I made a reconnaissance to the Eyemouth Golf Club today as it is apparently a hard place to find at night and having admired the accoutrements* and the empty fairways I was almost pulled up short on my way out-at the edge of the course and presumably being near a main road the side favoured by walkers was a stern notice which seemed to indicate that visitors who found golf balls and made off with them would be in trouble with the fuzz. I am no admirer of the dog and its handler who infests the Royal County Down (PBUI) stalking innocent golfers and retrieving balls lost by them but to make it a matter of the law seems a bit much. One golf club some years back did successfully convict a ball finder with theft on the grounds that he was not a member of the club and was stealing members property by not surrendering his finds to someone in authority on the course. Quite rightly he got off on appeal-lost balls are lost balls and finders keepers has been the unwritten rule since Old Thomas Morris was young Tom.
Huttonian has an angle on this. A friend who is a regular dog water on the beaches in Norn Iron where the Royal Portrush Golf Course (MPBUI) slips into the seas has kept me supplied with finds for years. There is no question of quickly nicking a still warm moving errant shot but these are well lost and some have spent some time in the brine and are not in the pink of condition. Like the one which more or less exploded-see a previous rant. And how about Golfing visitors at Eyemouth. They are not members and presumably under the same caveat to hand in balls lost by some erratic bloke (or angry distaff hacker) whose membership entitles them to rights of lootage, poundage, flotsam, Jetsam and brand new Titlelists. Not fair I say. I have a good mind to organise a flash mob on the fourteenth fairway whose only reward will be all the golf balls they can find in thirty minutes. I am confident that the good sheriff of Duns will seem them alright should they be arraigned by the Procurator Fiscal.
Anyhow I will have a more leisurely look at the notice on my next visit and if I ahve maligned the powers that be-the committee high heidians then I will eat yesterdays humble leavings, suitably warmed up. If, of course, I am spared
* Enough French. Blogg-ed
