So you think Ireland's Richie Coughlan and Keith Nolan are having a difficult time on the US golf tour - not making cuts, having to wait until the last moment to know if they are in or out of the major tournaments . . . spare a thought for Esteban Toledo.
Toledo, from Mexico, is a former boxer who had to give up the sport because of injury. So he turned his hand to golf. Eleven lonely years were spent chasing a US Tour card and in 1996 Toledo finally had it in his grasp. With a card almost certain the last player in the field arrived in off the course and snatched the card off the Mexican claiming the last place on offer. The story goes that Toledo cried all the way home.
Last year Toledo went one better and won his card and last week at the BellSouth Classic in Atlanta came joint third with a 14-under-par 274. The $120,000 prize-money he collected means his tour card for next year is most likely secure. It took 13 years and gallons of tears. Sometimes that's what it takes.
Occasionally even supporters of boxing despair. Belfast's Eamonn Magee has signed up to fight British and Commonwealth light welterweight champion Paul Burke on June 9th. The Preston boxer's claim on the Commonwealth title, however, is in dispute following a bizarre and tragic affair in Zambia last year.
Burke's claim on the title is currently the subject of an official review as he technically lost his last fight to Felix Bwayla. Tragically, Bwayla died from head injuries after being knocked out in the final seconds but, controversially, was then awarded the fight by the referee. After the death the local government suspended Zambia's boxing board.
It's strange how some people get their kicks. After each World Snooker Championship at the Crucible in Sheffield, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) throw a party in the local Grosvenor Hotel in the city centre.
This year in the bar adjoining the banquet area locals and snooker fans were enjoying games of pool in the usual way. Placing down their 50 pence pieces, the winner of each game stayed on the table, with others taking their turn to try and displace the `champion'.
When an anonymous-looking bloke put down his pint and went to the table for his tilt at the previous winner, few took notice. In less than five minutes he had cleared the table of all the balls. Next game he did the same. And the next game the same again. In the corner of the bar a group of people were cracking up with laughter as Mark Williams, the Welshman whom Ken Doherty narrowly beat in the world championship semi-final, finally sat down. Playing for free games, pool is a long way from the £32,000 he received from his run in the Crucible - but probably a lot more fun.
Still on snooker, Ronnie O'Sullivan, who this week apparently tested positive for smoking cannabis rather than, say, Embassy, Benson and Hedges or Silk Cut, said, during the World Championships that he was thinking of moving from his home in Chigwell, Essex to live in Dublin.
His reason was that he wouldn't be hassled as much in Dublin and that people would leave him alone. Given his treatment in the British press this week during which he is also alleged to have hit a photographer, O'Sullivan, who has an Irish father and an Italian mother, may well be making the move faster than he might have anticipated.
In last week's Guardian newspaper Formula One racing driver Eddie Irvine aired his views on what irks him about driving on the road in Ireland. Never one to hold opinions to himself, Irvine's timing could have been a little better.
"Here in Ireland, I've been stopped four times in the last 24 hours - I got one spot fine, the other three I got off. The guy that gave me the fine caught my sister a couple of months before. He goes: `Your family have obviously no respect for speed limits.'
"But my experience as a racing driver makes me much safer on the roads. A lot of people when they drive fast are worried about driving fast, but I can drive reasonably fast without even thinking about it, so all my mind is concentrated on is not having an accident or seeing people pulling out in front of me . . .
"Drivers in England and Ireland are in a semi-comatose state. They don't know what's happening around them, that's the danger. The classic example is the woman who has driven for 30 years and never had an accident . . . but she's caused 400."
Giancarlo Fischella may not agree. It was he who last weekend jumped out of his car to confront Irvine when the two collided negotiating a bend on the 29th lap of the Barcelona Grand Prix. The two cars ended their part in the race by careering onto the gravel.
Jean-Marc Bosman, the player who made life sweeter for professional footballers when he won his European court case to allow players free movement between clubs when out of contract, was repaid this week. Isn't it nice to be remembered.
A benefit match in aid of Bosman was scheduled to take place last Tuesday in Lille, France. Twenty-five thousand fans were expected to turn up to see a team of stars perform for the man who basically made them all richer. But so much for thank yous.
Only 2,500 fans turned up and many of the stars who reportedly promised to play didn't arrive. Eric Cantona, Diego Maradona and Hugo Sanchez did not show, while former Manchester United and current Birmingham defender Steve Bruce did play. The money from the match just about covered the overall expenses. Bosman got nothing.
It's refreshing to hear that one of the best pieces of stuff in world running is also the most lazy SOB imaginable. Saratoga Springs, the Derby favourite, is a lazy worker who doesn't do a tap of work at home. Clearly he's one of those horses you would warm to. He has the talent, the speed, the bloodline - but he'd prefer to sit out in the sunshine and have the equivalent of a smoke rather than do a few laps. Saratoga Springs, it seems, would prefer his life to be one big snooze.
The brilliant colt never does anything spectacular and every ounce of effort has to be squeezed out of him by jockey Mick Kinane.
"He's the worst in the yard," says Kinane. "You have to drive the ears off him at home just to get him go upside . . . he's one of those horses you have to be hard on. Whenever I'm down to ride him, I think, `Oh God, I'm going to get into trouble with this fellow today'." Sounds like the smartest horse ever sired.
Sports events are becoming increasingly popular devices for the police to prise agreements out of reluctant politicians - ask the gardai and the Tour de France organisers. The main French police union said on Wednesday that officers stationed near the main stadium for the World Cup in France this summer should have a pay rise in recognition of the extra work they will have to put in.
The newly-opened 80,000-seat Stade de France, built in the northern Paris suburb of Saint Denis, will host nine soccer matches during the month-long event, including the June 10th opening game and the July 12th final.
"We demand a re-evaluation of pay for police in Saint Denis, given the exceptional demands that are going to be made on them," the SGP police union said in a statement.
If the worst possible scenario presents itself, we could have disruption at the World Cup final in Paris and at the Tour de France in Dublin on the same day - two of the biggest sports events in the world. What a prospect!
