DUNCAN STEWART CHSING EUROPEAN TOUR DREAM THIS WEEK

PREVIEW FROM EUROPEAN TOUR COMMUNICATIONS

Duncan Stewart is chasing The 

European Tour dream this week 

as the Scot enters the European 

Challenge Tour’s season-ending 

Dubai Festival City Challenge 

Tour Grand Final hosted by Al 

Badia Golf Club in need of a 

strong finish to claim one of the 

15 cards available.

The cream of the 2013 Challenge 

Tour crop descend upon the 

splendid Al Badia Golf Club by InterContinental this week as they 

battle it out to finish top 15 in the Rankings and seal graduation to 

The 2014 Race to Dubai.

While everybody in the field has a chance of achieving the feat this 

week, including compatriots Andrew McArthur and Jamie 

McLeary, Stewart is one of those within touching distance as he sits 

two places outside the cut-off point in 17^th - the highest-placed Scot.

The Grantown-on-Spey man is relishing the challenge, and is 

just hoping he can put his fate in his own hands and not have to 

worry about the performance of others around him in the 

Rankings.

“It might depend on what other people do,” said the 29 year 

old who played alongside Russell Knox on the US college circuit for 

four successful years as a student at Jacksonville University, Florida. 

"But I would say I need to finish top six or seven to have a 

chance. It's not going to be easy because you’ve got 44 players out 

there  who have been playing well all year, so I'd imagine the 

scoring will be quite good but if I can go out there and just be in 

contention and  treat it like just another week, hopefully at the end it 

will be enough.

“I probably know the course better than anybody else that’s played 

it because I've played here eight times before I even arrived this 

week. I played two mini-tour events here in the past year and one of 

those was just a few weeks ago.

“I know the course and I've played in all kind of conditions so I've 

got a slight advantage there. I just have to go out and play well.

“You never know in this game, you just have to see what happens 

but I'm playing well. I played really well the first day last week but I 

was disappointed with the weekend.

“There’s no reason why I can’t go out here this week and get a high 

finish. The goal for me for most of the season was just to get this 

tournament but obviously after Kazakhstan the goals shifted slightly. 

I’ll be disappointed if I don’t finish top 15 but in the bigger 

picture, it’s been a really good season.

“A win is all that’s lacking this year to be honest and that’s the 

hardest thing to do out here. There are not many guys have won but 

I just need to see how things go this week.”

Italian Andrea Pavan, a former winner of the Grand Final, sits atop 

the Rankings heading into the season-ender, but he will not be 

sitting easy as a number of ambitious young guns and experienced 

older heads attempt to steal his thunder and finish top of the pile.

EUROPEAN TOUR COMMUNICATIONS