For Clare man Shane O'Donnell, this year's Irish Open isn't much of a trek to get there.

The All-Ireland winning hurler stayed within the confines of his county as he took part in Wednesday's pro-am at Lahinch.

"It's fantastic to see Lahinch in this condition," he told John Duggan.

"I've been spending the last few hours here and it's absolutely gorgeous today. I've never seen the place as good. It's fantastic to see your county like this."

Brilliant

The forward, who scored a hat-trick in Clare's All-Ireland final win six years ago, spoke of the buzz in the county as it hosts Ireland's premiere golf tournament.

"It's been brilliant. That's all everyone's been talking about in the last couple of weeks building up to this," he said.

"Everyone is talking about if they have their tickets, if they're coming out here and wondering what the weather's going to be like. So everyone's just been talking about this.

"You can see it's coming to fruition and it's in fantastic condition and everyone's enjoying themselves - and it's only the Wednesday."

Like Joe Canning who also spoke to John, O'Donnell's Clare are also out of the All-Ireland championship.

"From the raw emotion, it's definitely a disappointing position," he admitted.

"But there are silver linings to everything. It's a longer summer ahead of us and we get a little bit of time to chill and everything.

"You go back to the club earlier and that's a silver lining. But ultimately it is disappointment."

You can watch the full chat with Shane O'Donnell above via the video player.

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