Oh no, the recession’s going to be THAT horrific…

At last, an unexpected and very welcome side-effect of the recession: it seems business at Ireland’s golf clubs is going to be down by around 25% this year, according to a report in today’s Irish Times.  It also appears that all those excuses fat excecutives used to make about conducting their “business” on the golf course were, as the rest of us already knew, absolute tosh after all, otherwise clubs would be busier than ever.  Top hole, chaps.  How dreadful that you’re all scrambling around trying to find something constructive to do now, instead of the world’s most pointless exercise.  Good news for the home decorating industry though – maybe now, former golfers can sit watching paint dry for the best part of a week.  But it’s really bad news for manufacturers of golf bats, plus-four trews and vomit-inducing knitwear.  In fact, the knitwear industry’s best hope is to stop making bright orange or yellow v-neck golf sweaters (and, of course, the cream polo-necks which are, for some nonsensical reason, worn under garish v-necks by tasteless golf geeks) altogether, and instead concentrate on making chunky, ready-stinky jumpers for the forthcoming outbreak of new, whingeing singer-songwriters, which is bound to be along any second.  Of course, these singer-songwriters will be made up of the offspring of formerly-golfing executives who are now experiencing a sharp decline in their fortunes.  Until that happens, let’s just hope there’s 25% less golf on telly this summer…