after all he looked, one would say later, “like a kind and chivalrous young man.”

“Ladies,” he declared, “would you please move away from the building. Some of the members are complaining that you obstruct the view from the smoking room.”

I mention this to Kim now and she is visibly appalled.

“You’re kidding, right?”

Nope.

“That is just awful,” she says. “It’s so awful it’s, you know almost funny. I cannot believe things like that happen in this day and age.

So you’ve never encountered sexism in the game?

Kim ponders this for a moment.

“Sure I have, I mean sexism is all around. But you can’t say that golf, is per se, sexist. Some of the people that play it are sexist and that stuff you told me proves that some clubs can be very, very sexist. But to call golf sexist is to give it a personality and sports don’t have personalities. Not in that way.”

And she’s right. The incident, at once amusing and shocking, says very little about golf and a great deal about those who fancy they are the custodians of the game. Nevertheless you might think that stories like that would put most women off the game. In fact women are taking up golf faster than any other demographic.

“I think for me golf was just something I grew up with. When you learn a game at a very early age, you just learn the game. You don’t worry about whether it’s cool or uncool. If you like it you play it, and if you really like it you’ll probably get pretty darn good at it. But it is different for women who take it up in their teens or twenties. They are more aware of the game’s reputation. For them, I guess, it’s way of relaxing. The thing is that golf offers women a chance to be competitive in a dignified way.”

She certainly has a point. Women always look better playing golf than men, primarily because the range of golfing clothes on offer to them is infinitely more varied and sexy than what men are required to wear. Unlike the gym or running, golf doesn’t require hideous pink Lycra. As Kim says, “Even if you’re not playing so good it’s always important to look good.”

» Kim Smith part 3