Harrington hones game before final push for award

PADRAIG HARRINGTON's quest to become the first Irishman to win the Sir Henry Cotton award for the PGA European Tour's rookie of the year will take him to Portugal this week for some fine tuning under the direction of Golfing Union of Ireland national coach Howard Bennett.

The 25 year old Dubliner is effectively involved in a three way battle with Denmark's Thomas Bjorn and Scotland's Raymond Russell for the honour. As things stand, Harrington, who is in 11th position with earnings of £261,023 in his debut season, trails Bjorn by £4,205 and leads Russell by £15,443 in the Order of Merit with just the showcase Volvo Masters at Valderrama next week remaining.

With £900,000 in prizemoney available in the limited field Masters, performances there could prove decisive. However, unlike the Vardon Trophy (which Colin Montgomerie has claimed for a fourth successive year for topping the Order of Merit), the rookie award is decided purely on prizemoney.

Harrington had originally intended to play in this week's Open Novotel Perrier Fourball competition in Bordeaux, which does not actually count towards the Order of Merit. However, he decided that some coaching from Bennett and, also, some rest would provide better preparation for the visit to Valderrama, venue for next year's Ryder Cup match.

Indeed, all four Irishmen - Harrington, Darren Clarke, Paul McGinley and Ronan Rafferty - in the Volvo Masters field, which is limited to 54 players, are taking a break from competition this week. Apart from Harrington's battle for the rookie award, the top 15 players in the Volvo Rankings will gain entrance to next year's US Open, so Clarke (7th), Harrington (11th) and McGinley (13th) have that consideration as well.

While Harrington, Clarke and McGinley departed St Andrews disappointed with their exit at the group stage from the Alfred Dunhill Cup, some of the post championship statistics make interesting reading.

For instance, McGinley was just one of four players (American Steve Stricker, Sweden's Jarmo Sandelin and England's Barry Lane were the others) who was unbeaten. More significantly, however, McGinley's average score (69.33) put him in fourth place: world number four Ernie Els (68.75), Mark O'Meara (69) and Frank Nobilo (69.2) were the only players to finish with better scoring statistics.

This should put McGinley in the right frame of mind heading for Valderrama. I'm looking forward to playing there because the last few venues Loch Lomond, The K Club and Berlin all favoured big hitters. There will be a greater premium on accuracy at Valderrama," he said.

Clarke, meanwhile, will be a guest today at the MacGregor Irish PGA Tankard which takes place at The K Club, where the top Southern and Northern club professionals will be competing in their own finale to the season.

The Perrier tournament in Bordeaux will have Irish representation in the presence of Ryder Cup player Philip Walton and Raymond Burns, who has recovered from the illness which forced him to withdraw from last week's Oki Pro Am in Spain.

Unfortunately, the tournament will not have the expected partnership of Jose Maria Olazabal and Seve Ballesteros. Olazabal, whose season - and, potentially, his career - has been ruined by an arthritic condition in his foot, was given permission to use a buggy for the tournament which is an approved special event. Even with such dispensation, however, Olazabal has decided not to play.

. The US team of Bob Nyland, Mark McRary, Chris Culver and Don Robinson held off the Australian challenge to claim the fourth Jameson International Challenge held at Waterville, Ballybunion (New) and Killarney (Killeen) over the weekend.

Despite the poor weather conditions, the US produced a score of 204 points to win by two points from Australia. England's Peter Skerritt (65 points) claimed the individual gross prize, with Germany's Frederick Losel (81 points) taking the best nett. The event attracted over 300 golfers from 16 countries.