Forsyth playing his cards right in Girona

Alastair Forsyth believes he has turned a corner following a spell of disappointing form after the Scotsman moved a step closer to a European Tour return thanks to a two under par second round 70 at Qualifying School Final Stage.

The two-time European Tour winner endured one of the most difficult seasons of his long career in 2013 making just eight cuts in 21 appearances on both the Challenge Tour and The European Tour, but will enter the third round in Girona just three strokes off the lead.

The Glaswegian has not managed to finish inside the top 100 in The Race to Dubai since 2008, having risen to prominence in his rookie season back in 2000 following victory at the Qualifying School Final Stage the previous year.

Forsyth thinks the long hours of work he has done with coach Ian Rae have begun to pay dividends though, and is hoping the memories of his win at the gruelling Qualifying School 14 years ago can help him return to the top tier of European golf, and the kind of form which yielded victories at the 2002 Malaysian Open and 2008 Madeira Islands Open BPI – Portugal.

“It’s been a terrible three or four seasons for me,” said Forsyth, who moved to seven under par heading into day three at PGA Catalunya Resort. “But I feel as if myself and my coach have got to the bottom of the problems so I'm a lot more positive going forward.

“This is a very different week obviously, a big one. But I am a lot more positive I can turn it around now because I feel like we’ve worked it out and we just have to get the improvements into my swing and get rid of the problems.

“It’s difficult doing that and also being at such a high pressure tournament but I've managed to keep it in play this week reasonably well.

“There’s no getting away from it, it’s a different kind of environment here and a very high pressure tournament. You don’t play in any higher pressure than this. It’s not always enjoyable but you try and treat it like a normal golf tournament as much as you can.

“I'm not flushing it by any means out there but if I can play a bit better out there then I can avoid the kind of situation I had at the seventh, where I had to get up and down for a double bogey.

“A couple of times this week I've ended up in weird and wonderful places on the course without doing a lot wrong and that’s been the case in the last few years. I've been in these places too often but the better you play the less often those things happen and I think I'm working on the right stuff so I’d like to think things can only get better.”