HOLD THE BACK PAGETHE TRULY great sportspeople have a presence, an aura that is apparent to everyone. Opponents, mainly, pick up the vibe, especially in one-to-one sporting combat; but, also, the air of greatness crosses to those mere mortals who happen to share the same space.
During the week, Stephen Hendry – dubbed “The Golden Boy” or “The Maestro” or “The Great One”, depending on who you listened to – chose to exit the competitive snooker arena with all of the grace with which he had dominated the sport during his heyday. There was no great fuss. No big deal. His time on the baize, he felt, was done. It was time to move on.
I remember my first time encountering Hendry. It was at the World Amateur Snooker Championship held in the Grand Hotel in Malahide, Co Dublin, in 1984 and the word on the street was this spotty-faced 15-year-old from Scotland was the future of the game. Even Steve Davis, the world professional champion at the time, deigned to drop by during the championship to catch an eyeful of someone who, in time, would become a rival in the professional game.
As it happened, Hendry didn’t win the world amateurs in Malahide. An Indian cueist by the name of OB Agarwal, won the title. Sadly, Agarwal died tragically young, at the age of 37, just 10 years later, in the same year as Hendry claimed a third consecutive World Championship title at the Crucible.
That sequence of successive titles would extend to five – from 1992 to 1996 inclusive – and Hendry claimed no fewer than seven career World Championships. Hendry had many great moments at the Crucible, from the time he made his debut appearance in 1988 – then, the youngest player ever to qualify for the World Championships – when he put up such a fight against Willie Thorne that his veteran opponent applauded him on leaving the arena. Over the years that followed, Hendry would dominate that same theatre like no one else in the sport ever managed.
Even back in his teenage years, an aura emanated from Hendry. He was quiet, but, as he proved over the years when playing the game for pay and titles, there was an assassin’s steeliness in his eyes when he pointed the tip of the cue at his target.
Unfortunately, that old deadliness was absent in his match with another Scot, Stephen Maguire, the other night. After the defeat, Hendry announced a decision to retire he had made some time ago but which he had kept to himself. Indeed, the reactions of other great snooker players to Hendry’s decision – at 43 years of age – to retire spoke volumes for his status in the sport. The overriding emotion – from Davis, Jimmy White et al – was one of shock. Maguire, the last man ever to beat him, was in a similar state of shock. “He’s left a great legacy, the best player ever to pick up a cue in my eyes.”
Unlike Davis and White who are no longer the forces they once were, but who still play competitively and seek to occasionally rediscover the magic which once enabled them to hold an audience spellbound, Hendry has taken a different road. In the foreseeable future, Hendry will take up a lucrative post promoting pool in China.
The legacy which Maguire referred to is, indeed, a rich one. In his near 27 years as a professional, Hendry won over 70 tournaments around the globe and was world number one for a total of nine years. Of those 72 tournament wins, no fewer than 36 were “ranking” events (more wins than any other player). There were times when he was invincible: from St Patrick’s Day 1990 up to a defeat by White the following January, Hendry won five successive titles and 36 consecutive matches. His most peerless time at the baize was that World Championship winning run from 1992 to 1996, when he won those five successive titles.
Ironically, Hendry had started what turned out to be his final appearance in the World Championships with a maximum 147 break – his third career maximum at the Crucible and the 11th of his career – in a first round win over Stuart Bingham and he followed up with a second round win over holder John Higgins.
In the quarter-final, though, Hendry lacked any spark. His malaise was highlighted by a relatively simple miss on the pink in the third frame. It wasn’t that he missed the pot, it was the manner – by a number of inches – that told the real story.
In the end, the match didn’t even make it to the final session as Maguire trumped Hendry by 13-2. It marked the official end of Hendry’s playing career but, as Maguire acknowledged, the legacy will live on for a greater length of time.
Seve rated among the best there was
THE LATE, great Seve Ballesteros will be dead a year on Monday next – he may be gone, but he is not forgotten. The Spaniard’s wizardry has been acknowledged by the current crop of professionals who haven’t forgotten his capacity to manufacture and execute shots and who have rated him the best short game player in the sport’s history.
Golf Digest magazine asked more than 30 tour players to nominate their chosen players (now and all-time) in different categories – driving, putting, short game, bunker play, iron play and mental game. Ballesteros, who died last year after a long battle with brain cancer, came out tops in two categories on the all-time list . . . in his short game play and in bunker play.
