Irish duo to go separate ways in the hunt for Els

European Tour: The chase may well be on to catch runaway leader Ernie Els in the race for the European Tour's Order of Merit, but two of those in closest pursuit - Padraig Harrington and Darren Clarke - have chosen to take different paths in this week's tournament schedule.

Harrington, who had originally intended to take a break until defending the Dunhill Links Championship at the end of the month, has decided to play in this week's Lancôme Trophy in Paris, while Clarke - second in the money list - is keeping a commitment to play in the inaugural Benmore Developments Northern Ireland Masters at Clandeboye, an event on the Challenge Tour.

In fact, Harrington plans to play for the next four weeks. "I'm looking forward to getting back out to tournament golf. I've been practising, but there's no substitute for actually playing. Everything at home is going well so hopefully I can finish the year on a high note," said Harrington, whose wife Caroline gave birth to the couple's first child, Patrick, a fortnight ago.

Currently fourth in the money list, but in need of a big-money tournament win to close the gap on Els, Harrington's revised schedule now sees him play the Lancôme this week, next week's German Masters in Cologne, the following week's Dunhill Links and, then, the American Express Championship in Atlanta, which is a $5 million WGC event and the final tournament that Els intends to play on this season's schedule in Europe.

The Dubliner's decision to add extra tournaments to his programme can be seen as a clear statement of intent to chase down Els, who only plans to play in a further two events in Europe. Harrington is one of six Irish players due to play in Paris, where he will be joined by Paul McGinley, winner of the Smurfit Irish PGA in Adare at the weekend, Philip Walton, Peter Lawrie, Gary Murphy and Damien McGrane. The tournament also marks the European return of British Open champion Ben Curtis.

Clarke, meanwhile, will be playing his first competitive round in the North for more than a decade, since winning the Ulster PGA title in 1992, when he competes in the Clandeboye tournament. Clarke has pledged to donate any winnings this week to his Darren Clarke Foundation, which is an organisation he founded to promote and develop junior golf - boys and girls - throughout Ireland.

"I've never played in a Challenge Tour event and it will be great to play competitively again at home after a gap of 10 years," he said.

Clarke's detour to the secondary tour will certainly be a big boost to the event in Bangor, and Graeme McDowell has also committed to playing in the event, which has an extremely large Irish contingent that includes Walker Cup player Colm Moriarty, who is making his professional debut.

Other Irish players entered in the tournament include former tour player Raymond Burns, Tim Rice, Damien Mooney, Jimmy Heggarty, Brendan McGovern, Paddy Gribben, John Dwyer, David Jones, Stephen Browne, Gary Cullen, Eamon Brady, Michael Hoey, Danny Sugrue and Ciaran McMonagle.