Deal golfer Peter Wilson produced his best performance so far on the European Seniors Tour at the weekend.
Competing in the Paris Legends Championship at Le Golf National, the venue for next year’s Ryder Cup, Wilson won 9,450 Euros after finishing joint ninth with a four-under-par total of 212 – eight shots behind the winner, England’s Paul Broadhurst.
Playing his first season on the Seniors Tour after turning 50 in March, Wilson said: “I was struggling with my game after the British Seniors Open (in July) so I went out to South Africa for nine days last month to work with my coach Michael De Villiers and things went a lot better in Paris as a result.”
His performance has lifted the former Deal Town footballer to 38th place in the Seniors Tour Order of Merit and so boosted his chances of finishing in the top 30 this year, which will secure his tour card for 2018.
Wilson, who lives in Sandown Road, said: “I’ve really enjoyed the experience of playing on the Seniors Tour and I feel I can hit the ball as well as a lot of the guys out there. But many of them have been playing tournament golf for 20 or 30 years whereas I have only had the odd six months or so here and there. So it’s a learning process for me but in tournament golf you have to learn quickly otherwise you are out.”
He is competing in the Dutch Senior Masters in Spijk this week and will then round off his “debut year” by taking part in the European Senior Masters Championship in Coventry later this month followed by the MCB Senior Tour Championship in Mauritius in December.
He added: “When you are shooting low rounds and so playing alongside the better players your confidence does go up and hopefully what happened in Paris will be the start of better things to come.”