Kinsale’s Cathal Butler won the Munster Stroke Play Championship at Cork Golf Club yesterday in a sudden death play-off over the host club’s Gary O’Flaherty.

Jordan Spieth’s Masters meltdown at Augusta National joined the list of memorable collapses when the heat of a major tournament is on.

Brian Keogh takes a closer look at the world of caddies, the few who’ve made millions and the vast majority who live the jet-set lifestyle without the money, or the jet. 

Darren Clarke might be a fearsome-looking figure on tour but the European Ryder Cup captain is a wise old owl in terms of developing new players.

Two of Ireland’s most promising young stars are hoping to ride the feelgood factor from the Walker Cup and rack up big finishes in the Volopa Irish Challenge at Mount Wolseley this week.

Ireland’s Walker Cup heroes will not be wasting time resting on their laurels after Great Britain and Ireland’s emphatic victory over the United States at Royal Lytham & St Annes.

Walker Cup

Gavin Moynihan believes home advantage will be “huge” as Great Britain and Ireland seek to regain the Walker Cup at Royal Lytham this weekend.

Three weeks out from the Walker Cup and Irish top amateurs are already claiming the headlines.

Irish golfers have won The Open five times, the US Open twice and the US PGA three times, not to mention nine British Amateur Championships.

Graeme McDowell believes Paul Dunne should give the Walker Cup a miss and take the leap into the professional ranks as soon as possible.

Cormac Sharvin continued his impressive season when he lifted the English men’s open stroke-play title for the Brabazon Trophy over the Hollinwell course at Nottingham at the weekend.

Like the 46A bus to Dun Laoghaire, which would take an age to come and then arrive with another stuck to its exhaust pipe, there are signs that things are about to start moving apace in Irish golf.

Gavin Moynihan survived a war of attrition with his teenage clubmate Kevin LeBlanc to win his second Irish Amateur Open in the space of four years and seal his return to the Walker Cup team.

Gavin Moynihan might be considered a shoo-in for a second Walker Cup cap but the Dubliner knows he needs to start showing some form to make sure of his place at Royal Lytham and St Annes in September.

Shaun Carter from Royal Dublin claimed victory in the weather marred Munster Open Stroke Play Championship Little Island yesterday.

The spelling might be different but the result was the same as Ballymena’s Dermot McElroy joined Rory McIlroy on a prestigious list of winners of the Radisson West of Ireland Championship at Rosses Point yesterday.

Shane Lowry needs only to finish top 20 in this week’s WGC-HSBC Champions event to find himself among the chosen 50 in world golf.

Graeme McDowell has set his sights on a Claret Jug this week as he goes in search of a second Major championship title that will end all talk of him being a "one-hit wonder".

Dermot McElroy is determined to break his championship duck when the Irish Amateur Open gets under way at The Royal Dublin today.

There was no victory birthday celebration for Rory McIlroy at the Wells Fargo Championship and the 25-year heading home after yet another top-10 finish this season.

The final round of the 142nd Open Championship was billed as Lee Westwood’s date with destiny, a time for him to emulate the victorious achievements of Justin Rose at last month’s US Open and give English golf a rare back-to-back Major success.

Former Masters champion Zach Johnson began the 142nd Open Championship in the same imperious style as last year's event, but there was no let up in the misery for world number two Rory McIlroy.

Four-time Major winner Ernie Els returns to Muirfield next week to defend his British Open title confessing if it were not for golf, he’d be selling hot dogs on a South African beach.

Nearly five years have passed since Pádraig Harrington captured his third major title.

Ernie Els had to endure a 10-year wait to claim his fourth major title, but the South African is quietly confident of winning a fifth just 11 months after his Open triumph in this week’s US Open.

Watching Pádraig Harrington use a belly putter for the first time is a bit like watching Picasso use a paint-by-numbers kit to produce Guernica — you know it’s wrong, but you just can’t look away.

Adam Scott may not stretch to putting Vegemite sandwiches on the Champions’ Dinner menu at next year’s Masters but do not be surprised if there is more than a little taste of Australia brought to the table at Augusta National in 2014.

Nine months after blowing a four-shot lead in the Open, Adam Scott tonight gained sweet redemption with a dramatic Masters triumph at a rain-soaked Augusta.

You can never say never in golf.

Rory McIlroy charged to the top of the leaderboard and Tiger Woods tumbled right off it before play had to be suspended in the USPGA Championship third round at Kiawah Island today.

Rory McIlroy kicked off golf’s final major of the year with a superb five under par 67 at Kiawah Island today – helped rather than hindered by a spectator this time.

After spending two weeks relaxing on the sun-splashed shores of the Bahamas, Darren Clarke now faces a PGA Championship reality check along the shores of the Kiawah Island.

Rathmore’s Alan Dunbar leads a strong Irish contingent looking to score a home victory against a stacked international field at Carton House this week for the International European Amateur Championship.

Tiger Woods heads to this week’s PGA Championship with a one win in 24 record on Pete Dye designed golf courses.

Graeme McDowell is quietly confident a decision to journey from Orlando, Florida to Akron, Ohio via Kiawah Island, South Carolina will lead to glory later next week along the Atlantic Ocean shoreline.

A little sooner than he would probably have preferred after his British Open meltdown, Adam Scott renews rivalry with Ernie Els in this week’s WGC Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club.

Brilliantly led from the front by Kevin Phelan, Munster got their Interprovincial Championship campaign off to the best possible start when beating holders Connacht with two matches to spare at Royal Co Down yesterday.

For a while there, Ernie Els could not have been more removed from the persona that led him to be known as the ‘Big Easy’.

First Keegan Bradley at the US PGA Championship last August, then Webb Simpson at the US Open last month, now a British Open one-two of Ernie Els and Adam Scott.

The comparisons with Greg Norman were inevitable when Adam Scott’s British Open challenge dissolved so dramatically over the final four holes at Royal Lytham.

The chinks in his game may have been exposed at Royal Lytham and St Annes but Rory McIlroy’s standing fell further when Tiger Woods took his number two spot on the world rankings.

First Keegan Bradley at the USPGA Championship last August, then Webb Simpson at the US Open last month, now an Open one-two of Ernie Els and Adam Scott.