/ 24 November 2012

Tim Clark to play at the Nelson Mandela Championship

Tim Clark.
Tim Clark.

The European and Sunshine tour co-sanctioned event will be the first tournament on the European's schedule for the 2013 season.

Clark will be using the tournament as his first competitive outing before he heads back to America for his campaign on the US PGA tour.

"I'm going to play the Nelson Mandela in Durban on the 6th to 9th of December," said Clark at Zimbali where he is playing in the Gary Player Invitational on Saturday.

"I'll head back to the States soon after that. That's probably when I'll really start to gear up for the season."

Clark is coming off a break, and is slowly getting back in the swing of things.

Winning tournaments
"I've had a bit of a break already. It's been probably six weeks since I've played a tournament so I am seeing this as a good break.

"I'm not practising a lot but I'm playing a lot of rounds of golf while I'm here just with friends and whatnot. I'm trying to stay in it."

Clark said his aims for the next season included winning tournaments and making it on to the President's Cup team.

"It's [my aim] always is to kind of win tournaments.

"To get back in the winners' circle.

Springboard
"Next year is a presidents Cup year again and Nick Price is the captain, so that's certainly something I want to do. If I go out and win tournaments and play well, that gets me on that team."

Clark, who was out for most of 2011 with a tendon injury in his right elbow – or tennis elbow – said this year was a challenge, but he was satisfied with his performances.

"My season was probably better than I thought it would be having missed a year. I physically wasn't ready when I did start in February.

"I wasn't really ready to play tournament golf. I struggled for a couple of months. Towards the middle of the year I began to play better and I had a couple of chances to win tournaments so it was obviously more than I had expected for the year.

"It's definitely a springboard going into next year at least having most of my game in order and I'm looking forward to next year." – Sapa