In regard to the fifth principle that every hole should have a different character. A common mistake is to follow prevailing fashions. At first we had the artificial cop bunkers extending in a dead straight line from the rough on one side to the rough on the other; in modern course architecture these are fortunately extinct. Secondly, we had the fashion of pot bunkers running down each side of the course. This was, if anything, an even more objectionable type of golf than the last. Thirdly, we have had what has been called the alpinisation of golf courses.
In this connection I would point out that green-keepers should be careful not to make hillocks so high in the direct line to the hole that they block out the view: a little to one side of the bee line they may be made as high as one pleases, but in the direct line hollows should, as a rule, take the place of hillocks. This is the exact opposite to what is found on many golf courses, where the hollows are at the sides and the banks in the middle.
[Illustration: ARTIFICIAL HUMMOCK AT MOORTOWN, CONSTRUCTED FROM THE STONES REMOVED FROM THE FAIRWAY.]
The great thing in constructing golf courses is to ensure variety and make everything look natural. The greatest compliment that can be paid to a green-keeper is for players to think his artificial work is natural. On Alwoodley and Moortown practically every green and every hummock has been artificially made, and yet it is difficult to convince the stranger that this is so. I remember a chairman of the Green Committee of one of the best-known clubs in the North telling me that it would be impossible to make their course anything like Alwoodley, as there we had such a wealth of natural hillocks, hollows, and undulations. It was only with great difficulty that I was able to persuade him that, to use an Irishism, these natural features which he so much admired had all been artificially created. I have even heard one of the members of our own Green Committee telling a well-known writer on golf that the hummocks surrounding one of our greens had always been there: he himself had forgotten that he had been present when the site for them had been pegged out.
It is not nearly as common an error to make blind holes as formerly. A blind tee shot may be forgiven, or a full shot to the green on a seaside course, when the greens can usually be located accurately by the position of the surrounding hummocks, but an approach shot should never be blind, as this prevents an expert player, except by a fluke, from placing his approach so near the hole that he gets down in one putt.