If you were to look at things without going under the surface all is well with the world and with Irish golf. After all, for the first time three Irishmen are inside the top-30 on the official world rankings – Rory McIlroy at number one, Shane Lowry at 21, and Séamus Power at a career-best 29. And the other standings – the Race to Dubai and the Ryder Cup – are just as impressive in providing corroborative evidence that the trio are flying high.
Yet, another notable achievement, that of Tom McKibbin earning his full tour card for next season’s DP World Tour – graduating off the Challenge Tour in hugely impressive fashion – only serves to underscore that the hard surface has a soft underbelly as the 19-year-old could be spending more weeks than not as the lone Irish player at regular tournaments on the European Tour week-to-week come the new season.
While the likes of McIlroy, Lowry and Power are global players, juggling the PGA Tour and the Majors and WGCs with only occasional visits back to the European circuit for any of the regular events, that McKibbin is – as things stand – the lone player with the DP World Tour as his primary focus tells its own tale about depth.
Gone for now it seems are the days when a dozen or more Irish players were on the European roundabout. Perhaps, and hopefully, McKibbin will find some company after the DP World Tour Qualifying School in Tarragona in Spain, where Paul Dunne, Cormac Sharvin, Jonny Caldwell, Gary Hurley and John Murphy make up the quintet of Irishmen battling for their cards for next season. But, as all five know, the event is a torture chamber with little respite until cards are divvied out.
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And yet for each and every one of them, inspiration – especially in how Power has worked his way to the upper echelon of the sport – isn’t far away. For the 35-year-old’s trajectory from attempting to Monday qualify for PGA Tour events just 18 months ago to now being inside the world’s top-30 and headed in one direction provides living proof of how hard work and attitude and ability can combine to reap rewards.
Power’s third-place finish in the Mayakoba Classic just a week after his win in the Bermuda Classic has seen him move in successive weeks from 48th to 32nd to 29th in the official world rankings. In April of 2021 he was ranked 463rd. A different world, for sure.
Power’s fast start to his season has seen him move to number one on the FedEx Cup standings for the wraparound 2022/’23 and he is already assured of his place in the end-of-season FedEx Cup playoffs and strongly positioned to achieve that long-held personal goal of making it all the way to the Tour Championships.
Although he has yet to confirm his early-year scheduling after taking in the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii in January, Power’s immediate calendar is rather more clear cut. He has taken a week off from tournament play this week – skipping the Houston Open and returning to Las Vegas where he is in the process of moving house – and will return to action at next week’s RSM Classic in Sea Island, Georgia.
“I’m going to get some rest and catch up on things and get ready for one more before the end of the season or the end of the year,” said Power of his plans for the week away from tournament golf.
Power’s 1-3 finish in the past two weeks has moved him to the top of the FedEx Cup and also into an automatic place on the European Ryder Cup standings (off the world points list), so it is very much a case of keeping on doing what he is doing.
On the LPGA Tour, the season is drawing to a close with just two events – this week’s Pelican Championship and next week’s big-money limited field CME Globe Tour Championship – remaining.
Leona Maguire, currently 17th on the LPGA Tour order of merit, returns to tournament action after a two-week break with places in both the Pelican and the Tour Championship completing her year’s work. Stephanie Meadow is 81st on the order of merit and must break into the top 60 after the Pelican if she too is to earn a place in next week’s finale.
