From my earliest days I knew about Fred Daly. Having been born in Portstewart it was only a short trip to his native Portrush where the club was a veritable shrine to him as the British Open champion of 1947.

As a 15-year-old, I was to realise the dream of every youngster by actually playing with our hero. It was a 36-hole pro-am at Bangor where all the amateur competitors were women. But as the big moment approached, I became really nervous.

I remember my anxiety on seeing no sign of him as I headed for the first tee and later fearing that he wasn't going to show up at all. But he finally seemed to appear out of nowhere and was very courteous when introduced to my- self and my local, female partner.

She was also quite young, probably no more than 20 and she had this curtain of hair which covered her entire face when she addressed the ball. As a consequence, she could have seen very little of what she was doing. And to make matters worse, it was windy, which meant her hair was all over the place.

Then, as we set off up the first fairway, I suddenly noticed she was in her bare feet. Fred said nothing but I felt I should make some attempt at conversation so I asked her: "Do you always play in your bare feet?" To which she replied "Oh yes", putting an end to that particular line of conversation.

But she was older than me which meant she was given the task of marking Fred's scorecard for the professionals' individual competition. At that stage he was still a wonderful striker but a bloody awful putter. In fact, before hitting a putt he would wave the putter over the ball, back and forth, back and forth. I counted him doing this exactly 43 times on every putt.

Naturally he wasn't too pleased about his putting and I remember as he walked off the green having taken six at a particular par four, she called after him "Fred, what did you have there? What did you have . . ."

He was getting progressively furious at this and by the eighth hole he said to me that he was no longer going to communicate with this girl. From then on he would say to me "Tell her I had a five; tell you I had a four." So I would say "Fred had a five; Fred had a four." And so on.

Realising what was going on, she wanted to know why Fred wasn't talking to her. And there was I caught in the middle, which was horrendous. But on we went for what appeared to be an interminable round. Little did I know there was worse to come.

Although Fred was playing off the very back tees, his drives were invariably the furthest out on the fairway while I was usually the middle one and she was last. We finally got to the 18th where she hit her second and I then hit what turned out to be my only decent iron shot of the day.

Remember this was 1975 and Fred was something of a legend at the time. So, we had quite a gallery following us and by the last hole it had become a really big crowd. Anyway, to great applause, I hit this eight iron into about eight feet. But when we walked the 30 yards to the next ball, Fred looked down at it and then at me before saying: "You played the wrong ball, sweetie."

I'll not tell you what sweetie said. Suffice to say that I was mortified. So I had to hit another shot to the green and when it was all over, I remember turning to my father and, close to tears, telling him: "I can't play with those two again."

Of course there was no way my father would hear of such a thing, which meant I was back with them the following day. This time, Fred didn't speak to the other girl at all. But she was prepared for it and everytime we finished a hole she would say to me "Did he have six." Or whatever.

It may not have been pleasant at the time, but now, when I look back at that tournament in Bangor, I treasure it as a memorable experience, particularly the way Fred could hit brassie shots out of the rough. My only regret is that I was too young to fully appreciate the artistry of a wonderful player.