Every links is a golf course, but not every golf course is a links: the next three men's majors will be played on true links. Here's how to tell what that means

Golf Digest, June, 2004 by Ron Whitten

DECADES FROM NOW, GOLF fans will tell their grandchildren about the magical summer of '04, when the planets fell into alignment and tree-lined, waterlogged, gussied-up major champi-onship courses disappeared from view, eclipsed by a trio of rugged, windblown, weather-beaten links: Shinnecock Hills, Royal Troon and Whistling Straits. Great men played in the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship that summer, it will be said, but they were dominated by Mother Nature and Lady Luck.

So forget about a Grand Slam this year. The next three majors are on links, considered by some to be unattractive, by others as unpredictable, and by even the best players in the world as unrelenting in their demands.

Unfortunately, some golfers think every golf course is a links. But the two terms are not interchangeable. A links is a small, special category of golf courses. The classic definition: a course on oceanside sand dunes that were formed by a receding sea and covered by fertile soil from a river estuary.

Of the three, that describes only Royal Troon. But we consider Shinnecock and Whistling Straits to be genuine links as well, for our classification relies not on mere proximity to the sea, but instead upon the particular kind of game needed to succeed on such courses. It's a game that involves less of an aerial assault and more of a ground attack: low, penetrating drives, knockdown shots, run-up approaches and putters from well off the green.

For our purposes, a links is any course--by an ocean or not--built on well-drained, sandy soil that offers firm and fast fairways and greens, has uneven ground, an infinite variety of stances and lies, very few trees, punishing rough of native grasses and deep, recessed bunkers. Most of all, a links in our book must have everpresent wind, whipping from many points on the compass, the kind of breezes, zephyrs, gusts and gales that can affect not just tee shots and approach shots, but even putts--the kind of wind that can blow sand clean out of bunkers (which is why links bunkers are normally recessed into the earth).

Links golf is more than just a definition. It's also an experience. Tour pros who have abandoned persimmon woods and wound balls will be facing the architectural equivalent of yesterday's equipment during the next three months and will find it far less user-friendly than their favorite PGA Tour stop. In an era when championship golfers play point-to-point golf, Shinnecock, Royal Troon and Whistling Straits will force even the best players to create shots.

Part of that experience is a reminder of the past, as well as a glimpse of the possible future. Before automatic irrigation systems and memorial tree-planting committees, a majority of American courses looked more or less like links: wide open and treeless, with dry turf and hard greens when it didn't rain, and shaggy fairways and receptive greens when it did. But most courses weren't built on sandy soil, which is why innovations were made in greens mix, drainage, agronomy and the like.

OVER TIME, AMERICAN COURSES BECAME modest versions of Augusta National. But trees planted 50 years ago as wind buffers are now choking out sunlight and air to golf holes, so they're being removed in massive numbers (see "Is Your Course Overtreed?" October 2002). To reduce escalating costs of fuel and labor, polished roughs have been turned into ragged, unmaintained areas. Many country clubs (and new courses) are looking more and more like links these days (public-relations firms certainly call them links) even if they don't quite play the same. But that could change, too, if government-imposed water restrictions leave no choice but to go firm and fast.

Links golf is also an attitude, of patience and perseverance in the face of bad bounces and hideous lies. Remember the final round of last year's British Open, when a dozen players, including Tiger Woods and third-round leader Thomas Bjorn, stumbled across the dry knobs and barren hollows of Royal St. George's, leaving Ben Curtis as the astonished, and astonishing, winner? Sure, stuff like that happens at the Open, because it's always played on a links. But this summer that could happen in triplicate.

Especially if the wind is up. "That's what affects scoring most on the tour, both here and in Europe," says Mark O'Meara, the 1998 British Open winner at Royal Birkdale. "If you don't have the wind, these guys are so good they're going to shoot low scores. But if you get wind, that's when you make them work for a living."

The work will start in June on New York's Long Island, at the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, which O'Meara calls "about as linksy as you can get for an American-style course." Emerging from high ground of an isthmus between the Atlantic Ocean and Great Peconic Bay, Shinnecock's fairways tumble off high ridges and slide through narrow valleys. Its smallish greens slant and cant at aggravating angles. It has more bunkers than trees, especially after last year's aggressive chain-saw massacre of pines, oaks, bushes and underbrush. It also has hay-like rough that can snap a golf shaft and swallow a golf bag.