Rónán MacNamara in Club de Golf Alcanada
Dermot McElroy will wonder what might have been if a DP World Tour card doesn’t fall into his hands at the Rolex Challenge Tour Grand Final after a freak wrist injury ruled him out for five weeks at a crucial point in the season.
Trying to pass the time after a missed cut at the Italian Challenge, McElroy was ranked 29th in the Road to Mallorca Rankings, just seven spots outside the DP World Tour card places ahead of the final stretch of events. But an accident playing football where he damaged ligaments in his left wrist while producing a world class save to protect his face left him unable to hit a golf ball until last Saturday.
“I was off for five weeks there. Unfortunately after the Italian Challenge we were trying to kill time and we decided to play football and unfortunately one of the golfers hit the ball a bit hard and it went flying towards my head and I naturally put my hand up and it hit my wrist so I pulled my ligaments,” explained McElroy who missed the last four Challenge Tour events including the two double points tournaments in China leaving him 37th in the Order of Merit entering this week.
“I had to pull out of Swiss, Czech and the two in China because I couldn’t swing. I was lucky I had my first game of golf on Saturday I hadn’t played before that, I couldn’t hit it. I wasn’t sure if I could play this week or next week depending on how the rest of this tournament goes.
“I’m very lucky, it’s still a little bit sore but I can play through it.”
Known as a streaky player, the Ballymena man found a rich vein of form with finishes of 4th, 2nd and 7th in successive events and after following that up with three missed cuts in a row, the 31-year-old was feeling confident he could produce one more strong finish to propel him into the all important DP World Tour card places ahead of this week’s Grand Final.
“It was very frustrating actually, I had a good three weeks in a row after Poland. Missed the cut by one in Germany and in Italy I needed to birdie the last as well and I didn’t. With four events left I was hoping to have one more good tournament and come into this one fresh but that’s life you can only do what challenge is ahead.”
McElroy has enjoyed the best season of his professional career to date but despite qualifying for the Rolex Challenge Tour Grand Final at Club de Golf Alcanada for the first time, he is frustrated by his lack of consistency across the campaign.
“It is a good stepping stone. My season was quite frustrating this year, I felt at the start of the season I was playing well but getting nothing out of my game and then mid season I wasn’t playing well at all. Then I hit a spell where in general I was playing some very nice golf and was holing some putts.
“I generally am a good putter, I think it holds me back a little bit. I either hole a lot of putts or miss everything that’s what it tends to do. It’s been quite a frustrating year where I feel I played a lot of good golf but got nothing out of it and then I had that three weeks where I play the way I normally play and held a few putts.”
The Northern Irishman was speaking after a one-over 73 that leaves him eight shots off the early pace.
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