Now Santa can reduce his handicap

SO YOU think this is snow; the slushy, quick-melting stuff that's been around here this week. Let me tell you about a place with serious snow; a rather special, soon-to-be-finished golf course, where the members are currently looking at fairways with a covering of up to 10 feet. But then, one would expect nothing less from the most northerly course in the world.

Given its location in Lapland, Harstad Golf Club is the sort of place where one might see the ubiquitous Santa Claus display his skills, now that he has completed his winter chores. When the remaining three holes of the nine-hole layout are completed this summer, it will officially take over from the hitherto nine-hole, record-holder of Bjorkliden in Sweden, by 28 miles.

The par-35 layout, measuring 2,739 yards, is in a peaceful settlement on one of a chain of islands that dot the northern coast of the Norwegian and Barents seas. Roughly 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle, it is exactly 1,474 miles from the North Pole and can draw on a population of 70,000 within a two-hour drive.

"It would be nice if this helps us become known to more people," said Kyrre Johansen, the club's technical adviser who oversees much of the construction work there, when he is not otherwise engaged as an engineer on a North Sea oil platform. Harstad certainly has its attractions, not least of which is the longest summer playing season of any course in the world, courtesy of 24-hour sunlight, from mid-May until mid-August.

The course has been 11 years in the making. Formed in 1986 as the Arctic Golf Club, for its first nine years it was involved in bureaucratic wrangles, largely due to the opposition of the local mayor. "Do something else," he protested. "Golf is nothing for us up here." But work eventually began in March 1995 and, in the next two summers, six holes were built.

When the difficult, remaining three holes are carved out of a wooded hillside this summer, a welcome amenity will have been completed. "People around here have a lot of time to spare," said Johansen. "Norwegians walk, walk, walk. Now, with a golf course, they will have an easier way of having fun out in nature."

To put Harstad's location into perspective, it has a latitute of 68 degrees 46 minutes, compared with 55 degrees four minutes for Ballyliffin, Ireland's most northerly course, which is 2,380 miles from the North Pole. Then there are St Andrews, 56 degrees 20 minutes (2,335 miles), Augusta National, 33 degrees 28 minutes (3,914 miles) and Singapore Island GC, one degree 17 minutes (6,128 miles).

Imagine endless summer days

"No golfer has ever been forced to say to himself with tears, `There are no more links to conquer'." John L Low.

AMERICAN observers are responding warmly to the prospect of regular appearances by David Feherty on their television screens from now on. He is seen to be filling the CBS chair vacated by Ben Wright and formerly known as the Henry Longhurst chair. It has also been referred to as the Nigel Bruce chair, insofar as the occupant's duties have historically consisted of tossing in a timely "Oh, dear", in the manner of Sherlock Holmes's befuddled friend, Dr Watson. Bruce memorably played Watson, opposite Basil Rathbone's classic portrayal of Holmes.

For his part, Feherty has been familiarising his prospective audience with his Northern Ireland background. Referring in a recent magazine interview to his apprenticeship to Fred, Daly at Balmoral, he remarked acidly: "We didn't have too many problems, other than the clubhouse being blown up twice."

He went on: "I was born a Protestant: now I'm a lapsed Buddhist. Growing up in Northern Ireland gives you a healthy disregard for all religion. Which side is right? I prefer to think they are both wrong. I just don't care who your God is. When everyone thinks he occupies the high ground, no one looks up. I think we should all look up."

THOUGH I have always been somewhat critical of Greg Norman's competitive qualities, I wish him nothing but good fortune in the season ahead. I believe he deserves it, if only for the remarkable manner in which he handled the horror of his wretched collapse at Augusta National last April.

Those thoughts are prompted by the admirable resilience of Sweden's Helen Alfredsson, who suffered similar torment in the 1994 US Women's Open. Indeed it is only her chirpy disposition which helps us forget that Alfredsson opened the event with a 63; then shot 69 to break both the men's and women's 36-hole records.

But midway through the third round, with a seven-stroke lead at 13-under-par, her game began to fall apart. She then proceeded to cover the last 29 holes in 14-over, for an eventual ninth place, eight strokes behind the champion, Patty Sheehan.

"Of course I wanted to run away, to sit in a corner and cry," she recalled. Instead, she forced herself to go before the cameras, speaking openly on American television about how it felt to fail on such a grand scale. Needless to remark, she won many friends that day, through her composure, honesty and charisma.

The long-time fiancee of US soccer player Leo Cuellar, 31-year-old Alfredsson remains refereshingly forthright in her views. "It doesn't really bother me that it's a man's world we live in and that I can't earn as much as the men on the (US) PGA Tour," she said. "But what really ticks me off is seeing what the Seniors are making, playing on Mickey Mouse courses, shooting 20 under par.

She went on: "You know what's funny about playing with men, especially the successful, wealthy ones I see in pro-ams? They refuse to hit more club than I do. If I hit a seven-iron, they have to hit an eight. If I hit an eight, they hit a nine. Once I'm standing on the tee of a par-three with a famous man whom I can't name. I hit a five-iron pin-high.

"`What did you hit - three?' I tell him I hit a five. So he says, `Well, what do you think I should hit? Six? Seven?' I say to him, `Hit whatever club you want. You haven't gotten it out of your shadow all day, anyway.' Then we had a good laugh. I think most people appreciate when you're honest with them." She might have stolen that line from The Shark.

TIGER WOODS is learning that any player wishing to make an issue of discrimination in golf is entering a minefield in which he needs to tread very warily indeed. The point arises from his recent assertion that: "There are some clubs I cannot enter because of the colour of my skin."

At the time, this was generally acknowledged as a courageous attempt by the 21-year-old at confronting a contentious issue. But on another occasion recently, a sharp-eyed observer, who remembered Tiger's words happened to notice the golf shirt he was wearing. It was from the Lochinvar Country Club in Houston, which is a men-only establishment: strictly no women.

Meanwhile, in the context of Woods's amateur career, who remembers the rare distinction gained by a promising young English player named Paul Page? The same Paul Page who looked set for a productive professional career after gaining Walker Cup honours in 1993, the year he was also runner-up to lain Pyman in the British Amateur Championship.

Having struggled to 169th in the Challenge Tour order of merit in 1995, he slipped further adrift last September by failing to survive pre-qualifying at Manchester, in quest of a tour card. And his connection with Woods, who is already immensely rich? Page is the last player to have beaten him in the US Amateur, which he did by 2 and 1 in the second round in Houston in 1993.

TEASER: A player consistently places his ball-marker approximately two inches behind the ball on the green. He says that he does so to ensure that he does not accidentally move the ball. Does such a procedure comply with the rules?

ANSWER: No. A player who places a ball-marker two inches behind his ball cannot be considered to have marked the position of the ball with sufficient accuracy. Accordingly, each time he does so, the player incurs a penalty of one stroke, as provided in Rule 20-1, and must place the ball as near as possible to the spot from which it was lifted (Rule 20-3c). The player's action was unnecessary because Rule 20-1 states that no penalty is incurred if a ball is accidentally moved in the process of marking or lifting it under a rule.