Irish duo ready for further education

At a time when many of the world's top players have either consigned their clubs to the closet for the winter or are lining their pockets with extra bucks from the big end-of-season skins games, the other side of the coin will be exhibited at the US Tour School final qualifying which starts at Grenelefe Resort in Haines City, Florida, tomorrow.

For six days, aspiring young golfers and some older exponents saddled with the journeymen tag will fight it out for 35 cards, their precious tickets to compete on the multi-million dollar USPGA Tour next season. Two Irishmen, Richie Coughlan and Keith Nolan, will be among the 168 participants in the lottery.

Coughlan, from Birr, and Nolan, from Bray, have shown their mettle to get this far by safely negotiating the two prequalifying tournaments, but this is considered the supreme test with many proven players among their adversaries.

Swedes Per-Ulrik Johansson, Joakim Haeggman and Niclas Fasth, New Zealand's Michael Campbell and Trinidad's Stephen Ames are all included in the list of qualifiers, along with US players of the calibre of Blaine McCallister, Jim McGovern and Dave Stockton Junior, which gives an indication of the standard of competitor assembling in Florida. There is, of course, a safety net which ensures anyone who finishes outside the top 35 will still get the opportunity to play golf in the US next season on the Nike Tour. However, Coughlan and Nolan - both graduates of the US golfing scholarship system, at Clemson and East Tennessee respectively - are determined to join the "big guns" on the full tour.

Coughlan, in fact, has already secured his card on the PGA European Tour (one of 43 players to win their tickets at the rainshortened event in Spain last week) but his aim is to make his career in the States. "I love it over here - and I'll be giving it everything in my attempt to win a full card," he said. In contrast to Coughlan, who has given himself the option of playing either in Europe or in the United States next season, Nolan has put all his eggs into the one basket. Nolan, who has signed up with the IMG organisation, decided not to pursue a European card and is focused purely on winning his ticket to play in America.

So, while Coughlan was enduring the torture of the European version of the qualifying school, Nolan was familiarising himself with the courses at Grenelefe where his golfing destiny will be decided. The school starts tomorrow and finishes next Monday - and those six rounds will determine whether Nolan wins a place on the full tour or must settle for a place on the Nike circuit, a route previously taken by Tom Lehman and David Duval. Meanwhile, Ireland's World Cup heroes Paul McGinley and Padraig Harrington will participate in the Links Outing, sponsored by Guinness, at Co Louth Golf Club on Thursday. McGinley had originally planned to play in sunnier climes, at the Hong Kong Open this week, but changed his mind after the win in Kiawah Island and instead decided to stay in Ireland to savour the celebrations.

Incidentally, jeweller Ray Roche, a member of Grange who designed the Centenary medal for the GUI, will produce miniature copies of the World Cup for the two players.

At last week's state reception for McGinley and Harrington, members of the Bradshaw family brought along a replica of the trophy which Christy O'Connor and the late Harry Bradshaw won in Mexico in 1958. So taken were McGinley and Harrington with it that they requested permission to commission replica trophies of their own.

Harry Bradshaw jnr has given permission for Roche to make two replicas, which will be sponsored by MMI and Church & General. The trophies will be made of solid gilded silver on a wooden plinth with a Connemara marble top.

A few seasons ago, the closest Tom Lehman ever got to a bigmoney skins game was watching on television.

However, Lehman's elevation to one of the world's top players has brought rich dividends and he finished off his 1997 season by pocketing $300,000 in the Skins Game at La Quinta in California at the weekend. Mark O'Meara collected $240,000, while Tiger Woods had to settle for $60,000. David Duval - a late replacement for Fred Couples, whose father Tom died at the weekend after a long battle with leukaemia - failed to pick up a skin over the 18 holes.