As gestures go, it was simple and understated, humble and poignant. There was no spotlight attached to his actions, since they didn’t take place within the borders of a “Signature Event” or one of those obnoxiously extravagant $20m purses.

Instead, Jeremy Friedman quietly and selflessly made a lot of people smile with a semblance of humanness that is in short supply these days.

At the Chubb Classic on the PGA Tour Champions in Naples, Fla., Friedman, vice-president of public relations at Outlyr, came up with the idea to have players autograph a picture frame mat that was encased around a photo of the late and oh, so great Jeff Babineau. The photo shows Babs, as we all called him, in front of his laptop and it is a brilliantly spot-on image. We may have all known Babs in many other settings, but my guess is we’ll forever have frozen in our minds the vision of him in front of his laptop inside a golf press room.

He lived to write golf stories, which he did as well as anyone, and in recent years the Chubb Classic was a devoted assignment for Babs. The competitors who grace the PGA Tour Champions stage were young PGA Tour standouts when Babs was a young reporter; he grew up with them and still loved writing about them.

At least until two months ago when he died at 62, that is, and that is a truth that still is hard to swallow.

That Jeremy Friedman coordinated the tribute to Jeff Babineau deserves a round of applause. That his actions struck a chord of melancholy is owed to a personal soft spot that sits deep within my golf soul. Covering this great game has always felt like a blessing but a hugely underrated chunk of my memories involve those who wore PR titles or were in positions that were intended to assist in grand fashion to make our media responsibilities that much easier.

Often times these faces were the first ones you saw when you walked into the press room and their connection to a particular area let you know where you were.

Oh, likely the era in which my career was framed might not have featured anything resembling the coziness of the famed Quonset Hut at Augusta National in the ‘40s and ‘50s. But no regrets whatsoever, because there was good warmth to know that if you were at the BMW Championship you’d be hosted by Barry Cronin and if the locale was the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, sisters of great charm, Kristen Hunter and Karen Moraghan, would have things running wonderfully.

To be at Kapalua on the island of Maui for the annual festivities of the PGA Tour’s season opener was special enough. But to be privy to the all-world hosting talents of Gary Planos and Nancy Cross and Karin Sager was arguably an embarrassment of riches.

If you were in San Diego for all those times Tiger Woods started his season, likely the warmth of Rick Schloss greeted you and likely the connections of Rick Schloss made sure you had dinner reservations.

Sometimes a multitude of faces would field all your demands and while their faces were familiar and welcoming, you probably only knew the team to which they belonged. They were the “Minnesota 10,” all of them golf-happy souls from the great state of Minnesota, all of them yearly volunteers to help the USGA put on the U.S. Open.

You never began your PGA Championship duties without an audience with Julius Mason, whose innate understanding of human relations is a marvel.

It was a traveling circus, this business of covering pro golf and while the getting from here to there involved a lot of airport and car rental headaches, my how warm and gracious hospitality could quickly settle your emotions upon arrival at you destination. At the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, the tone was always set by the incomparable Lee Patterson, whose unflappable presence always put you at ease. His uncanny understanding of barbeque was surpassed only by his gentle but professional grasp of how to handle finnicky players.

There is a memory that forever makes me smile and no surprise it involves a gentleman who had a role within the confines of media relations. Stewart McDougal for many years was the press officer for the R&A at the Open Championship. He had a firm handle on his responsibilities, rarely swayed by pampered players who would sometimes request a change of their appointed visit to the press building.

McDougal also had an annual charity endeavor – he would have former Open champions autograph the table in the interview room, then auction it off at week’s end. One year, the petulant Colin Montgomerie came in for his pre-tournament interview, saw the signatures, and went to autograph the table.

“I’m sorry, Colin,” McDougal told him. “It’s only for Open champions.”

Funny as it was, mostly given the irascible Montgomerie, the memory of McDougal issuing that decree is forever a reminder that so many of these folks who assisted us in media relations at golf tournaments did so with great professionalism, with depths of levity sprinkled in.

In that vein, thoughts turn to a Los Angeles sports PR legend, Steve Brener, and the great work he and his associates – Dana Gordon and Greg Ball come quickly to mind – have done for years at tournaments coast-to-coast. And when it comes to media center legends who epitomize the truly remarkable era of institutional knowledge that cared for historical significance and never stopped helping their tournaments, forever my allegiance is to Arnie Burdick and Bill Bachran.

Burdick was 92 when he died in 2012, Bachran passed in 2014 at the age of 87. They were the heart and soul of media rooms at the RBC Heritage and Sony Open, respectively, and they represented how tournaments were fueled by a passion for golf, not by opulence.

Burdick and Bachran and so many of those names that have been mentioned would give a hearty nod of the head to Jeremy Friedman’s efforts – because not only did he do the right thing to pay homage to Babs, but he also did the honorable thing to put golf and golfers in a better light.