Northern Ireland is getting ready to take on the rest of the golfing world.

The six players representing the province on the European Tour this season - now taking a Christmas break - better than the number from south of the border.

And every one of them has the potential to win tournaments and, in some cases, Major championships.

That Gareth Maybin, who lost a play-off at the South African Open to Richard Sterne, should manage a runners-up spot in just his fourth event in quite astonishing.

This time last year he was about to embark on his first full season on the European Challenge Tour and was languishing at 534 in the world rankings.

Thanks to his efforts last week, however, he has now broken into the top 100 at 90, a rise of 94 places on the previous week.

He matched no less a player than Lee Westwood when playing in the final group on Sunday, beat

ing the Englishman by three shots even though he would fail to take the title.

His putting stood up to severe pressure, especially on the front nine from eight to ten feet, and on another day the putt which lipped out on the 18th to give him the title would have dropped.

McIlroy has now climbed to 40th in the world rankings having come within a single shot of doubling Ulster’s representation in the play-off on Sunday.

He is way ahead of his gameplan for the year which was to break into the top 100 and now will surely cement his place amongst the game’s elite and start challenging for titles and even Majors on a regular basis.

To have shot two under par on a day which started double-bogey, double-bogey is a testament to the young man’s absolute drive

to succeed.

Yes, he does take risks at times and that’s what leads to those minor calamities but generally speaking there are more birdies on his card than bogeys by the time he reaches the clubhouse. He is going to just love playing the Augusta National.

Jonny Caldwell’s rise this year has been simply astonishing.

When he entered the first stage of the qualifying school he was still an amateur just playing for the experience but he had the class to go on and win that event at the Oxfordshire.

Few manage to come through all three stages of the tour school to gain their cards and virtually no-one does it at the first attempt. It was like shooting at the moon and hitting Mars, only thankfully he is much more accurate than that off the tee.

Unfortunately, Darren Clarke’s performance in South Africa mirrored his year overall.

A 67 on Saturday was followed by a 78 the following afternoon.

It was fantastic to see the big man back in the winners’ circle, not once but twice in 2007, but he remains outside the world’s top 50 and simply has to find the consistency he had a couple of years ago, particularly on the greens.

South Africa will be a big boost in confidence for Michael Hoey, though.

He has proved himself a winner on the Challenge Tour and can benefit from the experience of having played a full year on the main tour before.

Getting his season off to a solid start with a big payday was vitally important, especially after missing the cut the week before.

As for Graeme McDowell, his season is really yet to begin but he more than deserves the time off after making such monumental efforts to move forward this year.

He enjoyed a great Open, added the biggest win of his career to his CV in Scotland, and not only made his debut in the Ryder Cup, but was voted one of the standout players. 2009 can only get better.