Can't disagree.
It'd probably have to take something like Ireland winning the Rugby Union World Cup but an Irishman winning The Open is almost as good as it gets for Irish sporting glory on the international front for this year. I don't think even if it was an Olympic year (I know it isn't, I'm just saying!) and an Irish person happened to win a gold medal that anyone could challenge Padraig for favouritism.
I'm pretty sure that RTE have retained the six-member jury vote rather than a public vote as I've said elsewhere so I'd be wary of any bias to Gaelic football like what happened last year when the emotional appeal was to give Darren Clarke the
BBC and RTE awards (Darren pretty much scuppered his own chances by publically stating he didn't want to win and coupled with the Sunday tabloids revealing that he romanced another woman shortly after the death of his wife which might have lost him much of the sympathy vote that was supposed to propel him to win
BBC's SPotY).