Below-par Bertie basks in reflected golfing glory

THEY are both masters at the art of playing their way out of trouble against all the odds.

And they are both familiar with the danger posed by water — in Pádraig Harrington’s case, the Barry Burn, into which his hopes of glory almost sank at the 18th, and in Bertie Ahern’s, the rather hotter variety swirling around him at the Mahon Tribunal.

Indeed, the Taoiseach had been due to spend yesterday explaining an alleged hole in one of his lodgment accounts to the probe, so it must have been something of a sweet relief to instead end up discussing a rather more pleasurable type of hole in one with the new British Open champion.