Stephen Gallacher, the two-time Desert Classic champion, has returned to the United Arab Emirates with his sights set on securing second place in the Race to Dubai with victory in in the season-ending DP World Tour Championship.
While Rory McIlroy has wrapped up a second European No.1 title in three years without having to play a shot this week, there are still some 20 players, including the Bathgate pro, who can realistically look at finishing the season as bridesmaid to the four-time major title winner.
Gallacher, who made his Ryder Cup debut at Gleneagles in September, already looks assured of his best Race to Dubai campaign in 18 seasons; he is currently 15th on the money list which matches his career best in 2004, and still has this week to play.
"The first goal for any player teeing up in any tournament is to win the tournament but then you have to look at what is ahead of you in any given week," he said. "Of course, when first place is not achievable, it becomes normal to go for second even though when you go after second you might not be as motivated as if you were going for first place. If I were to secure second on the Race to Dubai that would be a pretty strong statement on my season, coming off winning here in Dubai earlier this year and playing my first Ryder Cup." Among those in the mix is 13th-placed Ian Poulter, who revealed he may accept the offer of advice from the two-time Open champion Greg Norman after he missed a five-foot birdie putt on the final green which would have forced a play-off in the Turkish Airlines Open on Sunday.
The Englishman received a message on Twitter from Norman, who said he had seen what was going wrong with his putting stroke.
Poulter quickly responded and spoke to Norman on Tuesday night, but was wary of revealing what was said or instantly making changes. "I know Greg really well and it was really nice of him to reach out," he said. "He noticed a couple of things but I'd like to review the coverage just to see if his observations were my observations as well. I've worked hard on my putting the last couple of weeks and I feel like I've made good inroads. Obviously a couple of putts have slipped past, but I'd like to try to review them myself, as well as having a great opinion from Greg."
All but one player in the leading 60 on the Race to Dubai are present. Absent is England's Paul Casey who is 60th, and his place in the $8m event has gone to Matteo Manassero.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article