Michael Foley

I'd say Roy Keane is probably the most influential sports person we've had in the last 30, 40 years.

Again, you know, if you think of all of the sports people who have identified Roy as being a huge influence on them across any number of sports, you know, I wonder where Rory sits in that.

Because, I mean, what I was thinking about...

Rory pushing the envelope.

I'm also kind of thinking well behind him, but in a similar way, you have, okay, you've got Katie Taylor obviously breaking ground, but you've got the likes of Daniel Whiffen, Rhys McLennan, doing things that Irish athletes would never have been imagined, could never be imagined they would do.

And I wonder, and again, obviously the two guys I mentioned there are Northern Irish, like I wonder where McIlroy sits today

in terms of the influence, just watching him go about his business and how he goes about his business and how he has dealt with triumph and failure over the years and really redrawn the levels of ambition.

I wonder how that has influenced the likes of Whiff and McLennan, maybe even somewhere in the back of his mind, the likes of Paul O'Donovan back down in Cork.

I don't know, but it will be interesting in the years to come to see where McIlroy...

if he does at all, emerge in those stories.

Absolutely.

And I mean, it was a poignant moment, you know, when you're watching after McIlroy leaves the 18th Green and he meets his family and friends and various other people involved in the operation and there's hugs and all the rest of it comes to the very end and there is Shane Lowry.

And even like McIlroy's face changes when he sees Shane because, you know, compared to last year, this is different, you know.

And, you know, again, Rory knows exactly how he's feeling.

He was there for...

final day of the Masters shot in 80 you know he knows so I mean again I suppose in a weird way it kind of speaks to the sheer breadth of McIlroy's experience that he can draw on that he even knows what it's like to shoot 80 on the final day of a Masters and you know look it's a it's a really really hard one for Shane Lowry to take and I guess I mentioned before he is probably one of many golfers

from yesterday that would look at that final round and go, if I could have just got it together, I could have had a chance.