RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32779, 2 December 1971, Page 20

RANDOM REMINDER

DOG GONE

Dogs usually get a newspaper notice, on a dull day at the cricket or even in the frenzy of football, if the animal is not assisting the wrong side. But there is an authenticated instance of a dog at Avondale performing wonderful feats on the first hole, and there was not a spectator to see. So in fairness to everyone, including the dog, its exploits must now be recorded. Three men hit off the first tee, and achieved a Prince of Wales feathers arrangement of which an R.A.F. acrobatic team would have been proud. One drove superbly well, down the middle, one hooked ’ violently into trouble on the left, one sliced prodigiously into trouble on the right. The man on the left made a valiant effort at

recovery, but put his ball well wide of the green, still on the left, in rou"h and behind a bunker. The man on the right took orf further, and out of this story. The man in the middle followed his splendid drive with an equally splendid iron, and finished six feet from the hole. Enter the dog, an animal of nondescript parentage, but one with ideas of its own, backed up by swift acceleration and reactions. It raced on stage and picked up the ball of the man coming in on the left. Pursued by the player, who emitted a succession of loud, distressed cries, it tore off, through the bunker, up on to the green, and raced across it. But the activity astern and on the right flank must have frightened it, for the dog dropped the

ball—five feet from the hole. So this was a matter of much satisfaction to the owner of the ball, who subsequently regarded the whole business as an act of nature, and resolutely refused to replace his ball in the position from which the thief had taken it. He was equally firm about the position of the player who had made the* two near-perfect shots. Although the dog dropped a ball, its quick thinking allowed it to pick up the other one, on the run, and no amount of noise or activity deterred it this time. The dog, and the second ball, went off-stage at high speed and neither was seen again. Was it really reasonable to argue that the proficient player should go back to where his drive had landed, drop another ball, and play his fourth shot?