GOLF SINCE 1910 Since 1g10 the popularity of golf has increased steadily in Great Britain, while in the United States of America it has spread like a prairie fire. There could be no more striking evidence than the fact that the profession of the golf architect has now become an exceedingly busy and prosperous one. Tracts of woodland, where it would once have been deemed impossible to make a course, have been hacked and hewn into shape, tree stumps have been blown up with dynamite ; and on one famous course in America, the Lido, sand has been sucked up from the sea by giant engines and spread over a flat marsh in picturesque hills and valleys. The designing of courses has developed into an art.
This, which may be called the second great boom in the history of the game, began with the coming of the rubber-cored ball and is no doubt largely due to it. The ball made the game easier and pleasanter for the average man to play, but it has had its dis advantages. The ball goes so far that there has been a constant cry that courses are too short. Consequently clubs have had to remake their courses, taking in more ground with great attendant expense. Some attempts have been made, though not with any conspicuous success, to limit the ball's activities. In 1920, there was passed a rule, still in force, which lays down that the weight of the ball shall not be greater than 1.62oz. avoirdupois and the size not less than 1.62in. in diameter. The "implements commit tee" of the U.S. Golf Association, after exhaustive experiments, proposed a further slight limitation. At the autumn meeting of the Royal and Ancient Club in 1925 it was proposed that a ball thus further limited should be used in the open and amateur champion ships of 1926, but the proposal was rejected by a large majority. The American authorities are still anxious to take some definite step towards limiting the ball, but at the moment it seems doubt ful whether any concerted action will be taken.