Losing your golf balls is so taxing

On Wednesday, like many South Africans, I watched Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s Budget Speech fearing the worst. Predictably, “Mr Candy Crush” punished the “sinners” on booze and tobacco, hit taxpayers’ pockets hard with a fuel levy tax hike, and delivered the coup de grace when upping VAT to 15%. Bugger, it certainly feels like the only thing they haven’t taxed us for is the air we breathe.

Despite being taxed to death the one thing in the 2018 Budget Review that really caught my eye was: “Government proposes to increase these rates, which are already applied to some goods that are consumed mainly by wealthier households (such as cosmetics, electronics and golf balls).”

Ah, smart phones, make-up and golf ball tax. You only need golf balls to play golf, so you may as well tax it.

I must admit, I lose a lot of golf balls when I get the chance to play a round.

I don’t buy the bright, top-ofthe-range golf balls, so my weapon of choice is purchased from the friendly chap selling used golf balls on the side of the road outside the golf course.

Every now and again I recognise the markings on the ball, which means I am buying back some of the balls I lost the last time I played there.

Because I lose a lot of golf balls, I like to start a round with at least 20 balls in a Checkers shopping bag.

I haven’t quite lost that many in a round, but I have reached double figures over 18 tortuous holes, while my record is losing three on a single hole – damn that water hole.

Everyone is different when it comes to using golf balls.

There’s the guy that would rather lay up short of the water up to three times than lose a ball in the hazard, only to lose it anyway.

There’s also the golfer that always rocks up for a round without actually bringing a single golf ball, and then there’s the mate that uses the most expensive balls so when an errant drive finds the reeds or rough, he makes the rest of the four-ball search for his R40 treasure for an unnecessary amount of time.

After discussing the newly-proposed tax a colleague of mine, clearly not a golf fan, chirped: “they shouldn’t be worried about taxing golf balls. They should heavily tax people who wear colourful golf pants”.

Luckily he’s never seen me in my bright green and yellow golf longs.