McGinley to stretch his legs

European Tour: There's never a good time to endure an injury, especially during the playing season, but it would seem Paul McGinley's complicated knee injury - which necessitated surgery - may not prove as ruinous to his quest to make this year's Ryder Cup team in Detroit in September as was previously thought.

Initially, it was felt McGinley, who suffered cartilage and ligament damage when doing weight-training during the Dubai Desert Classic last month, would miss up to six weeks from a season where he has targeted retaining his place on Europe's team as one of his priorities.

However, the Dubliner's recovery from surgery has been such that he has an estimated "50-50" chance of playing in next week's British Masters at the Forest of Arden, but will definitely play in the Deutsche Bank TPC of Europe in Hidelberg a fortnight later.

McGinley's recuperation has been helped by his fitness levels - he was doing gym work long before it became popular - and ongoing physiotherapy treatment which will be augmented by the player being able to resume hitting golf balls later this week.

The tournaments McGinley has missed haven't exactly carried the biggest purses on tour, so he still has time to make up ground on those ahead of him in the Ryder Cup tables if he can produce some big performances over the summer months.

One other player in a race against time to make the field for the British Masters, the first tournament to be played in the UK or Ireland this year, is the defending champion Greg Owen. The Englishman suffered a back injury in a training session last week and had an MRI scan on Friday. He is due to see a leading specialist tomorrow to assess possible damage to a disc.

"The British Masters is such a big event this year and I really want a shot at defending my title," said Owen. "I hope to play even if I have to crawl around the course."

Retief Goosen, the 2001 US Open champion, who nowadays plays most of his golf on the US Tour, has confirmed he will compete in the event on a course where Darren Clarke twice won the now defunct English Open.

That event will also mark Clarke's return to competitive action after a two-week break.

Padraig Harrington is also in the second week of a fortnight's break, but his return to competitive fare will take place on the Asian circuit in the Macao Open next week before he defends the BMW Asian Open in China and the Deutsche Bank in successive weeks.

For those who negotiate a route through tour school, one of the most tortuous experiences any professional golfer must endure, there are a couple of times during the actual playing season when all that hard work is reassessed. One of them, the first re-rank, comes after this week's Italian Open - which makes the event an important one for Wexford's professional Damien McGrane.

McGrane, one just three Irish players in the field, along with Graeme McDowell and Gary Murphy, secured the third card at qualifying school but, heading into the Italian event, has slipped to eighth place in the provisional re-rank which determines what players get to play in the next phase of events, starting with the British Masters. A second re-rank takes place after the KLM Open in August.

As things stand, Terry Price of Australia, who was runner-up in the Portuguese Open holds the number one position in the re-ranking, having moved from ninth place.

The biggest mover so far has been Luis Oosthuizen of South Africa who has moved from 34th position to third. The re-ranks affects players in 1st to 20th position, while those outside retain the order of ranking from the tour school.

Peter Lawrie, who had originally entered for the Italian Open, has decided not to play and will reappear on the circuit at next week's British Masters.

This week's Italian Open carries a prize fund of 1.2 million (200,00 to the winner) and England's Ian Poulter will be looking for his third victory in five years when the event is played at the Arnold Palmer-designed Castello di Tolcinasco in Milan (he previously won at Is Molas in 2000 and Olgiata in 2002).

Spain's Jose Maria Olazabal is making his first appearance in the tournament in five years and, despite accumulating 22 titles on the European Tour, has never claimed this particular crown.

Six players who have already won on this season's tour are playing: Ricardo Gonzalez, the winner of the Seville Open two weeks ago, Brian Davis, Joakim Haeggman, Christopher Hanell, Thongchai Jaidee and Marcel Siem.

Prov re-rank positions

(going into Italian Open)

Pos Player ... Card

1 T Price (Aus)9

2 N Sato (Jp)7

3 L Oosthuizen (SA)34

4 R Rashell (USA)33

5 S Jeppesen (Swe)21

6 D Carter (Eng)17

7 R McEvoy (Eng)1

8 D McGrane (Ire)3

9 W Ormsby (Aus)2

10 C Gane (Eng)16

11 F Delamontagne (Fr)14

12 A McLean (Scot)20

13 MA Martin (Sp)27

14 JM Arruti (Sp)26

15 D Botes (SA)35

16 D Dixon (Eng)15

17 C Monasterio (Arg)18

18 S O'Hara (Scot)13

19 M Nilsson (Swe)30

20 W Bennett (Eng)8

European Order of Merit

(Irish positions)

3 D Clarke€453,251

4 P Harrington€400,254

21 P McGinley200,118

49 G McDowell105,365

62 P Lawrie86,777

78 D McGrane60,348

90 G Murphy47,441