GOLF AT COLONSAY 91 



feet, where the whole party, including the two keepers 

 who are carrying the clubs, are soon engaged in a pro- 

 tracted search. Better would it have been if I had 

 begun with my oldest, blackest, and most battered 

 ball ! The sand of the bunker is of a dazzling white, 

 composed of the powdered fragments of shells, and, 

 worse still, it is strewn with water-rounded white 

 pebbles from which a golf ball is almost undistinguish- 

 able in shape and size. I tremble to think of the con- 

 gestion there would be at the starting-place if this 

 bunker was in front of the first tee at North Berwick 

 or Mitcham. At Colonsay there is no hurry, and after 

 a leisurely search my ball is discovered, happily in a 

 place from which I am able to extricate it with a nib- 

 lick, but I have played two more, and lose the first 

 hole after missing a long putt for a possible half. 



The next hole is a short one, and the green can be 

 reached with a full drive if you have the courage to 

 negotiate the angle of two stone dykes which inter- 

 vene between you and the flag. Next follows a pretty 

 " blind " hole over a high rocky and rushy mound at 

 which you are apt to get into serious trouble if you do 

 not carry the bunker, and to lose your ball in rushes 

 and bracken if you get off the line. 



At this point my black spaniel Ben brings me his 

 first rabbit. Like most sporting dogs he has a sove- 

 reign contempt for golf as a game, but finds a round 

 on the Machrins links full of incident, as the ground 

 swarms with rabbits, and he seldom fails to pounce on 

 three or four before two rounds are finished. The 

 rabbits are a doubtful blessing on the links, as although 

 they keep the grass so short and fine that a mowing- 

 machine is never needed except upon the putting greens, 



