Irish 1-2-3 .

Great achievement for Hoey, held off the challenge of some of the worlds best players and showed a lot of bottle to birdie the last few holes after looking beat 1/2 way through the round.
3 courses in Scotland obviously suited but to have the 3 of them fighting out the finish,what odds?
Good for golf and the country in general.well done lads.

Delighted for Hoey he really deserved that!

The Irish golfers always shine when they get on a links and it was always so.I would expect the Northern Ireland Tourist Board to use the success of these young men to get tourists to visit the great links of Northern Ireland.One downside to the tournament is Rory McIlroy again failing to win having been odds on,for a world number three he must have won the fewest tournaments of anyone that has been in the top three.

Rory was very disappointed not to win , you could see that on TV .  Think he was as low as 1.33 in running , Hoey went to 15 or so with about 6 to play I think .  Hoey birdied 3 of the last 4 I think , so he won rather than Rory losing . Rory for a place is the dart , but just as someone posted Rory has an awful lot of close finishes without wins .

But hey , I think Jack had more runner up finishes than anyone else  , maybe it just shows that the good players are very often the ones in the mix  , even if they dont win .

For years and years ( in the old days ) I backed Nick Faldo each way in the Irish Open , Portmarnock mainly .  Dont think I ever did not get a return , always in the mix and he usually was an 8/1 shot .  Not sure if he ever won it then , but I always got a good run for my money .

St Andrews an awful place for Rory to come from 5 behind,he did mainly by eagling and two long birds,while Hoey missed short enough putts mid round.Rory was unlucky at the last how did that trickle off the green?
would definitely put the pressure on Hoey and who knows.
Was always quite happy taking Rory on but next year think he will string a few together its only a matter of time.
Monty was my man in Irish opens always thereabouts as well

Fantastic win for Hoey ....A lot of good judges were predicting big things for him when he was an amateur .....He s stuck at it and come out the other end ..... In fairness to him its actually his third win in 3 years after winning in Portugal a few years back and Madeira this year . Neither would compare to this win though . I Think he ll go on from this .... real good ball striker and good temperment for the game , nice quiet unassuming guy .
As for Rory , i know the knockers will say he got into a winning position again and didn t go through with it  but in fairness as you said kelly  , Hoey won it with his performance on the closing 4 holes .
I think there will be money to be made on Rory for the next 10 weeks , not just for him but also for his backers .... you ll just have to keep backing him ....
I m eyeing up a good punt on him for the Grand Slam of golf in a couple of weeks time in Bermuda against Charl Swartzel , Keegan Bradley and Big D ......7/4 he is .......Just hope Big D doesn t lead him astray over there

Lapsy pa , Monty came after most of those guys I mentioned were heading for the senior tour . Think I saw Faldo playing  first in the Irish Open when he was about 20 . Bernhard was also just starting his career around  then , had to give him a hand with security in Portmarnock ( they had a poor reputation on that score in Portmarnock as Seve also found out I recall ) , I speak decent German , his English was not up to dealing with  the guys who would not let him into the competitors dining room .  Got him in allright ( we had concession passes that year and were going in with him struggling to convice them he was a player ). Helped Sandy Lyle to get his car out of a hemmed in parking space that year too .  Eventful time .

It would be an age thing Kelly,I probably started off golf betting in 90,s but remember before that Faldo,Langer,Ballesteros each having periods where they seemed to each be winning every second week,nice story regarding Langer/Lyle.

The beauty about golf , lapsy pa , is partly that the average Joe can play the same course as Tiger and Rory and luke and Lee John etc.

One other year my team ( I organised a team with club permission ) made the Irish Open  pro am at Portmarnock .  We played  with Howard Clarke ( pretty poorly , but our high handicapper --it was a low , medium , high club team had never played a seaside course and could not get out of any bunker he visited ) .  After the round my brother ( who was my caddie ) and I were sitting in the locker room  after showering , David Graham on one side and Isia (?) Aoko on the other side , and they were asking us about the course . Things like that just do not happen in most other sports .

didnt know much about Hoey as dont follow the E Tour that closely but fair play, keeps that great run going this year for our island golfer

massive 1st prize he took home for himself too

wonder does he get an exemption on the tour for a few years now after that. dunno if thats still done..

Near 600,000 prize .  Gets exemptions for 2 years I think . Basically changes his life upwards .

No handle on him apart from his family connections which are steeped in amateur golf  locally and nationally over more years than I can remember . The more the merrier north or south .  Keep up the gallop lads , noting better shape from Padraig .

i heard hes a portrush man like mcdowell

Fred, Ballymoney. Good to see Pod back playing well too, only had 2 bogies all last week, the best of the field. New coach & swing seem to be coming along nicely. He will pop up at a big price hopefully in the months to come.

Nearly all golfers will have more second place finishes than wins for all the obvious reasons.