ANYONE FOR A MIXED FOURSOME?

YOU have to worry that our young footballers might never get bored enough to play golf.

The klaxon has sounded on a lockdown easing that’s allowed Britain’s return to the fairways.

Sporting heroes of previous generations – like John Terry (left) – were at the front of the queue with their mashies oiled and their shirts nearly tucked in. But judging by social media, the lure of the links might be fading for the new crop. It’s so comfy on the sofa. Netflix, Fifa and chill, with everything delivered to your door, from a little bowl of nibbles to a groaning bucket of sex workers.

Today’s lads could be null ‘n’ voiding the point of golf – six hours freed from the grim clutches of domestic life. And football could be storing up a wellbeing issue. Golf does help ease former elite athletes back onto civvy street.

It drips into the bloodstream a realisation that, though once you were a glistening thoroughbred with the world at your feet, you are now a farty, old chunker with fallen arches and the yips.

It works like a diver gradually going through decompression.

True, some players do find even modest golf success gives them the bends. Was it 19 years ago that former West Ham enforcer Julian Dicks declared his intention to become a professional golfer?

It would have been only slightly more surprising if he’d announced he was going into space, in a craft he’d knocked together in his shed.

Divorce, in which Dicksy “lost the dogs too”, helped tee it all up. He came to earth with a bump.

But golf got him out the house. And that’s not nothing.