Ballesteros was voted the best all-time short game exponent with Phil Mickelson named as the best of the current generation, while Seve was given the honour of being the best-ever bunker player. Of the current tour players, Luke Donald – the world number one – has been handed that particular accolade.
Graeme McDowell was one of those asked to give his opinion. Of Ballesteros, G-Mac said: “It was just pure natural instinct. My coach Pete Cowen talks a lot about Seve’s feel. He spent a lot of time with Seve working on his short game, in the bunkers, and his basics were instinctive . . . he just knew how to play every shot.
“He might not have known the technique, but he learned it in his head and he was just a natural.”
The results of the poll saw Dustin Johnson tagged as the current best driver of the ball off the tee, with Greg Norman deemed the best of all time; Streve Stricker considered the current best putter on tour, with Tiger Woods nominated as the all-time best with the blade; Mickelson considered the best current short game exponent, with Ballesteros the all-time best; Donald the current best with bunker play, with Ballesteros considered the all-time best; Rory McIlroy seen as the best iron player, with Ben Hogan the all-time best; while Woods is viewed as the current player with the best mental game, and he shared this accolade with Jack Nicklaus in the all-time category.
As it happens, the GUI has launched a new competition – in tandem with sponsors Kellogg’s – to find Ireland’s most skilled golfers. There are seven skills involved in the nationwide challenge: Driving, 135-metre shot, pitching, Up-and-Down, Bunker play, Difficult lies and putting. The Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Golf Skills Challenge – open to GUI and ILGU affiliated club members over 18 – will have qualifiers starting next month in Rosses Point, Charleville, Donabate, Malone and Hollystown golf clubs with the grand final scheduled for the GUI National Academy at Carton House in September.
Australia out to dazzle at the Games
WHEN THE Australian Olympians walked onto the track for the opening ceremony at the Barcelona Games in 1992, it looked as if they were heading to the outback rather than being serious athletes competing at the highest level. And when they paraded in, of all colours, blue jackets at the Beijing Games four years ago, it provoked an outcry back home.
For this year’s summer Games in London, the Aussies have taken no chances.
The uniforms – launched in midweek, giving them one head start on other countries – were designed after getting a number of men and women Olympians on board to help with the design and have seen the traditional green and gold colouring incorporated into the end product.
The primary colour, though, is neither green nor gold: shirts, pants and sneakers – with a gold-coloured coat of arms on the tongue and marked with metal plates bearing the Olympic rings – are all dazzlingly white.
Maybe taking Féile Peile too seriously
ALL OVER the country in recent weeks, various GAA county boards have been staging their own Féile Peile na nÓg tournaments to send on to the national finals which take place in Laois and Offaly next month.
This weekend it is Dublin’s turn to stage their blitz and, given the trend of recent years, it is likely whoever emerges will assume favouritism for the national féile.
The national finals have been dominated by Dublin clubs recently. This is partly down to the strong underage structures in place in the capital but also to the decision by clubs to place the Under-14 football competition as a priority: Ballymun Kickhams (2011), Na Fianna (2010), Ballyboden St Enda’s (2009) and Kilmacud Crokes (2008) won the Dublin tournament and went on to capture the All-Ireland.
However, you’ve got to wonder if some clubs are taking the whole thing a bit too seriously. Sure, it’s a great competition – and Bus Éireann’s decision to extend their sponsorship by another three years reflects its wide appeal – but the growing trend of clubs to dispatch their young teams on packaged training sessions is a little at odds with the philosophy.
Last year, Ballymun Kickhams took in a warm-weather trip to the Algarve before claiming the national crown . . . and, now, it seems other clubs have followed suit by taking in training camps at certain hotels frequented by intercounty teams. Sounds like serious preparation for young teens. Too serious, perhaps?
Military service 'a very nice experience'
THE FINAL STRAW:THOSE WHO believe that introducing compulsory military service to build character and add discipline might have a change of heart after hearing tennis player Jarkko Nieminen. In a Q A with atpworldtour.com this week, the Finn makes military service seem more like a holiday camp than a boot camp experience.
"It was kind of like a mental holiday for me. You just follow orders," explained Nieminen, who actually put off his compulsory stint for eight years whilst he pursued life on the professional tennis circuit before he eventually got around to complete it over the winter off-season in 2009.
"You can leave your brains somewhere else and just do what you are told to do. I really enjoyed that because otherwise you're travelling a lot and you have to create your own schedule. I played some of my best tennis during that time. We had a good group of people and a nice atmosphere . . . it was a very nice experience."
