Greg Allen finds hurler DJ Carey drives it a mile but hasn't had time to fine-tune his short game

Seldom have I searched for an opponent's ball with such urgency or enthusiasm. DJ Carey's opening shot of our match on the first hole at Mount Juliet had exploded off the clubface of a driver given to him by the American professional Rich Beem.

The ball immediately rose high over the lime oak tree that stands sentry-like guarding the left side of the fairway and on it went over hillocks and bunkers before disappearing out of sight.

The cracking sound of titanium on ball and the powerful arc of its flight indicated that it was an enormous strike which merely fuelled our desire to find it in the relatively benign mid-summer rough.

But after several minutes of fruitless scouring of the most likely landing area there was still no sign.

Then, as you do when desperation begins to set in, you wander into the unlikely places. Which is exactly where we found it - behind and to the left of the first green, sitting up on an oasis of cut grass between a shrubbery and the boundary hedge of the estate.

It was unmistakably DJ's ball - a Titleist Pro V 1 number 4, resting all of 360 yards from where it had begun its unlikely journey.

Thankfully, he did not pretend this was a regular occurrence and admitted that driving the ball beyond the first green off the white medal markers was a first for him. Before this, he had merely driven the 345-yard opening hole.

Of course, the ever-evolving legend that is DJ Carey not only encompasses five All-Ireland winners medals, nine All Stars, 22 All-Ireland handball titles and two world championship victories, but also a clearly well-deserved reputation for driving the golf ball phenomenal distances.

My surprise was he does so with a classic looking, rhythmic golf swing without any obvious excess effort through impact. He looks like a pro with a driver in his hands.

But with a handicap of six, other elements of his game are still a work in progress and in mid-July, with the small matter of Kilkenny's quest for All-Ireland immortality occupying his thoughts, golf is a long way down his priority list. It shows in his short game throughout our encounter.

His second shot of the morning, a pitch back towards the flag over a small army of bunkers, is semi-fluffed and fails to find the putting surface. My own shaky enough par wins the hole and in microcosm, this sets the tone for much of our match. For the next four hours, he continually outdrives me by 30 yards or more but he is unable, on the day, to bring the same level of command to the 13 other clubs in his bag which reside alongside his prize gift from the 2002 USPGA champion.

Clearly, the golfer in DJ Carey is still in gestation as the athlete within his 5ft 11in, 12st frame still craves to play the game of hurling first and foremost with an appetite undimmed by 17 consecutive seasons with the Kilkenny senior hurling team.

"I will take up golf seriously one day but hurling is my number one and will always be my number one. There will be a day when I won't be able to play it any more and that'll be fine. That day comes to everyone and only when I know it's arrived will I think of playing golf seriously," he states emphatically before adding:

"Golf will never be the reason I give up hurling."

He says he has a plan for retirement but it's not imminent and he's keeping it to himself for the time being.

He remembers without any relish the stories that did the rounds through whispers and in the media during his short-lived retirement from the game early in 1998. There were some innocent enough rumours that he was going to devote his newly-acquired spare time to golf, and more damaging talk that a wealthy businessman was going to sponsor him to become a professional player.

If the speculation had stopped there, he probably could have dealt with it easily enough. But there was other, more hurtful and totally erroneous, guff about him becoming golf manager at Mount Juliet as a vacancy had just arisen for the post.

People put two and two together and got five. It got out of hand and his business began to suffer. He reflects on that short sabbatical from the game without much enthusiasm.

"Bit of a rush of blood when I think back. I was just tired of talk that, if Kilkenny were losing, it was because my business was folding or that I was doing this or I was doing that. It was never because 'he was bad and all the lads around him were bad'."

"It was continually this old stuff going on and, you know, I didn't realise it but it was coming from a very small sector that was very close to my home," he recalls.

"It was just jealousy. All it was, was pure jealousy. I realise even more now that the more successful people who have worked for their success are not jealous but some of those who have been handed down money or success, or got things easily, don't like to see anyone else getting on."

