A quiz

[Mark_Rowlinson]

How well do you know your golf architecture literature? There are 50 in all, so I'll spread them over several posts, not to crash the system. I'll publish the answers maybe at the weekend, with all sources credited. Usual GCA quiz rules apply - give the others a chance!

1.   Who wrote this rather long sentence?

Bernard Darwin, to whom golf and the writing about it became the abiding interest of his life, has recounted how a certain uncle of his joined a certain regiment, long before the First War, and if he had not joined this particular regiment he would not have been posted to Liverpool, he would not have taken his leave in Aberdovey, and if he had not taken his leave in Aberdovey he would not have laid-out the golf course there (with flower-pots for holes) – and, if all this had not happened, he, Bernard, might never have been introduced to golf.

2.   Which course is Bernard Darwin describing here?

We begin with a long hole, and that is always a good plan as it gets the couples more easily and quickly away; but we are not going to be let off easily. Our first drive is not very alarming, neither is our second shot, but the third may shake our early morning nerve. Right across our path to the green is a cross bunker, very deep and horrible, and we have to pitch across it and stop reasonably quickly on the other side. Very eminent persons, such as Havers, can sometimes get home in two, but I am not talking about them for the hole is 495 yards long and ordinary mortals will have to face that short pitch and will be thoroughly well pleased if they start with a good steady five.
   With the 2nd hole we come back towards the club house and there is another formidable bunker to be carried, this time with our second shot. It is made the more formidable and also the more “seaside” in appearance by being shored up with black sleepers that remind one pleasantly of Prestwick or Sandwich. These sleepers are 304 yards from the back tee, and I believe that despite a standing offer of £5 reward no one has ever succeeded in hitting them with his tee shot. A good iron shot ought to get us home in two, but it must be straight as must be the drive, for there are flanking bunkers and altogether this is a good four-hole.  

3.   Who described the close of his round as follows, and on which course was he playing?

No 15, 229 yards, par 3. A driving-mashie 12 feet past the pin, well in line. Missed the putt. Score, 3.
No 16, 426 yards, par 4. A drive and iron to 40 feet from the pin. Two putts. Score 4.
No 17, 422 yards, par 4. A slight dog-leg to the right. A drive into the angle and the short rough and a No 4 iron 30 feet from the pin. Two putts. Score 4.
No 18, 415 yards, par 4. A drive and mashie 30 feet from the pin. Two putts. Score 4.

4.   Who wrote this of the 11th hole on The Old Course?

I tactfully refrained from telling you before you played of the travail of Bobby Jones on his first encounter with the hole, in the 1921 Open. Legend had it that he put himself into Strath, where he played numerous shots before finally rocketing a ball into the estuary. That, however, was untrue, as he confirmed on being granted the freedom of the city of St Andrews. It wasn’t Strath at all, but Hill bunker. And he never had got out of that!

5.   Who wrote this of St Andrews?

I believe the real reason St Andrews Old Course is infinitely superior to anything else is owing to the fact that it was constructed when no one knew anything about the subject at all, and since then it has been considered two [sic] sacred to be touched.

6.   Who wrote this ‘On Bunkers’?

As with the golf course itself, or at least the land it lies on, it is quite likely that God created the first bunker. The common theory is that, at St Andrews, the hollows that were created by the receding sea, or burrowing animals, or sheep hunkering down against the cold nights became the bunkers, strewn everywhere across the fairways and around the greens, visible and hidden. Usually they are hidden, deep depressions or ‘pot bunkers’ that often trap even the best shots. We don’t build many like that now, but bunkers still bedevil golfers to this day, not only on the Old Course but everywhere. They have come almost to have a life of their own.
 
7.   Of which Open Championship at St Andrews did Bernard Darwin write this about Braid and Duncan?

His [Braid’s] finest round, I should imagine as fine a round as he ever played, was one that did not count. The ground was very hard, as it so often is at St Andrews, so that if there comes a tremendous downpour of rain, there is always a danger of flooding. So it was this time; the water could not get away, the conditions became impossible and the day’s play had to be abandoned. James had started some little while when the news reached him, but it may have come to him in so vague a form that he could not wholly trust it. In order to make quite sure he ploughed his way home through the floods and finished in 76. It was a sad waste, enough to have discouraged most men. However, when play began again next day it was in the very same score of 76 that he went round. It was a sound, steady start but it was three worse than that of the quicksilver Duncan and Duncan’s 73 might have been even better, for this time it was he who fell foul of the railway at the sixteenth. He played from it out on to the field beyond and so back to the course but the hole cost him 6.

8. This description of the 17th on the Old Course was written by whom?
 
This hole has no rival, even when the going is soft. Above all others it is a hole that calls for mental agility. In our opinion it is the finest hole we have ever seen.
 
