Scene 1
EXTERIOR – ESTABLISHING – EVENING
A small village somewhere in the county of Kildare, a typically Irish landscape on a bright September day.

A young woman skips over an un-swinging gate into a neighbour’s field. Wary of a bullock that lurks in one corner, Maureen pulls her hem above her boots and cuts across the far end and onto the familiar boreen.

She glances at her mobile. The phone screen displays a text from one of the Dublin lads she met in Malaga earlier in the summer. She slips the Nokia back into her pocket.

Spying the local curate clip down the street from the churchyard, hunched over his nine-gear racer, she waves and continues on up the main street and into her father’s little pub.

LONG SHOT – QUIET VILLAGE STREET.

Scene 2
INTERIOR – ESTABLISHING
Some miles away, cosseted in the swooshified luxury that superstars enjoy behind golf’s velvet rope, the world’s most famous athlete is growing bored in a huge hotel room as another Ryder Cup lies mere days away.

ESPN’s SportsCenter rattles out of a bling 80” television. Imported bottled water litters the foreground and Blackberrys, piled in a heap the size of a lambing ewe on a coffee table, make it almost impossible to spot a team of lawyers in identical pinstripe suits. They sit silently on an allotted sofa.

Tiger Woods leans over a putting machine as an agent barks into two smart phones simultaneously. One lawyer, crippled with hunger, sneaks a Petit Filous from his briefcase. As his startled colleagues mouth silent warnings, his eyes dart from his boss to the illicit snack and back again. He attempts to open it furtively.

Woods, quietly and without looking around: “Who the heck is eating yoghurt, guys?

The lawyer, with a baby spoonful of strawberry and blackcurrant to his lips, glances to his friends. Tiger, turning around quickly to face his team of yes-men: “Can’t you see I’m putting here, Eli?”

Addressing his agent: “Can he not see me putting here, Garry? I must be crazy because I thought I was putting here. But obviously not if people are gorging on desserts like it’s the gee gosh last days of the Roman Empire here, for heck sake.”

The agent looks to the sofa of lawyers.

EXTERIOR
Cut to wide shot of lawyer running from plush hotel, zig zagging wildly into an adjacent driving range as if to avoid fire form a window above.

INTERIOR – HOTEL
Agent, in a soothing voice, as he rubs Woods’s back: “Okay Tiger, how about we go for a pint. Real Irish. Mickelson will be so pissed off. You’d like that, right?

Scene 3
INTERIOR – PUB
Camera cuts to a bar as three middle-aged men, in working clothes, sit with their backs to the counter, mouths agape.

Tiger Woods sits in the corner in his full ‘Sunday red’ outfit. His bags were earlier lost in Shannon.

He sits, frantically texting and giggling like a schoolboy on a new Gameboy. His agent stares at the three locals, mystified.

Local 1: “Is it yourself, Eldrick?”

Long pause, as Tigers fires off another text, with his tongue poking out of his mouth.

Local 2: “It’s himself, alright. Concentrating.”

When another man burst through the door, having heard the news of the visitor, a panicking publican – having never had so many customers of a Monday – calls his daughter to help, from the flat above.

SLOW MOTION – SOFT LIGHTING – MUSIC: ANY SNOW PATROL SONG

Tiger’s smart phone falls slowly and dramatically into his untouched pint of Guinness. His and Maureen’s eyes meet. Linger.

Scene 4

INTERIOR – PUB – 5 YEARS LATER
The same three gentlemen sit watching a five-year-old child swing a golf club in a beautiful elliptical arc. They cheer as he shows them an audacious chip from the snug. His grandfather shouts at him, exasperated.

Publican: “Young lad, mind those glasses, they’re the Woods one. I mean, good ones.

Local 1: “Freudian slip, Donal.”

Local 2: “What’s a Freudian slip?”

Local 3: “That’s when you say one thing but you’re actually thinking about a mother.”

Scene 5
15 YEARS LATER – EXTERIOR – ADARE MANOR
The young lad becomes the first amateur to win the Irish Open since Shane Lowry some years earlier. He does so wearing a red polo shirt and a pair of borrowed Nike spikes. The pub locals salute him from the rope, holding pints of porter casually.

In his acceptance speech he says he dedicates the win to his beloved mother in Kildare and the father, whoever he may be.

INTERIOR –LOCKER ROOM
The captain of the European Ryder Cup team seeks out the young lad for chat in the showers, smoking a cigar, which is soon extinguished.

