Locations > Great Britain > Golf courses

The Hell bunker was a dreaded hazard, fairly near the Taskersons' house, in the middle of the long sloping eighth fairway. It guarded the green in a sense, though at a great distance, being far below it and slightly to the left. The abyss yawned in such a position as to engulf the third shot of a golfer like Geoffrey, a naturally beautiful and graceful player, and about the fifteenth of a duffer like Jacques – UTV, 20-21.

The bunker still exists on the short par-5 eighth of the Royal Liverpool Links, Hoylake (below), near the Furniss family's house, but time has filled or Lowry's imagination deepened the actual hole, the name of which derives from a notorious hazard at St. Andrews golf course.

Above: The "Hell Bunker" at St. Andrews Old Course. The biggest bunker of the course, it comes into play on the second shot of the par-5 14th hole.

Image: Horace Hutchinson, British Golf Links. London: J.S. Virtue & Co (1897).

Above: A more recent view of the Royal Liverpool Links, Hoylake.

Above: Caldy golf club, West Kirby, situated near the River Dee. Image courtesy Colin Dilnot.