9. Who wrote this description of the best line to take on the 16th hole on the Old Course?

Sensible golfers try to place their tee shots to the left of the Principal’s Nose, while the more daring attempt to thread this narrow gap. This makes for a much shorter and less difficult second shot. This line through the gap between the Principal’s Nose and the out-of-bounds fence was once famously described by Jack Nicklaus as ‘strictly for amateurs’…..In the narrow fairway between the bunkers and the out-of-bounds fence there used to be something called Tarn’s Coo, and even a Calf Bunker. These shallow bunkers, formed by tethered beasts, were filled in during the 1880s.
 
10. Moving on from St Andrews, who wrote this of Dr MacKenzie?

After dinner he took me into his consulting room, where, instead of finding myself surrounded by the weapons of his profession as a Doctor of Medicine, I sat in the midst of a collection of photographs of sand bunkers, putting greens, and golf courses, and many plans and designs of the Alwoodley Course.  I found that I was staying with a real enthusiast, and one who had already given close attention to a subject in which I have always been interested.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

11. Which architect wrote this about which of his designs?

My favourite golf course in Japan, XXXX is where we designed a dramatic style of bunkering for the first time in this country. The traps have hard faces so the ball never becomes buried in them. The bunkers have a formal appearance similar to elements found in a Japanese garden, though on a grander scale. The bunkers are yellowish-brown in colour, turning a darker, more dramatic colour when it rains. XXXX Contry Club is probably one of the five best-bunkered golf courses in the world. The course also has some dramatic elevation changes, while its beautiful trees create the feel of a paradise here.

12. Which designer wrote this, summing up the Spirit of the Game?

What is it about certain golf courses that calls you back to play them time and again? Is it that they reward you with pleasure commensurate with your skills? Long ago Alister MacKenzie observed that the player derived much more pleasure by overcoming a difficult challenge with a great shot than playing a bland, uninteresting course and achieving a low score….
….Did the designer consider the prevailing wind and the flow of the holes? Did he pick the best green sites and design the hole backward to the tee area? Did the architect fit the course to the land given to him or did he ignore it and impose a preconceived concept on the canvas he was offered?

When you raise these questions, you are getting inside the golf architect’s mind, and it can be endlessly fascinating. Most of all, you are learning to create an attack for his defences and you are becoming a true shot maker. This is what the game of golf is all about.

13. Who wrote this about contouring?

The need for featuring whether artificial or natural, to surround the putting surface has been noted as part of the historical approach to the game and the interest of playing today. It relates the putting surface to the surrounding contours and creates the illusion of a natural conclusion to the hole. Large parts of Galloway in the south west of Scotland are so shaped that it would only be necessary to position the flags to provide a simple 18 holes and this prompts the thought that perhaps our inland featuring overemphasises its seaside origins. It is certainly very easy to exaggerate the ups and downs. If there is too much variation in a small distance the effect can be as disagreeable as poor grades on banks or no elaboration at all.

14. Who wrote this?

It is quite certain that, had the ground on which ordinary inland golf is played today been the only available ground for the purpose, the game would never have been invented at all.

15. And who wrote this?

It must be admitted that much of the publicity given to so-called Scottish designs in America today is really lip service to a marketable tradition that few writers truly understand at all. Some architects believe that they are capable of embracing the collective wisdom of the British courses on a ten-day whirlwind tour of St Andrews, Carnoustie, Muirfield, Troon, Turnberry, and Gleneagles. Others, being more honest, would admit that they don’t care much for the links courses, but recognize the sales value of a ‘Scottish’ label.

16. Who wrote this about the blind approach?

It may also, from this point of view, be admissible to endure in the round a blind approach shot played on to a green of the Punch Bowl variety. Many famous courses possess a hole of this description, as, for example, the ‘Maiden’ at Sandwich and the eleventh at Hoylake, and they are as a rule very popular. The objections advanced by some golfers against such holes is that the player loses the pleasure of watching the course taken by his ball after it falls below the intervening ridge, and also that it is not possible to gauge the direction and distance accurately. The latter objection, however, does not always hold good. Take, for example, ‘Majuba’ at Burnham, Somerset, a very good hole of its type. In this case a large sand-hill rises immediately to the left of the green and is visible from the tee, and this gives the player information as to length and direction. In any case the architect need not be afraid to introduce an occasional blind approach, for he will remember that strokes of this sort are almost always popular, if they do not come too frequently, and also that to ensure variety is one of his principal objects.

17. Who wrote this of Robert Trent Jones Snr?

In other words, as in strategic design, a heroic hole gives the golfer a choice of routes, but as in penal design, the player is punished if he gambles and fails by playing a poor shot. At first, the most common diagonal hazard Jones utilized for such purposes was the deep bunker, so steep-faced that a shot had to be wasted to get out. He was very fond of Tillinghast’s bunkering at Winged Foot, two courses that the young designer cited as examples of heroic architecture. Over the years, Jones increasingly utilized water as the heroic hazard, and nearly every Trent Jones course would feature one or more greens perched ominously over a pond or creek.

