Taking Stock - New sporting opportunity for Brits.

Make a note in your diaries not to go on holiday next July, because TS believes it has found the next big sporting craze. With British sport in the doldrums, following poor showings in football (The Euros), tennis (Tim and Greg at Wimbledon) and cricket (most matches since Botham had a beard), TS has uncovered a sport the British may be able to dominate for years (or at least until we let other countries play) – office golf. Arthur Andersen in Leeds recently transformed five city centre office floors into a six-hole golf course to host a championship for the Prince’s Trust charity, and some 40 players contested the first-ever Yorkshire Open Office Putting Competition. The course, which was set up specially for the event, included doglegs around filing cabinets, tin-foil lakes with rubber ducks and carpeted greens complete with plastic holes. Simon Bevan, a partner at the firm, said: ‘Some people took it rather seriously. I was on target for the worst score, but fortunately I was called away to a meeting.’ The tournament now seems destined to become an annual event, and the company said it expects the number of competitors ‘teeing-off’ to ‘take-off’ in future years.