Harrington on gravy train to Orient excess

JUST when you think the professional golf season has ended for the year, up spring a whole host of events in every nook and cranny in the world.

Last week, the stars were plying their trade in Sydney and Shanghai, Mexico and Korea. Starting on Thursday, places like Hong Kong and Panama enter the limelight.

For some, it's a lucrative means of topping up their millionaire bank

accounts without breaking too much sweat; for others, these events provide an opportunity to accumulate points on whatever Tour they happen to play before calling it a day for a couple of weeks over the Christmas period.

Take Pádraig Harrington as an example of the first category. He participated in a tournament in Korea at the weekend offering $4m in prize money with a million for the winner who happened to be an American by the name of Arron Oberholser. Pádraig finished 11th and picked up around €100,000. Nice money if you can get it! He has moved on to defend the Hong Kong Open where, oddly enough, the first prize is a mere €100,338, from a total prize fund of €602,047.

Never mind. Next week, he crosses over to the US west coast to contest the Target Challenge, Tiger Woods' own tournament, and won by Harrington in a memorable head-to-head with Tiger a couple of years ago.

First prize there? Another cool $1m. After that, he will take a 10-week break before the Malaysian Open in February.

And just in case you're inclined to begrudge him a cent of his wealth or a smidgin of his lifestyle, just bear in mind the hard work he put in to achieve this eminence and keep himself there.

Incidentally, Harrington is joined in the Hong Kong field by fellow Irishmen Peter Lawrie and Damien McGrane and also by Philip Walton and Stephen Browne, who won their cards at the European Tour School in San Roque a couple of weeks ago.

Harrington probably faces the greatest threat to his title from the in-form Spaniard Miguel-Angel Jimenez,

although Welshman Stephen Dodd, who captured his first European Tour tournament after 14 years of trying in China at the weekend, tees it up again along with Jose-Maria Olazabal, Nick Faldo, Ian Poulter, Thomas Bjorn and David Howell.

Former Hong Kong champions include Australians Peter Thomson and Greg Norman, Tom Watson, Bernhard Langer, Jose-Maria Olazabal and Ian Woosnam, so it is a prestigious title to have on one's CV.

The European Challenge Tour is gaining in prominence every year. It has been good to the Irish and looks set to stay that way. Waterville's David Higgins already leads the 2005 order of merit, having claimed third place in the Mexican Open at the weekend.

Higgins started quietly enough with a 72 but then shot 67, 67 and 68 to finish 10 under, four behind Raphael Gomez of Argentina and two adrift of the Colombian Eduardo Herrera.

Neither Gomez nor Herrera is a member of the Challenge Tour, so Higgins goes straight to the top of the money list with 16,080 points, the equivalent of the euros he picked up in Mexico.

Higgins celebrates his 32nd birthday tomorrow so this was a very welcome, if slightly early, present.

He struck some outstanding form towards the end of the 2004 season and is already setting his sights higher for '05. Michael Hoey (2,900) and Colm Moriarty (1,217) are eighth and 24th on the Challenge Tour money list and they, along with Higgins, Limerick's Tim Rice and Raymond Burns are hoping for further good news in the Panama Open beginning on Thursday, with a prize fund of €150,512 and €24,081 for the winner.

This event takes place at Coronado Beach, a course boasting a spectacular location on both the Caribbean and Pacific Oceans, not to mention one of the world's most famous canals.

Even missing the cut can have its consolations in those circumstances.

Most of the season-ending tournaments have limited fields and so don't qualify for world ranking points.

Accordingly, the world rankings shouldn't change a whole lot between now and January, with Vijay Singh leading the way from Tiger Woods and Ernie Els, with Ireland's Pádraig Harrington sixth; Darren Clarke 12th; Graeme McDowell 55th and Paul McGinley 66th.

McDowell is anxious to break into the top 50 by the end of March so he earns an invitation to the Masters at Augusta, while McGinley's aim is to crash the leading 64 before the entries for the Accenture World Match Play close in mid-February.

Recuperating from a knee operation, McGinley aims on his return in eight weeks or so to play the AT&T at Pebble Beach and a few other US Tour events, as well as the Malaysian Open.