ANYONE who tuned in midway through Friday evening's Late Late Show might have happened upon the footage of Christy O'Connor Junior's stunning Ryder Cup winning shot at the Belfry some years back.
It was one of those epiphanous and peculiarly Irish sporting moments - the few that become crystallised and immortalised through memory and retelling, precious mostly because they are so rare.
When the film ended, the studio cameras panned to O'Connor and the old pro was openly shedding tears. What will go down as his shining performance now carries for him a heavily poignant addendum; that shot, all his achievements, make him wonder what might have been for his son Darren, a highly promising golfer, who died in a car crash last year.
O'Connor was on the Late Late along with Leitrim songwriter Charlie McGettigan to talk about bereavement. Both men have ostensibly little in common, other than the fact that they have known the bright lights through their chosen fields and, of course, that they lost their sons.
Shane McGettigan, an upcoming senior county footballer for Leitrim, was killed in Boston last summer, due to shabby safety standards on a construction site. Like all who excel at Gaelic games, he was primarily an athlete, his sport dictated the pattern of his daily life - as his father said, dinner times revolved around training and game schedules. Christy O'Connor's son had already won national underage honours in golf and, like Shane McGettigan, adhered to rigorous training regimes, bench pressing and jogging eight solitary miles a day before driving a couple of thousand balls.
While Shane's football and effervescent personality rendered him a dynamic force within his household, so too did Darren's frequent tournaments require much toing and froing among the O'Connor family.
The photographs of both lads broadcast on the Late Late portrayed a couple of young men no more or less remarkable than the majority of the fortunate of their generation: brimful with hope, half cocky, fresh.
Sport, then, was their tie, and the joy that both men derived from their son's achievements was readily apparent when either alluded to them. Both McGettigan and O'Connor agreed that talking about their suffering was a help to them and their families.
That they got the opportunity to do so on the programme is undoubtedly down to their public profiles and it wasn't surprising to learn that some members of the public rang in to point out that they had suffered equally traumatic bereavements. (It was also pointed out that three other people lost their lives through the accidents in which the boys died).
But the interview was nonetheless extraordinarily moving and both men spoke about their children with a simple eloquence which was humbling. If anything, that part of the show demonstrated once again that Gay Byrne will prove irreplaceable.
So often, similar subject matter explored on cross-Channel or American talk shows either borders on the exploitative or deteriorates into misplaced sentimentality. Byrne's singular gift is to foster openness while keeping the tone and context of the conversation slightly reined.
Although both Charlie McGettigan and Christy O'Connor undoubtedly work extremely hard, both would probably allow that they have been afforded a degree of privilege in their lives; and it was possibly our implicit awareness of this that made their talking of the blackness, the void that their families now share since the boys' passing, so touching.
Most importantly though, there was the sense that when they reflected on their children's sporting achievements, the gladness they felt was purely for their kids alone and not born out of a sense of realising their own ambitions vicariously.
The same could not be said for some of the parents (fathers, to be precise) who cropped up on The World at their Feet, an ITV documentary which spent four years tracing the class of 1995 who entered the English FA's school of footballing excellence.
Sixteens lads considered to have the most potential in the country were selected for the intensive school and the documentary contrasted their initial expectations with their present circumstances.
Alex Higgins' (no relation) father, Graham, had professional sporting ambitions for his son from a very early age. In fact, the kid was a career man from about the age of 30 seconds.
"From the moment 'e came out and I noticed 'e were a boy, I said to my pal that e'd captain Sheffield and Wednesday and England someday," recalled Graham.
There was, lamentably, no such definitive career guidance available when this column was busy mulling over the future; and without question, this life of predetermination would put paid to those endless years of indecision.
It is surely only a matter of time before the pushy little Celtic Tiger introduces mandatory career streamlining clinics in hospital maternity wards. You just can't get ahead too soon nowadays.
But it was saddening to hear the future Sheffield captain reveal that, "I want to make it for meself but more so than that, for me Dad."
If anything, the documentary illustrated that it is very difficult to ascertain who will come through at that age. Higgins' career now seems to be rutted in the Sheffield reserves, which, as his father points out, is still a damn sight preferable to a life in the local factory.
The glistening star of that year is current Leeds' sensation Alan Smith, who actually dropped out of the academy after a few months. A British BMX champion in his early teens, Smith took to football late and was prodigiously talented.
But he was uncertain of his worth in the FA's school, went back home and flourished with Leeds, with whom he is now a crowd idol. The footage of Smith when he was 14 shows a shy kid with a bright imagination, honest. But now, he just speaks like a Premiership footballer. Funny, that.
