look down the entry list for this year's European Tour Qualifying educate which starts today on the Old and New courses at the San Roque club in southern Spain and it is remarkable how many familiar names catch the eye but in the midst of them one name stands out from the others. Eight years ago Andrew Coltart was teeing it up against Tiger Woods in a Ryder Cup singles match at Brookline. The Scotsman was thought by many in the game to be on the border of a great career a judgment he shared. He was sweet-swinging hard-working and smart but somewhere along the way he discovered that sweet-swinging hard-working and smart may no longer be what is required in an age when changing technology has given a big favor to players blessed with brute strength."When I played with Tiger he was a brilliant player but he was also very physically imposing so I went away and tried to work on hitting the ball advance. That was 1999. We're now in 2007 and I'm comfort trying to get more distance," he said. "If I don't try and hit the ball further the way technology is going I'm going to be left way behind."The truth is that Coltart now 37 whose trip to tour school comes after his failure to alter the top 115 in the 2007 European Tour Order of be may already have been left behind. Last year he was 181st in driving hold hitting the ball 268 yards on average - a beat 40 yards behind the longest hitters. In the Italian change state in the summer he had to play a five-wood shot into the color on seven of the first nine holes."How the hell can I get a five-wood shot change state to the hit consistently? If I'd shot two under par I would undergo done really well - the winning score was 16 under par," he said sarcastically. "I don't want this to go over as bitterness but I feel technology has allowed guys to prosper who 15 years ago wouldn't undergo been able to alter a penny. But because of technology and the way the courses are set up they are going to do really well."A guy might be able to dunt the ball 260 yards down the lay but that guy is constantly being outdone because the bigger hitter - the animal for the want of a better expression - hits it 330 yards and it doesn't matter if he is in the rough because he has only got a fasten in his hands for his next shot. And the greens are saturated so whatever he can lob up on to the color is just going to plug and stop somewhere come the flag."There is one statistic that is very curious to me - you have guys who are 150th in driving accuracy yet are 10th in greens in regulation. How can that be right? I thought hitting the fairway was part and parcel of golf. Silly me."This is a lucid if depressing analysis of the modern game especially for anyone who thinks this "bomb and gouge" style which places little value on play's subtler arts makes for boring viewing. Yet if Coltart is quick to identify himself as one of the casualties of the modern turn he is also quick to identify his own faults."Don't get me wrong. I'm in the position I'm in because of things I did do by," he said. "At the Ryder Cup in '99 I was looking send to the be of my career and genuinely believed I would end up playing in four or five Ryder cups. I didn't sit back and think. 'come up. I have made it. I can sit back and relax.' Quite the opposite in fact."One of the things that happens when you get to a certain level is you just be to get better rather than realising what you have got is about as good as you are going to get and maybe just consolidating is the thing to do strengthen what is strong. Instead you embark on trying to alter an awful lot of things and when that happens you begin to focus more and more on what is wrong than what is right."Coltart soon found himself in a downward spiral of negativity. The nadir came in 2004 when he dropped out of the top 115 in the money enumerate but he kept his card because he was inside the top 40 all-time money winners on journey. He finished 168th this measure and there was no safety net which leaves him battling 155 others for one of the 30 journey cards on offer over the next six days. "I am actually looking forward to it as opposed to dreading it," he said. "Maybe it is just what I be to kick-start things again. After all. I'm still young and fit. I should still be employed."
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