McIlroy on Swiss roll as future’s bright

DESPITE failing to land his first European Tour victory in Switzerland on Sunday, 19-year-old Rory McIlroy from Holywood, Co Down has improved 61 places to 111th in the world rankings.

And he is also up from 88th to 46th in the European Tour order of merit and virtually assured of reaching one of his goals for his rookie year — a place in the lucrative end of season Volvo Masters at Valderrama for which the top 60 on the money list qualify.

He has so far banked €490,577 having picked up €222,220 for second at the weekend.

This is a remarkable achievement for one of such tender years and while he may take some time to recover from his failure at Crans sur Sierre, I am satisfied that the future is indeed rosy for a three-time Irish Examiner National Junior Sports Star winner.

Admittedly he should have finished off the European Masters in normal time and he certainly rushed his second putt in the play-off to hand the title to Frenchman Jean-Francois Lucquin.

But he is the kind of young man who will learn from this disappointment. Within a short few minutes of the debacle, McIlroy was already talking positively, pointing out that while “it would have been great to get a win this year, if not, I have the rest of my career ahead of me”.

And the rest of his career begins in Cologne in the €2 million Mercedes Benz Championship which features Miguel-Angel Jimenez, Robert Karlsson, Graeme McDowell, champion Soren Hansen and Oliver Wilson of the European Ryder Cup team all heading to Kentucky a week later.

Jimenez, Karlsson and McDowell are all chasing a maiden European Tour order of merit win and aim to make up ground on Pádraig Harrington, the leader by a handsome 461,464 points from the second placed Jimenez.

German sponsors obviously love John Daly and the “Wild Thing” has received yet another invitation from Mercedes Benz as has former Masters champion Fred Couples. Darren Clarke, Colin Montgomerie and Martin Kaymer of the host country will also be hoping to show Nick Faldo the error of his ways by declining to give them a “wild card” pick for Valhalla.

Clarke, McDowell and McIlroy are joined in the field for Gut Larchenhof by Damien McGrane, Peter Lawrie and Paul McGinley, another hoping for inspiration after the disappointment of missing out on the Ryder Cup.

Harrington remains at fourth in the world in spite of a poor run in the three FedEx tournaments in the United States.

As a result, he misses out on the season ending Tour Championship in Atlanta at the end of September.

That’s the week immediately after the Ryder Cup and given the responsibility he carries into Valhalla coupled with the excitement of his two major championship wins at Birkdale and Oakland Hills, that might well prove a blessing in disguise.

He isn’t inclined to argue the point. Harrington faces a busy end to his campaign.

He plays the Dunhill Links at St Andrews (Oct 2-5); the Grand Slam of Golf in the Bahamas (Oct 13-14) and the Portuguese Masters at Villamoura two days later.

That event is largely sponsored by Oceanico who own the courses at Villamoura and for whom Harrington recently signed a new contract.

Furthermore, any points he may pick up there would obviously help to copperfasten his status as Europe’s number one player for the second time in three years at Valderrama.

Even then, he isn’t finished with the HSBC Champions tournament at the beginning of November on his schedule while he is undecided about Tiger Woods’ Target Challenge in California in December.

Irish world ranking positions: 4th, Pádraig Harrington; 30th, Graeme McDowell; 63rd, Darren Clarke; 86th, Paul McGinley; 111th, Rory McIlroy; 169th, Peter Lawrie; 181st, Damien McGrane.

Irish European Tour order of merit positions: 1st Harrington €2,350,556; 5th McDowell €1,675,186; 15th Clarke €1,009,424; 23rd McGinley €780,275; 30th McGrane €658,096; 33rd Lawrie €586,047; 46th McIlroy €490,577; 90th Gary Murphy €285,692.