Max Schmitt has been steadily building momentum over the past few weeks and comes into the Hopps Open de Provence on the right trajectory for a breakthrough week.
The German will take to Golf International de Pont Royal fresh off a tied-23rdplace finish at the Bridgestone Challenge and a tied- 26thplace showing at last week’s Kazakhstan Open presented by ERG.
While the results may not jump off the page, it is clear that Schmitt possesses both the ability and the demeanour to contend for European Challenge Tour titles.
“My game feels very good,” he said. “I struggled over the last two months, but I’ve been getting it back. I’m putting well right now and driving it very well. I’ve just not signed for a low number on the scorecard yet, but that’s just a matter of time.”
After recording a disappointing double-bogey on the 72ndhole of last week’s lucrative Kazakhstan Open presented by ERG, Schmitt brushed off the disappointment with an appreciation for the direction he is trending in.
“I’m just trying to play good right now, that’s all that matters,” he said. “The last month my game wasn’t sharp, and I was kind of struggling to make cuts. “So it’s very nice to see that I’m playing good again. It was unfortunate with the way I finished on my last hole in Kazakhstan, but that’s golf isn’t it?”
At only 20 years old, and in his first full-season as a professional, Schmitt is still very much learning the ropes, a process that he believes is being accelerated with the help of some of his more veteran countrymen competing with him on the Challenge Tour.
“I’m travelling a lot with Christian Braeunig and Nicolai von Dellingshausen, so we’re always talking about different things,” he said. “With it being my first year as a pro, I’m not really expecting too much. They remind me that I might still be too young to be playing on the European Tour, but they also encourage me by telling me that I will learn all the little things in time and come to understand how everything goes.”
One of the many things that a touring professional must learn is how to acclimatise to the thousands of air miles that are logged each season and manage the toll that travelling from Kazakhstan to France, for instance, can take on the body.
“That part is actually fun, because I’m travelling together with some of the Germans on Tour, so it’s not so boring on the flight and I don’t have a huge problem with going from one place to another,” he said. “The biggest thing each week is to get my back sorted. It gets stiff from all the travel, so you have to get it fixed, but that’s not a huge problem because we have great physiotherapists on the Challenge Tour, and they make it very easy to get back to feeling good.”
With only four events left before the Ras Al Khaimah Challenge Tour Grand Final, it would be easy for any player to obsess over his position on the Road to Ras Al Khaimah.
For now, Schmitt is simply excited to continue the upward trend.
“I’m really looking forward to this week, and I’m not really focusing too much on the Rankings,” he said. “I’m trying to maintain the momentum of right now because I know that it can change very quickly.”
The Hopps Open de Provence in Mallemort, France is the 24thevent on the season-long Road to Ras Al Khaimah and will run from September 20-23.
