It’s been a long hard year competing on both the US PGA Tour and the European Tour and now I am ready for the closing stages and the grand finale at the DP World Tour Championship at Jumeirah Golf Estates.
As the DP World Tour Championship approaches, I’m still in with a chance of topping the rankings and I’m trying to perform to the best of my ability so I can to play to my optimal performance level. If it’s possible that I can win one of the final events that I’m playing then I’ll be in the hunt, potentially to contend for the Race to Dubai title.
Prior to these events I spent a few days surfing in Bali, trying to refresh myself ahead of the last push of the year. I will be going back to Bali for a few days after the WGC-HSBC Champions and then back home to Dubai before going on to South Africa to play the NedBank Golf Challenge and then the DP World Tour Championship.
I hope that the surfing will do me some good and recharge my batteries so I’ll be ready to go.
It’s the time of year that I really look forward to and being in contention to try and win the Race to Dubai is fun. I’m playing very well and I’m going to be 100% focussed. I just need to put all the aspects of the game together. But I feel good and refreshed after a long season playing both the PGA and European Tour full time. It’s been a big year for me playing a lot of new golf courses and taking on new challenges – and I’ve been very happy with the way it’s gone.
After I won in Scotland and then finished in the top five at The Open I struggled a little bit and felt a little bit mentally tired on the golf course. I didn’t play well at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational and missed the cut at the US PGA Championship but I improved in September at the PGA Tour’s FedEx events. It wasn’t quite enough to get me to the Tour Championship but, overall, I’m happy.
It was a tough decision to skip the Italian Open – one of the Rolex Series events – and the Andalucía Valderrama Masters in Spain to head over to Asia and play in two events on the PGA Tour. I took that decision to get some appearances under my belt on the PGA Tour. The CIMB and the CJ Cup both count towards the 2018 PGA Tour season and I need to play 15 tournaments as a minimum to retain my playing rights.
The WGC-HSBC Champions also counts as a PGA Tour event and those three events will count towards those 15 tournaments which means I will be under less pressure to play more events in the United States in the New Year.
Obviously, I want to retain my card over there, but my focus next year is on The Ryder Cup and performing well in Europe to get on Thomas Bjørn’s team in Paris and win the Cup back. Hopefully, playing these US Tour events means I don’t need to add more to my schedule in the United States.
My wedding date is fast approaching but I really haven’t had much time to get nervous about it due to playing so much competitive golf.
I played three of the four FedExCup Play-off events on the PGA Tour and I’ve been in Asia so a lot of the preparation has been done in conjunction with my fiancé, Sofia.
I’m not nervous about it because I’m looking forward to sharing my life with a wonderful person.
