Golfing Round the World
Chapter VI One Up
I nearly missed going to Nuwara Eliya (pronounced Newrailya) because it involved rising at an unholy hour of the morning in order to catch the train. Millionaires and extravagant people usually do the hundread and thirty odd miles by car, taking but one third of the time at a very reasonable cost. They must miss however, the interesting experience of a leisurely trip through the interior of Ceylon, in a very comfortable reasonably cool train. They also forgo an opportunity which the long deliberate uphill climb gives the traveller of observing the manners and customs of the Sinhalese, who struck me as being a remarkably happy and healthy race.
They are clear skinned and of an agreeable copper hue and many of them excel in popular sports. A cricket eleven, recruited largely from native talent, lately drew their match with the Australian team then on its way to capture the Ashes from England.
Few places in the world quite rise to expectations but by way of compensation they frequently turn out to be entirely unlike what may have been anticipated. Ceylon is such a country. I had pictured to myself an island about as large as a medium sized English County, dominated by Adam's Peak and permeated by a glamour of mystery, for as a child I had eagerly and fearfully devoured 'Dead Man's Rock' 'Q's most delightful and thrilling romance wherein Luke Trenoweth searches for the Great Ruby near the summit of Adam's Peak.
In fact however, Ceylon is nearly as large as Scotland, and plentifully adorned with noble mountains, and hundreds if not thousands of miles of forests. I saw the steel blue dagger point of Adam's Peak from a great distance, and there is still a 'mystery' surrounding it, for it is said that millions of yellow butterflies migrate to that great mountain every year and there undergo some transmogrification, becoming, I understand, black instead of yellow.
At Nuwara Eliya I met a collector of golf courses, his bag was one hundred and thirty three, culled from every country in the world, and he was still consulting maps and time-tables, and hotel lists with a view to obtaining further specimens; but I crave leave to doubt, whether in the whole of his vast experience he ever met with a more unique, more sporting, and more exotic course than the links at Nuwara Eliya. It is emphatically an ideal golfer's resort, with plenty of comfortable hotels and bungalows; perched or wedged among the mountains at an altitude of over six thousand feet above sea level.
It possesses in addition to the celebrated course, a lake, a race-course, and unlimited facilities for tennis, fishing and mountaineering. Pedro, the highest peak in Ceylon being but a few miles away. Imagine the French Riviera weather minus the Mistral and you have a fair idea of its climate, though of course you must treat the sun with more respect than is necessary in higher latitudes.
The golf course is of the strath or valley type, the salient features being the surrounding slopes and hills and a stream stocked with good rainbow trout, which is crossed and recrossed sometimes as many as three times at the same hole. At each hole one is offered a variety of the most deadly hazards hitherto utilised, invented, or unavoidably imposed by nature, for the undoing of the medal player and for putting both the long handicap man and the 'Scratch' crack in their proper places.
The trout stream is invariably waiting for the slice, the hook, the sclaff, and the foozle. Bunkers filled with fine black sand (presumably volcanic) are plentiful enough, gorse bushes are in abundance and refuse to be ignored as traps for a badly timed or wild shot. Trees of every variety, sub- and super-tropical decorate the landscape at fully fifty per cent of the holes, and while constituting a never ending pleasure to the eye, by reason of their splendour, variety and colour, are nevertheless a sore trial to the perspiring golfer, already over harassed by his tottering topee, which declines to balance firmly on the head, and gets in the way of every free back-swing. You climb steep hills and tee off from beetling precipices, you walk from green to box through gardens in full and endless bloom.
But on your day, how serenely happy you are - the air like champagne, the vivid greens, the clear cut outline of the surrounding heights and the rich deep emerald of the really perfect putting greens, where a truly hit putt will always find the hole if the line has been correctly gauged. On that day of days, when your drive carries in the rarefied atmosphere, the full three hundred yards of 'The Two Rivers' your worst hazard will be, as mine was, a clump of arum lilies in full bloom in the centre of the fairway.
