Seamus Power is looking forward to a hectic schedule in his bid to be selected for the Ryder Cup and says his injury woes are behind him ahead of the Fedex St.Jude Classic, the first FedEx cup playoff event this week.
There was cause for concern after Power (36) withdrew from the Genesis Scottish Open with the hip injury. Power told the Irish Golfer he feared his season was over when he pulled up on the 4th tee at the Renaissance Club a few weeks ago.
The West Waterford man says that after treatment the hip is like “night and day” and admits his speed, which he says he lost, is back to normal.
“So when the MRI came back clean I was delighted and they changed the treatment, it was like night and day last week”.
“The most frustrating thing is that my speed has been way down, dealing with it, and then at The Open my speed was finally back so I was delighted, just to see that and knowing that there wasn’t too much wrong”.
“I probably should have got an MRI sooner but when I did have it, it came back clean. Honestly I was just doing the wrong things to make it better, I don’t think it was anything serious”.
Power is ranked 54th in the world, 29th in the FedEx Cup standings and 13th in the world points list in a race for 3 automatic spots for Ryder Cup qualification and he enters the first week of the playoffs knowing he has an advantage over many of the other Ryder Cup hopefuls.
There are significantly less Ryder Cup qualification points available on the DP World Tour in comparison to the PGA Tour. The three lucrative play off events, should Power qualify, are the remaining three events before the cut off for automatic qualification while in contrast just two DP World Tour events remain before the cut off.
Power believes he has an advantage and is looking to regain his form to push for one of the automatic places.
“The last couple of weeks were disappointing for that but to have the FedEx Cup your sleeve where there’s going to be a lot of points at stake is great.”
“And it’s unusual in Europe because they have time off, basically, they have the Czech and Switzerland to finish it and it’s not massive points.”
“But you’re going to earn whatever points you get there in the play-offs so I feel like there is still a chance, but I have to go to Memphis and play well.”
Power’s recent best finish is a tie for 13th at the John Deere Classic and he admitted after that he needs to show more to European Captain Luke Donald and hopes to do that starting this week in Memphis.
Power says he is focused on qualifying for the Tour Championship at East Lake and looking to put the Ryder Cup to the back of his mind and hopes to have three good weeks to finish the PGA tour season and see where that leaves him.
“There’s not really a cut-off, it’s going to be based on whether you get picked or not whereas the FedEx, I know if I play X amount well then I’ll get to a certain place. So I’m going to go down that road and focus on that”, he said.
“I’m definitely into the first two, so we’ll see. I’ve never made it and that was the big goal at the start of the year, to get to East Lake, so that will continue to be that way.”
“You either go earn it and get yourself a spot, honestly if I don’t make the team I’ll have no-one to blame but myself but I still have high hopes for the next month and let’s see what we can do”.
The FedEx St.Jude Classic at TPC Southwind gets underway today. Seamus Power tees off at 11.08am local time, 5.08pm Irish time. Rory Mcilroy gets his bid for a 4th FedEx Cup underway at 9.26am local time, 3.26pm Irish time.
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