Golf Links of America (1911) and the extinct Lido (1917), both on Long Island, were some of the deepest built to that point, often cut two or more metres below a wall of grass. Macdonald’s pro- tégés Seth Raynor and Charles Banks replicated these bunker templates across the Eastern and Midwestern United States through the 1920s, as did William Langford and Theodore Moreau, who similarly shovelled bun- kers into steep, fortress-like inclines. Pine Valley (established 1913), peren- nially regarded as one of the two or three best courses in the United States, didn’t rake its bunkers or expansive wastelands of sand, and straying into them usually meant playing out of a footprint or from behind a bush. Walter Travis, Alister MacKenzie, AW Tilling- hast, George Thomas and their peers all developed unique modes of bunkering, none of it sympathetic. If participants of the era took in stride the poor fate of being ensnared in an inescapable trap (at least compared to golfers today), it was largely because of the primacy of match play in day-to- day golf. Players had always kept track of their score totals, but competitions typically took the form of matches (including the sport’s most glamorous tournament, the US Amateur) where if a player took three shots to get out of a hazard, he might lose the hole, but it wouldn’t ruin the entire round. Golfers could chalk up such situations to bad luck or rub of the green, then gleefully await a role reversal on the next hole. THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING This mind-set began to change with the ascendance of professional golf. Through the Great Depression, amateur golf eclipsed the professional game in popularity and status, and many of the best players, including Bobby Jones, chose to remain amateurs rather than grind out a highway life on the low-pay- ing professional circuit. The advent of the Masters in 1934 (its success fostered by respect for Jones, the founder) and a WE BEHOLD ANEW UNMISTAKABLE HAZARDS WITH NO PROMISE OF FAIR TREATMENT.
60 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
JUNE 2024
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