re for centuries.
Having secured to the mind this general and somewhat vague idea of the
plan of the links, it is a good thing to plant a stake at each spot
where it is proposed to make a hole; and when the land is all staked out
in this manner, there is, as it were, a solid foundation upon which to
build up the links. The location of the stakes can be inspected from a
distance and from different points of view, and it will constantly
happen on these occasions that for the improvement of one or other of
the holes its removal to a different place will be suggested. Continue
your walks, examining the stakes from north, south, east, and west, and
moving them here and there until you begin to feel a trifle weary of the
business, and confident that you have planned the best possible holes
out of the country that you have to deal with. Then you may proceed with
perhaps the more interesting but certainly the harder part of your task.

It is useless to think about fashioning the links from the plan which
will now have been formed, until those natural disadvantages of the
land, which cannot be allowed to remain, have been removed. Gorse and
rocks may have to be cleared, and it is essential that at this stage an
effort should be made to rid the course of rabbits and other undesirable
vermin if any should infest it. Rabbits help to keep the grass nice and
short; but they make too many holes in the course, and there is no
alternative but to regard them as the enemies of golf, and to make out
the death warrants of them all accordingly. The quickest and surest way
of getting rid of them is to search for every hole, apply the ferrets,
stop up the holes afterwards, and to keep a watch for any that return.
If only one or two are left here and there, they will play much havoc
with the course in the future. From this point the way in which the work
is proceeded with will naturally depend to a large extent on the length
of the schemers' purse, and on their optimism or otherwise as to their
future prospects; but I am sure that it is best to employ as many men as
can be afforded at the outset, and so grapple with the execution of the
plans in a thorough and determined manner. In the making of a golf
course it is very easy to be "penny wise and pound foolish."

The situation of the greens having been decided upon, the question as
to the length of the holes, as to which some general impression will
already have been formed, comes up for decisi