TALKING GOLF recently? Betcha it was about the Irish Open and how the Irish fared. Many of you were probably there and enjoying the event with its international atmosphere. Even a host of enthusiasts from Carlow were in Killarney. But real drama for knowledgeable locals - the few who even knew what was going on in Co. Clare - was the amazing progress of Carlovian John Greene in the South of Ireland championship in Lahinch.

How many of you even realised he was in the field, or should we ask how many club golfers in the county even heard of the lad?

That's about the sum attention the club player pays to the amateur game and which is about as appealing to the sporting public as a dose of unwelcome bad weather.

Wall to wall professional coverage, in our newspapers, mags and on telly has shoved the amateur edition of the game deep into the shadows to the point that most club plodders hardly know the names of our internationals.

The impact of the unpaid game was seen at Lahinch when one of our leading photographic agencies did not even have a tog at the South but marched their full force to Killarney.

Not many more than a dozen from Carlow were there to savour Greene's victory - a first senior championship for a home-grown player - and but for the mixed competition on the Friday evening in his own club who knows how many would have attended the function to welcome their new star home.

The UCD masters student's win should be used by Carlow as a serious promotional opportunity for until now only the ladies have kept the name in lights.

For a club with a revered course and a long tradition of golf Greene is he only adult male to have made any impact on the national scene for more than six decades and lamentably few, very few Carlow names feature in open competition fields showing a disappointing penetration of younger members in scratch events. Perhaps Greene's success will generate heightened interest among the juveniles.

The new Carlow star now stands alongside the few really high-achievers from the Barrow county; joining the likes of world class sculler Sean Drea a native of Bagenalstown, three times Olympic hurdler TJ Kearns from Rathvilly and currently Irish rugby international Sean O'Brien from Tullow.

Carlow Golf Club decorates the pavilion with photographs of its top performers at different points but perhaps it might open a high-performance board for those who have drawn focus on the club like Mary Governey-Culleton, the Langan sisters, Jason Farrell, Rebecca Coakley, the Delaney sisters and Aedin Murphy and give younger players of ambition a place to want their names.

There have been suggestions for a special category of membership for the elite, for if a club can confer honorary membership to those who passed through for a day then surely their own merit some special acknowledgement. After all if snooker competition winners can have names up in gold lettering then those who win far higher image for Carlow should be at least similarly treated.

While on the topic of recognition, it has not gone unnoticed that local sportspeople who do well have not all earned the nod of our local council with civic receptions and they merely representing the wishes of the community and not actually their own call.

Admittedly the value of civic functions should not be diluted by merely satisfying a wide strand of local demands but there are those achievements which rank above the norm.

Perhaps those elected - few of whom even nod in the direction of sport when courting voters - will pay attention to those sportspeople who advance the reputation of the county, for we are not endowed with to many others who do so, and indeed the council does not get too many opportunities even from the sporting brigade.

Several chairmen have taken a personal interest in Carlow achievement, and have acceded to the recommendations for locals sportspeople who have gone the extra mile in their chosen field, but because of the rarity of the achievement of both Greene, and indeed last year when Carlow-based Chris O'Sullivan joined the exclusive list of successful channel swimmers, perhaps the elected body might acknowledge the pair. The last sporting civil reception I can recall was that for the Carlow hurlers after a Ring Cup victory.

The hurlers, and indeed Greene, have recognisable goals ahead, but not really so for O'Sullivan who trained for more than two years for a 16 hours solo performance, far from television or the public, and at great personal expense, but has no obvious next step, and even that achievement receiving little recognition save his name in the register of very proud people.

- Paul Donaghy