18. Whose philosophy about fairways is this?

I’ve always been in favour of generous fairways, particularly off the tee. Many designers go to 25 or 30 yards for a fairway landing area, but I’ve always tried to get to about 40 or 45 yards. As I said, I like to let the golfer feel he can go ahead and rip it off the tee. But I do try to make sure that within that wider fairway there are a variety of possible outcomes. In other words, I welcome the long ball but I particularly reward the accurate long ball. You have to hit the right part of my fairways if you want the easiest shot into the green.

Other than that, my fairways are pretty straightforward. I don’t really like a lot of ridiculous movement – that is, undulation or slope – in my fairways. I don’t want the guy who hits a great tee shot on a long par 4 to be stuck with a lousy downhill lie and 225 yards to the hole. What movement you do see in my fairways has a purpose. The idea is pretty simple: Contain the golf ball. One of the ways you do that is by having a player hit from a slope that runs left to right into a slope that runs from right to left – from slope to counterslope. This does several things: It contains shots as they land in the fairway, it enhances a player’s confidence as he sets up for his next shot, and it contains that next shot as well.

19. Who wrote this description of Coventry Golf Club in the English midlands?

It would be difficult to find away from the sea an expanse of ground more suitable and better adapted to playing the game of golf than Whitby Common. Being not more than a mile and a quarter from the centre of the town, it is easy of access, and Coventry players may consider themselves very fortunate in having one of the best of inland greens almost at their doors.

It was in the spring of 1887 that the Coventry Golf Club was started, and Peter Paxton, who was then green keeper at Malvern, was engaged to come down and lay out a nine-hole course. Three more holes have since been added, and by taking the second nine holes in different rotation, a great variety is given, the course is much lengthened, and only two of the same approaches as in the first round are played. The turf is excellent, the subsoil being gravel and sand, and players are never troubled with long grass. The lies through the green are fairly good, have improved latterly, and are likely to be better. The greens themselves will compare in excellence with any in the kingdom, and the golfer has no excuse for his failures when once he has reached them. The hazards are all natural, and well placed to punish bad shots from the tees, or loose approaches to the hole; and to play a good medal round requires all the expedients of the practised golfer. It is a course in which bad golfers will always be finding difficulties, whilst the accurate player, who uses his head as well as his clubs, will think it easy.

20. Which course is Jim Finegan describing here?

This is as fine an example of James Braid’s work at the sea as we are likely to find today. The course was built on a relatively narrow stretch of linksland just two holes wide, the sea on our right all the way out and in view on almost every hole. Cattle regularly graze the links, and sheep sometimes do. A club promotional flyer may exaggerate the case, but it is probably close to the truth: ‘Eighteen greens as the glacier left them; swings and borrows to gladden the heart.’ There is gorse but no heather. And the rough is light, which makes the course enjoyable for the high handicapper.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

21. The course of which famous club was described thus by Bernard Darwin?

Roads and lamp-posts and, ugliest of all, tramways have not added to its loveliness. But it is still a delightful place, with a good deal of solitary beauty left. There is abundance of gorse here too, but the impression produced is quite different from that at Wimbledon…..Courses that are not protected by a ring-fence of privacy are not as a rule notable for the goodness of their greens, since every now and then a cantankerous commoner is apt to drive a wagon across them by way of asserting his rights.

22. Who wrote this of Pine Valley?

But instead of emulating Pine Valley’s penal qualities, other architects recognized that Crump’s was a unique project, impossible to surpass for grandeur and unfit for service to the average golfer. Pine Valley discouraged imitations and emphasised the need for less strenuous layouts. In the historical timeline of golf architecture, several other courses have performed a similar function.

23. Which golf course designer liked to recount this story about Harry Vardon?

Vardon was seated on a veranda at the course when a member ordered a mint julep. Harry tugged at my coat sleeve. ‘What’s that?’ he asked. ‘Oh, it’s a popular American drink,’ I responded. ‘Well, now,’ replied the British champion, ‘I have seen Americans take cherries and pineapple in their drinks, but this is the first time I ever saw a man take his drink through a forest!’

24. The construction of which course is described here? By whom was it designed?

XXXX expected it to be a tough job, but then they were living in tough times; he never expected it to become what it eventually did – the toughest course to build of all. Because of the difficulties they encountered along the way, the cost of building rose dramatically above all conceived projections. But great wealth is merely bothered by something as mundane as the greatest depression the world’s economy had ever seen. Among the thirty-some men who had pledged the money for the project were captains of industry and finance and several noted politicians. This job would be completed.

They established a large work camp, with a field office and even a commissary. They needed them as the holes were carved out of thick forest, wet swamp land, and rock; tremendous rock. This should not have surprised anyone as the Palisades of the Hudson River was quite close at hand, the cliffs of which are made up of some of the most beautiful and strongest rock formations in North America. There was so much rock that needed removal that more than thirty tractors were kept in continuous duty to remove it.

