Dwayne Pearman, Bermuda's leading professional golfer, will be keen to shed weeks of tournament rust on Monday when he heads the local charge in the $20,000 Belmont Invitation Championships.

Restored to the golfing calendar after a year's absence, the Belmont will again cater to a full field of 110 players, with Tim Conley, the 1999 champion from the United States, atop the list.

Pearman, nine years removed from his lone triumph in this event but a perennial contender, says that he is anxious to get back into competition for the first time since the Bermuda Open last month. "I've been playing pretty decent," he said. "I haven't been playing in many tournaments. I've been practising a bit but you've got to be playing in tournaments. I'm striking the ball okay but I don't think I'm really tournament fit. We'll see how it goes."

Conley, just off the disappointment of failing to earn his PGA Tour playing card, will be joined by tournament regulars such as Joe Carr, Ian Doig, Jack Gale, Gene Petersen and Ed Whalley, the former Belmont club professional.

Conley will also be looking for redemption after bad weather resulted in a truncated Bermuda Open that saw him finish three strokes behind the 36-hole total posted by Bill Walsh, Jr. But it is the first-time entry of Delroy Cambridge, the Jamaican who featured prominently on the European Seniors Tour this year, that may prove the most significant development.

Cambridge, who was the joint winner of the 2000 Bermuda Open senior division when he last competed here, finished ninth on the European Seniors Tour Order of Merit after a "disappointing" start. The obvious highlight was his maiden tour win in the Dan Technology Senior Tournament of Champions at Mere Golf & Country Club, near Manchester, England, early last month.

"I'm looking forward to the challenge," Cambridge said shortly after arriving yesterday. "I haven't played much in the last two weeks but I don't think I will lose all of it.

"I felt good about my season but I was a little disappointed that I didn't perform better at first. Then I picked it up and felt good about how I finished. I'm happy overall. I can't be disappointed."

The Jamaican, a close friend of Pearman's, featured also among a group of Bermuda golfers who travelled to the Azores for the Sata International Pro-Am in March and was in good enough form to claim individual professional honours.

However, despite having played Port Royal "five or six times" on his previous visits, Belmont remains foreign to him. "I don't know a great deal about the course but I will play on Sunday (in the Pro-Am) and hopefully from there everything will go fine," he said.

The tournament proper begins on Monday with golfers in the Open Division playing for the Trusthouse Forte Trophy and those in the Senior Division competing for the Gosling Senior Trophy.

The Joe Carr Trophy will go to the low net overseas player and the low amateur will win the Belmont Trophy.