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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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