Even through orange tinted glasses, John Daly spied his man. The Wild Thing, glad to recognise a familiar face, swept across the practice putting green with intent and clasped the outstretched hand of Richie Coughlan.

"How you doing?" asked Daly.

"Just fine," responded the 25-year-old Irishman, who has no Tour card at the moment.

"One question: can you swing the driver out there?"

"If you want to," said Coughlan, knowing immediately the implications of Daly's words.

Last year, on the US Tour, three of the longest drivers according to the statistics were thrown together in a crowdpleasing gesture by the tournament organisers. Two of them were Daly and Coughlan, the third was Scott Verplank. Almost a year later, and thousands of miles away, Daly and Coughlan were reacquainted and the meeting emphasised the fickleness of professional golf.

Daly's appearance in Ireland is due to appearance money, Coughlan's is courtesy of a sponsor's invitation. Because Coughlan can't afford to pay the £2,000 fee necessary for affiliate membership of the PGA European Tour, however, any prize-money he manages to win at Druids Glen this week won't count on the official Order of Merit. Victory, of course, would bring an automatic two-year tour exemption . . . but no-one has ever won in his first ever European Tour event.

The battle is a tough one, and Coughlan, who started playing golf as a 12-year-old with a hurley grip (long ago discarded), is determined to show the sort of fighting spirit so often shown by his Offaly county-men on the hurling field. "I haven't got too many chances to play tournament golf this season. This is one of the few; it is my national championship, and I want to make the most of it," said Coughlan.

The background to Coughlan's stop-start season, which has seen him play only three tournaments so far in 1999, dates back to an agonising finishing position in last year's US Tour money-list. He finished in 151st place with $174,035, a mere $435 outside a ranking that would have given him a full Nike tour card and a minimum 20 events on the full circuit.

He had played 16 of the last 17 tournaments in a futile attempt to keep his card. By the time the qualifying school came around again, he was exhausted.

Coughlan found himself in limboland.

A brief encounter with the Asian Tour proved ill-fated. He won his tour card at their qualifying school last year but only played one event, in Macau (where Lee Westwood won), and headed back to the United States. "It was too choppy for me in Asia. You didn't know from one week to another if the tournament was going to take place and the food disagreed with me as well. It wasn't me, and I had to get away from it," he said.

One of Coughlan's three previous tournaments so far this year was the Kemper Open on the US Tour. He pre-qualified on the Monday shootout and was adopted like the prodigal son by fellow-players when he arrived for the tournament. "It was incredible, everyone was coming up to me, shaking my hand and wondering what I was up to," he recalled. "I suppose I've a bit bubbly personality and they were genuine in their well wishes.

"They want to see me back playing tournament golf, and that's what I want to do. Whether it is here in Europe or in the States, we'll have to wait and see . . . but I will be playing both qualifying schools in effort to make it back onto one of the main tours. That's where I feel I belong."

"My lack of tournament play has probably affected my sharpness, " he acknowledged, "but I'm looking forward to getting back into it and maybe I can get on a bit of a roll."

The enthusiasm is infectious, and Coughlan is determined to make the most of his precious ticket to play with the big boys on this side of the Atlantic. The next four days will tell a tale.