Tom and gang:
A links is not a Links course; it is simply a links. Anyone who innocently says "Links course" is practising tautology. A links is a course, and so therefore, to say Links course is the same thing as saying a "course course".
Links is one of those rare English words that works beautifully as singular or plural. A group of links. What a fine links Ballybunion Old is. The links at Dornoch.
Links is a derivative of the 13th century teutonic word, "hlinc" ... which refers to level or undulating sandy ground near a seashore, with turf and coarse grass. But this is overly simplistic.
In the case of the British links, after the last Ice-Age, as the world warmed, billions and billions of tons of meltwater drifted quietly about. Naturally, much ice was melted in the process, but contained within the meltwater was unnquantifiable amounts of sand. Fortuitously for us golfers, this vital element found its way into the bays and estuaries of places like Dornoch, Brora, St. Andrews, North Berwick, and many other inlets known to us today.
Now what makes links golf special is its links turf: mean; lean; agriculturally barren; hungry; poverty grass species, primarily of the fescues and bents - both fine and wiry varieties. While the cloning and hybrid cross fertilisation methods of producing grass is improving today, nature, via the naturally harsh British climate has selcted specifically for these grasses. Within close proximity, different grass species existed: fine bents and fescues of the sheltered dunes; the nearby lusher meadow estuary grass; a tough, coarse, dune-binding grass known as marram; plus sea-lyme, and other robust species.
The abundance of birdlife was vital to links formations, via droppings (guano), and subsequent germination, that caused, also thanks to the element of wind, much inter-mingling of grass species, arising out of, came, what today is known as links turf. What evolved was a close knit, hardy sward of turf that best charcterises the fast-running British seaside game.
A major point: on a true links with genuine links grass, the ball sits down, unlike the so-called "links-style" course in warmer climates (even those on the seaside) whereby the ball sits up in an exalted position just waiting to be attacked with a "driver off the deck". Again, it comes back to nature: warm climates preferentially select for lush, propserous species - couch, Kykuyu, among them.
Take any links - Royal North Devon (Westward Ho), Royal County Down, Royal Troon, to name a few, all these were once totally under the sea. Over millenia, the sea retreated, from the nearby higher ground (bluffs, escapments, etc) and left in its wake, humpy, bumpy, finely demarcated, strips
(sliver-like), known as linksland. Herein lies another possible definition: links being "a linking of land and sea".
One vital element to the formation of links was the presence of channels; some remined and today are coined "burns", others dried out and helped form rides and assembly's.
Lets introduce the role of the rabbit, or as an old Scottish charter describes them: "Cunningus". The following didn't happen overnight, but in time, these strips of land became the favourite places of rabbits; the way they multiplied the ancient coastal strips were literally rabbit warrens. While links turf already had a head-start through evolutionary processes, the constant 'nibbling away' by the rabbits only helped produce, and maintain, what we see today. The rabbits were vital in another way. They formed feeding and frollicking habits and in their own tiny way, developed rudimentary pathways. Wouldn't you know it, the fox (plural) went in search of the rabbits and in doing so, widened these tracks just a little more. Not quite a links yet, but perhaps the formation of future fairways are taking shape!
What followed the fox? Humans of course! It is hard not to imagine that in doing so, that these tracks - becoming rather well-warn at this stage - were again widened by the trampling habit of man. The rides and assembly's were further being fashioned. By now, you should almost be able to smell a future fairway. A collaboration: Man; Beast; and Nature, had over a great expanse of time created glorious golfing terrain.
One component of links golf is irrefutable: ideally a links should look like one, but it is even more important to qualify as a true links, that it plays like one! So often, this is not the case. All over the world, seaside course are stamped "Inland" in character, and due to lush grass species, cannot hope to recreate the links experience. Other than getting used to the smaller size 1.62 inch British ball in 1953, Hogan came over two weeks early to Carnousite to ingrain a slight downswing modification that enabled him to pick the ball clean as whistle from the alien turf. The great man left nothing to chance.
The term links has become bastardised. We see rocky, cliff-top golf centres such as Old Head Kinsale, Pebble Beach, and many of the lesser-known Welsh courses, being passed off as links. And it happens all over Australia as well. Forgive me, but as I understand, sand is not too good at jumping 300 feet! At least, not in great quantity. Have we ever wondered why drainage is often so poor at some of these seaside locations? Clearly, they are not links.