A certain disappointment is inevitably threatened when one visits a course of this kind about which one has heard so much beforehand. An ideal is established in the mind which cannot possibly be realised, and it is the fault of nobody. We do not know exactly what it is that we hope to see, but it is something beyond the power of man and Nature to achieve. But the National is a great course, a very great course. It is charmingly situated, most excellently appointed, and bears evidence of the most thorough and intelligent treatment by its constructors. Any preliminary disappointment there may have been soon wears away as the real excellence of the course and its difficulties are appreciated. Had we heard nothing of this copying, and did we not make comparisons between new and old in the mind, through which that which is new does not often survive, we should glory in the National at the first inspection of it. And the fact is, that the comparisons we suggest ought never to be made, though I, for one, was not aware of that till afterwards. Absolute copying was never intended; only the governing features of the British holes, the points that gave the character and quality to them, were imitated so far as could be done. That has been done very well, and some of the holes are very fine things. Those the design of which is based on such gems as the sixth at Brancaster and the eleventh at St. Andrews are very well recognisable. I should like to write much more about this course; it is a strong temptation. It I thought less of it and did not realise its greatness as I do, I should yield to the desire, and yielding, might rashly criticise as well as praise. But there is an imperative restraint. Upon a moderate course, or even a very good one, you may sometimes, if sufficiently self-confident, judge in one day's experience. But there are courses which, not because they grow upon you as we say, but because they command a higher respect at once than is given to others, which do not permit of such presumption. I saw the National on one day only, though I hope to see it many times again, and to gain courage for comment upon it. Now, with cap in hand, I can only signify my respect and full appreciation that here is something that is by no means of an ordinary kind, the accomplishment of a magnificent enterprise, and no doubt the achievement of a great ideal. But I shall say, at any rate, that a links more gloriously situated than this one in Peconic Bay, with pretty creeks running into the land here and there, and hill views at the back, could hardly be imagined. The view as I beheld it from different parts on that peaceful sunny Sunday afternoon is one that 1 never shall forget. It is the ideal situation for a national course.

To Mr. Macdonald thus belongs the credit for the initiation of what we may call the higher golf in America. In the last few years this movement has made strides as long and rapid in the United States as it has done in England, and above all other countries in the world America, which is so much dependent on her inland golf, having scarcely any other, is the country for this movement to be carried to its ultimate legitimate point. The day for very plain and purely and obviously artificial construction of inland golf courses is gone, the original inland system in all its stupidity and its surrender to difficulties has become archaic. It has come to be realised in this business that man may associate himself with Nature in a magnificent enterprise, and only now is it understood that this golf course construction is, or may be, a really splendid art. Landscape gardening is a fine thing in the way of modelling in earth and with the assistance of trees and plants and flowers and the natural forces, while engineering across rivers and mountains is grander perhaps; but in each of these the man takes his piece of the world from Nature and shovels it and smashes it, and then, according to his own fancy and to suit his own needs, he arranges it all over again. But in the making of a golf course, while we have indeed to see that certain requirements of our own are well suited, knowing how particular and hypercritical we have become, yet we wish to keep to plain bold Nature too, and we want our best work to be thoroughly in harmony with her originals. I believe that if we could express it properly to ourselves, we wish now to make our golf courses look as if they were fashioned at the tail-end of things on the evening of the sixth day of the creation of the world - just when thoughts had to be turning to the rest and happinesses of the seventh. And so the great architect now takes a hundred acres or more of plain rough land and forest, hills and dales among it, and with magnificent imagination shapes it to his fancy. The work he now does will endure in part, if not in whole, for ages hence, and so it is deeply responsible. It is a splendid art; I do not hesitate to say it is a noble art.

Mr. Colt, with his great thoughts and his splendid skill, has done fine work in several parts of the United States. The new courses of the May field Country Club, and of the Country Club of Detroit, are splendid things. But Mr. Macdonald's creations - for more of them now follow upon the original at Southampton - are destined to be leading influences in the new American golf course construction. I have had some interesting talk with him upon these matters, and am glad to find that he is artist and creator enough to have the full strength of his own original opinions in this matter, especially as in some ways his ideals differ from those commonly accepted in Britain. I have been so much interested in his views, and I think that these views are destined to have such an enormous influence upon American golf in the future, that I have asked him for some brief statement of them, an enunciation of his creed as an architect of courses, and he has kindly made it to me in writing, as follows: -