Jose Maria Olazabal's chances of adding a first Spanish Open title this week to his second Masters received an unexpected boost yesterday.

Ryder Cup team-mate Thomas Bjorn, the only player to beat Olazabal in last year's tournament, is unable to defend the trophy after waking up with neck trouble on the eve of the event at the same El Prat course near Barcelona. He immediately flew home to Dubai for treatment.

Six Irishmen are in the field with Padraig Harrington, a previous winner of this event, returning to the tour after a three-week break. He will be joined by Paul McGinley, Eamonn Darcy, Philip Walton, John McHenry and Des Smyth.

This will be Olazabal's first tournament since his Masters victory and of course his fellow countryman Sergio Garcia, the 19-year-old prodigy, makes his professional debut today after becoming the first European to win the silver cup as top amateur at Augusta.

Asked what advice he had to give the teenager, Olazabal said: "Leave the kid alone. I don't think we have to rush things," he said. "We all know he has the potential and the game. Let him play his game, be himself and don't put any pressure on him. He is a great player - a long hitter with a great short game. He will do well. My advice to him is just be patient and get as much experience as he can."

Moments later Garcia arrived dressed in a suit and prompted almost a frenzy amongst photographers and television cameramen as they tried to get a picture of him posing with Olazabal and Seve Ballesteros, whose own participation in the tournament is in doubt because of a knee problem.

Garcia, who made all seven halfway cuts on the European Tour as an amateur last season, knows all too well what has happened to Justin Rose since a similar fanfare last July following his fourth-place finish in the Open at Birkdale. Rose has played 17 professional tournaments and missed the cut in every one of them.

It will be a surprise if Garcia goes even one week without picking up a cheque. He has won at El Prat before and set a European Tour record for an amateur of 11 under par in finishing joint 34th in the Spanish Open on the course last year.

One magazine has even tipped him for a Ryder Cup wild card, although Garcia's immediate goal is to earn enough from the seven tour events he is allowed this season to avoid a trip to the European Tour qualifying school in November. "That means winning about £52-53,000," said Garcia. "You never know what is going to happen, but if I should win it would be fantastic."

Among the messages of good wishes he has received is one from Rose. Garcia, with verbal deals already agreed with Acushnet, owners of Cobra and Titleist, and Adidas, responded by saying: "That means a lot to me, and I hope he recovers his game soon and starts doing well again."

Olazabal also asks for people not to expect too much from himself this week. His life has hardly been his own since the moment he triumphed in the Masters again.

There were calls from the Spanish king and prime minister, an emotional reunion with his family and a host of media requests.

"I've not been able to prepare as I normally would, and that's given me a couple of question marks about myself," he said.

"The toughest part is going to be trying to keep my mind clear and focus on the game."

Garcia and Olazabal are among the early starters in the first round today.

Among the later ones - and paired together - are Ballesteros and Nick Faldo.

Both, of course, are former greats whose careers have been on the slide, Ballesteros not having won a tour event since the 1995 Spanish Open and Faldo not since the Nissan Open in Los Angeles 25 months ago.

Ballesteros, however, had fluid drained from his left knee yesterday and missed the curtain-raising pro-am. "I'm falling apart," he said.

"I've been having problems in my right knee - now all of a sudden I have the same thing with my left. I also have a partially broken shoulder."