CHRISTOPHER MATTHEW

SUMMONED BY BALLS.  Decorations by David Eccles. John Murray, 2005.

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Following his hole-in-one success with Now We Are Sixty and Now We Are Sixty (And a Bit), Christopher Matthew turns to golf and golfers – whether super-rich, globe-trotting professionals or weekend amateurs hacking round in a hundred or more.

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As everyone knows who ever strode a fairway with club in hand and hope in heart, there is more to golf than knocking a little ball round the countryside. All human life can be found between the first hole and the nineteenth, and every emotion – ecstasy, despair, love, hatred, reconciliation, revenge.  Especially revenge.

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These verses – based on poems by the likes of Kipling, Betjeman, Tennyson and Browning – cover the subject from golf bores, bossy lady captains, golfing on the moon and club grub, to golf widows, golfing dogs and feeble excuses.

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They may not improve your swing, but they’ll make you a better person in the rough, or in the bar.

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Reviews:​

 

One for the shelf in the clubhouse loo. Andrew Baker, Daily Telegraph

 

​It goes right down the middle, as Bing Crosby would say. Oliver Pritchett, Daily Telegraph

 

​Matthew's poems here are funny, wise, beautifully crafted and full of surprises. Marcus Berkmann, Daily Mail

 

​Matthew has proved again and again what an old pro he is at the lost art of writing humorous verses. Martin Rowson, Independent on Sunday

 

​Brilliantly matches subject and originals. Christopher Howse, Daily Telegraph

 

​Delicious social double-takes from one of our best modern humorists. Martin Jarvis, The Times