A good loser is a rare animal

I was standing in a bunker on the first the other day, the gale force winds blowing its contents all over my factor-23-smothered skin, giving me that big, sand-castle look, when I got to thinking about triumph and adversity. The notion that you could ever treat those two impostors just the same was the daftest idea ever brewed. I always preferred Mark Twain's interpretation of these things: "By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity - another man's, I mean." Indeed, if it was my playing partner in that bunker, slowly disappearing from view as he scooped everything but the ball on to the green, specifically the sand beneath his feet, I wouldn't have minded at all. I might even have had an auld chuckle at his expense.

But how could I be expected to regard this foul and abusive-language-inducing experience as beneficial and character-forming? When I emerged from the bunker some time later, (many thanks again to Packie who lowered his ladder for me and then removed the hillocks of sand from the green with his JCB) did I feel I had grown as a person? Divil a bit. I gave further thought to this triumph and adversity business when I was looking for my four iron in a ravine 100 yards to the right of the out-of-bounds sticks on the second. (It's true what they say, rain does nothing for your grip).

I had raised the issue five minutes from the end of the All-Ireland hurling semi-final between Cork and Offaly the previous Sunday. My timing probably wasn't great and might have lacked sensitivity, but I felt the Cork supporter had opened the back door a little, just as the Cork team had done for Offaly.

Ger Canning was swooning over Joe Dooley and the Cork supporter had had enough. "Ah, Joe Dooley my arse," she howled, as she stormed out of the room to go for a walk in the kitchen. "George Best left the Nou Camp early and you know what happened then," I shouted after her, so she came back, daring to hope. Five minutes later? "Hopeless," she howled. "They're young, they'll come again," I said. (I always say this even if the average age of the team in question is 43 - and if there's as much chance of them coming again as there is of Mark James caddying for Nick Faldo when he retires - but it's all I can think to say at a time like that, even if it brings not a smidgen of comfort). Anyway, this Cork team won an All-Ireland not much more than 10 months ago, but was Sunday's defeat greeted in the same magnanimous fashion as that particular triumph? Hmm. ("And you know it was a bloody Cork man who introduced bloody hurling to bloody Offaly in the first bloody place - what the bloody hell did he bloody do that for, bloody eejit. The shaggers wouldn't have known a hurley from a fishing rod before. Joe Dooley my arse. Johnny Pilkington my arse.") Not really.

And then when I was standing four feet in front of the tee on the third, shaping up to take my second shot, I thought of this Cork supporter's eight-year-old grandson and his attempts to ease her pain. "I'm Offaly sorry about Cork losing, Gran," he said. "Thanks pet, you're a little . . . aaah, you're a little louser." Cue hysterical eight-year-old giggling.

We then tried the "there's always someone worse off than yourself" line, and, granted, mention of the Meath footballers' early Championship exit lifted the gloom - but only temporarily. The tale of Benito Carbone's wife's woes had a bigger impact. She wanted him to leave Aston Villa because she didn't like Birmingham much, so he agreed. Picxure the scene, the Carbone living room. "Five guesses - where are we going next?" "Naples?" "Nope - up a bit." "Rome?" "Nope - up a bit." "Genoa?" "Nope - up a bit." "Milan?" "Nope - up a bit." "Oooh, Paris?" "Nope - Bradford!" The divorce proceedings, they say, will be messy.

So that story helped a bit. But then its soothing effect wore off and we were back to "Joe Dooley my arse". I thought of Joe's rear-end, too, when I was back in the clubhouse having lost four clubs, 12 balls, my dignity, my self-respect and my pride. Treat triumph and disaster the same? Tell you one thing, Rudyard Kipling never played golf, nor did his county ever lose an All-Ireland hurling semi-final.

Easy for him to talk.