Macaulay straining every sinew to try and retain his Tour card

Published on Tuesday 29 September 2009 23:37

A PERSONABLE young man, Callum Macaulay will no doubt go out of the way to help his two Eisenhower Trophy-winning team-mates, Wallace Booth and Gavin Dear, feel comfortable when they make their professional debuts in this week's Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.

It is the first time that the three have played in the same event together since they won the world amateur team championship for Scotland ten months ago and Macaulay, who switched to the paid ranks immediately after that historic triumph in Australia, is delighted to be re-united with his former colleagues.

At the same time, though, the 25-year-old from Tulliallan knows he can't afford to be thinking too much about what anyone else is doing over the next few days, having been handed a welcome boost in his bid to retain a European Tour card for another season.

This time last week, Macaulay was on the reserve list for the 3 million event at St Andrews, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns, but got in over the weekend when he was offered the last of 20 invitations.

Macaulay is lying 125th on the Race to Dubai Order of Merit. He needs to finish in the top 115 to keep his card and, with around ten players due to drop off the list because they are either affiliate members like Camilo Villegas and Boo Weekley or won't play the minimum 12 events required, he's certainly in with a chance.

The problem, however, is that he hasn't a clue how many more events he'll get to play in – he's about ninth on the reserve list, for instance, for Madrid next week – which means he could really do with banking a tidy cheque on Sunday night.

"I'm trying hard to keep my card and, if I can play well in a big tournament like this, then it is going to help," said Macaulay, who is certainly relishing the chance to play at Carnoustie, where he won the Scottish Amateur last year, and Kingsbarns, where he was in a winning Great Britain & Ireland team in the St Andrews Trophy.

Two years after Rory McIlroy used this event as a springboard in the professional ranks – the Irish youngster finished third – Dear and Booth, as well as Keir McNicoll, have earned the chance to do likewise.

After failing to progress past the first stage of the European Tour Qualifying School, Dear is planning to head to America over the winter to work on his game. But the 25-year-old knows that a good week could see those plans change.

"I look at Rory here a few years ago as an example, as is Shane Lowry (who won this year's Irish Open when he was still an amateur], who I was chatting to recently," said Dear. "There's no reason why I can't do something this week as I am playing well."