Old pro: “Kid, I’ve got two things to tell you. First of all, your father is Tiger Woods.

PAUSE
“Secondly, you’re on the Ryder Cup team. We leave in 15 minutes. Woosie has the chopper on the roof.”

Scene 6
MONTAGE -– HIGH FIVES – THE SCOREBOARD CLICKS ALONG
The tournament comes down to Tiger versus the young Irish amateur. Woods is once again the home town hero after a long road back from the sex scandals of 2010.

Just as he lines up the putt…

“Mr Woods, I’m your son. Let’s half the hole and go have a beer. Dad.”

Tiger: “Yeah sure kid, get out of the way. This one’s for ‘Merica.”

He hits the putt. It fizzes past the hole.

Suddenly someone in a 1995 Dublin jersey bursts through the crowd. “Jaysis, son, he’s not you’re Da; I am! You’re mudder never text me back after Malaga in ‘06. Hit the putt. For Brussels, wha?

CLOSE UP
The ball circles the hole. Emotion on everyone’s face. It circles some more. And slowly… drops in.

Tiger breaks a four iron across Zach Johnson’s back and storms off.

The End.

Contact: adrian.russell@examiner.ie Twitter: adrian.russell@examiner.ie
This column first appeared in the print edition of this morning’s Irish Examiner.

The news broadcasts are creaking under the weight of cliches like ‘blankets of snow’, ‘big freezes’ while footpaths are engaging in treachery.

As the country has slowed ground to a halt, the sporting world has been the same.

Meanwhile, in today’s Irish Examiner, despite the present icy inertia, about two dozen of our staff writers and columnists have looked ahead to the events that will define the Irish sporting year. I can’t link to the website as it’s a graphic but check it out in the hard copy if you’re in Ireland. There’s some surprising calls.

In the meantime, here’s my effort:

Q1: Who’ll be a big winner in 2010?
Irish rugby and soccer, as a whole, who will open the redevoloped Lansdowne Rd as the Aviva Stadium (The Pallendrome anyone?) in August.

Q2: You’ll soon be hearing about…
Swimming talent Grainne Murphy is the real deal. The 16-year-old, who set an Irish senior and junior record for the 800m freestyle last month, is facing a vital season ahead of London 2012. Remember the name.

Q3: Your own wish for 2010?
Tiger Woods to face the music. For his own sake, he needs to go head-to-head with the world’s media until they run out of questions. And then get back to golf.

Q4: The defining moment of 2009?
I hate to say it, but from our point of view, it has to be Henry’s hand ball. We’ll never forget it.

Q5: Most bizarre moment of the 2009 season?
Watching an intimidated Lance Armstrong hop off his bike at the bottom of St Patrick’s Hill in Cork at the climax of the Tour of Ireland. Do the girls in St Angela’s know they go to school halfway up a more intimidating climb than l’Alpe d’Huez?

Q6: Who’ll win the FIFA World Cup?
The FAI’s first guests at the Aviva Stadium. Anyone who writes off a talented Argentina team with low expectations and led by Leo Messi is madder than Maradona. And wouldn’t it be some story if they won it despite/with him.

Q7: Who’ll win rugby’s Six Nations?
With Ireland having to go to London and Paris this year, it won’t be the defending champions. Decland Kidney’s charges will be very close however and I wouldn’t be surprised if they lost out to France on points difference – again.

Q8: And the Heineken Cup?
The pendulum has swung back in Munster’s favour again and having qualified from the pool, you wouldn’t then bet against them. With the scar tissue from last year’s defeat hardly healed, they have more than enough motivation to take the trophy again.

Q9: Anyone to beat Kilkenny and Kerry in the Championships?
I’d look to a Joe Canning-inspired Galway to at last rattle the Cats and rejuevenate the game. Kerry are by no means invincible and Tyrone will fancy their chances again with Sean Cavanagh especially having a point to prove.

Q10: The biggest Irish sports story of 2010 will be…
Rory McIlroy stepping into a Tiger-shaped hole in world golf and winning a major or two. What the boy lacks in fear, he makes up for in talent.

Harrington makes Major breakthrough
Anywhere else, Pádraig Harrington might have walked off the 18th green knowing his two shots that found the bottom of Barry Burn for double bogey had cost him the British Open.

The label of choker would rattle louder and he would not go on to win the USPGA and the Open again in the space of 13 months.

He wouldn’t be the Harrington we know today.

