The Queensland PGA champion at Nudgee Golf Club in November, Wilkin is among a host of players hoping to advance their position on the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia Order of Merit at this week’s New Zealand PGA Championship in Auckland.

With No.1 David Micheluzzi opting to rest his body for the run home and Tom Power Horan entered into this week’s Asian Tour event, Andrew Martin (fourth) and Michael Hendry (sixth) can stake their claim to one of the three DP World Tour cards on offer at the completion of The National in April.

Wilkin knows if he is to join that race he must win one of the three events remaining in the season.

Currently ninth in the adjusted Order of Merit standings, Wilkin arrives at Gulf Harbour Country Club north of Auckland on the back of four top-25 finishes in his past five starts.

It has helped him to maintain touch with the top 10 but he acknowledges that it will take a second victory to bring the top three within reach.

“Definitely my expectations have changed. I don’t go to tournaments any more just to finish top 20,” said Wilkin, who shot 67 at the NZ Open on Sunday to finish tied for 22nd.

“I need to trust my game a bit more to win so that’s what I’m trying to do.

“(The Queensland PGA win) seems like a long time ago. It’s already March. It’s four months ago. I want to win again.

“I’ve got three events left and I need to probably win at least one to have a chance of getting in the top three on the Order of Merit.

“Unless I do something stupid and win a couple more I’m probably going to come up short of what I wanted to achieve this year, which just shows me that you can’t win once and get complacent.

“You need to keep pushing.”

Wilkin will spend Tuesday playing a practise round with friend Cam Jones, a resident New Zealand PGA Professional at Gulf Harbour.

Given he shot four-under over 72 holes before defeating Justin Warren in a playoff at Nudgee, Wilkin is hoping for a course that yields fewer birdies than those that were plundered at Millbrook over the past week.

“I’ve heard it can get a bit windy, which I hope it does because that sort of suits me better than no wind,” Wilkin said of the course that sits out on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula and is bordered by Okoromai Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

“I’d rather it like that. I like when even par is a good score.”

Including Wilkin, three of this season’s winners are in the field for the NZ PGA along with a host of in-form players seeking to improve their Order of Merit standing.

Wilkin has known since turning professional in 2015 that winning is never easy and doesn’t expect this week to be any different.

“It might look like a slightly weaker field on the outside but there are still a heap of good players here and a heap of Kiwi guys that people don’t even know who are good and have played the course before,” Wilkin explained.

“If you win this week it still counts the same. It doesn’t matter about the money or anything.

“Just need to keep getting points on the board.”

And even if a top-three finish on the Order of Merit eludes him, Wilkin is motivated by the exemptions into qualifying schools that are also on offer.

Given that he missed his Asian Tour card in January by a stroke, the 30-year-old knows there are leg-ups to his ultimate goal of playing on an international tour.

“I went to DP World Tour Q School when it was at Rosebud and missed. I went to Asia and had to go through First Stage and got through but by the time I got to final stage I was pretty gassed and missed by a shot,” he added.

“I feel like if you can avoid going to those first stages it’s a big plus. It’s money and time and energy.

“Worse case it would be good to get a tournament like the Dunhill Links and experience that.”