[Illustration 1: No. 1.--Ball in earth bunker or fence, drop five yards back and add one stroke. Ball in sand, play off bare floor. No. 2.--Ball in "Serpentine," drop five yards back and add one stroke. No. 3.--Ball in pond is lost. Tee again and add two strokes. No. 4.--Ball in sand bunker, drop five yards back and add one stroke.]
Suppose that our course is to be a nine-hole one, we must provide ourselves with some sheets of stout wrapping-paper, a three-foot rule, and an assortment of colored pencils. Each imaginary "hole" must now be sketched out upon a separate sheet, after the fashion shown in the plan. The sheet should be three feet long, and a convenient scale of measurement will be a quarter-inch to five yards. Five inches will therefore represent 100 yards; seven and one-half inches, 150 yards; ten inches, 200 yards; and so on. Thirty inches is equivalent to 600 yards, which should be the maximum. The putting-greens should be thirty feet, or ten yards, square. A line should be drawn from tee to centre of the putting-green, and each ten-yard point along it should be marked by a red dot with the number underneath, 10, 20, 30, and so on. A circle fifty yards in diameter is drawn around the hole, and the space enclosed is called the "approaching-zone." Water hazards may be indicated by blue shading, the ordinary earth bunker by red, stone walls by black, and the tees and putting-greens by green. Everything should be drawn accurately to scale, and the artistic appearance of the little map will be improved by introducing hole and line flags in the proper colors. On an eighteen-hole course red flags are used for the nine outgoing holes, and white ones for the incoming ones. Red and white flags are used to indicate the line of play at blind holes, and green flags may mark the boundaries of the course.
Any boy who has a practical knowledge of golf, and who is possessed of reasonable ingenuity, may lay out in this manner a series of holes which, if properly varied, will make the play very interesting. The principal difficulty is the proper arrangement of the hazards, and this will be largely determined by the average driving ability of the club members. Generally speaking, a bunker must never be so situated as to spoil a really good drive. Hazards are intended to punish bad shots and not to injure good ones. Accordingly we may place a hazard ten yards from the tee, or any distance between that and 100 yards. But a bunker 160 yards from the tee would be in just the place to trap a really good drive, while the topped or short one would go unpunished. Side hazards will not be required on our in-door course, as there is no way of determining the "slice" or "pull" of our drives. Each player must be provided with a stick-pin to mark his progress on the map, and these may be distinguished by dipping the heads into different colors of melted sealing-wax. The maps of the holes are tacked up on the wall in regular succession as the play goes on. And now we are ready for the actual match, and we will suppose that we are playing the "Longfellow hole."