I READ with interest Doug Marr's views on golf, its status as a sport and its place in the Olympics (“Golf is not a sport and it shouldn’t be in the Olympics”, The Herald, July 16) . I agree with his view that it seems out of place in the Olympics, but it most certainly is a sport.

I wonder what Mr Marr's views are on archery, equestrian events (dressage, jumping and eventing), fencing, sailing and shooting. All Olympic events, but do they qualify as sports?

Willie Towers,

Victoria Road, Alford.

DOUG Marr's satirical article on the game of golf will doubtless occasion much angst amongst its many followers. His dispassionate assessment of the great game, fashioned for the individual as opposed to being a team challenge, will equally be agreed upon by many as fair comment. Perhaps the truncated phrase from the bard "as ithers see us" best encapsulates the antics and procedures of golf as seen by the unconverted.

However, Mr Marr's basic questions are: is golf a game and as such should it merit inclusion within the Olympic Games arena? Affirmative on the first point but caution on the second as golf, like many games, has transcended into a major sport predicated by global business and media interests. The original concept of amateur sportspersons at the Olympics is long gone. Indeed, the word "amateur" is now a derisive term in sport.

In order to accommodate emergent sports perhaps the Olympics organisers would consider formulating a mark two event under the banner of the Olympic sports. Thereby even more revenue would percolate into the coffers of an organisation which has yielded to the pressures of professionalism. Sadly, that is why the game's up in many of our former sporting life pursuits.

Allan C Steele,

22 Forres Avenue, Giffnock.

ON Sunday, at the 145th Open Championship, we were treated to a worthy successor to the “Duel in the Sun” at Turnberry, in the shape of “High Noon at Troon” with Gary Cooper and Ian McDonald replaced by Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson (“Scintillating Stenson has too much for Mickelson in Troon epic”, Herald Sport, June 18).

One of the most remarkable aspects of the event, in the midst of a week of violence and terror around the world, was the behaviour of the galleries. The 173,000 golf fans who attended during the four days of the tournament were controlled by a few hundred civilian marshalls, each armed with nothing more lethal that a plastic paddle with the word “Quiet” on it and kept in their designated areas by pieces of plastic rope wound round some posts. As soon as the paddles were raised, an immediate and complete silence fell on the galleries until the paddles were lowered. Then the applause, cheering and shouting could be given free reign till the paddles appeared again.

Maybe the R & A, the organisers of The Open, should be hired as consultants on security and crowd control by the Home Office and MI5. The USPGA (United States Professional Golf Association), the organisers of similar Tournaments in the States, could do the same in the United States.

That would mean that Donald Trump would be free to spend his money on building more golf courses on which well-behaved crowds could be supervised by civilians with paddles, immediately improving security on both sides of the Atlantic.

George Kirkland,

15 Mar Drive, Bearsden.