Lorenzo Scalise believes his game is fully equipped to deal with the step up to the DP World Tour after graduating from the Challenge Tour.
The Italian impressed throughout 2023, securing a maiden professional win on his way to a seventh place finish on the season-long Road to Mallorca Rankings.
Scalise’s win at the Kaskáda Golf Challenge in June came after he’d made a blistering start to the campaign, recording three top five finishes in a row across the South African and Indian swings.
The 28-year-old says his fine form at the beginning of the year gave him the confidence to go on and achieve promotion after four years on the Challenge Tour.
“I’ve been very consistent and I need to be proud of the way I’ve played,” he said. “Even though I missed the cut in the very first event, I made two top five finishes in South Africa, then followed that with a fourth in India. That gave me a lot of confidence.
“That showed me that I was on the right path with what I was working on. From there I kept putting myself in contention a lot. It was all about putting myself towards the top of leaderboard as many times as I could.
“The margins are very small in this sport. I want to be in contention on a Sunday as much as I can, and I think the win was a breakthrough. Mentally it felt really good because I’d been close several times before.”
Scalise, who finished 46th in the Rankings in 2021 and 45th in 2022, believes his time on the Challenge Tour has prepared him well for future success on the DP World Tour.
“I feel more ready for the DP World Tour than I’ve ever felt,” he said. “If I analyse my season, I’ve played well on a links course, I’ve played well on a long and wide course and I played well in India which was tree-lined and quite short.
“The variety of golf courses obviously helps to improve you as a golfer, and the fact I’ve had great performances on different types of courses has showed me that my game is well-rounded.
“The mental side of my game was better this year and I played much better off the tee. I analysed that with my coach and we saw that the previous year I was losing too many strokes off the tee. This year my driving has been the best part of my game.
“I feel like my game is now good enough in every aspect and I just need to go out and get some reps playing on the main tour and start to feel comfortable.”
Scalise will be hoping to kick-start his DP World Tour season in the new year having had a testing start to The Opening Swing, making one cut from three events in South Africa.
