BY RIGHTS, I shouldn't be here. At this very moment, I ought to be preparing to or, at least, be surrounded by a team of medical experts wondering how on earth I am defying all laws of nature by staying alive. Me and about a dozen others.

We were victims of the freak storms that swept through Britain at the weekend, trapped in a hell of Mother Nature's making, battered by the worst She could throw at us and yet, miraculously, we are still here to tell the tale.

It was frightening, life in the raw, a nightmare that will haunt us all for ever.

No, we were not cut off from civilisation by the floods. That would have been child's play. Neither were we trapped in a blizzard.

What we experienced was far worse than that.

When heaven opened the floodgates, when the winds threatened to blow us all into the next Millennium, when the temperature dropped by a good 20 degrees in as many seconds and we could see the silhouette of the Grim Reaper heading our direction, make no mistake about it, the fairways of Lobden Golf Club was not the place to be. It was like the dark side of the Moon.

You have to remember, for a start, that no clothing has yet been invented to protect the human frame from the cold and wet of Whitworth.

There is something strange about Lobden rain. It defeats all types of waterproofing known to mankind. In quick time. A biting wind, like that on Sunday, makes the wearing of protective thermal underwear a worthless exercise and the boots the astronauts wore on the moon would not keep your feet dry.

When you stand on the first tee at Royal Lobden, you have just got to accept that, no matter how many layers of clothing you have on, the weather always wins.

If you are prepared to take that as read, you can then concentrate on your golf - if, that is, your body is still functioning correctly and able to deal with the Artic conditions on the walk to the first green less than 300 yards away.

There were more than just the desperate dozen playing at the time, but the others on the course were members and they don't count in this horror story.

They do not think there is anything strange about the eye of a hurricane passing over Their Blessed plot. It's an almost daily occurrence.

In fact, when, drenched to the skin and frozen to the bone, we timorously dropped hints that, perhaps, it was time we walked in, their withering looks of disgust merely added to our despair. We were made to feel wimpishly inadequate.

I used to be a member of Lobden, they were great times, even if, on average, we had to be satisfied with just one dry, sunny, warm, wind-free day per year.

Now, the climate is even less predictable than it was in the late Eighties. Weather experts put it down to global warming. The only trouble is, somebody forgot to turn up the wick in Whitworth.

And to think my wife is convinced I am enjoying myself when I go golfing.

Incidentally, if it is global warming, why is it only Britain getting it in the neck?