It is a ritual understood by many like-minded individuals who harbour an inner passion for golf and thus indulge in pilgrimages to the great links of Scotland, Ireland, and England.

Winter storms Desmond, Eva, and Frank have wreaked havoc on golf courses throughout Ireland but nowhere more aggressively than at the famed Killarney Golf & Fishing Club in Kerry.

SMOOTH OPERATOR

When the year ends in ‘5’, fate’s hand guides Cork fortunes in strange ways

European captain Paul McGinley insists he has not “tricked up” the Ryder Cup course at Gleneagles, but admitted Mother Nature had played an unexpected role.

After 42 days on the water, John Bolton and Diane Cooper have joined an elite group of fewer than 50 people who have kayaked around the island of Ireland.

In theory, all vegetables can be sown directly in the ground where they are to grow, but generally us gardeners tend to sow as many seeds as possible indoors to get them established in a protected environment before we leave them fend for themselves in the great outdoors.

I MAY be the only homeowner in Ireland who doesn’t have custody of their own garden.

Graeme McDowell is a poster boy for the power of positive thinking, a master of psychology, a cerebral Grand Slam candidate.

Mark Webber shrugged off the frustrations of a three-hour delay to the start of his season after Red Bull fought a losing battle with Mother Nature.

ROTORUA was great while it lasted but the smell from the sulphuric geezers is something I am glad to have left behind.

FORGET the rub of the green — Ireland’s most famous amateur weatherman has predicted that the country could be turning white come St Patrick’s Day.

AFTER having his Ireland squad torn apart by injuries and suspensions, Declan Kidney had to stand aside helplessly yesterday as Mother Nature stepped in to take another front-liner off his hands.

IT WAS a day for the brolly at Cappamore Show in Co Limerick, an event at which heavy rain traditionally never fell.

IN Gulliver’s Travels, the King of Bobdingnag — the land of the giants — claimed that whoever could make two ears of corn grow where only one grew before was a greater patriot than all the politicians put together.

THEY have inspired poets and artists, were the victims of fire and war, provided safe habitats for wildlife, have a rich diversity of flora and have kept the home fires burning for generations of Irish people.

Cheltenham officials do not anticipate any significant weather problems ahead of their informative meeting on Saturday.

THREE into one does go, in the case of the old mill cottages in Cork’s Ballincurrig.