House of horrors for major league stars

It was billed as a week to celebrate the achievements of our major champions, but yesterday the mood at the Irish Open turned sour, a slow funeral procession of sorts if you like, with the ultimate failure of all four champions as well as next year’s Ryder Cup captain, Paul McGinley.

Words probably cannot properly describe the anguish that the European Tour, the venue and the sponsors must now be feeling with many of their marquee names gone for the weekend, but much like the similar carnage witnessed at Wimbledon this year, the show must go on.

And surely this is one of the very reasons why sport is so compelling? Sport offers no guarantees. As fans and enthusiasts we all have our favourites, be they Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy, Paul O’Connell or Tommy Bowe and we probably long to see them performing to the heights of their talents all the time, but if that was always the case, then how would anyone else emerge?