Order of Merit quest put on hold

Tour News: The whereabouts of Pádraig Harrington this week provides an insight into the reality of professional golf, where …

Tour News:The whereabouts of Pádraig Harrington this week provides an insight into the reality of professional golf, where money is the real king.

Given that he is playing, rather than taking a week off, the British Open champion should in truth be in Spain for the Mallorca Classic, the penultimate tournament in the race for the European Tour Order of Merit.

That Harrington is actually competing in the Hassan II Trophy in Morocco, which is not a designated tournament but one promoted as the "world's greatest pro-am" means that he is content to leave his quest to land back-to-back order of merit titles to a final fling in next week's Volvo Masters at Valderrama when Ernie Els, the current money leader, will be an absentee as he too gets the wheelbarrow out to collect appearance money, in his case in the Singapore Masters.

Harrington is the closest pursuer to Els in the money race, currently €217,295 behind the South African.

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With a 333,330 top prize on offer in Mallorca - where the Irish contingent consists of Paul McGinley, Damien McGrane, Peter Lawrie, Gary Murphy and Graeme McDowell - it may have seemed more prudent on Harrington's part to include that tournament in his itinerary. It was never in his plans, however.

The player is a firm believer in a course suiting his eye and, having missed the cut in Mallorca last year when he was in a similar role of playing catch-up, on that occasion with Paul Casey, Harrington has decided that a tune-up in Morocco is more to his liking.

Harrington hadn't included Mallorca on his schedule prior to being enticed to play in Rabat.

It remains to be seen if it is the wisest choice, but it means that Harrington will go to the south of Spain next week in the knowledge that a top-three finish will be the order of the day, assuming that he also manages to finish ahead of Justin Rose who is third in the money list just €657 behind the Dubliner.

When the chips were down last year, Harrington responded to the challenge with a runner-up finish at Valderrama to Jeev Milkha Singh that enabled him to leapfrog Casey to claim the Harry Vardon Trophy.

Henrik Stenson, currently fourth in the money list, would need to win at Valderrama to leapfrog those ahead of him.

In Harrington's absence from this week's tournament, it is left to local favourite Sergio Garcia to headline the field at Mallorca where Niclas Fasth, who has an outside chance of winning the order of merit, is the defending champion.

Yet, for others in the field, there is the matter of trying to find a ticket to the season's finale at Valderrama which is confined to the top 60 on the money list after this week's tournament.

As things stand, Harrington (second), McDowell (52nd) and McGinley - despite being 74th in the money list at present, but eligible this year as a past winner - are the only Irish players assured of a place in the field at the Volvo Masters, and the pressure is well and truly on McGrane (70th), Lawrie (75th) and Murphy (85th) to perform in Mallorca to earn a late place in the field. A top-three finish could be good enough to get McGrane or Lawrie into Valderrama, but Murphy would require a first ever tour win in Mallorca to earn his ticket.

For both Colm Moriarty and Stephen Browne, the Challenge Tour Grand Final in San Domenico, Italy, this week offers a tantalising prospect of securing a full tour card for next season. With the field confined to the top-45 players on the money list, Moriarty (32nd) and Browne (37th) have made it to the season's finale, but will need to finish in the top two to claim one of the tour cards that will be handed out to the players who finish in the top 20 on the final money list.

Browne only claimed his place in the field with a season's best second place finish in the Toscana Open last weekend. "I usually finish the season strongly, so the confidence is high and I am going there to win," said Browne, who played on the course in 2005 when he won a tour card off the Challenge Tour rankings. "I like the golf course and if the wind gets up there, it can be a really tough proposition which will suit me."