Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/248

drive and very long second shot, to get his ball hole high. It is quite true that these holes may be conceded to be on the whole the best sort to produce the finest golf, but still it should be remembered that if long holes predominate to an undue extent the test of excellence is being confined to the youthful. There is nothing more certain than that in golf, as in cricket, great length of hit is possible to those whose joints are full of oil and supple, and to those only, which in other words means youth. It is possible to lay out a course entirely in the way I have described. Every hole may be at least 400 yards long, and such a links could only tempt the young long-hitting player. The old-fashioned golfer may exaggerate the old-fashioned style of lofting and cutting and approaching, but still he has some argument in his favour. Some practice, of course, is necessary to arrive at a long-hitting style of play, but it is far easier to a young man to do this than to learn to play the scientific lofting shot; and if links are laid out with too many long holes in them, some injustice is done to the man who, though not a long driver, is nevertheless, owing to the excellence of