Paul Lawrie had to weigh up which was the rarer a Ryder Cup in Scotland or his beloved Aberdeen in a cup final.
He’s decided that it’s clearly the Ryder Cup, and that he can’t spare the weekend that the Dons take on Inverness Caley Thistle in the Scottish League Cup final at Celtic Park on March 16 because he needs to go to the Trophee Hassan in Morocco in search of qualifying points.
“Obviously it’s not great to be pulling out of a golf event in Ryder Cup year if your football team is in a cup final, but they haven’t been in many cup finals,” he pointed out.
“So I’m tempted, but I think I’ll probably go to Morocco. If you want to get in that team for Gleneagles, you kind of need to play golf and not go to cup finals.”
And Lawrie knows that he’s behind the eight ball now in making Paul McGinley’s team, having not been able to force a win in the Desert Swing despite decent performances in Qatar and Dubai.
Slipping outside the world’s top 50 means that the benefits of a regular schedule with lucrative tournaments he had in his successful points chase in 2012 are now not open to him.
“The other thing is, if I don’t play Morocco, that could be eight or nine weeks without a tournament, which is clearly not good,” he said. “I’d play Malaysia, China and the Spanish Open and from there it’s a great run for me.
“At this time of year, if you’re not in the top 50, the schedule is a bit up in the air. I’m trying to get invitations into a couple of PGA Tour events, Houston, Texas or maybe Bay Hill but it’s a bit early for them just now.”
He met McGinley in Abu Dhabi when the European skipper had said he’d hoped Lawrie would have had more points by this stage.
“At the moment a wildcard is my best bet, yes,” he continued. “You can’t see I’ll earn enough or play well enough to get there automatically but who knows what’s coming up? There are a lot big tournaments coming up in the summer the Open for instance. If you knock that off, then who knows?
“My goal is to make sure Paul has a bit of headache with me. I want him to see me as a valuable pick, I need to get my game going well before the Open to show him that I’m worth one.
“If I can win one big event in the summer and he’s got three picks? I’ve got to be worth an outside shout of it.”
Lawrie knows full well what his main problem is, and will spend much time at a new indoor putting green he’s had installed at his golf centre on the south bank of the Dee, just outside Aberdeen.
“Last weekend at Dubai is good as I’ve played, but couldn’t get the ball in hole,” he said. “Thirty-two and 34 putts, you can’t compete with these boys with that amount.
“I feel close to putting it right, but I’ve been saying that for a while.”