Titanic Golf

Much has been made of the fact that the band continued to play as the Titanic went down. But nothing has been mentioned of the brave woman who continued to practice her putting as the ship sank, until I unearthed a diary of the 2nd to last man to see her alive.
The woman, Hyacinth McShank, was obsessed with golf and also an insomniac, which meant she was wide awake when the ship hit the iceberg. Hyacinth had been trying to figure out why she missed all her 10-ft putts to the left. She knew she wasn't looking up too soon and she wasn't closing her club face on the way through. She decided on one last putt and, just as she started her backswing, the ship hit the iceberg.
The collision jolted her into a new stance in which her eyes were directly over the ball. Eurka! The ball rolled straight into the middle of the glass, a target she'd selected because it was the same diameter as a hole in a green.
"Och aye the noo!" she shouted, and lined up another dozen balls as stewards and ship staff rushed past.
Half an hour later, one of them tapped her on the shoulder. "Madam," he said, "the ship is sinking. You should go to the lifeboats."
Hyacinth shoved him away. " Are you oot of your mind, mon? I've just sunk 67 10-ft putts in a row! Another 33 and I'll have the stance set in muscle memory." She returned to her putting. "This is fantastic. Now I'm putting slightly up hill. I've never been any good at that."
"Madam," insisted the man, "you really must go now."
"For goodness sake," said Hyacinth, continuing to putt, "I can't go yet. How long before it actually sinks?"
The man looked at the angle of the deck, then back at Hyacinth. "Show me your swing again."
Hyacinth obliged.
The man scratched his chin. "Slow tempo ... deck's at about 5 degrees ... you've probably got another 15 minutes."
Hyacinth smiled. "Just enough time to get those last few putts."
The man scurried away to rescue non-golfers.
The last putt rolled into the glass. "Wonderful," exclaimed Hyacinth, as the ball ran back to her. "Hmm." She picked up the ball. "That's very handy, having the ball automatically come back to you." She looked around. "Wonder if I could find something other than a sinking ship to do the same thing?"
As they say, the rest is history. Hyacinth was so excited by her idea that she rushed down to the radio room, shoved aside Jack Phillips (radio operator) and the last signal from the Titanic was not 'CQD, SOS'. It was 'Have invented wonderful new putting device. Will make our fortune. Meet me ..."
Alas, Hyacinth had miscounted her putts and went down with the ship. Which meant the ball-returning putting machine was delayed another 29 years, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and a keen golfing insomniac sailor was practicing his putting...


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