It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...

Set in the aftermath of WW1 we follow the degeneration of Rannulph Junuh, a veteran of the trenches who, before he went to war, was a golfer of enormous promise. Now haunted by the horrors he has seen, Rannulph keeps the nightmares at bay by burying himself in the bottle. Given one more opportunity to redeem himself in the form of a local celebrity golf match, Rannulph must find his long lost swing and in the process perhaps regain the love of the woman he left behind, and so appears the mysteri find out more...