{"id":1249408,"date":"2024-02-08T19:48:58","date_gmt":"2024-02-08T19:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/golftoday.co.uk\/?p=1249408"},"modified":"2024-02-08T19:55:47","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T19:55:47","slug":"its-still-golf-as-we-know-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/golftoday.co.uk\/its-still-golf-as-we-know-it\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s still golf as we know it"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago I had a game with my son at a golf course in North London called the Arkley 9. You will gather it does not have 18 holes. Well, some at the club may argue that it does, a point to which I shall return shortly, but it doesn\u2019t really matter. Nine holes or 18, it\u2019s still a golf course and still a round of golf, with a nod to the past and perhaps to the future as well.<\/p>\n

It was the Old Course at St Andrews which established the template of 18 holes as the norm. In 1764, William St Clair covered its then 22 holes in 121 strokes. This was an indecently good score in those days, and in the face of such sacrilege the town elders amalgamated the first four holes into two. Given the shared fairways and greens that characterise the Old Course, that meant the course now had 18 holes. Elsewhere in Scotland (which at that time, golf-wise, meant the world) Leith had five holes, North Inch at Perth had six while Montrose had 25. When the Open Championship began at Prestwick in 1860, that links had 12 holes, but eventually the St Andrews\u2019 example became the exemplar.<\/p>\n

Moving on to the present day, there are regular calls from people in authoritative positions in the game for 18 holes not to be regarded as some sort of definition as to what constitutes a \u2018proper\u2019 round of golf. Since you\u2019re reading this it is likely you play golf, in which case you will know that while getting away from it all for a few hours is a great joy, sometimes you don\u2019t really have the time for 18 holes. The length of time it takes to play a round is one of the barriers to people taking up the game, so there is a lot to be said for 9-hole courses.<\/p>\n