A golf-links entirely devoid of hazards would be a very poor place indeed. Notwithstanding the amount of abuse lavished upon all hazards in general, it is to their presence that the game owes much of its interest. When I refer to hazards in this manner, I mean legitimate hazards judiciously placed; because a links, otherwise good in character, may be entirely spoiled as a first-class green owing to artificial hazards being formed, or to natural hazards being interposed, at improper places. The one object of the hazard ought to be that of punishing a badly played stroke, and in a subsequent chapter I (The Game Of Golf) shall deal more fully with this subject. There is no player so perfect but that at some time or other he is bound to get into difficulties. Among first-class players, he who gets into the fewest difficulties ought to be the best. The getting into a hazard ought not to seriously affect a golfer's chances of success in any competition, provided he does not repeat the mistake too frequently; and yet how many instances could bo quoted of even a single error in this direction ruining a score which, till then, had left little to be desired! The punishment meted out in a hazard is twofold: in the first place, the golfer is penalised by the additional stroke or number of strokes required for extrication; and, in the second place, he is penalised by the moral effect it has upon his game; the latter is frequently by far the more severe punishment of the two. At nearly every competition we may hear golfers say, 'I played a good game till I got into that bunker.' This, translated into plain English, means that the moral effect of getting into the hazard was to break up the player. Upon a hardened golfer there should be no such effect. Before beginning the game, he must be well aware that he cannot hope to avoid every hazard; but he ought also to know that any mistake he may make will not cost him more than one stroke, and he should never lose his head and allow his play to become loose on that account. It should have quite an opposite effect: he should rather endeavour to make up for his mistake by playing a more perfect game.

Hazards arc defined in the rules of the game - Rule 15: 'A" hazard" shall be any bunker of whatever nature: water, sand, loose earth, molehills, paths, roads, or railways, whins, bushes, rushes, rabbit-scrapes, fences, ditches, or anything which is not the ordinary green of the course, except sand blown on to the grass by wind or sprinkled on grass for the preservation of the links, or snow or ice, or bare patches on the course.' This rule "must be read in conjunction with Rule 14: 'When a ball lies in or touches a hazard, the club shall not touch the ground, nor shall anything be touched or moved before the player strikes at the ball, except that the player may place his feet firmly on the ground for the purpose of addressing the ball, under the penalty of the loss of the hole.' It will be seen that the last quoted rule prohibits the club being rested behind the ball, with the view of taking a good aim preparatory to the stroke being played. The object of this is pretty clear; it is intended to prevent the position of the ball in a hazard being improved. Take the example of a ball in a sand bunker. Here the ball, getting into the hazard, is practically certain to imbed itself more or less in the sand, and, if the club-head were rested behind, the sand would be pressed down, making the extrication of the ball comparatively an easy matter.

When a ball gets into a hazard, the one thing to be kept in view is to get it out. A great deal depends upon the position in which the ball is lying; sometimes it may be lying so badly that even to extricate it is a matter of considerable difficulty, while at other times it may be lying practically teed. Whatever the lie may be, the player should never allow himself to forget the primary object in view, and to be beguiled into attempting to try a difficult stroke with the view of making more of it. Such strokes usually fail, and leave the ball where it was before - in the hazard.

The most legitimate and ubiquitous hazards to be found on golf-links are sand bunkers. The sand in these is seldom smooth, but is generally pitted all over, more or less deeply, with footmarks of previous golfers walking through them, and into one of these footmarks the ball of the erring player usually finds its way. The best club to use, as before pointed out, is a niblick - foiling that, a mashie. It may be considered somewhat absurd to speak of the stance and grip of the club when playing out of a bunker; but as some golfers may be troubled with doubts on this head, I have thought it well to say a word or two on the subject. Where it can be done, the position to be taken up should be the same as that indicated in the chapter on play through the green. The stance should, however, be taken up closer to the ball, and the club should be grasped on the leather firmly with both hands. A too short grip of the club takes away from the leverage afforded by the shaft; it is essential that a firm footing be obtained. It will not always be possible to take up the position desired, owing to the lie of the ball, which may be close to the side of the bunker, and in that case the player must suit himself to circumstances and stand as best he can. He may have to play with a foot in the bunker and a knee on the raised side of it. There is even said to be a case of a golfer playing with one foot placed on the back of his caddie. For the truth of this, however, I cannot vouch; but, in a recent match, the referee refused - and,

I think, rightly - to permit of such a thing, which was suggested. Where the ball is not imbedded too deeply in the sand, and where there is no opposing side (or face, as it is generally termed) - as may be the case in a shallow bunker - the ball itself may be struck; but when it lies buried, or when there is a face over which the ball must be lofted, as will invariably be the case in a deep bunker, the sand behind the ball, and not the ball, must be struck, and the club-head dug deep into it. The force of the stroke is communicated to the ball through the sand, and results in its being baffed out. It is important to keep in mind that the further behind the ball the stroke is delivered, and the deeper the sand be dug into, the higher will the ball rise in the air, and the less distance forward will it travel. There is, of course, a limit of distance behind the ball within which such a stroke will have any effect, and the effect depends on the consistency of the sand; but if the sand be the ordinary dry sand to be found in bunkers on a seaside links, the hit should be made from an inch to a couple of inches behind the ball, depending upon the height of the face to be surmounted. The stroke should not be played with a sweep, but with an up and down motion; in fact, the head of the niblick should come almost straight down behind the ball. In these strokes out of bunkers every ounce of strength at the command of the player may usually be put into them without much risk of failure. A weak stroke in a bunker is useless, because the sand takes off so much force that the ball will probably not even be moved, and the more force, therefore, that can be exerted the better. I do not mean to encourage wild hitting, as accuracy is as desirable in this as in other parts of the game. It may be laid down as a hard and fast rule that a full stroke should always be played when the ball lies in a bunker, whether it is desired to drive the ball out as far as possible, or whether the bunker is close to the hole being played to. In the latter case, it may be that all that is needed to put the ball near the hole is to get it out of the bunker: nevertheless, I would still say, take a full stroke, and regulate the distance by the amount of sand taken - that is, if a long shot be desired, hit the ball, or as near the ball as is possible, and if it is desired merely to get the ball out, hit deeper into the sand a little further behind it. This is to be regarded as a general rule, and subject to obvious exceptions; for instance, if the ball be lying fairly clear, on smooth sand close to the putting-green, in such a case a carefully played wrist shot with an iron or mashie would probably give a better result than any other stroke.