This 'three hundred yard drive' is neither exaggeration nor myth. It is a fact that the rarefaction of the air in these comparatively high altitudes offers less resistance to the flight of the ball and my opponent, a most useful golfer, twice lay hole high with his tee shot at holes measuring three hundred and two hundred and eightyeight yards respectively, and one of these actually carried the river twice the farthest bank being two hundred and seventy yards from the tee.
A four ball match on this course is an imposing affair, rather like a grouse drive, for in addition to one's normal contingent of caddies, smiling little copper coloured imps, there are a host of fore caddies and beaters up of lost balls, brook fishers and others.
Part of the course is known as Switzerland and consists of three mountainous holes lying below the grounds of the Governor's Chalet. One of them 'Berwicks' is rarely if ever holed out for several good reasons. For one thing it corresponds to the ginger beer hole at St. Andrews and the wattle covered hut where shade and drinks are provided has a stronger monetary attraction than the game. There are also difficulties of fulfilment on account of psychological facts and economic laws as will be readily understood when it is appreciated that local custom authorises the donation of ten Ceylon cents to the finder of a lost ball; and when it is further comprehended that the tee shot is a very blind one, requiring a superlative drive to steer clear of rough country and the hollows of a deep valley lying between the tee and the hole, some four hundred and thirty yards below.
In a word it is a thousand pounds to a hayseed that your ball will be 'lost' if the fore candies know their business. You are not likely to reascend to the summit whence you played your tee shot in order to lose another ball so you may as well take the matter philosophically, fork out your ten cents (for the ball which is found as soon as you retire to the hut) and have a drink. This is where the East differs from the West. At home we should get quite annoyed about it and murmur darkly against the committee. Out there we are almost disappointed if the expected unexpected does not happen.
With the very charming spontaneous hospitality of the East a golfing friend took me down to dine with him at his bungalow on a tea plantation. We motored some twenty miles, descending on a superperfect road amid the mountains whose grandeur was enhanced by a redgold sunset. I had to join the ship next day and my host thoughtfully arranged to put me on the night train from Nuwara Eliya to Columbo at a station well on the way to Kandy. I had a close shave for that train. We were in the middle of a game of billiards when they thought it wise to speed the lingering guest. Coolies appeared with my suitcase, golf clubs and other gear and stowed them in the car. We were quite a large party in the porch as I bade my hosts goodbye. There was a bare half hour to go over eight miles to Telawakele station some two thousand feet below. There was no time to be lost. It was then we noticed some business with a tyre and murmurs of a puncture; but no! the native chauffeur and a coolie were merely replacing the spare wheel - the job had been done. Then the self starter refused to function, the night being piercingly cold; the handle was resorted to without effect, the carburettor was tickled and the minutes flew. At last however we got moving and threaded our way out of the long garden, pitch dark under the shadow of tall trees. Then the chauffeur turned to me with a question "We are to go fas! Yes Master?" I replied "Number one fast". Thereupon ensued the most thrilling car ride in my experience. Like nearly all Orientals, he was a most able and fearless driver. He drove with perfect skill and most important speed; elbow turns, jutting corners and narrow bridges were all negotiated with just the right amount of check and no more. Gigantic heights loomed dark in the clear moonlight, the road skirted deep ravines and yawning precipices; once a mongoose crossed the track; but needless to add we made our train, which we saw circling down the mountain, some half a mile above us, the lights of the carriages showing like a glittering diamond necklace against the black velvet of the night.
In contrast to many harbours in the Far East Colombo is most satisfyingly British. It afforded a charming residence during our four days stay in Ceylon. The pageantry of Men of War, gigantic ocean liners mingling with the rust stained tramps and an endless variety of picturesque native craft is a sight not often enjoyed by the landsman. It is the rest in port that constitutes a great deal of the pleasure of yachting and the "Imperatrice" was a yacht par excellence and far more comfortable. From her bridges and decks one could command a magnificent view of the whole panorama and enjoy the sweet cool sea breezes. Colombo is one of the cheerful places of the earth, beautiful, flowery, sunny and prosperous beyond the imagination of the dwellers in Britain where "In the gloomy month of November the people of England hang and drown themselves". It was there I had my first ride in a jinrikisha, a means of conveyance, which for comfort and silent speedy efficiency takes a lot of beating. The city abounds in long shady avenues, wide, spacious and of magnificent surface. Some of them are made of red gravel and afford a most effective contrast to the vivid green of the foliage and grass borders. Colombo is eminently a city of gardens and parks all radiant in bloom.
