Denis O’Sullivan will become the first senior Irishman to break the €1 million barrier in career earnings and only the sixth senior golfer to achieve the feat, after he has completed The Kingdom of Bahrain, Seniors Tour Championship at the Buckinghamshire.
The 59 year old from Cork, who turned professional in 1997, has won €999,056 from his decade competing on the European Seniors Tour – and has arrived in England for the 2007 season-ending event guaranteed of surpassing €1m, for the last place prize in the elite 42 man field contest is €1,742.
The 54 hole tournament begins on Thursday and will conclude on Saturday – when O’Sullivan’s name will be added to that of England’s Carl Mason and Tommy Horton, Australia’s Noel Ratcliffe, plus England’s Jim Rhodes and Nick Job, as senior millionaire earners.
On his impending landmark achievement, O’Sullivan, who tees off at 8.35am on Thursday morning alongside Rhodes and American Pete Oakley, commented: ‘I’m still hanging in there – and should I crawl the course around this week, I’ll pass it. I’ve been waiting the whole year to do it!
‘But the Seniors Tour has been great for me – and I feel like a millionaire already. I’ve been blessed to enjoy a fabulous 10 years playing golf on this Tour across the world – and I’m already looking forward to next year because I think I can do even better. That’s a nice feeling to have when you’re 59.’
Not that O’Sullivan is planning on passing that millionaire milestone with a whimper. Rather, he hopes a trip down memory lane and the return to the scene of his maiden Tour victory will inspire him to concluding 2007 in the best possible fashion – with a win.
‘I am really looking forward to the event. I have many happy memories here – my very first professional win was here in 2000 when I won the Senior Tournament of Champions – so all those thoughts came flooding back as I drove through the gate,’ said the 1990 Irish Amateur Stroke Play Champion.
‘I remember my good friend Charlie Edwards, who unfortunately has since passed away sadly, was caddieing for me. I remember thinking I needed three pars on the last three holes to tie for the lead, but he said "you need three birdies to win."
'Suddenly, I woke up and managed to do it. I don’t know where they came from, because it’s a tough stretch coming in. But of course it was very special to win, and it’d be nice to do it again here at the Buckinghamshire.’
Des Smyth, winner of the Wentworth Senior Masters back in August, returns to compete on the European Seniors Tour for the first time since that victory, while Eamonn Darcy, seven times a runner-up in his six years on the circuit, completes the Irish challenge.
Darcy is off at 8.55am with Canada’s Bruce Heuchan and England’s David J Russell, while Smyth tees off for round one at 10.05am in the company of Job and Argentina’s Luis Carbonetti.
The field all know who it is they have to stop – the record-setting Carl Mason, who has won five times in 2007 and has already secured the European Seniors Tour Order of Merit crown with earnings in excess of €400,000, making him the first senior to achieve that feat.
In doing so, Mason broke the record he set in 2004 when he earned €354,775 in claiming his second consecutive Order of Merit.
Mason, who has also become the leading career money-winner after overtaking Tommy Horton earlier in the year, can emulate Horton’s six wins in 1997, should he capture a sixth title. ‘It’s been an incredible season – and one I never dreamed would happen,’ said the modest Mason.
‘I’ll have to play my best to win again, but I’ll certainly be going for it. We’ll just have to see what happens.'