25. Who wrote this of his father?

I’m not certain, but I think my father took a month to walk the site and not two weeks as some say. You see, he had so much ground to work with that he wanted to see it all, and from all directions. He didn’t design courses from maps. He went out in the field because he wanted to be right in the place where the game was to be played. He was not an engineer, nor was he college trained. His method of working was to make sketches of everything. They were rough sketches and he made them right in the field where he stood. He’d sketch in the location of the tee, the fairway and the green.

26. Which designer wrote this?

Could Ross or Tillinghast have done that? Of course they could, with modern training and experience, maybe as well as or better than anyone. They were certainly able to do outstanding work on wonderful pieces of ground, even on land that wasn’t so wonderful, and produce interesting, lasting work. But they also did some things that today wouldn’t be acceptable. Some of the holes on our famous golf courses, even some designed by legendary designers, wouldn’t pass muster with today’s golfers. Back then, you didn’t blast away a pile of rock to remove a blind spot; you just played over it. It was an issue of economics and equipment. If we tried that today, we’d be run out of town because golfers don’t like blind holes and it’s easy to avoid building them. In fact, we now have experts who can drill into rock in a certain way and blast huge boulders into any size rock we want. We can then take the sized-to-order rocks and build a stone wall in front of a green or tee.

27. Whose description is this?

My own preference is for the second nine, which I think compares well with any other nine championship holes you may like to put against it; though it may be a little too short for perfection and it has a blind shot in it such as nowadays is found Victorian and unamusing. Having said that, let us come to the 13th. Let no iconoclast dare come near with talk of alteration. Hunstanton has in this hole a pure and original poem of a hol; as well alter this, as ask Sir Alfred Munnings to paint out the Mona Lisa’s smile and substitute a horse-laugh…..I take this to be one of the greatest two-shot holes in golf.

28. Which resort makes this boast?

Few things get the blood pumping like the mention of Donald Ross, Pete Dye and Tom Bendelow in the same sentence. Nowhere else in the world can a golfer play courses designed by each of these noted and prolific designers at one resort destination.

29. Which golfer made this remark?

It burns me up that with the billions of dollars spent on course construction in the past fifty years, all the architects together haven’t been able to build another Royal Melbourne.

30. Which golf course architect wrote this?

To help put all this into context, and maybe catch a glimpse into Crump’s mind-set, it is worth remembering that Pine Valley was designed and developed between 1914 and 1918, prior to steel-shafted clubs. One aspect we take for granted today – numbered clubs – had not as yet come into vogue. The fourteen-club limit had not been instituted, and golf balls had very little stability or velocity. All these factors made the game of golf considerably more of a ground game than today, requiring golfers to use their imagination and to trust their natural instincts.

Crump was particularly thoughtful about the first hole, understanding only too well that it may be the nineteenth hole in a play-off. So, he created a great start to one of the world’s best golf courses – a great option, risk-and-reward hole. By doing so he put in train a preview of the decision-making, shotmaking, and strategy, needed to conquer Pine Valley, or at the very least, to be not too badly battered by it.

[Mark_Rowlinson]

31. Which club is being described here?

Charles Alison is generally regarded as the course architect, but although he built the course, the plans were drawn up by AW Tillinghast in 1925. Tillinghast designed 27 holes, the main course and the West nine. But he and the club failed to see eye to eye and parted ways. Alison completed the courses in 1926 – beginning with the nineholer, built in a horseshoe around the clubhouse – but the holes bore Tillinghast’s imprint, particularly on the greens, which tilted from back to front and were tightly bunkered at the front corners.

32. Who wrote this typically stylish and witty account of El Escorpion in Spain?

A short distance inland from El Saler, between the sea and the city of Valencia, lies the golf club of El Escorpion. Gary Player might well describe it as the best golf course he had ever seen – of its kind. Such diplomatic persiflage will not do for an objective analysis of El Escorpion’s qualities, unique though they may be. It lies on the site of an old citrus plantation which had been divided into plots, like a chess board. Unfortunately, not all the plot owners were willing to sell to the golf club, so the course contains a number of square islands, producing holes with ninety-degree dog-legs. On the plus side, it offers a rare opportunity to combine golf with the scrumping of oranges and it proved a popular choice for the 1980 Spanish Open. To be sure, this popularity was due primarily to the magnificence of the clubhouse, one of the truly great clubhouses of European golf. It is a conversion of a large farmhouse, built in the sturdy, fortified style common in the days when Moorish invaders were a constant threat. Add to those noble surroundings a ladies’ section devoted to the preservation and celebration of the glories of Spanish cuisine, and a house committee with a profound appreciation of the greatest vintages of Rioja, and any technical deficiencies in the golf course are put into civilized perspective.

33. Which very successful links golfer wrote this?

Links are not everyone’s notion of an ideal course. Most have nothing in the way of exotic furnishings that might decorate a box of chocolates. But then, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To some who might be termed ‘golf’s faithful’, links is the real golf, and all other forms are imitations.

To explain this is not simple: the easiest way out is to put forth the point that links golf is the highest of golf’s many exhilarating experiences. Lying, perhaps lurking, in a links is the most demanding golf challenge of all. Pushing out into a stiff wind on an arena with no protection, needs a strong resolve and stout heart. It takes a deal of energy too.

