IT’S THAT time of the season on the PGA European Tour season when players start to cast somewhat anxious glances at their standings. Do you qualify for the Race to Dubai? Is your card safe? Where will next year’s odyssey take you?
And, with tournaments and time running out, this week’s Portugal Masters in the Algarve – the start of a short Iberian swing that also takes in the Catellan Masters and Andalucian Masters in Spain before the tour moves eastwards to Asia and then South Africa and finally reaching Dubai in December – has added significance for the likes of Peter Lawrie (60th in the money list), Shane Lowry (62nd) and Pádraig Harrington (71st).
They are on the bubble or thereabouts in actually getting a ticket to Dubai, while Damien McGrane (104th) and Gareth Maybin (110th) are looking to buttress their positions in retaining their tour cards.
For Paul McGinley (142nd and playing this season on a once-off career money card) and Gary Murphy (285th, and playing on a sponsor’s invite in Portugal), the situation is even more pressing as neither of them are currently set to retain full tour cards for the 2012 season.
With the top 60 on the money list making it to Dubai and the top 115 on the money list keeping their tour cards, the run of events from Portugal to Dubai – criss-crossing time zones up to December – will find a way to answer all of the questions facing these experienced players.
Harrington is in an unusual position in that he has yet to book his ticket to Dubai. The 40-year-old Dubliner has added the Portugal tournament onto his schedule, conscious that his failure to make it into the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai – where there is a limited field and no cut – puts him at a further disadvantage in his attempts to move up the Order of Merit prior to the finale in the desert.
Third behind Lee Westwood on his last visit to the Victoria course at Vilamoura in 2009, Harrington is at least returning to a course that has good memories.
“I’m looking forward to it. I remember shooting a 62 in the second round (in 2009), so it’s a course I’ve played well on in the past . . . I’ll be trying to concentrate on my own game, to contend and hopefully pick up points towards the Race to Dubai and Ryder Cup qualification,” said Harrington.
Indeed, Harrington’s current situation of trying to make up ground is in stark contrast with that of Michael Hoey’s, whose recent Dunhill Links win has transformed his season.
Yesterday, the Ulster man was named as the European Tour player of the month for September – “hopefully my win in Scotland can spur me on to greater things”, he said – but the consequence of Hoey’s win, getting into the HSBC, has enabled him to reschedule his itinerary with the result that he has decided to bypass Portugal.
Hoey is also second behind world number three Rory McIlroy in the European Ryder Cup points list, and his fellow-Ulsterman – runner-up in the Dunhill Links and runner-up to Rickie Fowler in the Korean Open on Sunday – is currently engaged on a week-long golfing exhibition match across China taking in Zhengzhou, Beijing, Dalian, Chongqing and Dongguan with Westwood, China’s leading golfer Wen-chong Liang and Ian Poulter that involves playing a total of 18 holes on eight different courses.
“I’m very fortunate to be in the position that I am,” conceded McIlroy, whose status – and form this season – has left him without any of those worries such as fighting to get into Dubai or saving tour cards. He is far removed from that.
Indeed, McIlroy’s next stop after the odyssey across China will be to head on to Bermuda next week for the Grand Slam of Golf, where he will face US Masters champion Charl Schwartzel, British Open champion Darren Clarke and US PGA champion Bradley Keegan.
McIlroy, who remains second behind Luke Donald on the European Tour money list, won’t be reappearing on the European Tour again until the HSBC in Shanghai next month.
