Compiled by PHILIP REID
Lowry fighting fit for new season
I GOT the chance to play a few holes with Shane Lowry the other day over the Montgomerie course at Carton House.
The pleasure was all mine, and hopefully the run-a-round on what is effectively his new back garden – he recently moved into a house on the wonderful demesne where he is the new touring professional – can be replicated on the tour itself. The man is a birdie machine.
The tie-up with Carton House, which next year plays host to the Irish Open, is one that makes perfect sense.
As Lowry himself observed, he has a mere 500 metres distance from his house to arrive at the state-of-the-art GUI National Academy, which has the best facilities in the country and he has two championship courses at his disposal, the Montgomerie and the O’Meara.
Lowry – who kicks off his new season in next week’s Abu Dhabi championship, the start of a three-week stint in the desert which also takes in the Qatar Masters and the Dubai Classic – was catapulted into a quicker-than-expected career on the pro tour when he won the Irish Open as an amateur in 2009. Last year, despite missing the early months of the season due to a broken bone in his wrist, he claimed four top-10 finishes on the European Tour.
Heading into the new season, one of Lowry’s ambitions is to get a second win on tour – and first as a professional – as part of moving on.
“Yeah, I’m keen to get another win to get that (Irish Open) out of the memory of everyone. It’s not that I’m sick of talking about it, because I’m probably going to be talking about it for the rest of my life, but it happened a while ago. It was great and I’ll remember it forever. Probably the best thing that could ever happen me, bar winning a Major . . .”
Lowry’s image is that of a laid-back guy who is as much at home in the stands at a Gaelic match or rugby game as he is on the golf course, but – as he has proven – there is that all-important competitive streak that makes him his own hardest critic.
As he put it, “I look (relaxed) but I try too hard to do well and the biggest pressure on me is from myself. That’s probably the way with most professional golfers. I feel no matter how well I do that I should be doing better.
“I’d a good season last year (41st in the European Tour order of merit with €764,778 in prize money) but it could have been better. There is nothing I can do except work hard and try to make this season better than last season. If I can keep progressing every year, I can look on that as a positive every year.
“I would love to get another win again. I don’t really like setting goals but that’s one of the main things I’d like to do. Go out and put myself into contention as much as I can and if I don’t (win) at least I tried my best and I am sure I will win again. I don’t know when it is going to be but it is going to be soon.”
But Lowry has no intention of joining the rush into the gym for intensive work-outs. “I’m definitely not the fittest fella out there but, for what I do, can I play four weeks in a row and be alright on a Sunday in the fourth week? I can. That’s why I am comfortable in myself and I don’t want to make any major changes.
“I’m happy with what I am doing and because X, Y and Z are going to the gym 10 times a week doesn’t mean I have to. I think it’s just something Tiger started and everyone is on the bandwagon now. But I don’t feel it’s something I have to do.”
Racket makers hardly happy with Baghdatis
WHEN TENNIS equipment giant Tecnifibre commissioned Marcos Baghdatis to be one of their poster boys in marketing its products, it can be safely assumed they were thinking of him promoting their products with on-court shot-making.
Instead, Baghdatis – a Cypriot with a Latin temperament that would make John McEnroe seem like a choir boy – chose a second round defeat against Stanislas Wawrinka in the first week of the Australian Open to showcase the racquets . . . . by smashing four of them to smithereens in a 25-second-long fit of pique as he sat courtside after losing a crucial point to Wawrinka.
Baghdatis’s actions came after he reached boiling point in a match he was expected to win, but it makes the YouTube footage announcing his tie-up with Technifbre seem like marketing baloney.
In the short video, Baghdatis talks of a great racquet that suits his game. “It gives me power and control at the same time. I guess I loved the racquet from the moment I took it and also the design is very nice. It is the God of Zeus so it comes from my origins . . . . my values are to win, the most important thing for me is to win a match. But it is true that on court I am happy, I take pleasure playing on court. I take pleasure playing this game. I love this game. A new video due, maybe?
Cats exodus shows huge pressure on stars
THE haemorrhaging of players from the Kilkenny hurling camp in recent weeks – goalkeeper PJ Ryan joining the exodus started by Cha Fitzpatrick and followed by Eddie Brennan – gives an insight into the demands, in terms of time and commitment, placed on high-achieving amateur players.
Fitzpatrick’s decision to retire at the age of 26 from intercounty hurling was the most surprising of all, but Brennan (33) and Ryan (34) were also seen as players with some time left in them.
The conveyor belt of talent coming through in Kilkenny means the All-Ireland champions will likely be as strong as ever this coming year in the quest to retain the Liam MacCarthy Cup but Messrs Ryan, Brennan and Fitzpatrick amassed 20 All-Ireland medals between them down the years which makes their collective decision to walk away as much a loss for hurling generally as it is for the Cats. Each of them served the game tremendously.
