Niall, Bob, Thomas -
I couldn't help connect this thread with an exchange that Niall and Sean had on another thread re the less interesting greens featured on classic UK courses relative to American ones. My thought was that earlier UK architects and golfers (and writers like B Darwin), designing for and playing with the equipment of the day, found much of the necessary interest and challenge tee-to-green, and thus weren't inclined to gild the lily at the green itself. But my question: in quotes about such straight holes, do you know if Low or Braid etc also discussed the greens themselves (sizes, shapes, contours)?
Peter - Below is Darwin,
The Times, 1910, about the flatness and size of greens. Note Low's wonderful description of large greens as "gardens of inaccuracy".
"It is an invidious task to pick out particular courses for the excellence of their greens; but there are a few which would certainly figure very near the top of the poll if a plebiscite of golfers were taken on the subject. In this one respect inland courses can compete on something like even terms with their seaside rivals. It is, for example, impossible to conceive better greens than are to be found at both the Richmond courses, Mid-Surrey and Sudbrook Park; the Woking greens, too, are quite admirable, and so, in certain moods, are those of Sunningdale, although keen and difficult to an almost fiendish degree. Barnton, again, the home of the Edinburgh Burgesses, can boast of almost perfect greens, which doubtless owe something of their loveliness to Peter Lees, who tended them before he went to Richmond. Among seaside links St. Anne's, Troon, Sandwich, and Portmarnock are names that come readily to mind, and perhaps there is no turf quite so deliciously fine as is to be found on the trinity of courses that cluster round Gullane Hill.
There are those who would say that some of the courses mentioned have greens that are too smooth and lawn-like. They would rather sing the praises of those that are just a little barer, harder, and more exacting, such as are to be found at St. Andrews or Hoylake. Neither of these two would probably be acclaimed by a popular vote for the reason that they have not that look of sleek perfection which is given to some others. Yet the Hoylake greens must have been wonderfully true during the last Amateur Championship, or no man could have continued to hole long puts as Mr. Aylmer did during round after round until he met his Waterloo in the final match.
As to the precise qualities that go to make an ideal green there must be many differences of opinion, but it may be safely laid down that they can hardly be too true and that they can very easily be too flat. There can be nothing more entirely depressing than a green like a billiard table, unless it be one of those which consist of one big slope, unbroken by the slightest vestige of a plain or a valley. For purposes of holing out, naturally a somewhat elastic term, a reasonable degree of flatness is desirable, but approach putting over a green laid, with a spirit level is the dreariest work. Whether the greens of St. Anne's are too flat or those of Sunningdale too mountainous is a point that must be left to individual fancy. There remain the questions of size and pace. As to the former there are very great contrasts to be found among the very best of courses. The greens at Bye and Prestwick, for instance, are mere cottage grass-plots compared with the rolling prairies of Sandwich.
The tendency to-day is perhaps rather to restrict the putting area, and the huge greens that were once the pride of southern courses have been shorn of some of their glory since
Mr. Low dubbed them "gardens of inaccuracy." The big greens, however, are condemned not because it is not delightful to put on them, but because they deal too kindly with the erratic approacher. It is possible to play a shot of a highly criminal degree of crookedness and yet attain to the confines of the green at the "Maiden" or "Hades" holes. Nevertheless, that very long stroke that one plays with the putter affords a sensation of the purest joy, which is not perceptibly diminished by the knowledge, communicated perhaps by an irascible opponent, that one ought instead to have been delving deep with the niblick."
Bob