The chairman of the Offaly County Board has spoken about how the recent upswing in the GAA fortunes of the Faithful county has proved an inspiration for Shane Lowry.

The Clara golfer made it three top ten finishes in his last four outings with his joint sixth-place finish at the Memorial on Sunday night coming hot on the heels of his tie for fourth at the US PGA a fortnight ago.

Of course, Lowry comes from staunch Offaly GAA stock with his father Brendan and uncles Seán and Mick part of the famous team that stopped Mick O’Dwyer’s all-conquering Kerry side making it five All-Irelands in a row back in 1982 and the golfer has recently pledged his support as a partner with the county board.

But while the financial support for development of the games in the county is obviously welcome, Michael Duignan revealed the boost it’s also given the Open Champion on this week’s edition of The Throw-In, Independent.ie’s GAA podcast in association with Allianz.

“I'm delighted with that (financial) end of it. But it's way more than that,” Duignan said.

“It's the genuineness of that man and the interest that he has. I think maybe sometimes you're looking at it and you maybe don't realise how difficult it is on the world stage. It's one thing going out at your own club but look at how hard a game this is and there this man is again last night tied sixth at the Memorial.

“The genuine passion that he has…I was talking to his dad Brendan last Monday week. And Shane had texted me (the previous day) at four o'clock when I was coming back from Carlow after we'd beaten them. He was teeing off at five o'clock in the PGA in a major an hour later and he's looking at the Offaly results!

“And we'd beaten Tipperary the day before in the football! Brendan made a great point to me, he said it was no coincidence Shane played so well over the weekend.

“He said the lift he would have got from the footballers winning on Saturday, and the hurlers winning on Sunday... it’s brilliant for him as well.”

Lowry’s philanthropy with Offaly has been compared to JP McManus’s involvement with Limerick and the golfer has previously said he spoke to McManus before reaching his agreement with the Offaly board.

The 34-year-old admitted that McManus advised him to invest in the underage structures and while he has set no objectives for his involvement he said “in 10 or 20 years if I could somehow see an Offaly man walk up the steps in Croke Park, I’d probably die a happy man. That’s what this is all about for me.”

For Duignan, regardless of how the agreement is defined, he’s just delighted to see such a world-famous player give something back to the community that shaped him.

“We didn't know what to call it or what shape to put on it so we called it a partnership and that's exactly what it is,” he explained.

“He'll text me and say he's coming home on such a day and would it be okay to come out and watch the lads train. He's so happy to be involved.

“It's going to be a couple of events a year, maybe something overseas, something at home.

"Most of the money will be geared towards our coaching and games plan and trying to help the clubs. It's a big commitment, it costs 20 grand for a club or a combination of clubs for a GPO (Games Promotion Officer), which is a lot of money for our smaller clubs.

“So we'd love if we could also contribute maybe seven or eight thousand, then Leinster picks up the tab for the rest. But we'd like to be able to help the club a little bit more with our side of things.

“Down the road, if we could have maybe 100 grand a year to feed into that pool for GPOs. So that's what we're looking at and that's where Shane is focussed

“He's a great guy. He's such a sound fella and he probably captures the Offaly spirit.

“With his background from his dad and his uncles, they've been great footballers but he has that charisma and that bit of character, just a really nice down to earth fella.

“And maybe in the 70s, 80s and 90s when Offaly was doing well that was a lot of what it was about. So I think it ties in really well.”