NEWS: Globetrotting aside, Ryder Cup team-mates Padraig Harrington and Jose Maria Olazabal are expected to meet this week for the first time since their fall-out at the Seve Trophy in an effort to erase any possible lingering ill-feeling.
The pair are competing in the Omega Hong Kong Open, the first counting tournament for the 2004 PGA European Tour.
The event is co-sanctioned with the Asian PGA Tour and represents an opportunity for European players to a get a kick-start on the season. The leading money winner on that Far East circuit, India's Arjun Atwal, has decided to bypass the tournament in an attempt to claim his card for next year's US Tour.
Harrington and Olazabal had a falling-out in their halved singles match in the Seve Trophy in Spain last month, won by the Britain and Ireland team. It occurred when Harrington questioned the number of pitch marks that the Spaniard was repairing on the third green - Olazabal immediately conceded the hole - and the rest of the match was played out in stony silence. "I've lost a friend," Harrington later conceded.
After the match in Valencia, the players went their separate ways: Harrington played for Ireland in the World Cup at Kiawah Island before taking a few days' break at home and then travelling on to the Nedbank Challenge in Sun City. This will be Olazabal's first outing since the tiff.
Although the pair spent a considerable time after their singles match debating the issue, it is anticipated that they will meet in Hong Kong to try to patch up relations.
Although there is a relatively small prize fund on offer - €99,256 to the winner - the Hong Kong Open has attracted a good field which also includes defending champion Fredrik Jacobsen and Darren Clarke, who has consolidated his position as number 11 in the latest world rankings, just one place behind Harrington, the leading European. The two Irish players will move on from Hong Kong to play in the Target World Challenge in California next week.
Clarke, incidentally, has signed up to design a signature course - co-designed with Peter Matkovitch - at Pinnacle Point in South Africa, where seven holes will run alongside rugged cliffs. Clarke, who will have a holding villa overlooking the 16th green, believes the course will be reminiscent of Pebble Beach.
Meanwhile, the final qualifying school for the US Tour begins at Winter Garden in Florida tomorrow, where former tour card-holder Richie Coughlan - who has already negotiated two stages - is the lone Irish player competing. Coughlan has been paired with Deane Pappas and Doug Labell for the opening two rounds of the marathon, six-round qualifying tournament.
France's Thomas Levet is another attempting to emerge from the 108-hole lottery.
