Tee-time for Cha Fitzpatrick as golf now focus for Kilkenny star

In the mind’s eye, he will always have a hurley in his hand.

The boy they christened Cha never had the chance to grow old before our eyes.

His retirement from the game at the tender age of 26 was as unnatural as the talent that took him into the public consciousness in the first place. A 19-year-old minor graduate holding down a place in Brian Cody’s starting 15 was as rare then as it is now.