Golf a major handicap to marriages staying the course

THE perfect way to ruin a good walk, Mark Twain once said of golf. Now, it has become the perfect way to ruin a good marriage.

That's according to a US psychologist who has studied the sport's effect on relationships extensively - and who is to lecture on the topic in Ireland in the near future.

Golf is "the new number-one cause of marital break-up in the US", Dr Richard Lavelle said yesterday. "The people who come to see me, namely golfers, appear to prefer golf to the marital bed."