Walton's at his ease again

"HOWYA, beautiful."

All hesitancy disappeared and the young girl with the Colgate white smile offered her autograph book to Ireland's most recent Ryder Cup hero without fear of rebuke, before bounding away with Philip Walton's scrawl to show her friends.

He is relaxed, a good sign. His last European Tour event on Irish soil was the Smurfit European Open last September, the week after his endeavours at Oak Hill. Walton was nearly suffocated by it all then, and only now is the Dubliner's metamorphosis back to his old, relaxed ways near completion.

The Murphy's Irish Open is a special time for all Irish players. But it holds particular appeal for Walton, who made his debut as an amateur in 1979, and booked his tour card by earning Pounds 1,060 for 26th place some four years later, competing over the Royal Dublin links in 1983 in his newly acquired status as a professional.

Curiously, the title has evaded the clutches of any Irishman since John O'Leary in 1982, although Walton went closer than anyone when he lost a play off with Ian Woosnam at Portmarnock in 1989, when the local hordes scrambled over the dunes in support of the new found hero.

Walton's mind drifts back to that Sunday afternoon in Portmarnock and acknowledges that if he can handle that sort of pressure, he can handle anything. "The last nine holes were something else, but I didn't like it though when some people started to cheer or clap a missed putt by Ian. It probably didn't affect him, but it got to me a little bit," he recalls.

Still, he loves the Irish Open. Loves it. The pulse races that little bit quicker and, with the home crowds particularly close to the action at Druids Glen this week, Walton is ready to join the Irish challenge. He'd like nothing more.

"I've played in the event since I was 17, as an amateur, and I really look forward to it every season. It really gives me a lift," he says. "This is a fabulous course, it is hard to find any faults. I'm particularly impressed by the greens; they are so good it is a shame for anyone to walk on them."

Tough? "yeah, but that's the way most players prefer a course. Tough, but fair. I like it, and if I can get my putting going then I reckon I will be right in the thick of it."

Walton has offered glimpses of his return to form in recent weeks. The first couple of rounds in the US Open. France last week. "I'm swinging well," he admits. "I'm over my back problems at last, and that is a big help."

The Malahide man has forked out a lot of money on chiropractors and masseurs in an attempt to conquer that bane of a golfer's life, a bad back. "How could I swing with a back as hard as a board?" he asks. "My back muscles were just so tight it wasn't possible to have a decent a decent swing".

"The back problem was something I have had on and off over the past four or five years. It's caused by a disc halfway down my back which has a tendency to slip out. Things are a lot better now, however," he claims.

But the old, relaxed swing has returned - and, if the broomhandle putter produces the magic to suit the surroundings, who knows what Walton is capable of achieving?

"I really am playing well," he says. "I'm not putting all that well. The greens here are probably the best I've seen on the Tour all season, though, and maybe it will happen here. I could get streaky."

Given his relaxed manner, anything, indeed, could happen.

As his Scouser caddie, Brian McLaughlin, who knows his man better than anyone once a golf club fits into his hands, observes: "He'll be alright."

This is one week Walton intends to enjoy.