Q School beckons as pressure game costs Higgins

Kerry’s David Higgins has admitted the pressure in attempting to retain his European Tour card cost him dearly in the last month.

Higgins finished 56th in the Perth International on Sunday and missed out on making the top-110 who earn automatic membership next season.

“I’m sitting here in the players, lounge in Perth and needless to say I’m very disappointed,” he wrote on golfcentraldaily.com, after ending the season ranked 115th.

“Just looking around me right now, there’s lots of guys floating around having a few beers and celebrating having retained their cards. This could have been me, but it’s not.

“I tried to continue to play relaxed but I just couldn’t find it. With the pressure of being so close to that 110th spot, I felt uptight for the last three events. It didn’t really effect my longer shots but I did putt poorly. And that’s normally one of the strongest parts of my game.”

Higgins sat in 115th place in the Race to Dubai at the outset of the tournament, but failure to make any inroads on those ahead of him sees the Waterville native facing another trip to Tour School in Girona.

“It’s a place nobody would want to go. But looking back over the past 12 months, it has been very exciting to be back on tour. I felt my game was good enough to get out and compete but found myself questioning my ability after a run of poor events. For a while it looked like a return to stage two of qualifying was on the cards and I was not sure if I was going to be able to get myself up for that again.

“Then I arrived in Italy playing well and the course was perfect for me. I played relaxed, carefree golf as if I had nothing to lose and was swinging freely. That tied second changed everything. I was delighted and in with a real chance of retaining my card. Tension or pressure, call it what you will, but I seemed to be moving and coming out of a lot of putts. It’s easy to tell yourself not to do this but when you are under the gun, its hard to halt these feelings and get yourself to stay down and hit good, solid, aggressive putts.”