AN indication of how times have changed for former European Tour number one Ronan Rafferty is reflected in the Ulsterman's standing as the sole Category One member in the field for this week's inaugural Slaley Hall Northumberland Challenge, an event, at £300,000, which carries the lowest prize fund on the circuit.

While Europe's high flyers prepare to compete in the season's second major - the $2.4 million US Open at Oakland Hills - Rafferty, instead, will be part of a seven strong Irish contingent playing in the north of England in a tournament which didn't even exist when the original calendar for 1996 was formulated.

There are 16 members in the European Tour's Category One membership awarded to winners' of the British Open, the Volvo PGA and Vardon Trophy (topping the Order of Merit), a status which carries a 10 year exemption. Rafferty gained his place when leading the Order of Merit, in 1989.

But he is currently a long way from returning to such an exalted in the sport and Rafferty, who did not qualify for the US Open, currently occupies a position of 108th one behind Seve Ballesteros in the European Order of Merit with earnings of £21,556 from 13 tournaments.

Rafferty, however, carries the Slaley Hall logo on his bag around the fairways of Europe, which possibly explains his presence in the field this week, where he is joined by Paul McGinley, chasing a "current form" exemption into the British Open, which will be decided after next month's Murphy's Irish Open. Padraig Harrington, Raymond Burns, Francis Howley, David Higgins and Eoghan O'Connell make up the rest of the Irish contingent.

Howley and Higgins - who are in 142nd and 192nd positions respectively in the Order of Merit are battling to survive in their "rookie" season on the Tour and badly need to make financial in roads this week while the "big guns" are away. O'Connell, who lost his card last year, earns a rare starting place.

O'Connell, incidentally, is hoping to gain one of the remaining wild card" entries into next month's Irish Open at Druid's Glen.

Meanwhile, Michael Bonallack, the secretary of the Royal and Ancient, and Ivan Dickson, the former general secretary of the GUI, will be honoured next week by the Legends Golf Society, whose president is Ryder Cup hero Philip Walton.

Bonallack, considered one of the game's finest amateur players, will become the seventh recipient of the blue jacket at the society's Legends in Golf award winner at the International Golf Awards in the Portmarnock Links, while Dickson will receive the award for Distinguished Services to Golf.

Greg Norman, Ben Crenshaw, Seve Ballesteros and Jack Nicklaus are among those who have paid tribute to Bonallack. Norman said: "When you think of the British Open you think of Michael Bonallack, the man whoa together with Arnold Palmer, has done so much to establish the event as the major championship in world golf."

Previous winners of the Legends in Golf Award were Harry Bradshaw (1990), Peter Allis" (1991), Joe Carr (1992), Christy O'Connor Snr (1993), John Jacobs (1994) and five times British Open champion Peter Thomson (1995).