Burns

I dug out my hardcover Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary this morning and looked up the word burn to found quite a number of definitions, but not the one I was seeking.

It can be a verb: to consume fuel..., to be hot ..., to undergo alteration or destruction by the action of fire..., to force or make a way by or as if by burning ..., to receive sunburn ..., to transform by exposure to heat or fire ..., to cause or undergo combustion ..., to injure by exposure to hear or fire ..., irritate, annoy ..., to wear out.

It can also be a noun: the injury or damage resulting from exposure to heat or fire ..., the firing of a spacecraft or rocket engine ..., anger ...

All of these were quite unsatisfying because I know that in Scotland and northeastern England a burn is a wee stream. In my experience burns that cross linksland are often highly engineered with vertical walls, often containing very little water and are usually the only water hazards on links courses. In many places they are difficult to see, but elsewhere there are berms built up on one side or the other. The club will sometimes provide long poles with a metal cup on the end to retrieve a misplayed ball. Burns rarely result in a lost ball, only a lost stroke.



Some are famous. We all know of the Swilcan Burn and the bridge that spans is on the fairway of the eighteenth hole on the Old Course at St Andrews. Others are infamous. Who can forget the image of Jean Van de Velde standing barefoot in the Barry Burn on the eighteenth hole during his meltdown at Carnoustie?

D.Lux of Maine