34. Which course was described as?

Spiteful, hateful (Ray Floyd)
Awful, artificial, unfair and ugly (Tom Watson)
I know some courses which are easier than the practice ground here (Lee Trevino)
XXXX looks like downtown Beirut (unattributed)
Sending an amateur onto this course is like sending Little Red Riding Hood into the Casbah (unattributed)
(Of its architect) Thank God this guy isn’t building airports (Leonard Thompson)

35. Who wrote this description of winter golf in St Andrews?

Rain, wind and darkness notwithstanding, the winter conditions in St Andrews are pretty darned golfable. On average it’s a dozen degrees or so warmer than in the US Northeast and the annual snowfall is only an inch or two, as opposed to a foot or several. Perhaps, most important, the blessed sand-based fairways and greens stay in remarkably good nick. Since most of the daily play comes from locals- hardy locals at that-there’s no mucking about. Four-ball rounds finish in three and a half hours or less. Indeed, on some days only the swift survive – slackers risk freezing in place, blowing out to sea or running out of light. The conditions also breed a special camaraderie, similar, I suspect, to the bond shared by Siberian letter carriers.

36. Who wrote this about British course maintenance and conditions?

I think it was Arnold who once said that if he had ever played three months straight off in British weather conditions, it would have taken him another three to get his swing back in shape. Following the sun as they generally do undoubtedly gives American pros a big advantage, because it is extremely difficult either to build a repeating swing or to sustain one in heavy winds and low temperatures.

[Picture of author playing from fierce rough]

The picture here shows another factor that I believe has to have an adverse bearing on British pro standards. That mini-jungle I’m beating out of is only a few yards off the fairway on one of the long par-4 holes at Wentworth, and penalizing rough of this kind close up to the mown area is pretty typical of many British courses. Leaving it that way certainly keeps maintenance and thus club dues down, but it also has an inhibiting affect on many good players, especially when courses become so dry – as they often do in Britain – that even good shots will bounce and roll into this sort of trouble. The result is a tendency to ‘steer’ the ball: to play defensively instead of aggressively, as we normally can in the States, with our cleared undergrowth in the roughs and our well-watered turf. In my view, that’s why, with notable exceptions, the British pros aren’t either as long or as bold as US tour players.

37.  From which course history does this extract come?

The layout of the first nine holes was completed towards the end of 1933.  The clearing of the coffee trees and many of the shade grevilleas had been started in May that year.  The few grevilleas, nuisances to say the least (many would use more emphatic terminology) that remain to this day are insufficient in number to suggest anything like the straight lines in which they were originally planted to serve their initial purpose.  Finding a golf course architect proved hugely difficult, but in the end the layout was entrusted to Remi Martin.  He had shown considerable skill in surveying and, although not a great golfer, had at least an eye for country.  The fairways for that first nine were planted the following year, in the long rains of 1934.
Initially, the intention had been to build only a nine-hole course, but there was so much excitement about the project, set in such beautiful surroundings and with almost unlimited land available, that plans were immediately made to extend to 18 holes.  The second nine was duly laid out in 1934, and the fairways planted in the 1935 rains.

38. Who wrote this?

A great golf course is ‘nature perfected’. It is neither wholly natural nor can it be wholly unnatural or manufactured. A gifted golf architect, like an inspired poet, desires a creation that transforms nature by tricking the human eye into a perception of transcendant nature. Wordsworth called this ‘the pleasure which the mind derives from the perception of similitude in dissimilitude.’

39. Whose view of the future was this?

I do not see the luxurious country club type of operation with its necessary steep subscriptions and high green fees as a golf need of the future, but public golf or even private clubs geared to a lower key are wanted. They could have bungalow type club houses, snack bar facilities and simple changing accommodation, so turning the clock back eighty years. Such clubs can be sited in private parks, fields or heathland, where sheep graze, the putting areas fenced in by simple electrically charged wire. Natural features like trees, ponds, hollows, etc. can be used by the golf architect to adda little interest and save money on the layout. These clubs and courses could be operated at a trifle of the cost of a big, modern course and clubhouse kept in top condition. Sheep would crop the playing areas and an occasional cut with a mower would do the rest. This would provide a game, but for a small annual subscription and a cheap green fee. Even watering of the greens could be an optional extra to start with.

[He went on to call for a lighter, floater ball that would cut down on power play, with skill counting for more than sheer strength. He advocated cutting the number of clubs in a bag to seven, bringing back the half shot. He was all for bringing in rubber-soled shoes and doing away with metal spikes. He felt there should be a reduction in the number of professional events and TV coverage of more amateur events. He saw the day when the ladies’ tour would become more popular. He felt that pubs should construct par-3 courses in their grounds, encouraging inter-pub matches. He envisaged golf lessons being given by video-phone. Finally he asked what difference a 3½-inch diameter hole would make.]

