THE average club pro would probably take more than seven years to earn the €372,281 that Damien McGrane has banked on tour already this season.

So, the Meathman's brave decision last winter to quit his 'day job' at Wexford Golf Club to play full-time on the European circuit certainly paid off.

"Bizarre," is the word McGrane, 34, uses to describe the vast changes in his life since he won his European Tour playing credentials three years ago.

For two of those years, he continued running his pro shop at Wexford, once famously saying: "I've come across very few fellas out there interested in discussing the price of Mars bars."

Not long ago, teeing it up in today's first round of the PGA Irish Championship would have been the highlight of McGrane's competitive season.

Though the €120,000 purse and a first prize of €20,000 on offer at the spanking new PGA national course at Palmerstown House is modest alongside the vast sums he and his Tour colleagues usually play for, McGrane will be giving his all. "It's got nothing to do with money," he explains. "It's about pride and the prospect of holding your own national championship.

"Pádraig Harrington will give it everything this week because he's not able to do anything else. We're not able to go out and play at 90 per cent. We've got a will to win and we're driven by it."

McGrane is disappointed with himself for not taking one of four golden opportunities to win on Tour this season but his climb to 53rd in the Order of Merit still rates as heady success and nobody here is surprised by it. "Damien spent a couple of years with me at Headford," says Brendan McGovern. "You have to believe in yourself to succeed in this game and he's very strong in that department."

As well as Harrington, the defending champion, Peter Lawrie, Gary Murphy and Philip Walton will be in action but the clever money is on ever-steady McGrane.

Karl MacGinty