THIS week you might see P�draig Harrington, Angel Cabrera, Paul Casey and Colin Montgomerie at the K Club.

Gleaming players who exist in a firmament of multi-million euro sponsorship deals, helicopter shuttles, sleek cars and seemingly effortless golf.

Beneath them, others will strive, battle, hustle for a top20 finish, or maybe just to make the cut at the European Open. But what you will see for sure this week, is hope.

Because players are always hoping for something. A better day, a better round, a better slice of the action. You might sense a touch of despair here and there, but where there is golf, there is always hope. The new putter, the new swing thought, the shot that could change everything.

Same everywhere, from the major championships to the PGA Tour, the European Tour and on down to the Challenge Tour. Even in the underbelly of the professional game where the K Club might be a sandwich, there is hope.

The EuroPro Tour is the Land of Hope. You might go there for a while to earn your stripes, but you're always itching to leave. The EuroPro Tour can punch your ticket for the Challenge Tour, and then maybe the European Tour and the European Open with its Euro3.5m prize fund.

Last week, 18 Irish players competed in an event in Essex, and one, Michael McDermott from the Stackstown club made famous by Harrington, walked away with the winner's cheque for Euro15,000 while a few others boosted their confidence, if not their bank balances, with solid performances. Most though, missed the cut.

That group included fellas with serious pedigrees such as the former Walker Cup player, Colm Moriarty, who finished in the top-20 at last year's Irish Open at Carton House, and Brian McElhinney who won both the British Amateur and the Irish Close championships before he decided to play for a living.

The group also included Paddy Devine.

Paddy Devine struggled to an 83 in the first round, and failed to hand in a card in the second. So far on this season's EuroPro Tour he has missed three cuts in five events, is lying in 87th place in the Order of Merit and has earned about Euro1,000.

But whatever you do, when you see Harrington's chopper sweeping in over the K Club, don't feel sorry for Paddy, or for anyone else looking for a way out of a mini tour.

No one put a gun to Devine's head, no one forced him to leave the real world of nine-to-five and turn pro, and no one forced him to let his apartment and move into a converted shed in his parents' back garden in Donaghmede on Dublin's northside. There was no pushing, he jumped.

The EuroPro Tour has a promotional video entitled 'Living the Dream' - he buys into that. "I've decided to see how far I can go in golf, " he says, "and as far as I'm concerned what I have now is the chance of a lifetime."

Paddy Devine was a good player as a kid. His dad, Frank, introduced him to the game at The Island, and when he was 15, his handicap was down to four and he was winning a few junior events. Golf was easy enough that when a scout for one of the American colleges phoned him up and talked the scholarship talk, he wasn't really that bothered.

When he finished school in 1999, and got a job, he reckoned his game would keep on improving even if he only did the minimum. As his golf stalled, he was doing what a lot of young guys with a few quid in their pockets were doing, but now and then, there was this nagging feeling that he could have, and should have, been a much better player.

Sometimes, he would come home and moan about not playing well, and eventually, his girlfriend told him to put up, or shut up. So, he went to a driving range two or three times during the week in the winter, played at the weekends, and the effort paid off.

By the end of 2005, he was down to scratch and had competed in all the major domestic amateur events.

He wasn't Rory McIlroy, but by now he realised what sort of improvement could be made with a bit of dedication.

A contact he had at a company called Sliderobes, which designs and installs cupboards for the house market, asked him if he had thought about giving the pro game a shot. "I knew some of the players who were out there on the EuroPro Tour, and I didn't think they were any better than I was, so when the offer of sponsorship came up, I took it." Sliderobes agreed to cover his expenses, pledging roughly Euro30,000 a year for three years and at 26, he left the regular hours and the traffic snarl-ups of the real world to chase a new career.

"Without a sponsor, I wouldn't have dreamt of doing it. It takes a lot of the pressure off. I've seen some lads who have tried to live off prize money, and they disappear very quickly. I finished in the top-20 earlier this season and I won �380, but the week probably cost me Euro1,100."

Last year was mostly about looking and learning, but towards the end, he wasn't sure if he was cut out for the new life. He was struggling to adapt, his results were poor, and suddenly, the dream was much more monochrome than technicolour.

"You have a bad day at work, you come home and forget about it, " he says. "It's harder to forget about the golf. At one stage last year, I really thought I couldn't go on, but when I asked myself if this was what I really wanted to do, I knew the answer. I'm doing something I love, and you can't ask for much more.

I'm not kidding myself now when I say I think I can make a living out of the game."

He went to Orlando for five weeks of practice at the start of the year, he is more disciplined about going to the gym, and he has done some work with the sports psychologist, Karl Morris. Recently, he held the lead at a tournament in Norwich which was eventually won by Moriarty.

"I saw my name at the top of the leaderboard, that was a good feeling. I believe I'm learning how to do the right things now. It's not just about standing up on the first tee, hitting the ball, and saying you're a professional. It's a test of character at times as much as a test of golf. You're out of your comfort zone, you're really on your own."

He hasn't thought much about the prospect of not succeeding. Three seasons is probably enough to know if there is a future, and at the end of next year, he'll assess how far he has come. Right now, he's looking ahead to the next EuroPro tournament in Bristol later this month, and he's on the hunt for some extra sponsorship.

The shed in the parents' back garden is more comfortable than it sounds. It was big enough anyway, and with new floors and a paint job, it serves a purpose. For the hopefuls, there is no sacrifice, only ambition.

"Out of the shadows come heroes, " was how Sam Torrance famously described the last day of the 2002 Ryder Cup. Paddy Devine believes him.