Captain's Day Read Free

card for the third week running.
    A third possibility, and the hot favourite for a long time, was to ban Sunday competitions. A dedicated churchgoer, Mr Captain would have liked to have banned all Sunday play, and would have done so had he not felt that such an action would not be tolerated by the membership, despite it being a Captain’s Project.
    In the normal course of events all the club competitions, both monthly medals and majors, were played on Saturdays and Sundays, split approximately fifty-fifty between the two. It had been Mr Captain’s intention to move all the Sunday competitions to Saturdays, thus leaving people free to attend church.
    He had no axe to grind with people who played golf on Sunday, indeed he often played on Sundays himself, but when he did he always ensured that he attended morning service when he played in the afternoons and evening service when he played in the mornings.
    When he had made known his intentions it was pointed out to him, again by the ever vigilant club secretary, that the majority of the membership would not attend church even if they had all day Sunday free in which to do so plus the rest of the week as well, and that for many of them it would take the introduction of pole dancers in the aisle and a free bar and buffet in the vestry in order for them to attend, but in answer to this Mr Captain had replied that if people chose to be heathens then that was their lookout.
    In the end however, and as appealing as these three candidates for his Captain's Project were, he came up with an even more worthy idea. To rid the club once and for all of bad language. In particular the 'F' word and the 'C' word. But the 'T' word also, along with the 'S 'word and all the 'B' words. When he had made his plans known, immediately upon taking office, the General Committee, whilst agreeing it would be a very good thing, had expressed grave doubts about its worthiness as a Captain's Project. Not a few of the members had said it was unreasonable, a few more thought it unworkable.
    Mr Captain however would have none of their objections and had insisted that making the fairways and greens 'F' and 'C' word free would benefit the entire membership of the club and 'not just people who liked trees and juniors'. There was no further discussion. No argument. Nor could there be. The Captain could choose as his project anything within reason which he saw fit, and he saw his Captain's Project as being well within reason and very fit indeed. A notice had been put up on the club notice board the following day.

    BAD LANGUAGE

It has been brought to the notice of the General Committee that certain members of the club are using bad language on the golf course. This is both unnecessary and undesirable. Use of the F-word and the C-word is particularly abhorrent. In an effort to stamp this out once and for all, and with immediate effect, any member found to be using the F-word or the C-word, or indeed any other swear word, will be required to appear before the General Committee with a view to immediate expulsion from the club.
    Mr Captain

    The first two golfers to read the notice were Greg Coleman and Richard Irwin.
    “ Fuck me!” said Coleman.
    “ The cunt!” said Irwin.
    Fortunately Mr Captain had not been in earshot when the aggrieved pair had uttered the newly-banned expletives. However he was well within earshot on the occasion that eighteen handicapper Bradley Tomkinson leapt in the air in delight and yelled, “A fucking birdie, it's a fucking birdie!” on chipping in from the edge of the second green. For this the unfortunate Tomkinson had been hauled before the committee and handed a final warning. Since then more than a dozen such final warnings had been issued. One poor golfer, already on a final warning, and who only erred the second time because he said 'Fuck!' when he dropped his sand wedge on the ingrowing toenail of his big toe, had been expelled.
    Bad language on the golf course had plummeted. It