Oliver Wilson hopes this week's Johnnie Walker Championship can finally provide him with a first tournament victory.
Englishman desperate to end title drought at Gleneagles
Oliver Wilson hopes this week's Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles can finally provide him with a first professional tournament victory.
The 28-year-old Englishman is the highest-ranked player taking part at Gleneagles this week, and the world number 44 feels it offers him a great chance to break his tournament duck.
Wilson finished in tenth last year at Gleneagles - a result which sealed his place in the European Ryder Cup team for Valhalla.
Despite playing well enough to make his Ryder Cup debut, Wilson is still now searching for a first victory after finishing as a runner up eight times.
Wilson was the first player ever to make it into Europe's side without first winning a title, has already earned another £1million this season and is ninth on the European Tour money list, but he is still desperate to break his winning drought.
Right track
"I'm feeling pretty good about my game, everything is on the right track," Wilson said on his website.
"I feel like I have a great opportunity to win, but I know I need to go out there with low expectation. If I grind it out hopefully that'll be enough for one of the tournaments."
The Mansfield man has proven he can handle the big stage, with top 25 finishes in the last three majors, and top 11 of all three World Golf Championship events so far this year.
A return to Gleneagles brings back memories of 12 months ago, when he entered the event in the 10th and last automatic spot in the Ryder Cup race and an opening 76 left him staring a missed cut in the face.
However, he produced an eagle and two birdies in the last 10 holes of his second round to survive by the skin of his teeth, before finishing tenth while closest challengers Martin Kaymer, Ross Fisher and Nick Dougherty could not do what they needed to do to overtake him on the points table.
Proud
"I'm very proud of myself," he said at the time. "That's the best I've played in a long time. It could have been all over, so to do what I did I'm pretty pleased.
"At least it's proved to people that I can do it when I really need to do it. For some reason I need to put myself under pressure to perform at my best.
"I've tried not to think about it too much to be honest, but the last couple of nights I've been waking up about three in the morning with quite a few things going through my head."
At Valhalla he had to wait until the second morning before Nick Faldo called on him. Henrik Stenson was his foursomes partner and from four down they came back to beat Phil Mickelson and Anthony Kim with Wilson's dramatic 30-foot birdie putt on the 17th.
Left out again from the afternoon fourballs he had to take on a pumped-up Boo Weekley in the singles and the American won, but Wilson still regarded it as the greatest experience of his golfing life so far.
How winning will compare he does not know - but he hopes to find out soon.
