OVER the years, golf's relationship with Hollywood has prompted decidedly mixed reactions among devotees of the Royal and Ancient game, despite the early involvement of no less a figure than Bobby Jones. A rather suspect image may be about to change, however, with the impending release of Tin Cup, the latest offering from golfing convert Kevin Costner.

One suspects that movie producers have noted the huge rewards on offer in the professional game and hope to get a slice of the cake. Otherwise, after a lengthy period of indifference, it would be difficult to explain the emergence of two golf related movies this year, the other being Happy Gilmore which hit American cinemas in February.

Golfing observers in the US are taking an optimistic view of the Costner project, in which he plays the journeyman professional Roy (Tip Cup) McAvoy. But the general feeling about Happy Gilmore is that it contains some of the most regrettable scenes in the cinematic history of the game.

In the movie, Adam Sandler, from TV's Saturday Night Live, makes the transformation from hapless hockey player to touring golf professional. Unfortunately, prominence is given to the unseemly, violent side of his former sport, including several instances of cursing and a mid round brawl with a pro-am partner. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised, given the sub par image that golf has frequently been saddled with in the movies.

The game's relationship with Hollywood dates from the early 1920s, when Walter Hagen starred with Leo Diegel, Marge Beebe and Andy Clyde in Green Grass windows, which contained golf in abundance. But a much more serious project had its beginnings on November 13th, 1930, when Jones, fresh from the Grand Slam, signed a contract with Warner Brothers.

It led to a series of 12 instructional films of about 10 minutes each. Shown at 6,000 cinemas throughout the US, they were followed by a second series, all of which earned Jones a reported $600,000 which he, used to set up a trust fund for his family. This was a fortune (as much as $4 million at current values), and raised questions about Jones' amateur status.

THE great man actually conceded as much, albeit in clever legalese, when he said. "I am so far convinced that it (the contract) is contrary to the spirit of amateurism that I am prepared to accept and even endorse a ruling that it is an infringement."

But the ruling never came. Neither the US Golf Association nor the Royal and Ancient was prepared to confront an issue that involved the most celebrated amateur in the history of the game. It was highly significant, however, that when the R and A decided to appoint an American as captain of the club in 1951, they passed over Jones, who would otherwise have been the most compelling choice, in favour of Francis Ouimet.

In a curious way, that controversy seemed to set the tone for what was to follow, though there were splendid exceptions. For instance, no serious golfer could fail to have been impressed with the extraordinary skill of Fred Astaire in the 1938 movie, Care free. It contained a golf driving routine in which he danced to the number Since They Turned. Loch Lomond into Swing. And a stunning finale had Astaire driving five balls, in rapid succession, down the fairway in time to the music.

Then there was the inimitable WC Fields in The Golf Specialist (1930), and other fine golfing sequences in the 1952 romantic comedy Pal and Mike, starring Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn and with contributions from Babe Zabarias and Patty Berg. And the unlikely notion of Dean Martin competing on the US professional circuit, with Jerry Lewis as his accident prone caddie, culminated in The Caddie (1953).

IT IS generally acknowledged that Follow the Sun (1951) is the best feature film to have been made about golf, but the criteria are clearly questionable. The movie, prompted by the horrific car crash and subsequent recovery of Ben Hogan, starred Glenn Ford, with Anne Baxter as his wife, Valerie. I am rather proud of my copy of the movie, but largely because the actual golf shots were played by leading professionals of the time, including Hogan.

Promoted as "The real life love story of two kids from Texas Ben and Valerie Hogan," it stretched credibility, not least because, at 39, Hogan could hardly have been considered a kid. And it wasn't exactly real life. Meanwhile, it was said that Ford waggled the golf club like Errol Flynn preparing for a sword fight and that he hunched over putts like a man suffering severe stomach cramps. But in the absence of any comparable biopic, it remains the best about.

Generally speaking, golf is projected in movies as a rather absurd sport, confined to fat old men. Indeed to gravely flawed fat old men, if one is to judge from Goldfinger in which James Bond has his famous match with the eponymous villain.

Filmed at Stoke Pages, because of its proximity to Pinewood Studios, its authenticity owed much to the fact that Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, was a keen golfer as, indeed, is Sean Connery. It is interesting to note how rarely "real" golfers are used on film. And remarkable as, it may seem to movie directors, it ease of James Garner, a single figure handicapper, who looked very much at ease in the odd golfing segment in the Rockford Files.

FLEMING was a member of Royal St George's, Sandwich, hence the title of the course as St Mark's in the book. Connery, incidentally, can claim a more elevated status as a member of the Royal and Ancient.

In the event, Goldfinger highlighted one of the seamier sides of golf. "In no other walk of life does the cloven hoof so quickly display itself," observed PG Wodehouse.

So, as the honest among us cringed in our cinema seats, Goldfinger perpetrated the most dastardly deceptions, with the assistance of his equally corrupt caddie, Odd job. And one suspected that a great game had already been tainted irretrievably for the uninitiated by the time the pair eventually got their comeuppance.

In Call me Bwana (1962), Bob Hope came across Arnold Palmer in the "jungle", which happened to be Denham Golf Club, wild animals et al. As with Goldfinger, the location was chosen because of its proximity to Pinewood Studios and the old Denham Studios. And as if to prove that the dedicated golfer can master all moods, we had James Mason in A Star is Born observing. "If I'm happy or if I'm miserable, I putt golf balls around the living room.

Ron Shelton, me director of Tin Cup, dismisses Follow the Sun as "kitsch at best". And he believes the immensely popular Caddyshack wasn't really a golf movie. Which is probably just a well, given the image it projected of a game for self indulgent buffoons wearing polyester slacks decorated with flag sticks.

So, what may we expect from Costner, who created quite a stir around Shinnecock Hills during the US Open last June and who has shown a remarkable aptitude for golf under the tutelage of CBS commentator, Gary McCord? We are informed that from the obscurity of a driving range in west Texas, his character, McAvoy, manages to get into the US Open (hence Costner's presence at Shinnecock), where he comes up against his rival in golf and romance, played by Don Johnson.

Shelton is aware that many non golfers hate the game. But while shooting, Tin Top last December, he admitted. There's something special and maddening about it. I wanted to tap into that through a guy who is wildly gifted and wildly self destructive, showing how and if he comes to terms with his demons and grows up." A golfing Rocky? Or Wild Thing John Daly?

George Bernard Shaw once described golf as "a typical capitalist lunacy of upper class Edwardian England". That may go some way towards explaining Hollywood's apparent problems in projecting it in a favourable light. And the fact that Glenn Ford was dressed in a white cap that was too large for him and a spiffy pair of two tone wing tips that would be more appropriate on trick shot artist, Noel Hunt.

And that Dennis Dugan, the director of Happy Gilmore, genuinely expects us to share his enthusiasm when he says. "If you like golf, you'll get a kick out of the ending because we break some of the game's major rules."

Costner appeared to have an admirable grasp of the game when he displayed his new found skills during the Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February. Golfers who suspect they have been gravely shortchanged by Hollywood through the years will be hoping that his director, Shelton, is conscious of a similar need to redress the balance.