Rory McIlroy and Pádraig Harrington tuning up for Portrush at Scottish Open
Open
at
Royal Portrush
. For the five Irish players confirmed to take part, the preparation work is vastly different.
Rory McIlroy
will be among a stellar field for the Genesis Scottish Open – which will have the second most official world ranking points of the season on offer – at The Renaissance Club in North Berwick. US Senior Open champion
Pádraig Harrington
is also playing, earning his spot through the Legends category.
For
Tom McKibbin
, the precursor to Royal Portrush comes in the LIV Andalucia tournament this week at Valderrama. McKibbin earned his place in the Open through the DP World Tour's Race to Dubai standings last season, where he finished in the top 20.
Darren Clarke has been playing all of his golf on the Champions Tour in the United States so far this season and he won't have a scorecard in hand this week. Instead, he will be preparing for his 34th Open appearance. Clarke won the Open at Sandwich in 2011. Now 56, he is exempt for another four years.
READ MORE
It is doubtful if anyone has played as much links golf in his preparation as
Shane Lowry
, who won the Open when it last came to Portrush six years ago. Lowry, like McIlroy, completed his USA schedule at The Travelers Championship last month. Since returning home to Ireland, he has included visits to Portrush, Portmarnock and Baltray on his prep work.
The Scottish Open, a co-sanctioned event on the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour, has attracted a standout field which features the leading five players – Scottie Scheffler, McIlroy, Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa – off the official world rankings. Morikawa, interestingly, has nabbed veteran caddie Billy Foster to carry his bag.
There is a second, alternative event this week – the Isco Championship in Kentucky – which is also co-sanctioned on the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour.
Séamus Power
, who contended strongly heading into the final round of the John Deere only to finish in tied-44th, is playing in the Isco. So, too is is Conor Purcell, who gets in off his DP World Tour ranking.
Despite admitting to feeling tired in last weekend's Irish Open, Leona Maguire competes in France this week. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho
For
Leona Maguire
, this week's Amundi Evian Championship in France – the fourth of five Majors this season on the LPGA Tour – will see the Cavan golfer play for a fifth straight week. Maguire, the only Irish woman in the 132-player field, was at least grateful to hear that she wasn't required to play in the pre-championship pro-am and could limit her practice to nine holes on Monday and the second nine on Tuesday.
'It was nice to open that email for a change. I think it's the first pro-am I'm not in in about five years. So Wednesday will be a little bit of an easier day,' said Maguire of a different kind of preparation.
On completing her final round in the KPMG Women's Irish Open at Carton House on Sunday, Maguire had admitted to there being 'nothing left in the tank' after a busy schedule. Yet, within hours, she was on the way to the airport for another flight to the Evian.
Of heading to warmer climes, Maguire added: 'It'll be nice to see the ball flying again. The yardages were all over the place [at Carton House] between the wind and the cold, so it'll be nice to see shots flying their full yardages again. And obviously Evian is a bit of a different test, a lot of slopes and things like that, a lot of shot-making required over there.
'It's a Major, you're going to need all of them firing on all cylinders to finish as high up the leaderboard as you can. I'll take the positives [away], not read into too many of the tired shots, and see what we can do.'
While Lauren Walsh didn't make it into the field for the Evian, the Kildare golfer – who missed the cut in the Irish Open – did manage to secure her place in the field for next month's AIG Women's Open at Royal Porthcawl off the LET order of merit for the leading five players not already exempt.
