Gruelling test awaits five Irish

European Tour School: It's golf's ultimate last chance saloon: a six-round, 108-hole shootout around the Old and New Courses at San Roque Club near Sotogrande with the jackpot a minimum of 30 tickets to the European Tour circus.

Yet while it's only a mile as the crow flies from Valderrama, the 156 hopefuls who tee it up in the European Tour Qualifying School Finals today are not swaggering to huge cash rewards but scrabbling desperately for the right to make their fortune.

With Douglas' Peter O'Keeffe turning professional this week, all five Irish aspirants are unsure where they will be playing for pay in 2008.

But all five know that if they make the 72-hole cut and go on to finish inside the top 30 and ties, they will be teeing it up with the Padraig Harringtons of the world on the European Tour next season.

From an initial entry of 780, no fewer than 29 European Tour winners are competing here, with Ryder Cup players Andrew Coltart and Joakim Haeggman joined by Irish Open winners David Carter and Patrik Sjoland.

And for Irishmen O'Keeffe, Stephen Browne, Colm Moriarty, Damian Mooney and Michael McGeady, the trick is to stay patient and hope that six steady rounds will be enough.

"It doesn't take any kamikaze type golf or going for glory from the first tee," warned Browne, who won his card here in 2004. "If you play solid golf for six rounds you will get through it. Patience is the key."

Mooney and Moriarty have been to the finals twice before, without success, while McGeady makes his debut.

Everyone in the field is guaranteed a Challenge Tour category next year and those who make the cut can play in every event on the second-tier circuit.

O'Keeffe almost never made it to September's first stage in the first place as he was prepared to pull out of the qualifier at St Annes Old Links in the event of a last-minute Ireland call-up for the clashing Home International matches at County Louth.

Capped at Boys and Youths level, the 25-year-old was bitterly disappointed not to win his first full Irish cap but looks back now and calls it "a blessing in disguise". "I would have missed the first stage of the Qualifying School," said O'Keeffe, who turns 26 tomorrow. "I told the team captain I was available right up until the last minute in case of withdrawals. But the call never came. Now I'm just delighted that it didn't because I wouldn't be here."

And over in the Algarve in Portugal, there are seven slightly older Irish hopefuls competing in the first stage of qualifying for the European Seniors Tour, which also starts today.

Six are playing at Quinta de Cima: Paddy O'Boyle, Peter Lawlor, John McBride, Dermot Morris, Martin McKenna and Martin Ward, while Billy Todd plays at Pinheiros Altos.