The Greatest really made boxing matter for a while
IT’S EASY when looking back on the past to get caught up in nostalgia, and never more so than when one man with a plethora of names is concerned.
Originally Cassius Clay before joining the Nation of Islam and changing to Muhammad Ali, and known to one and all as “The Greatest”, his turning 70 during the past week earned glowing tributes and put the focus on the pro boxing game for all of the right reasons. For a change.
The more meaningful stuff in Ali’s honour comes next month at a grand bash to be held at the MGM in Las Vegas, which has eclipsed Caesars Palace and Madison Square Gardens as the place where all the great modern fights take place.
Thing is, those great modern fights are few and far between.
Ali’s era, perhaps, represented the best of the sweet science, even if professional boxing has always had a dark undercurrent and a murky side.
In the 1930s and 1940s, wealthy businessman Jim Norris – who had a virtual monopoly on holding championship bouts in America – was responsible for fixing numerous big fights, including Harry Thomas against Max Schmeling in 1937 and Jake LaMotta versus Billy Fox in 1947.
His corruption, apparently, knew no bounds and many fixed fights were passed off as competitive affairs.
Of course, we’ve also had the tales of boxers – and their handlers – indulging in dark practices in the so-called noble art. Way back when, a practice called “thumbing” was a big issue in the sport where a boxer would stick the thumb of his gloves into an opponent’s eye, which was addressed by the boxing bodies ruling the thumb part of the glove be attached to the main glove.
There have been stories of lighter fuel and chilli powder on gloves to affect an opponent’s vision.
The most sinister act is perhaps that of putting a hardening agent such as plaster of paris around a boxer’s hand bandages inside the gloves.
This is one that crops up time and time again, most infamously in a 1983 bout when the undefeated Billy Collins Jnr was surprisingly beaten by Luis Resto on the undercard of the Roberto Duran-Davey Moore title fight at Madison Square Gardens.
Resto and his trainer Panama Lewis were caught out when the boxer went over to shake hands with his vanquished opponent and Collins’ father noticed his gloves seemed lighter. On investigation, it transpired Resto’s gloves were lighter but also that Lewis had dipped his man’s hand bandages into plaster powder: Lewis got a six-year jail term, Resto got three.
More recently, we had the Antonio Margarito affair in 2009 where he too was found to have used a hardening substance on his hand wrapping in his bout with Shane Mosley.
Thankfully, on that occasion, the substance was discovered by Mosley’s trainer Naazam Richardson in the pre-fight inspection of the hand wraps when he noticed a plaster of paris-like substance that would harden during the fight.
Mosley knocked Margarito from pillar to post in the actual bout and Margarito subsequently got a one-year ban. It also raised questions about previous Margarito bouts.
Such incidents are nothing new, of course. In 1964, the magazine Sports Illustrated published a posthumous memoir by Doc Kearns, the former manager of Jack Dempsey, who said he “loaded” Dempsey’s gloves with plaster of paris, hiding the substance in a talcum powder can and then sprinkling it over his boxer’s wet hand wraps before a 1919 bout in which Dempsey hammered heavyweight champion Jess Willard.
I transgress slightly.
The point is boxing has often had an image problem and it was Ali’s charisma and good looks allied with his obvious boxing abilities made him more than a mere poster boy for the sport.
He became The Greatest, the man who gave it an image and an allure which it has struggled to regain in recent years.
And, in the week when his 70th birthday brought back something of a glow, such nostalgia is offset by continuing shenanigans such as those involving Amir Khan and Lamont Peterson and the alleged interference from an official in the counting of judges’ cards in their fight back in December.
Then, there is the ongoing Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather situation.
It is the one fight that could bring some of the magic back to ring but it won’t happen for the foreseeable future, and certainly not in May, which was Mayweather’s preferred date, given his impending date with the US prison system which will leave him behind bars for three months in the summer.
Hopefully Ali enjoyed his 70th and will also get an indication of his worth to the sport at the bash in Vegas next month. It’s just a pity he isn’t in a position to get modern pro boxing to clean up its act.
Ellington happy with shavings account
GOOD TO hear of a story with a happy ending, or – in the case of British sprinter James Ellington – a happy middle.
In December, the Olympic hopeful auctioned himself on eBay and got a top bid of €39,043 (£32,550) to sponsor his preparations up to the London Games.
Unfortunately for the multi-tattooed sprinter, the top bid – of 31 received during the 10-day auction period – turned out to be nothing more than a hoax.
Coming on the back of losing his training funding because of a series of injuries, it seemed the gods were laughing at him.
Cue the appearance of a good Samaritan in the shape of shaving company King of Shaves who informed Ellington via Twitter they were willing to step into the breach and fund his training up to the Olympics.
The south Londoner said he would wear the kit of the sponsor at all opportunities leading up to the Olympic Games.
