David Drysdale. Asian Tour
David Drysdale will be looking to use local knowledge and 21 years of DP World Tour experience to his advantage at this week’s International Series England and in the St Andrews Bay Championship the following week.
At 48 years of age the Scot is revelling being a rookie on the Asian Tour, having negotiated the Qualifying School in January, and now has the added bonus of competing in two events on his home patch: Close House, in Newcastle, and Fairmont St Andrews, north of the border.
He is one of only a few Asian Tour members to have played both courses in tournament conditions on the DP World Tour in recent years and is hoping to capitalise on the opportunity.
“Yes, it’s cool. I never thought when I went to Q school in January that I’d end up playing two events close to home,” said Drysdale, who lives near Dunbar, in Scotland. “And funnily enough I live right in the middle, 90 minutes from Close House and 90 minutes from Fairmont St Andrews. So, a little bit too far to travel [and stay at home] but yeah, really looking forward to it. I can’t wait.”
Drysdale carded a final-round 67 to secure his Asian Tour card by one shot at the Qualifying School and has impressed on Tour, particularly in the World City Championship at the Hong Kong Golf Cub, where he tied for ninth.
It follows a well-documented marathon career on the DP World Tour — where he competed from 2002 to 2022, playing 575 events.
Events at Close House, on the Colts Course being played this week, are included in that monumental figure.
He said: “I played the British Masters [at Close House] first in 2017, and then again as one of the first events back in the UK after COVID in July 2020. It’s a nice golf course with a lot of undulation change.”
Drysdale has played three DP World Tour events at Fairmont St Andrews: the Scottish Championship in 2020 and the Hero Open in 2021 and 2022, and will be up to date on what to expect with the course condition as he went on a scouting trip there a few weeks ago.
“Yeah, I played it on a pretty terrible day, Tuesday a few weeks ago, it was like 12 degrees, raining and a two-and-a-half club wind,” he said.
“You call it a links course, but it’s on the cliffs, sort of 10 minutes east of St Andrews, on the coastline. There’s only a couple of holes that are actually really on the coast, but it has like an inland feel. Turf wise, it’s not like links sandy turf. It’s pretty wide off the tee, big greens, gets pretty windy. It’s very exposed, I mean the back of 16, two yards over the 16th green, there’s a wall and probably a 200-foot drop down into the sea. Yeah, looking forward to it, it’s an absolute bonus for me getting a card at the Asian Tour Q-School and having two events virtually on my doorstep.”
Drysdale has his of wife, manager and caddie Victoria back on the bag this week, after a recent foot issue meant she was missing at Indonesia Open, two weeks ago.
“She’s actually had plantar fasciitis in the right foot, so she had an injection a few weeks ago, cortisone, and seemingly that takes that away,” explained the Scot. “She’s feeling an awful lot better. She decided to miss Indonesia, just to give herself some more rest, a couple more weeks.”
Drysdale has unfinished business on Tour. Without a win on the DP World Tour, where he finished second on four occasions, coming closest in the 2020 Commercial Bank Qatar Masters, where he lost a sudden-death play-off, he is looking to rectify that by winning on the Asian Tour.
He said: “There are a lot of good players out here on the Asian Tour, there’s a lot of guys that have played on the European Tour in the past, so they’ve got a lot of experience of doing that as well. But I guess I have a little bit of home advantage …”
