Huttonian always imagined that Stalker and his Alsatian ball finder must camp out on the golf course-they are always around in a ceaseless quest for lost balls-or about to be lost ones in some cases. Perhaps they share a little bivouac in a friendly gorse bush-up with the lark and to bed with starlings.Not a bit of it. They have a nice bijou bungalow adjacent to the third tee on the Annesley Course and emerged this morning at exactly 8.45 am just as I was hitting a good long (straight) drive clearly visible on the fairway and therefore of no legitimate interest to the Alsatian or its minder. Legitimate? I wonder if it is legally ok to wander around a private course (of which I suspect you are not a member) hunting the recently mislaid property of golfers and then take possession for commercial gain. I know someone was recently sucessfully prosecuted for theft for doing just that on a golf course in England-admittedly over turned on appeal but he was a member, did not sell on the balls but used them himself.

I may be wronging Stalker. Perhaps he hands in his findings to a charity shop in Newcastle.But whatever his motives I would earnestly urge him to leave Huttonian alone. I do not like to be hovered around when I am faced with a choice of directing my Titleist 2 into a very thick clump of rain forest heather or a big prickly Gorse bush. If I lose my ball anywhere near the big dog, I will stay there all day if necessary until I find it. I will find every other ball within 50 yards and if I catch the dog in the middle of my gorse bush an I have my all singing all dancing all topping rescue Wedge in my hand, I cannot answer for the consequences. And when I have dealt with the dog I will take all the balls I have found and drop them very carefully into the deepest muddiest waters of the lake at the 17th putting them, like the IRA weaponry, beyond use. And beyond sale.

You have been warned. Better stay in your neat little bungalow until the master has passed. And if all else fails I'll come looking for balls in your long narrow garden. Its bang next to the course so it is reasonable to assume that there are lots of lost Titleists amongst your Roses. And how would you like that?

Btw the image is of the second fairway. Taken not far from the bungalow in question  ¶ 12:46 PM