Same venue, different targets for Dubliners

Tour news:As partners in arms on so many excursions, the latest expedition Padraig Harrington and Paul McGinley find themselves undertaking this week, when they make seasonal debuts on the PGA Tour in the US to play in the Pebble Beach pro-am in California, has differing degrees of importance for the Dubliners.

In Harrington's case, it marks the start of an extended early-season campaign Stateside that is a complete departure from his previous years as he takes on an intensive schedule to build up for a crack at the US Masters in April, when he will hold the mantle of European number one.

For McGinley, this tournament will determine whether he will make the field for Accenture World Matchplay in Tucson this month and, so, extend his playing interests in America by another week.

Of the duo, McGinley's plight is the more immediate, as the field for the matchplay (limited to the top 64 available players off the world rankings) will be finalised next Monday, after the AT&T. As things stand, McGinley is 82nd in the official rankings and he will need possibly a top-five finish in Pebble Beach if he is to force his way into the field for the season's first World Golf Championship event.

"It's my last throw of the dice to get into the field," admitted McGinley, who yesterday took a rest day at home in London to break the flight on to Pebble Beach after competing for the past fortnight in the Gulf, where he broke par in seven of his eight rounds in the Qatar Masters and the Dubai Desert Classic.

McGinley will partner businessman Dermot Desmond in the Pebble Beach pro-am, the pair having finished second in the team event a year ago. McGinley finished tied-12th in the individual tournament and he heads to America believing the only area of his game where he needs to improve is with the putter.

"I was pleased with the way I struck the ball (in Qatar and Dubai). I played very solidly, consistently hitting a lot of greens in regulation, but not making enough birdies to contend with the top of the leader board," he said.

While McGinley needs a good week at Pebble Beach to make the field for the Accenture, he is definitely playing in next week's Nissan Open at the Riviera club in Los Angeles. Whether he has to extend his travel plans to take in another week at the matchplay will depend entirely on how he performs this week.

Harrington's plans are more concrete. The world's number nine is partnering JP McManus in Pebble Beach this week, when the pair will be attempting to complete a unique double, having won the Dunhill Links pro-am together in Scotland last October.

It will be Harrington's first time to play in the pro-am on the Californian coast, as he has previously kick-started his early-season appearances in the Far East, competing in Malaysia and Singapore.

Darren Clarke, meanwhile, has fallen to 51st in the world rankings, the first time in a decade he has not featured in the top-50.

But there was good news for Clarke's protege, Holywood's Rory McIlroy, who is now the world's top-ranked amateur following his share of 52nd place in the Dubai Desert Classic. The 17-year-old leapt two places to the top of the R&A's ranking with a slim, 15.38-point advantage over Spain's Pablo Martin.

"It's fantastic news," McIlroy said last night. "I am only leading by a small amount and it is going to be pretty tight up there at the top.

"It would be nice to stay there for most of the year and stay at number one until I turn professional. But there are so many amateur tournaments going on that it is going to be really hard to stay on top of it.

"Pablo Martin is a great player and he has a lot of college events at Oklahoma State, so I am sure he will do well this season. But the competition won't do me any harm. I am up for it."

The reigning West of Ireland, Irish Close and European Amateur champion picked up 45 world ranking points for his performance in Dubai, where he finished on three under par.

Long-time leader Richie Ramsay of Scotland dropped two places to third following his withdrawal after just one round of the Jones Cup Invitational in Georgia last weekend, where England's Jamie Moul finished 75th to fall from second to fourth.