THE progress which the game of golf has made in Ireland during the past ten years has been phenomenal. In this decade, no doubt, it has extended by leaps and bounds in England, and during the last two or three years, it has been spreading in America with all the fierceness of a prairie fire; but England and America are both rich countries and Ireland is a poor one, and as golf, relatively speaking, is an expensive game it was not to be predicted, even by the most sanguine of its adherents, that it would so soon and so extensively become the rage amongst a people, fond from the earliest times of field sports, but singularly inept and careless in respect of athletic games. In truth the Irish, though of a character versatile and exceedingly brilliant, seemed very unlikely ever to become subservient to the calm stoicism and hardheaded philosophy which golf demands from its votaries. Irish cricket is not, and never has been, and probably never will be, first class, and until about ten years ago, Irish football was a very feeble and erratic institution, though since then it has become world-famed. Practically the "masses" had no game, if we rule politics and the occasional skirmishes provided by the old open elections to be outside the pale of legitimate athletics. The "classes" hunted, and fished, and shot, no doubt, but covers were jealously guarded, rivers strictly preserved, and all the shootings were owned by the landlords, though leased occasionally to those wealthy Englishmen who had the temerity to risk their lives for a few weeks annually, in a country which they depicted to their friends, on their return home, as being eternally enveloped in the mists and fogs of the Atlantic, and towards which they set out with preparations more elaborate, and more precautionary, than would nowadays be required in the equipment of an expedition to Nova Zembla or Spitsbergen ! Few of the "masses" in Ireland were able to take a serious part in its field sports; if any one did, he was looked upon askance, as a lusus natura, or ruthlessly hunted down and exterminated as a poacher. Thus sport was buried in the Irish bosom; but the gospel according to St. Andrews, has changed all this - and its acceptance has breathed life afresh into Irish athleticism. Thanks to Scottish pioneers, Ireland now has a sport in which "classes" and "masses" meet upon equal terms, and in which the peer and the peasant mutually engage, very frequently much to the disadvantage of the former.

The reason for this state of affairs, which has brought so many social advantages and amenities in its train, is not far to seek, and it may confidently and safely be attributed to the fact that nearly the entire seaboard of Ireland is peculiarly well adapted to the exercise of the game of golf, and little is needed in the way of preparation beyond the tread of the human foot.

One of the finest of these belts of natural golfing ground is to be found at Newcastle (co. Down), the terminus of the Belfast and County Down Railway, 38 miles south of Belfast. Here there is a very prosperous club, numbering some 460 members, who have lately built a handsome and substantial house for their accommodation and comfort. The links are undoubtedly the finest in Ireland. I doubt, indeed, if there are any superior in the world of golf. The hazards are in some places rather startling to weak-kneed players; but the putting greens are things of beauty.

NEWCASTLE, CO. DOWN.

The tee for the 1st hole - "The Corner" - is directly under those windows of the clubhouse which look due north. The length of the hole is 230 yards. A topped ball will perish in a bunker, 80 yards from the tee, and an otherwise imperfectly driven one will meet a similar fate 35 yards further on; but a raking tee shot leaves only a short pitch on to a very fine green, nicely guarded with a small mound, and with the regulation two putts it is a 4 hole.

The 2nd hole is 180 yards in length; but here is one of the most formidable bunkers of the entire course. One hundred yards from the tee is a huge sand hill, which rises to the height of 40 feet. The green beyond is perched up on high, hard by the sea, and a prettily pitched shot is required to reach and remain there. From this green there is a magnificent view of Newcastle. For almost six miles to the north-east there is a broad belt of line strand, with scarcely a stone on it, while on a clear day, right to eastward, the Isle of Man is plainly visible. Looking southward, we have the Mourne range of mountains with their grand old pine-covered doyen, Slieve Donard, looking down with benevolent placidity upon the little straggling town of Newcastle, which for years has nestled sleepily under his agis, unconscious of the development which awaited it.

The 3rd hole - "MacCormac's" - which is now played, is over 400 yards distant from the tee. There are few of the characteristic hazards on the line here; but it is necessary, after a well-hit drive and second shot, that the approach be played with accuracy, as the green, although extremely large and flat, is surrounded by a bewildering admixture of stones and sandy traps. Five is considered par play to this hole, and this figure satisfies most amateurs.

The 4th hole is 380 yards only, which to the tyro may merely seem "two of his best"; but as a series of extensive and far-reaching bunkers have to be weathered en route, and as the first of them prominently advertises itself, at a great height, about 150 yards from the tee, those "two best" of his will more than likely have been the two which came off in rosy dreamland the night before, rather than the "two" he will execute in daylight when showing his friend, or opponent perhaps - to draw from the familiar patter of the drawing-room conjuror - "How it's done"!

Let us, however, suppose that the tee shot has been played to all satisfaction, and that the thirty or forty steps of the ladder which make the summit of this first bunker accessible to the foot of the portly golfer have been climbed, a vista is then obtained of a country abounding in perils almost as great as those which have just been successfully negotiated. A duplicate of the tee shot - the second of the aforementioned "two best" - reaches the putting green, having just carried the guarding rampart of sand and sod, and the ball lies on a green, whose undulating beauties are the better appreciated after an approach off the brassy than off the niblick. This hole is a 4 bogey, but a very rare 4, when judged by Mr. A. H. Doleman's extremely wise theory of averages.