Not the least of the things I love about the life of a golf writer is the opportunity to meet famous personalities I’ve admired from afar.

In a previous column, I talked about my encounter with Rory McIlroy at Ireland’s Lough Erne Resort. Great kid.

I’ve also reminisced about my round with Tom Kite in a Mississippi pro-am. Terrific gentleman.

And during the PGA Grand Slam of Golf in Bermuda last October, I had the pleasure of hanging out in the hotel lounge on several occasions with Ian Baker-Finch. I’ve rarely met anyone, public personality or otherwise, so instantly likeable. He seemed to have all the time in the world for everyone he met.

But my fondest memories are of the day I spent 15 years ago with the great Marlene Stewart Streit at Toronto’s Lambton Golf and Country Club. I was writing my book Northern Links: Canada From Tee to Tee at the time and hoped to include a profile of Marlene. Though she had never met me, Marlene graciously agreed to make the hour-long drive from her home to Lambton, where we would tee it up and relive the victory in 1951 that announced her sudden arrival on the Canadian golf scene.

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