Mark Mason

Teed off

There are those of us who, asked if we play golf, reply: ‘No, I like women.’ A relaxing game in pleasant surroundings it may be.

issue 17 July 2010

There are those of us who, asked if we play golf, reply: ‘No, I like women.’ A relaxing game in pleasant surroundings it may be.

There are those of us who, asked if we play golf, reply: ‘No, I like women.’ A relaxing game in pleasant surroundings it may be. But that disappears under a landslide of regulations about shirt collars and footwear, penned by men who boast of ‘values’ yet are happy only when everyone in sight is Exactly Like Them, and not just in terms of gender. Maurice Flitcroft loved the game with a passion. Regulations less so.

A crane driver at Vickers shipyard in Barrow, Flitcroft reached his forties before discovering golf. He could afford neither the time nor the money to play at a club, so practised on waste ground, and occasionally the arm of his crane, from where he drove old balls into the North Sea.

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