Wednesday, 15th July 2026
10 am, media centre, Royal Birkdale
In attendance:
Matt Cooper, Colin Harding, Philip Reid, Lewine Mair, Peter Finnan, John Hopkins, Patricia Davies, Nick Rodger, Bob Harig, Martin Dempster, Carl Markham, Juan Guillen, Ewan Murray, Jim Black, V Krishnaswamy, Spender Robinson, Simon Lewis, Mark Lamport Stokes, Katherine Downes, David Facey
Apologies:
Michael Atkinson, Robin Barwick, Donald Steel, Philip Quinn, Dave Seanor, Bernie McGuire, Neil McLeman, Andy Farrell
Minute’s silence:
Jeremy Chapman, James Mossop, Nick Wright, Yvonne Edwards
Chairman’s opening address:
“The dinner is he standout of our year where we showcase what we are and how we as an organisation operate, and it was fantastic to see so many of the leading administrators from World Golf attending and they all seem to enjoy themselves.
“During the year we’ve had different meetings at the Masters with the R&A and on Saturday morning we will have a meeting with the R&A. Those meetings are conducted with our friends from the Golf Writers Association of America and going forward I do believe that there is more room for the two organisations to liaise and to work greater together.
“Just on a word on membership, this year we’ve seen a number of new members, some returning which was great and some new, but there’s also I think room to encourage some newer members who are coming into our profession. It’s a changed profession, we’ve seen a lot of changes ourselves but I would encourage members when they see appropriate people who are involved in the golf if they encourage them to make an application and then the committee can review and sanction or agree to their membership or bring them in on a probationary basis.
“And finally, just the end of my term of three years, I’d just like to thank all the members for their support during that time and I must say it’s been an honour and a privilege to have served as chairman.”
Minutes of 2025 AGW to be found on AGW website:
The secretary noted that the minutes had not been printed out in order to respect the R&A’s drive to eliminate unnecessary paper waste. The minutes are online.
Proposed John Hopkins, seconded V. Krishnaswamy.
Treasurer’s report:
“Just over four months since taking over, I’m pleased to report a successful financial year for the AGW. This is for year ending 31st December 2025. We had a surplus of £8,599 and that was slightly ahead of the 2024 figure. Subscriptions and joining fees were up nearly £1,000.
“That went from £3,663 in 2024 to £4,535 in 2025. As ever our largest single outgoing is the annual dinner which increased by just over £4,000 to £29,984 for that one in 2025. However sponsorship also rose strongly by over £5,000 to £29,785, largely covering the extra cost.
“Looking forward from 2025, we have now set up a new online payment system for the annual dinner and the feedback we have received to that seems to be extremely positive. As a not-for-profit organisation, we do have a healthy bank balance which enables us to maintain our annual Christmas hampers. Around 50 go out each year and that’s in December.
“Any surplus strengthens reserves for future activities. My thanks to those who have paid their subscriptions and also the dinner money. I will be in touch with anyone still owing shortly.
“I appreciated the good luck support messages when I started the role. The learning curve remains steep but is made far easier by the unstinting support from our hard-working secretary Matt and from Peter Higgs who I was delighted was there last night. He’s my predecessor who did an excellent job for almost a decade.”
The AGM voted in favour.
Secretary’s report:
“It’s been a good year for the AGW. My first dinner passed without incident and I learned a lot. Hopefully I put that into practice last night.
“The second dinner ran even more smoothly and we appear to have a very strong footing. Costs have risen. We’re now actually charged £100 plus VAT for every diner but because we charge £60 for members, it’s very important we keep up with the sponsorship which currently is covering all of those extra costs and enabling us to actually get in a stronger position in the association.
“But what I want to do is make sure that sponsors don’t overwhelm members so I’m going to be asking all those sponsors to start stumping up a little bit more money from next year.
“Demand was pretty low this year from members. I suspect next year will be higher at St Andrew’s but I think it’s worth keeping in mind in the future that there was a dip this year and we don’t want that demand to consistently dip so we need to make sure that members are still coming and supporting the event.
“We got great feedback from our high profile guests and the sponsors so I think the dinner’s in in a good state of play.
“From a working point of view we had a big win with the USGA this year. It was mentioned at this meeting last year that writers and members of the AGW had made journeys to the US Open and hadn’t had inside the ropes access.
“As requested by those of you present at last year’s AGM, I contacted the USGA, alerted them to this position and the fact that we felt it was unfair that organisations and individuals were stumping up money to get to the US Open and they’re not able to fulfil their duties. The good news is that they were positive in their feedback and ahead of this year’s at US Open I just sent them a little reminder about that fact and John Hopkins reported that things were better this year so hopefully that’s a good sign that if we attempt to achieve things we’re actually getting somewhere. Hopefully if we do have similar things, if you’d like to address those then I’ll endeavour to help in the future.
The AGM voted in favour.
General business:
Committee
Neil McClellan has contacted us to say that with a change in his current work situation he feels it correct that he steps down from the committee. We will need a replacement.
Ewan Murray proposed David Facey (in his absence). Brian McLauchlin seconded.
No other nominations. Vote conducted in favour of the nomination.
