Power, 31, retained his PGA Tour card for next season by the tightest of margins after missing the cut at the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Starting the week at 123rd in the FedEx Cup rankings, he needed to stay inside the top 125 to reach this week’s FedEx Cup play-offs, thereby keeping his card.

It made for a nervous weekend and he was overtaken in the standings by Nick Taylor and Harris English. Sergio Garcia failed to finish inside the top 20 at Greensboro, suffering three bogeys in five holes after making the turn.

It handed Power the lifeline he needed and as the 2017 Masters champion failed to reach the play-offs for the first time in his illustrious career, Power clung on to 125th place.

All of which is good news for this weekend’s victorious golfer back on home turf at West Waterford, as a round with Power is part of the first prize in the Senior Scratch Cup sponsored by Gleesons Distillers.

The 18-hole strokeplay event takes place over the club’s Eddie Hackett- designed par-72, 6,802-yard championship course near Dungarvan.

Joining the entrants will be the other West Waterford touring pro Gary Hurley, showing his support for the club’s most prestigious competition. He won’t be eligible as a competitor, though, on a day that is sure to showcase the course that provided an education for two touring professionals.

Power was the only Irishman at Greensboro to reach The Northern Trust, which starts on Thursday at the Ridgewood in New Jersey, the first of the four FedEx Cup play-offs.

Graeme McDowell made the halfway cut but failed to get the top-five finish needed to secure a top-125 finish in the standings. He joined compatriots Shane Lowry and Pádraig Harrington, both of whom missed the cut, in losing his full playing rights at the Wyndham Championship.

Lowry and McDowell will have conditional status and limited starts next season while Harrington can opt to use a one-off career-money winner’s exemption.

It is a cut-throat world into which another Waterford man will be entering in 2019 — Flogas Irish Amateur Open champion Robin Dawson declared his intention to turn professional after next month’s Home Internationals.

The 22-year-old from Tramore will be bidding to win a fifth Home Internationals title in a row for Ireland, a week after representing his country on home soil when the Golfing Union of Ireland hosts the World Amateur Team Championships at Carton House on September 5-8.

Dawson is world number seven in the official amateur rankings and if he maintains his place inside the top 15 to the end of this month he will gain an exemption in the second stage of the European Tour qualifying school in Spain in early November.