Quote from Darwin

[Mark_Rowlinson]

In 1934 Bernard Darwin wrote a commentary on Sandy Lodge Golf Club. It was not printed, however, until 1960, the club's 50th anniversary. It's rather long-winded and indulgent - he needed a good editor! - but here's a quote from it:

I mentioned the bunkers but they are not the only
things on the course to remind us of the sea. The putting
greens are of true seaside quality: nay, they have a quality
which seaside greens once possessed but in many cases
have lost.

What had happened to seaside greens before 1934?

[David_Tepper]

Even in 1934 things weren't what they used to be!

[Tony_Muldoon]

I have come to believe that Darwin (and others Inc MacKenzie?) felt that links turf was t it’s finest in the 19th C.  By the turn of the Century not only  had old Queen Bess passed on, the weather started to warm up, but Carters, Suttons and a myriad of others were offering a multitude of treatments for greens.  Surely the grass was also cut shorter by more extensive use of improved machines and a number of greens had artificial watering.


To echo David’s point, books written more recently often have a nostalgic ring to them when they talk about the glass like greens on the Links.