Francesco Molinari has set his sights on a second Rolex Series victory after "finally" getting his hands on the BMW PGA Championship title last season.
The Italian had finished second in 2017 at Wentworth Golf Club - with four other top tens since 2012 - before he held off the challenge of Rory McIlroy to at last get his hands on the trophy at the European Tour's flagship event.
He followed that with another impressive Rolex Series showing at the Italian Open and claimed a win on the US PGA Tour before lifting the Claret Jug with a maiden Major victory at The Open Championship.
Not content with individual success, Molinari went on to become the first European to claim five points out of five - including the winning point - at the Ryder Cup and he admits it all started in Surrey.
"This week has always been special to me, even before last year, but obviously last year made it extra, extra special," he said.
"Beautiful memories. The duel with Rory on Sunday and finally getting my hands on the trophy and, obviously, that gave me a lot of confidence for the coming months after that.
"I had been in a similar position to last year here without being able to close the tournament out. It just gave me a lot of confidence.
"I was watching a video yesterday of the last few holes on Sunday and you could see I was uncomfortable in that position. I think that was the first step forward to getting more comfortable in leading a tournament and closing it out.
"The win in the States obviously helped even more going into The Open, which gave me even more confidence then going into The Ryder Cup.
"I'm sure when I stop playing I'll reflect on last year as an amazing year but especially those three months - May, June, July. It would be hard to be honest for me to reproduce. Obviously I'll work as hard as I can to do it but I know I've set a pretty high standard."
While Molinari may have a remarkable record at Wentworth, he will be facing a different challenge this year with the event having moved from May to September.
The calendar switch may change the conditions over the West Course but Molinari is not worried and is looking forward to playing in front of bumper crowds.
"It will be interesting to see the course in the new date," he added. "I think being after the summer it would be firmer, probably, than most years we've seen in May.
"The weather looks beautiful for the next few days. So hopefully the crowds will be as big, if not bigger, than what we were getting in May and it will be another special week for everyone."
