Clara Cyclone blows away the rest and breaks a bookie's heart

TV VIEW:"A BEAUTIFUL view of the mountains of Mourne," said Shane O'Donoghue as the camera panned across the course at Baltray. "Not that you can see them today," he added, a bit, well, mournfully. The somewhat reduced visibility left him having to guess that the mountains were, in fact, still sweeping down to the sea.

Con Murphy, meanwhile, had the look of a man who’d just been dipped, fully clothed, in to a bath, most times he popped up on our screen, as our Irish Open presenter battled manfully to keep himself upright. He succeeded, although the gales transformed his microphone in to a metronome, which made for hypnotic viewing.

To be truthful about it, once Pádraig Harrington, Paul McGinley and Rory McIlroy were no longer contenders, we were tempted to pack up our picnic basket and switch channels. We weren’t being parochial about it, we just didn’t have any interest in the Irish Open unless there was an Irish challenger. But out on the course an Offaly man was blowing up a bit of a storm himself, the Clara Cyclone we should probably now dub him. Shane Lowry. You might have heard of him?

“This would lift any nation out of a recession,” said O’Donoghue when Lowry birdied the 16th yesterday. That claim might be disputed by, say, economist Paul Krugman, author of that cheery New York Times opinion piece “Erin Go Broke”, but, true enough, this fella was turning in to a one-man stimulus package.

When we spotted the Taoiseach in the crowd we thought of Charlie Haughey in Paris after he, with a little bit of help from Stephen Roche, won the Tour de France. Seeing as Lowry, as an amateur, couldn’t collect the €500,000 first prize, the theory was that maybe Brian Cowen would ask 3 Mobile to put it towards the national debt, as a charitable contribution.

But that class of talk earned us a ticking off from Dougie Donnelly, who feared both ourselves and Lowry were being a little previous in our celebrating.

Dougie was right. That missed putt on the 18th made our hearts drop almost as dramatically as property prices.

Con still had the look of a man who’d just been dipped, fully clothed, in to a bath, but this time it was down to perspiration.

“Shakespeare, James Joyce, Brendan Behan, Seán O’Casey – they’ve all had a go at writing a few yarns, but I don’t know if they’ve ever written anything as unbelievable as what we’ve witnessed over the last few hours.”

He was spot on. But Lowry, once he turned his attention to the play-off, appeared to have recovered effortlessly from that missed putt, when we worried it would haunt him for the remainder of his days on earth. Much ado about nothing, as it proved.

“Stay calm, stay calm, it’s not over yet,” whispered Dougie when ourselves and Lowry got carried away again, as Robert Rock’s cool left us with the tricky problem of trying to squeeze the cork back in to the champagne bottle. Have you ever tried it? Nigh on impossible.

Dougie, though, attempted to calm us, suggesting that even if Rock prevailed it would be a great day for the Offaly young fella.

“Whatever happens, a man called Lowry has just produced an exhibition of artistry,” said he, leaving O’Donoghue purring.

“If you really wanted to push it you could say it’s raining cats and dogs,” added Dougie, who was well and truly on a roll.

The English Lowry, as that seminal tune from the last century put it, painted Salford’s smokey tops on cardboard boxes from the shops, but our Lowry is more into wildlife – birdies, eagles and the like. And like any artist he’s sensitive, and half-apologised for feeling happy when Rock missed a putt to win the play-off. Happy? At that moment Larry appeared doleful next to ourselves.

Dougie, by the way, had earlier mentioned a man from Clara putting €300 on Lowry winning the Irish Open at 1,000 to 1. It should have been 100 to 1, apparently, but an unfortunate error resulted in the extra zero being added to the odds.

“Poor old bookie, we feel sorry for him obviously,” he said, echoing our very thoughts.

So, that’s €300,000 worth of champagne bought in Clara last night, just to add to our stimulus package theory, although we now have a bankrupt bookie, which is, of course, regrettable.

Anyway, ’twas one of those lovely sporting days, with a quite charming Roy of the Rover-ish feel to it all. Lowry, you might say, just took a hand at this diggin’ for gold. And he found some.