Madeira fails to attract top names

Life goes on, even with most of the European Tour's big names away chasing the season's second major - the US Open - at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. However, the Madeira Island Open has one of the smallest prize funds on the circuit and this is reflected in the quality of the field competing on the Portuguese dependency in the mid-Atlantic this week.

In fact, even the decision to allow the £300,000 prizemoney to count towards the current form order of merit exemption for the British Open hasn't prompted any late rush from relatively prominent players who failed to make it to America's west coast. Consequently, not a single category one player is included in the field, a pretty unique situation on the tour.

The Irish challenge is a comparatively weak one. Just three players - Francis Howley, Cameron Clark and Stephen Hamill - have entered. Of late, Howley has been playing most of his golf on the European Challenge Tour and this represents a rare opportunity to rejoin the regular tour.

Clark, in his rookie season, has also been limited in his exposure to the main tour, while Hamill plays in his first event of the season. As a category 14 member (someone who finished in 44th to 85th position in the qualifying school), Hamill's outings have been even rarer than those of either Howley or Clark. One carrot for the Irish trio, however, is that a top ten place would secure a place in the French Open field next week.

Meanwhile, Paul McGinley and Philip Walton, who are among those chasing an exemption into the British Open at Birkdale, will renew that particular quest by rejoining the tour for next week's French Open at the National Club in Paris. That "current form" listing will take in Madeira, the French Open, the Murphy's Irish Open and the Loch Lomond Invitational.