STEPHEN GALLACHER has been "fine-tuning" his game in an attempt to make the cut at the Players Championship for the first time.
The Scot qualified last year for the so-called fifth major on the back of his best every season, but the TPC Sawgrass Course proved too much of a test in the second round when the Ryder Cup player struggled on his way to a 78, which cut short his debut at the event.
Gallacher is competing in the lucrative $10m tournament for a second year running and this time is quietly confident of playing all four rounds after missing. out a year ago.
The Scot arrived in Florida from San Francisco where he missed out on making it to the last 16 in the WGC-Cadillac Championship. Joining Gallacher in Florida has been long-time coach Allan McCloskey who jetted in from Edinburgh at the weekend to help his man work on some technical issues.
"I've done all my homework and now just looking forward to getting started," said Gallacher. "It's been great to again have Allan here this week but then there's been nothing drastically wrong with my game, and it's been more just fine-tuning."
Gallacher, whose last win was the 2004 Dubai Desert Classic, insisted the key to keeping his score low on this course would be the way he played the final three holes; the par five 16th, the infamous island green par three 17th and the daunting par four 18th with water down the entire left side - each day in no worse than level par.
"It's going to depend on the wind how well you can play the last three holes because if the winds into you going down 16 then it means 17 and 18 are both downwind and vice versa if 16 is downwind," he said. So it's all about the elements but then you want to play the three holes in level par and, if so, I would be delighted with that.
"Then if you take today (Wednesday) standing on that 17th tee was really daunting having to hit it as the wind was really all over the place. But the good thing is that the greens are really soft and that's going to help these first few days."
There was no concern for Gallacher's caddy Damien Moore in finding the 17th green for a second year running in the now annual caddy's nearest to the pin contest, landing his shot 34-foot from the flag.
Joining Gallacher is fellow Russell Knox who lives just a 10-minute drive at Jacksonville Beach from the course. Knox, like Gallacher, made his debut a year ago in sharing 34th place.
Fellow Scor Martin Laird faces a long overnight wait as he's first reserve and hoping to make a seventh straight appearance should anyone withdraw. Scottish tee times (UK Time) - Thursday. Russell Knox 2pm; Stephen Gallacher 7.20pm.
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