The Last Trump

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A Tale of Golf-Courses, Local Planning Laws and Death

In the not-too-distant future…most of Scotland has been sold off for golf-courses and the playgrounds of the rich. American billionaire Hamilton M. Semmit II has spent considerable sums in establishing the ‘best golf-course in the world’ on the shores of the River Tay, some miles to the west of St Andrews, at Wormit, beside the abbey of Balmerino. His endeavours have obliged him to overcome local planning objections and clear the land of grubby hicks and misguided ecologists.
McDonald Gunn, native of Argentina, one-time student drop-out, swine-herd and call-centre operative, now a lowly green-keeper at the newly-established Semmit World Academy of Golf at St Andrews, walks out early one morning and discovers, in the burn that runs past by the sixth fairway, a disembodied arm. The hand is clutching a No.5 iron, Excelsior-style. There is no sign of the ball it was trying to play.
Mr. Gunn reports this grisly find to the head green-keeper, who in turn informs the Club Secretary. However, as a lucrative Pro-Am golf tournament is due to take place at the course the following week, the police are not officially informed. Mr. Gunn and his colleagues therefore do their best to keep the lid on what follows - a growing eruption of corpses, legs, heads and other phenomena of a grim nature.
The rest of the golf-club staff are heavily involved in last-minute preparations, feverish activity which involves extra-marital coupling, sandwiches, blackmail and - of course - the hunt for escaped beavers. The golf-club secretary and the local senior policeman fall in love, as do the secretary’s wife and the philandering club professional.
And still the bodies and body-parts erupt from the earth, ruining the greens, and forcing Mr. Gunn to come up with more and more inventive methods of concealment.
On the eve of the tournament, the owner of the club arrives with his entourage. He is not about to miss the greatest Pro-Am tournament in the world, and he intends to win it as well. Mr. Semmit’s advisers and security-men find many things to annoy them on arrival, not the least of which is the refractory attitude of the head green-keeper who is resentful of transatlantic interference in his care of the fairways and greens.
However, Mr. Semmit strikes up an immediate friendship with ‘fellow Scot’ McDonald Gunn, to whom he outlines his plans for an even greater golf-course to be established in Scotland, one which will outdo all other courses in concept and style.
But the three days of the golf tournament bring several horrific surprises to the participants, leading to a final round of Apocalyptic proportions.