John Catlin has admitted there’s “a lot of hard work to be done” over the remaining two weeks on the Asian Tour and The International Series to finally finish number one on both.
It all starts with the US$2.5 million International Series Qatar at Doha Golf Club and concludes next week at the US$5 million PIF Saudi International powered by SoftBank Investment Advisers.
Catlin surprisingly missed the cut at last week’s Link Hong Kong Open, a result that had a big impact on The International Series Rankings race.
The American now holds a slim 82.95 lead on Ben Campbell, after the New Zealander closed the gap by finishing second while defending his Link Hong Kong Open title last week.
This week in Qatar, 450 points are available to the winner while the champion will earn 1,000 points next week in Saudi, meaning the race for a place on the LIV Golf League next season is still literally wide open.
Catlin is determined to seal the deal over the next two weeks, as he said: “For LIV Golf, having played there this year, having seen that, it gives me an enormous goal to try and win The International Series Rankings."
This week, the American could potentially complete the first part of his mission and claim the Asian Tour Order of Merit - a far easier feat compared with topping The International Series Rankings.
He leads the Merit list on 3,030.06 points, with his nearest challenger, second-placed Richard T. Lee from Canada, trailing by the large margin of 1,245.81 points.
To put things into perspective, this week’s winner will earn 787.5 points, while 427.5 points goes to the player in second, meaning a good finish by Catlin and other results going his way will see him crowned Asian Tour number one for the first time, with too much of a gap to overcome in Saudi next week.
“It would mean so much to win the Asian Tour Order of Merit as this is where it all started for me,” said Catlin – a six-time winner on the Asian Tour, two of those coming this season.
“It has been a special year. I have done a lot of great things. I have two more weeks to go and hopefully I can do a few more great things and clinch both the Asian Tour and International Series titles.
“It would be really, really, special but there’s a lot of hard work to be done.”
The International Series is the most prized pathway in golf. It consists of 10 elite tournaments sanctioned by the Asian Tour and offers the year-long Rankings leader promotion to the LIV Golf League
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