Galleries get glimpse of bright future among stars

To host a successful golf tournament, a few vital ingredients must be part of the mix. You need a great course, one that both challenges and rewards the players. You also need a good field, but most importantly you need drama.

Basking in glorious sunshine, the central characters of yesterday’s play, the Irish players, lined up to a man to perform in front of an appreciative audience. Some like McIlroy, McDowell, Harrington and Clarke were superstars while others were unheralded amateurs, simply trying to make a name for themselves.

The beauty of golf is that there is no script, and never was that more obvious than yesterday. You see everyone anticipated McIlroy being in the shake-up, and having declared his intention earlier in the week to represent Ireland in the forthcoming Olympics, it was noticeable how much more relaxed he was.