GOLF: Michael Hoey is hoping that a cooler mental approach will reap dividends in his first Irish Open as a professional. "I've been getting a bit hot under the collar, a little bit intense on the course," admitted Hoey, last year's British amateur champion. "I have just got to accept pars."
Since turning professional after the US Masters, and signing up with IMG, the Belfast player has become acquainted with the rigours of surviving on the circuit as someone playing for his livelihood. However, if he needed any encouragement to make it in the cut-throat world, it came last month when he not only received an invitation to play in Jack Nicklaus's Memorial tournament on the US Tour, but also got to play nine holes with him.
"I was playing as a one-ball and was around the first green when I saw Jack. It's his course, and his tournament, so I thought the thing to do was to wave him on," recalled Hoey.
Nicklaus, though, had other ideas and asked if Hoey would mind if he joined him. "I thought, 'I might as well, I might never get the chance again', and I also got some photos too, which was nice."
Hoey's last two outings on the European Tour in the British Masters and the English Open haven't quite matched his debut in the Benson and Hedges at The Belfry last month, but he is looking forward to playing here on a course which, on first appearance, has impressed him. "I have been trying to force things a bit in my recent tournaments. I've been just too eager to play really well. I am going to have to accept pars," he said.
His only previous Irish Open appearance came as an amateur at Druids Glen in 1998, but Hoey is a far more accomplished player these days than he was back then - and the chance to play in the tournament offers him an opportunity to win more prizemoney in his quest to win a tour card without the need to visit the end-of-season tour school.
David Higgins, meanwhile, has received the final sponsor's invitation to play in the tournament. The Waterville player missed the cut in Slaley Hall and has struggled to find his form on limited outings on the main tour this season but yesterday received the call-up to join Eamonn Darcy, Philip Walton, American Fred Funk, Richie Coughlan, Hoey, Italy's Emanuele Canonica and Graeme McDowell as invited players.
McDowell, who also missed the cut in the Great North Open, his professional debut, is playing the first of back-to-back tournaments in Ireland on sponsor's invitations after also receiving one to next week's Smurfit European Open.
The withdrawal of Paul McGinley from the field last Friday evening, due to a combination of loss of form and exhaustion, deprives the Irish challenge of one of its main contenders to end the drought since John O'Leary became the last Irish player to win the title in 1982.
However, Ireland's two top-ranked players - Padraig Harrington and Darren Clarke - are among I6 home players in the field. Harrington and Clarke, along with Sweden's Niclas Fasth, finished tied-second in last year's tournament which was won by Scotland's Colin Montgomerie.
Montgomerie, meanwhile, is due to arrive in Cork later today and plans to head directly to the course to reacquaint himself with a course that proved very much to his liking a year ago, when he won by five shots.
