Buckley, now well into his first year as chairman of the Leinster Branch of the Golfing Union of Ireland, represents more clubs and more golfers than his counterparts in Connacht and Munster combined. His is the fastest growing and most dynamic corner of the Irish golfing map.

The number of golf clubs in Leinster has exactly doubled from 83 to 166 since 1980. The other provinces lag far behind with Connacht growing from 32 to 41, Munster moving from 50 to 90, and Ulster going forward just 50% from 82 clubs to 124.

These trends are set to continue in the years ahead as businessdriven developments continue to crop-up like mushrooms close to the eastern seaboard and Ulster is likely to keep-up somewhat as it is set to enjoy new prosperity now that a new age has dawned there.

The implications for competitive golf in the years ahead seem profound. Greater numbers are likely to produce more high quality players and the other provinces will need to be alert to stay in the race by 2015 by which time the changed demographics should have had an opportunity to impact on the elite playing fields.

Of course, Fintan Buckley, who will become president of the G.U.I.

all going well when the rota brings that office back to Leinster in 2012, doesn't take such a parochial view of the Irish game although the image does provoke a contemplative chuckle in a man who is at once modest almost to the point of self-effacement, unselfish but a tough competitor in the sporting context.

He first showed his sporting competitiveness at a very early age when he, his brother Colm and the Twomey brothers were caught on the wrong side of the G.A.A.

ban on foreign games when they played rugby for North Kildare and Lansdowne. They and the entire Maynooth club were suspended. It was a hurtful moment for a lad who had played minor football for Kildare but he moved along.

Schoolmaster Ned Browne, the honorary secretary at Lucan Golf Club, introduced him to golf in 1954 and his sporting life became hectic as he played rugby on Saturday mornings before taking the bus to the Spa Hotel and walking through the grounds to the first tee featuring a par-3 shot across the busy Celbridge Road; and playing Gaelic football on sunday mornings before making the same journey to the golf course.

Within a year he had his handicap down to six and he stayed in single figures for more than three decades. His play gained him a place on the club's Junior Cup team alongside Jim Downes, Fr.

James Loughran and Barry and Mick Gannon. That all of them are still living and friends is one of his greatest pleasures in life.

That an administrator lurked within became clear early. He was honorary secretary at Lucan by 1958. One year later he was gone from the club as he was offered membership at Hermitage in the pre-entrance-fee era and at an annual subscription of 7-guineas.

Soon he was in charge of the juniors, then he was handicap secretary and in 1993-1994 he was club president.

It was in that later year that Flor Butler died and Buckley was persuaded by the legendary Tom Bishop to run for the vacancy on the Leinster Council. The rest is history, as they say, as four years as honorary treasurer and four years as honorary secretary led to the chairmanship and he is still brimming with ideas.

He was instrumental in instituting the Leinster Boys & Girls Under-13 tournament which is to be inaugurated at Portlaoise Golf Club in August and he is keen to see both genders enjoy the game fully and intermingle more freely in competition. A thoroughly modern and international perspective on the game. But, while pushing to promote the game he sometimes ponders on the wisdom and effectiveness of some policies and actions.

"I sometimes wonder if too much is being done for junior players and whether they appreciate what is being done for them. I also wonder about the balance between team coaching and the encouragement of individuality in players."

"There was a time when one could go to an international match and be unable to distinguish between, say, the English players by viewing their swings. They were all staying close to one method of swinging. They were almost clones of their tutors. But you could tell one Irishman from another swinging on the horizon a great distance away. It is important that individual flair isn't stifled."

Certainly, Buckley has a point as there was no comparison between the full, slashing attack of Joe Carr and the controlled three-quarter swing of Cecil Ewing; or the rhythmic, rounded almost lazy motion that concealed Tom Craddock's ample power and the bow-legged, crouching and slashing attack of Eddie Dunne.

It was ballet versus Riverdance, old time waltz versus fast step!

And it was even more dramatic, and much more fun, to watch our leading professionals and to wonder at the effectiveness of Eamon Darcy with his flying right elbow, Jimmy Kinsella with his body bent forward at almost 90-degrees from the waist and Harry Bradshaw with his reverse overlap grip (the forefinger and middle finger of the left hand mounted over his right hand) and his rounded action once described by the late Henry Longhurst, for long the undisputed lead voice of British golf-writing, as "agricultural".

Whether any of these Irish champions would have survived, whether they might have done better, if forced into a mould of classicism and orthodoxy is a question that cannot be answered. But it is certain that all bodies are different and all minds even more so and that it is difficult to imagine that one size would fit all.

But, while pondering such details, Buckley is all in favour of golf for all and he is thrilled at the initial successes of Junior Golf Ireland which is promoted by the GUI, the ILGU and the PGA in tandem and which has four fulltime staff in the field already and is penetrating the educational system with a view to getting golf onto the curriculum.

Within the province, now that there are so many clubs, he and his colleagues also face a challenge in the matter of an increasingly crowded calendar and more intricate and complex arrangements for the various interclub tournaments. With over five decades of imaginative and energetic devotion to the game, and his interest and enthusiasm higher than ever, he is likely to produce some exciting solutions.