Open winner Shane Lowry is hoping that his decision to skip last week's Nedbank Challenge in South Africa will help his bid to win the Race to Dubai title this week.
The Offaly man sits fourth on the order of merit standings heading into the season-ending DP World Tour Championship where he'll look to overtake Jon Rahm, Bernd Wiesberger and Tommy Fleetwood.
The last five weeks have been hectic with tournaments in Japan, China and Turkey playing competitive golf, all the traveling and the different time zones took its toll a little bit," Lowry wrote in his Paddy Power column this week.
"It showed in my game in Turkey as my mind and my body just weren’t in sync. It proved that I needed to take a break, so I decided to swerve South Africa last week and just concentrate on Dubai this week. I’ve been here over a week now to get ready for it, the family are here, we’ve had a bit of R&R in between, so it’s all good.
"All I need now is one last push and to go out there and to try to do my best on a course I’ve had some good results at over the years. When looked at the schedule after my Open Championship win, I knew I needed to be rested going into this week.
I finished second to Jon Rahm here in 2017, have posted a couple more Top 10s and shot a 63 in the final round a couple of years ago. It’s a course that I like and have good memories of and it’s always great to be playing big tournaments especially on the European Tour.
I’m just looking forward to putting the head down, giving it my best shot and hopefully ending what’s already been an incredible season on a high."
