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Wednesday, April 28, 2010
The night I sat at Tiger Woods’ table
BY ANTHONY HENNIGAN
I WAS in the company of greatness last Thursday.
Given the workspace we share, Michael Gallagher would tell you I’m in the company of greatness every day of the week. Michael’s bigger than me so I don’t argue.
But so too is Paul O’Connell bigger than me – and by a lot more than television had me believe. And Padraig Harrington’s bank balance is a billion times bigger than mine. And whilst I reckon Martin O’Neill might have struggled to beat me to the dropping ball had a generation not separated our minor football careers, the former Derry footballer’s bigness was otherwise defined last weekend when he was labelled ‘The most wanted manager in football’.
All three – the Ireland rugby giant, the three times Major winner and the Aston Villa boss – were guests of JP McManus at the banquet that launched the Limerick gambler’s 5th Invitational Pro Am, in Adare Manor.
That’s some amount of greatness in one room by any stretch of the imagination, notwithstanding the sprinkling of All-Ireland winners, Mikey Sheehy and Pat Hartigan included, who also dropped by. Oh and did I mention I was sitting at Tiger Woods’ table?
In 2005 Woods joined other golfing royalty such as Ernie Els and Colin Montgomerie in playing at the last JP McManus Pro Am, which raised an incredible €31m for distribution among 56 charities in the mid-west region. And on July 5/6 the trio will again be joined at Adare Manor by the likes of Harrington, McIlroy, Westood, Poulter, Cabrera, Olazabal, Furyk, O’Meara, Appleby, Karlsson and Immelman, to name but a few, for an event JP hopes will be the most successful yet – regardless of how the recession might be biting.
There was no sign of a money shortage in Adare, that’s for sure, as the country’s media was wined and dined by philanthropist McManus in the hope that word will spread of how Ireland will this summer be treated to what is possibly the world’s greatest informal gathering of golfers and celebrities, where the general public can mix and mingle with some of the biggest stars on the planet.
And if you think that Bon Jovi drummer Tico Torres, football heroes Michael Owen and Gary Lineker, and Irish sporting legends Keith Wood and Eddie Jordan make for an impressive list of personalities to have taken part in past events, the bar is raised even higher this year with the confirmation that Hollywood icon Samuel L. Jackson and fellow movie stars Hugh Grant, Kyle Mac Lachlan and Aidan Quinn are among those already signed up to play.
And how’s Tiger keeping I hear you all asking. I haven’t a clue. Our table name was Tiger Woods … I never said he was there!
Where to next?
BEMUSED, bewildered, baffled. We were all those things and more when departing Dublin. It had taken much less than the full 70 minutes of Sunday’s National League final to unravel so much of what had earlier seemed certain about this current Mayo senior football team.
Upon reaching home base, we had dismantled and reconstructed a team we thought, travelling East that morning, was close to picking itself for championship. How wrong we were.
In the rather unusual position of travelling to Croke Park without the heavy burden of an overly expectant support, Mayo might have revelled in such freedom but instead were unable to capitalise.
To lose to Cork wasn’t unexpected and so should not have been a major set-back, but it’s hard to dress an eight points loss to an under-strength opposition as anything other than hugely disappointing, especially when even a small margin defeat earned by a credible team performance would have satisfied most Mayo fans.
Never before in the four most recent seasons spent under John O’Mahony did Mayo concede as much as what Cork tallied on Sunday and their own 0-12 was over four points less than the score they averaged over the seven previous 2010 National League outings.
Johnno won’t panic. He’ll leave that to the rest of us. He has been in this situation before. Galway lost the 2001 League final to Mayo and were dumped out of the Connacht championship by Roscommon but recovered to successfully navigate the inaugural Qualifiers series and the Tribesmen went on to claim their second All-Ireland title in four seasons.
There are now two certainties, one being that expectations akin to Mayo replicating what Galway achieved back then don’t exist and secondly, that John O’Mahony has all the ammunition he needs to play the propaganda game and install Division 3 winners Sligo as hot favourites for the June 5 provincial final clash of the teams.
I’m sensing a sell-out at Markievicz.
PS: Among the press box fraternity and certainly among supporters afterwards, the size of Mayo players, or lack of, was again raised in conversation. Aidan O’Shea was the only six-footer forward and the official stats reveal that Ger Cafferkey was the only one of six defenders to exceed that same mark. Interesting then that as many as seven of Mayo’s nine outfield substitutes listed last Sunday all register at six-foot or more. It’s just an observation.
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