With closure falling on the two main golf tours for the 2004 season, it's interesting to note that four Irish players have for the first time finished in the top-100 on prize money earned world wide this year. Although world number one Vijay Singh tops the list - with a haul of $11,104,892 - the Irish quartet, with some unfinished business in terms of further tournaments yet to play, have all exceeded the $1 million mark.
Padraig Harrington, who has moved up one spot to seventh position on the latest world rankings, is ninth in the world money list for the year so far with $3,917,437; Darren Clarke is 16th with $2,732,421; Graeme McDowell is 34th, with $2,009,175, and Paul McGinley is 84th with $1,184,583.
The top five places on the world money list are: Singh, with $11,104,892 (from 32 tournaments); Ernie Els with $7,673,959 (from 26 events); Phil Mickelson with $5,784,823 (from 23 outings); Tiger Woods with $5,431,327 (from 20 appearances); and Retief Goosen with $5,039,631 (in 25 tournaments).
Yet, while the European and US Tours have ended for 2004, golfing life goes on a little longer for Ireland's four highest-ranked players.
Clarke, who picked up $123,800 for finishing tied-15th in the Tour Championship in Atlanta at the weekend, competes in the Visa Taiheiyo Masters in Japan this week and is then committed to two tournaments in South Africa after that, playing in the Nelson Mandela tournament and the following week's NedBank Challenge at Sun City.
But Clarke has turned down an invite to play in the Target World Challenge - a limited field $5.5 million tournament run by Tiger Woods - which takes place in California next month.
"I'll have played enough golf by then," said Clarke, who has moved up to 12th in the world rankings. "And it would have meant that I had to travel from Atlanta to Japan and then on to South Africa and then be faced with a trip to California."
Clarke is still chasing a first tournament win of the year and will hope that the Japan Golf Tour proves to be a more fruitful hunting ground than either the US Tour or the European Tour proved to be this year. McDowell is also in the field in Japan and the tournament will be the final event the Ulsterman plays this year, a season that has seen him rise from 234th in the world rankings last January up to his current position of 60th.
For McDowell, this week offers him the chance of bettering that ranking. To secure an invite to the US Masters next April he needs to be inside the world's top 50 at the end of the year.
McDowell is aware that there is a safety net provided by another reappraisal of the world's top 50 by the Masters committee next March - after the Players Championship - but he would prefer to secure his position sooner rather than later. He is already guaranteed places in next year's US Open and British Open.
Harrington, who won $134,400 for his 14th place finish in the Tour Championship, has a week off before playing in next week's World Cup in Seville, where he partners McGinley.
