Far removed from the foothills of the Wicklow mountains where he is based, further proof of Brendan McDaid's growing stature as a coach will be provided thousands of miles away this week in sun-kissed South Africa, where the PGA European Tour's 2003 season resumes. Among those in the field in the €770,000 tournament are six Irish players, and three of them - Peter Lawrie, Gary Murphy and Ciaran McMonagle - are coached by McDaid.

The role of the coach in professional golf has never been greater. Unlike the more famous ones, the Butch Harmons and Pete Cowans of this world, McDaid is unusual in that he only rarely ventures away from his base at Rathsallagh - where he is club professional - to confer with his charges at a European Tour venue.

However, as his stable increases and their profiles and performances move them up the various rungs of the golfing ladder, McDaid may be forced into packing his travelling bags more frequently.

Indeed, it is an indication of how players put so much trust in their coaches that South Africa's young star Trevor Immelman has brought his coach Claude Harmon - son of Butch - over from the US for the South African Open, which is being played at the Gary Player-designed Erinvale in the Helderberg mountain range.

McDaid, though, will be keeping a watch on his particular players in the South African Open from further afield. Now considered the leading coach in Ireland, McDaid has high hopes that his stable of tour players can make an impact on the circuit this year.

He started working with Lawrie - who secured his full card via the Challenge Tour route last season - two years ago, while he has looked after Murphy's swing since 1999. Murphy regained his tour card at the season-ending Tour School in November.

Dunfanaghy's McMonagle, meanwhile, is not a card member of the European Tour but, after playing on mini-tours in America, has his card for the South African Tour where he is currently 24th in the Order of Merit. He finished runner-up to Mark McNulty in the Nashua Masters prior to Christmas.

"There's a tremendous amount of satisfaction to be gained from coaching, to be behind someone achieving what they're trying to achieve," remarked McDaid, who has only recently returned from a teaching conference in the US "We all can't be players out on tour, and the next best thing is be a good coach. I've worked hard at it. My philosophy is to keep things simple. I'm a great believer in ensuring that a player's set-up is right and that they have a good swing plane as well.

"I like to keep it simple, but I can be as technical as a player wants to be. There's no doubt that younger players these days are much more technically sound than they used to be. All good players understand how the club moves, and this technical understanding is down to the better preparation of younger players by the GUI, whose work is tremendously beneficial.

"I love teaching the Peter Lawries and the Gary Murphys, they're great guys, but my real bread and butter is in teaching high handicap players. I wouldn't be making a living if it was professionals only. But I love helping people enjoy the sport."

Although the Asian Open - won by Padraig Harrington - and the Hong Kong Open took place prior to Christmas and form part of the 2003 European Tour schedule, this week's South African Open starts the year's golfing calendar and McDaid will be keeping a close eye on how his players perform.

Murphy was on tour in 2000 - "Gary's just got a good game, and if he can improve his short game just a little he will do really well this year," said McDaid - while this is Lawrie's first time to have a full tour card, having played on the Challenge Tour for the past number of seasons.

Much of how players take up with a particular coach is by word of mouth, and that is how Lawrie first linked up with McDaid. The Dubliner heard Murphy singing the praises of his coach, and asked to be put in touch. So it was that Lawrie arrived in Rathsallagh and had his swing analysed on the state-of-the-art computerised video equipment. "Peter was coming from the inside back in, but was exceptionally quick at adjusting with his irons," recalled McDaid, but he continued to have problems with his driver. Ironically, rather than a high-tech solution, McDaid used a bicycle tube to solve the problem.

"It's a good way of staying connected," explained McDaid, "Effectively you're tying the two elbows together, the old Ben Hogan theory of keeping your elbows close together.

"Peter's got a really good short game and I feel quite confident that both he and Gary will do well on tour this year. We're all very interested in how these players are going to get on and, personally, I like being in a position to be able to help them to improve."

Of the sextet of Irish players in the field, only one has previously won a full tournament on the European Tour. Graeme McDowell, who won the Scandinavian Masters in his rookie season last year, is making an early reappearance on the circuit - as are Paul Lawrie and Lee Westwood - and the other Irish players in the field are McMonagle, Limerick's Tim Rice, who turned professional only last September, and former Irish close champion Gavin McNeill from Waterford.

Indeed, there are is chance that the Irish contingent could be increased because there is still pre-qualifying in South Africa and that will take place at three courses in the Cape Town area today with around 20 places available. Raymond Burns, James Loughnane and Padraig Dooley are all attempting to secure a spot in the tournament via this route.

The three "big guns" of Irish golf won't reappear for some time yet. Two of them, Padraig Harrington - who spent the weekend working with his coach Bob Torrance in Largs, Scotland, before flying out to Barbados on holidays - and Paul McGinley have decided to open their seasonal campaigns at the Malaysian Open, which takes place on February 20th-23rd. Indeed, Harrington, who currently leads the Order of Merit, has decided to use that event as the springboard for a four-week stint that will also take in the world matchplay in California, the Desert Classic in Dubai and the Qatar Masters.