Today's South African PGA Championship pits a trio of superstars against each other in Johannesburg as Greg Norman's dream of a world tour moves ever closer. While Norman, the on-song Ernie Els and Nick Price, the defending champion, play for about what it costs to fuel the Australian world number two's Gulfstream, two Irishmen may be hobbling the fairways today.

Raymond Burns and Eamonn Darcy, for whom a top purse of £63,000 means rather more than it does to the stars, are both injured.

Darcy, who had a worrying week checking on his sick father's progress but who has decided to stay in South Africa, twisted his ankle in an animal hole on the 13th in practice on Tuesday.

Burns, meanwhile, has an Achilles tendon injury and plays today with a specially-made pad in his left golf shoe to try to ease the pain he first felt at the start of the week.

Francis Howley is also in Johannesburg. The Milltown man is injury-free and ready to relaunch his year after a poor showing in the Heineken Classic in Perth, when he missed the cut.

After an awful finish to last year, in which Burns failed to make the weekend for any of his last seven events, 1998 has hardly seen his fortunes change and his latest problem could further threaten his career.

His foot began hurting as soon as he went to the range and eventually he had to visit a specialist. "It was agony but the people I saw diagnosed the problem right away - Achilles tendinitis. The specialist made me up a pad to wear in my golf shoe and it will be enough for me to get round," Burns explained. "The trouble is, that it's still very painful when I turn and put weight on the heel."

As a precaution to avoid missing the Desert Classic in Dubai in a fortnight's time - the event where he has had most success - Burns has pulled out of next week's Malaysian Open.

Darcy had to withdraw from yesterday's Pro-Am to rest his ankle and ensure he can start this week after his topsy-turvy beginning to the year, stunned at his opening day 82 in Durban but lifted by a second round 68.

Norman arrived in Johannesburg confident he has brought the form which earned him victory ahead of Jose-Maria Olazabal last week in his own Holden International in Sydney.

The tournament boasts three of the world's top four players with Norman number two, Els, who also won last week when eclipsing the South African Open field, number three, and defending champion Price fourth on the rankings.

That will mean greater ranking points this week and a chance for Norman to get close to knocking Tiger Woods off the top.