Marcus: Keep calm and debut will be fine

a combination of my calmness and my approach on life because of my past experiences,” said Armitage.

“My strength in golf is probably my short game because I believe ball striking comes in and out but if you’ve got a short game that’s pretty steady, you can get away with them days when your long game isn’t really there.”

And Armitage has been working on his short game since he arrived at Leopard Creek on Sunday in an attempt to get used to the lightning greens.

Last week he told us: “I’ll arrive around the golf club at around Sunday teatime, so I’ll just be getting acclimatised a little bit on the Sunday and then Monday morning I’ll get up to the club and me and my caddy will do a bit of work and ease myself into the conditions because you don’t want to burn yourself out.

“We’ll be very structured in what we’ll do. We’ll spend a lot of time on the greens because obviously being at home in the winter you can’t get the practice in on the greens like it will be in South Africa so that will be our key focus.”

It’s not just his calm approach that Armitage believes has helped him so far this year however.

The Howley Hall Golf Club member revealed that changing his golf clubs half way though the season also gave him the boost he needed to qualify for the European Tour.

“Changing all my clubs was a big point,” said Armitage. “I wasn’t having a great year and I thought I might as well change my golf clubs while I’m not doing well to see if it would do something for me so that helped – I had a great year after changing my clubs.”

And the golfer will be hoping his new clubs can help him to another milestone this week in Leopard Creek when he starts as a 250/1 shot to take the title.

The favourite coming in to the tournament is South African Charl Schwartzel who is aiming to win his fifth Alfred Dunhill Championship crown.

Coverage of the competition starts at 12.30 on Thursday on Sky Sports 4.