Through sheer necessity I have become one of the greatest long-distance putters in the game, and I’m not talking here of miserable 50 footers. Without wishing to sound boastful, I can putt with something approaching confidence from anywhere within about 75 - 90 yards; even further, if there’s a decent following wind. I have developed this almost unique shot as an alternative strategy to the conventional chip simply because - even though I have searched for it thoroughly - the chip doesn’t exist anywhere in my repertoire. I can skull, thin and duff with the best of them, but a ...

Fortunately, chewing tobacco is not the sort of thing we Brits indulge in. So when the cream of English cricket go into bat, as we say, we’re spared the singularly unattractive sight of streams of foul, black liquid being spewed onto what we call the wicket. It’s a disgusting, mostly American, habit. For some obscure cultural reason, this loathsome practice is very prevalent among baseball batters who, so as not to obscure their view of the pitcher, shove the wad of tobacco into the cheek facing the catcher squatting behind them. Charming. Despite that, however, I love baseball. I must also ...

Who knows how different world history might have been had Mahatma Gandhi abandoned peaceful protest in favour of ten-pin bowling or if Adolf Hitler had forsaken invading comparatively defenceless countries and had focused all his energies on mastering the banjo? Golf, too, might have been a very different game had those early pioneers not chosen a windswept stretch of inhospitable looking dunes behind the beach upon which to footle about but had instead attempted to bash balls around a frozen lake or up and down a multi-storey car park. Those who are even now mocking this speculative musing might care ...