Richard McEvoy is confident he can prevail once again against a world class field as he defends his title at the Porsche European Open.
The Englishman went into the final day at Green Eagle Golf Courses last summer locked together at the top of the leaderboard with American Ryder Cup star Bryson DeChambeau, and birdied the last to win his maiden European Tour title at the 285th attempt.
Up until that point in the season he was yet to claim a top ten - although he had won the previous week on the European Challenge Tour - and he tees it up this week sat at 180th on the Race to Dubai Rankings Presented by Rolex.
The 40-year-old is not discouraged by his 2019 form, however, and feels confident he can once again take down a field that this year contains 2018 Masters Tournament Champion Patrick Reed, European Ryder Cup star Paul Casey and World Number Nine Xander Schauffele.
"It's great to be back somewhere that I really enjoyed last year with my first victory on Tour," he said. "It put a smile on my face straight away as soon as I turned up here, knowing that I was coming back to somewhere I had great feelings from last year.
"This year hasn't been the year that I had hoped for so far. I've had slight injury problems and stuff which haven't haven't helped but it's nice to come back somewhere and get some good feelings and good vibes to try and help turn my year around.
"I didn't really have that great a ranking last year coming into this event and I turned it around quite nicely and just missed out on Dubai at the end of the year. That is my goal still, to try and get into those final three events and try and reach Dubai.
"That run of events I had last year where I won three weeks in a row - one of them was a pro-am and then I won on the Challenge Tour and stepped up to here - that gave me massive amounts of confidence that I can beat the top players in the world when I do play good golf and my best golf.
"Golf is one of those games where if you do play your best you can win tournaments, especially out here. The standard of golf is so high on the European Tour that anyone who tees it up can win if everything goes your way that week. It's just having the self belief and the confidence to try and get back to where I was last year."
