Down Under thunder as Aussies rule at Baltray

REMEMBER those halcyon days when Ben Crenshaw and Hubert Green, Severiano Ballesteros and Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam and Nick Faldo, used to enthrall us all among the sandhills and the sunshine of those famous Co Dublin dunes?

It was like old times at Portmarnock yesterday.

The Irish Open, now sponsored by Nissan, has moved up the east coast for one solitary year to the great links at Baltray and, as good fortune would have it, the weather was on its best behaviour and, if there was only the merest hint of a wind, it was still a glorious golfing day for both players and spectators.