by Karen Misuraca, KarenMisuraca.com

In the 1700s when the sport of golf was born, the first courses were simply shorn meadows between sand dunes and shrubs, with few trees or water hazards. The pioneering architects walked the breezy seaside hillocks, shaping their layouts not with bulldozers, but according to the lay of the land. The term “links”, which is what all of the original courses were, comes from a Scottish word for unfarmable land between the sea and the farmland—the link between the two. Traditionally, links courses are laid along the coastline in an outward nine, returning in the opposite direction in an inward nine, making it necessary for players to cope with opposite wind patterns, out and back. (more…)

ShareThis