One of the curious aspects of the web is its anonymity: much of the stuff out there seems to have appeared spontaneously: no creator, no author, no responsibility.

One of the best sites about golf in Ireland has just such an amorphous provenance. "Links of Heaven" - irishgolf.com - is as attractive as it is comprehensive about the game here. Designed primarily for golfers planning a holiday here, it is nevertheless equally useful for us already on these sacred shores.

But who produces the site, and why?

Well, the best guess is a crowd called Baltray Books, an American publishing house, who produced the book Links of Heaven, by Richard Phinny and Scott Whitley. You can order the book on the site.

But why would a publisher go to such extraordinary lengths to sell just one book? It costs time and money to run as well-designed a site as this, and it's not obvious to me how they profit from the effort.

For example, on their Experiences link this month is a lengthy, but extremely well written dissertation on three great "dreamers" of Irish golf, including one Pat Ruddy. But who wrote the piece? Is it taken from the book? Unlikely.

There is, of course, their The Irish Shop link - "cool stuff from and about Ireland" - which obviously draws some commission. Still, it seems more a labour of love. One of the site's strongest features is its Our Dis- tinguished List of Web Sites. All in all, it's the sort of site that should be produced by Bord Failte, or perhaps by . . .

Associations/gui.ie