Scottish golfer feeling 'proud' to make $10m DP World Tour season finale
Connor Syme opens up on digging deep to make DP World Tour Championship in Dubai
Connor Syme admits he’ll feel “quite proud” when he’s announced on the tee by Alastair Scott for the fourth year in a row in the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai.
The 30-year-old Fife-based player dug deep in last week’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, the first of the DP World Tour’s two season-ending Play-Off events, to join Bob MacIntyre, Calum Hill, Grant Forrest and Ewen Ferguson in the 50-man field at Jumeirah Golf Estates.
Syme, who landed his breakthrough win on the circuit in the KLM Open in June, had slipped outside the all-important top 50 in the Race to Dubai Rankings at the halfway stage at Yas Links.
He then produced a brilliant best-of-the-day 63 in the third round before recovering from a shaky start in the closing circuit to eventually make it through to this week in 49th position on the points list.
“It wasn’t easy, especially how I started on Sunday,” Syme told The Scotsman in the UAE as he finalised his preparations for this week’s $10 million season finale on the Earth Course. “I am quite proud of myself really because I think last year I didn’t play great in Abu Dhabi but got in here. This time, I felt I had to go and play well and obviously to shoot a nine-under round felt great.
“Yeah, it was probably one of the best rounds of my career. I was saying to a few people last week that I was trying not to focus on the top 50 because it is such a big tournament in itself and I was trying to do as well as I could in it.
“My goal in that respect was very good but, then when I started poorly on Sunday, it’s amazing how your brain starts toying with you and I was constantly wondering if a birdie was going to get me in or a bogey was going to drop me out of it.”
Syme, who is “buzzing” to be teeing up in a field being spearheaded by career grand slam winner Rory McIlroy and includes nine of the 12 players from Europe’s Ryder Cup win in New York, was delighted when he landed his maiden win thanks to a polished performance in the Netherlands.
Aiming to draw on a tie for 12th in this event in 2022, the Scot is hoping to sign off his season on a high but already has one eye on trying to improve going forward.
“It’s been a year of learnings, really,” he admitted. “Obviously there was the high of the win, but it has probably been my least consistent year for a few years. I’ve tried a few different things. You are always learning in this game. You’ve never got it fully worked out and I think I’ll take a lot from this year.
‘There’s nothing to lose this week’
“The win, of course, is the main thing and hopefully I can kick on, starting as soon as this week. I think I drew a line in the sand as far as this season was concerned before Korea in terms of looking at things I want to do better.
“There’s nothing to lose this week. It’s exciting and it’s a course I like, having played well here in the past and hopefully I can draw on that a little bit.”
Syme’s dad, Stuart, is out in the UAE, having also walked round with him in Abu Dhabi, while Jamie Gough is continuing to oversee his swing out on tour. “It feels like the full squad, which is nice,” admitted a smiling Syme.
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