CREATIVE ACCOUNTANCY COMES IN HANDY....

From our Golf Correspondent

This was the scene at just one of the holes at the prestigious Hever Castle Golf Club on Wednesday when, against all logic, Snopper had been invited back to try his hand once more at the challenging course.

The results were perhaps inevitable as not only were new records broken for the number of balls lost on the nine holes of the Princes Course but also some new rules may have been formulated. They were, of course, Snopper`s own rules, which pay some regard to those of the Royal and Ancient whilst introducing some `adjustments` to take account of his age, his physical and mental shortcomings and his dismal prowess at the game. He looks upon the whole business as not one which breaks the established rules of the game but more the creation of new ones.

The first concerns the matter of lost balls. Now, it is a rule of golf that a player is allowed five minutes to try and find a lost ball. Snopper has, however, introduced a variation that calls upon playing partners to conduct a cursory hunt in the undergrowth before swiftly abandoning all attempts, thus allowing our hero to drop out onto the fairway and sorting out a nice lie in the process.

Which leads to the next variation, the one concerning the penalty strokes for losing a ball. Now, Snopper has, as reported earlier, never ever bought a golf ball in his life, as he has always utilised the 1400 balls retrieved from a nearby course by a much missed golden retriever named Rupert who had been trained for the task. One would have thought that with so many `free` balls at his disposal, Snopper would be happy to accept the rule which provides for a penalty of two shots for a ball lost on terra firma and one shot if lost in a water hazard.

Not a bit of it - Snopper`s attitude is that it is penalty enough to lose a ball and how dare the Royal and Ancient impose any further penalty for what has always been a very frequent occurence, as witnessed by yesterday`s lost ball count of seven in just nine holes.

Lastly, for now at least, Snopper has joined the ranks of `celebtity` hackers in claiming that he is allowed to have as many tee shots as it takes to hit a good one. He takes as his precedent the golfing exploits of former US president Bill Clinton, who has been credited with introducing this most useful of rule variations. It saved Snopper the indignity of having to take seven off the tee at the watery par 3 third, where his third tee shot landed safely on the fringe of the green, giving him the chance to claim an unlikely one over for the hole. One is seriously tempted to enquire just how much longer this can all go on.