Seven clubs reach the magical number this year and that brings to 111 the list of Irish centenarian clubs with a steady stream of others due to totter over the line every year from now on.

All five of our "royal" clubs - Belfast, County Down, Dublin, Portrush and Tara - have had their birthday bashes, as have all but one of our seven 'county' clubs, with the exception being County Tipperary which has only 85years to go to the century mark. But time travels fast and a visit to any of these old clubs reminds one that few things move faster than gold lettering down an honours board. The captain of today can point proudly at his name on the bottom of the captains' board, blink, and he has been painted into history.

As a child, to whom men of 40 seemed ancient, one gazed in awe at the captain's board in the County Sligo Golf Club and wondered how TP Toher and the legendary Cecil Ewing, who had been captains in 1939 and 1940, were still to be seen about the place in the 1950s, although there were lines and lines of names below theirs on the big board on the wall.

Great and dignified men such as George Soden, Charlie Anderson, Eric Koss and Harry Roughan were our captains through the 1950s before Cecil Ewing came back for a second term in 1961. But the gold paint continued to flow. It was an awesome sight. The old guys were being buried in gold.

So many more have been interred in the same tender and revered manner since then. Just as the "old captains" of one's own day seemed to be of the time of the pharohs, dozens of their successors have joined that same grouping. It is a remarkable and relentless phenomenon and very dignified too, as the brave leaders of today are gradually memorialised.

Of course, it is quite easy for a golf club to live to 100 but quite another for a person to do so. When asked how a particular golf course is doing, one has always answered:

"Very well, and we shouldn't worry about it because it will be here and maturing for centuries to come while we are going down rapidly." Morbid, if you wish, but real.

Happily, there are those who live long and see their clubs and courses thrive through the decades. The Gunning brothers, Larry and Kerry, have been at Royal Dublin for six or more decades and are still going strong. It would be interesting to know if there are many centenarians at any of our 100-year-old clubs, able to remember the early years of club life. But it seems likely that there will be plenty of them in years to come as human life expectancy extends. Figures from America declare that there are now over 72,000 centenarians in that great land.

That is double the corresponding number in 1990 and 16 times the number of centenarians in 1950! Great news, and we are doing nicely, too, with about 140 centenarians in the Republic.

In Ennis, which is one of the seven Irish golf clubs celebrating a centenary this year, they have a number of lively octogenarians including former football stars Sean Connolly and Mick Hughes. They could tell stories. In fact, they do, as does club president Noel Pyne who is a most remarkable fellow who scored 69 gross in a club competition just last week. Operates off a handicap of 1.4, he is set to compete his 45th consecutive South of Ireland Championship next month.

The club has produced great champions through the years but none greater than Vincent Nevin who projected films in the local cinema by night and hit so many golf balls by day that he wore out the faces of his irons! He was rewarded with victory in the Irish Close Championship in 1969, the West in 1972 and the South in 1976 and 1978. He is an honourary life member and will be there for the Club Members' Centenary Week from 2-8 July, and for the centenary Ball on 23 November.

The club's other great champions include Paddy Bulger, Valerie Hassett and Patricia Mangan who won the Irish Ladies' Close in 2005 and 2006. There seems to be something in the air in Clare that is conducive to good golf.

Speaking of good golf, the subject of good-value golf is one that is synonymous with the majority of our oldest clubs. It is as though time has stood still at most of them, excepting those on the wellworn tourist trails, as they offer superb golf at old-fashioned prices. Just look at this select menu of wonderful games at bargain rates You may play for Euro40-orless a round at Athlone, Ballinrobe, Bangor, Birr, County Longford, Curragh, New Ross, North West, Roscrea, Tipperary and Tuam. You can also tee it up for Euro60 or less at Bundoran, Carlow, Dundalk, Galway, Greystones, Kilkenny, Mullingar, Portsalon, Rosapenna, Royal Tara, Skerries, Tramore, Tullamore and Wicklow.

At those prices, anyone can afford to indulge in a heady mixture of wonderful golf and nostalgia at clubs which were there when golf was only beginning.

??For the pub quiz fans: Ireland's seven "county" golf clubs are Armagh, Cavan, Louth, Longford, Meath, Sligo and Tipperary. `