Harrington in battle to stay ahead of Rose

Nothing, it seems, is made easy for Padraig Harrington, who heads into this week's HSBC World Matchplay at Wentworth knowing he has a real dog-fight with Justin Rose on his hands if he is to retain his PGA European Tour order of merit title.

The 36-year-old Dubliner has only two more tournaments to go, finishing with the Volvo Masters at Valderrama next month, in defence of that money title. But Rose - who took a huge chunk out of Harrington's cushion with a runner-up finish to Nick Dougherty in the Alfred Dunhill Links on Sunday - has confirmed that he will play in the inaugural Portuguese Masters, which could yet give him the edge on Harrington.

Harrington is third seed for the World Matchplay and will open his quest for the title with a first-round encounter with Denmark's Anders Hansen, a course and distance winner in that he has twice claimed the BMW PGA Championship in the heart of the Surrey stockbroker belt, most recently in May.

Harrington's best performance in the championship was in 2001, when he lost in the final to Ian Woosnam. He was a semi-finalist in 2004, his last appearance.

However, the British Open champion heads into Wentworth looking over his shoulder at Rose in the race for the order of merit title, with his lead over the Englishman reduced to just €31,407.

Although there is a top prize of £1 million (€1.44 million) in the Matchplay, only a percentage of that counts towards the order of merit to reflect the fact that it is a limited, 16-man field.

For example, when Paul Casey won a year ago, he won £1 million, but because of European Tour regulations, designed to prevent one tournament's huge prize fund skewing the rest of the results, he was only allowed to count £406,660 (€588,000) of it.

The draw for the Matchplay was determined yesterday off the latest world rankings, following the Alfred Dunhill Links.

Harrington has been pitched against Hansen, a course specialist, in the first round, while Rose has an opening match against American Hunter Mahan, who is making his debut in the competition.

Yet, the most appetising first-round clash is that between six-time champion Ernie Els and Colin Montgomerie, a winner in 1999 and twice a runner-up.

Monty, who has fallen to 48th in the world rankings, is the 15th seed.

Els is the highest ranked player in the world in the field and has two hat-tricks of wins in the Matchplay, from 1994 to 1996 and 2002 to 2004.

But the defending champion - in this case Casey - is traditionally given the top seeded position. Casey will open the defence of his title against American Jerry Kelly, the only player in the field not in the world's top-50.

Prior to yesterday's revised world rankings, it had seemed Harrington was set for an opening-round encounter with Montgomerie.

Now, though, the Irishman will meet Hansen, who is making his first appearance in the World Matchplay.

If Harrington manages to overcome Hansen in the 36-hole first round, he will meet the winner of Henrik Stenson and Woody Austin.

All but one of the eight first-round clashes features at least one European.

Swedes Henrik Stenson and Niclas Fasth go head-to-head with American Woody Austin and Argentina's Andres Romero respectively, while Denmark's Soren Hansen tackles South African Rory Sabbatini, who is eighth in the world and seeded fourth.

The other match is between two US Open champions, Argentina's current holder Angel Cabrera and South Africa's Retief Goosen, twice a winner of that title.