From the hearth: Transferring the links experience to a parkland setting would seem to be one of those conundrums. How rare that an inland course, the so called "links style" we find hundreds if not thousands of miles from the sea, delivers the variety and exhilaration of golf played along the ocean. How about never. While these courses can be tolerated, few us would go so far as to regard them as "shocking indecencies." No stranger to dissent, here Bradley S. Klein faces the issue of frontal nudity in golf head on.

"Trees don't come into play at all at these aged links. This often strikes the modern player as a shocking indecency, tantamount to outright nudity. But a century ago, most golf courses were wide open fields that were scarcely graced with tree coverage. In Scotland, that was the unquestioned norm. In short, the courses that seem today so full of lessons about classic virtue were also considered in Ross's era to be intriguing, but they also shared much in common with other links layouts.

"Golf at Dornoch to this day conveys much of this land-hewn sensibility. The ground is kept firm so that the ball runs, thus bringing bunkers into play that would not otherwise catch the attention of golfers. Soggy conditions promote an aerial-style power game in which the goal is to drop the ball into the green from a precise distance. But a firm ground game - along with the standard seaside wind conditions - makes it far more difficult to play a controlled aerial game. The ball rolls much more upon landing, bringing far bunkers and peripheral areas into play that would not normally be reached. Control is best secured under such conditions by low shots that are designed to run in along the ground. Dornoch, for instance, is to this day not tightly bunkered up front of its putting surfaces. There are open pathways into its greens that welcome creative shot making."

(Reprinted without permission from Discovering Donald Ross by Bradley S. Klein, Sleeping Bear Press, 2001)

The Golfer's Ten Commandments
Royal and Ancient
Into the Bear Pit
Helicopter Words
The Walter Hagen Story
ClubAlert . . . The Electronic Club Leash
I Remember Augusta
Hoch as in Choke!
Bud, Sweat, & Tees
Only Golf Spoken Here
Passion for Golf
Fourteen Clubs and the Auld Claret Jug
Gleanings from the Wayside