For The Love Of Golf

When Verity come bursting into the drawing room spluttering something about “Royal & Ancient” I thought that Councillor Janette Williamson had been at it again with insensitive tweets about elderly members of the royal family.

Apparently not – “Royal & Ancient” is a reference to The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews and it transpires that one of Wirral Council’s Super Duper Directors ( I’m sure we can guess which one) has been there this week on a fact -finding mission.

“For goodness sake what facts do you need to know?….” spluttered Her Ladyship  ” it’s an extremely tedious pastime involving sports-casual attired players trying to get a golf ball into 18 holes before disappearing into the 19th!”.

This is no doubt part of the campaign by the Council to shrug off it’s inward-looking insular peninsula reputation. However, a Council spokesperson has denied that there is a proposed trip to the Guinness Brewery in Dublin to teach Council managers how to organise a piss-up.

Bunker Mentality

Here we see some very,very,very important people launching a glossy brochure extolling the delights of the “Golf Peninsula”.

That’s Wirral by the way….just in case you were wondering.

So we’ve had a quick flick through this Visitors Guide expecting a flattering representation of what was formerly known as the Insular Peninsula.

Now we do realise that this is a PR push for punters to visit Wirral and therefore we’re not expecting a promotion for ASBO Tours – “You Too Can Be Traumatised By Troubled Tearaway Teens Terrorising Tenants in Tranmere”  – but we have to say this re-branding of Wirral as some kind of great big golfing theme park leaves us feeling decidedly under par (and not in a golfing sense).

Now we concede that Her Ladyship and I have only experienced the pleasures of golf from the cosy confines of the clubhouse. But we do know that many of Wirral’s most prominent public figures, past and present , have enjoyed it’s bucolic pleasures whilst donning garish Argyle Pringle sweaters and chafing polyester Farah slacks.

We also are led to believe that during the summer months it has been known for Wirral Council’s most important business meetings to transfer from Houlihan’s pub to the golf links.

However as much as we like to see the promotion of this once proud coastal promontory we do feel like Wirral Council are putting all it’s golf balls in one basket. We’d like to think that the young people of Wirral deserve better future job prospects than becoming a golf caddy.

More pertinently how can we have trust and confidence in the current incumbents of Wallasey Town Hall delivering on their seemingly endless promises to change it’s ways?

Their strategy seems to be one of distraction : “Who needs to be  “Open and Transparent ” when we’ve got the British Open coming to Hoylake !”

Meanwhile the Council elite seem to be permanently stuck in a bunker or according to our faithful factotum and golf aficionado Verity, hopelessly thrashing about like Jean Van De Velde at the last hole of the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie.

As she says: “Triple Bogeys All Round!…”