Golfer’s best friend

Ask any grazier and they will tell you a good working dog easily rates among the best assets on a farm.

Being able to control mobs of sheep with a few quick commands to a faithful canine friend can be the difference between a good and a bad day in a paddock.

But retired Norm Booth, who lives on farmland at Wartook in the northern Grampians, has discovered another more-than-handy way of putting his border collie’s intelligence, skills and passion for the job at hand to the test.

Norm has fashioned a 250-metre stretch of paddock at his property into a practice driving range and his companion caddy ‘Missy’ has become an integral part of a sporting pastime.

While another dog ‘Hamish’ is content to sit back and watch, two-year-old Missy has become an expert at retrieving and assembling golf balls for collection.

“She collects all the golf balls – as expected – like any good working dog,” Norm laughed.

“I have a little driving range I mow with the ride-on mower down to 250 metres with five flags with 50-metre intervals. Missy loves collecting the balls and won’t come back until I call her.

“She goes out and gets them, puts them in neat little groups so I can just wander along and pick them up.

“She is very intent on her job – extremely keen – and she will even go out in the paddock anywhere and collect them. So if I lose sight of them she finds them for me.

“If I’m chipping for 20 or 30 metres with cones, as soon as I put the cones down she goes and sits with them and waits and basically says ‘come on, come on!’

“It’s fantastic. What better way of spending a lovely afternoon could there be.”