[Mark_Rowlinson]

40. On which course is the hole Kyle Phillips is describing here?

The 3rd is one of the best blind driving holes I have ever played. The tee shot plays across the back of the 16th green and over the horizon towards the sea. A wide fairway, that rewards a ball played down the right centre, waits out of view. Even though the approach is not long, a dune guards the front left pin and will send shots that are just slightly short scooting to the back of the deep green, leaving long return putts. The strong support on the right side of the green surface can be equally challenging for drives left to the right, particularly when the pin favours the right portion of the green.

41. Which Irish course is John Redmond describing here?

Given that the esteemed course architect Tom Simpson always contended that golf, as a game, is only seen at its best when there is at least as much necessity for brainwork as physical prowess, rest assured that XXXX reinforces his contention.

The layout refinement he introduced to the course in 1937 has proudly stood the test of changing emphasis in the game, for even if XXXX is of the shorter category by modern championship standards, the concensus, quite simply, is that it is one of the finest inland courses in Europe.

42. Of whom, after he died, was this written in the Metropolitan Golfer?

He never went half way. If he felt a certain type of hole or contour was necessary to the artistic completion of a course, the hole would be built, even if it was necessary to tear down a hill or build up out of the ocean. He was essentially interested in creating masterpieces of golf course architecture rather than te adaptation of existing conditions to the easiest possible layout.

43. Which English course is described by Peter Alliss?

You now encounter a piece of history, Drake’s leat. Sir Francis lived at nearby Buckland Monachorum and one of his public-spirited actions was to build a watercourse to supply Plymouth. Today it comes into play at several holes, particularly the 9th, a short 4 of 285 yards, where it discourages attempts to drive the green. On the 10th, a long par 4 of 425 yards, you could find it with either first or second shots.

44. Peter Hill is Professor of Music at Sheffield University. On his father’s death Peter completed the history of one of England’s foremost golf clubs which his father had begun. Which club is it?

The 8th hole presented considerable problems and justified its name of Hades in the days of the gutty ball, but the greater length achieved by modern golf balls and the considerable enlargement of the green took away much of its sting, and later it became one of the easier holes to play. The chief criticism of this hole was that it occurred so quickly after the 6th, which it resembled in length and direction of play. Eventually in 1974, with the return of the Open in view, a completely new hole was constructed. At 410 yards, with a long carry over rough ground for the second shot, it is indeed a hole for the professional and not the ordinary club golfer. Ironically, many thoughtful members of mature years play their second shot on to the old 8th green (still in pristine condition), lift the ball without penalty and place it on the apron from where it is an easy approach shot to the new green.

45. Which golf course designer said these words in a lecture to the Golf Greenkeepers’ Association?

I expressed my view pretty strongly with regard to the dullness and uninteresting nature of the hazards and greens on all inland links….I was looked upon as a crank on the subject, and when my name was suggested as captain of the club to which I belonged, it was argued in committee that I held such weird views in regard to the game that they decided they would not have me at any price.

46. This is the introduction to an article on Royal Portrush by which author?

Forget Magnolia Drive or Seventeen Mile Drive. Never mind the dirt road at Yeaman’s Hall. The best entrance to any golf club is the A1 as it snakes along the cliffs along the rugged northern Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland. Rounding the bend, Royal Portrush Golf Club unfolds before one’s eyes, set among tumbling dunes that run to the cliff’s edge with the Atlantic Ocean pounding below. The 5th hole’s flag flapping in the wind is as inspiring a sight as a golfer will ever find. The game is about to commence! As good as the land is, the lasting merit of the course derives from the work carried out by Harry S. Colt in 1932. Prior to that, Royal Portrush Golf Club enjoyed play over 18 holes designed by Old Tom Morris in 1890 on property slightly south and west of the land given to Colt. Colt is generally associated with heathland designs. Starting with his days as Secretary at Sunningdale, he understood heath courses like no other. Swinley Forest, Sunningdale (New) and St. George’s Hill bear testimony to his genius in working on a heath. However, like any great architect, he got the most out of any type site. His work with parkland courses around Toronto, Canada is an example. And with the links land at Portrush, he was given his most rugged property for an original 18 hole layout and the result is his sternest test.

47. In the late 1960s two well-known golfers, aged 65 and 57, were filmed playing the Old Course with a set of pre-1900 hickory-shafted clubs lent to them by Laurie Auchterlonie. After the round the 57-year old declared, ‘This is the only way to play the Old Course. It is sacrilege to play with steel shafts and rubber-cored ball.’ Who was he?

48. Whose description of UK heathland is this?

Lowland heath is a rare and precious environment and as I grew older I learned that much like links golf, heathland golf is confined to just a few small regions of the globe. Lowland heath below 300 metres consists of heather and gorse with isolated copses of trees: typically birch and small pines. It dates back to the Bronze Age 3,000 years ago and was created by extensive clearing of trees and subsequent livestock grazing by humans, producing solis with relatively low nutrient levels that encouraged the heather to grow….The United Kingdom has approximately twenty per cent of the entire world’s lowland heath and England has fifty-five per cent of this – a huge proportion for such a small country.

