Irish golf has never produced as many players willing to chase the ultimate dream of a place on the game’s major tours. Whether they can afford to follow their dreams is another matter altogether.

An ailing Rory McIlroy will be looking to the horizon and hoping continuing Singapore storms abate just long enough to leave the way clear for him to secure the Race to Dubai title.

Mark Murphy’s Q School dreams were shattered yesterday after he sustained a nasty injury competing at the Las Colinas course.

Irish amateur star Alan Dunbar finished just one shot off the bottom of the leaderboard after yesterday’s first round of European Tour second stage qualifying at Lumine Golf & Beach Club in north-east Spain.

Fourteen Irish golfers begin the second stage of the European Tour qualifying school at four venues throughout Spain today.

YOU could be forgiven for thinking the end of the competitive golf season had finally arrived now we are almost into the month of December.

NIALL TURNER flies into Spain today to prepare for what he describes as the biggest pressure week of the professional golfing year.

FOR the first two days spectators scampered around Killeen to catch a glimpse of Irish golf’s market leaders, but it’s the new breed who carry a share of the expectation into the Irish Open weekend.

PORTMARNOCK professional Noel Fox was the last player into the Irish Open 2011 field yesterday after he received the eighth and final invitation to compete at Killarney from the European Tour.

PGA EuroPro Tour boss Danny Nickless has thrown down the gauntlet to Ireland’s young professional golfers to make their mark at the Audi Cork Irish Masters this week and take an important step towards life in big-time golf.

NIALL TURNER, the former Muskerry golfer was last night left to rue four bogeys he simply couldn’t afford to concede if he was to come through yesterday’s final qualifying rounds for the British Open Championship.

COLM MORIARTY will lead a seven-strong Irish challenge bidding for just 12 spots in the British Open at Sandwich when 36-hole Local Final Qualifying takes place at four venues in Kent today.

PAUL CUTLER, the Portstewart golfer who reached the British Amateur Championship quarter-finals at Muirfield yesterday before going down to the South Korean, Jin Jeong, won’t need to contest the weekend’s 36-hole qualifying procedure for the Golfsure Irish Close Championship at Royal Dublin.

POOR marshalling cost Gareth Maybin a possible share of the lead on day one of the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles in Scotland.

RECESSION blues were put on ice as old Celtic Tiger champagne times sparkled in west Clare for the wedding of singer Andrea Corr and Brett Desmond.

GRAEME STORM, relieved to discover last week that he did not have swine flu, shares the lead with fellow Englishman Steve Webster after two rounds of the Moravia Silesia Open in the Czech Republic.

NORTHERN Ireland’s Jimmy Heggarty played himself into contention at The De Vere Collection PGA Seniors Championship with a superb three-under-par 69 to lie two shots behind clubhouse leader Angel Franco.

DONEGAL giant Michael McGeady feared he might have thrown away his chance of appearing in this week’s 3 Irish Open at Baltray when he faltered over the closing six holes of the Italian Open in Turin on Sunday.

A DISPUTE over the alleged failure of Dunnes Stores to complete an agreement to become anchor tenant at the Point Village development in Dublin’s docklands has been settled.

OPTIMISM is high a successful season for professional golf in this country will be maintained, in the €150,000 Challenge of Ireland tournament, starting over the picturesque Christy O’Connor Junior-designed Glasson course near Athlone this morning.

WHAT a difference a week makes. Seven days ago, 28-year-old Colm Moriarty from Athlone was relying on invitations to Challenge Tour events as he attempted to get his career back on track after a dismal 2006 season.

Wind expert Brian McElhinney stormed out of the pack to grab his first professional win on the PGA Europro Tour.

IRELAND will have five players competing in this week’s European Tour School at San Roque in the south of Spain.

EAMONN BRADY, a former West of Ireland champion and a nephew of the celebrated Arsenal and Ireland footballer Liam Brady, represents Ireland’s best chance of reaching the European Tour School at San Roque next week as the field goes into the final round of the second pre-qualifier at Costa Ballena near Cadiz today.

FORMER Walker Cup player Noel Fox, fellow Dubliner Eamonn Brady and David Mortimer, the Galway-born Newlands club professional, battled back into contention for places in the European Tour School at San Roque next week with excellent rounds in yesterday’s second day of pre-qualifying at the Costa Ballena course near Cadiz in the south of Spain.

THE second stage of the European Tour’s qualifying school takes place this week in Spain with 252 players competing. Matches will be played at three venues for a place at next week’s six round final stage, where the top 30 players (plus ties) will win a place on the 2006 European Tour.

IRELAND will have a minimum of ten players on next season’s European Tour.

EIGHT Irish golfers came through the first qualifying stage of the European Tour Qualifying School over the St Annes Old Links in Lancashire yesterday.

IRISH golfers involved at St Anne’s Old Links, Lancashire, yesterday played themselves into excellent positions to progress to the second qualifier for the European Tour.

AS Paul McGinley and co play for the £1 million first prize in the HSBC World Match Play Championship at Wentworth, other matters are taxing the minds of hundreds of hopefuls all over Europe.

THE DONALD Steel-designed Lackabane course at Killarney hosts the first European Challenge Tour event in the Republic of Ireland over the next four days with the arrival of the Ireland Ryder Cup Challenge.

IRISH golf breaks new ground this week when the European Challenge Tour comes to our shores for the first time.

THE meeting with Revenue saved Ben Dunne’s family £23 million - but he says he can’t remember it.

FORMER supermarket magnate Ben Dunne will appear before the Moriarty Tribunal today to answer questions about a meeting with Revenue Commissioners chairman Seamus Paircéir in 1987 to discuss a controversial tax bill issued to Dunnes Stores.

A SENIOR tax official has admitted he was wrong to think the Revenue Commissioners had an agreement that Dunnes Stores would not be liable for any future tax on the group’s family trust.

WHILE European Challenge Tour No 1 David Higgins plays in the Daily Telegraph Dunlop Masters, the rest of the Challenge Tour’s Irish contingent are in Italy for the XX Tessali-Metaponto Open di Puglia e Basilicata.

FORMER Ryder Cup star Phillip Walton is among the recipients of a quarter of a million euro grant allocation announced by the Team Ireland Golf Trust last night.

GARY WOLSTENHOLME, the only Britain and Ireland amateur to feature on four winning Walker Cup teams, has been named in a provisional 29-strong squad for next August’s defence of the trophy in Chicago.

R&A selection chairman Peter McEvoy has named an initial squad of 29 players for next August's 40th Walker Cup, to be held at the Chicago Golf Club, Illinois.

SOUTH of Ireland winner Cian McNamara (Limerick) and runner-up Greg Bowden (Hermitage) are the two new caps in the Irish team for the Home Internationals at Prestwick on September 8-10.

There are two new caps on the team selected to represent Ireland in the men’s Home Internationals from 8th-10th September at Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland.

European Universities side, which included one Irish player in the annual Ryder Cup-style Palmer Trophy at Ballybunion yesterday, beat the United States team by nine matches to three.