Clock is ticking for Irish

TOUR NEWS:THE CLOCK is ticking down on Europe's Ryder Cup qualifying campaign and, as of now, it is doing so with no Irish involvement in the mechanism.

As things stand, no Irish player has an automatic place on Nick Faldo's team for Valhalla and, with only nine counting tournaments remaining before places are finalised at the Johnnie Walker championship at Gleneagles on August 31st, Pádraig Harrington et al have some serious work left.

Graeme McDowell is currently the closest Irish player to making the team, without having to rely on one of Faldo's two "wild card" picks.

McDowell is 10th (or, effectively, sixth when the world points permutations are taken in) on the European points list, while Harrington is the highest placed Irishman on the world points list in eighth.

The qualifying criteria is that the top five players come off the world points list, with the remaining five automatic places taken from the European points list.

McDowell is 10th on this list (just behind Nick Dougherty, the player currently occupying the fifth and last automatic place). The other Irish players on this list are: Harrington (16th), Peter Lawrie (21st), Damien McGrane (26th), Paul McGinley (29th), Darren Clarke (30th) and Rory McIlroy (39th).

The absence, as of now, of an Irish player in an automatic place is pretty mind-blowing when you consider that four Irish players - McDowell, McGrane, Clarke and Lawrie - have won on the European Tour this season, while Harrington has had four top-five finishes on the US Tour.

Still, those with genuine Ryder Cup aspirations won't want to leave selection to the whims of Faldo who will be conscious that, apart from Harrington, players like Luke Donald, Paul Casey and Colin Montgomerie are all outside automatic selection, while Sergio Garcia is hanging on to an place by his fingertips, occupying the fifth place on the world points list.

Donald, who injured his wrist at the US Open, is not scheduled to return to competition until next week's Scottish Open.

The nine remaining tournaments to decide Europe's Ryder Cup team are: the European Open, the Scottish Open, the British Open, the Russian Open, the Bridgestone Invitational, the US PGA, the Scandinavian Masters, the Dutch Open and the Johnnie Walker Championship.

The American team's automatic places will be confirmed after the US PGA at Oakland Hills.

So, this week's European Open at The London Club in Kent, with a top prize in excess of €500,000, provides the likes of Harrington and Garcia - who headline the event - with the chance to make up some ground in the long qualifying process at a time when the number crunching is getting to an ever more important juncture.

Harrington, who has actually moved back up one place to 12th in the official world rankings, is resuming tournament play after a two-week break since the US Open where he finished tied-36th.

The 36-year-old Dubliner, however, is bypassing next week's Scottish Open in favour of the Irish PGA at The European Club before heading to Royal Birkdale for the defence of his British Open title.

Ladbrokes.com, one of the world's leading sports lottery and gaming companies, have agreed to sponsor this year's Irish PGA from July 9th-12th with a prize fund of €70,000.

Welcoming the sponsorship, a delighted Michael McCumiskey, secretary of the PGA Irish Region, said it was "a wonderful endorsement of a championship that is amongst the longest running in Irish golf".

This week's European Open will be the first time Harrington and Garcia, ranked eighth in the world, have played together in Britain since their play-off at Carnoustie last July.

In Garcia's case, it will be his first appearance in Europe since he claimed the Players Championship at Sawgrass in May.

Of course, this is also the first time since 1995 that the European Open is being played away from The K Club.

Played at the Straffan venue under Smurfit's sponsorship from 1995 up to last year, when Montgomerie emerged triumphant, the European Open has moved back to England for the first time in 13 years. It will be the first time that the event has been staged on the 7,257-yards Jack Nicklaus-designed course.

For Monty, who finished runner-up to Spain's Pablo Larrazabal in the French Open in a timely return to form, there is the added incentive of attempting to successfully defend a title for the fourth time in his career.

He previously defended the German Open (in 1995), the English Open (in 1997) and the PGA at Wentworth (in 1999 and again 2000, when he completed a hat-trick of titles).

Of his return to form, Montgomerie remarked: "I played well in Munich two weeks ago and then last week was back to the way that I used to play and win tournaments - through lack of mistakes."

"It wasn't the amount of putts that I holed in the '90s it was the amount of mistakes I didn't make. That's good, that's the way that I like to play golf. The swing feels good.

"I have a new set of irons which have really helped. They have the weights right for me and I feel the shafts are exactly the way that I want them. I feel that I can go for any pin."

Apart from Harrington, the other Irish players in the field in Kent are: McGinley, McDowell, McGrane, Clarke, Lawrie, Gary Murphy and McIlroy.