The 5th hole - "St. John's" (for Newcastle possesses a saint, heaven-sent as leaven amongst its many sinners) - is 285 yards. There is a fine, hard, level space here for a good drive to take the very last inch of roll out of the ball. The green is on a high place, and is surrounded by a trappy, sandy bunker, with bent and the seashore beyond. Here the second shot needs cut, and plenty of it. The par is 4. Again a grand view of the Irish Channel presents itself to the eye of the appreciative.

The 6th hole is 450 yards. It is a long hole turning homewards, but not going there, the width of the Newcastle green being so great - nearly a mile, in fact - that a zigzag course can be, and is, here taken without any crossing, properly so called, taking place. This is a hole where a good brassy shot for the second will pay well. The green has been reached in two more than once, if club-room post-mortem examinations of played rounds are to be relied upon; but it is more than likely that when two such shots were hit, the force of the gale behind reached, in meteorological phraseology, about 70 miles an hour! The cloven-hoofed Colonel Bogey takes 5 to this hole and smiles in satisfaction.

The 7th is a short pitch over a bunker of pure fine sand. A wrist shot, pitched high and falling dead, enables the player to have two putts to halve with the par.

The 8th hole is worthy of more than a mere passing notice. Formerly this hole was given over to the rabbit and his extensive powers of colonisation. Dr. Magill, the present captain of the club and for many years the popular honorary secretary, discovered this ground, and, withstanding fearlessly the howls of the 20 handicap players and the dubious head-shaking of the scratch ones, tackled the matter, and swore by the nine gods to make a hole of it. First he had to subdue Bunny and eradicate the traces of his immemorial ravages. The nature of the virus with which the genial doctor inoculated Bunny may never be discovered, let Australia yearn for it as she may; but it was effectual and Bunny was wiped out. The green-keeper has since prevailed, and the million rabbit-holes, which Mr. Horace Hutchinson alludes to in his "Famous Golf Links," have disappeared, if holes can correctly be said to disappear. However, the million holes are not there now - there is one only and a grand one it is. It is 360 yards from the tee, and there has lately been laid at great expense a fine new green. For purely scientific golf this is the best hole in the course, and after carrying over a deep dell, right in front of the tee, in which grows fern and bent, and soaring over the grassy hill upon which the direction-post is planted, a good brassy shot gets home, and 4 goes down upon the card.

The last of the outgoing nine holes, "Deception," is 276 yards, and here is a green which Hoylake, in its palmiest days, might justly envy. This green was also one of Dr. Magill's surprise packets. He laid it out darkly and by night, or at least many not over-credulous golfers so believe. Certainly he kept it dark for two years, lest perhaps he might be indicted for conspiracy with the green-keeper and his merry men. Its locus in quo lay entirely off the then existing course, though in the way the doctor expected the course would take, in the optimistic view he held of the possibilities of Newcastle's future. The green lay fallow for two years, and now it is an ideal one, flat as it is notwithstanding. Its youth not having been tampered with, in its maturity its verdancy is extraordinary - and it gives every promise of a hale old age.

The 10th hole is a very good one, the drive is over a chasm from which the hole takes its name. It is 245 yards, and is a 4.

The next hole takes us to the most northerly point of the course; the drive here also needs to be hit if the par of 5 is to be attained, as there is a very extensive grave right ahead for a topped shot. This hole is called the "Sheepfold," from the fact that the green formerly was enclosed as a fold. To this fact is due the abundant growth of short grass which the green possesses.

"Old Dundrum," the 12th hole, is a very long one - 460 yards. There is not much difficulty en route, but the going is rather heavy, and it is a hole of very little interest. The par is 5.

The "Railway" hole, which comes next, is not a good one. Judged relatively with the other holes of this grand sporting course it is a very bad hole. Its length is 255 yards, but the approach is bad and the green is of a hogback character, introducing a great element of luck into the approach and making the hole extremely difficult when it is placed on the summit of the hog's back and correspondingly easy when it is cut in the hollow. The par is 4.

The "Punchbowl" hole, which follows, provides grand golf. Its distance is 517 yards, and the green, when reached by the third shot, is a fine one. Rarely, however, does the third shot reach the green except it happens to be the third shot of Sandy Herd or George Pulford who each, on the occasion when they made the joint record of the green at Newcastle, had this hole in 5; 6, however, is its par.

The 15th hole is a very fine one. Its name is "The Field," and the green, which has an area of about an acre, is of extraordinary keenness and affords good wooden-putter practice.

The next hole - "Saucer" - is a long one, and skirts the railway, bearing eastwards towards the club-house. Its par is 5, and its length a quarter of a mile exactly. The green lies just to the left of the first tee.

The "Matterhorn," 170 yards, is the 17th. Ninety yards from the tee is a sand bunker 30 feet high. This, successfully carried, enables the hole to be had in 3.

The "Home" hole is 250 yards, the green is undulating, and its situation, right under the dining-room windows of the club-house, enables the finish of a match, if carried so far, to be well observed. The green is guarded by a hill which makes the approach somewhat difficult. The record of the course at Newcastle is, as previously stated, held in partnership by Alex. Herd and George Pulford at 74. These two very fine scores were made at the Irish Championship Meeting in 1896, and were the outcome of the best of the play of twenty-eight of the leading professionals. The figures are worth giving in detail, alongside the par of the green which is 79.