We are joined for the first nine holes of our match by DJ's partner, Sarah Newman, who is learning the game but quickly puts us in our place on the short third where she fires a six-iron over the lake and two-putts for a tap-in par against our pair of ungainly bogies.

Blessed with a naturally athletic swing and under DJ's tutelage, it looks as though Sarah will soon be removing the 'L' plates from her game. They have two homes, one in Dublin and the other in an idyllic sylvan nook of the Mount Juliet estate.

DJ's two children, Seán (5) and Mikey (6), join us for the photo shoot with Sarah's eldest Grace (9) and Patrick (7).

The boys compete ferociously to hit the longest drive for the camera while Grace is exactly as her name suggests, with or without club in hand.

Back in the match, our undistinguished golf over the early holes sees us reach the seventh tee all square after DJ's impressive flop shot over a bunker from 40 yards stops stone dead on the sixth.

Off the medal white tees, the seventh hole was playing considerably longer than its 419 yards into a very stiff wind but DJ nails a terrific drive which draws back towards the centre of the fairway.

My comparatively scuffed effort rests 40 yards behind his but I strike a decent three-wood just short of the front edge while DJ pulls his six-iron approach shot left to lose the hole to a four.

This is the beginning of a particularly barren patch for him and as I reel off a sequence of uneventful pars, DJ's short game goes through a crisis that eventually costs him the match.

He strikes two magnificent shots pin high off the green on the 556-yard eighth hole but again loses to a par while on the ninth, another booming drive into the wind leaves him a nine-iron approach against my seven-wood but again, he misses the green, loses the hole and heads into the back nine three down.

On the par three 14th we are called through by an obliging fourball. Having pulled back the deficit by hitting a drive and a sandwedge to 15 feet on the index one 13th, DJ stands four down in our match and it doesn't get any easier for him after he hits a seven-iron into a extremely difficult downhill lie up against the back of the deep, greenside bunker.

Even a professional would have been happy to keep the next shot on the green and DJ's failure to do so prompts one of the watching and waiting players to chirp up with that well-worn but good humoured put down "stick to the day

job".

DJ climbs out of the bunker and laughs it off but the smile which broke on his face appears to mask a well-bitten tongue. "People sometimes just want to make a comment of some sort," he shrugs afterwards.

I make a routine par on the 14th to finish the match but decide to reserve the handshake until the 18th so as not to encourage the comedian in our midst.

Through his emergence as an iconic figure in Irish sport, DJ has remained personable and without affectation. Throughout our match he applauds my occasional adequate shot with enthusiasm and, even though he has one of those frustrating days that visit us all once in a while, his inner competitiveness, while always apparent, never once looks like boiling over.

However, I sense throughout if for a moment I got complacent with my advantage, he would rip my heart out.

When I bring up the subject of his celebrity status he winces before telling me his own encounter with celebrity which completely overwhelmed him.

It happened during the 2002 American Express World Golf Championship at Mount Juliet when the veteran tour player John Cook invited DJ into the Lady Helen dining room one evening where the US team to play in the Ryder Cup were gathered ahead of flying out the next day to the Belfry.

As Carey was introduced to the group, Curtis Strange stood up and said: "DJ, I've heard a lot about you."

"I absolutely froze," he remembers. "And because of that I completely lost an opportunity to have my picture taken with all these great golfers who I watched on television every weekend."

In spite of the rumours which keep following him, he has no aspiration to be a professional golfer. He has had a lengthy lesson in Florida with David Leadbetter and the celebrated golf coach quickly recognised DJ's exceptional ball-striking ability.

"I was so excited and full of adrenaline afterwards that the next day I shot four under par," he recalls.

More recently he has been under the eye of K Club professional John McHenry, and it is clear the foundations of a powerful, rhythmic and repeating scratch swing are soundly in place. His love of practice should ensure that when he eventually does hang up his helmet and boots, he will have more time to refine his game.

As it stands, due to pure talent, he can produce truly outstanding rounds, but on an inconsistent basis.

Two days after our match he shot 73 gross for 41 points off the medal tees in Mount Juliet.

So either my grinding stealth tactics totally spooked him, or I just got lucky.