Stephen Gallacher glad to return to home comforts

GLOBETROTTING isn’t all it is cracked up to be. For Stephen Gallacher, nothing beats getting home to the family – and his new dog, Smudge – on a Sunday night.

Stephen Gallacher. Picture: Ian Rutherford

After playing his last five events in America, he is looking forward to sleeping in his own bed once he is done and dusted in his next three events, starting this week with the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.

“It feels brilliant to be back on European soil,” said Gallacher, who last competed in his home continent in the Turkish Airlines Open in Belek last November. “It’s nice to have just a 55-minute flight from Edinburgh down to London, as will be getting home on Sunday night, and spending Monday with the kids for the next three weeks will be magic.

“The PGA Tour is great, but even when you finish on a Sunday you end up killing time and boredom can be the biggest factor of all when you are away from home. You don’t have a fixed abode and the family isn’t there – that’s the hard thing.”

Gallacher, who was accompanied by his wife, Helen, at last night’s Tour Players’ Awards at a Heathrow hotel, is not back in the States until the US Open, before which he is off to Royal County Down for the Irish Open, then Sweden for the Nordea Masters.

“You don’t feel you are actually playing that many events in a row when you can get here on a Tuesday and then get home on a Sunday night to do normal things like taking the dog for a walk,” he added. “When you get two nights’ sleep in your own kip, you don’t feel as tired. I think that’s the key to being refreshed.”

It has either been feast or famine for Gallacher in the Tour’s flagship event over the past decade. He finished fourth in 2010 and was fifth 12 months ago but has missed the cut the other eight times. “You have to be on your game to do well round here,” he said. “If you are struggling, it shows up a lot.”