Chairman
Philip mentioned that his term of three years has come to an end. The committee have been discussing this for some little while and we have felt that there ought to be a kind of succession situation put together. What we would like to suggest that Philip stay on for one year, perhaps a little bit longer than that, because the Ryder Cup is in Adare Manor in Ireland next September.
We feel that it would be appropriate if the AGW was represented by an Irishman as a chairman. We think that would be nice for our Irish members but also for the at next year’s AGM, we would discuss who would succeed Philip. We have a bit of a plan in action and we will let everybody know that ahead of next year’s AGM.
First of all, would anybody like to raise an issue over that plan, noting that we don’t anticipate extending Philip beyond September.
Brian McLauchlin has proposed it, Nick Rodger seconded. Support by a vote too.
President
Congratulations and thank given to Lewine for her spell. Lewine said she had been very pleased to close her spell by giving Aaron Rai the new President’s Quaich at the dinner.
Bernie McGuire had suggested Colin Callender as a new president but when the secretary discussed this with Colin he felt a member attending events would be more appropriate.
The Committee nominated John Hopkins. He has represented the AGW in many capacities down the years. He continues to work at many events, which adds lustre to his case. He’s one of the wisest men in the AGW.
Proposed by Dennis Kirwan, seconded by Martin Dempster. Unanimous vote in favour.
John spoke: “Thank you. It’s an honour. It is an organisation we need to fight for. It’s been going for a long time. I pay tribute to Lewine. I will do my best to follow in your footsteps. And thank you very much for giving me this honour.”
Followed by a round of applause for Lewine.
Confirmation of the change to the membership description in the Constitution
It was voted for last year but owing to the secretary’s being flustered in his first AGM it wasn’t actually read out. He requested we repeat the exercise.
“It previously stated, ‘Membership shall be open to professional writers on golf for whom, in the committee’s view, membership is needed for the execution of their job.’ After consultation work by John and Ewan, it was amended to ‘membership shall be open to those who, in the committee’s view, make a demonstrable contribution to golf media.’”
Proposed by Ian Carter, seconded by Brian Keogh. Vote in favour.
John Hopkins added: “We face the difficulty of transitioning from essentially writing to having to do with broadcasters, possibly photographers, and all the other people. And Ewan and I spent quite a bit of time trying to come up with a catch-all that would satisfy everybody. And I think we have, because the default position is that if someone who might not be, on the face of it, ideal, comes forward, it’s the decision of the committee to elect or not elect him or them. In other words, we still retain the power to do what we originally think. But we didn’t want to exclude anyone.”
Reinstatement of members:
Alex Micelli asked for confirmation of the reinstatement of previous members. The example of Michael McEwan was given: the committee knew his case very well, he went very quickly through the committee to confirmation as a new member.
Juan Guillén:
He has been working with the GWAA to launch an international committee task force/working group in charge of recruiting, supporting and advocating for members overseas. This also would liaise with golf and sports writers and media organisations in other countries, consolidating relations with golf associations, federations and tours overseas.
Juan would be very happy to start a similar initiative with the AGW, but he would just like to introduce this notion with us all and perhaps have a little discussion.
Juan: “Thank you. So one big comment that I think connects to our discussion about what I’m trying to do, which is I think we can find a way to streamline the application process. Of course we need to verify the person, but make it easier. We are starting the process of creating a committee with the GWAA for international members, trying to engage more people, trying to create links with sports writers, organisations in different countries, and advocate for them when they come.
“Some of the ideas that we still have to figure out is giving them the discounted rate to be members. The fee would be discounted because in the case of the GWAA and in the case of the AGW here, the locals get more of the perks than the people that live abroad get. And I think you talked about more collaboration between the two organisations, which I think is a no-brainer.
“I think it could be a joint initiative. It could be something started by the two organisations and then figuring out what we can do in joint memberships. I think it also connects with the fact that maybe we should figure out an analysis here, maybe we can talk about this, that any AGW member could get some kind of reciprocity with GWSA in the same way the other way around.”
It was proposed that the AGW find someone to work with Juan to see the way forward over the next 12 months. The committee will appoint a liaison person from the committee.
Online voting at the AGM
Bernie McGuire raised this issue because fewer members can get to it. We decided this could be very tricky but came up with a solution suggested by Iain Carter to have a Zoom connection available.
John Hopkins proposed it. Brian seconded. The secretary will investigate for next year.
Badges:
Patricia Davies was concerned that AGW badges no longer worked for entry to the course. Alas modern requirements make this difficult to fight for. But it was noted that the passes given to guests didn’t work. The secretary will address with the R&A.
Parking:
Bob Harig wanted it noted that the parking had been poor this year with irregular buses. The secretary had addressed it with Mary on Tuesday and seen a request for more buses sent to the travel team. It happened and was an improvement but not perfect at all.
Isobel Amores Trillo
Isobel wanted to back up Juan’s point. European journalists do not get many of the benefits available to British AGW members. She also added a passionate defence of the industry: “We must not lose our power. We are special. We are journalists. We defend the world. So the only thing we want is the association defending us, not the world.”
Matt Cooper 11/8/26
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