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Dear Ms Kallas-Way
I took up golf one week ago and it's surprised me that I haven't been able to shoot par yet—not even on one hole, let alone the whole course.
I'm a natural sportsman and quickly master any sport I take up, but I suspect golf may take a little longer. However, I can't be bothered waiting another week to play better so I thought I'd have a lesson.
I'm sure that most of what the pro tells me, I'll already know so I was thinking, rather than waste my money, I'd offer to be a model for a 'before and after' golf swing video.
I'm really, really attractive so having me advertise a pro's prowess will get him/her a big increase in pupils.
I've enclosed a video of my 'before' swing, but it might not be bad enough. Is there any way I can change my swing so that I'm guaranteed to get the gig?
Dear FREE
Your swing is pretty bad—I've seen figure 8 swings, but never that figure 69 that you manage—but there is one way to make it worse.
Before you visit a pro, find a paddock holding a couple of Jersey or Friesian bulls and play a few practice shots in it, with your back to the cattle. (Wear a red shirt.)
I'm sure that'll solve everything.
Dear Ms Kallas-Way
You're the undisputed expert on all matters golf but I bet there's one thing about it that I know that you don't.
Jack the Ripper must have been a useless golfer ... because he had a really mean slice!!
Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!
Well, hello KNOW
Four million, five hundred and seventy eight thousand, six hundred and twenty three idiots have sent me that outdated theory before you got around to it.
Jack the Ripper couldn't have been a useless golfer, as his victims would have all survived because he'd have had lots of airshots and would only have struck glancing blows.
Considering that he got away, scot-free, with attacking women, it's more likely he was an Aussie rugby league player.
Dear Ms Kallas-Way
I've been playing golf for six years and got my handicap down to a nine, but I recently shifted to a different club and now I can't break 100! I haven't changed my swing, my mental approach or my equipment, so it's really puzzling me.
My new course's characteristics aren't very different from my old one—both have water hazards and lots of bunkers.
The only thing that's different is the smell which wafts over the course I play at now. It's next to a confectionery factory and we get that sweet, sickly smell of chocolate whenever the wind blows from the south (which is the prevailing direction).
When I was a baby, my mother forgot she'd stashed her chocolate (so that my father wouldn't scoff it) in my crib and I ended up eating and sleeping in the stuff, which made me horribly sick.
Could that association of chocolate, with violent vomiting, be the source of my poor scoring?
Dear SCENT
The aroma of chocolate could never be a reason for anyone playing poorly, even if their parent had dropped them into a vat of it and they'd nearly drowned.
However, memories of violent vomiting are a different matter and, I'm sure, the key to solving your problem.
Anyone who's on a nine and suddenly can't break 100 will be reduced to violent vomiting, unless a remedy is found quickly.
Therefore, you need shock therapy.
Play a round of golf with an anorexic (make sure it's the flagstick you put back in the hole, and not the anorexic) to see how dramatic weight loss will enfeeble your swing and make you so weak that you'll have to become a nine-hole golfer.
That prospect is enough to shock anyone out of playing poorly.
© Kay Wall 2006