NEW BALLS PLEASE...

Our Golf Correspondent reports...

They say that things come in threes and in all the years I have been covering Snopper`s golfing exploits, I never imagined that he would find a place alongside a proper golfer and the former supreme leader of North Korea.  

First, the proper golfer and the news yesterday that Jim Furyk, he of the idiosyncratic swing,  had the round of a lifetime in the Travellers Championship by carding a score of just 58, the lowest ever recorded in a PGA Championship tournament.

But, of course, his score is paled into insignificance by the one achieved by the late Kim Jong Il, the former Dear Leader of the Democratic People`s Republic of North Korea in the early 1990s - there is some uncertainty about the actual date.  No matter, for at the Grand Opening of the Pyongyang Golf Complex, which contained North Korea`s only 18-hole course, the Dear Leader picked up a golf club for the first time in his life and fired a 38 under par round of just 34!  This was witnessed by 17 security guards who confirmed that the round included no less than 11 holes in one.   

Now, Snopper doesn`t really go in for memorable scoring - his inclusion in this report is due to more mundane, but nevertheless remarkable matters.  These days, as he wanders aimlessly into his 78th year, he can really only manage nine holes, which he did today at Tonbridge`s Poult Wood course.  His round was one of extremes - a couple of creditable pars but a scattering of quadruple bogeys, largely due to his talent for losing golf balls despite frantic searching in assorted undergrowth.

Today he lost nine - one for each hole and no less than three on the last (things do come in threes)  - and must be something of a record to go alongside those of Mr. Furyk and the dearly departed Dear Leader.  So it`s new balls please for Snopper before he goes back , undaunted, for yet another argument with the Royal and Ancient game.