US Tour Westchester Classic: Defending champion Padraig Harrington returns to the venue where he holed a 65-foot putt for eagle on the 18th hole last year to win the Barclays Classic at Westchester in New York.

Including the winning eagle, which allowed the Dubliner to pip Jim Furyk for the title, Harrington recorded three eagles for the week; remarkably, he finished the 2005 US Tour season with a grand total of six.

There are 10 of the world's top 12 players in the field this week, including England's David Howell.

Howell is the world number 10 and leader of both the European Tour's order of merit and Ryder Cup table. And he is, of course, competing in the US Open at Winged Foot next week.

So too are Harrington and Sergio Garcia, and for the final warm-up they return now to one of their happiest hunting grounds.

Garcia won at Westchester in 2001 and 2004, on that second occasion beating Harrington and Rory Sabbatini in a play-off.

But Harrington went one better on his return last June.

The two players missing from the world's top 12 are Tiger Woods and Ernie Els.

Woods will go into the second major of the year not having played since the Masters more than two months ago, while Els made a late decision to take this week off to regroup after finishing the Memorial tournament with an 81.

Graeme McDowell and Ian Poulter, both of whom qualified for the US Open in impressive fashion on Monday, also play, as do Lee Westwood and Luke Donald.

And England's Justin Rose must be wondering what is going to happen to him next.

On Friday, Rose and playing partner Ryan Moore were disqualified from the Memorial for leaving the course before play had been officially suspended for the night.

On Saturday they were reinstated because it was an official scorer who had told them they could stop. On Sunday he climbed all the way to 14th place to earn over €80,000.

Then on Monday he thought he had failed to survive a qualifying tournament for the US Open in Columbus, caught a flight to New York and then discovered he would have been in a play-off if he had stayed.

"It's been a bizarre couple of days. Talk about two learning curves," Rose said in Westchester yesterday. "I made a decision based on all the information I had. I'm very surprised that four-under was the number - I honestly figured it would be six. I bogeyed 18 as well, so that really makes me sick."