Plagued by a gradual decline in attendance numbers, by the absence of an Irish winner since 1982, unsure as to whether it should be staged on links or parkland, and equally unsure as to whether it will have a sponsor in place next year, this is a once blue-chip tournament in search of an identity. Then Munster went and reached the Heineken Cup final.

If you're someone who is drawn to this section of the paper, then it will hardly have escaped your attention that Munster have a bit of a game against Biarritz on Saturday.

Because it happens to be Munster, that oasis of sporting ecumenism, and because their quest for club rugby's ultimate prize in the northern hemisphere has gripped almost every man, woman and child in this neck of the woods, there will be only one television show in town in six days' time.

For a while, the damaging image of a virtually deserted Carton House, save for 60 or 70 lonely players and their caddies, being beamed out on RTE and Sky Sports on Saturday afternoon was a real prospect. With Nissan currently considering their position after four years as tournament backers, such a negative image would have surely been a final nail in the sponsorship coffin.

Not that spectators were going to stay away completely from Carton House . . .

although the fixture clash could still reduce numbers through the gates . . . it's more that between 2.30 and 5.00pm every eye was always going to be on the rugby. What could the powers-that-be have done?

Unplug every TV set in the clubhouse and the tented village, and march the spectators back out on the course?

Yesterday, the British Masters got round its own scheduling problem with an early finish to the third round so that the attendance at the Belfry could watch the FA Cup final. That was a decision taken by the BBC, which has a public service remit, in conjunction with the European Tour.

Curiously, a spokesman for Sky Sports, which provides the feed for RTE from Carton House, said last Thursday that the cable channel . . . in the business of pitting live events against one another - had no intention of altering its schedule for next Saturday. The golf would go up against the Heineken Cup, and that was that.

The stakes though for RTE, which is also committed to live coverage of both the rugby and the golf, were higher.

Bumper viewing figures are assured for the Munster v Biarritz game, however, there was little logic in the national station broadcasting the golf simultaneously with no one watching.

In the end, heads were knocked together, sense prevailed, and it emerged that the third round at Carton House would after all be brought forward to accommodate both the golf and the rugby. Only three weeks after Munster had booked their place in the final, and the penny had finally dropped.

Meanwhile, the organisers can only hope there will be no repeat of last year's apocalyptic conditions which kept the attendance down to a modest 62,000 over the four days. This time, some of the more penal rough on the Montgomerie course has been thinned out, and six fairways have been tweaked to allow for more generous landing areas.

The prize fund is up to a record high of 2.2m, with a cheque for 366,000 to the winner, and 11 of the world's top-50 players are in the field.

For Europe's elite, like Darren Clarke, Padraig Harrington, Paul McGinley, Colin Montgomerie, Henrik Stenson and David Howell, the emphasis is on the accumulation of Ryder Cup points, but for Michael Campbell, the drive is to prove, if proof was needed, that he is far more than just a flash-in-the-pan major champion.

"When Michael's on his game, " the Australian Peter Lonard once said of Campbell, "he can nut anyone, but when he's bad, he's terrible."

From a position of being arguably the best young player in the world in the mid1990s, to someone who came perilously close to quitting the game, Campbell has been plagued by inconsistency.

Last year, he missed a rash of cuts, then won the US Open at Pinehurst, holding off Tiger Woods to become the first New Zealander since Bob Charles in 1963 to win a major.

Later, he would finish in the top-10 at both the British Open and the USPGA before defeating Paul McGinley in the final of the World Match Play. It seemed that at last, the gifted Campbell had arrived. So far this season, he has played in seven events and missed four cuts.

"Ever since I was an amateur, I've been incredibly inconsistent, that's the way I am, " the 37-year-old says. "I don't like it, and I'm trying to work on it, and my personal pride is definitely affected by it. But then, I tend to forget setbacks very quickly. I want to win more, but I know now I can win any time.

"David Duval suffered from winning his major, maybe he felt he had reached his ultimate goal, but my goal is to win more than one. That's what keeps me going, gets me up in the morning. The passion is there, the Pinehurst experience has made me even more thirsty for success, and I'm really to motivated to win."

It wasn't always so. Campbell had dropped off the radar for a while, losing his card in Europe and flopping in America. By chance, Ireland happened to be an important staging post in his rehab with wins in the 2002 Smurfit European Open and the following year's Nissan Irish Open.

"It was a bit of a coincidence really, winning at the K Club and at Portmarnock, on two completely different courses, but Ireland's been good to me.

The weather was horrendous last year at Carton House and I missed the cut, but I'm looking forward to coming back and doing better this time."

The Irish Open is also a tournament which needs to do better, and with luck, it will.

Sorting out the television schedule was a good place to start.

mjones@tribune. ie NISSAN IRISH OPEN Thursday . . . Sunday, Carton House Live, RTE, Sky Sports