But at Carnoustie, calamity can — and probably will — strike at any time, and did, during the 2007 final round.

In a nail-bitting Sunday evening finish, Harrington delivered the fitting climax to a day that kept everyone guessing.

He took a two-shot lead to the final hole of a play-off, and still had to sweat out a three-foot bogey putt to beat Sergio Garcia.

He became the first Irishman in 60 years with his name on the famous claret jug and elevated himself to the elite status.

We don’t like cricket, we love it
Sometimes the sporting scriptwriters phone it in. Take a rag-tag bunch of amateur Irish cricket players, cast as the underdogs against the game’s elite at the World Cup in Jamaica.

It’s not Cool Runnings in whites, but Ireland’s breakthough performance in the game.

And in a delicious twist, the Blarney Army enjoyed their most famous win on St Patrick’s Day as the talismanic Trent Johnston hit to clinch victory over Pakistan.

Amazingly, the Irish went on to reach the Super Eights, and the sport in this country has taken long strides since.

Cats in emotional All-Ireland win
Kilkenny clicking up through the All-Ireland SHC roll of honour is hardly news — particularly when the season culminated in a facile final win over Limerick. But this victory was marked by its emotion.

Veteran goalkeeper James McGarry lost his wife Vanessa in a tragic road traffic accident in July. Though he had given up his place on the Kilkenny team, when successor PJ Ryan fractured his arm in the semi-final with Wexford, it looked like McGarry may be forced to make a highly-charged cameo.

Though Ryan recovered, captain Henry Shefflin lifted the Liam MacCarthy with James’ son in a poignant and classy tribute.

Cyprus humiliation
Perhaps Trapattoni’s greatest victory has been dulling the pain of this traumatic night in Nicosia, which so summed up the colourless days
under Steve Staunton.

Stan watched on as Ireland suffered the most embarrassing defeat in the nation’s footballing history, shipping five goals to the Cypriots in a nightmare evening in the Euro 2008 qualifying campaign.

After Stephen Ireland’s early strike, goals from Michalis Constantinou and Alexis Garpozis put Cyprus ahead. Richard Dunne levelled before half-time but Constantinou’s penalty restored the Cyprus lead on 50 minutes.

Two Constantinos Charalambidis goals plus Richard Dunne’s sending off completed Ireland’s awful evening.

History at Croker
As Tony Blair might say, Ireland’s rugby players felt the hand of history on their shoulders as the teams lined out for the highly-charged national anthems as Ireland played England for the first time at Croke Park.

After the exhausting and tense build up, God Save the Queen was observed by Hill 16 and everywhere else, impeccably. Our own anthem was sung with such gusto that John Hayes’ tears zig-zagged down his big face as Croker rocked.

Then a rugby game broke out. It’s more than a historical footnote: Ireland hammered the visitors

Personal memory
Though Pádraig Harrington is a musical athlete with jazz in his swing; Rory McIlroy is a born rock star. And while the old maestro took top billing at the Open with his victory, the Holywood teen announced his arrival to the world with an equally-impressive display. McIlroy finished as top amateur and hasn’t looked back

Zidane loses his head
This was like a pitch for an old Clint Eastwood movie: a maverick cop is about to retire after a working life married to the badge. Here’s the rub: his last day at the office isn’t going to be uneventful.

Zidane — the brightest talent of his generation — already had a World Cup medal on the sideboard, a European Championship win, European Cups, Ballon d’Oors — enough baubles to decorate your Christmas tree essentially. But Zizou will forever now be remembered for his rash reaction to a Marco Matterazzi jibe as the world watched on in shock.

By scoring a seventh-minute penalty he had become only the fourth player in World Cup history to score in two different finals. However, in extra time in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium he headbutted the Italian defender in the chest. The flash of the referee’s red card sent the curtain falling on a glitterring career.

Italy, of course went on to win the penalty shoot-out 5–3. Aptly, he kept the Golden Ball award for best player at the tournament.

War of Attrition strikes gold at Cheltenham
Michael O’Leary heralds his airline’s obsession with arriving on time. His horse War Of Attrition clocked in early after little turbulence — stopping the stopwatch at 6min 31.7sec.

In the past 50 years only two Gold Cup winners have gone faster, Looks Like Trouble (6:30.3) six years previously and Norton’s Coin (6:30.9) in 1990.

In 2004 War Of Attrition left Cheltenham as a courageous loser, beaten a neck by Brave Inca in the Supreme Novice Hurdle. In 2006 however, he went one better than his old rival with victory in the Gold Cup, as Ireland’s dominance at the Cheltenham Festival reached unprecedented heights.

