Damien McGrane had the choice between two air tickets this week. One would have taken him to Paris for a tournament on the Challenge Tour; the other was to Heathrow, initial point of entry for the European Tour's flagship tournament, the Volvo PGA Championship.
The difference between the two tournaments in financial terms is immense. The Saint Omer Open has a total prizefund of #152,500 while the money on offer at Wentworth is #3.25 million, over 20 times greater. Like comparing vinegar with champagne at a wine tasting, you'd imagine.
Yet, given that his aspiration this season is to earn sufficient money on the Challenge Tour to win his full tour card, McGrane, casting his sights towards the future, looked upon the trip to the PGA as "a bit of an inconvenience."
Currently 38th in the secondary tour's Order of Merit (with the top-15 at season's end getting a full card), a week away from that circuit - with the likelihood of players leapfrogging him - wasn't particularly appetising.
In truth, though, there was no way that he could turn down another opportunity to rub shoulders with the heavyweights of the European Tour. And yesterday, after an opening round of four-under-par 68, he was glad he made the decision to bypass France. On his fifth appearance to the PGA - where he has failed to previously survive the cut - McGrane, a 30-year-old club professional at Wexford Golf Club, and a player who has dominated the Irish PGA Region circuit in recent years, finally came good.
His day in the sun was well-earned. On a course that was described as "fiery", with fast fairways and hard non-receptive greens, McGrane overcame a bogey start - his only dropped shot of the round - to respond with five birdies and 12 pars. The hardest earned par came at the last, but it also demonstrated his greater maturity which has come from competing on the Challenge Tour.
At the 18th, McGrane's three-wood second shot, with the ball lying well below his feet, was cut into rhododendrons some 20 yards to the right of the final green. McGrane was fortunate in one way, unfortunate in another. The ball lay on a pathway cut through the bushes, but his route to the green was blocked out by trees. With no other option, given that the way back to the fairway was also blocked, he successfully chipped his approach through the trees to the edge of the green and chipped and putted for a par.
It was the sort of coolness usually displayed by someone who plays in this cut-throat environment week-in, week-out. But McGrane - who has been supported in his efforts to become a touring professional by Wexford Golf Club and also the Team Ireland golf trust who provided him with a grant recently - believes that his time spent on the Challenge Tour has ingrained in him a different approach.
"The problem for guys who don't play these tournaments too frequently is that they come out and try too hard. They give 110 per cent rather than relaxing . . . and my approach this week has been to take it easy. Just to take it easy and see how it goes," remarked McGrane.
Winner of the Irish Region Order of Merit on three occasions (in 1996, 1998 and 2000) and a former Irish boys' amateur champion, McGrane acknowledged that a putting tip from his caddie Nicky Murphy the previous evening on the practice green was beneficial as he set about putting some of the game's superstars - among them Colin Montgomerie and Vijay Singh, both of whom shot 73s - in the shade.
McGrane recovered from his opening hole bogey to hit an eight iron to 10 feet for birdie at the second, rolled in a 15 footer for birdie at the ninth, chipped to four feet for birdie at the 12th, sank another 15 footer at the 14th and showed his good short game again at the 17th when chipping dead for his final birdie. "I have never made the cut here, so I have to keep it going in the second round," remarked McGrane. Thoughts of the Saint Omer Open in France were already a long way away.
