Life on Tour looks like a Challenge but David vows to play anywhere
For David Drysdale, his immediate golfing future reads very much like ‘have clubs, will travel’.
The loss of his DP World Tour card leaves the 47-year-old at an unwanted crossroads for the first time in over two decades.
But he is having to use all of his vast experience to remain upbeat ahead of a period of uncertainty.
“This is a game where you have to believe that the next day will be better,” he told The Sunday Post.
“The ups you have are few and far between compared to the downs.
“Look at Rory McIlroy. He has dominated the Majors this year without winning any and he’ll still be disappointed about The Open, finishing third when he should have won the tournament.
“If you miss a cut, you leave on the Friday and the focus immediately switches to the next one. You talk about where you went wrong for 10 minutes and then forget it.
“You have to be that way, otherwise golf would send you bonkers.”
With wife, Vicky, on the bag, it is very much Team Drysdale. But 2022 did not go according to plan for the man from Cockburnspath.
He finished down in 158th on the Race to Dubai, and then exited at stage two of Q-School in trying to regain his card for the new season.
His ultimate goal is to try to win a card on the Champions Tour in America upon turning 50, but the challenge now is to find somewhere to play in the meantime.
It even had David flying down to the Joburg Open last week to play on an invite. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the late acceptance did little for his game, and he missed the cut in the co-sanctioned event.
“I can get an unlimited number of invites and I got one for Joburg,” he said. “That was very good, but I could see the DP World Tour was struggling to fill our side of the field.
“I got the invite, and we jumped on a plane. But obviously that’s not the greatest preparation.
“We wrote emails to a few events and Tournament Directors down in South Africa, but I got knocked back for the Alfred Dunhill Championship this week.
“I was hoping to get one, having finished second a few years back and played it in the last 20 years.
“But it’s Johann Rupert’s tournament, and he generally invites young guys to give them a chance. That is totally understandable.
“I always play these events in South Africa, have a break over Christmas and then gear up for Abu Dhabi and Dubai in January.
“It feels funny that I won’t be pegging it up there, But I’ve had a lot of time to reflect and it’s just one of those things.
“There’s only one person to blame – me. I could moan about one or two things off the course that happened.But at the end of the day, I’ve not got the ball in the hole in the number of shots required.
“But I will definitely crack on and play wherever I can.
“I’m going to play mainly on the Challenge Tour, I think, and I’ll see where I’m at in the middle of the season.
“I’ve played a long time and I’m not going to say I’ll be top 20 or anything like that. But I think I’m good enough to compete out there if it’s on a course where there’s a bit of skill involved.”
As Drysdale reflects on his own year, it has been an incredible one for the sport with the arrival of LIV Golf and the schism it has caused in the men’s game.
The PGA Tour and DP World Tour have responded with gimmicks and elevated purses at a number of events, with the Scot a curious bystander.
“You look at LIV and wonder if there has to be a compromise coming,” he admitted. “Surely their players will have to be allowed in Majors?
“The money is incredible, Peter Uihlein has won $11-million, Hennie du Plessis – a lovely young kid from South Africa – has earned $5m. You could live like a king in South Africa with that kind of money.
“The Asian Tour now looks interesting with their international series events offering elevated prize money – which are arguably bigger than regular DP World Tour events.
“Then from next year, the top 10 non-exempt players on our Tour will earn PGA Tour cards. That could be guys like Bob MacIntyre, Ewen Ferguson, or the Hojgaard twins.
“That would be great for them, but I don’t know how it would work out for the Tour. Is it a good thing in the long-term to lose 10 of your best players every season?”