Evening star., 1932-02-24
LINKS At AUGUSTA
CONSIDERED IDEAL
Bobby Aids in Supervising
Building of Layout With
Novel Features.
BY w. r. McCALLUM.


der inland golf course.
The former world champion
and one time emperor" of golf
believes he has the making on a
piece of land known as Fruit
lands" just northwest Of Augusta,
of a golf layout that will take its
place as one of the finest courses
in America.
And Bobby is sparing no time or ef-
fort to give to the golfng world the
benefit of his many years of experience
and the priceless observations he has
made in the nearly two decades he
romped over the links seeking cham
pionShips.
Once every three weeks or so Bobby
goes from Atlanta to Augusta, jaunt
of some 200-odd miles, to view the work
which is being done on the Augusta
National Golf Course, which is coming
to be more familiarly known as the
Bobby Jones Golf Course.
Bobby is president of the club and
although the course itself is being con-
structed by Dr.. Alister Mackenzie. one
OF the designers of the present Chevy
Chase Club course, Bobby looks 1t over
periodically to see that things 60 as he
wants them to go. The old time anna
teur and open king takes this business
OF building a golf course seriously.
He has incorporated in the layout
MANY Of the features OF the famous
holes he has played, and in building the
duplicates OF the famous old world
he J, Y0fc thew fO 10
as letter perfect as terrain and contour
will permit.
WE visited the new course q few
w days ago, during a short stay in
the South, and saw what Bobby
is trying to do down there in Augusta,
where a good many Washington golfers
go each Winter to play the three
courses which are in use at present
Out there on pleasant hillside, over
rolling country of terrain similar TO
that of the Columbia Country Club
course, Jones and Mackenzie have laid
cut a gclf course which will range from
$500 yards to 6.7oo yards. with a par
of 72. The course at present is incom-
plete, but the work of master architects
can plainly be seen in the contours of
the greens and the placing of traps, and
the manner in which fairways are ar
ranged to penalize a tee shot not placed
in the correct groove.
The course also will have real nine
teenth hole not the conventional one
Of beloved memory, but real golf hole
OF about 100 yards, stretching right in
front of the club house, where conSola-
ton bets may be placed and played off.
Believing that the acid test of golf
course is its abiding popularity and not
intending to build for the expert alone,
Jones and Mackenzie have striven to
make the course tough one for the
expert and duffer alike. 1t is planned
to open the layout about December I
that it may be ready for play next
Winter. :,.
DOBBY had been in Augusta for
- several days prior to our visit, but
there were lots of good Augusta
folk there to explain what is happen
ing at Fruitlands. The place itself Is
impressive. You go in from the main
road between rows of magnolia trees,
hanging almost to the ground and
ready at this season of the year to
shoot forth their wax-like blooms.
At the end of the avenue of mag
nolias, said to have been planted in
1858, is the old "Fruitland" house, the
plantation mansion built by Dennis
Redmond in 1854 Just what will be
done with it has not yet been decided,
but 1t probably will be retained as a
link with the past when a more i'm
presSlVe club house is built. At present
the major part Of the construction work
Is centered on the golf course.
Out on the hillside. looking toward
the Forest Hills course, is all the para
phernalia with which a golf course is
bullt, and stretching away into the dis
tance are the fairways and putting
greens being nodded under the hands
OF the master. Bobby goes in for dog
leg holes, for no fewer than IL of the
holes on this new golf course are dog
leg affairs, some Of them sharp benders
to right or left and some with gentle
curve in the fairway.
Bobby always has believed in the
old Vardon axiom of playing the tee
Shot to open up the hole for the
second shot, and also in the general
theory that bad tee shot should be
penaliZed, and he has laid the fairways
out SO that tee shot not in the proper
spot VIII leave a very hard second. A
creek winds through the property and
heavy pine woods make for plenty of
diversion for those who stray from
the line. 1t is planned to make most
OF the greens gently rolling, while
lew, mostly at the one-shot holes, will
be decidedly rolling.
HERE is the unusual thing about the
L course. Jones and Mackenzie be-
lieve that sand traps alone do not
make a fine golf course They hold
that natural hazards not only have
more charm, from an architectural
standpoint, but impose more real diff
Guilty than sand traps, and the result
has been that there are but 80 sand
traps on the whole layout, an average
OF less than two to the hole.
Consider that a course like Indian
Spring has more than 80 and most
OF the other courses around Washing
ton have SO or more, and you will see
what Jones is driving at in the con-
struction of the Augusta National lay
out. Several of the greens are con-
structed of unusual design without a
single guarding trap, but they are
built so that shot which misses the
green will leave plenty Of trouble with
out sand to add to the golfers woes.
In its at present incomplete state, the
course looks great. A walk over a few
OF the fairways will convince any one
of that. And one is impressed by he
fact that Bobby, just as he did in
tournament golf, is throwing his whole
soul into the job of building at Augusta
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