Ryder Cup debut next on agenda for top-15 hope Dyson

Chubby Chandler says the bare minimum he expects of Simon Dyson in 2012 is for the Yorkshireman to make a Ryder Cup debut in September.

It is a bold claim considering such a feat has previously proven beyond the Malton man.

But on the back of the form Dyson has shown in the second half of this season, his manager Chandler – one of the most powerful figures in European golf – believes the 33-year-old’s rise up the rankings will eventually result in a maiden bow in the sport’s ultimate team contest.

Dyson is currently 31st in the world rankings following a top 10 at the Open, six top-six finishes on the European Tour and two wins.

The second of those victories – the third Dutch Open title of his career – came in only the second counting tournament towards next year’s team selection.

If Jose Maria Olazabal’s 10 qualifiers were to be selected now, Dyson would be making his debut at Medinah, Chicago, in September by virtue of holding fourth place on the world points list.

But for Chandler – whose renowned stable of clients included four major winners before Rory McIlroy left last month – selection should take care of itself for the in-form Yorkshireman.

“I can see Simon finishing next year in the top 15,” said Chandler of a player he has helped develop since his early days on tour.

“And once you’re there, there’s very little between 15th place and the world’s top five.

“You get into that position because you’re winning the big tournaments.

“We are trying to play a little game with him at the minute where he doesn’t think about the Ryder Cup. His goals are higher than that.

“And if he achieves those goals he doesn’t need to worry about the Ryder Cup, that will take care of itself.”

What will help Dyson is that his elevation into the world’s top 50 has ensured he will play in all of next year’s majors, World Golf Championships and the Players’ Championship.

All nine carry massive ranking points.

In the past, his performances in these events have been sporadic, with a sixth at the 2007 US PGA and a 12th-place at the same year-ending major in 2010, the only high-end results he has achieved in the big tournaments.

But as he showed by earning ninth spot at Royal St George’s in July, he is ready to mix it with the game’s elite over four days of the most intense competition.

Chandler said: “He knows now that he has earned the right to play in all of these great tournaments, and that knowledge makes such a difference.

“For instance, he would go to the Players’ Championship and think ‘I don’t belong out here’.

“Now he can go to the Players’ Championship thinking he not only deserves to be there but can have a big impact.

“That is because Simon is a prolific player and he relishes being in the hunt.”

On his last foray into the top 50 two years ago, Dyson attempted a prolonged crack at the United States that backfired when sponsors’ invites were not forthcoming.

That resulted in a slide down the rankings that he only arrested with a late surge to the cusp of the Ryder Cup qualification race at Celtic Manor at the back end of the 2010 season.

He missed out narrowly on the final weekend of qualification, but proved that when he had the bit between his teeth, he has the makings of a player destined to join the continent’s elite.

Dyson has in the past been a streaky player, admitting to the Yorkshire Post prior to this summer’s Open that he lacked a goal.

But since then, he has been able to bottle his belief and confidence and use it to good effect, to the extent that Chandler now describes him as a ‘confidence player, unafraid of winning’.

And on the challenge facing Dyson in America next year, Chandler said: “It will be different for him this time, because he belongs out there, and it is a good fit for him.

“He’ll play Fancourt (South Africa – tournament of champions in January) and all the World Golf Championship events in America, plus he’ll play Honda, Houston and the Players’.

“And he’ll have the experience of Augusta from 2010 to fall back on.

“It’s a funny one because he took so long between a ranking of 60 and 100 that it was really frustrating for him. That’s a difficult section to be in because you cannot make a schedule.

“You don’t know if you’re going to be in a World Golf Championship or a US Tour event or what. You cannot set your stall out.

“You cannot plan your life, you get it a lot with golfers who are just outside the top 50.

“But Simon’s whole life has now changed. It’s much more structured.”

Chandler attributes much of the upturn in fortune to a more settled home life.

Dyson last year married long-time girlfriend Lyndsey, who subsequently quit her job to follow her husband on the road.

He admitted at the Open to finding something with his swing that he worked on in Spain the following week while on holiday. Seven days later, he won the Irish Open.

“Getting married last year really settled him down,” said Chandler. “He’s got a really supportive wife. The other significant thing was he started a fitness regime before the Open and also saw a nutritionalist, who put him on all sorts of things.

“The fitness thing he took a bit further and he’s now employed a guy called James Thompson who he went out and spent a week in Dubai with before the HSBC Champions event in China.

“Starting the fitness regime coincided with his run of form. His ninth-place finish at the Open was very unheralded because Darren won.

“But the confidence Simon took from that was massive. It convinced him he was on the right track with the fitness and dieting. He stepped up both and two weeks later he was celebrating winning the Irish Open. That got him back into the top 50, but it was the Dutch Open win that took him into the top 30 and because of that now he knows exactly what he’s doing next year and exactly where he’s playing.

“And James is booked in to go out with him 20 weeks next year so it will only get better.”

The positive vibes emanating from the Chandler stable have played a significant role as well.

The larger-than-life founder of International Sports Management (ISM) may have lost the hottest property in golf, McIlroy, to Dublin-based Horizon Sports recently but the message from Chandler is ‘onwards and upwards’.

After all, the Lancastrian waited nearly 20 years for the company he began with just four players to have a major winner.

Then after Louis Oosthuizen’s surprise win at the 2010 Open, Charl Scwartzel won the Masters, McIlroy the US Open and Darren Clarke the Open.

World No 3 Lee Westwood is the long-time Chandler client ordained as the next major winner, but if Dyson’s fearless form is to be continued and his manager’s words are to be believed, then why can’t it be the Yorkshireman joining that exclusive club?

“Simon was involved in the house we had at the Open and will be next year again and at the Masters,” said Chandler.

“He was having his evening meal each night with Rory, Lee, Darren, Charl and Louis.

“I think that was one of the reasons earlier this year why it all clicked, because it’s an environment of success.”