Even the quickest glance through the Irish Examiner’s revealing survey of Irish golf clubs will confirm these are times as tough for them as any sector of this country’s still fragile economy.

Irish golf legend Christy O’Connor Jr. has made an emotional appeal to tourism chiefs to help promote the nations’ courses to foreign golfers.

Christy O’Connor Jr today oversees the official re-launch of the Galway Bay Golf Resort, keen to showcase the way his creation is bucking a miserable economic trend for the clubs in this country.