France’s Victor Perez will defend the KLM Open title he received in wonderful style final 12 months as he bids to spice up his Ryder Cup possibilities.
Perez beat Ryan Fox on the fourth gap of a sudden-death play-off 12 months in the past, Fox having run up a double-bogey seven on the 72nd gap.
Fox twice had one hand on the trophy when he birdied the primary and third further holes – the par-five 18th – just for Perez to gap from 15 and 30 ft respectively to remain alive.
Perez then holed one other lengthy putt for birdie when the motion switched to the seventeenth and it was no shock {that a} shellshocked Fox then missed his shorter try.
That was Perez’s sole victory in 2022, however he completed third within the Italian Open at this 12 months’s Ryder Cup venue and began this season with a win in Abu Dhabi.
Another prime 10 within the Italian Open earlier this month and a tie for twelfth in final week’s US PGA Championship have helped Perez transfer into the automated qualifying locations for the European Ryder Cup workforce as he bids to safe a debut within the biennial occasion.
“One of the mistakes I made for Whistling Straits (in 2021) was I was in a similar position, inside the world’s top 50, so I had the opportunity to play in America, but then you don’t have the opportunity to score points on the European Points List,” Perez mentioned.
Perez was ninth within the Players Championship in 2021 and reached the semi-finals of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, however missed the reduce in 5 of his subsequent six begins to slide out of the qualifying locations.
“It’s tricky because it didn’t work last time and it doesn’t mean that because I’m playing in Europe it means I’m going to make the team,” he added. “It might not work.
“At the end of the day, it’s just about playing well and elevating your game when the deadline approaches.”
Perez can also be third on the present Race to Dubai rankings, with the highest 10 gamers on the finish of the season, who aren’t in any other case exempt, incomes a PGA Tour card.
It is a controversial innovation which has led to accusations that the DP World Tour is changing into a “feeder tour” to the PGA Tour as a part of its strategic alliance with the US-based circuit, however Perez is in favour.
“I’ve heard that people say that 10 people are going to go so the DP World Tour are going to lose their stars,” the 30-year-old mentioned.
“You can agree or disagree, but I still feel like there are guys who are going to lose their cards in America. They’re going to think they’d much rather play in Europe for two or three million every week rather than going to the Korn Ferry Tour because they can get 10 spots again.
“There are those players who are going to thrive, then there’s those players who come back. You still play for great money, whether people want to complain or not.
“You’re still playing for millions of dollars, every week, travelling the world, playing golf. It’s not like your life is difficult, relatively.
“It’s always easy to be like, ‘Oh they’re playing for USD 25million in America’. If you are to go over there then you’re playing against better competition, you still make no money for missing the cut even though it says USD 25m at the start of the week.”
