WILL GOLF MOVE AWAY FROM 18 HOLES?
have never played golf in I Iceland, but I’m tempted to visit to see their courses. Playing under the Midnight Sun would be a unique experience. Next June might be a good time, when the tiny island nation gets behind their soccer team at the World Cup in Russia. Iceland should be festive indeed.
How does Iceland qualify for the World Cup finals, and not South Africa? Perhaps it’s their hardiness as a people, their ability to live happily in a frozen landscape filled with active volcanoes, where half the year is mostly spent without daylight. They are also keen golfers and, it seems lately, possible disruptors of the game’s traditions. After beating England at football, why not reinvent golf?
Someone in Iceland has built a 13-hole course, and suggested there’s no reason to follow the 18-hole model. They play 13-hole events, and that’s it. We have courses that don’t have 18, but we’d never think about stopping short of that number in completing a full round.
Why 18 in the first place? The answer has nothing to do with tots of whisky. The number evolved more realistically through history. Early courses in the 18th and 19th centuries, as Peter Lewis reveals in his book
Why Are There Eighteen Holes?, had a varied number of holes. In 1857 there was only one 18-holer, and that was at St Andrews. There was nothing resembling a standard number of holes, and no measure either for the duration of matches.
The first Open Championship, in 1860 at Prestwick, was played on a 12-hole course, and the championship contested over 36 holes. Blackheath in London, one of the world’s oldest clubs, had a 7-hole course, and medals were over 21 holes.
But a game-changer in the second half of the 19th century was the gutta percha ball replacing its predecessor, an expensive leather ball stuffed hard with feathers. The cheaper ‘gutta’ made a physical impact on courses. Being a solid sphere, it was more difficult to damage. This led golfers to use iron clubs more frequently, chopping up fairways and bunkers. The wear and tear on smaller playing grounds caused new golf clubs to contemplate the benefit of longer courses.
Who best to emulate than St Andrews, regarded as “the golfing metropolis of the UK.” It had begun with 22 holes, 11 out and 11 back, but this changed to 18 in 1764. Four short opening holes that no one liked were converted into two, making 9 out and 9 back.
But a century was to pass before St Andrews had any impact. In 1864 Tom Morris laid out the links at Westward Ho! And it was 18 holes, the first in England. More clubs sought to emulate St Andrews, and the ideal number was 18 because St Andrews was 18. By 1890, the game had evolved to the point where 18 was considered the proper number. The pattern for the future development of the game had been established.
Today, though, new golfers everywhere, and not just those in Iceland, question why 18 holes should be the norm. They reason it takes too long to play 18 in a fast-moving world. So the evolution of courses from 1764 to 1890 might be reversed. Courses might be shortened to fit into smaller parcels of land, and be played in less time.
The Belmont in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape has 18, but was designed by Tyrone Yates to play as a compact 12-holer if the second to seventh on a separate hillside were not needed for any reason. Those 12 holes could be played in 2½ hours, or less, and this time reduction is why there could be a revolution. The obvious place to have shorter courses would be in cities. Struggling Gauteng clubs could sell off chunks of land and still retain a course with fewer holes which might prove popular to play. Thirteen sounds catchy. Any golf club brave enough to make the first move?