It’s hats off to our Faithful friend Shane

HATS OFF to Shane Lowry for lending his name and support to the golf classic in aid of the Offaly Centre of Excellence project ‘The Faithful Fields’.

Over 50 teams took part at Esker Hills yesterday before a gala dinner and it wouldn’t have happened without one of the country’s finest golfers who, this morning, was due to be on a plane to Austin, Texas for the World Match Play Championship.

The Faithful Fields is a 21acre site in Kilcormac with four floodlit full-size pitches, a dressing room complex with six modern dressing rooms, gym and meeting rooms.

I’m chairman of the fundraising committee and we had to raise €750,000 before any additional funding was taken into account. The hope is that it will provide a spark to Offaly GAA again. It has been a major negative that we had no base for teams to train.

When money was pumped into the redevelopment of O’Connor Park, it’s easy to criticise when things aren’t going well on the field of play. But the golf classic again showed the phenomenal support within the county, Shane (left) being so good as to put the great Lowry name behind it.

Without him, it wouldn’t have happened.