Pressure on Finch in bid to retain his Tour card

And nowhere will that contrast be more stark than in the fates of two Yorkshire golfers.

Richard Finch contests the Perth International needing a minimum of a top-three finish from the final regular season event to retain his card for a 10th season on the European Tour.

Conversely, John Parry faces an anxious wait this week and the next two weeks in the hope that no more than three players overtake him on the Race to Dubai standings, or else his season is over.

While Parry joins Simon Dyson and Danny Willett in hoping for a slice of the biggest financial pie in European Tour history in the coming weeks, the ambition for Finch is considerably more modest.

After what has been a season of frustration, the 36-year-old has left himself needing to exceed anything he has managed in the past 18 months to preserve his status on Tour.

Finch needs to make up a deficit of 26 places and 80,000 euros (£67,552) to reach the top 110 and retain full playing privileges for next season.

Given he has not recorded one top-10 finish all year and his last third-place came in April 2012, that would appear highly unlikely.

Finch has shown flashes at times of the form that has kept him on the Tour for nine years, but rounds in the 60s have been sparse.

Indeed the 64 he shot on the first day of the opening tournament of the season, the Nelson Mandela Championship in South Africa in December, was as good as it got. To inspire him this week, Finch can reflect on the similar 
scenario he found himself in six years ago.

On that occasion he went into the Mallorca Classic needing a top-10 finish to secure his card for the following season and 
duly placed seventh.

That performance precipitated his best year on Tour as within five weeks he had kicked off the 2008 campaign with his first victory in New Zealand.

Later that season he also won in Ireland, en route to a career-best 20th-place finish on the order of merit.

If he fails in his mission this week, Finch will have to make do with limited status and tournament invites next year, while filling his schedule by playing events on the Challenge Tour. Unless, that is, he can safely negotiate the six rounds of qualifying school in Spain next month, a route he took onto the European Tour way back in 2004.

Also facing a similar predicament to Finch in Perth are Richard Bland, former European Tour rookie of the year Peter Lawrie, former Walker Cup player Oliver Fisher, and two ex-Ryder Cup players in Denmark’s Soren Hansen and Wales’s Phillip Price.

There will also be anxious times over the coming weeks for 26-year-old Parry, of Harrogate, whose fate is in the hands of others. He is 74th on the money list and has opted not to travel to Australia for this week’s tournament.

After Perth, the Tour’s inaugural Final Series – which is the circuit’s answer to America’s FedEx Cup – swings into action in China.

More than £19m is in the prize pot for the final quartet of events that culminates in the season-ending Dubai World Championship, with a further $3.75m (£2.34m) in a bonus prize pool also available for those who reach Dubai.

For the first three tournaments, two in Shanghai and then the penultimate event in Turkey, 78 players will be in the field, comprising the top 50 in the world, tournament invites and the rest made up from the Race to Dubai standings.

As it stands now, Parry is eighth reserve for next week’s BMW Masters in Shanghai, and not in the field for the WGC-HSBC Champions event in the same city the following week.

He is however, currently exempt to play at the inaugural Turkish Airlines Open from November 7, because only 17 of the top 50 – including world No 1 Tiger Woods – are signed up for that event. With invites and other exemptions, the field for Turkey is currently open to players as low as 77 on the Race to Dubai, meaning Parry will be hoping that no more than three players overtake him in the next three weeks, otherwise his season is over.

Sheffield’s Willett and Malton’s Dyson face equal uncertainty, though they will at least taste some action in the opening three weeks of the Final Series.

Dyson, 35, at 64th in the world, is currently the last man in the field for next week’s BMW Masters, while Willett, at 70 on the order of merit, is listed as fifth reserve.

Willett – who is playing in Perth this week – is in the field for the third event in Turkey, along with Dyson, and has a cushion of four places on Parry.

All three could win enough money in however many tournaments they get into, to reach the top 60 in time for the Dubai World Championship on November 14, an event which has a prize pool of $8m (£5m).