YET ANOTHER HAZARD..

FROM OUR GOLF CORRESPONDENT

Today saw Snopper`s return to the golf circuit with a round of heroic inadequacy at Poult Wood.   Admittedly the conditions were not the best with a recurring drizzle making the course very wet underfoot.   Golfers of even modest ability might well have avoided too many problems, since the chances of their balls arriving on the fairways are pretty good.   However, in Snopper`s case, fairways seemed today to take the form of restricted areas, ones into which he was barred from entering.   Consequently, by about the third hole, his feet had become wringing wet due to a lethal combination of wading through the seemingly endless rough and wearing 30-year old golf shoes which had lost any pretence of waterproofing years ago.

To be fair, his first tee shot was encouraging, landing on the green but, as ever, the three putts meant that the hole won the first round and from then on things got worse - he even managed to record a five over par eight at the third, by which time a certain numbness had begun to creep into his bunionised plates of meat.   There is absolutely no point in recording the paucity of the score for his round but if he is to return to the game in the near future, he really must invest in a new pair of golf shoes.

This might not be easy for an elderly person struggling to survive on a fixed income in times of austerity but maybe if he simply views the task as yet another in a long line of hazards to contend with, then he might just pull through this latest setback in his undistinguished golfing career.   Or maybe there is a registered charity somewhere out there whose purpose in life is to provide hopeless, ageing golfers with waterproof shoes - a bit like the winter fuel allowance only more useful.  People could go on charity walks, run marathons, rattle tins outside superstores, that kind of thing.  After all, every little helps.