As economies around the world sink slowly into the toilet, there’s a number of strange but true stories that emerge as people try to find new ways to make a decent living. Well, believe it or not, prostitution isn’t immune to the downturn, either, and longtime “working girls” are having to convert brothels to more utilitarian stores. Like golf shops.

(No, no sex please. Just a driver and four iron. Thanks.)

Yes, you did read that last sentence correctly. According to this article in the Australian newspaper THE AGE, a number of new stores are popping up in areas that have always been red light districts across Europe. With income for the prostitution centers down a full one-fifth from previous years in the traditionally prostitution-heavy Czech city of Dubi — hey, they had to open an orphanage for all the unwanted accidental children of prostitutes — brothel owners are converting their stores to restaurants and golf shops.

Why golf shops? Well, when you think of it, golf clubs and stripper poles are both long and made of metal. And maybe the mattresses could be stood up and used as cushioning for a testing range for drivers, right?

Regardless, this has to be one of the strangest responses to the economic crisis yet, both in the mere fact that paid sex is own the downswing (we thought entertainment industries were recession proof!) and because prostitutes could segue into selling golf gear and apparel so seamlessly.

(A different type of test round.)

Then again, maybe we should have seen all this coming. After all, strippers broke into the U.S. golf market this summer in Pennsylvania and back in 2005 in Illinois, so it was only a matter of time until Eastern Europeans put the American forays into illicit golf to shame. Well played, Czech Republic. Now, about that sand wedge …