Pull Up To The Bunker Baby

SAM had this fantastic dream the other night. There I was, in what was recognisably the master bedroom in Snort Towers, lying naked and spread-eagled on the king-size water bed, my wrists and ankles fastened with stout leather thongs which were, in turn, attached to the upright columns of my trusty four-poster.

My own upright column, meanwhile, was being liberally smeared with a piquant, tangy barbecue sauce by a well-known celebrity chef who was, for some reason, hiding out from the feds at my place at the time.

Actually, make that a piquant, "poontangy" sauce because — next thing I know — my buddy the chef backs off and a team of ravenous synchronised swimmers move in to make short work of the meaty sauce without — thanks, no doubt, to the intensive training for which their attractive sporting discipline is renowned — barely having to take a breath.

After that, only the faintest scent of barbecue sauce remained in the air, and even the iceberg lettuce that had been tastefully arranged around my balls had been consumed in the excitement, when the strangest thing happened: I suddenly fell asleep.

And it was then that I had this fantastic dream I want to tell you about.

Glistening Shaft
In it, I was visiting a sports wholesale warehouse in the company of a number of other celebrities when a huge container of golfing accessories suddenly fell on us from a great height.

In the resulting chaos, it was noticed that the man who is currently regarded as the world's leading golfer had disappeared. A frantic search ensued, during which I thought I heard groans coming from beneath a huge mountain of tees. Peering closely, I also thought I caught a glimpse of a Nike logo.

"This might be him but it's hard to say," I called out. "Why can't you be sure?", someone asked. "Because," I found myself thoughtfully replying, "I can't see Tiger Woods for the tees."

It is, perhaps, no surprise that I should find myself dreaming about old Woodsy since I was on the exclusive guestlist at Limerick Golf Club only last week for that star-studded pro-am outing and related multi-million-pound charity auction which you all doubtless read about in the papers, you poor sad bastards.

What may surprise some readers is that Sam would have any interest in the sport of golf in the first place, weighed down as it is with the archaic baggage of centuries of pompous pigswill, but even a cursory consideration of the matter will show that Sam's involvement is perfectly understandable.

Sam, after all, is a master of the glistening shaft, a virtuoso of the long iron and a veritable behemoth of the big wood — hell, no-one puts that thing in the hole with quite the panache and style of the Snortian one.

But even Sam has to take a break from this, "the king of sports", every once in a while — hence his abiding interest in golf.

The royal and ancient game has many things going for it. It is one of the few sports, for example, which encourages you to wear pimp-style footwear; it permits you to hook up with the kind of people with whom you could casually rezone half of Dublin whilst teeing up on the fifth; it keeps out more fuckers than it lets in, always a healthy thing; drug testing appears to be unheard of, a very healthy thing; you can continue to play (just about) even if you look and live like John "Wild Thing" Daly; there are lots of babes only dying for hands-on instruction; it is relatively easy to cheat; you can resort to a buggy if you feel you're in danger of getting fit; and it's no longer a white-only sport thanks to my main man Tiger Woods.

Magic Mushrooms
Then there's the main reason for spoiling that good walk: the easy availability of magic mushrooms on our golf courses. A big pile of those lads on a plate, an Aphex Twin CD on the sound system, and a willowy blonde of Scandinavian extraction astride the upright column and all is well in the world.

So no wonder many thousands turned up last week in Limerick, a place many thousands would not normally want to turn up in. And no wonder some dingbat was willing to pay a cool million, at auction, to play a round of golf with Woods and O'Meara in Florida.

Still, makes you think: you could play around with Sam Snort any time and for just a couple of grand a go. As I always like to shout whilst holding my shaft in a firm professional grip: "FOREPLAY!"

Your ever-lovin' Samuel J. Snort Esq.