McGinley moves up to 40th in the world

PAUL MCGINLEY was yesterday confirmed as the 40th ranked golfer in the world following his second place finish in the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth on Sunday.

And for once, there was also good news for Colin Montgomerie who moved to 50th in the rankings with an 11th placed finish at Wentworth, thereby gaining an exemption to the US Open at Pinehurst.

McGinley’s return to the top 50 means that Ireland has four representatives in the US Open with Padraig Harrington, Darren Clarke and Graeme McDowell also due to compete.

Harrington improved one spot to 9th in the world rankings and Clarke slipped two to 16th. Sadly, both may be unable to play at Pinehurst given the serious illnesses afflicting Padraig’s father Paddy and Darren’s wife Heather.

The Irish involvement could be even greater with Gary Murphy, the Heritage tournament professional from Kilkenny, set to try his luck in next Monday’s pre-qualifier at Walton Heath in Surrey. He is so keen on making it that he had a practice round over the course yesterday.

These are heady times for McGinley who is now through to his third US Open having missed the cut at Congressional, Washington, in 1997 and three years ago at Bethpage Park, New York.

After spending four years at college in San Diego and enjoying the American way, McGinley has always fancied playing more in the States.

He demonstrated his potential at Wentworth on Sunday, a point readily made by his close friend Harrington.

“That was great stuff by Paul,” he enthused. “He has always been talking about world ranking points and now he’s got a heap of them for finishing second.

“He’s obviously playing well and holing the putts and he’s feeling good about his game. It’s very hard to handle the kind of pressure he found himself under on Sunday if you’re not feeling good about things.

“What was happening for him was enormous with all the points and money at stake. It was a two horse race and it was either first or second, so he had his mind focused on winning.

“The obvious thing about Paul up to this is that he wasn’t holing enough putts. It’s a self belief or confidence or something ... who knows why we play well one week and miss the cut the next.”

Harrington was disappointed at his relative failure at Wentworth. He is satisfied that his problems are more mental than technical and he will be working on the poor concentration that cost him a number of shots over the closing holes and resulted in a moderate 11th place finish.

“I’ve just got to be more disciplined about my focus,” he mused.

“I need to work on my putting and routines. Everything else is okay. My next tournament is the Booz Allen at Congressional in a week’s time. It is a course I struggled over in the 1997 US Open but it should be good preparation for Pinehurst.”

Gary Murphy was one of those to tie with Harrington for 11th and the 62, 457 he picked up improved his order of merit position to 61st with a total of 141, 921.

A player of Murphy’s quality should be better than that but this is the time of season when he does best and the immediate future holds a lot. He missed five cuts up to Qatar in the middle of March but he has completed 72 holes in each of his last seven tournaments since then and his confidence is growing all the while.

“Wentworth was a bit of a roller coaster for me,” he reflected. “Eagles at the 3rd and 12th on Sunday were offset by too many mistakes and three putts at the last were a real downer.

“This was the biggest tournament of the year and there were only ten guys ahead of me at the finish so that’s encouraging. From here, I go to Walton Heath for a practice round for the US Open qualifier, then Wales and hopefully Pinehurst after that.”

Irish players on European Tour order of merit: 7th Paul McGinley €680,468; 23rd Padraig Harrington €276,363; 33rd Darren Clarke €224,657; 40th Peter Lawrie €213,380; 54th Graeme McDowell €158, 418; 55th Damien McGrane €157,212; 61st Gary Murphy €141,921; 143rd David Higgins €40,800; 166th Colm Moriarty €30,100; 198th Michael Hoey €18,034; 234th Stephen Browne €8,149; 288th Philip Walton €1,107.

Irish players in world rankings: 9th Harrington; 16th Clarke; 40th Harrington; 41st McGinley.