Maurice Neligan, for whose surgical skills I owe heartfelt thanks, literally, informed my IT colleague, Alison Healy, this week that he plays golf to relieve stress. One wonders how relaxing it is likely for him during the coming year, given his election as president of Dooks GC.

Still, visitors have been enchanted by this delightful Kerry retreat which, we are told, gets its name from the Gaelic for rabbit warren. Indeed the one-time doyen of English golf writers, Peter Dobereiner, who placed his green-fee in a milk bottle, described Dooks as "a dreamlike experience, playing over the rolling hills and guessing, often wrongly, which hollow would harbour a green." We wish the new president well.