GOLF/West of Ireland Championship: In more ways than one, Malaysia - venue for the world amateur team championship later in the year - is far removed from the weather and tough links terrain that competitors in the West of Ireland are traditionally required to combat, from Philip Reid at Rosses Point

Yet, as the season-opening domestic championship commences at Rosses Point today, many potential contenders will set out in pursuit of the title knowing that it could be the first step in a journey that ultimately takes them to the South China Sea.

Of the Golfing Union of Ireland's elite seven-man squad for the Eisenhower Trophy, only one - Graeme McDowell, on scholarship to the University of Alabama - is absent.

Johnny Foster, Noel Fox, Justin Kehoe, Andy McCormick, Colm Moriarty and Gavin McNeill are here, and the incentive for those not in the squad is that the Irish selectors have let it be known that players can still play their way into the three-man team.

The days when the West of Ireland, sponsored by Standard Life, presented the first opportunity after the winter for players to unlock the clubs from cob-webbed closets have gone.

Although it is the first "major" of the amateur season, a sizeable number of Ireland's top amateurs have already sampled competitive action abroad in such diverse places as Mexico, South Africa and Portugal.

What's more, eight players - Fox, Kehoe, McNeill, Moriarty, Foster, McCormick, Michael McDermott and Timmy Rice - have also been selected by the GUI to compete in Spain's Sherry Cup in two weeks' time.

Such thoughts of sunshine are very seldom realised in the West, however. The vagaries of the weather - with, more often than not, wind and black clouds coming in off the Atlantic - and a tough course make this championship extremely difficult to win and even harder to defend.

McDermott, of Stackstown, the defending champion, sets off in today's first round of 36-holes strokeplay qualifying knowing that the last player to successfully retain the trophy was Niall Goulding, back in 1991.

Goulding is one of five former champions in the field. Barry Reddan (1978) and Declan Brannigan (1981) are also teeing-up, while Ken Kearney - winner in 1992 and holder of the East of Ireland - and current international Fox, champion in 1998, are also in a field that is one of the strongest ever in the history of the championship.

No fewer than 44 players have plus handicaps while 79 play off scratch or better and the cut off point for entries (there are 129 players in the strokeplay qualifying with 64 progressing to the matchplay phases which starts on Sunday) came at 1.7.

A year ago, McDermott overcame Michael Hoey in the final - but the defeated finalist of last year has good reason to be missing out on this year's championship.

Hoey, subsequent winner of the British amateur at Prestwick, is preparing to play in the US Masters in a little under two weeks' time after which he will turn professional.

McDermott is the first of four provincial title holders in the field to defend his crown - Kearney (East of Ireland), Stuart Paul (North of Ireland) and Justin Kehoe (South of Ireland) are all competing - but is not the last man to have won a championship over the Co Sligo links.

That distinction falls to Gavin McNeill, winner of the Irish close title here last June, who is seeking to make it a double success on a course which, despite the early Easter, is in excellent condition and a credit to new head greenkeeper Stuart Duff.

As ever, the challenge promises to be a difficult one but, at least, carries the incentive of possible Far Eastern promise for the winner.