O'Connor says he's a possible wildcard

When Christy O'Connor Jnr arrived at Nashawtuc Country Club in Massachusetts on Monday morning his wallet was bursting with cheques worth over £100,000 but he was fairly light on hard cash.

Once O'Connor had filled out his registration forms for the BankBoston Classic, the lady working the table reminded him of another small formality - the $100 registration fee.

There followed a moment of embarrassing silence as Christy vainly searched his pockets, providing a journalist friend - this one in fact - with the opportunity to reach into his own in order to complete his entry.

After a trip to the bank's on-site facility, the advance was quickly repaid, but, said O'Connor, "I suppose it's time I opened a bank account over here."

Indeed. The $150,000 O'Connor collected for winning the Foremost Insurance Classic in Michigan last weekend pushed his earnings on the US Senior Tour to $540,000 - and this figure doesn't even include the Stg £63,330 he made for winning the Senior British Open at Royal Portrush last month. Throw that in as well and he has already doubled what he earned in his best year on the PGA European Tour.

As O'Connor made his way across the carpark at Nashawtuc, a courtesy car pulled up, delivering past US Open winner Orville Moody to the clubhouse.

"Hey, Christy," Moody greeted the Irishman, "back when we played together in the PGA, you never told me you were gonna be a bleeping star!"

With two wins in his maiden trip around the US old-timers' circuit, O'Connor has already established himself as a gallery favourite. And while you'd have to say that the odds are against it, he reckons that last Sunday's performance will not have gone unnoticed on the other side of the Atlantic.

Ryder Cup captain Mark James will in the next few days nominate his final two selections for the European team that will compete at The Country Club in Brookline next month, and, said Christy, "I'm sure my name is going to come up."

The logic goes like this: with Sergio Garcia having earned an automatic position with his brilliant performance in the US PGA at Medinah last weekend, James undoubtedly has his fingers crossed that Bernhard Langer will play his way onto the team in Germany this weekend. ("And I'd say that's likely," guesses O'Connor.)

That James is going to use one of his two wild-card picks on Jesper Parnevik is a foregone conclusion, but given a squad whose single most distinguishing characteristic will be a dearth of Ryder Cup experience, reason suggests that the captain would opt for a seasoned hand.

"It would depend on several factors," said O'Connor, surveying his chances. "You never know how Mark is going to view these things, but he's fairly meticulous in his thinking. I've got three wins this summer, so I'm obviously playing well, but in fairness, I have left that Tour.

"On the other hand, Ray Floyd was 51 when he played against us (in 1993)." Similarly, Ted Ray was 50 when he played on the British side in the very first Ryder Cup at Worcester Country Club in 1927. And US captain Ben Crenshaw said on Monday that he had thought long and hard about adding 54-year-old Hale Irwin to his team before settling on his wild-card choices of Tom Lehman and Steve Pate.

O'Connor was one of Tony Jacklin's captain's picks back in 1989, when his two-iron to the 18th green at the Belfry crushed Fred Couples and preserved a tie that kept the Cup in Europe. He was the oldest player on the side then, and is 10 years older now.

"If they're thinking about the length of the (Country Club) course, that wouldn't bother me a bit," said Christy.

That said, O'Connor isn't even sure he'd pick himself if he were in James's shoes.

"There's another man, Costantino Rocca, who won a tournament on my course at Galway Bay last weekend," he pointed out. "He's obviously in form and has Ryder Cup experience. They could do worse than to pick him, in my opinion. I certainly wouldn't argue with the choice."

THE golfing world is still marvelling over the breathtaking six-iron young Garcia hit from up against a tree on the 16th at Medinah on Sunday afternoon to bring him to within a shot of eventual winner Tiger Woods, but at about the same time, a few hundred miles away in Grand Rapids, O'Connor was unleashing a fairly spectacular shot of his own.

"Mine wasn't quite as good as his," said O'Connor after listening to the details of Garcia's shot. "But it was a pretty good one."

Coming to the 17th at Egypt Valley, O'Connor had a two-shot lead. Rather than comfortably nurse that advantage, he fired a fivewood for his second shot on the par-five hole that negotiated a 255-yard flight path and rolled to the lower level of the two-tiered green, 15 feet from the cup. Christy then rolled in the eagle putt, driving a stake through the hearts of his collective opposition.

Beyond the half-million plus he has earned on the US Seniors' Tour this year, O'Connor has firmly established himself, along with the likes of Bruce Fleisher and Allen Doyle, as one of the circuit's leading 50-year-old debutants. A year ago, Senior tournaments were dominated by Hale Irwin and Dr Gil Morgan. While Irwin continues to hold down second place on this year's moneylist, the performance of the others has been nothing short of phenomenal.

Both Doyle, a long-time amateur, and Fleisher, a journeyman pro, played their way onto the Tour by finishing one-two at last autumn's Senior Q-school, in which O'Connor had also planned to participate until the tragic death of his 17-year-old son Darren.

In less than eight full months this year, Fleisher has won five tournaments and earned over $1.7 million - more than he made in 28 years of professional golf before turning 50 - while Doyle has picked up another $1.3 million. Fleisher, however, has played in 21 events and Doyle 20, while O'Connor has played only eight. In terms of money per event, O'Connor ranks third, ahead of Doyle and behind Fleisher and Irwin, on the entire tour.

After participating in a Monday Pro-Am at Nashawtuc, O'Connor flew back to Ireland that evening for the funeral in Shannon of his long-time friend and de facto manager Myles Murphy. He returned to Boston last night and will play another Pro-Am at the Concord course today before starting play in the tournament proper tomorrow morning.