There are two questions many people are asking about the current popularity of golf: 1) why aren't more women taking up the opportunity to become full club members?; 2) is there any cure for it?
The answer to the first question is: "we simply don't know". As regards the second, recent experiments on sheep support the view that a gene which causes people to enjoy golf may eventually be identified. The evidence is thin, but it does give rise to the hope that, if the technology could eventually be applied to humans, people likely to become golfers could be rounded up at an early stage and put in institutions.
There are other trains of scientific thought, too. Experiments by Dr Roger Weinstein, a research biologist I have just invented who works at California's Stanford University, suggests a golf virus could be isolated in the near future. The plan is, once it is isolated, to surround it and drop cement blocks on it from a height. But this too is at an embryonic stage, and there are no great grounds for optimism.
A third theory concerns diet. In the place where I grew up, enthusiasm for golf was always seen as a psychiatric disorder caused by eating rich food. (Now when I go home, it's not unusual to see kids as young as 14 wielding clubs - especially during rows at the weekend discos).
There are strong grounds for thinking that this folk-wisdom had a sound medical basis. Statistics on first-time golfers show that the high-risk group is men in their 30s. Moreover, men with big bellies are almost twice as likely to develop a golf game as thin men. And there is also persuasive anecdotal evidence that career success and consequent changes in lunching habits are strongly connected with the development - especially if the boss is a golfer as well.
Until very recently, golf was only prevalent in the "British Isles" and the US, with pockets of enthusiasts in the developed countries of Asia. It hardly existed at all in continental Europe, which gave rise to the belief that olive oil was an inhibiting factor. (Hence the well-known Mediterranean saying: "No-one plays golf at the table".)
However, as the make up of the Ryder Cup team shows, the European team now consists substantially of what are known in Britain as "foreigners". So another theory has bitten the dust.
From its murky origins, when it was invented by demented Scotsmen who wore their socks outside their trousers, golf has grown to become the silent scourge of the middle classes world-wide. (It is believed the game was in fact discovered by the Chinese, but the emperor Ming IV considered it "just too silly" and ordered it be covered it up again.)
Nobody knows how it became established but it did, particularly in America where, for reasons still unexplained, white men with funny names like "Fuzzy" and "Lanny" were at particular risk.
Once it took hold in a community it spread insidiously, robbing previously healthy people of their self-respect, leaving V-neck jumpers and ugly trousers everywhere in its wake and, worst of all, encouraging a propensity for telling crushingly dull golf-stories, without any encouragement.
But there is hope. Psychiatrists working for a cure are particularly interested in the phenomenon of the "Yips", the nervous condition that destroys a player's "putting game" and, in severe cases, leads to his quitting the "sport".
Traditionally, this has been seen as a problem arising from over-anxiety, but fascinating new research (published in the reputable scientific journal Weekly World News) suggests an alternative explanation. When the brains of players who had the "Yips" were electronically scanned while the players were in the act of putting, researchers found that they were sending coded messages to the rest of the player's body. A typical message read: "Have you any idea how ridiculous you look trying to get that stupid little ball into the hole? And look at those trousers you're wearing! And that sweater! Jeez, it must have been a psychedelic sheep!"
With available technology, it should be possible to create headsets to transmit electrical impulses to the brain with these and other messages. If the golfer continues to ignore them, the charge can be increased by a few thousand volts. Either way, the idea seems like a winner.
All of this notwithstanding, the spread of golf is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, and this is just one of the reasons this newspaper recently instituted a weekly supplement on the problem. (It had just grown too big for the health page.)
But there is one last aspect of golf that must be considered - that is the addictiveness element. Whatever the underlying causes of golfing enthusiasm, clearly there is a "buzz" to be had from hitting small balls great distances, and this is one of the reasons that players are so reluctant to be cured. As with all drugs, however, the "hit" gets progressively less and less satisfactory and you always need more.
Here, I can cite personal experience. Years ago, along with some friends, I used to dabble in the game known as "pitch and putt". It was harmless enough, and as far as I can remember all it ever did to me was give me a fit of the giggles. I gave it up after a while, but my friends - every one of them - went on to the harder stuff.
It started with buying a third club, then playing "par three" courses, and soon nothing but actual golf would do. From there on, they went through the whole, sorry decline: the awful jumpers, the cigars, the big bellies, the playing every hole for thousands of pounds.
I met these guys again a couple of years ago and I looked at them and thought to myself: "I wonder what are the chances they'd give me a job?" But anyway, what I mean to say is this, kids: pitch and putt is often where it starts. So if your friends at school come up to you and say: "How about a game Saturday?" always remember three little words: Just say no.