This success was the ninth at the meeting for an Irish-trained horse, and the 10th, Whyso Mayo, came in the next race, setting a new record. It was all very easy for jockey Conor O’Dwyer who settled his horse behind the early pace and moved towards the front of the race with about a mile left to run. The Celtic Tiger purred and Cheltenham’s Irish partied on.

Munster finally reach Holy Grail
They say you have to lose one to win one. But you have to lose two to really appreciate one. Munster at last found the holy grail and 63,000 Munster natives in Cardiff drank deep from it. A jumbo screen on Limerick’s O’Connell St attracted thousands, while the scenes on Shannonside inspired a flagging Munster to push on and achieve the win. It wasn’t to be Limerick’s last street party.

Ireland deliver Triple Crown
It may not be celebrated as wildly now, but this Triple Crown win was a vital building block Ireland’s Grand Slam victory this year. And typically, they didn’t do it the easy way.

Wing Shane Horgan’s brilliant 78th-minute try sneaked Ireland ahead of England on March 18 at Twickenham before Ronan O’Gara slotted a touchline conversion to finish England off. It left Ireland celebrating a second Triple Crown in three seasons.

Ireland hosts perfect Ryder Cup
So one-sided was this contest at The K Club that at times it seemed the impossible was likely: a Ryder Cup devoid of drama.

Fortunately there was enough raw emotion in the air to ensure the final day will live long in the memory. Ian Woosnam’s victory address will not trouble Barrack Obama’s speech-writers but the Welshman showed a canny touch when he sent Darren Clarke out in the seventh tie of the day.

Four points ahead overnight, Europe needed 4½ points to win the trophy. This left the Irishman, whose wife Heather died from breast cancer a mere six weeks previously, with the maximum chance of producing the ending the home crowd and his team-mates so desperately wanted.

Clarke duly delivered his victory, sweeping aside Zach Johnson by 4&3. The Irishman broke down in his caddie’s arms on the 16th green. Though Henrik Stenson pipped him to holing the decisive putt, Clarke sank a Guinness on a crowded clubhouse balcony to round off a wonderful weekend’s work.

I was there…
Though neither myself nor Richard Dunne will be in South Africa next summer, at least I can console myself — unlike the Villa man — with the fact that I was at the last World Cup.

In a bier-soaked scrapbook of memories, Italy’s quarter-final win over Ukraine in Hamburg on a balmy Friday night was the pinnacle. A day that ended by ‘singing’ Stone Roses in a Korean karaoke bar on the Reeperbahn, began by eating breakfast at the bar of an Irish pub. And in between I saw some great football.

I’m fascinated by the ongoing Tiger Woods story and the epic PR disaster that grows more damaging by the hour.

Thank god, however, for this piece of journalism which aired in China, apparently. The Irish Examiner will use the same technology for the next Cork strike.

Former US President Bill Clinton has been clicking through the gears on the global news cycle for the past 24 hours. He showed up, as you’ll know, in North Korea in a surprise mission and left on his private jet with two American journalists, freed after being sentenced to 12 years hard labour by the rogue state.

In what smacked of a Hollywood action movie sequel, Clinton got the old gang together – in his entourage were his former White House chief of staff, John Podesta, and Clinton’s personal physician, Roger Band, while former Vice President Al Gore welcomed them home.

Clinton had a meeting with Kim Jong Il for an hour and 15 minutes and a dinner with the Dear Leader that lasted about two hours. They may have talked about golf.

Certainly, I had my only meeting with POTUS on the fairways. Yes, my friends, if I was detained in Pyongyang for five months, facing a lifetime of misery in a country existing in a shadowy Orwellian reality, and William Jefferson Clinton parachuted though the ceiling of the Great Hall, knocking Kim unconscious before carrying me up the steps of Air Force One like Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman, then frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised. I’d expect it.

I was lucky enough to walk inside the ropes on the Sunday of the 2006 Ryder Cup at the K Club in Kildare, following the emotional final round from Darren Clarke. So too was the 42nd President of the United States.

On a day when I managed to piss off childhood hero Boris Becker and screamed like a bobbysockser at Michael Jordan, I contrived not to embarrass myself with Clinton. He was however walking the course with Rick Reilly – then of Sports Illustrated, now ESPN.

Check out what happened when Clinton and Reilly first shared a gold course in the award-winning feature here.

