I recently read an article in a local golf magazine which stated that golf was invented by either the Scots or the Dutch, within the last eight or nine hundred years.
Bollocks it was.
Having just completed my thesis, 'Leisure Time Amongst Stone Age Society', I can confidently state that the Scots and Dutch were around 1.6 million years too late to claim the conception of golf.
Golf was invented by the unprecedentedly huge-brained Homo ergaster, who took a great leap forward by adapting the simple, irregular Oldowan tools. These may well have been axes, but H ergaster quickly saw they could be refined and put to better use.
It all happened when a teenage male H ergaster told his sister she wasn't as useful as her brothers, as she couldn't butcher a mastodon, and should therefore do the brothers' washing.
The sister figured out that if she attached a handaxe to a stout stick, she'd get greater leverage and be able to butcher anything, including her brother.
Unfortunately, as she delivered a blow to his ankles, he turned and saw her and jumped. While she missed her brother, she made solid contact with a large knucklebone, which travelled 100 metres through the air before stopping on the lip of a rodent hole.
The brother snatched the 'axe' off her and tried to swipe her legs from beneath her but also missed and whacked another knucklebone towards the hole.
The rest, as they say, is history.
How can I persuade Stone Age experts that my interpretation of Stone Age cave drawings proves that golf is at least 1.6 million years old?

Dear HANDAXE

You're quite correct and to prove it to doubters, take them to any golf course and observe modern-day golfers. You'll note that most still include the Stone Age jumping motion but, all these millennia later, it now comes after the shot.

Humans have used animals for research purposes for centuries. Some tests have been benign to the animal's health but most have been detrimental. At least Can Tests Using Rodents Help Me Decide Which Balls To Buy? will be able to state 'no animals were harmed in the making of this decision'.

Dear Ms Kallas-Way

I carried out tests on golf balls using rats but, I'm afraid, the rats always made better contact with the ball than the average golfer ever did.
Eventually, like a shanking golfer, I realised I was approaching the target from the wrong angle. After all, apart from considering compression, any ball will go as well for the average golfer as any other.
The real test is: after the first hole, which ball is still going well in spite of gouges, scrapes and scuffs from inept pounding?
I hit on the idea of getting starving rats to gnaw the balls, which reduces them to the state of the average golfer's ball after one hole, and then I played a couple of holes with them to see which one performed best.
One obscure brand stood out but, alas, the well-known brands paid me mega-bucks not to share my knowledge.
If you catch a few rats, you'll be able to perform your own experiment and discover the answer.

Laughter Clubs are set to take over from Tai Chi in popularity. The trouble is that, here in New Zealand, people's natural reticence holds them back. Can Our Laughter Club Fit In At A Golf Club? is sure he's found a foolproof way to overcome that shyness.

Dear Ms Kallas-Way