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Ms Kallas-Way sorts sounds, persecutes pests and mortifies music.

Not only do golf clubs have to perform well and look great, but marketers have discovered that the sound the clubhead makes when striking the ball has to be 'attractive' to convince golfers to part with a fortune. My Driver Hits The Ball Further, But It Sounds Dreadful wants to know how to make his club 'sound' better.

Dear Ms Kallas-Way

Driver manufacturers have determined that the sound a golf ball makes when struck by the clubface is an important consideration when golfers are deciding whether or not to buy.
The satisfying 'ping' that Ping golf clubs make is one of the reasons their clubs have stayed at the top of the market.
I have come up with a clubface which makes the ball go straighter and longer but when it hits the ball, it makes a sound like the last gasp of a dying dodo.
As most of the golf game is mental, this association with an extinct, stupid bird is going to make my marketing really difficult.
I've sent you one of my drivers to try. Any ideas on how I can change the sound it makes?

Dear SOUNDS

That noise really is extraordinary and, for that very reason, I wouldn't change it. What you need to do is point out the similarities between the extinct dodo and the average hacker so that the 'last gasp...' becomes a selling point rather than a reason to put it back on the shelf.
Hackers spend a lot of time gasping. In fact, they gasp after pretty much every shot and it's that hyperventilating which keeps them hacking. Hyperventilating upsets rhythm, ruins the thinking processes and causes hallucinations. Accurate distance judgement is impossible.
Having your driver take over the gasping will free the hacker from this debilitating habit and, like the dodo, their poor driving will become extinct.

New Zealanders are world leaders in pest eradication and their expertise is sought worldwide, so it's not surprising that American Golf Courses Need Our Help has been approached to apply his methods in the States. But the American pests are unfamiliar to New Zealanders.

Dear Ms Kallas-Way

I'm only a social golfer and play maybe five or six times a year, but I always enjoy my time on the links. Last week I played with a golfer from the States, and when I said I was a pest eradicator, he said they could do with me on lots of their courses in America.
When I told him how my team had eradicated vermin from protected areas, so that the native flora and fauna could flourish again, he said that I'd make a fortune if I could eradicate vermin from his club.
Now I'm dead keen to have a go, especially when he mentioned what the job would be worth, but I'm not familiar with the vermin he mentioned. He said that they're common to many golf courses, so I thought you might be able to help me.
What are golf tortoises? I need to know their exact genus so I can get the poison right. What do they eat and are they night or daytime animals?

Dear ERADICATING

These pests are active during daylight hours, though 'active' probably isn't the correct word for the tortoises (slow golfers).
As most states in the USA still have the death penalty, if you don't want to be eradicated too, you'll have to think relocation rather than death.
The best way to relocate these pests is to beat them at their own game. Hire four wheelchair golfers and let the air out of their tyres before letting them loose on the course, immediately before your tortoises are due to tee off. The tortoises will soon go elsewhere.
Just keep shifting your wheelchair golfers to wherever the tortoises go and they'll soon switch to another sport—probably something which involves guns.

Music has charm to soothe the savage beast, so they say, and, as there are a lot of savage beasts on the golf course, could piped music from the tee markers help calm golfers? According to My Musical Clubhead Will Make The Golf Course A Place Of Harmony, we need music wherever we go.

Dear Ms Kallas-Way

As you well know, music calms the savage soul and, since taking up golf a couple of months ago, I have never seen as many savage souls in one place as I've seen on the fairways.
I figured that if golfers could listen to soothing music, as they hit their ball, it would stop them getting apoplectic. Now it seems to me that they have enough trouble achieving a balanced swing, without having to contend with headphones and wires, so a walkman or ipod is not the way to go.
The only thing which will work is to have the music emanating from the clubhead. It would be activated by the clubhead striking the ball, which means the cure would be instant.
I've managed to invent a tiny music player which will fit in any clubhead and won't affect the club's performance. Which sort of music would be best?

Dear MUSICAL

The most savage of the savage beasts on a golf course is the golfer who has an air shot. Which means your invention won't work on the worst cases because the music won't be turned on.
The next most savage are the ones who only just make contact with the ball so it probably won't turn on for them either.
In fact, it sounds like the only ones it will work for are those who strike the ball solidly, and they're not savage, they're either euphoric or in shock.
The unaccustomed sound of ball on club will be music to their ears ... which makes your invention redundant.

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