Tiger hunt hits fever-pitch in Limerick

GOLF: It's true, real money whispers. It whispers to the roar of helicopters swooping in over the Shannon estuary to the golf resort at Adare Manor, as occurred yesterday morning when the cargo consisted of the world's top golfers.

It whispers to the rustle of bank notes, with this year's JP McManus Invitational Pro-Am set to make something like €30 million for charities in the south-west region. It whispers to the sound of a felt pen held by a golfer, a hurler, a footballer or a jockey etching an autograph onto a child's souvenir programme.

Yesterday was a day when the whispering had a seismic effect as privileged amateurs - many of them stars in their own right of other sports, or powerbrokers in the world of finance, or simply club players fortunate enough to have negotiated a route through the qualifying process - got to call their playing partners by name. "Tiger!" "Ernie!" "Davis! "Padraig!"

Yesterday was surreal, in the nicest way.

Maybe the gods had a whisper too. Instead of the foul weather that assailed the two full PGA European Tour events on Irish soil in this summer of ours - the Irish Open and the European Open - the day was mainly one of sunshine and gentle breezes, and the result was that the car parks were full and the fairways were lined with the spectators and most, it seemed, had come to catch a piece of Tiger Woods, who had flown through the night after his runner-up finish to Jim Furyk in the Western Open to be here.

The appeal of Woods - who, according to Forbes magazine has an annual income in excess of $80 million through endorsements and prize-money - is magnetic.

Yesterday, his appearance on the range caused a stampede as spectators raced to the back of the range; and, out on the putting green, he greeted fellow players and caddies as if he were the host of this great shindig.

Out on the course, too, he played sufficiently well to shoot a round of five-under-par 67. But, unbeknownst to those outside the ropes, the world's number one was playing with a fever that necessitated him seeking out the comforts of his hotel bedroom as soon as he finished a round where he was paired with politician Phil Hogan, auctioneer Arthur French and Martin McAleese, the husband of the President, Mary McAleese.

By the eighth green, a group of schoolchildren gathered in anticipation of securing the autograph of Woods. When Padraig Harrington went to move from the eighth green to the ninth tee, he was surrounded and wrote so many autographs that his marker ran dry and he had to seek a replacement.

When Angel Cabrera putted out on the eighth, the group of children ran onto the green for the Argentinian's signature, only to be informed of the etiquette of autograph hunting by the stewards.

Which was good timing, because Woods was in the group behind Cabrera.

When a marshall informed the growing number of autograph hunters that Woods wouldn't under any circumstances be signing autographs, one girl replied: "I'll crawl under the legs of the bodyguards if I have to".

Sadly for her, the autograph quest was to be in vain.

But that was to be one of the few disappointments on a glorious first day to the JP McManus, when just about everything else went like a dream.