How afternoon tees lead to fairway fairytales

It was 10 minutes before 8am yesterday when Rory McIlroy glanced warily at Kildare’s greying skies, stepped forward onto the 10th tee and smacked his dimpled Nike straight down the throat of his first hole of the day.

A dozen men had already set out to navigate the course by then but for the majority of those in attendance, and the rest who would pour in throughout the morning, it was the sight and sound of McIlroy’s red driver that truly signalled the start of the 2013 Irish Open.

There were less then 150 people knocking about the vicinity when the man from Holywood, Clara’s Shane Lowry and Thomas Bjorn of Denmark began their day’s work at that ungodly hour but the gallery grew as the morning gained legs and a duck line of punters funnelled down the main road towards those chosen few, undaunted by the insistent rain.