And tournament organisers will be hoping to avoid the significant financial loss which was suffered on the event 12 months ago.

Tom Kane, of the Adare Manor Hotel and Golf Resort, revealed this week that they lost almost €1.6 million on the event last year.

However, Kane told the Irish Examiner that he didn't want to make a big issue of the financial hit because they saw it as an investment in the tournament. The financial fortunes could be turned around during the time that the Adare resort played host to the tournament and it would become a worthwhile enterprise.

Some 156 of the European Tour's elite golfers are competing for a total prizefund of €2.5 million this week.

Event organisers had hoped to be in a position to increase the size of the pot, but weren't able to attract any additional sponsors.

The tournament's four proud Partners contributed €300,000 each to the cost of running the tournament this year and indeed a number of them have increased the size of their investment after one Partner from 2007 opted out this time round.

The tournament's four Official Sponsors also provide support to the tune of €150,000 each year.

Sponsor fatigue in the wake of the Ryder Cup has been pin-pointed as a main reason for the inability to attract any new sponsors.

Tom Kane is confident about the prospects of this week's event given the high quality of the field assembled in Adare and the encouraging weather forecast which is likely to see the attendance figure of 60,000 which was achieved last year increased substantially.

The top 70 players and ties after Friday's second round is complete will get to play over the weekend.
This year's field in Adare is significantly stronger than 12 months ago when just two of the world's top 50 ranked players, Padraig Harrington and Lee Westwood, competed.

With precious Ryder Cup qualification points for this year's match with the USA in Kentucky up for grabs, several more elite players have been enticed into competing in Limerick.

Seven members of Europe's victorious Ryder Cup side from the K Club two years ago are headlining the star-studded field of golfers.

Defending Irish Open champion Padraig Harrington will be joined in Adare by his European Ryder Cup team-mates Darren Clarke, Paul McGinley, Colin Montgomerie, Lee Westwood, David Howell and Robert Karlsson as they compete for the significant prizefund.

Six of the world's top 50 golfers will compete in the 72-hole event which runs from Thursday, May 15 to Sunday, May 18. Just two players from the world's top 50 participated in the Irish Open 12 months ago.
In all, 13 winners on this year's European Tour have entered.
Much local interest will centre around the performance of amateur Pat Murray, the general manager at Limerick Golf Club.

Murray has been invited to play in the tournament for a second successive year and the 36-year-old will have fond memories of 2007 when he managed to make the half-way 'cut'.

Bookmakers have installed defending champion Padraig Harrington as the favourite to prevail in Adare this week. Some 370,000 RTE viewers watched Harrington beat Welshman Bradley Dredge in a play-off to lift the title 12 months ago.