In the last chance saloon, it is time to throw a double six. The scramble to cling on to a place on the European Tour at this week’s Valderrama Masters will be like a brawl in a Wild West den of debauchery as a number of Scots look to conjure a great escape in the final regular event of the season.
With a posse of affiliate tour members coming off the rankings, the safety zone has dropped down to the leading 116 on the money list from the initial 110.
Scott Jamieson, who sits at 107th, is not playing this week and must seem confident that he will be fine while the great survivor, David
Drysdale, should hold on too at
No 108.
For the other members of the tartan army, who are on the outside looking in, it is a grim picture. Marc Warren, with three wins to his name on the main circuit, is languishing down in 144th place after a wretched year, and according to the number-crunching boffins at the European Tour, would probably need a
top-three finish to safeguard his card.
The one crumb of comfort for Warren, in this period of desperate straw-clutching, is that his last golfing visit to Spain in April led to a share of fifth in the Spanish Open, his best result of the year. He has not been higher than 17th since then, though.
Richie Ramsay, another Scot with a trio of tour titles on his cv, has not had a top-10 finish since he was sixth in his second event of the year in Dubai. The 35-year-old needs a
similar finish this week to secure his full playing privileges for 2019.
Connor Syme, the Fife rookie who was runner-up in the Shot Clock Masters in Austria, has slipped down the order since then and requires a final flourish to haul himself up from 126th spot on the Race to Dubai.
On the Ladies European Tour, meanwhile, Aberdeen’s Michele Thomson is hoping a return to her happy hunting ground at the Hero Indian Open can help her preserve her full playing rights on the women’s circuit.
Thomson finished runner-up in the event a year ago but arrives this week in 90th place on the Order of Merit, with just the leading 80
maintaining their place at the top table.
“The same kind of outcome as last year would be ideal,” she said. “I’m approaching the week in exactly the same way as a year ago. I’m playing well again and have those good memories from 2017. Hopefully, I can go one better this time.”
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