'It is an achievable goal' - Scottish golfer sets sights on DP World Tour step up

The 28-year-old was delighted after rounding off the circuit’s four-event South African Swing by finishing joint-ninth alongside compatriot Daniel Young in the NTT Data Pro-Am at Fancourt on Sunday.

It was Lumsden’s third top-ten finish in 46 appearances on the DP World Tour’s feeder circuit and, slowly but surely, he is starting to make proper headway in his bid to secure a step up to the main tour.

“A really solid week with some great positive signs,” said the London-born Scot of carding four rounds in the 60s over three courses at the George venue to finish on 16 under par.

Along with everyone else in the field, Lumsden couldn’t get close to Wilco Nienaber as the big-hitting South African landed the title for a second time, but, in finishing alongside Daniel van Tonder, a back-to-back winner at the start of the run of events in the Rainbow Nation, it was definitely a confidence-boosting performance.

“It does, yeah,” he admitted with a smile. “Historically, the strength of my game has been my ball-striking and I’ve needed some slight improvements in my putting and short game.

“I’ve just worked so hard on that in this off-season and it wasn’t quite there the first few events. But I’ve put in hours and hours after the rounds in those events and then every day before this event and it really started to pay off.

“This wasn’t actually my best ball-striking week, to be honest. I didn’t quite have it. I wasn’t quite in as much control of the ball as I would have liked to be, but the scrambling and the putting really kind of held it together.

“I wish I could have made a few more coming in as I had three or four short ones that could have dropped, but you can’t expect to make every putt and they were good putts.”

Lumsden, who had an eye-catching spell at Northwestern University under head coach David Inglis, finished 95th from 18 starts in 2023 in the Road to Mallorca Rankings then 68th from 17 appearances last season. On the back of this effort, he jumped 42 spots to 34th and is determined to get himself in the thick of the battle for 20 DP World Tour cards.

“The plan remains absolutely unchanged,” he declared. “It’s to get to a number of points where we don’t have to worry about getting that promotion spot as fast as possible. Every week I’ll be trying to rack up points as quickly as we can. The only goal this season is to get on the DP World Tour and I feel that it is an achievable goal.

“I have put in a lot of really hard work this off season and I am starting to see some of the fruits of that labour. Really excited for how we have kicked this season off and excited to get going again soon, so it will be fun.”

After a short break, the next phase of the Hotel Planner Tour schedule is a double-header in India - the Kolkata Challenge in West Bengal followed by the Delhi Challenge in Gurugram.

“I’ll be chilling out for a few days when I get home then get back to work,” he said. “Yeah, get recovered but when the time comes to get back working again, I’ll get a decent practice plan in place and get back in the gym and make sure everything is taken care of in terms of all the angles.

“Yeah, I’ll get ready to go again in India because I want to be competing every week I tee it up and hard work is the way to do that. So nothing changes for me.”

Despite missing the cut and dropping three spots in the rankings, it’s been a promising return so far for David Law on the Hotel Planner Tour as he bids to secure an instant return to the DP World Tour.

Young, meanwhile, sits 19th on the back of successive top-ten finishes, with Calum Fyfe one spot above Lumsden, who admitted it had been a real treat to be back at Fancourt, which is widely regarded as one of the top golf resorts in the world.

“I really enjoy playing there and being able to come down to South Africa early in the season and get some golf played against some top-level competition before we get started in Europe is a real pleasure,” he said.

“The courses are beautiful and the quality of Fancourt is amazing. I’ve heard stories for years about how amazing this place is and, yeah, it is very special. We are very lucky to play there.“