hE may have gone over the same ground more times than a ploughman who's dozed off at the tractor wheel but Stephen Gallacher remains his usual nonchalant self when confronted with the inevitable probings about the Ryder Cup.
"I can understand you guys asking about it all the time; it's massive for Scotland," said the 39-year-old, as he settled down for a blether after performing his ceremonial duties at the opening of the plush but homely £1m clubhouse at the Macdonald Spey Valley course in Aviemore.
Peering out towards the splendour of the snow-capped Cairngorms, Gallacher knows he has his own mountain to climb. As the calendar hurtles towards the peak season, the scramble to qualify for Paul McGinley's Europe team at Gleneagles will become ever more fraught. Gallacher, of course, is in the merry midst of this elbowing and jockeying but with some of the big guns starting to flex their muscles again, it can be easy to be trampled over in the melee.
The resurgent Martin Kaymer's triumph in the Players Championship dunted the Scot further down the points list but, with a huge number up for grabs in a series of significant events over the next few weeks, Gallacher is steeling himself for a major push. The qualifying marathon will become something of a sprint from now on.
"For me to get in, I've got to have the best year of my life," said Gallacher, who won the Dubai Desert Classic at the start of the year and remains Scotland's highest-ranked male golfer.
"From the start of the year, I knew that. The guys you are up against are proper, big-time players and major winners. It's never going to be easy but I know that I just have to peak for a little bit, for a couple of weeks like Kaymer's done.
"He wasn't having a good time of it and, bang, he pops up with a big win. Ian Poulter and Luke Donald have started to play well too and these are the guys you want to get in.
"McGinley will be rubbing his hands at the prospect of these guys playing well. His top guys are firing again. You'd expect these guys to be in anyway.
"There are just a couple of spots we're going for. The tournaments I'm playing in the next while are all massive tournaments, and you only need to hit top form and it can happen for you."
Following another stint across the Atlantic, Gallacher will be closer to home over the next couple of weeks. First up on the schedule is the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, an event in which he has missed the cut every year since 2004 with the exception of 2010, when he bucked the trend and finished fourth. He will then hop over to Sweden before returning Stateside for the US Open. Throw in the Irish Open, the French Open, the Scottish Open and The Open, followed by yet more American forays, and the schedule is packed to the gunwales with opportunity.
"All you need to do now is hit a bit of form and get the game in good shape," he added. "I know if my game is in decent shape I can compete. That's what playing in America recently has done for me. I know, if I'm on form, I can compete with the best of them. Paul [McGinley] says he is looking for the form guys and this is now the big push. The next 12 tournaments are massive."
While Gallacher prepares for the onslaught, Paul Lawrie will dust off the cobwebs and ease himself back into tournament action at the Spanish Open from today after a frustrating spell on the sidelines with a variety of niggling injuries.
"It's been a nightmare these past number of weeks," he said. "I wasn't right in the Dubai Desert Classic at the end of January, and from then on it was the back, then the neck. I've been seeing an osteopath and a physio and I've had six treatments of acupuncture. It seems to have done the trick."
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