ROSS FISHER has played 1658 holes chasing a Ryder Cup debut over the past year.
But with two weeks to go, what a difference it could make if he was allowed to play just two of them again.
The European Open champion goes into his defence of the KLM Open in Holland tomorrow 13th in the points race and, if he can win the title a
t Kennemer again, he could leap to eighth.
Ten players after next week's Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles automatically qualify for Nick Faldo's team, with the captain then adding two wild cards.
Fisher would already be well clear in eighth and have the champagne corks popping, though, if he had just bogeyed the final hole of both the HSBC Champions event in Shanghai last November and The Open last month.
In the first of those, the 27-year-old from Wentworth was leading Phil Mickelson by one with one to play and when the American went in the water on the closing par five it looked all over.
However, Fisher chipped over the green into the lake, ran up a double-bogey seven and lost the play-off. It cost him more than 275,000 Ryder Cup points.
Come Royal Birkdale and he would have finished seventh if he parred the last, and 16th if he had bogeyed it, but a quadruple-bogey eight sent him all the way down to 39th.
A par was worth more than 100,000 points. He took just 20,830.
So now that first cap has still to be earned, but at least he is back at a course that revives great memories – his first European Tour victory a year ago.
There was drama before he got his hands on the trophy, even after he had birdied the final hole from eight feet to pip young Dutchman Joost Luiten by one.
Fisher, having three-putted the 16th and 17th for bogeys, had to return to the 12th hole to prove to officials he had not broken a rule by lifting some bramble, the incident then being checked out on video before he was cleared of any wrongdoing.
A spectator had raised the matter and Fisher said: "It was a thin strand and I went to move it because I thought it was a loose impediment.
"But when I realised it was attached I literally left it alone. They deemed it didn't improve my stance or my swing. I feel very fortunate."
Seven players – Padraig Harrington, Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia, Henrik Stenson, Robert Karlsson, Miguel Angel Jimenez and Graeme McDowell – are all set fair for Valhalla next month, but the remaining five are up for grabs.
In the race for the last three automatic spots Justin Rose, Oliver Wilson and Soren Hansen are the men Fisher and the others have to try to catch.
Rose, who has switched back from America to Europe to try to make sure of his debut, is paired with Wilson in the first two rounds.
Last season's European Tour number one is £45,555 ahead of Wilson, who in turn is £2,395 ahead of Hansen. The closest gap, though, is between Hansen and 11th-placed Martin Kaymer – a mere £213 separates them.
Rose can also influence Ian Poulter's bid to avoid needing a wild card.
Poulter decided to play in America this week to chase the world ranking points that would earn him one of the first five spots in Faldo's line-up.
A fourth-place finish at The Barclays should take him past the resting Karlsson – but only if Rose is not in the top two at Kennemer.
As for the two wild cards, Colin Montgomerie, Paul Casey, Darren Clarke and Paul McGinley are all now reliant on that way in.
Add Poulter, US Tour winner Carl Pettersson and possibly Rose, Kaymer or Fisher to that list and Faldo has plenty to think about.
The full article contains 660 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
