If, from today, their smiling faces can be licked by just any old body - now that An Post have issued commemorative Ryder Cup stamps a year ahead of the 2006 match at The K Club - Ireland's top three world-ranked golfers head into this week's €4 million Dunhill Links championship with hugely different priorities.
While Paul McGinley, almost stealthily, finds himself on the fringes of a fight to top the PGA European Tour's money list, Padraig Harrington is in unfamiliar territory, seeking to book his place in next month's season-ending Volvo Masters at Valderrama.
For Darren Clarke, who hasn't played in a month in order to spend time with his wife Heather, who is fighting a recurrence of cancer, competitive golf is very much a secondary consideration but nevertheless this week offers the Northerner a diversion from more pressing matters.
The irony of McGinley's emergence as a potential Order of Merit winner - no Irishman has topped the money list since Ronan Rafferty achieved the feat in 1989 - is that he has got into such a position without a tournament win so far, his season featuring three runners-up finishes and one third place.
As things stand, the 38-year-old Dubliner is sixth on the money list, some €835,894 behind leader Michael Campbell. Yet, that is not an altogether insurmountable challenge. Campbell, who has so far won the US Open and the world matchplay in a stellar year, has decided not to overload his end-of season playing schedule with the result that next week's American Express championship in San Francisco will be his last counting event, which could well open the door for someone to overtake the Kiwi.
McGinley, who currently tops the European Points list for next year's Ryder Cup, is one of six Irish players in the field for the Dunhill Links which takes place at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns and has a top prize of €662,415. He is joined by Harrington, Clarke, Graeme McDowell - who are all also in the field for next week's AmEx, which has €6 million in prize money - as well as Gary Murphy and Damien McGrane.
Harrington's status as a former Volvo Masters winner (in 2001) doesn't secure him an automatic ticket to Valderrama. Instead, like everyone else, he has to finish inside the top-60 on the Order of Merit after the Mallorca Classic (the week before the season's finale) if he is to have a place in the field in the Volvo Masters which is to have an increased prize fund of €250,000, taking the purse to €4 million with €666,660 going to the winner.
In fact, Harrington, who is currently 50th on the money list and who has never failed to make the elite field for the Volvo Masters, is not the only one fighting to secure his place in the field. No fewer than six European Tour champions - Thomas Levet, of France; Anthony Wall, of England; South African Charl Schwartzel, Scotland's Stephen Gallacher - who defends the Dunhill Links this week - and Sweden's Robert Karlsson currently occupy positions 61st to 66th on the money list with only four counting tournaments remaining before the cut-off point for Valderrama.
An Post last evening launched its series of commemorative stamps to, as Minister for Communications Noel Dempsey put it, "acknowledge and pay tribute to the enormous contribution that Irish golfers have made to this event down the years."
Clarke, Harrington and McGinley are featured on the 48c stamp holding aloft the Ryder Cup after McGinley's winning putt at The Belfry in 2002, while a second 48c stamp features photographic portraits of Eamonn Darcy, Christy O'Connor Jnr and Philip Walton.
Ronan Rafferty, Christy O'Connor Senior - who played in ten consecutive Ryder Cup competitions - and Harry Bradshaw are shown on the 60c stamp, while the 65c stamp shows the 18th hole at the K Club.
