Padraig Harrington heads for Munich this morning still with a chance of Ryder Cup honours. And if he can achieve a reversal of fortune in the BMW International, he will become the first Irish player since 1981 to make the team without a qualifying tournament victory.
That is a measure of the challenge Harrington has been set for his 26th birthday next Sunday. The absence of a winner's cheque has forced him to scramble desperately each week for consistently high finishes.
The last Irish aspirant to overcome such a hurdle was Eamonn Darcy in 1981. On that occasion he was in a similar situation to Harrington, 12th in the points table going into the last qualifying event, which at the time was the Benson and Hedges International.
As it happened, Darcy opened his challenge at Fulford with a nine-under-par 63 and went on to share second place with Bernhard Langer behind the winner, Tom Weiskopf. A cheque for £7,825 was sufficient to vault the Irishman into seventh place in the final points table.
Since then, Darcy (1987), Ronan Rafferty (1989), David Feherty (1991), Philip Walton (1995) and Darren Clarke (1997), all won qualifying tournaments, while Christy O'Connor Jnr was a wild card choice in 1989, when he happened to win the Jersey Open.
Meanwhile, there were feelings at The K Club last weekend that Harrington had been pressurised excessively by the captain, Seve Ballesteros, who arranged to play with him in the opening two rounds. It would certainly appear that the Spaniard was less than supportive of the Irishman's challenge.
The fact remains, however, that such tactics have now become a part of Ryder Cup qualifying. It happened to Philip Walton in 1989 when, in the third-last qualifying tournament, the Benson and Hedges, he was paired in the first two rounds with the captain, Tony Jacklin.
Walton survived that ordeal to be tied 31st and went on to be tied sixth in the PLM Open. But the final turn of the screw came in the last event, the German Open in Frankfurt. There, he had Ballesteros as a partner in the opening two rounds and he succumbed to the pressure, missing the cut.
At the end of the second round, Ballesteros turned to him and said: "There will be other years." And there was another chance, in 1995, when Walton made a triumphant appearance at Oak Hill. Harrington may be forced to accept the same words of consolation next weekend.
Meanwhile, Sweden is likely to have two representatives in the side - Per-Ulrik Johansson and wild-card Jesper Parnevik. The first significant golfing move by this country that I can recall was at Royal Dublin in 1984. That was when 19-yearold Magnus Persson shot rounds of 66 and 65 to lead the Irish Open by two strokes at the halfway stage. He slipped back with a third round of 76 but went on to shoot a closing 68 for a share of seventh place with the American, Andrew Magee, behind Langer.
A year later, there were two young Swedes, Anders Forsbrand and Ove Sellberg, in a share of 12th place behind Ballesteros, also at Royal Dublin. A great adventure was underway, leading to the scenes we witnessed at The K Club last Sunday.
Irish positions in the Order of Merit are: 3 Darren Clarke £414,854; 12 Padraig Harrington £225,654; 30 Paul McGinley £131,335; 53 Philip Walton £92,064; 81 Raymond Burns £62,432; 83 Ronan Rafferty £60,036; 107 Eamonn Darcy £45,831; 123 Des Smyth £35,733; 157 David Higgins £18,623; 159 Christy O'Connor Jnr £15,250.
