It was during the annual Par-3 Tournament at Augusta National that Jackson Stephens decided to make his move. On seeing the then chairman, Clifford Roberts, he suggested that he would like a certain bunker moved from the front to the side of a green. Roberts, a notorious autocrat, said nothing.

Several months later, Stephens received a note from Roberts which read, "Jack, you were right." With it was a greenkeeping bill for the cost of moving the bunker.

It has long since been acknowledged that in skirting controversy, Roberts had few equals. And Stephens, who is to retire later this month after seven years as chairman of Augusta, clearly learned well from the master.

A 74-year-old Arkansas billionaire, who gained his riches through oil, gas, banking and real estate, Stephens was asked prior to last month's Masters what he would do if Tiger Woods blitzed the course again this year. "I guess we would anoint him," he said calmly.

Then there was the perennial criticism as to why the Masters should remain the only major championship where permission is refused to televise the front nine. "It's not a question of being scared of having a tournament and nobody showing up," said Stephens. "I happen to think that there's value added to their ticket when the paying public see shots that nobody else does."

Another example of his calm control came during a press conference last month when a scribe asked the tournament director, Will Nicholson, if we might see the day when smoking would be banned at Augusta during the Masters. "I think that is a no," replied Nicholson on noting Stephens, who was seated beside him, quietly remove a cigarette pack from his green jacket and place it on the table.

A one-time classmate of former American president, Jimmy Carter, at the US Naval Academy, he has always been an intensely private man. In fact, that Wednesday press conference was the only "public" appearance he made during Masters week.

The changeover takes place on May 18th, the day after the club closes for the summer, and his replacement will be William "Hootie" Johnson. Aged 67, Johnson has been vice-president since 1975 and lives over the Georgia state line in Columbia, South Carolina. In common with all of the top-brass as Augusta, he is not without financial clout, as chairman of Nations Bank Corp.

"I always look for leaks in the dyke and I don't see any in Duval." NBC commentator Johnny Miller on David Duval, winner of the Houston Open last weekend.

On A recent visit to the fine golfing stretch at Galgorm Castle, just outside Ballymena, I gathered some fascinating information about its former residents from the current owner, Christopher Brooke. Particular mention was made of the remarkably resourceful Alexander Colvill, a 17th century medical doctor who is reputed to have outwitted the devil himself.

The story goes that having agreed to sell his soul for a bootfull of gold, the wily alchemist humbugged the devil by cutting the heel off the leather boot which he placed strategically over a hole in the floor. Which meant that to top-up the boot, the devil had to keep pouring in coins until the room below was filled.

Legend has it that the wily one was so ashamed at being outwitted by Dr Colvill that he quit the castle "very quietly - and never has set foot in Galgorm since". So, when it comes to talk of golfing wiles three centuries on, the standards at Galgorm are clearly quite formidable.

Sure, it's a nasty thought. But I still can't help feeling that Greg Norman's talk this week about possible retirement because of recurring injuries might have another connection. It just so happens that Norman's five-year exemption into the US Masters, based on his 1993 British Open win, expired this year.

So, he would have to win a tournament between now and April next to get into the 1999 staging of an event he desperately wants to win above all others. Or, as happened in 1992, he could rely on a special invitation as a non-exempt international player. Either way, retirement talk is not quite as simple as it seems.

The lofted fairway wood, so often disparaged as the last resort of the hopeless hacker, is set to gain long overdue respectability, courtesy of Nick Faldo. It seems that the winner of six major championships is looking seriously at adding a seven-wood to his armoury, "because you now have to bring the shot in high, the way the courses are set up these days".

Faldo takes the view that the professionals' insistence on hitting long irons is "just a macho thing". And the suggestion is that two, three and four irons may be replaced by five, seven and nine-woods, as has happened in the women's professional game. Indeed, I recall Lee Trevino carrying a six-wood in the British Open at Turnberry in 1986, because the rough was so severe.

Companies like Callaway have popularised lofted woods through the production of the marvellous "Heaven Seven" and the "Divine Nine". And following his break with Mizuno last month, Faldo's conversion has led to a partnership deal in Adams Golf, producers of Tight Lies fairway woods. There's even talk about the possibility of another major win, with a seven-wood in his bag.

The implications of such changes could be far reaching. For instance, if this thinking had applied nine years ago, Christy O'Connor Jnr would have hit a five-wood rather than a two-iron, when faced with his crucial shot of 229 yards to the 18th green in the Ryder Cup at The Belfry. And instead of the glorious six-iron he hit to the 17th at St Andrews on the way to victory in the 1984 British Open, Seve Ballesteros would have chosen a nine-wood.

Still, it is worth noting that when faced with a shot of 195 yards out of rough on the final hole of the 1995 Ryder Cup at Oak Hill, the only club that gave Philip Walton any chance of getting the ball on the green, was a five wood. As it happened, Walton didn't quite reach it, but the case was made for the lofted wood. Now, it seems set for a further, significant step towards general acceptance.

The demands for corporate hospitality apparently know no bounds, certainly where the Ryder Cup is concerned. Latest news is that officials of the Charles River GC, a private facility not a million miles from Brookline in the Boston area, have agreed to rent their club for the week of the 1999 Ryder Cup.

The clients are BankBoston, who plan to use it to entertain their corporate guests. And the cost? A not-so-modest $500,000 - which should go some way towards giving the locker rooms a fresh coat of paint.

Ita Butler showed herself to be a formidable captain of the British and Irish team in the Curtis Cup at Killarney two years ago. And she's displaying a fierce determination to hold on to the trophy when the matches are played at Minikahda GC, Minnesota, in August. After refusing an American request to change the playing order on the opening day for television purposes, Butler is now putting her squad through four, three-hour daily sessions in an environmental heat chamber at Loughborough University in July. The objective? To prepare the players for the anticipated muggy conditions.

This day in golf history . . . On May 9th, 1870, Harry Vardon was born in Grouville, Jersey, where he learned to play golf with his brother Tom. He went on to win a record six British Opens, three of them with the gutty and the other three with the rubber-cored Haskell ball, and has since become equally famous for popularising the Vardon, overlapping grip.

In his book, The Complete Golfer, Vardon wrote that he used 10 clubs, including an extra driver and brassie, because clubheads often flew off in unscheduled circumstances and hickory shafts tended to break.

His golfing arsenal included a driving cleek, a light cleek, a mashie, niblick and putter. When he was gaining popularity in the US, Vardon played a number of exhibitions in which he had a business arrangement with the A G Spalding company to use a new ball, called the Vardon Flyer. He died on March 20th, 1937.

Teaser: A right-handed player's ball is in a poor lie. A nearby immovable obstruction would not interfere with a normal right-handed swing, but it would interfere with a left-handed swing. The player says he wishes to play his next stroke lefthanded and, since the obstruction would interfere with such a stroke, he is entitled to proceed under Rule 24-2b. May the player invoke Rule 24-2b?

Answer: No. If the only reason for the player to use a lefthanded stroke is to escape a poor lie, use of an abnormal (lefthanded) stroke is not justifiable and the player is not entitled to invoke Rule 24-2b.