Not so long ago, our national championship was a vibrant, must-see event won by Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, Ian Woosnam and Nick Faldo who were then at the pinnacle of the world game. Not so long ago, Paul McGinley was ranked the 18th best player on the planet, but now he has plummeted to 113th.

Next week at Adare Manor, both the Irish Open and Paul McGinley badly need a shot in the arm.

No secret then that the tournament has been treading water. Overshadowed in the first instance by the European Open with its guaranteed financial muscle and its Ryder Cup venue, one minute it was held in June, then July, and the next it was moved to May. One minute it was played on a links, and the next it was on parkland.

It was Carrolls, Murphy's and then Nissan who put the money where their mouths were, but if the European Open's ball invariably landed in the middle of the fairway, you were never quite sure which direction the Irish Open was aiming.

Meanwhile, on the back of their Ryder Cup success, and with the lure of more ranking points and more cash, many of the leading Europeans were concentrating their energies on America. Once a pre-eminent staging post on this side of the Atlantic, the Irish Open was no longer a priority.

If the makeover at Adare Manor promises a brighter future, the event's gradual decline is all too apparent even in the space of a year.

With the prestigious Players Championship at Sawgrass moved forward to this week, and with the European Tour's flagship tournament, the BMW Championship at Wentworth, in its customary spot at the end of the month, it appears that the Irish Open is well-placed as the filling in a gourmet sandwich.

However, instead of committing themselves to a run of tournaments, most of Europe's market leaders are taking next week off to prepare for Wentworth with the net result that only three players from Sawgrass's elite field . . . Padraig Harrington, Michael Campbell and Charl Schwartzel . . . are certain to tee it up in county Limerick.

Darren Clarke would have made it four, but he will now miss Adare due to an injured hamstring.

Consider also that Harrington, at number 11, and the emerging South African Schwartzel, at number 41, are the only players from the top-50 in the world rankings scheduled to compete, and with Clarke now sidelined, just three of last year's victorious Ryder Cup team . . . Lee Westwood, Harrington and McGinley . . . will be on hand.

If the absence of the America-based Sergio Garcia, Luke Donald and Justin Rose is to be expected, Henrik Stenson, Paul Casey, Colin Montgomerie, Robert Karlsson, Ian Poulter, Angel Cabrera and Niclas Fasth, who played at Carton House last year, have all voted with their feet and by-passed Adare.

The problem for the highly impressive Robert Trent Jones snr-designed course is that the last time it staged a tournament of import in 2005, Tiger Woods and some of the world's top names adorned the JP McManus Invitational Pro-Am. If Harrington isn't in contention this time next weekend, there might not be a crush of spectators to witness a shoot-out between Jeev Milkha Singh and Stephen Dodd.

As for McGinley, he won't care how many people are watching as long he finds the inspiration that has deserted him so suddenly. On the crest of a wave after winning the Volvo Masters at the end of 2005, he fell off his board the following season. There was the undoubted high of the Ryder Cup at the K Club, but last year was mostly a succession of frustrating lows.

"My back is to the wall in that I'm now outside the top 100 in the rankings, and that hurts a lot, " he says. "I think it's obvious that I haven't kicked on from 2005."

This weekend he is at the Andalucia Open near Marbella when he knows he should be at the Players Championship, however, having to watch the Masters on television stung even more.

Of the 24 Ryder Cup players who competed at the K Club last September, he was the only one not to be invited to Augusta.

After breaking into the world's top-20, and finishing third in the Order of Merit with earnings of nearly 2.5m, the slide to 52nd place in the money list last season, not to mention missed cuts at the Players, the Masters, the US Open and the British Open, left him bitterly disappointed. A further knee injury, ironically during the Irish Open, was the only reason for the decline he could be absolutely sure of.

"The knee operation came at a bad time. I was going into a run of important tournaments, but I still should've taken three weeks off.

Instead, I came back too quickly in search of Ryder Cup points, played poorly, missed a few cuts, and suddenly I'm in the middle of the season without a lot of confidence. A bit of panic set in."

He managed to rescue the Ryder Cup situation at the European Open where after it looked certain he would miss the cut, he wound up finishing in a tie for fourth. If that performance in a sense saved his season . . . "It would've been really devastating if I'd missed the Ryder Cup" . . . there was no subsequent surge in form.

"In 2001, I had a good season, but the next year was disappointing because I changed too much. So, consciously this time I didn't make any changes, and maybe that was a mistake. Look at all the great football teams, they don't stand still. I was thinking that what had worked for me in the past would work in the future. Perhaps I should've done a few things differently."

This year, he says he has performed solidly enough . . . a stroke average of 70.38 puts him in the top-10 of the European Tour's statistics . . . without ever scaling the heights.

"Nowadays, the tour doesn't reward someone who's reasonably consistent, it's more about having a really big week. Winning, or a very high finish at the right time. You could then miss a few cuts and it wouldn't change your ranking hugely.

"I haven't had one or two of those big weeks since winning the Volvo Masters, and this season, I've made the cuts apart from the Italian Open, and I've actually played reasonably well, but I've dropped 50 spots in the rankings.

That's the price you pay."

So, he goes to Adare, where he won the Irish PGA Championship in 2003, not exactly brimming with confidence.

"I'm looking for a birdie at the right time, a good round at the right time, I'm looking for the bit of inspiration that has been lacking. It could happen at the Irish Open, on a course I regard highly. The tournament is still really important for the Irish players, and given the standard that Padraig, Darren and I have played at over the last 10 years, it's a shame that one of us hasn't won it."

With no title sponsor, and with Adare Manor's owner, Tom Kane, and a group of companies bankrolling the event for the moment, the Irish Open is setting out on a new tack. The carrot of a 1m bonus to the player who wins at Adare and then at Wentworth, as well as the lavish prizes for holes-in-one, certainly won't do any harm in terms of publicity, but when a tournament is largely defined by the presence of an Irish player near the top of the leaderboard, and by the vagaries of the weather, its foundation remains unstable.

The aim is to recreate the atmosphere and the enthusiasm of the 1980s, a time which Harrington associates with Portmarnock, sunshine and ice cream, when he was first fired with ambition. He won JP McManus's charity event at Adare in 2005, and played a practice round last month on the course which was recently ranked as the country's best parkland lay-out by Golf Digest Irelandmagazine.

But for McGinley, and for the Irish Open, it's a case of starting over. At almost exactly this time three years ago, McGinley was ranked 115th in the world, just two places below where he is today.

While the Irish Open never reached the highs that McGinley experienced, they are both now in a struggle to rediscover their former glory.

The tournament and the player could do with a good week.

2006 Thomas Bjorn, Carton House Leading Irishman Darren Clarke, 3rd
2005 Stephen Dodd, Carton House Leading Irishman Padraig Harrington, T5
2004 Brett Rumford, Co Louth Leading Irishman Padraig Harrington, T2
2003Michael Campbell, Portmarnock Leading Irishman Gary Murphy, T11
2002 Soren Hansen, Fota Island Leading Irishmen Eamonn Darcy, Padraig Harrington, T6
2001 Colin Montgomerie, Fota Island Leading Irishmen Darren Clarke, Padraig Harrington, T2
2000 Patrik Sjoland, Ballybunion Leading Irishman Paul McGinley, T3 PAST WINNERS