ix] GOLF LINKS 147 



growth. The most potent of all such influences has 

 doubtless been that of the Marram or Bent Grass, 

 as explained in the foregoing Chapter. Let us hope 

 that its work is properly appreciated by golfers. 

 When a sliced drive lands a ball in the rough 

 skirting the sea, instead of giving vent to objurgations 

 on the Bents, it is well to remember that they are 

 after all the best friends of the golfer, for without 

 them the links, if they existed at all, would have 

 been relatively flat and featureless. The rounded 

 contours of the green, and especially those heights 

 which have earned for themselves such picturesque 

 local titles, and have caused so many moments of 

 exultation or of black despair, owe their origin alike 

 to this most effective of Dune-Formers. 



But we have already seen that the White Dune 

 which they at first produce is unstable, and liable 

 to shift, partly owing to the isolation of the particles 

 of the sand loosely held between the tufted leaves, 

 partly to the failure of the Marram Grass itself as 

 the Dune grows higher. It requires the growth of 

 many smaller plants of various affinity, forming 

 combinations as various as the coasts on which they 

 dwell, to build up between the tufts of Marram Grass 

 that dense felt which first gives permanence to the 

 Dune. A sod is thus gradually compacted, which 

 covers over the loose sand and protects it, con- 

 verting the White or Shifting Dune into the Grey 



102 



