When I had settled in as golf correspondent of The Irish Times in 1981, the opportunity arose to do a weekly column based on correspondence I might receive from readers along with items picked up in the course of my travels. So it was that the alliterative appealing Golf Gossip came into being.

It had run for several months, every Tuesday, before the patience of Donal Foley, the deputy editor of the paper, eventually expired. Given his keen interest in sport, Foley wished to know when The Irish Times had begun engaging in gossip.

So the title changed to Golfing Log which went on to acquire a regular slot on a Saturday and ran until June 2002 when I took early retirement.

The date of its demise gained considerable relevance in the imminent arrival of the Internet, which was to have a dramatic impact on information gathering. So, with wonderfully responsive readers, it could be said that I enjoyed the best of times in terms of compiling the Log from my own resources.

It was almost as if I had become part of a large golfing family where the participants were happy to share information based on mutual trust. Which became the source of some remarkable happenings, many of which are included within these pages.