Craig Ross and Paul O'Hara chase Challenge Tour cards

Craig Ross and Paul O'Hara will both be aiming to recapture winning form from '¨earlier in the year on the PGA EuroPro Tour as the battle for five Challenge Tour cards reaches a conclusion in Spain this week.

Paul OHara with the trophy after his win at the Moto Caddy Masters.

The duo are among six Scots in the line up for the third-tier circuit’s Tour Championship at Desert Springs in Almeria, where a prize fund worth £99,510 will determine this season’s graduates.

Ross, who won the Clipper Logistisc Championship at Moor Allerton in Yorkshire in July, heads into the 54-hole event sitting seventh on the money list, trailing fifth-placed Chris Gane from England by a mere £1,678.

With the winner getting £22,540 and £11,270 going to the runner up, it would be mission accomplished for Ross with a big week and the same goes for Tartan Tour No 1 O’Hara, pictured, who has played just five events on the circuit but, helped by a win in the Motocaddy Masters in May, is less than £4,000 out of the card zone.

It’s win or bust, meanwhile, for Daniel Young (35th), Craig Lawrie (43rd), Paul McKechnie (53rd) and Ryan Campbell (55th) in the card battle, which Lancastrian Mark Young leads after landing a hat-trick of title triumphs earlier in the year.

Meanwhile, a Saturday finish is in store for one of the European Tour’s big early-season events next year due to football’s Asian Cup taking place in the United Arab Emirates. 
The Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship will take place from 16-19 January, starting on a Wednesday.

The change was announced at the same time as it emerged that the Fatima Bint Mubarak Ladies Open, a European Ladies Tour event held in November for the last two years, will be played at Saadiyat Beach Golf Club in Abu Dhabi in a new slot on 10-12 January. The opening event of the 2019 LET season, it is also being shortened to 54 holes and played in a pro-am format.