Finding a place to play golf in a strange community is a job that requires the patience of Job and all the ingenuity of Dick Tracy. The H.A.A. is able to make arrangements for its Varsity aces, but the little man who likes to get out in the sun, digs his divots at all the wrong times, and probably cheats a little on his score is hard put to locate a place where he can be happy.
Ever since the University's agreement with the Belmont Country Club lapsed at the end of the great depression, Mr. Average Golfer has had to rely on public courses, and they are none too good.
Best of the lot is the Leo Martin Memorial course in Auburndale, out near Wellesley. Once the private Riverside Club, its fairways and greens are in good shape and, for the most part, interesting to play. The first nine is short, and the holes near the clubhouse are rather flat, but the others present some challenge.
The back nine is reasonably long and has some well-wooded and very narrow fairways. Natives call Riverside the best public links in the Commonwealth.
The only links for men without their own transportation is ten minutes away at Fresh Pond at the end of the Huron Avenue trolley run in Cambridge. Here the course itself is well laid out, though short, with its physical condition and the people playing on it major objections.
The ground is low, and the fairways soggy, and the greens leave something wanting. The unwary golfers is as likely as not to be hit on the skull by someone shooting into him from behind, and some afternoons a crowd of little boys comes out from a local high school to slow things up terribly. Add to this a group of urchins who pop out from behind bushes to sell balls and another who chase little girls about, and you have some idea of the general confusion.
Wellesley College has a neat little course for men lucky enough to have a hostess to buy them in. The fairways and greens are in top condition, the holes are interesting--wooded and rolling--and there is never a crowd.
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