Irish pair opt to scratch lucrative Abu Dhabi trip

PAUL McGINLEY and Padraig Harrington are passing up on the bountiful number of Ryder Cup points at stake in the inaugural Abu Dhabi Championship, which starts on Thursday.

Harrington is in the middle of his customary nine-week break from all competitive action while McGinley returns in the Qatar Masters next week.

More often than not, McGinley would take his place in the Dubai Masters, an event in which he has invariably done well, but that tournament has been moved forward to February 2nd to accommodate Tiger Woods.

That doesn’t suit the Irishman, who instead will holiday with his family in Barbados where, in addition to working on his game, he will take the opportunity to play the Country Club course at Sandy Lane, which hosts the World Cup next December.

McGinley, 20th in the latest world rankings, made huge progress towards a third successive Ryder Cup appearance in the latter end of the 2005 campaign and is now intent on securing his place as quickly as possible.

He is fourth in the world points list and second in the European Tour table. He believes decent performances in Qatar and in a succession of events in the US, culminating in the Accenture World Match Play Championship in California at the end of February, will remove all further doubt.

McGinley believes 1.5 million points will do the trick and he has already accumulated 1.15 million.

Harrington (now 17th in the world), however, is in a far more perilous situation having had a poor end to 2005. However he has no intention of panicking or changing his schedule, at least for the moment, and won’t return to action until the Malaysian Open in mid-February. Doubtless, the many who feel a European Ryder Cup team at The K-Club in September would be unimaginable without Harrington’s presence wish he’d set about quickly improving on his 13th place in the world points list and 12th in Europe but he is set in his ways where his nine-week “holiday” is concerned.

“Paul and Colin Montgomerie are in a great position but I’m going to have to work hard to make it,” “, he admits. “It’s top of my wish list for 2006 and even though I don’t want to change my schedule, I may have to look at it once the summer arrives. I could add a tournament here and there to get the required points.”

The points battle resumes in Abu Dhabi and Ian Woosnam is delighted to see that Sergio Garcia is in the field. Last time out, the US-based Spaniard needed one of Bernhard Langer’s “wild card” selections but that will not be the case this time given that he is second in the world list and third in Europe. Interestingly, other near certainties like Colin Montgomerie and David Howell are also travelling to the €2m tournament and are joined by world number two Vijay Singh, John Daly and US team “banker” Chris DiMarco.

Furthermore, an even greater number of Europeans on the fringe of the top 10 are taking advantage of this new event.

They include Sweden’s Henrik Stenson, sixth on the two points lists, Ian Poulter and Paul Casey, both of whom figured in the Oakland Hills triumph in 2004, and the promising Englishman Nick Dougherty. The Irish players in Abu Dhabi are Peter Lawrie, Damien McGrane and Gary Murphy, while Michael Hoey and David Higgins are the third and sixth reserves.

Meanwhile, David Toms copperfastened his place on the US team with his impressive victory in the Sony Open in Honolulu.

He moved up two places in the points list behind Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson and ahead of Jim Furyk, Chris DiMarco, Davis Love III, Vaughn Taylor, Chad Campbell, Bart Bryant and Kenny Perry.

Because the Americans top load points accumulated in 2006 as against the previous two years, we can expect major fluctuation from week to week in their top 10.

After only two tournaments in the new season, Fred Couples, Stewart Cink and Ben Crane have all dropped out to be replaced by Taylor, Campbell and Bryant.