IN Goldfinger, Sean Connery’s James Bond insists that the only fashion faux pas one can make in golf is to dress too well.
This week at the Open, few would have been guilty of breaking 007’s rule; but then most don’t have much say.

Tomorrow’s winner in Turnberry will be on television throughout the globe, more than likely, for five consecutive hours. His face and clothes will appear online and in newspapers, and his winning outfit could surface again a month or a year later on magazine covers. A single shirt worn by a big-name golfer on a Sunday afternoon winning a tournament can raise sales 10%, companies say.

The scripting process begins for most companies with a design meeting about a year and a half before an event.

New looks in stripes, patterns and prints are examined, as well as new technology of materials, like fabrics designed to keep moisture away from the athlete’s body.

A colour palette is carefully selected and a decision made on how the clothes will work with vests or pullovers.

And it’s no wonder that most of the top golfers have their clothes laid out on the bed like young boys on the day of their First Holy Communion.

Elite athletes in most sports wear uniforms, so orchestrating their attire to boost sales is hardly an option. But in individual games like golf and tennis, the playing fields of major championships are akin to a Parisian catwalk, only much, much better.

So picture the scene in Beaverton, Oregon around lunchtime yesterday when their marquee golfing icon, Tiger Woods, failed miserably to make the cut.

Tomorrow, he’ll check the lie of the greens, the wind on the Scottish west coast and every other variable. But Many had predicted him grabbing the Claret Jug but in the end, all he could really promise us was the colour and design of what he wears.

On Thursday his shirt was navy and striped while yesterday’s was a vivid coral hue. So with him missing only his second halfway cut in 49 majors as a professional, what are we missing? White with a stripe was the plan for today while tomorrow, as with every major Sunday, Nike w provided him with a new, textured red argyle shirt with black pants.

In a sport that can be cruelly fickle, golf equipment and apparel manufacturers leave no marketing opportunity, in a 6 billion industry, to chance.

What Woods wears each day at every major championship this year has been set out for him by Nike since last summer to ensure that retailers have a new design and colour modelled by the world number one on their shelves this weekend.

Sergio Garcia is yet to take the final step and at last win a major, but if he does do it tomorrow he will undoubtedly wear white pants and a blue shirt with a white piping stripe, according to the plan provided to him by Adidas. The reigning US Open champion, Lucas Glover, will wear a bright yellow Nike shirt with grey trousers.

Ian Poulter: typically understated

Of course, no two players should ever arrive at the course in the same outfit. A few years ago at the Masters, there was even consternation on the first tee when Phil Mickelson’s caddie arrived in the same shirt as Charles Howell III.

Lefty is one of the few elite golfers without a contract; he dresses himself does with the help of a London tailor. Others, of course, won’t wear grey like Glover. England’s Ian Poulter – who launched his own clothing line — struts to the tee box weekly sporting garish trousers, eye-watering polo shirts and a trendy goatee more manicured than the greens.

On Thursday he rocked up to Turnberry with custom-designed tartan trousers to ‘complement’ a sleeveless Union Jack cardigan.

And then there’s John Daly. His career scarred by personal and financial crises, was in need of quick cash when he agreed to a merchandising deal with Loudmouth Golf. He now wears pants so loud, you can hear him coming down the back nine.

The company has 28 different styles of baggy, gaudy trousers, he’s eager to wear every one this year. Of course, he’s always played golf the way he lives life; shaken and stirred.

]]> http://www.adrianrussell.net/2009/07/18/golf-stars-always-in-fashion/feed/ 0 http://www.adrianrussell.net/2009/06/16/pitchnputt-with-joyce-and-beckett/ http://www.adrianrussell.net/2009/06/16/pitchnputt-with-joyce-and-beckett/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:14:20 +0000 Adrian http://www.adrianrussell.net/?p=759 For the Bloomsday that’s in it: Short film by Bórd Scannán na hEireann in which Beckett and Joyce hack around a golf course while waiting for someone. The language is a bit colourful…

]]> http://www.adrianrussell.net/2009/06/16/pitchnputt-with-joyce-and-beckett/feed/ 0 http://www.adrianrussell.net/2009/05/17/weird-science/ http://www.adrianrussell.net/2009/05/17/weird-science/#comments Sun, 17 May 2009 21:39:25 +0000 Adrian http://www.adrianrussell.net/?p=607 Pádraig Harrington tries the Happy Gilmore swing ie taking a crazy run-up at the tee. Via Matt; action starts at about three minutes in.

