It was Bobby Jones who said,  "Getting into a water hazard is like being in a plane crash—the result is final. Landing in a bunker is similar to an automobile accident—there is a chance of recovery."   In decrying what he saw as another nasty import from the New World, the British agronomist, Jim Arthur, coined another apt phrase:  "Golf is not a water sport."  Why then do developers and owners increasingly demand water hazards on their courses?

    The answer lies in part with modern-day golfer equating water hazards with 'superior' courses.  The younger generation have been weaned on water and one might suppose that familiarity breeds contempt, yet to be contemptuous, in golfing parlance, is to end up with water on the brain, which equates with death!

    Historically, water hazards are a British phenomenon, traced particularly to those innocuous wee burns (streams) that meander toward the ocean.  Not confined to St Andrews and Carnoustie, most Scottish links will have water that comes into play on one or two holes, though one must remember that these ancient courses first were devised when the ball was a featherie; an orb that floated.  In those circumstances the spirit of the game remained intact, for if you could see your featherie and it remained relatively still for a moment, you could still take a swipe at the missile — albeit a bobbing one — the epitome of playing the ball as it lies.

    Willie Park in 1900 was the first architect to introduce an artificial water hazard, a tiny pond close by the fifth green on ‘The Old’ at Sunningdale, though this had little influence on those who followed in his wake. Indeed, throughout the golden age of architecture — that period when Harry Colt, Tom Simpson, Herbert Fowler and John Frederick Abercromby were creating masterpieces of understated perfection — the inventive bump and run was considered far superior than any smart-aleck shot with a lofting iron. With seaside links, heathland and moorland representing the best of British courses, typified by firm, fast putting surfaces and the cleverest of bunkering, both in style and location, this truly was the golden age of strategic reasoning.   Water hazards, far from taking hold, were regarded as intruders anywhere away from the coastal shoreline, though thankfully they were infrequent, while being invariably in the form of lakes, ponds or streams that had existed naturally for centuries.

    The next clue to man-made water proliferation can be found in the vastly improving weaponry of the post-war era.  The wedge had been invented and perfected, shafts were made of steel, balls were consistent and traveling further off the tee. Water was seen as a way to level the playing field, with Robert Trent Jones in the late 1940s the first to introduce 'watery graves' in his so-called heroic school of golf design.  So, the crossing of water is associated with heroism, at least that is what Mr. Robert Trent Jones would have us believe, yet his more famous namesake, Bobby Jones, maintained that "the purpose of any golf course should be to give pleasure to the greatest number of golfers, offering problems a man or woman can attempt according to his or her ability. It will never become hopeless for the duffer, nor fail to challenge and interest the expert; and, like the Old Course at St. Andrews, it will become more delightful the more it is studied and played.   A good course should attract players to play it again and again."

    Do not mistake the overriding theme here; the argument is not against water per se, but rather that its employment has romped out of control and is making golf less fun.  There is no joy, as the writer discovered recently, in negotiating water on no less than 15 holes out of 18, this on a course designed supposedly with retired golfers in mind, especially when on six holes there was no place to 'bail-out'.   Playing with middle-of-the-road, 10-16 handicappers, their scores were calculated additionally in balls drowned, with four considered a fair round.  One poor soul lost 15 — one per hole — yet by no means was he playing utter rubbish. The game was no fun!

    If water as a hazard is to work effectively, its use in the design of things must abide by three immutable rules. First, it must always be visible, for there is nothing more unjust than to incur a penalty in innocence. Second, there should be an alternative route,albeit by adding the possibility of costing an extra stroke to par. Third, it should tempt the golfer to flirt in order to gain meaningful benefit.  The term heroic can safely be applied to any stroke that calls for a shot of 'death or glory' proportions.  Indeed, if the water hazard lacks a degree of heroism in its makeup, failing thus to tempt the more accomplished player, it fails utterly.

    Perhaps the best form of water hazard is the gentle arc, one that allows the player to bite off as much as he thinks he can properly chew, while the game benefits greatly if a gradual slope of the shoreline is permitted to remain, allowing an errant ball still to be played.  We British still savour the memory of Payne Stewart in Ryder Cup mode making a delicious nonsense of the 17th at The Belfry, efforts which brought out satanic feelings in European fans.  It was pure theatre, of course, made possible by Stewart's having the remotest possibility of escape from the waters edge. Payne, bless his Argyle socks, took them off and waded right in.  No death on that ‘death or glory’ occasion, though the metaphoric severing of arteries gladdened every European heart, including those of the St John Ambulance Brigade!