RICHARD BLAND takes a short trek up the A34 this week in one last push for the result that will secure his European Tour card for 2005.
The 31-year-old Stoneham golfer has been in the Challenge Tour top 15 for over two months and that's where he needs to stay if he is to jump back into Europe's big league.
Bland and the rest of the Challenge Tour hopefuls head for the Donnington Grove Country Club in Newbury on Thursday for the penultimate tournament of the 2004 season.
It's a brand new event but Bland will be in confident mood and no doubt lifted by the presence of many of his supporters, including his former Dibden boss Alan Bridge, who played such a major part in his golfing development when he was a youngster at the Waterside club.
After a memorable 2002 season in which he missed out to Soren Hansen in a play-off for the Murphy's Irish Open, Bland lost his magic touch last year and with it his European playing rights.
But he's bounced back in some style this summer with five top five finishes - his best result coming in July when he was second in French Challenge Tour Championship event at Golf des Volcans in Clermont Ferrand.
The six times Hampshire Open champion got his season off on the right footing with fourth place in the very first event, the Panama Masters, and has performed pretty solidly ever since.
He was hoping to safeguard his position in the top 15 in Portugal last week after producing his best form of the season in the third round of the Estoril Challenge where a course record 65 sent him soaring from 40th to fifth place.
But he couldn't keep it going in the last round, slipping back to 19th place with a closing 73.
It meant he only scraped together a little over 1,000 euros in prize money so he was on the road again last Thursday for the Moroccan Classic.
"I've just got to keep going, making sure I do enough to stay in the 15," said Bland, who has worked tirelessly getting his game back to something like where it was in 2002.
The last Challenge Tour event of the year, the Grand Final in Bordeaux on October 21, brings back happy memories for Bland.
It was there three years ago that he produced his best ever round, a 63, to win the event and clinch his place on the European Tour for the first time.
He's hoping that his card will be safely tucked away in his back pocket by the time he gets there this year.
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