Now I know perfectly well that English gardens and British scenery are unsurpassed on those unforgettable occasions when we see them at their best; but there is some quality of cheerfulness which seems to be peculiar to the countries of the sun, and of which we only get a fleeting sense in Britain. We are too near to those depressions which move in a southerly direction from Iceland. Our islands are pitched too far north. Our three fine days of summer have to be paid for in icy blasts, hail, rain and thunder and then Old Sol will hide his face for a fortnight. It may be healthy, it may produce a raise of super-men, but emphatically it is not cheerful.
Ceylon is famous for its precious stones and there are dozens of shops in Colombo where fortunes may be spent on jewels. Some of the indigenous stones are very attractive especially opals, moonstones, sapphires, rubies and the star sapphire.
It is an insoluble enigma to me whence come the purchasers of jewels, pictures, plate and the thousands of fascinating but terribly expensive articles exhibited in the luxury shops of the world. Few of the average professional or business men of England who inhabit the more delectable localities and live on the edges of golf courses can afford the superfluous and their wives certainly ought not to. I can vouch for it, that it is not the American to any notable extent. My shipmates work most moderate and careful in their collection of trophies and had ever an anticipatory eye on the U.S.A. customs. No, I have pondered the question carefully and the only conclusion I have come to is that these trifles, the really expensive ones I mean, must be bought by the Argentines and the Portuguese and the Greeks.
There are rare, very rare occasions when even the long handicap man plays a decent game of golf and when his card save perhaps for a fatal blemish at one hole, is almost worthy of publication. I remember playing such a game at Columbo and it follows therefore that I have nothing but praise for the course.
The Links are at Ridgeway some four or five miles from the harbour. There is a wide free open expanse of downland frequently indented with swampy marshes and plentifully adorned (when you are playing well) or cursed (in the reverse case) with meres, pieces of water too large to be called ponds, and not important enough to achieve the status of lakes. The ground slopes very gently in all directions from the clubhouse, a fine and appropriate building in the open bungalow style, set down on an ideal site and commanding sweeping views over an immense park like enclosure. On the far horizon are the mountains; in the middle distance forest and the rich lush green of the paddy fields. On the course itself the turf is fine and hard like that of a British seaside links. The putting greens are large and full of character. You get the general impression, which is doubtless true, of an old established and well cared for course.
My opponent was one of the assistant professionals, a dark haired mahogany skinned lad, tall and lithe and lissome. He was dressed in a while flowing sarong and armed with two clubs. His name sounded like 'Tum'. My very cheerful and exceedingly diminutive caddie claimed to be his younger brother and called himself 'Wilson'. He certainly did his best in the family interest; for evidently fraternal affection must have prompted him to underclub me at the long sixteenth, when he assured me a mashie would land me on the green (we were then all square). I hit a fair full shot which landed plump in a long cross bunker some ninety yards short of the pin; but effected a brilliant recovery to within a few feet of the hole and down went the putt to the confounding and consternation of the Wilson-Tum combination. Going to the eighteenth I hit just about the longest drive of my life and securing a par four, I took the hole and the match by one up, thus achieving a hard won victory over Ceylon
Some of the carries across the meres were fearsome affairs with no escape for a duffed shot. I remember at one hole one had to cross a causeway with deep water on either hand to reach the fairway nearly two hundred yards away on the farther bank. The course is a well stretched and searching test of golf, my score was about eighty and how I wish to goodness I could reproduce that game at Hoylake.