David Duval, winner of the World Series at Firestone, Ohio, last weekend, will be on this side of the Atlantic later this month to compete in the Lancome Tournament at Saint Nom La Breteche on the 17th to the 20th. The fact that he will be accompanied by Mark O'Meara and Fred Couples suggests there is still handy appearance money to be had on the European Tour.
Interestingly, the field will not include Darren Clarke, who will be taking a break that week having launched his bid for a 1999 Ryder Cup place in the Canon European Masters, which starts at Cranssur-Sierre on Thursday. Clarke, still second in the Order of Merit after a disappointing finish in Munich on Sunday, is also playing in next week's British Masters at the Forest of Arden.
The Tyroneman, who lost to Brad Faxon in the first round of the World Matchplay Championship at Wentworth last year, should know by then whether he has retained a place in this year's event on October 15th to 18th. An invitation has already gone out to Lee Westwood, who will be making his debut.
"By my estimation, there are about five of the 12 places still up for grabs and I would expect Darren to get one of them," said Clarke's manager, Andrew Chandler yesterday.
Meanwhile, Clarke will be joined in Switzerland this week by compatriots Padraig Harrington, Philip Walton, Des Smyth and Raymond Burns.
Eamonn Darcy is taking a break, having effectively secured his player's card for next season by earning £7,573 for a share of 26th place in Munich, bringing his earnings for the season so far to £59,131.
Duval, on the other hand, was concerned with far larger sums. A winner's cheque for $405,000 in the World Series brought his earnings for the season to $2,115,283 and $5.9 million since he joined the USPGA Tour in 1995. In the process, he has exceeded in eight months the record earnings of Tiger Woods ($2,066,833) for the whole of last year.
It was also a notable weekend in that it marked the last staging in its current format of a tournament which was launched in 1976, when Jack Nicklaus won from Hale Irwin. Prior to that, from 1962 to 1975, it was a four-man, 36-hole exhibition event in which all monies were unofficial.
"I always wanted to play here but I couldn't qualify for last year's tournament," said Duval afterwards. "When I eventually made it this time, I fell in love with the course immediately I saw it." Remarkably, he went there having missed his previous two cuts, in the USPGA Championship at Sahalee and the Sprint International at Castle Pines. But Duval missed only one other cut, in the Buick Invitational, in 19 events so far this season.
In the process, he has had three victories, the other two being in the Tucson Chrysler Classic and the Shell Houston Open. And he had six other top-10 finishes including joint runner-up to O'Meara in the US Masters and third position behind Couples in the Memorial.
Under its revised format, the winners of eight European events, including the Smurfit European Open and the Murphy's Irish Open, were among the qualifiers for the World Series, which explained the presence of David Carter and Pr-Ulrik Johansson in last weekend's field. Starting next August, when it will be known as the NEC Invitational, it is to be one of the first three so-called World Golf Championship events.
With a prize fund of $5 million from which the winner will receive $1 million, it will offer invitations to current Ryder Cup and President's Cup players, which would put Clarke in line for a place in the inaugural field.
Despite an impressive, two-stroke victory by debutant Duval last weekend, the World Series will be remembered most for the spectacular triumph of Jose-Maria Olazabal in 1990 when he, too, was appearing for the first time. On the formidable Firestone stretch, the Spaniard set an aggregate record of 262 - 18 under par - to win by 12 strokes, carding a course-record 61 on the way.
The tournament will also be remembered for the victory there by Nick Price in 1983, only a year after he had suffered the crushing disappointment of effectively handing the 1982 British Open to Tom Watson. It gave Price a 10-year exemption and ultimately provided the platform for his 15 American victories, apart from the 1994 British Open, in the last seven years.
In another USPGA Tour event last weekend, Brandel Chamblee achieved a breakthrough victory in the Greater Vancouver Open. Ireland's Richard Coughlan, who had reached a promising position by the halfway stage, finished with a disappointing 75 for 56th place and modest prize money of $4,420. Since joining the tour in 1988, Chamblee has never been higher than 70th on the money list at the end of a season. But he is about to change that, given his current 37th place for prize money of $661,846. Coughlan is 187th with earnings of $70,216, an average take of $3,053 from each of his 23 tournament appearances.
