Matt Wallace had a respectable season on the PGA Tour, making 20 starts and reaching the weekend 13 times. He finished with over $1 million in earnings and posted four top-25 finishes, including a T-4 at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson outside Dallas.
But he’s still grinding this fall on the DP World Tour, posting an eighth-place finish at the Betfred British Masters hosted by Sir Nick Faldo last week and now surging out to the lead this week at the Omega European Masters at Crans-sur-Sierre in Switzerland.
Wallace opened the event with a 64, but followed it up with an even better round, draining five birdies on the front during a second round that saw him finish with a 62. At 14 under, he leads Alex Fitzpatrick by four strokes.
But what’s Wallace’s true motivation during this stretch? It’s to impress Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald.
“It’s not just about the win, it’s playing well,” he said.
“Luke wants you to play well and I want to play well so I’m going to try to play well every single day and what comes from it comes from it.”
Donald will again choose six wild cards for Europe’s Ryder Cup team, with the six qualifiers for next year’s trophy defense taken from just one ranking list.
Qualifying points will be earned using a new tournament banding structure weighted towards performances in the majors and biggest PGA Tour and DP World Tour events, but LIV Golf tournaments remain unable to award points.
As for maintaining a big lead, Wallace insisted he’s looking to simply keep pressing.
“It is good, competition, but I want to get away from the competition as much as possible.”
Henrik Norlander and Jordan Smith are five strokes back in third place.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Matt Wallace is thumping the field at DP World Tour’s Omega European Masters
