NEVER IN THE FIELD OFGOLFING CONFLICT........
The following extract from a Dundee newspaper is a description of a certain golfer playing at Carnoustie.
"Mr............. has taken some pains to learn how to hit the ball, and very often gets a long stroke both from the tee and through the green, but he has yet a lot to learn which a professional teacher could in two or three lessons enable him to do. For enthusiasm he has few equals... Impatient always...he follows up his ball at a fast pace which is all right from the point of view of getting the exercise which he is after, but is all wrong when there are other players in front."
Sounds familiar? Recognise the player? In fact the golfer concerned was Winston Churchill who, during the 1910 General Election campaign in Dundee (which he represented in Parliament for 14 years) , played golf at Carnoustie every day, including polling day.
Churchill's regular visits to Carnoustie were as the guest of James Falconer, the Liberal MP for Forfarshire, who may well have been a member of the Dalhousie Club.
When in London, Churchill frequently played at Walton Heath, where he was a member (along with Lloyd George) and where James Braid was the professional. This means another coincidental link with Carnoustie, as Colin Sinclair, the Carnoustie Golf Hotel pro and honorary professional of the Dalhousie Club, was formerly senior assistant at Walton Heath - although a few years after Churchill's and Braid's era!
Colin wishes to point out that he does NOT agree with Churchill's most famous comment on the game which gives us so much angst as well as pleasure. "Golf," said the great man, "is an ineffectual attempt to direct an uncontrollable sphere into an inaccessible hole with implements ill-adapted to the purpose."
Now if only he could have been fitted out with the latest Callaways.......