GOLF may be played anywhere - that is, anywhere where there is room - but the quality of the golf will depend upon the kind of place it is played on, and the manner in which the ground is laid out and kept. The chosen home of golf, its "most loved abode," is the links, or common land, which is found by the seashore, where the short, close turf, the sandy subsoil, and the many natural obstacles in the shape of bents, whins, sand-holes and banks, supply the conditions which are essential to the proper pursuit of the game. Nowadays Scotland, England, and even Ireland - to name the countries in their golfing precedence - are pretty well begirt with golf links, and there are few suitable spots left on our coast, which the "links" eye of the golfer has not ferreted out, and which have not been turned into golf courses.

The laying out of a golf course on such seaside ground, though it is often sadly bungled, should not be a matter of any difficulty, if a little common sense be exercised, and the first golden rule to be observed is "to cut your coat according to your cloth." If you have about 100 acres of suitable ground available, good and well; you ought to be able to find room for the orthodox number of 18 holes in your round; but if you have a smaller acreage, say 50 to 70 acres, beware of trying to pack 18 holes into it. You will be able to do it, no doubt, for golfing ingenuity and enterprise can do anything, but it can only be done by innumerable crossings, and by using the same ground over and over again in the course of the round. The maps of certain courses look like a tangled skein of thread, and one feels that the word "round" applied to them is a misnomer indeed. Apart from the inconvenience and danger of meeting and crossing which such a system involves, the holes are almost certain to be poor, from a golfing point of view. A hole should always give one the impression that it owes its existence to its own intrinsic merits, to its individuality and character, and not, as too often happens, to the fact that it had to be there, because, forsooth, there was no other place to put it.

If sufficient suitable ground, therefore, is not available to admit of 18 holes being made, without crowding, and in such a way as to use, without abusing, its golfing capabilities, it is better to limit the number of holes to 15, 12, or 9. Better half a loaf than no bread, and 9 good holes are always better than 18 bad ones.

Having determined the number of holes to be made, in this manner, by the extent and nature of the ground available, the same considerations will decide what are to be the distances between the individual holes. As a general rule, a hole should not be much shorter than 100 yards, or longer than 500 yards, while the entire course, if made up of 18 holes, and measured from hole to hole, should be from 2 3/4 to 3 3/4 or 4 miles in length. As I have said, there should be a reason for every hole - a golfing reason - and not a mathematical one. Laying out a golf course is not a mathematical puzzle, and the position of the holes is to be settled by their suitability for the game, and not by the application of the Rule of Three. On a seaside links, there is usually little difficulty in finding suitable places for a succession of good holes. Variety is the great thing to aim at, and here the hollows and hillocks, the plateaus and ravines, the whins and bunkers, and all the other incidents of seaside ground, will be full of suggestions for holes of interesting and sporting character.

To make a beginning, select a point for your club-house - close to which your first tee will inevitably be placed - which is as near as possible, either to the majority of the golfers' residences, or to the station, if the locality be not residential. To have to walk half a mile or more to the club, in addition to having to walk the same distance back, after a hard day's golf, is neither advantageous nor pleasurable, and the cost of driving there and back, adds considerably to the size of the golfer's bill for the day.

Suppose there is a spot 300 yards away from your prospective club-house, either in a hollow or on a plateau, or in some other interesting situation, guarded by a bunker or other hazard, and which would make an excellent putting green, let not your soul be dismayed by the fact that to get there you have to walk through a perfect jungle of gorse. Strong and sturdy as it seems, the whin bush, or forest, if its integrity is once interfered with, soon dies down, and where it flourished beautiful turf can be grown. But before dealing with it, it will be well to consider what hazards are required and what are available for this imaginary first hole.

As a general principle, at every hole, except on the putting green where it brings its own reward, a bad shot should be followed by a bad lie, and a good shot should be correspondingly rewarded by a good one. Now it is impossible, at every hole, to provide a fitting punishment for every kind of bad shot. If this were done the soul of the stoutest-hearted golfer would quail at the number of hazards with which the prospect from the tee would bristle, and all the pleasurable excitement and charm of the game would disappear. But there is one kind of bad stroke which by universal consent must be summarily punished, whenever and wherever it is perpetrated, and that is a "topped shot." The reasons for this are obvious. The shot has been missed and missed badly, but on hard ground or against a wind, a topped ball will sometimes run as far, or even further, than a clean hit one, and the player will suffer no disadvantage from his mistake. Wherefore, in making your first tee, select a spot some sixty yards in front of which, a yawning bunker stretches right across the course, and if it be so narrow, or so shallow, that a topped ball will jump over it or run through it, dig it wider and deeper, so that all balls crossing its jaws will inevitably be swallowed up. If no bunker is to be had, a pond will do equally well, or a railway or a hedge, or a wall - anything, in short, that is impassable.