Time to pack in golf

By now, Michael Smurfit will have got his way and the Smurfit group will be able sell those choice couple of acres adjacent to the K Club to its chairman without having to go to the bother of offering the site on the open market.

Is it too much to hope that the Smurfit group might go the whole hog and offer the whole K Club back to Michael Smurfit?

For far too long, Smurfit's board (and its institutional shareholders) have been content to indulge the golfing whims of Michael Smurfit.

It's been said many times, but the Smurfit group - of which the chairman owns no more than 5 per cent - has no business running golf courses or indeed anything else not directly involved with its packaging business.

It got out of banking when it sold Smurfit Paribas, so why not get out of golf.

At the same time, Smurfit should also get out of the sponsorship of the European Open in the K Club. It's fine for manufacturers of consumer products like Murphy's and Guinness to sponsor golf and hurling events.

But what business does a manufacturer of a commodity product like cardboard boxes have in expensive golf sponsorship - except to indulge the whims of its golf-loving chairman.

It's bad enough that Michael Smurfit is on a grossly inflated remuneration package that is totally at odds with the way the Smurfit share price has moved in the past few years. The €2.17 (£1.71) share price this week is about the same as the share price back in 1991.

Michael Smurfit, who also brought Smurfit shareholders the delights of the failed investment in Brent Walker (RIP), has enough to do running the Smurfit group and chairing Smurfit Stone without bothering with costly frivolities like the K Club.

If he wants to become a golf entrepreneur on the side, then he should do it out of his own pocket.

The K Club should be sold by the Smurfit group. It serves no purpose as an offshoot of a company that purports to be a world leader in the packaging industry.