The Open still stirs the passion in three-time major winner Pádraig Harrington, and he can’t wait to get into the thick of the action at Troon on Thursday.

Christy O’Connor Sr was an Irish national treasure who took on golf’s global giants and beat them, his funeral has heard.

One year on from a whirlwind few days that ended with Rory McIlroy seeking his autograph, one promising young golfer is continuing to hit new highs as he prepares for the upcoming Irish Open.

I have to admit the announcement of Christy O’Connor Jnr’s death in Tenerife yesterday hit me hard. 

Paul Dunne is a man in demand, even if he isn’t a man with a grand plan.

Golfing legend Jack Nicklaus has cancelled his European trip and pulled out of Monday’s Christy O’Connor Junior Celeb-Am in aid of Galway Hospice at Galway Bay Golf Resort.

The Dubai Duty Free Irish Open may have migrated north for this year’s prestigious European Tour event but while the tournament heads to Royal County Down next month, schoolchildren up and down the country have a chance to bring the winners’ trophy and the Open’s famed Claret Jug to their classroom.

Coach Michael Bannon has been a driving force on Rory McIlroy’s road to stardom.

Rory McIlroy believes the USA are ‘desperate’ to end Europe’s dominance in the Ryder Cup.

A Waterford-born businessman who has lived in Australia for the last 30 years has emerged as the successful buyer of Waterford Castle, paying over €6m for the luxury hotel, set on an island on the River Suir just below the city.

IRELAND’S signature castle hotels have been changing hands with aplomb this year – think Ashford Castle, and now Adare Manor on the hook for c €40m, while this week the illustrious roll-call is joined by the more modestly priced Waterford Castle.

Waterford Castle, a hotel and resort on an island in the River Suir two miles from Waterford City, has just been publicly placed on the international market guiding over €4.5m.

Tom Watson wearily — perhaps even tetchily — completed his third press conference in as many days, and remained behind in the near-empty interview to eat a sandwich.

It was almost the calm before the storm as the European and US Ryder Cup teams joked and wise-cracked their way through a light-hearted practice session.

Players aside, this week’s Ryder Cup is expected to be the most commercially successful ever.

Paul McGinley will use a pod system similar to the one that helped Paul Azinger win at Valhalla to take on a wounded US side at Gleneagles next week.

Pádraig Harrington’s future as a Ryder Cup player looks less certain than ever after he admitted his appointment as one of Paul McGinley’s five Ryder Cup assistants is a test to see if he’s got the right stuff to become captain himself.

Padraig Harrington admits being a vice-captain in this year’s Ryder Cup will tell him if he his cut out to lead a European team himself in the future.

European captain Paul McGinley has named Padraig Harrington, Miguel Angel Jimenez and Jose Maria Olazabal as his final vice-captains for the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles later this month.

It was on Monday evening that Paul McGinley bit the bullet, picked up the phone and put his friendship with Luke Donald on the line by telling him he would not be on Europe’s Ryder Cup team this month.

European captain Paul McGinley will leave it to the last minute to decide on his Ryder Cup wild cards, admitting "something spectacular" could yet influence his decision.

Bobby Browne is nothing short of a legend at Laytown and Bettystown and the 71-year old PGA professional was beaming on Saturday as the ladies claimed the AIG Senior Cup for only the second time in the club’s 105-year history — 26 years after their breakthrough win in 1988 — with victory over a youthful Killarney. 

Ronan Rafferty and Philip Walton made the halfway cut by the skin of their teeth in the Seniors Open Championship at Royal Porthcawl in south Wales yesterday as German superstar Bernhard Langer strengthened his grip on the title.

Adare Manor will host this year’s Irish PGA Championship from October 2-5.

European Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley had a sense US Open champion Martin Kaymer was on the verge of producing something special and believes the “low maintenance” German will make an ideal team member at Gleneagles.

Old campaigners Pat Murray and Gary O’Flaherty can make their experience count in the first round of the AIG- sponsored Irish Amateur Close at Seapoint today.

Hazel Kavanagh (Carr Golf Services) produced a late birdie blitz to claim an historic victory at the PGA Irish Club Professional Tournament in association with The Down Syndrome Centre at Arklow GC.

Des Smyth will never forget the first time he saw Rory McIlroy hit a golf ball. "Oh my God," was his reaction. This weekend, a new generation of young Irish golfers will be at Seapoint for the Irish Amateur Close Championship.

Despite a mid-round mishap Darren Clarke has put his new slimmed-down frame into contention to end a more than two-year winless drought at the Valspar Championship in Tampa, Florida.

European Ryder Cup vice-captain Des Smyth will get an early chance to reacquaint himself with the rigours of the role when he teams up with Miguel Angel Jimenez for the inaugural EurAsia Cup in Malaysia in two weeks.

Rory McIlroy was bitterly frustrated with his putting as he went right off his greens in the final round of the WGC-Cadillac Championship at Trump National Doral.

Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley has thrown down the gauntlet to Pádraig Harrington to produce the form that will make a pick on Europe’s team to face the United States at Gleneagles this September.

European captain Paul McGinley today named Sam Torrance and Des Smyth as his first two vice-captains for September’s Ryder Cup at Gleneagles.

Darren Clarke joins an elite club of just 25 members to have competed in 500 European Tour events when he tees up in this week’s Commercial Bank Qatar Masters.

One of the richest tournaments on the European Tour schedule, the $5m (€3.7m) Dunhill Links, is on this week over three outstanding links courses on the east coast of Scotland — but just three members of the 2012 European Ryder Cup team are competing.

The age old adage that you should be careful what you wish for is certainly holding true for Darren Clarke, just eight months after what was described as an “unseemly” politicking for the Ryder Cup captaincy.

Shades of Lazarus!

If there’s an exact science to producing a conveyor belt of golfing talent, it’s yet to be discovered.

He might have been watched by 60 years-old Des Smyth, but Niall Gorey is determined to become the oldest swinger in town by breaking his championship duck in the West of Ireland Amateur Open at Rosses Point today.

Tom Watson’s amazing return as American Ryder Cup captain — he will be 65 at Gleneagles in 2014 and the oldest skipper in history — was not a knee-jerk reaction to their latest defeat.

Spain’s Miguel Angel Jimenez planted three precise kisses on the trophy in wiping Des Smyth’s name from Tour records by capturing a third UBS Hong Kong Open in eight years.

Miguel Angel Jimenez tonight celebrated becoming the European Tour’s oldest-ever winner – after a week which could have seen him fall outside the world’s top 100 for the first time in nine years.