Larry – “A good walk spoiled”

Now, I know many of you believe that golf is simply “a good walk spoiled”. I wouldn’t know, of course, because I have never played. They don’t make golf clubs in my size, for one thing, and I have yet to find a satisfactory way of carrying a leather golf bag without looking faintly ridiculous.

What I do rather like, however, is an event taking place in Scotland this week: the World Hickory Golf Championships.

This is golf as it was apparently intended to be played, in Scotland, where the game was invented, wearing the sort of clothes that suggest you have just stepped out of a photograph taken before the First World War, and wielding wooden clubs made before 1936.

The competitors turn up in an extraordinary assortment of traditional attire: plus-fours, flat caps, woollen sweaters and other garments that appear to have been designed principally to keep a person warm while waiting several hours for someone else to hit a tiny ball.

Most carry a thin leather bag slung over one shoulder, from which protrudes an assortment of wonderfully named implements: a cleek, a mashie and several other wooden clubs. Quite what you do with a mashie is something I shall leave to people with stronger wrists and more patience.

The skill, apparently, lies in finding the right combination of rhythm, balance, force and accuracy. Which sounds straightforward until you remember that it involves striking a very small ball with a wooden stick while attempting to remain dignified in plus-fours.

And they do look rather fantastic.

A great deal of thought goes into the clothing, and quite rightly so. There is something immensely pleasing about watching grown men and women take to the course dressed as if they have been summoned from a sepia photograph to settle an unfinished sporting dispute.

The tournament takes place over three days, and although it may all look rather genteel from a distance, appearances can be deceptive.

Fierce rivalries lurk beneath those woollen sweaters, and the competitors are every bit as determined as golfers in considerably more modern clothing.

There is, naturally, also the small matter of playing on some of Scotland’s historic courses, which is probably reason enough to endure the occasional difficult lie, mysterious cleek and unfortunate encounter with a bunker.

And then there is the chance to dress the part. Plus-fours. Flat cap. Woollen sweater. Leather bag.

Frankly, I might have to reconsider golf. Although I shall still need to address the problem of the clubs.