Six-time European Tour winner Joost Luiten is looking forward to building on his early season performances when he tees it up at Diamond Country Club at this week’s Austrian Open.
The Dutchman found form in March with T10 and T21 finishes at the Oman Open and Commercial Bank Qatar Masters before the 2020 Race to Dubai was suspended due to the global coronavirus pandemic.
The dual-ranking European Tour and European Challenge Tour Austrian Open marks the restart of the season , with all events now governed by the European Tour’s comprehensive Health Strategy, which has been developed by Chief Medical Officer Dr Andrew Murray in consultation with healthcare specialists Cignpost and advisors in many of the 30 countries in which the European Tour plays.
“I started to play well at the last two events before the break,” said Luiten. “I was up the leaderboard two weeks in a row but couldn’t finish the job, but at least I was giving myself chances. It wasn’t great timing but, at the end of the day there’s nothing we could do, we had to accept it.
“It’ll be great to have these tournaments on again. We’ve been practicing without having any events on the schedule – it’s been a bit weird and you find it difficult to find the motivation. Now we’ve been able to get ready for tournaments there’s some adrenaline and excitement going.
“I’ve been trying to get my game back up to tournament level, so it’ll be good to see where it is. Practising is always different, but I feel as though I’m hitting the ball well, so I need to see how I do under pressure.”
During the break in the season, Luiten took part in the BMW Indoor Invitational powered by Trackman, a series of events which saw European Tour players compete on a virtual layout of some of the world’s most famous golf courses, all from the comfort of their own homes.
The 34-year-old won the first event on the Old Course at St Andrews and is hoping to carry that competitive edge into action this week.
“It’s always good fun to win something and play a bit of golf in these crazy times. When you enter a tournament or a game you always want to win, so it was great to win the first one. It’s just like these events, I’m hoping to play well and give myself a chance to win the tournament and finish it on Sunday.”
The Austrian Open will be followed by the Euram Bank Open at GC Adamstal, before the action moves to the Betfred British Masters presented by Lee Westwood, the first tournament of the new six-event UK Swing.