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Irish Independent
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Obituary: Seán Doherty, imposing captain who lifted Dublin's first Sam Maguire Cup in 11 years
That success, sudden and unexpected, had a revolutionary impact in popularising the game in the capital, where it had suffered from public apathy and disinterest. Soccer, which was enjoying increasing television exposure, had been the more pervasive influence on young followers. The team managed by Kevin Heffernan and captained by Doherty offered a compelling and home-grown alternative. For those accustomed to the popularity and success of the Dublin football team now, the difference then could not be more pronounced. Dublin defender Robbie Kelleher told the story of a teacher in Fairview in the early 1970s who asked a class of 15- and 16-year-olds to name one Dublin footballer. Nobody could. After GAA president Dr Donal Keenan presented the Sam Maguire Cup to Doherty in the Hogan Stand in September 1974, that indifference evaporated. Doherty had come into the Dublin set-up in the late 1960s when their stock was low. That gave him a deeper appreciation of success when it arrived. When he lifted the cup in 1974, he was already 28. 'I think one of the worst years was probably 1972,' Doherty said last year of the lean times. 'We played Cork in Croke Park in the league and there were only three guys on the Hill.' Hill 16 soon became transformed into a feverish, heaving mass of Dublin football worship. Doherty made his championship debut against Longford in 1970, and before the breakthrough he featured on teams that lost four out of six Leinster games across four seasons. Heffernan was appointed after another failed harvest in 1973 took Dublin in a new direction. Heffernan wanted players he could trust: ideally, strong-minded types, highly motivated and intelligent. He did not chose his first captain lightly. Paddy Cullen had been nominated by UCD, but Heffernan decided Doherty was best suited. Soon after the first meeting with the players, Heffernan called Doherty aside at training and told him the news. 'I was very surprised at that,' admitted Doherty, who became known as 'the Doc'. 'I was still an intermediate footballer. I hadn't played at the levels that Tony Hanahoe or Brian Mullins or Jimmy Keaveney or Pat O'Neill, who had played with UCD — those players had much more experience than I had.' Doherty, physically imposing, strong in the air and uncompromising on the ground, went on to win three All-Ireland medals, adding further All-Ireland medals in 1976 and 1977, as well as six Leinster titles. Heffernan's personality was all over the team. 'He wasn't that interested in fancy footballers,' Doherty said. 'He wanted honesty. A good hard-working group that were big and strong and capable. And that were prepared to work their butt off for the duration of the game. At that stage we were training for matches lasting 80 minutes, and we caught a lot of teams on the hop with our level of fitness.' Doherty played in five successive All-Ireland finals and was a sub for the sixth in 1979, after which he retired. His performances in the breakthrough year in 1974 earned him an All-Star award at full-back. He captained the side again in 1975 when a youthful Kerry team caused a surprise by beating them in the final. After that loss the Dublin captaincy went to Tony Hanahoe, but Doherty remained a steadfast figure in the back line until his final year, the last of his 105 games for Dublin coming against Wicklow in the 1979 Leinster quarter-final. The 1975 All-Ireland final began a riveting rivalry with Kerry, a match remembered for an incident involving Doherty and his Kerry counterpart Mickey 'Ned' O'Sullivan. The Kerry captain made a weaving run in the first half, shipping a succession of heavy challenges before Doherty stopped him in his tracks. The Kerry captain ended up unconscious and spent the night in hospital, missing the trophy presentation. The teenage Pat Spillane stepped into the void as vice-captain. Doherty and O'Sullivan became extremely close over the years, and perhaps the most symbolic example of the friendship that developed between Kerry and Dublin despite being fierce rivals on the field of play. The two remained in close contact and were centrally involved in a 50th golden jubilee reunion in Kenmare this year. Doherty did speak in the past about the incident in the 1975 final to explain that it wasn't his intention to end O'Sullivan's part in the game. O'Sullivan, remarkably, said that the incident never came up in their numerous subsequent conversations. 'We never talk about it at all,' the Doc confirmed this year when I asked him about the incident. 'We met up and shook hands. Things happen and they happen in the spur of the moment and it's not something that is done behind the referee's back. It's a split-second decision.' They were, he said, 'the best of pals'. Seán Doherty was born in Glenealy in Wicklow in 1946. In the early part of his life he moved to south Dublin and became involved with Ballyboden Wanderers, which later became Ballyboden St Enda's. Before he joined the Dublin panel, he had played with Wicklow at under-21 level. He also had a spell as a player-manager with St Anne's. Having started out as a plumber, building up his own business, he later bought a pub in south Dublin in 1983. In recent years he remained active in helping organise reunions and was in the process of arranging the annual Dublin players' trip to the Algarve when I met him before the Dublin-Kerry reunion. It was evident how much he cherished those enduring friendships. He was a popular and personable personality. After he retired he became involved in a Dublin senior management team with Mullins and Kelleher, serving just one year in 1986. When that management team dissolved, Doherty stayed on as a selector with the next manager, Gerry McCaul. 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Irish Times
