This is still Bank Holiday but the third day syndrome is cutting in-people just can't be bothered to go down to Newcastle three days in a row and are reading their papers in the comparative comfort of their own homes-or perhaps as it is a holiday, parked in their drives. Anyhow the golf course was an enormous pleasure this morning -all the ladies exhausted by two late nights still abed and the competition players still in Belfast. The Royal County Down has 295 members from Belfast and 5 or so from Newcastle including Huttonian. So my partner and I could play at a leisurely pace, drinking in the view and looking for each other's lost balls in warm sunshine. The stalker and his Alsatian were out as usual but we did not bother them apart from a shot by my partner which narrowly missed Mr Stalker-he pretended not to notice but you can bet your last Northern Bank Fiver that had we not found the ball it would have been in his pocket the second we were over the horizon. The dog has a soft mouth and is trained to pick up the balls very gently en route to wherever his master's marketing outlet happens to be. I suspect if he preservered in an earlier habit of selling balls back to the members that they had just lost his sojourn in the area would be a short one. Knee capping with a number 5 iron would be very painful and would give a new dimension to the expression 'one stroke penalty'
