The letter from America didn't plead or beg; it just asked Ireland's top two players to turn up. Tiger Woods, who runs the Williams World Challenge, could have added that the last-placed player in the 18-man field would pick up $130,000 simply for being there, but, given that the event also raises a substantial sum for charity, that information would have seemed a little incongruous.

So it is that, rather than undertaking any Christmas shopping close to home, Padraig Harrington - who last Friday was presented with the Professional Player of the Year award by the Irish Golf Writers' - and Darren Clarke are among those gathering at the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, southern California, for the $4.1 million Challenge, starting on Thursday, which offers an end-of-season carrot of $1 million to the winner.

Harrington, who arrived last evening but too late to make an intended appearance at the Sports Illustrated dinner in Los Angeles, has undertaken the trip in the knowledge that he has slipped out of the world's top-10, back to 11th in the final official rankings for 2001 which were released yesterday.

Retief Goosen's tied-second place finish in the South African Players' Championship was sufficient to keep the US Open champion ahead of the Dubliner, while Clarke, despite not playing in South Africa last week, has moved back up two places to ninth position.

While this event could be perceived as an end-of-season soirΘe for golf's elite, Davis Love - who fended off Woods and Sergio Garcia to win last year - is convinced that the sheer quality of the field means that the winner will embark on the 2002 campaign with even greater confidence.

"A win is a win, and all the more so if you beat guys like Tiger or Sergio. When a guy wins, his confidence grows and he gets on a streak. Sometimes it is hard to knock you off, and the little things that you thought were a bad break don't seem to bother you any more," insisted Love in an audio conference call in advance of the tournament.

"I finished the very end of last year with some things I wanted to work on, and was very excited coming into this tournament. I wanted to try it out. Any time you win, any time you shoot low scores and beat some good players, no matter where it is, you gain confidence. I went right out next year thinking I could play well rather than wondering what state my game was in."

Harrington and Clarke are part of a virtual "Who's Who" of golfers competing this week. The Irish duo are joined by Woods, of course, and Love, David Duval, Vijay Singh, David Toms, Colin Montgomerie, Bernhard Langer, Jim Furyk, Scott Verplank, Scott Hoch, Thomas Bjorn, Lee Westwood, Jesper Parnevik, Fred Couples, Mark O'Meara and Mark Calcavecchia, who has replaced original choice Goosen.

Now in its third staging, Woods, who will donate any prizemoney won to the Tiger Woods Foundation, has yet to win this particular event, although, after a season in which he has won $5.6 million, he is keen to change that barren statistic.

In its inaugural year, he finished 10th and confessed to taking too much on board himself while last year he was runner-up.

Although competitors can expect the red carpet treatment, the condition of the course - at Woods's insistence - should be tougher than a year ago when the rough was cut low. On this occasion, it has been grown a little higher.

"I want guys to have to go out there and play," insisted Woods. "You can't just go out there and shoot 20 under."

Incidentally, Woods has confirmed that he will again compete in the Deutsche Bank TPC of Europe in Germany next May, which is just one of three guaranteed individual appearances that he will make in Europe next year, the others being the British Open at Muirfield and the WGC-American Express strokeplay at Mount Juliet in September, the week before the rescheduled Ryder Cup match at the Belfry.