Lesser lights desperate to shine

Irish trio, Graeme McDowell, Gary Murphy and Peter Lawrie are hoping Bangkok will kickstart their year.

WHILE Pádraig Harrington, Darren Clarke and Paul McGinley, laze away the hours this week in exotic locations like Barbados and the Seychelles, the European Tour moves on from South Africa to Thailand, and the Johnnie Walker Classic in Bangkok on Thursday.

Ireland's Graeme McDowell and Gary Murphy make their seasonal debuts while Peter Lawrie tees it up for the third successive week having failed to capitalise on making the cut in two of the year's opening events, in South Africa. Although tied for the lead after 36 holes in the Dunhill Championship at the Houghton club over the weekend, the 2003 Rookie of the year picked up a mere €12,347 in the two weeks and stands 31st in the Volvo order of merit.

Current leader is the talented and highly promising South African, Trevor Immelman, on €131,515, ahead of the week-end Dunhill winner Marcel Diem on €116,602, with Harrington in 3rd spot on €94,205.

The Bangkok tournament boasts a prize fund of stg£1 million and has attracted a decent field led by world number two Ernie Els, the defending holder who will be hoping to add another title to the Sony Open he captured in Hawaii two weeks ago.

The South African isn't averse to travelling the globe and certainly qualifies as a truly international player. Also in the field are Ben Curtis and Shaun Micheel, the shock winners of last year's British Open and US PGA Championships, along with Immelman, Thomas Bjorn, Colin Montgomerie, Nick Faldo and Ian Woosnam. 20 winners from the 2003 Tour are in the field including Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter.

Whereas Murphy and Lawrie really came to the fore last season, it was a very disappointing campaign for McDowell, who looked such a likely prospect when winning the 2002 Scandinavian Open in only his fourth professional start. Since then, it has been largely downhill for the former Irish amateur champion who finished a lowly 96th in the '03 order of merit. Accordingly, a good start to the new year would be more than a little welcome.

Meanwhile, any thoughts that Phil Mickelson might struggle to get into this year's US Ryder Cup team were dispelled by his play-off victory in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in California at the week-end. Not alone has he been bumped up from 16th to 12th in the world rankings but he also has moved up a place, from 5th to 4th, in the Ryder points rankings behind Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk and Davis Love 111 and ahead of Kenny Perry, David Toms, Chad Campbell, Jay Haas, Chris Riley and Fred Funk.

It's a lot more complicated to figure out the state of play where the European side is concerned. Lee Westwood currently leads both qualifying league tables and is as good as already in the line-up for Oakland Hills next September. He is just ahead of Darren Clarke in the World points list and they in turn are followed by Fredrik Jacobson, Padraig Harrington, Miguel-Angel Jimenez, Maarten Lafeber, Raphael Jacquelin, Carolos Rodiles, Ian Poulter and Brian Davis.

The European Tour points list after the Dunhill Championship reads: Westwood, Jacobson, Rodiles, Jacquelin, Jimenez, Lafeber, Davis, Ian Poulter, Harrington and Clarke. The leading five on the World points list as of Monday, August 23, qualify for the European team. The leading five players not otherwise qualified from the European list on August 29 will also make the side automatically, with captain Bernhard Langer entitled to another two wild card selections.

It will be interesting to see if Langer's own outstanding performance in California he finished eighth on his own after a closing round of 64 for 25 under par will inspire him to again publicly express an interest in playing in the match and forsaking the captaincy. Hopefully, he has forgotten all about that and will instead derive inspiration from the return to form of a key team member like Lee Westwood. The Englishman's victories in the BMW International and Dunhill Links Championship last year came after three years in the wilderness and have clearly reinvigorated a career that was dangerously close to going off the rails.

Westwood, now 61st in the world, tied for 6th in Johannesburg at the week-end but demonstrated that he has set the bar a lot higher than that when commenting: "I'm happy and I'm not happy. I felt I played really well here all week, which tells me my game is definitely back to where I want it to be. But luck didn't run with me and I think I only holed one putt longer than twelve feet through the four rounds."

To be fair, that's a familiar moan on the fairways of the golfing world but it also seems to show that Westwood is set for a big 2004. Should that come to pass, then Bernhard Langer's and Europe's Ryder Cup prospects have to be a lot brighter. You can already envisage a side composed of Westwood, Clarke, Harrington, Montgomerie, Bjorn, Jacobsen, Poulter, Paul Casey, Justin Rose, Niclas Fasth, Sergio Garcia and just possibly Jesper Parnevik (who produced some long awaited form in the Bob Hope) making life extremely difficult for the Yanks, even in their own backyard.