WHILE Justin Rose was preparing to make his Masters debut last week, the last Hampshire golfer to tread the hallowed fairways of Augusta was writing a sad letter to the European PGA withdrawing from the Algarve Portuguese Open.

For Steve Richardson it was a tough decision turning his back on an event he won so gloriously in his own heyday back in 1991.

The man from Lee-on-Solent was as much a revelation as Rose is today. His victory in Portugal came just weeks after he had triumphed in the Girona Open in Spain.

The big hitter was being hailed as the new Seve Ballesteros, but like the great man himself, Rico hit the slippery slope in the late 1990s and now, after missing out on his European Tour card for the last two years, he admits: "It would be a waste of time playing in Portugal. As a former winner there I get an exemption each year but there's no point in going unless I can compete. So far this winter I haven't done enough to justify it.

"I've been practising and pottering around my garden in Hayling Island but when the South Region PGA Tour opens up at Old Thorns next month I'll start to play again. There are around about a dozen tournaments in the region and I'll play a few Hampshire PGA events too.

"The guys are good players, you need to shoot good scores to win and if I can start competing again then I might go the German Masters later in the summer."

The German Masters gave Richardson his third and last European Tour victory in 1993.