Waring happy to bide his time in drive for tour breakthrough

Dec 1 2009 by Richard Williamson, Liverpool Daily Post

BARELY has the desert sand settled on Lee Westwood’s dollar-dripping victory in the Race to Dubai, than Europe’s globe-trotting golfers are up and chasing the 2010 prize. Not that Paul Waring is in any rush to join them.

The Wirral professional is happy to play a waiting game as he heeds the lessons from a year which ended with a nerve-wracking final push to keep his Tour card after injury knocked a huge chunk out of his summer plans.

There is little chance to draw breath for those on the European Tour between annual schedules, particularly players seeking the kind of career-defining result that can remove the burden of battling to keep their playing rights each year.

But the opening weeks of the calendar of events are often fought out far away from European shores, in places like China, Hong Kong and Thailand.

Waring joined the travelling band last year, looking to build on an encouraging year as a rookie when he finished 105th in the European Order of Merit, snugly inside the leading 115 players who automatically keep their playing card.

But the former English Amateur champion, a title he won over his home course of Bromborough, admits his performances during those opening weeks were, as he bluntly puts it himself, “rubbish.”

A share of 34th was the best the 24-year-old could muster in Hong Kong as the opening 10 events also yielded six missed cuts. It was only as the Tour headed home that Waring started to show positive signs of the rich talent at his disposal.

His pre-season planning had included targeting the lucrative run of events across the UK and Europe. Starting at the Irish Open in May, Waring played four big events in a row, culminating in a top ten finish at the Wales Open.

When the Tour visited Paris in July for the French Open, Waring carried his form forward.

As in Wales, he went into the final round just one shot off the lead and very much in contention for a maiden Tour victory.

As in Wales, he could not break par on the last day, but this time he enjoyed a top six finish and the season seemed to be gathering momentum with a place inside Europe’s top 100 and the chance to make the Race of Dubai finale moving tantalisingly closer.

But then disaster struck when, after an opening round of 68 had teed him up nicely again at Loch Lomond, in the Scottish Open, Waring picked up a wrist injury that instantly forced him to quit the tournament. A tentative return in the SAS Masters a few weeks later was just as quickly cut short.

There followed a frustrating and worrying spell on the sidelines as the final diagnosis to cure his injury problems was complete rest.

“I was told it was tendon damage, basically from hitting too many golf shots,” explained Waring. “I now have to do a bit of work to stretch and strengthen it. The only real cure was rest, so I did not even pick up a golf clubs for several weeks. Now it is a case of making sure I look after it.

“It was only my second year on tour and it takes time getting used to playing 25-26 tournaments a year when you play 10 or 12 as an amateur. There’s all the practice that goes with it as well and there are not many days when you don’t pick up a club.”

Waring added: “It was a very frustrating time. I had just played well in the French, was in the top 80 on the Order of Merit with the top 60 going to Dubai and I had a good opening round at Loch Lomond when I got injured.

“I was absolutely flying and thinking of making it to Dubai when all of a sudden I was back fighting for my card. It was a difficult spell.

“The injury became annoying more than anything. It niggled away and would flare up again when it seemed to have calmed down, but it was never so bad that I thought I would not get back to playing.”

When he returned in October, much of the programme had disappeared beneath him, and he faced the conundrum of a possible medical exemption.

The tour takes into account the average number of events played by players in the top 115, adds in the number of events already played and then comes up with the difference – that being the number of events the player is allowed to make up the money required to have qualified for the top 115 in the first place. In Waring’s case, it would have given him four events in 2010 to prove his worth, but he was confident that his return to fitness meant he could play six events in the closing weeks of the season.

“I did not want to put myself under pressure by trying to do it in four events when I felt fit and was ready to play again,” he said. “I had not practised or done the amount of work I would have liked, but I still felt I could compete.

“I played OK in the closing weeks, made the cut a few times and while it wasn’t great it was enough.”

But playing for his future at the end of a season which had promised to see the former Cheshire county player and England amateur international striving to capture his breakthrough victory meant a different mindset for the crucial final run of events.

“You obviously got out and play a bit more defensively, trying not to make any mistakes, making sure you make the cut and get some money on the board,” he said. “You want to attack but you have got to be realistic.

“I wasn’t stressing about losing my card too much. I never thought it was an unclimbable mountain.”

It proved a wise move as he made the cut at the trio of Masters events that are staged in Madrid, Portugal and Castello as the Tour prepares to bid farewell to Europe, ahead of the record-breaking visit to Dubai.

That was enough to see him finish the year in 115th place, enough to guarantee him a third crack at life at Europe’s top table.

Not that he intends to start his campaign in Asia.

He admits that he found it difficult to make a positive start to the season so far from home.

“I do not think I will play as much in the early part of this season as I did last year,” he said. “I got a bit fed up.

“I went straight into the new schedule after finishing the previous one and never really got time to sit down and think about things, to assess how things had gone and what I needed to do. I played rubbish really, but things started to pick up when the Tour reached the UK.

“I got a bit more confidence, worked on a few things with my coach Graham Walker and started to play better.

“I suppose I am a home bird, really. I play better when I feel comfortable.

“There are far worse things in life than playing golf every day, but it can get difficult when you are such a long way from your family and friends.

“It is difficult to get away from the golf during a tournament, but I like my own space and, if we were in an area with a beach, say, then I would happily walk up and down listening to my iPod just to get some time to myself.”

Waring’s improvement in form saw him twice in contention for victory, in Wales and France.

“I was one shot behind going into the final round, but shot level par each time and that is not going to win you tournaments,” he said. “You have to go low.

“But after three rounds I had put myself in a position to challenge. At Celtic Manor I played OK, but the putts just did not drop. I felt good and was not really nervous.

“In France, where the winner picks up 660,000 euros, I think anyone would have a sleepless night before the last round. I felt a bit tight on my first tee shot and actually hit into the water and got a bogey.

“In a curious way, that settled me down because I had dropped a shot on the leaders in any case and I cruised round the rest of the round without making any more mistakes.

“You can only learn from being in that position. Rory McIlory could not finish the job in a couple of tournaments before winning in Dubai, while Lee Westwood had a long spell without winning before coming back so emphatically in the Race to Dubai.

“Golf can be like that – so much of it is played between the ears.

“It’s tough out there. So many new guys are coming through and you have got to shoot low, low.”

Waring will make one more appearance before Christmas, at the South African Open in Western Cape, before preferring to wait until things move a little closer to home.

“You have got to have confidence in your game plan and strategy,” he says.

One that no doubt includes a maiden win on home soil . . .

RICHARD WILLIAMSON