SAM TORRANCE WORKS ON FITNESS TO END NO-WIN SPELL

FROM THE EUROPEAN TOUR WEBSITE
Sam Torrance this season marks 40 years since his maiden professional title and after two campaigns without tasting victory, the Scot is determined to return to winning ways in 2012.
The 2002 Ryder Cup-winning captain plans to end his lean spell by getting leaner himself, spending the close-season working on his fitness, as well as his game, in an effort to recapture the form that helped him win three Senior Tour Order of Merits and 11 Senior Tour titles.
Torrance turns 59 in August and while he admits achieving success on the course becomes harder with age, he hopes some good old fashioned hard work will help him to prolong his competitive days on the Senior Tour.
“I’ve been very mediocre for two years now but I’m looking forward to the 2012 season and trying to get a bit fitter over the winter period,” said Torrance, whose maiden professional victory came at the 1972 Radici Open in Italy.
“I’ve got plenty of time until the new season starts to get myself in shape. It’s getting harder now I’m getting closer to 60 but if ever I was going to do it now is the time.”
A glimpse of the form of old came when he signed off the 2011 campaign in style with a superb final round 66 in the MCB Tour Championship to finish fourth – his joint best result of the campaign alongside the Van Lanschot Senior Open.
His performance in Mauritius ensured Torrance maintained his record of finishing inside the top 20 on the Order of Merit in each of his eight full seasons on the Senior Tour since 2004.
However it was the first time that the 21-time European Tour champion has been outside the top ten since that rookie campaign.
Since last lifting the John Jacobs Trophy in 2009, Torrance has watched two of the ‘younger crop’, Thailand’s Boonchu Ruangkit and last year’s champion Australian Peter Fowler, succeed him as Senior Tour Number One but the Scot is characteristically resolute that he will challenge once again in the new campaign.
“It was a great effort by Peter to win the Order of Merit last year,” said Torrance. “He’s a great guy and one of the hardest workers you will find out on Tour. I was disappointed not to win a title again myself but hopefully I can get another victory in 2012. It gets harder each year on the Senior Tour as you get older though.”
Among the highlights of the 2012 season for Torrance will be a return to his native west coast of Scotland when The Senior Open Championship visits Turnberry from July 26-29.
The eight time Ryder Cup player last embarked on a sustained fitness crusade when The Senior Open Championship visited another of his ‘home’ courses – Sunningdale - in 2009.
It paid dividends then as Torrance finished fifth on that occasion, before going on to win his third Senior Tour Order of Merit, and he is relishing the chance to play at another of his favourite venues.
“I’m really looking forward to The Senior Open at Turnberry,” he said. “Aesthetically it is one of the most beautiful looking courses in the world, in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, and it is a great golf course.
“The Senior Open is always special, no matter where it is played, but it is extra special when it is played in Scotland. I’m from that area – I was born about an-hour-and-a-half from Turnberry – so it will be special.”