Dougal never knew his biological parents. He was found in a Scottish forest one rainy night in June 1946 by a herd of wild haggis, who then raised the tiny human as their own. However, four years later when the boy’s appetite had grown faster than his foraging skills, they encouraged him to go and join his own species. The haggis are typically shy creatures, but turn ferocious and cannibalistic when hungry, and they didn’t want to inadvertently eat the little fella in a frenzy. Dougal emerged from the forest and wandered onto a golf course on all fours, as a haggis would.
The infant was taken in by the kind Greenkeeper and his wife, Ed and Sherry Stump. An elderly couple, the Stumps lived a simple life in a croft house, immersed in nature with just a radio for entertainment. They taught young Dougal how to be a human, to walk upright, and to stop grabbing people’s private parts (a habit he’d acquired by watching the haggis during mating season). He was a kind and attentive young lad, and eager to learn. While Mother Stump tended the croft, Father maintained the local club’s greens, collecting stray golf balls he would find around the course. Dougal enjoyed counting them, and putting them into groups according to their shiny whiteness.
They took him to a Boy Scouts group. He loved the uniform and saluting, and spent many a happy hour fiddling with his woggle, although he wasn’t keen when it came to the activities and would make up strange ailments to avoid any real action. The marching band was his passion, and young Stump was at his happiest when blowing his own trumpet. An attentive student at school, he struggled in some areas, was unable to write in lower case, and had to be reprimanded frequently for chasing younger girls around the school yard.
As a teenager, while helping his father weatherproof the golf course fences, he tripped and fell into a pot of creosote, completely submerging his head. Thankfully he was wearing his swimming goggles at the time, as it could well have affected his eyesight. The wood stain permeated the first few layers of epidermis and would cause him to have a permanent tinge. Doctors did suggest they paint the rest of him so his facial tone would match his body, but Dougie’s parents thought the poor lad had already been through enough. On the plus side, his face was now impervious to woodworm, fungi, and Scottish winters.
With thoughts of a career, Dougal first tried accountancy, but due to a faulty calculator his figures always came out very wrong, and he kept having to give the examiner free golf balls in order to pass his tests. Concentrating instead on entrepreneurship, he presented the Stumps with his business plan. The idea was to make golf balls easier to spot in the rough, and for this he would make them much bigger and paint them gold. To save money on expensive clubs and caddies, players would kick the balls up the course instead, in a combination of football and golf which Dougal had named “FOLF”. The second phase was to buy up croft houses, paint them gold, and use them as driving ranges to practise booting Folf-balls through the gaps where the doors and windows used to be.
His parents were not too keen on the idea. Ed pointed out that his son’s ‘Big Beautiful Balls’ wouldn’t fit in the regulation course holes, but Dougal had thought of that, as he would make a special hole cutter like the one Mother used for making biscuits. They wanted their dear boy to pursue his dream and so donated much of their savings for the endeavour. For years, Dougal tried to get an appointment with the golf club’s course director to discuss his ideas, sadly to no avail.
After the Stumps passed away, the croft house belonged to Dougal and he painted it gold. He took on his father’s greenkeeping job, although never gave up on his FOLF dream, while the course director still refused to see him. A lovely Slavic lady named Aberbijana caught Dougal’s eye. She lived in the next village and had a mobile dog-grooming business called ‘Tawny Spaniels’.
Unfortunately the romance was not meant to be, as just as he had started to win her over she went to live in America, having been accepted on an ‘Extraordinary Ability’ visa for her expertise on de-worming treatments. Not to be lonely, and with a preference for exotic birds, he instead bought some parrots to keep him company, teaching them to say nice things about him in exchange for birdseed and treats.
One afternoon on the course, Dougal was brainstorming the next phase of his business empire. This entailed building a massive tower from regular-sized golf balls, which was a frustrating process as they refused to defy gravity and kept slipping off one another because of their rounded shape. While he stood there pondering, a rogue ball bounced nearby, rolled up, and tapped the side of his shoe. He hoped the owner wouldn’t come to retrieve it this far off the green, and he could add the ball to his collection.
A few minutes later a golf cart appeared, veered toward him, and stopped. A man stepped out and approached, seemingly to ask where his ball was. As he drew closer, the two men froze and just stared at one another.
The golfer took off his red hat.
It was as though he was looking in a mirror.
Stood there in the rough at the edge of the forest, where he had made his entrance into the human world many years before, Dougal finally realised. The maternity hospital was on the other side of the wood. Had the haggis ‘abducted‘ instead of ‘found’ him all those years ago? Was he, in fact, a twin? Had he just found his biological family? A lifetime of self-doubt and unanswered questions vanished, and he beamed joyously while opening his arms to welcome his long-lost brother into his warm embrace.
The face before him however, was experiencing the opposite reaction. The initial look of shock transformed into rage. With teeth bared, he pointed at Dougal and opened his mouth to shout, but before the words came out the man disappeared into the forest, dragged backwards at breakneck speed by a gang of haggis.
Dougal was forlorn and shocked. He stood there, still with outstretched arms ready to hold his only living family. So many emotions. Was this real? Did this just happen? Should he not have eaten those wild mushrooms for breakfast? He bent down and picked up his brother’s red hat.
“Sir?….. SIR?”
He turned around to see a group of men in suits and dark glasses, “your ball is over here Sir, right by the flag, magnificent shot Sir!”
Oh thank heavens, thought Dougal, his friends would rescue him. He rushed over.
“Hello, I’m Dougal Stump, I believe my twin has just been abducted and dragged into the wood.” He pointed towards the forest.
Silence. The men in suits looked at each other, and then back at Dougal.
“THE WOOD!” he repeated, still pointing.
“You’re on the green Sir, wouldn’t you prefer a putter?”
“No, no, I was kidnapped as a baby you see, taken from my family by a gang of wild haggis, and I was over there playing with my balls when my twin brother appeared, but the haggis came and took him, you need to help him!”
“Yes of course Sir, we’ll do that,” they nodded but stood still, while the caddy nervously held out the putter.
“I was raised by the haggis, so please don’t hurt them.”
“We won’t Sir, I promise,” said the suit, while gently directing him towards the outstretched putter.
“I used to grab people’s private parts you know.”
“Yes Sir, we know.”
Another suit stepped forward. “We have a lunch with the Ambassador and Course Director, Sir. They are waiting for us. If Sir would like to take his shot now.”
“Lunch with the Course Director? Well now. You just don’t know how long I’ve been wanting to show him what he can do with my balls.”
“And he is very excited about that Sir.”
Dougal slowly placed his brother’s hat on his head, and took hold of the putter.
“Finally,” he smiled.