That peculiar sound you may have heard wafting from the West last week? It was my father laughing from his grave at news that golf in Ireland appears to be in decline and has become an old person's game.

Yes, it seems clubs of glory, too, lead but to the grave.

A report from the Economic and Social Research Institution, Golf in Ireland: A Statistical Analysis of Participation, found the game has become less popular among young adults.

Highest participation rates nowadays, for both men and women in Ireland, are among those in their 60s and 70s. The report highlighted in particular a fall-off by those under 55. So golf, it seems, is headed the way of all flesh, of newspaper readers, and church attendance in Ireland. Is nothing sacred anymore?

My late father's passion about golf (it was never for golf) was rooted in a skint youth where such as those of his social standing in Roscommon were excluded from membership of the local golf club.

This, of course, was never so coarse as to be overt. But, only “big shots” played the game locally. While in principle “everyone” could join the club, in fact it was the preserve of the priest, the doctor, the lawyer, and allied sycophants. Associated women had their place too. On Wednesdays.

Membership was by nomination of those in the club and there was a fee. Such “terms and conditions” ensured undesirables possessed of little more than a vaulting ambition remained in their place – outside!

My father never saw golf as a game. It was a statement. He grew to despise those who played it locally. They, he felt, lacked all conviction and were merely social climbers with a craving, for the respect of those they deemed their betters, where a backbone ought to be.

But, it was worse. It was also political. In his view local golfers were also probably Fine Gael supporters, there being no lower rung in his vision of things. They were probably the sort of people who, too, would sell off part of their country to hold onto their jobs.

Golf from the 15th century Scots Gaelic gouf, an alteration of Dutch colf, colve "stick, club, bat", and German kolben, "club"). It is first mentioned (along with fut- bol) in a 1457 Scottish statute on forbidden games.

inaword@irishtimes.com