UNDER FIVE WEEKS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 110, 11 May 1936, Page 11

UNDER FIVE WEEKS

COURSE IN A HURRY STORY OF VISITOR’S FEAT Constructing a golf course in a mountain setting over six thousand feet above sea level, with no tools other than picks and shovels, genuinely conscripted labour, a foot of snow over the whole area, and but a few days over the month in which to do the job—an impossible task, and yet one which has been done. The tale is told by Mr. W. P. Hornby, an Englishman who visited Christchurch recently, and who foi some years has adopted golf architecture as a hobby. The name is one well-known in sporting annals, for Hornby t were playing splendid cricket in the time of Grace and Ranjitsinhji, and Mr. W. P. Hornby himself has boon in the cable news in the last few years through contesting the British Amateur Golf Chain, pionship. He it was who startled opponents and spectators alike by using a putter off the tee when he felt like it, aud putting with a style reminiscent of a croquet shoot. Despite those little peculiarities, Mr. Hornby is a fine player, and an understanding one, as the success of the courses he has planned bears ample proof. His big trial of skill as a golf architect came just after he had completed a course at Lake Garda, in Italy. An Italian who was a stranger introduced himself and asked whether Mr. Hornby would make a course at a spot called Campo Carlomagno, six thousand feet up in the Dolomites. The name dates back a thousand years, when the mighty Charlemagne camped there with his army. Mr. Hornby agreed, and was taken to a beautiful spot in the mountains and shown an expanse favourable in contour, but covered with a foot of snow. Under the snow, he was informed, was a bcavyy growth not of grass, "but of alpine flowers, wonderful to look upon, but providing r doubtful lie for a golf ball. Mr. Hornby wondered just how the transformation was to be made, and a conversation ensued on these lines: ‘‘What labour have you 1 ?” “None, but we can send down and •conscript men from the valleys. We can get plenty of them. They will not like it, but they will work just the same.” “What tools have you!” “Picks and shovels.” “When do you want the course completed?” “We have advertised in all the principal European papers that, it will be ready for play by July 1.” That last was a thunderbolt, as the conversation took place on May 27. Mr. Hornby gently but clearly explained that no golf architect, wishing to construct a first-class course, tould guarantee completion in under ten months in normal circumstances. However, the promoters were so eager that he consented to do the best he could. “They were quite right about the labour,” said Mr. Hornby. “They conscripted men from far and near. They certainly were not the most will-

mg, and you can imagine what we were up against with only p;vks and shovels to work with. However we did wonders and soon had fairways of some sort. “Bunkers were the least of the trouble, as there were so many shell holes about. I could not imagine what to do about greens, but at last I found a glade in the forest where there was a good growth of grass, and we rolled up the turf and used it on the greens. The course was actually oven for play on the advertised date, though the greates enthusiast would not have have said that it was ready. “The Italian holiday-makers took the game up with wonderful zest, and few of them knew anything about it at the start. I arranged foj an English professional to come over, and he made a wonderful thing out of it, even though the season was very short. One man wanted to buy two hundred golf balls to start with, and was quite- surprised to learn that one did not use a new ball at every hole, and that half a dozen would be ample for a start. “Many European notabilities visit Campo Carlomagno, and the professional was made much of. His eldest daugter can now speak four languages, and his youngest child, which was born at the Campo, has a duke and a marquis for godfathers, and his godmothers are a princess and a countess.”