On their first appearance in the European Men's Amateur Team Championship at Portmarnock in 1997, Croatia finished 21st of the 22 competing nations. Which was marginally better than might be expected from a country without a course. But things will be different when they cross the Adriatic to Monticello in Italy for the championship's 21st staging next June.
No longer will the country's golfers, up to 300 of them, be forced to travel to Bled in neighbouring Slovenia at a cost of about £200 for a weekend's play. As a Croatian golf official put it: "How could a young person play? There are no buses, so you have to have money, time, a car. And the country's biggest insurance company spends $1 million on football and nothing on golf. In that situation, it's not possible to produce world-class players."
But things are set to change in the New Year when the Dolina Kardinala Golf and Country Club is opened near Krasic, 20 miles south-west of the capital, Zagreb. In what would be an auctioneering nightmare in this country, it came about through the purchase of 78 different parcels of land, making 185 acres in all.
It was the brainchild of Matej Majic and two business partners who discovered, among other things, that Croatians have readily adjusted to capitalism. According to Majic, when landowners heard about the project, prices went "from high to astronomical".
Yet golf is not new to the area east of the Adriatic. In fact the game existed there as far back as 1931, at Zagreb GC, which had a nine-hole, par-35 course with 80 members, including a president who happened to be a count. For reasons long since forgotten, however, the club folded in 1935.
Now, with Croatia returning to the golfing fold, Albania and Macedonia will be the only sizeable European countries without a course. "We want to start the right way, by giving those who want to play a proper place to learn," says Majic. "It is a great chance for our young people and for our country."
Apart from a championship-standard 18-hole layout, the new facility will have a par-three course, a 300-yard practice range, a chipping area and two practice greens. And the expectation is that the course will become the first of many, just as Zagreb can now boast 600 tennis courts.
Those who know Croatian sport wouldn't dare bet against golf achieving formidable progress there over the next decade. After all, the national soccer team was third in the World Cup this year, Goran Ivanisevic was runner-up at Wimbledon and Tony Kukoc made a handsome contribution to the continued success of the Chicago Bulls in the NBA.
As locals like to point out, surviving against the odds has become a way of life for them.
"Things have changed and I welcome the change. I believe if you keep people talking rather than fighting, you can eventually affect the situation." - Tom Watson, who made his debut at Sun City last weekend, having refused invitations there during the apartheid era.
BILL HOPKINS considered Lord Lucan to be "a smashing bloke". Indeed it seems that everyone thought so, including "Irish" Martin, a caddying colleague at Sunningdale GC. But Hopkins still felt it appropriate to qualify such observations by adding: "Mind you, what he was like at home I don't know."
The golfing escapades of the runaway peer are to be found in a wonderfully informative book, This Sporting Life: Golf, by Bill Elliott, published by David & Charles at Stg£18.99. Essentially, the book traces the changing face of golf in the second half of this century, from caddies to Ryder Cup captains.
Hopkins started caddying at Sunningdale as a 12-year-old in 1941 when one of his first clients, an American, paid him half-a-crown instead of the usual 1s 6d. Then, having given 1s 6d to his mother, he bought cigarettes with the remainder. "Five Woodbines, they were," he recalled. "Cost me 6d I think."
As Elliott tells us, it was the beginning of a lifelong addiction to both nicotine and Sunningdale. And given that Hopkins caddied for Lucan's closest golfing friend, Charles Benson ("The Scout" of the Daily Express), he was privy to Martin's financial arrangement. "In the days when we were caddying for two quid, `Irish' would get a fiver off his lordship," he said. But it wasn't all beer and skittles.
While golfers would delight in fortified soup and sausage sandwiches at the famous "Halfway House" on the course, caddies had to stand at the rear where, whatever the weather, they were permitted only an arrowroot biscuit and a ginger beer. Hopkins recalls: "Eventually some kind soul put up a bit of plastic roofing so that when it was pouring down, at least the biscuit didn't get too soggy."
Hopkins continues to work at Sunningdale, where he says of his young colleagues: "They think I'm a daft old sod, I suppose, but I still have my regulars, nice chaps who ring up to book me in advance. They know that I know how to do the job proper. Y'see, I love the game of golf." Delightful. A great read.
Lee Westwood will be at Wentworth on Monday to receive the award as Europe's Golfer of the Year. Yet it hardly seems three weeks since Colin Montgomerie was being his usual, forthright self about the matter. "It's quite simple: I don't have a rival," he claimed while in Auckland for the World Cup. "Sure, he's (Westwood) had a great year. But what I did in capturing a sixth Order of Merit will never be beaten."
Though Westwood hadn't won the Dunlop Phoenix, his seventh tournament of the year at that stage, we can take it that Monty would have remained unmoved. My view? I'm glad I didn't have to choose.
Even allowing for its 1.2 million golfers and 1,560 courses, Australia has enjoyed remarkable success at tournament level internationally. And there is no sign of any slowing down in the stream of fresh talent, judging by the fine victory by left-hander Greg Chalmers in the Australian Open last Sunday.
Following in the recent footsteps of Stuart Appleby, Chalmers is set for a career on the USPGA Tour, having just secured his card in a share of fourth place in the Qualifying School. Ranked 70th in the world, he is among nine Australians in the top-100. And they have won their share of tournaments across the world.
Still, there is no doubt but that Greg Norman was missed during the season just ended, having been absent for most of it because of shoulder surgery. During 1997, Australians won five tournaments in the US - two each for Norman and Steve Elkington and one for Appleby. Last season, their only successes were one each for Elkington and Appleby.
Ironically, there was an upturn in their European fortunes, from a lone victory by Richard Green (Desert Classic) in 1997 to three - from Stephen Leaney (2) and Stephen Allen - this year. Meanwhile, Australia's "major" count totals 13, from Peter Thomson (5), David Graham (2), Norman (2) and one each by Kel Nagle, Wayne Grady, Ian Baker-Finch and Elkington.
This day in golf history . . . On December 12th, 1916, one of golf's unsung heroes was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Indeed it was only when Charles A Boswell was presented with the Ben Hogan Award by America's golf writers in 1965 that his achievements became widely acknowledged.
An outstanding footballer before he entered the US Army in 1941, Boswell's war ended in 1944 when, as a member of the 84th Infantry, he was blinded in battle in Germany. And it was while recovering from his wounds at Valley Forge General Hospital that he learned to play golf.
Boswell retired from the US army in 1946 with the rank of major, and four years later won the inaugural US Blind Golfers' Championship before going on to win 12 more. Apart from the Hogan Award, he received the President's Distinguished Service Award from the US Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped.
Teaser: Noel Lyons, a 12-handicap member of Beech Park GC, suggested this little conundrum, based on an incident he witnessed at the edge of the water hazard on the fourth hole at The K Club. A player plays a stroke with his own ball in the rough and also hits an old abandoned ball which was hidden beneath his ball. Since he struck the hidden ball, did he play a wrong ball?
Answer: No. The player played a stroke with his own ball, not with the hidden ball. Since he did not play a stroke with the hidden ball, Rule 15 (Playing a Wrong Ball) is not applicable. The player must play his ball as it lies. In The K Club situation, the hidden ball happened to be Lyons's, in which case he should have replaced it in accordance with Rule 18-4 - "If a competitor's ball is moved by a fellow-competitor, his caddie or his equipment, no penalty is incurred. The competitor shall replace his ball."
