“To the philosophical student of golf like myself” (said the Oldest Member), perhaps the most outstanding virtue of this noble pursuit is the fact that it is a medicine for the soul.”
Sport, in the hilarious fictional world of P. G. “Plum” Wodehouse, is not exclusively about sweaty blokes in shorts, flannels or garish pullovers. Because they're only incidentally about the game in question, just about any-one, sports fan or not, can read his tales of the ring, pitch or links with unalloyed pleasure. So when he writes about cricket, rugby or golf, it's not all runs, tries and holes-in-one but friendship, competitiveness, and in the last of those sports, love. And being a tidy sportsman himself, he brings the ups and downs of playing the game vividly to life as few other writers can, for to Plum they were all part of the broader human comedy. So settle down in your deckchair with the second of Paul Kent's occasional essays on Wodehousean subjects — it's a trophy-winner!
