They say around three million people stand above the Grand Canyon in any given year, dwarfed by the unfathomable sense of emptiness which seems to shape the indiscriminate promontories and shadows and glaring sand pits which stretch across the chasm.

When Christy O'Connor made his pilgrimage there last spring, he found out that at least there was somewhere that could make you feel more lonely than standing between two posts holding a hurley.

It was an epic, unplanned sort of adventure. When he boarded a flight for New York in January, he consciously suppressed the lingering notion that he was mad and silently vowed to just keep going. By May, he had roamed 25 states, stopping in Los Angeles for the Superbowl, writing for a newspaper a little in Biloxi - he is a reporter - driving up through the south to Gettysburg and wandering as far north as Maine. Sometimes, though, he missed the feel of a hurley in his hand and couldn't but think of the clear yells and cracking sticks back home once the evenings began to lengthen.

"It was just that I had time to spare and I didn't want to look back and realise I had squandered it. I wasn't hurling all that much and I had this vague notion that I would just love to try and win a county championship with St Joseph's in the summer."

So here he is now, All-Ireland club medal on the mantelpiece and togging out with clubmates Jamesie O'Connor (his brother) and Seanie McMahon in Ennis on Easter Sunday taking on All-Ireland champions Offaly, his name heading the Clare team-sheet on the match programme. It's been an unusual, zooming route to the pinnacle.

"After the All-Ireland (club final), about five of us from St Joseph's got the call to go along training. Naturally, I was thrilled. Every kid who picks up a hurl has ambitions or dreams of playing for Clare. But, I mean, I'm still very much on the periphery of the scene. We have Davy Fitzgerald, probably the best 'keeper in Ireland in my opinion. He's someone from whom you can learn a lot and there's a lot I need to know at this level."

Already, there have been moments of breathlessness. On his first day out for Clare, against Limerick, O'Connor was stung for a goal. "Ah, a complete disaster on my part. A ball came in I should have dealt with and Mike Houlihan came onto it and that was it. Maybe when I was younger I might have let it eat at me but you have to have the resolve to just get on with it."

The joys of goalkeeping. You ought to pass through a game anonymously, just keep a safe house and leave the art work to distant numbers downfield.

"That's how it is. It's tough for any 'keeper to get plaudits. Going back to the St Joseph's game, I got a bit of credit for that save I made at the end of the St Joseph's match. But I erred earlier on in the game and there was times during I was standing there thinking: `if we lose this, how am I going to live with myself?' You take the chance to redeem yourself if it comes, that's the way it is with goalkeeping."

During Clare's All-Ireland semi-final against Offaly last August, O'Connor stood in Croke Park and checked his watch with 40,000 others. It was a role he had grown accustomed to - that of Clare fan - and when he traipsed away in bewilderment that day after watching the Offaly folk do their Woodstock thing, he just hoped his brother and friends were doing OK. Never gave much thought to actually being out there.

"We always followed Clare in the house. I remember back in 1986 being at a Munster final, we were playing Cork and it seemed we had a really good chance to win. Sure I could hardly see a thing and eventually we lost. All I remember was people wondering aloud if we'd ever, ever get out of Munster."

Seven years later, he sat with the family again and he could hardly keep his eyes of off the debut forward, Jamesie. Tipperary were about to inflict a hiding of catastrophic proportions. "We were just annihilated," the younger O'Connor recalls.

Meantime, Christy was learning his trade. A product of St Flannan's, Ennis, he saw more success than most youngsters, with schools All-Irelands and a minor shirt. After the under-21 season though, things stalled. Senior stuff seemed a step beyond him.

And although he will run out in Ennis tomorrow, he still feels he has a long way to go. The wanderlust is behind him now, between training midweek with the county and writing sports for the Title.

Since he touched down in Shannon last May, he has just trotted along with this eyes wide open, never thinking too far ahead. Right now, the only concern is Offaly.

"Last year's championship means nothing at this stage. Afterwards, I never really spoke about it with Jamesie. I wasn't part of the scene and I think the lads just accepted it and got back to club games. "And like Ger Loughnane said, if there was any team we'd go out to, it would be Offaly. They set the trend for the smaller counties - after Galway. When Clare eventually broke through, they were mindful of what Offaly had done."

So tomorrow, all going well, he gets 60 minutes. Sure, he'd love more, love to be out there when the grass is scorched and the air frizzled with pent up expectation. But he's no flit, he realises that he is raw yet and there are no guarantees.

And he never imagined anything like this a year ago, when he was slumped in a train carriage or driving through the Bible belt, letting the road take him where it would.