Tom Simpson wrote a letter to The Times from his home in Bramshott:

“The promoters of a new course …. invariably press for length because they have been ‘got at’ by the good player, amateur and professional, the plausible excuse being that, unless the course measure at least  6,500 yards, it will be thought nothing of. I confess that when I am asked to lay out a golf course, I accept no instructions of matters of this kind, and at all times refuse to lay out a course for the benefit of the tiger.”

The ‘penal’ school favoured long hitters without necessarily making them think. It penalised the rabbit because failure to hit a long ball ruined many a hole, without providing an alternative route for the thinking player.
Even bunkers can help the good golfer by removing choice as to how the shot should be played. Such ‘honest-to-goodness’ courses included Deal, the Old Course at Sunningdale and Sandwich.

A strategically designed course forces good golfers to choose routes which often take them close to danger rather than straight down the middle; they also allow the high handicap players to plot their own, different route, on each hole.
Liphook was to be a torch-bearer of the strategic school – others are St Andrews, Woking, Hayling Island, Balybunion, Carnoustie and Muirfield.

Back to History of the Design

Back in the 1920s, Tom Simpson gave an illustration of the difference.

‘Penalising the Rabbit’ and ‘Worrying the Tiger’.

Beneath this picture, Simpson wrote: ”Penal School. Bad. Sufficient margin of error to make it almost impossible for the good player to find a bunker”. Under the other: “Strategic School. Good. Everything to worry the good player. Nothing to worry the rabbit”