One of the advantages of travelling is that you get to meet people with advice to impart on all aspects of life. On a trip to Australia earlier this year I was introduced to an extremely witty man named John Clarke who has made a career out of satirising politicians and other well known people in the Land of Oz. He is originally a New Zealander of Irish heritage and is a keen golfer.

His advice to golfers from as far afield as Melbourne to Muckross has been invaluable and I think it's only fair that you the readers should be aware of his observations on the game played by so many but mastered by so few. John has kindly let me share these with you and hopefully they will enable you to enjoy the antics of your playing partners in future.

1. If you really want to get better at golf, go back and take it up at a much earlier age.

2. The game of golf is 90 per cent mental and 10 per cent mental.

3. Since bad shots come in groups of three, a fourth bad shot is actually the beginning of the next group of three.

4. When you look up and cause an awful shot, you will always look down again at exactly the moment when you ought to start watching the ball if you ever want to see it again.

5. Any change works for a maximum of three holes and a minimum of not at all.

6. No matter how badly you are playing, it is always possible to play worse.

7. Never try to keep more than 300 separate thoughts in your mind during your swing.

8. When your shot has to carry over a water hazard, you can either hit one more club or two more balls.

9. If you're afraid a full shot might reach the green while the foursome ahead of you is still putting out, you have two options: you can immediately shank a lay-up, or you can wait until the green is clear and top a ball halfway there.

10. The less skilled the player, the more likely he is to share his ideas about the golf swing.

11. The inevitable result of any golf lesson is the instant elimination of the one critical unconscious motion that allowed you to compensate for all your errors.

12. If it ain't broke, try changing your grip.

13. Golfers who claim they don't cheat, also lie.

14. Everyone replaces his divot after a perfect approach shot.

15. A golf match is a test of your skill against your opponent's luck.

16. It's surprisingly easy to hole a 50-foot putt when you lie 10.

17. Counting on your opponent to inform you when he breaks a rule is like expecting him to make fun of his own haircut.

18. Nonchalant putts count the same as chalant putts.

19. It's not a gimme if you're still away.

20. The shortest distance between any two points on a golf course is a straight line that passes directly through the centre of a very large tree.

21. There are two kinds of bounces: unfair bounces, and bounces just the way you meant to play it.

22. You can hit a two-acre fairway 10 per cent of the time, and a two-inch branch 90 per cent of the time.

23. Every time a golfer makes a birdie, he must subsequently make two triple bogeys to restore the fundamental equilibrium of the universe.

24. If you want to hit a 7-iron as far as Tiger Woods does, simply try to lay up just short of a water hazard.

25. To calculate the speed of a player's downswing, multiply the speed of his backswing by his handicap. Example: backswing 20 mph, handicap 15, downswing 300mph.

26. There are two things you can learn by stopping your backswing at the top and checking the position of your hands: how many hands you have, and which one is wearing the glove.

27. Hazards attract; fairways repel.

28. You can put "draw" on the ball, you can put "fade" on the ball, but no golfer can put "straight" on the ball.

29. A ball you can see in the rough from 50 yards away is not yours.

30. If there is a ball in the fringe and a ball in the bunker, your ball is in the bunker.

31. If both balls are in the bunker, yours is in the footprint.

32. Don't buy a putter until you've had a chance to throw it.

It doesn't matter what country you play golf in, as soon as the spikes are on golfers are united through bizarre behaviour that a non-golfer could only observe with disbelief and relief that he does not belong to such a strange group.