We choose our words carefully in these difficult times. So I choose the word “deflated” to describe how I felt when I found out the news that Golf World and Today’s Golfer have both been shut down by Bauer Media after 40 years and 32 years respectively. They have been a meaningful part of my life for so long and I will miss them.

The shutting down of Today’s Golfer on its 400th issue comes not long after the passing of its originator and founding editor Bill Robertson who died on March 6 after a long illness. They have left us together. This gentleman contacted me, a young sprog who kept on sending him material when he edited Golf Illustrated, to invite me up to Peterborough for a meeting.

I had a dilemma when I received this letter for the timing was difficult but I went to see him anyway. He offered me the chance to work for him regularly. But I  had to decline. That week coincided with losing my lovely Dad and I wasnt in the right headspace at the time to take on such a challenge. So I watched later as the journalists he did cultivate went on to great opportunities, not least the most talented Lauren St John who became golf correspondent of the Sunday Times before leaving the sport to become a successful author. He spoke lovingly of his wife and family, told me he had a 2 handicap and generously told me all kinds of inside knowledge about The Masters. I was grateful for this gesture of opportunity, but it was not possible to take it at the time. But how proud he must have been of how well the title turned out. But most of all how he cultivated the progress of others.

Golf Monthly and Bunkered continue on in our newstands for now, but their circulation figures are less than 20,000 sales a month. While they continue I shall be buying and enjoying the feel of holding the glossy pictures and passionate writing within because digital media is just not the same. There is a distance, a detachment. I shall be enjoying print media while it lasts.

A toast to Golf World and Today’s Golfer for recording all the memories.