Hooker Rory Best has given Ireland and Ulster a boost ahead of the province’s Heineken Cup tie against Montpellier at Ravenhill on Friday night.

HEINEKEN CUP POOL FIVE:

Former Open champion Louis Oosthuizen today made an appropriately flying start to the first round of the weather-delayed Ballantine’s Championship.

Gysbert Johannes Muller, to give the Ulster skipper his official moniker, reckons the Heineken Cup final at Twickenham on Saturday is the biggest game of his rugby life.

BRITISH Open champion Louis Oosthuizen held his nerve in a three-way play-off with England’s Chris Wood and Spain’s Manuel Quiros to clinch the Africa Open.

SOUTH AFRICA’S beautiful Garden Route is much travelled by tourists.

OPEN champion Louis Oosthuizen has splashed out on something special to mark his first major win — a tractor.

EVERYONE today could be descended from a small band of intrepid humans who headed for the beach 164,000 years ago, scientists believe.

A Western Cape farm has been placed under quarantine and all 60 of its ostriches culled in a bid to contain a South African outbreak of avian influenza, the country's department of agriculture said today.

IRISHMAN Darren Clarke has targeted 2005 as the year he returns to the top 10 of the world rankings and he begins that bid at the SAA Open in Durban this morning.

Irishman Darren Clarke has targeted 2005 as the year he returns to the top 10 of the world rankings and he begins that bid at the SAA Open in Durban tomorrow.

DARREN CLARKE has answered the critics who think he lives for the good things in life to the detriment of his golf.

Ulsterman Darren Clarke finished off a successful weekend in South Africa by announcing he will design a golf course in the country early next year.