an hour ago
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Rugby international Robbie Henshaw joins the at-home sauna trend: ‘I can train and perform consistently'
Saunas are hot in every sense of the word. They're also everywhere – in your social feeds with friends snapping themselves mid-roast, on rooftops and in people's front gardens . Mobile units dot piers and coves around the entire coastline. For many of us, the social element is the clincher. But the art of sauna, a practice that has its origins in health, has been part of the Finnish way of life for thousands of years. Inscribed on the representative list of UNESCO 's intangible cultural heritage of humanity five years ago, it's caught a lot of heat in Ireland with löyly, the Finnish word for the sudden burst of steam that surges through the air when you ladle water on the stones, enchanting all demographics. None more than sports and fitness fans. Carpenter and recovery-fan John Needham grew up in Louisburg, Co Mayo with childhood friends, Matthew Dempsey, now a sports physiotherapist, and Ciaran O'Malley, an electrician. 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Photograph: Bryan O'Brien Word soon got out, with elite sportspeople in particular noting what was on offer. The sports medicine, strength and conditioning (SSC) coach of the All Blacks, Nicholas Gill, heard about them and asked them to install a mobile sauna and an ice bath for the team at the Radisson Blu in Stillorgan. The inflatable ice baths measured 1200cm by 600cm and were 'big enough to get eight lads in. That was massive with the All Blacks,' he recalls. 'Some stayed in 10 minutes'. That time period demonstrates endurance and the team's competitive spirit. Then the Wallabies, the Australian rugby team, got in touch. Argentina also booked. And the Irish team's back-room people got in touch. They've been such a sizzling success that Leinster and Ireland centre Robbie Henshaw had the lads install a set-up for him in the back garden of his home. 'Recovery's become a priority for me. 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The wood-burning sauna has a nice organic feel and offers nicer heat, but doesn't work in built-up areas where he counsels choosing the electric option. Build your own sauna (BYOS) About 150 metres from the crescent-shaped Reen beach on the edge of Derrynane, Daniel O'Connell's Co Kerry homestead, electrician Cian Boland renovated two adjoining cottages. He spent his weekends constructing a sauna out the back that he plans to offer as an add-on to visitors, especially those comi ng in shoulder and off seasons. Cian Boland built a sauna and plunge pool in his holiday lets in Kerry. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw Cian Boland's sauna interior. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw But for now, it's a place for him and his friends to gather, shoot the breeze and run the short distance down to the water to cool off. They also have the option to take a dip in a step down into plunge pool he's built using old stone. 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Photograph: Nick Bradshaw Cian Boland's plunge pool in Kerry. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw The four metre long by 2.5 metre wide space is long enough to stretch out flat in it and can comfortably fit up to eight. A slim clerestory window at the top helps to bring light in, while a big picture window looks up at the Sugarloaf Mountain. He bought the pillar-shaped wood-burning online from Finnish company Harvia. Its generous stone capacity ensures excellent steam production. He uses the soft mountain water on the stones. He sometimes adds essential oils. 'I'm partial to lavender and have a few blends too, lavender and clary sage.' He burns kiln-dried birch or beech that he buys by the pallet. 'The birch smells unbelievable.' A lot of work went into it. And it's been a bit of a labour of love, for excluding the hours he's put into its design and construction, he estimates it has cost about €10,000, with each sauna costing between €5 and €6 in wood and electricity. 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Originally, Quirke had wanted hers to be in her upstairs bathroom, but the device is plugged into the electric system using a three-pin plug, something that isn't considered safe in a bathroom setting. So, instead, she installed it in the guest room, which is next to the bathroom, and means she can jump straight into the shower afterwards. Her Saulo full spectrum infrared for one-person, which costs €1,999, has a glass-fronted door, and three heat panels, one on each side and one that sits into the back. She first came across this type of sauna in a friend's house in Drumaheir, Co Leitrim. It was years back, but it has since been on her 'must-have list' when she bought her own home. 'It's really good for muscles, back, circulation, for having a detox and getting a good sleep,' she explains. She uses it for durations of 30 minutes, fragrancing it with essential oils, and has a preference for eucalyptus or pine. She runs hers at sixty degrees. 'It's a gentle type of heat. You're not heating up the space, so it still feels nice and fresh.' She's had the family over to try it out. 'My mam loved it. My dad thought it was a very silly buy.' For her, 'it's an investment in yourself. That's how I see it.' There is nothing like having a sauna to yourself, she says. 'I can be naked. I can throw on a podcast or throw on some 1970s road trip music, gentle not loud. It's so nice for switching off.'
