rand, there is excellent
accommodation to be obtained at the combined hotel and club-house, and
as for the quality of the golf I do not hesitate to say that the course
is in every respect fit for the championships to be decided upon it.
There is one hole here, the third, which is the most difficult anyone
can imagine. If I were asked to select one from all the thousands of
holes that I have played in my time, I should pick this one out for
difficulty. They call it Mount Zion, and I think it is a good name for
it. You must make three very good shots to reach the green, and in the
matter of accuracy the third needs to be a gem if any satisfaction
whatever is to be got out of the whole business. The green is on a
plateau, and it is protected by every contrivance that ingenious Nature
has vouchsafed to the makers of courses. If you are short you are in a
running stream; if you pull you go out of bounds; and if your ball
trickles over the green, away it goes into the sea--tortures the most
terrible for the erring ball. Yes, decidedly I think this is the hardest
hole I have ever seen. The first time I played it I took 10 to hole out,
and yet won it from a very fine professional player who is an
ex-champion! I have never done a hole better in my life than when I once
halved this with Taylor in 4 in the course of a match which Taylor won
at the twenty-fourth hole. The seventh is also a very fine hole with a
bunker in front of the tee, which is very similar to the Maiden at
Sandwich. An old golfer who lives there told me he can remember the time
when it was a rabbit scrape. Like all golfers who know them, I sing the
praises of Gullane, Kilspindie, and Luffness.

There is a variety of good golf to be obtained in Ireland also.
Portrush, Portmarnock, Dollymount, Lahinch, and Newcastle (co.
Down)--all these are fine links. For a place to visit for an enjoyable
golfing holiday, when health is a governing consideration also, I should
select Portrush as one of the very best, while golfers who wish to play
at Portmarnock and elect to put up in a Dublin hotel have an experience
of pleasant variety which I at all events have found very agreeable, for
you have first the train, then the car, and last of all the boat to take
in order to reach the course, and not an inch of the journey is
wearisome. Of course this proceeding cannot be recommended to those
golfers who prefer to sleep in close proximity to the first tee,
regardless of all other