It’s been a long way from long-time Secretary of the Willoughby Laurels Social Golf Club to new Secretary of the Association of Golf Writers (AGW).

I am very honored to become the first non-British born Secretary of the AGW.

The Association was founded in 1938 to help protect and assist the interests of golf writers attending golf tournaments.  While my new position is yet to be ratified I will become only the seventh Secretary and following in the footsteps of good friend Peter Dixon who is to become the new Captain of the AGW.

When I first got into golf it was through a social golf club in Sydney that had its roots when four-time friends in March 1979 went away for a weekend to play golf.  I soon found myself joining ‘The Founding Fathers’ as they were called and soon regularly playing golf on courses about northern Sydney.

Numbers grew and we formed the Willoughy Laurels Social Golf Club that I am delighted to report the club continues to play a round of golf each month of the year, and a club that each month also presents a ‘Bradman Trophy’ for the highest score.

In 1984 I was appointed to the staff of the Premier of New South Wales as an Assistant Private Secretary working under the Hon. Neville Wran QC, MP, who sadly passed away earlier this year.

Members of Willoughby Laurels SGC Members – Bernie McGuire, Dave Knudsen, Steve Clarke and Jason Penrose At Muirfield GC. last December.

A few years later I was asked to become Chief Private Secretary to the Treasurer of New South Wales working under the Hon. Ken Booth MP, who also has since died.

Of course, many of those who know me know that the day after losing the State General Election in March 1988 I headed off to a leading Australasian Tour event at the Riverside Oaks Club west of Sydney.   While present at the event I completed a coupon and dropped it in the box.

In returning to work on the Monday after the landslide electoral defeat I received a telephone call from the Sydney ‘Daily Mirror’ newspaper to inform me I had won first prize in the contest – Business class tickets for two to attend the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.

The rest, as they say, is history!

Since March 1988 I have probably attended well in access of 700 golf tournaments and have been present at just over 60 Major Championships.

Only recently I was invited to join the Marketing Committee of the Crail Golfing Society, the seventh oldest club in golf, before mid last month I chosen to be the new AGWs Secretary.

Doing what I do best – ‘annoying’ Tiger Woods during 2012 Duel at Lake Jinsha in China.

I have be surprised by the number of congratulatory emails I’ve received since my appointment became public including one from Australian cricketing great Richie Benaud, a member of the Australian Golf Writers Association.

There was also one from long-time colleague and friend Brendan Moloney, and on the committee of the Australian Golf Writers Association, writing …. “After Adam Scott won the Masters, it was the last bastion for Australians to storm and you did it. Look forward to seeing you in Sydney later this month.”

So thank you to everyone who has been in contact.

Reporting on golf has taken me around the globe including for two weeks here in Shanghai and tonight we fly to Turkey for the Turkish Airlines Open and a country I thought I would first visit to travel to Gallipoli but now find myself making a fourth visit to Belek.

Unfortunately, Gallipoli will have to wait.

I’m now very much looking forward to continuing the great work of former AGW Secretaries such as Renton Laidlaw and Peter Dixon.