]]> http://www.adrianrussell.net/2009/05/17/weird-science/feed/ 0 http://www.adrianrussell.net/2009/05/05/irish-open/ http://www.adrianrussell.net/2009/05/05/irish-open/#comments Tue, 05 May 2009 11:20:48 +0000 Adrian http://www.adrianrussell.net/?p=438 The confirmations keep coming for the Irsh open in Baltray this month. I packed a flask of milky tea and hit Adare Manor for last year’s competition.

WITH an impressive tented village at the heart of the picture-postcard Adare Manor hawking expensive jewellery, Audis and gourmet sandwiches, it seemed the Irish Open was like the Electric Picnic for the middle aged.

And walking the rope with about 20 or so other die-hards to follow the early action between our own Peter Lawrie and Australian Scott Strange, one had the quiet satisfaction similar to enjoying a favourite cult band that no one else is interested in.

The Castelknock man bantered sporadically with the faithful few who shunned the brighter lights of the Harrington roadshow, or even the draw of Clarke, McGinley and McIlroy for this off Broadway production as he and his playing partner battled well on a pleasant Saturday morning.

On a day that grew warmer, it occurred to me what a nice way this must be to make a good living. In the same way Mary McAleese must think Ireland smells of drying paint and fresh flowers because of the effort Muinter na hEireann put in before her visits; so too, this golfing elite must think the world, or perhaps this country at least, is a picturesque, affluent resort with bottles of chilled Ballygowan water every 700 yards or so.

And Lawrie certainly played like a man enjoying his craft. The two dozen or so disciples, the type perhaps who once rooted for Martin Earley rather than the more high-profile and successful Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche in the 1980s, took pleasure in the intimate relationship they developed with these sportsmen and their caddies.

One of Ronald Reagan’s aides, once told journalists that a particular prickly political situation was nearly causing his laid-back boss “sleepless afternoons”. Lawrie was as cool – until he hit a tee shot towards Charleville town centre and one of our number, searching subsequently for a better vantage point at the 16th, dared crunch around in the dry leaves, distracting the athlete.

After seeing Ian Brown in concert once, and blagging my way into his exclusive after-show party, I was physically, and with extreme prejudice, thrown out by the former Stone Roses lead singer. I respected him more for it, afterwards. When Lawrie recovered from the distraction of Foliagegate, and our embarrassed fiend had been politely but crisply warned to stand still, his was the loudest: “Great shot, Peter!”. And on again we went. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.

But on to more box-office fare now. Monty. On a wave of almost tangible affection, rolling up the greens towards me was the Scotsman and a sizeable and vociferous bunch, taking perhaps their cue from the Ryder Cup veteran who chatted throughout, offering encouragement to his playing partner Gary Orr. But the great Scot with his swashbuckling style was merely a warm-up act for the main event.

Approximately 20,000 spectators flooded into the grounds of the imposing Limerick manor on Saturday; Pádraig Harrington must have had 3,000 of them craning their necks and jostling for position all the way around. This is a different man to the one who played these holes last year.

Bridging the gap between John O’Leary’s victory in this competition in 1982 before, of course, clinching the Claret Jug at the Open, has transformed the Dubliner into a genuine star. And what odds a future Irish golf sensation will one day, when pressed by a journalist, volunteer Harrington’s performance over the weekend, as a display which inspired a young hopeful? There were certainly enough children and young people totally transfixed by the note-perfect technique of Harrington throughout to suggest, one among them will take encouragement.

But if Harrington is now the maestro, so fellow Dubliner Paul McGinley must feel like Antonio Salieri, toiling in the shadow of Amadeus Mozart. However, McGinley brought his fair share of supporters too. Paired with the affable John Bickerton, McGinley was like a man introducing an English work colleague to his friends and neighbours down the local. Bickerton, keen to share a joke with the masses, but sometimes not understanding the nuances of the Irish vernacular, needed a patient but bemused-looking McGinley to translate. Like good parents, the crowd were happy to impart advice when he hit the rough and offer encouragement when he got out of it.

But perhaps it’ll be the precocious Rory McIlroy who will take Harrington’s throne ultimately. In a sport where the best have jazz in their arms, here is a born rocker. His long hair and confident stride as he gatecrashes the party mark the 19-year-old apart. Certainly after the Open champion, this starlet drew the largest crowd. The Irish public know a good song when they hear one.

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