29/06/26 - The Capybara Conundrum

Dog Shot Golf Blog – 29/06/2026
Today wasn’t about chasing bogies or trying to fix my slice.
Instead, the kids were booked in for their junior golf lesson at Cowes Golf Club, which gave me and Coochie a very important mission for the next two hours… Ball hunting.
Before I go any further, a massive shout-out to the junior coaching at Cowes Golf Club. If you’re on the Isle of Wight and you’ve got kids interested in golf, it’s well worth checking out. The coaches are brilliant, the sessions are fun, and they do an excellent job of getting youngsters into the game without making it feel like hard work.
Now, back to the important stuff.
The kids have recently launched their very own business. Not bad for an 11 and 8 year old. Cheese is saving for a house, Dude foar a Capybara for his Mrs.....
Introducing Dude & Cheese Out of Bound Ball Company. Corporate headquarters in New York : Paris : Milan : Cowes. A truly global operation, out of a suitcase and a van.
Their business model is simple: find lost golf balls, clean them up, and sell them back to their original owners… probably.
So, while the kids were busy improving their golf, me and Coochie thought we’d do our bit to support local business and head out for a quick rummage.
Armed with absolutely no shame and eyes peeled for anything white—or every neon colour known to man—in the undergrowth, we set off on our treasure hunt. If you’ve never been ball hunting, you’re missing out. Every bush could be hiding a Pro V1… or twenty battered range balls and one that looks like it’s been underwater since 1998.
What started as, “Let’s have a look in this hedge,” quickly turned into a full-blown competition. Every bush became a gold mine, every patch of brambles was worth investigating, and every cry of, “I’ve found one!” meant the other person had to search even harder.
There was plenty of climbing, crawling and the occasional, “I’m sure I saw one in there…” before disappearing head-first into a hedge.
Some balls were beyond saving. Some looked almost brand new. Some even had our names on them…
Two hours later we’d somehow amassed 127 golf balls, picked up a feck ton of mossie bites, collected enough leg scratches to look like we’d wrestled an angry badger, and completely lost track of time.
Meanwhile, the kids came back from their lesson smiling, full of stories and hitting the ball better than when they started. That’s a win all round.
The best part?
They were delighted to see the mountain of golf balls… right up until they realised they’d just inherited a week’s worth of cleaning.
Character building, I call it.
Golf doesn’t always have to be about your score. Sometimes it’s about spending a couple of hours outdoors, having a laugh with your mate, finding enough lost golf balls to make you feel like you’ve beaten the system, and lining the pockets of Del Boy and Rodney.
Whether Dude & Cheese Out of Bound Ball Company becomes the next golfing empire remains to be seen, but if nothing else, we’ve rescued 127 golf balls from a lifetime in the bushes.
Not a bad evening’s work.
See you on the next one.