Last updated at 13:18, Wednesday, 29 September 2010

Gary Lockerbie will not be putting his feet up to watch his European Tour pals taking on Tiger Woods and the rest of the USA in the Ryder Cup this weekend.

Gary Lockerbie

Cumbria’s top golfer has ditched the idea of having a weekend off and plans to do some overtime on the golf course as he prepares for the most important six weeks of his career.

Lockerbie, who is battling to keep his European Tour card after a tough year, will arrive in Scotland early to warm-up for next week’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at Old Course St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns.

Handily enough for the 28-year-old, his parents Tim and Audrey live within two miles of St Andrews after moving to Fife from Stainton, near Penrith, eight years ago, enabling him to practise on the Old Course this weekend.

Lockerbie believes he needs to raise his game as he was disappointed with his performance when finishing 35th with his six-under-par total of 282 in the Vivendi Cup in Paris last weekend.

He still needs to make up around 200,000 euros to keep his playing privileges for Europe’s top tour and with a prize fund of 5million euros in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship he knows how important a good performance could be.

Lockerbie said: “I didn’t play particularly great last weekend so I was never going to shoot very low scored.

“It was a very easy golf course and you should have been shooting four-under minimum for every round.

“It’s a blank weekend with the Ryder Cup so I’ll be practising all week on my own and trying get back to where I was a couple of weeks ago.

“I’ll spend the weekend with my parents and practice on the Old Course on Sunday to get my game back in shape.”

Lockerbie admits the relentless travelling and playing every week as he battles to keep his card could have left him jaded for last weekend’s tournament in Paris.

The former county star is lying 160th in the order of merit and has a lot of ground to make up if he is to keep his place on the Tour.

He said: “I knew from the start of last week that I wasn’t playing well. I’d practised hard and wasn’t getting there.

“I felt tired and found it difficult to motivate myself and didn’t do anything particularly well.

“The travelling and playing is relentless if you’re not playing great or doing anything special.”

First published at 11:38, Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk