Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by the promise of golf;
Though we cower by hearth in northern climes, in the outposts of empire there are games afoot; fortunes to be made, and we fortunate viewers by courtesy of the media barons.
Like the recently unearthed Richard, the time is full of promise and though we be mainly common folk who wield the hickory the season beckons through the snow and rain.
Basements and studies will be full of doughty artisans feckling their weaponry and dreaming of glory on the links; and those who labour to bring the hosts to the field are summoning all and sundry to their great meets throughout the land.
As our ambition grows, so do our paths take differing courses; those most knightly experts in the art, both ancient and modern, forsaking the humble origins of the great game, will travel afar and enter the lists in hope of royal rewards, with swelling breasts and confident of carrying all before; theirs will be the tourneys to be reported throughout the known world, and of which the poets will wax eloquent for the benefit of generations to come, so each epoch will have its Old Tom.
Those of meaner ambition – we foot soldiers who imitate our betters in manly strife and derring do – will fill the humbler battlegrounds that are proliferating on the blasted heaths and within reach of our humble tenements, and essay a rougher hewn and less efficacious form of the wondrous game. Certain in the knowledge that the fate of nations rest upon the masses and that the unsung heroes will give the love of golf the flesh and blood on which continuity depends, we shall have no less pride and resolution; indeed who can say if we shall not be the more fortunate, as the joyful assemblies be not sobered by the need of achievement; can find rich solace in company well met, and the favour of a fair lady to strive for!
So take a wee nip for courage and let the games begin, and the devil take the hindmost!