The final stage of the European Tour Q-School tees off at PGA Catalunya on Saturday. Around 25 players will emerge smiling at the end of the six-round ordeal but, for the rest, it’s a picture perfect autumn postcard that hides no end of pain and suffering, writes Brian Keogh.

The son of a former Ryder Cup player is looking to ignite his own playing career with success in the Galvin Green PGA Assistants’ Championship, which starts tomorrow at Co Meath.

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.

Former Ryder Cup captain Bernard Gallacher remains in a “critical” condition in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

In 1992, I was fortunate enough to qualify for my one and only appearance in a Major, the British Open Championship at Muirfield.

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

Ryder Cup legend Christy O’Connor Junior last night claimed a failure to appoint Paul McGinley as Europe’s 2014 captain would be “an absolute disgrace.”

Denis O’Sullivan won’t suffer sleepless nights at the pending demise of the belly putter.

They never really retire, golfers.

I have looked as hard as I can around this monster of a golf course and searched the massive structure that is the clubhouse.

Major champions Darren Clarke, Pádraig Harrington and Rory McIlroy were fine-tuning their British Open preparations yesterday and so missed out on a special day at Mullingar Golf Club.

Tiger Woods produced some of the old magic to match Jack Nicklaus’ career tally of 73 PGA Tour wins with his fifth victory at the Memorial Tournament last night.

SIMON DYSON has his sights on a third KLM Open title in six years after a 65 at Hilversum on a day delayed first by vandals and then by floods in the Netherlands.

THE formal ratification of Jose-Maria Olazabal as captain of the European Ryder Cup team at Medinah next year takes place shortly after lunch today.

2010 was a disastrous one for Taoiseach Brian Cowen, but he is far from alone, writes Shaun Connolly, Political Correspondent

JUST because you’ve been there, done that and bought the tee shirt, doesn’t mean you have any right to cruise through the six-day “prison sentence” they call the European Tour Qualifying School final stage.

AFTER Paul McGinley came out publicly yesterday in favour of Jose-Maria Olazabal for the job at Medinah, Chicago, in two years’ time, it is now a virtual certainty that Ireland will have to wait at least another four years before being honoured with the captaincy of the European Ryder Cup team.

WHAT is it about the Irish that they are so often central to the story when Europe beat the United States for the Ryder Cup?

GRAEME McDOWELL added his name to an already illustrious list of Irish Ryder Cup heroes as the Portrush man held his nerve to ensure a dramatic victory for Europe at Celtic Manor in Wales.

Graeme McDowell won the Ryder Cup for Europe after a Celtic Manor classic that crowned captain Colin Montgomerie's golfing career.

The Irish have an uncanny knack of playing pivotal roles in European success at the biennial spectacular, says Simon Lewis

DES SMYTH, now 57, has already won the Ladbrokes.com Irish PGA Championship six times and quietly fancies his chances of a seventh title when the event gets underway over the Seapoint links, Termonfeckin, Co Louth this morning.

BRIAN Cowen’s interview on Tuesday’s Morning Ireland lasted little over nine minutes, but it had enormous reverberations, even though he essentially said nothing. He just fobbed off all the hard questions.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen vowed today to be more careful about his social life after a live radio interview sparked controversy over his leadership.

BRIAN COWEN insisted he trusts his Cabinet colleagues and appealed for support from his backbenchers, who warned he must prove his leadership for once and for all.

RYDER CUP winning golfer Philip Walton has written to Taoiseach Brian Cowen asking him to explain why he mimicked the sportsman at a now infamous boozy night with journalists and politicians.

THEY are not called “drink-ins” for nothing.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen today dismissed claims that he sounded drunk or hungover in a live radio interview as a pathetic stunt by his opponents.

THERE is a strong Irish field in Killarney this week. Some are better known than others.

THE recent report on the World Energy Outlook for 2009 from the OECD’s International Energy Agency highlighted the need for greater energy efficiency and “green growth” – including nuclear as well as renewable energy.

PÁDRAIG Harrington’s travails continued at the Memorial tournament over the weekend after missing the cut for the fourth time in America this year.

BALLYBUNION is rarely visited by a north-easterly wind gusting to over 20 miles per hour but when it happens, the famous golf links becomes a seriously testing challenge.

I WISH to reply to the letter headlined ‘Wind energy a simplistic solution’ from Prof Philip Walton (May 12).

DONEGAL giant Michael McGeady feared he might have thrown away his chance of appearing in this week’s 3 Irish Open at Baltray when he faltered over the closing six holes of the Italian Open in Turin on Sunday.

AUSTRALIAN Brett Rumford, the winner when the event was previously staged at Baltray in 2004, and newly crowned Spanish Open champion Thomas Levet, are among the latest entries for the 3 Irish Open starting at the Co Louth links on Thursday week, May 14.

PHILIP Walton may be 46 and an absentee from golf’s big time for the best part of a decade but an indication of his competitiveness was evident in his reaction to yesterday’s round of 77.

Padraig Harrington has captured the Irish PGA title for a second year running - and next he will try to do the same at the Open Championship.

PÁDRAIG HARRINGTON has cruised into a six-stroke lead with 18 holes to go in the IPGA Championship at The European Club in Co Wicklow and is looking more and more the part, as he hones his game in good time for his defence of the Open Championship, at Royal Birkdale next week.

Padraig Harrington has built a commanding lead at the Irish PGA tournament at the European Club in Co Wicklow.

Philip Walton, Europe’s Ryder Cup match-winning hero in 1995, and 1999 runner-up Jean Van de Velde are among 12 players to have come through the 36-hole final qualifying for next week’s Open Championship.

A week that began badly for Thomas Bjorn ended no better today when he withdrew from the final round of the European Open at The London Club.