Lowry intent on making inroads

TOUR SCENE NEWS ROUND-UP:WHEN TOUR players sit down at the start of the season and hide the goals for the season in a folder of their laptop or iPad, one of the targets is invariably to win a tournament. Another is to make it to the Race to Dubai – in which only the top-60 players on the European Tour money list qualify – and, although there is just over two months left on the tour calendar and 13 counting tournaments remaining, there are a number of Irish players who need to get a move on if they are to be part of the season-ending Dubai World Championship.

Indeed, only three Irish players are certain to be in the field as of now: US Open champion Rory McIlroy, British Open champion Darren Clarke and Graeme McDowell. Another player, Peter Lawrie, is just inside the cut mark and has some work to do but at least has destiny in his own hands, while Shane Lowry – currently lying just one place outside of qualifying – is well-positioned to make it to the desert.

It is who is not currently inside the qualifying mark that raises eyebrows. Pádraig Harrington is not. Neither is Damien McGrane. Nor Gareth Maybin. Nor Michael Hoey.

Given that six Irish players qualified for the inaugural Dubai championship in 2009, when McIlroy was only overtaken at the last hurdle by Lee Westwood in his quest to top the order of merit, and that seven made it to last year’s finale, this season’s contingent by comparison is currently a bit anaemic and in need of some nourishment.

Whilst Harrington won’t return to the European Tour until the Dunhill Links later this month in a late attempt to make up ground, Lowry – playing his fourth event in four weeks in Europe – heads to this week’s KLM Open at Hilversumsche, just outside Amsterdam, intent on making inroads.

Indeed, there are seven Irish players in the field at Hilversumsche, headed by McIlroy, who is second in the moneylist, but who takes a two-week break after the Dutch event until resuming play at the Dunhill Links. Lawrie, Lowry, Hoey, McGrane, Maybin and Paul McGinley complete the Irish representation.

McIlroy, who finished third behind Thomas Bjorn in the European Masters, worked with his coach Michael Bannon yesterday and has professed himself “100 per cent” fit from the wrist injury that ruined his challenge at last month’s US PGA, adding that he was “100 per cent positive heading towards the end of the season”.

Of the work carried out with his coach, McIlroy explained: “It’s not as if it needs some work, it’ll be good for me to have a clear mind going to Holland.”

Currently €1.73 million behind runaway order of merit leader Luke Donald, McIlroy – who has decided not to play in next week’s Vivendi Trophy in Paris – plans to stay at home for a couple of weeks after the KLM before using the Dunhill Links, where he secured his tour card on a sponsor’s invite after turning professional in 2007, as the launch pad for his late-season chase of Donald.

McIlroy is not the only big name to bypass the Vivendi Trophy, as continental Europe’s number one player, Martin Kaymer, has also decided to give the event – which honours Seve Ballesteros – a miss. The German, suffering from a head cold in finishing runner-up to Bjorn in Switzerland, is the defending champion in the Dutch Open this week.

Robert Karlsson, involved in the US Tour’s FedEx Cup series, will be another absentee from the match which pits Britain and Ireland against continental Europe.

Kaymer, who held the world number one spot earlier this season, is desperate to claim a 10th title on the European Tour. “It definitely feels like I will win again in the next couple of weeks. I’m hitting the ball very well and I like the golf course,” said Kaymer, who will be able to make the two-hour drive from his home in Germany each day.

Elsewhere this week, three Irish players will be aiming to make significant impacts in the Kazakstan Open on the European Challenge Tour in their attempts to make late charges for a full tour card next season. Colm Moriarty, Simon Thornton and Niall Kearney are in action in the €400,000 tournament – one of the biggest on the secondary tour – in their attempts to get into the top 20 on the money list who secure full cards. There are five regular events left.