Four tournaments loom for Shropshire golf professional

Farr, from Ludlow, endured a disappointing European Tour debut earlier this month when he missed the cut in the Alfred Dunhill Championships in South Africa.

But he will be back in the same country next month to resume his campaign in the top tier of European golf at The South African Open Championship in Johannesburg.

The tournament runs from January 8-11 and Farr said: "I'm always practising and keeping my game in check, so even though it is the Christmas and New Year period I will still be getting the clubs out.

"I have been practising or playing every day. My main aim this year is to secure a top-110 finish to keep my tour card for next year, and if I want to be ready to go in January I have got to keep my game intact.

"I have never played tournaments in January before and last year on the Challenge Tour we didn't start until later in the year, so I had a few weeks off where I was playing but not practising as much."

Farr returned to Ludlow Golf Club yesterday for a practice game as part of his preparations.

He said: "My next event starts on January 8 back in South Africa to start a four-week spell of competitions."

The South African Open Championship will be followed by the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship (January 15-18), the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters (January 21-24) and the Omega Dubai Desert Classic (January 29-February 1).

Farr added: "The week in South Africa was great. I would have liked to have made the cut, but it was good to be out there.

"The course was great too, the set-up was as you would expect a European Tour course to be with longer rough, underrated greens and getting firmer as the week went on.

"My game was good in spells but a few sloppy errors cost me."