John O'Sullivanwatched a rugby legend, Paul O'Connell, tackling the might of Adare Manor in yesterday's Pro-Am.
It's the thousand-yard stare with the silent prayer, a default setting for the average amateur golfer as they await their turn for that first, fateful tee shot in a Pro-Am. It can be an excruciating moment, a sort of paralysis by fear accompanied by a plethora of negative thoughts.
Entreaties skyward usually take the form of, 'Please let it go in the air,' before the white-knuckled strangulation of the club signals the beginning of the takeaway.
The consolation, irrespective of the outcome of the shot, comes in anonymity. Playing partners aside, there is no recognition from those on the other side of the gallery ropes. That is unless you are a professional sportsman.
Yesterday at the Adare Manor Hotel & Golf Resort, the Lions, Ireland and Munster secondrow Paul O'Connell, swaddled in a rain jacket, peeked out from beneath a baseball cap. It was a little after 8.15am and he pressed the flesh with a few hardy souls who had braved the wind and rain to huddle around the first tee.
One swish of a Taylor Made R7 and the ball cut through the leaden sky before coming to rest in the right rough about 270 yards from the tee box.
The relief was etched on his face. Handing the club to his friend and caddie Tim, the rugby giant scampered into the gloom.
O'Connell, Munster captain and Young Munster icon, is a sporting deity in these parts. He was a low-single-figure golfer as a teenager and is now trying to put some manners on a seven handicap.
Rugby commitments mean the summer is the only time he manages to play golf these days.
"It usually takes about 20 rounds played in four weeks before my game starts to come around," he smiles. "I was so nervous on the tee. It's not like rugby, where you can release those pent-up feelings by making a hit within seconds."
The trappings of his boyhood golfing ability are still evident in the swing, a fact confirmed by one of his playing partners, the Danish tour professional Soren Kjeldsen: "He has a very solid swing. You can see he's well able to play. He just needs to do it more."
O'Connell is an ambassador for this tournament and took his role seriously enough to be found beating balls on the range last week and also getting in a couple of games. As he admits, he turns down virtually every invitation to events of this type, because his game is rarely sharp enough and he doesn't like to play badly.
A keen student, he promptly birdied the par-five 12th and racked up a couple of pars in succession before reconfirming that golf balls don't float.
Laughter is a healthy medicine and in this particular fourball, which also included Charleville's Liam Fitzpatrick and Michelle McManus, it helped ward off occasional temptations to despair.
On finally reaching the 548-yard, par-five 18th and having sent his first tee shot to a watery grave - a dwindling ball stock meant he was in imminent danger of going commando - O'Connell ripped a drive arrow-straight down the fairway, leaving himself 226 yards from the green: eh, into the wind over water.
A gallery of school kids arrived at this point to fill the grandstand behind the green so there was only one real option open to him. He thumped a three wood over the hazard to the sanctuary of the far bank and then indulged in a little pitching and putting to rapturous acclamation from the young gallery.
In fairness they weren't the most discerning audience and afforded the entire quartet the same reception when Kjeldsen's birdie was probably the most worthy recipient of the ovation.