49. Who wrote this?

Most Britons, of whatever skill, have been brought up to regard a links course as the ideal playground on which the standard hazards of the game are the wind, bumpy treeless fairways, deep bunkers and knee-high rough. Most Americnas think of a golf course as a park with well-cropped fairways marching like parade grounds, between groves of trees down to velvety greens. Along the way there will be vistas of other woods, a decorative pond or two, some token fairway bunkers and a ring of shallow bunkers guarding greens so predictably well watered that they will receive a full pitch from any angle like a horseshoe thrown into a marsh.

There is a marked element of national character in these opposing preferences: the British taking strength through joy in the belief that discomfort is good for the character, the Americans believing that games are meant for pleasure and should not be played out in moral gymnasiums (unless you are going to make money at them, in which case they become the whole of life).

50. Who wrote this?

No game depends so much as golf on its arena for success: on an interesting course an interesting game will be played; on a badly planned green the game will be dull.
 

[JNC Lyon]

3) Bobby Jones at Sunningdale in a British Open Qualifier.  He shot 66 with 33 putts.  He hit all of the par fives in two and made two other birdies.  He missed one green.  Some say it was the closest thing to a perfect round of golf that anyone has ever played.

[PThomas]

28.Frech Lick

34 9 i think) TPC Sawgrass...Jack said of the greens when it opened"I've never been very good sotpping 5 irons on the hoods of a car"

[Niall C]

5) sounds like it might be MacKenzie, but then so do a lot of the quotes on here !

9) with a reference to Nicklaus it can't possibly be Mac so I'll go for Peter Alliss

13) Donald Steel

20) sounds like it could be Fortrose and Rosemarkie that Finnegan is describing

29) Greg Norman

33) Peter Thomson ?

45) Mackenzie again, maybe

47) Henry Cotton


Thats 8 answers out of 50 questions and even then they were all guess's. Something tells me I won't be in the prizes.

Well done Mark, I look forward to reading the answers.

Niall

[Mark_Rowlinson]

Niall, I hadn't thought of prizes. That rather implies secret answers by e-mail to me. No, I'll just leave you all, collectively, to come to conclusions.

There's the odd typo and occasionally I've lapsed into English English as opposed to American English, but it's near enough.

[Tony_Muldoon]

Thanks Mark skimed through them, will return to it.

9 an ex poster here?
10 Colt
46  very close to home.

[Adam Lawrence]

1. is definitely Longhurst, it leads into the piece about how he was introduced to golf at (I think) Yelverton.

[Eric Smith]

20.  Finegan is describing the links at Brora.

[Bill_McBride]

I thought Darwin was describing Rye in 2. until the second hole turned back to the clubhouse.  Perhaps #4 was #2 in those far off days......The description of #1 is certainly on the mark.

[Mark_F]

29) Gene Sarazen
33)Peter Thomson
34) Stadium Course at PGA West.
8)Simpson and Wethered.
15)Tom Doak.
14)MacKenzie.
27)Peter Allen.

[Tony_Muldoon]

2 IS Sandy Lodge   the rest I'm mostly not so sure of
6 Campbell
7 1910
8  Wethered and Simpson
9 Not who I was thinking of above.
10 Colt
11 Alison
20 My version of his Scotish book has this. " Brora is as fine - and as pure - an example of Braids work at the sea as we are likely to find today" Similar but not the same.
27 Dickinson
35 Pepper
36 Watson
41 Kilkenny
45  RM
50 HWW

[Adam_Messix]

Some of the questions have already answered and can add one more...

31.   Old Oaks CC in Purchase, NY

[Mark_Rowlinson]

