(Photo By Everett Collection/Rex Features)

This image of the epic match in the film between Goldfinger (Gert Frobe) and James Bond (Sean Connery) remains stamped from my teenage memory as one of the first mentions of golf in popular media.  Mr. Bond catches Goldfinger cheating at the game and turns the tables of him with a clever use of the rules of golf.

Bond: “This is a Slazenger 7.”

Bond shows Goldfinger his own golf ball.

Bond: “Here’s my Penfold Hearts. You must have played the wrong ball somewhere on the 18th fairway. We are playing strict rules, so I’m afraid you lose the hole and the match.”

It is interesting to learn from Sean Connery’s memoirs that his life-long passion for golf began as a result of this filming.

“I  never had a hankering to play golf, despite growing up in Scotland just down the road from Bruntsfield Links, which is one of the oldest golf courses in the world. It wasn’t until I was taught enough golf to look as though I could outwit the accomplished golfer Gert Frobe in Goldfinger that I got the bug. I began to take lessons on a course near Pinewood film studios and was immediately hooked on the game. Soon it would nearly take over my life. ”

Oliver Brown

August 2008

(www.telegraph.co.uk)