Home on the range

A COLD wind breeze played through the trees of Phoenix Golf Club, and their branches groaned in the ark. Snow was falling and across the Fifteen Acres could be seen the darting, bobbing lights of the Wheelchair Element, as they holed at the ninth and turned towards the clubhouse to complete the final nine by torchlight.

The Oldest Member sighed a long, deep sigh.

"I'm sorry, did you say something?" asked a pale and callow youth who had been dabbling on the outskirts of an orange juice for the past half an hour.

The Oldest Member shook his head. "I did not. But since you are so good as to take an interest in my welfare, let me tell you a tale."

"A tale?" yelped the p & c youth, simultaneously rising from rest like a pheasant, his eye fixed on the door marked exit.

"A tale," agreed the Oldest Member equably, gesturing the p & c youth back into his chair. "I have a fund of tales."

"So I've heard," whimpered the youngster in a resigned voice, like that of a chap in an electric chair as he hears the electrician declare he's finally fixed that pesky plug.

"Did you know, for example," sniffed the Oldest Member, "that this building was not always Phoenix Park Golf Club?" The p & c youth shook his head.

"No indeed. In a former dark age it was known as Aras an Uachtarain, and it was the home of the President."

"The president of the golf club?" asked the p & c youth helpfully.

The Oldest Member shook his head kindly. "No. I think you will have trouble understanding the level of depravity of the dark age to which I refer. I alone am old enough to remember it. The President was simply President of Ireland."

"President of Golf in Ireland, you mean, surely?" said the p & c youth, sipping his orange juice in a puzzled fashion.

"Alas, I do not. This was a time when people voted for a president regardless of his or her golfing skills."

"Her? What do you mean, her," scoffed the p & c youths. "Hew can a her be a president of a golf club?" The oldest member shook his head sadly

"You do not understand me, do you? The idea of a golf less Ireland in which people, even women, might be elected torments other than their interest in golf revolts your too perfect soul. Your revulsion does you credit. But alas, it was so back then."

"Golly," whispered the p & c youth, awed. Out on the green at the tenth hole, an elderly gentleman appeared to be trying to herd mice with his patter by torchlight.

"Dark as it is now," intoned the oldest member, "it is not nearly as dark as it was then." In that terrible epoch (continued the Oldest Member) Phoenix Golf Club was not a golf club at all. In fact golf was not allowed.

A fountain of orange juice leapt across the club room and the young man cried, "Not allow ... but ... but ... but

"Your-incredulity is commendable. It is a sign of your delicacy of temperament. Yes. Golfing was not allowed." A fountain of orange juice leapt across the room and the young man cried, "Not allow ... but ... but ... but ...!"

"You have already said that, sir. We shall never advance with this tale if you spray orange juice around the place and cry but ... but ... but ... every time I say ... but no, I will not repeat it. The night draws on. Would you mind swallowing that orange juice completely? Thank you. Not merely was Phoenix a golf free zone. So, too, were the runways at Dublin Airport."

There was a strangled noise from the chair containing the p & c youth.

"It gets worse. There was no golf course in St Stephen's Green, no range in Leinster House, no links to Sandymount Strand. The Curragh was not as you see it today, the jewel in Ireland's golfing crown, with 34 separate golf courses, 50 practice green 10 driving ranges, and a dozen miniature golf courses for the under threes."

The p & c youth vomited and rose to leave. "I think I've heard enough," he said stiffly.

"No sir, you have not heard half enough," replied the Oldest Member. "For back then the Curragh was covered in sheep."

"Sheep? Is that French for a small downward stroke with a nine iron?"

"I honour your ignorance, sir. No, I did not mean chip, I meant sheep a flour legged animal covered in wool."

"Wool. I know wool. My golf sweater is made from wool.

"And horses," continued the Oldest Member. "Lots of horses."

"Horses. That's Spanish, right? it's where they play the sport in Spain. On hholf hhorses."

"No, it is not," the Oldest Member said a little tersely. "No, a horse was another kind of four legged animal."

THE p & c youth sniffed. "An awful lot of four legged animals around in those days."

"A lot of everything," replied the Oldest Member dreamily. "There were no golf courses on the Burren in those days, and it was covered in the most amazing wildflowers, and extraordinary wildlife. There was no golf course either on Skellig Michael, but gannets and puffins and guillemots by the tens of thousand. Nor was there a golf course at Newgrange, and the 18th hole of today, the envy of all of Europe, was a mere archaeological site. The famous Twelve Pins of Connemara were once upon a time mountains, not golf holes. The Bank of Ireland building in College Green was not then a venue for lunch time clock golf. St Patrick's Indoor Driving,, Range was just a cathedral, and ...

"Zzzzzzzz...

"Young people," said the Oldest Member, shaking his head sadly. And he fell silent as he thought of Ireland's magnificent golfless past before the entire countryside had been desecrated by golf courses. A tear rose in his eye and dribbled down his cheek.

"Happy days," he whispered heretically to the empty club room. "Oh happy, happy days!"