1.   Henry Longhurst (My Life and Soft Times)
2.   Sandy Lodge (an account written in 1934 but only published in 1960 in the club’s 50th anniversary book).
3.   Robert T Jones and OB Keeler (Down the Fairway). Sunningdale, qualifying for the 1926 Open Championship with a score of 66, 33 out, 33 back, 33 putts and 33 other shots.
4.   Professor DDR Owen (A Chat round the Old Course). Owen was Professor of French at St Andrews and lived in a little cul-de-sac of a very few houses, West Acres. For the 1984 Open, Tom Watson rented a house in West Acres. As Watson set off to practise for the final round Owen wished him well, ‘No one from West Acres has yet won the Open.’ That is still true, Watson finishing second behind Ballesteros.
5.   Dr A MacKenzie (Golf Architecture)
6.    Robert Trent Jones with Larry Dennis (Golf’s Magnificent Challenge)
7.    1910 Open Championship which Braid eventually won (his last) (Darwin James Braid)
8.    HN Wethered and T Simpson (Design for Golf)
9.    Forrest Richardson and Mark Fine (Bunkers, Pits and Other Hazards).
10.   Harry S Colt (Foreword to Dr A MacKenzie Golf Architecture).
11.   Gary Player writing about Manna Country Club, Japan (Gary Player’s Top Golf Courses of the World).
12.   Robert Trent Jones Jr (Golf by Design).
13.   FW Hawtree (The Golf Course)
14.   Garden C Smith (The World of Golf, 1898).
15.   Tom Doak (The Anatomy of a Golf Course)
16.   HS Colt and CH Alison (Some Essays on Golf-Course Architecture)
17.   Geoffrey Cornish and Ronald Whitten (The Architects of Golf)
18.   Jack Nicklaus with Chris Millard (Nicklaus by Design)
19.   Horace Hutchinson (British Golf Links). Incidentally it was at Coventry that the ‘bogey’ method of play was invented.
20.   Brora (Where Golf is Great).
21.   Prince’s Golf Club when it was located at Mitcham in south London, before its move to Sandwich (The Golf Courses of the British Isles).
22.   Tom Doak (Golf in America, The First One Hundred Years)
23.   Tom Bendelow (Thomas ‘Tom’ Bendelow, The Johnny Appleseed of American Golf, Stuart W Bendelow)
24.   Aldecress (Alpine CC) AW Tillinghast (Tillinghast, Creator of Golf Courses, Philip Young)
25.   Press Maxwell of Perry Maxwell in the Prairie Dunes 50th anniversary book (quoted from Chris Clouser The Midwest Associate).
26.   Tom Fazio with Cal Brown (Golf Course Designs).
27.   Patric Dickinson (A Round of Golf Courses)
28.   French Lick Resort, Indiana (from the resort website).
29.   Gene Sarazen (quoted from Australia’s Finest Golf Courses, Darius Oliver)
30.   Steve Smyers (favourite Holes by Design, Paul Daley)
31.   Old Oaks Country Club, Purchase, NY (Golf,Clubs of the MGA, Bill Quirin).
32.   Peter Dobereiner (Golf Courses of the PGA European Tour)
33.   Peter Thomson (Foreword to Links Golf, Paul Daley).
34.   PGA West (TPC Stadium Course) (Quoted in Classic Golf Holes, Robert Green and Brian Morgan)
35.   George Peper (A Home on the 18th)
36.   Jack Nicklaus with Ken Bowden (On and Off the Fairway)
37.   Karen Country Club, Kenya (from the club website)
38.   Mike Keiser (Golf Architecture Vol 1, compiled and edited Paul Daley)
39.   Henry Cotton (Thanks for the Game, 1980)
40.   3rd hole at Machrihanish (Scottish Golf Links, Iain Macfarlane Lowe)
41.   Carlow Golf Club (Great Golf Courses of Ireland)
42.   Seth Raynor (Quoted by George Bahto in Golf Architecture Vol 2, compiled and edited Paul Daley).
43.   Yelverton (The Good Golf Guide)
44.   Royal St George’s (A History of Royal St George’s Golf Course, BJW Hill and Peter Hill)
45.   Alister MacKenzie (Spirit of St Andrews)
46.   Ran Morrissett (GCA)
47.   Jimmy Demaret, the other being Gene Sarazen. (Henry Longhurst Golf Illustrated June 1967).
48.   Paul Turner (Golf Architecture Vol 3, compiled and edited by Paul Daley)
49.   Alistair Cooke (Foreword to World Atlas of Golf 1st edition).
50.   John L Low (part of a letter quoted in Some Essays on Golf-Course Architecture, Colt and Alison)

[Joe Andriole]

Mark - Thank you so much.  Your quiz has brought much challenge and enjoyment to my Sunday morning and enriched my golf knowledge.

[James Boon]

Mark,

Thanks for this quiz, it was good fun to read through the various quotes. It must have taken you a while to put it together? Unfortunatly I only found it this afternoon after the answers were posted though but:
3. I new that it was Bobby Jones at Sunningdale
9. I recognised that as Forrest Richardson and Mark Fine
20. I spotted that as Brora
34. I guessed that had to be a Pete Dye
Every other guess I made was wrong so now the snow is here perhaps I should get re-reading through my library...

Thanks once again.

Cheers,

James

[Rob Rigg]

Mark,

This is very cool - thank you for taking the time to put it together.

These are the types of threads that absolutely SHOULD be on the site - once these disappear we will only be left with Tiger commentary and a bunch of guys arguing about nothing.

[Stewart Abramson]

That's the most fun I've had flunking a quiz.

[Tom_Doak]

At least I managed to recognize the two quotes that were from me!  [The second one is fairly obscure.]

[Niall C]

Excellent Mark, very well done. Having read the answers I realise that many of the quotes are from books that I've got on my shelves and yet I still didn't manage to get many right. Perhaps a bit of revision of the holidays might not be a bad idea.

Niall

[Jason McNamara]

Great stuff as always.  Thanks and Merry Christmas.

Jason

[Will MacEwen]

That's the most fun I've had flunking a quiz.

It reminded me of a few exams when I realized I was going to have to turn up the bullshit machine because I was woefully unprepared.

Great effort Mark, and thanks.