home with a three and three fours, but the four at the seventeenth is not a particularly easy one, and there is always a chance of too strong an approach being bunkered in a flower bed beyond the home green, to the great amusement of the spectators in the smoking-room window.

There is nowhere in the golfing world where keener opponents and more friendly hosts are to be found than in the counties of Lancashire and Cheshire, and I cannot help saying that I, along with my brothers of the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society, owe them a very deep debt of gratitude.

Before finally quitting Lancashire, we must look at one inland course, namely, =Trafford Park=, which may be accepted as the foremost among the purely Manchester courses. I was interested and surprised to find, in reading a little history of the Manchester Golf Club, that golf was played in Manchester at a date so utterly prehistoric as 1818. However, a few enthusiasts really did play upon Kersal Moor at that remote period, and they called themselves the Manchester Golf Club. They had no imitators till sixty-four years later, when Mr. Macalister founded the Manchester St. Andrews Golf Club that played in Manley Park. The birth of this second club happened almost simultaneously with the death of the first. Kersal Moor, for all its solitary and savage name, fell a prey to the builder, and in 1883 the original Manchester Golf Club ceased to exist, and its name was assumed by the Manley Park Club. Since then, it should be added, it has, happily, come to life again under the title of the Old Manchester Golf Club.

Meanwhile, Manley Park came to share the fate of Kersal Moor, and a move was made to Trafford Park, which has now been the home of the Manchester Golf Club from 1893 to the present time. It has flourished ever since, and has played a prominent part in the golfing life of Manchester.

Trafford Park is a good course in spite of the most unpromising surroundings. All round the fine old park, formerly the home of the de Traffords, manufactories now raise their hideous heads, while along one side runs the Manchester Ship Canal, and the man who desires an excuse for a bad shot may allege that an ocean liner insisted on coming behind him just as he was playing. These are certainly not recommendations, but there are compensating advantages in good turf, good greens, good length holes, and the old mansion-house, which has been converted into one of the most comfortable and palatial of club-houses.

The turf is excellent. It is certainly not muddy, nor is it precisely sandy. One who has played much golf at Trafford describes it as 'peaty,' and I will leave it at that. The hazards are of the usual park description: trees, artificial bunkers, and at one hole a pond, while the ground is pleasantly undulating for the first nine holes, and rather too flat for the second.

We begin by driving downhill, which is always a comforting thing to do, although we ought to have warmed to our work a little in order to get full value out of a downhill drive. This takes us into the lower ground, and after a moderate first we have a really good two-shot hole for the second; well over four hundred yards long, and with a thoroughly interesting second shot on to a raised green. The third, which is a one-shot hole--there are four of these in all--takes us up a hill again, and of the holes that follow the fourth and the seventh are especially good, the former demanding a long, straight, iron shot on to a particularly well bunkered green.

Coming home the course suffers a little, as I said, from being too flat, and, so as with many of these park courses, it is rather hard to pick out any one hole from among its fellows. Good sound golf will be repaid, and so will the golf that is unsound and bad, but neither the rewards nor the punishments are of a thrilling or heroic order. There is one hole, however, that calls for special mention, the sixteenth, where two really fine shots are needed to reach the green, and the only thing to be said against the hole is that it would be better still if it were number seventeen instead; not that the present seventeenth is bad, but that the sixteenth is so eminently well adapted to occupy that critical and important position. Gaudin has been round the course in 65, but the intending visitor will be disappointed if he imagines that he himself will necessarily do a particularly low score on that account. In these days of expanded courses--against which one begins to see some signs of a revolt--Trafford Park is not vastly long, but it calls for good, honest golf for all that.