Humour

Dr Felix Shank

Do you have a golf problem that’s keeping you awake at night?
Is there some aspect of your game that you simply can’t sort out?
Stop worrying because Dr Felix Shank, a more or less genuine expert on all aspects of the game, is here to help.

Illustrations by Tony Husband.As a very, very highly ranked pro golfer who has earned billions of dollars, I naturally attract a lot of female interest. Being rather weak, I gave in to temptation and had a great number of liaisons with various women. My beautiful blonde wife discovered what I was up to and obliged me to go to a special clinic to seek treatment for sex addiction. The treatment was 100% effective and I now no longer desire sex with other women.

However, my wife is now divorcing me and the women who might have been interested in me are frustrated because I’m no longer interested in them. On top of all that, my game has fallen apart and it seems inevitable that I’m going to slide down the world rankings. To coin a phrase, I’m screwed.
NAME AND ADDRESS WITHHELDBy behaving so badly, it would seem that you have brought this situation upon yourself and it’s therefore difficult to feel very sorry for you.

However, my job is not to sit in moral judgement of others but to offer professional advice. You will be pleased to learn that the treatment you received for sex addiction is not irreversible and so you could return to the clinic you attended and have them restore your old philandering self. But then what happens if you meet someone special and want to get married again? To avoid history repeating itself, you would then have to go back to the clinic yet again and be treated once more for sex addiction. All of which would oblige you to spend months away from the course with the almost inevitable consequence that your game will suffer and you will slip even further down the world rankings.

What I therefore suggest you do is re-dedicate yourself to golf. Regard golf as your lover and channel your considerable energies into working on your game and becoming an even better player. Set yourself fresh goals. When you have achieved them you will be able to quit at the top with your self-esteem restored. By that time one would hope that your libido will have subsided sufficiently for you to be able to have the sex addiction treatment reversed without unleashing the sexual beast that you evidently were before.[octo_single_image image=”113564″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”]As a retired Royal Naval officer I have friends in many parts of the world and only this year was playing golf in up country Natal with my late friend ‘Buffy’ van der Merwe. Being somewhat off with my irons Buffy was dormie two as he teed off at the long 17th and sliced his drive deep into thick scrub. My drive, whilst a tad short was safely on the fairway albeit a long way left. Buffy and his caddy entered the scrub and I heard a loud roar and saw the caddie rushing towards me across the fairway. Buffy had apparently disturbed a lioness with young and whilst we found Buffy’s ball, albeit after a full five minutes had elapsed, we never did find Buffy.

Am I entitled to claim the hole? And what happens on 18 when I no longer had an opponent to face? I am sure Buffy would be happy to settle for a half but I would welcome your guidance just for the record books.
REAR-ADMIRAL ST.JOHN CODDRINGTON-D’EATH (R.N.RTD.), RYEYou should understand that I’m a sports’ psychologist and not a rules’ expert and am therefore more interested in the mental and emotional consequences of what must have been an extremely traumatic episode than I am in the result of your match.

For what it’s worth, however, I would imagine that the circumstances you describe constitute, albeit inadvertently, a sudden death play-off which Buffy evidently lost. Ergo, you are the winner.[octo_single_image image=”113565″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”]A keen if ageing rugby player, I run my school’s Old Boys Extra ‘C’ XV. Although without a win in five seasons, we’re nevertheless enthusiastic and enjoy each others’ company. As part of our team-building programme, we go away on a golf holiday just before the new season starts.

To keep the cost down, we travel on a budget airline. Unfortunately, the airline we use doesn’t let you reserve seats and last year quite a few of our group were upset that we weren’t all able to sit together. The plan this year was to opt for ‘priority boarding’ but some are baulking at the extra cost. Do you have any suggestions?
A T JONES, BRIDGENDThis is a remarkably easy problem to solve. Simply arrange ‘priority boarding’ for your largest second-row forward. Each of you should then give him an item to plonk on the 15, or however many of you there are, seats. Although later boarding passengers might be upset with this tactic, none of them, I strongly suspect, will take issue with him. You will, in effect, secure reserved seats at the cost of just a few pence each.[octo_single_image image=”113566″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”]