HAVING battled side by side in the final round of the Smurfit Irish Professional Championship last Sunday, Des Smyth and Philip Walton Will be separated by almost 4,000 miles in competition later this week. Walton set off yesterday for Texas where he will challenge for the Byron Nelson Classic and Smyth is leaving this morning for Madrid, where the Spanish Open starts on Thursday.
"I really love playing in America and am delighted at this chance of going back there," said Walton yesterday. He will be joined in the Byron Nelson field by compatriot David Feherty, who happens to be a member of the host club. It is being staged at the par 70 Cottonwood Valley course at Las Colinas where Ernie Els shot a second round of 61 on the way to the title last year.
The event comes eight months after Walton's first meeting with the legendary figure from whom the tournament gets its name. He shook hands with Byron Nelson on the first tee at Oak Hill last September, just before his Ryder Cup singles match with Jay Hass.
Though Feherty missed the cut in the Italian Open last weekend, he has made some lucrative assaults on the European Tour this season, amassing £48,886 from five events. Now he is set to pick up what he hopes will be one of several sponsor's invitations in the US where he lost his player's card last season.
For his part, Walton earned more than enough to finance the trip from a cheque for £8,850 as runner up with Eamonn Darcy at Slieve Russell last Sunday. He will be returning to America for the US Open at Oakland Hills next month and then for USPGA Championship, followed by the Sprint International in August.
Meanwhile, Smyth is set for a run of four lucrative European events the Spanish Open, Benson and Hedges International, Volvo PGA Championship and the Deutsche Bank Open in Hamburg. And he is battling on despite a hernia problem which he is protecting with a surgical brace. "It didn't affect me at Slieve Russell and I'm hoping I can get through the season before undergoing surgery," he said.
Feherty, who returned to his home in Dallas last weekend, will have more than a passing interest in the launch of the European Seniors Tour in Turkey on Friday. For the Turkish Seniors Open is being played at the National GC, Antalya, on a course which he co-designed with his good friend, David Jones.
As it happens, a total of seven Irish players will be challenging for a share of the 150,000 prize fund, which gets the 13 event tour off to a worthy start. They are Liam Higgins, Mick Murphy, Hugh Boyle, Tony Coveney, Paul Leonard, Hugh Jackson and Arnold O'Connor.
Leonard, who played five events last season after his 50th birthday on May 6th, gained a category eight exemption by finishing 35th in the Order of Merit. And he travels to Turkey boosted by the encouraging form of a share of ninth place behind Smyth at Slieve Russell last Sunday, earning him a bonus of £500 as the top senior competitor.
The leading challengers in Turkey will be John Morgan, Brian Huggett, Tommy Horton, Antonio Garrido, Malcolm Gregson, Alberto Croce, Liam Higgins and Renatol Campagnoli. In fact Brian Barnes and Neil Coles are the only absentees from the top 10 in the 1995 Order of Merit. Barnes has been enjoying a successful run in the US where he was runner up to Graham Marsh in the Painewebber Invitational last weekend.
But, as the holder, the big Scot will be returning to Europe for the high point of the seniors tour the staging on July 25th to 28th of the £350,000 Senior British Open at Royal Port rush, where it will also be held next year. Interestingly, Christy O'Connor Snr has been given category five exempt status on the tour, as a past winner of the European Tour Order of Merit. That was in 1961, when he captured the Carling Caledonian and Gleneagles Hotel tournaments.
Meanwhile, at a time when BSkyB appears to be making a clean sweep of major, televised sport, tradition remains a powerful influence in golf. There is no other explanation for the decision of the Royal and Ancient that the BBC would retain exclusive rights to the British Open for the next four years, at least.
Despite rumours earlier this year that they were prepared to go as high as £25 million for a five year deal, Sky insist that they didn't make an offer. But it has emerged that an offer was most definitely made by Channel 4, who bid £18 million in an effort at ending a 39 year association between the BBC and the game's top event.
"I prefer to have lost to the BBC than to BSkyB," said Michael Grade, chief executive of Channel 4. So, traditional values appear to have won out, even at a lower price. But the BBC failed to gain the five year contract it was seeking and will have to face a review of the current agreement after two years.
Watching the telecast of the Houston Open last Sunday, I was struck by the competitive qualities Of Mark Brooks and Jeff Maggert in a stirring battle for a title which Brooks captured at the first hole of a sudden death play off. The fact was that if Maggert had produced this sort of resolve on his Ryder Cup debut at Oak Hill last September, he could hardly have been thrashed 4 and 3 by Mark James.
Brooks, who sank a 30 foot birdie putt at the climactic hole was his second tournament of the season, having won the Bob Hopt Classic in January. And his extraordinary success on the greens made nonsense of his 42nd ranking in putting statistics on the US Tour last season.
. Gordon Sherry will make his professional debut in the Scottish, PGA Championship at Dalmahoy on Thursday. The 6ft 8in British Amateur champion has been appointed touring professional at the new Loch Lomond club.
