Golf has been considered a strange pastime, by players and non-players alike, ever since its birth in Scotland half a millennium ago. Since it became a worldwide obsession in the early years of this century, events that have taken place in the name of golf have moved from the strange to the bizarre. Jonathan Rice has avoided the mere commonplace curiosities in his search for the unusual. But he has turned up stories - all authenticated, as far as any golf story can be - of a hole in one caused by an earthquake; of the 10-year-old boy who caddied for the winner of the 1913 US Open; and of Chico the dog, who was made an honorary member of the Waihi Golf Club in New Zealand in 1971, because of his infallible gift for finding golf balls. The great and the good are here, too. As well as Bob Hope, who shot a hole in one at the age of 90, there is King Hassan of Morocco, whose personal golf course was turned into a prison camp during a coup attempt.