After a winter spent following the sun across Australia, Africa and Asia, the European Tour finally reaches the mainland with the Via Digital Open de Espana, which begins today in Valencia.

The tour has already briefly acquainted itself with its home continent, courtesy of last month's Madeira Island Open, but this week will see many of the big names emerge from their spring sojourn on the US Tour.

Top of that list are home trio Jose Maria Olazabal, Sergio Garcia and Miguel Angel Jimenez, who have enjoyed differing degrees of fortune as they increased their playing schedule across the pond.

That was evident two weeks ago in the US Masters at Augusta, for, whilst Olazabal and Jimenez sustained a high position on the leaderboard throughout the tournament, Garcia missed the cut.

The course, El Saler, is a rugged links course rated among the finest in Europe. It is staging this traditional event for the first time since Bernhard Langer's second victory back in 1989.

Ireland's Darren Clarke is making his first appearance since his mixed experience at the Masters.

The 32-year-old Ulsterman at one stage climbed to second place after opening rounds of 72 and 67 had been followed by an excellent start to his third.

But a calamitous closing to that round - including double bogeys at the 16th and 18th - effectively ended his challenge and an anti-climactic final-round 73 duly followed.

And Clarke, who is currently lying fourth in the Ryder Cup points table, will be keen to consign that memory - which by his standards will be largely negative - to the past.

Certainly Clarke was bullishly confident about his form on the course that witnessed his Spanish International Amateur victory 11 years ago.

He said: "My game is very good, I'm hitting the ball well, very solid, very happy with my swing. I played very well in America."