to another crop of top professional golfers.

The 72-hole Bermuda Open Championships, which get underway at Port Royal on Thursday, have attracted no less than five current members of the US PGA Tour as well as a handful of others knocking on the PGA door.

Heading the list are Ken Green and Jim Thorpe, both long-time friends of local professional Kim Swan who have been promising for years to compete in the Open.

This time, according to Bermuda Golf Association secretary Tom Smith, their entries are confirmed.

Joining them will be fellow exempt PGA members, Mike Donald, a winner of this event two years ago, Canadian Dan Halldorson and American Bill Britton, both of whom played last year. Besides the defending champion, North Carolinan Andrew Pitts, the field will include up and comers Steve Ford, Darrell Kestner and P.J. Cowan each of whom were at last weekend's PGA Tour stop, the Michelob Championship in Kingsmill, Virginia.

Ford was the only one of the trio to make the cut, finishing on 288 to earn a cheque for $3,300.

While the Open's $50,000 purse will be considered relative peanuts for the visiting players, the incentive for victory lies not in the winner's cheque but in the automatic entry to next year's lucrative Gene Sarazen World Championship of Golf at the Chateau Elan course in Georgia.

Green, a former college room-mate of Swan, and Thorpe, have made little impact on the Tour this year, but nevertheless will be considered two of the Open favourites.

Once described by Johnny Miller as the best fairway wood player in the game, Green has career earnings of over three and a half million dollars and has won five Times on Tour. However, he managed only one top ten finish last year -- seventh at the US Open -- and finished a disappointing 133rd on the money list.

Thorpe, plagued by injuries in recent years, won three Tour titles in the 1980s, but has struggled to make the cut in the recent tournaments he's entered. His best finish last year was 43rd at the Buick Classic.

Donald, best remembered for losing a sudden-death play-off with Hale Irwin in the 1990 US Open, Britton and Halldorson all have won just once on Tour and like Thorpe have not been prominent on the leaderboard over the past couple of years.

Pitts, who defeated a strong field last year, is again expected to challenge as is returning 1994 champion Stuart Hendley, while on current form the likes of Ford, Kestner and Cowan might be the names to watch.

Another former champion from the US is Tim Balmer (1990) while Dwayne Pearman (winner in 1988) and Swan ('78, '83), the Island's two recent World Cup representatives in Jamaica, will shoulder Bermuda hopes. Besides the local, American and Canadian pros, Chris Van Der Velde from Holland and Gary Winter from England will both fly in from the other side of the Atlantic.

Of the amateurs entered, Jon Marks, a regular visitor from England, will be joined by a strong Bermuda contingent including this year's Match Play Championship finalists Tim Carr and Mark Dupuy as well as Blake Marshall, Zane DeSilva and promising youngster Andrew Trott.

A total entry of 82 has been confirmed, including 37 overseas pros, 12 local pros, 16 overseas amateurs and 17 local amateurs.

The opening round gets underway with an 8.15 a.m. shotgun start.

Full field -- see Scoreboard.

ANDREW PITTS -- Last year's Bermuda Open champion returns to defend his title when the tournament begins on Thursday.