They’ve identified our golf club

for returning to the wild

It’s to become a verdant Eden 

For every adult, dog and child

A place of natural splendour

Where no groundsmen smoke or hunker

Sheltering from the elements in the deeper fairway bunkers

 

No more Pringle sweaters in pink and blue and grey

No more Captain’s Prize and no more Ladies’ Day

No more midweek medals or complaints about the rough

No more Pros to peddle

Lessons, gear and stuff

No more taxi drivers with their five day memberships 

No more office skivers

On unscheduled business trips

No more visiting societies causing chaos at the bar

No more questionable propriety

Of a handicap too far

No more weekends spent on links and parkland courses

No more golf related injuries, anxiety or divorces

No more tight cut fairways and sylvan par 3 scenes 

No more sunset Gin and Tonics and handshakes on the green

No more stablefords or strokeplay

no more Skins or Texas Scrambles

No more foursomes, fourballs, foreplay or ill considered gambles

 

Now the club has closed its doors

They’ve unscrewed the honours board

There’s no one left to keep the scores

The last drinks have been poured

And the endless competitions 

with archaic regulations 

No longer fire ambitions

And fierce recriminations 

 

Now saplings sprout on tee boxes

And wild garlic conquers greens

And badgers, hares and foxes

Are regularly seen

And the ghosts of committee members 

No longer argue the toss

And nobody remembers

What’s under all that moss

And future archaeologists will 

dig and speculate 

On what mysterious civilisation 

Lies there to excavate

Who were these ancient fellows

With their polished steel long tools

Their small trolleys and umbrellas 

And their lockers and their rules

And their rituals and revelries

And rivalries held dear

And their woolly hats and weatherproofs 

And so many small white spheres.