PADRAIG HARRINGTON has scored 22 more birdies than any other golfer on the European Tour this season. Darren Clarke has won over 201,000 Ryder Cup qualifying points, and in sixth place in the table he has a strong springboard for his goal of a debut against the US at Valderrama in September.
But the Irishman who is in the best heart for the Italian Open, beginning at the Garda golf club near Brescia today, is 44-year-old Eamonn Darcy who thought his best days were over until he saw what Mark James achieved in the Spanish Open last weekend.
The former Ryder Cup hero has missed the cut three times in his six starts on the European Tour this year, and it would be stretching the imagination too far to suggest that the old warhorse is now gambolling around the paddock like a frisky pony. But there is definitely a fresh gleam in his eye, and renewed hope that what James can do at the age of 43, he could also accomplish.
"It was a marvellous incentive for all us over-40s," said Darcy. "A real terrific shot in the arm. If you still have your hitting power then you can compete, and I have still got mine. There are not many of the young boys who can hit it further than me, and if anything I am longer because of the new clubs."
He has just taken possession of one of the Biggest Big Bertha variety with which he is smiling tee shots up to 280 yards. "What I have to get is a lower average with my putting, and if Mark can do that after switching to the long putter and back again, then there is hope for everyone like me."
After his flirtation with the broom handle made popular by Sam Torrance, Darcy is now back to using an orthodox putting method with an orthodox short puttet. This week he is taking practical steps to give himself the mental strength and confidence to make it all work.
Darcy began working yesterday with Belgian sports psychologist and putting coach Jos Vanstiphout, who is known on the Tour as "Mr Magic" . His forte is to help golfers counter the fear factor which leads to the sort of indecision players of Darcy's vintage are prone to exhibit by switching clubs and putting actions from one day to the next.
"I am 10 strokes behind the guys playing well," said Eamonn, "and most of that is on the greens.
I need a few tips on how to be more confident and successful there."
While Darcy plays mind games with Mr Magic, Harrington and Clarke have their sights on a first prize of £78,000 that would bring them even closer the Ryder Cup team than they were at the start of this week.
Both men spent two days with team captain Seve Ballesteros and Ian Woosnam, Costantino Rocca and Dane Thomas Bjorn on the Algarve, taking part in the official re-opening of the Vilamoura I course, before jetting from Faro to nearby Bergamo on Tuesday evening.
The Irish pair face a formidable challenge from a field that includes man-of-the moment James, the inform Jose Maria Olazabaf, Bernhard Langer, and Torrance, one of the many who telephoned James with congratulations after his play-off victory over Greg Norman.
Torrance won the Kronenbourg Open on this course four years ago, but has "stiffened up" for his attempt at a successful return. The Scot has abandoned a one-month experiment with softer shafts in his irons because he has found, like James, that he is if anything stronger than he was, and there was no appreciable improvement to his approach play.
This week he reverts to his old set of clubs and regards his current 5 to 2 rating by the bookmakers for a Ryder Cup place as sufficiently attractive to be "almost worth a large bet".
"There are still 18 events to go and I want to make it," says Torrance, who has been an ever present in the European side since 1981. "Mark's win was great for us old guys and I hope he makes it too."
Torrance is currently 12th in the table, but Ian Woosnam, who plays his first European event since he was beaten in a play off in Dubai, is four places better off and also poised to become the fourth man to top £5 million prize money on the European circuit.
Having struggled for two years to find a metal driver he can hit consistently straight, Woosnam has turned his back on new technology and reverted to his old wooden headed club. "I don't mind sacrificing a few yards for confidence," he says. "My iron play is good, so it doesn't matter if I am hitting an extra club into the green.
The 39-year-old Welshman says he has lost length, and reckons that after watching Tiger Woods in the US Masters, where he was 34th, his best drive is at least 50 yards behind the American sensation's average.
Philip Walton, David Higgins and Raymond Burns all tee up in the £470,000 Championship which is being defended by Jim Payne. Christy O'Connor Jnr, who has been struggling to rehabilitate himself after troublesome tennis elbow, has been given a sponsor's invitation.
