It’s the free hit where everyone leaves cashed up but qualifying for the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai is not enough for South Australian Wade Ormsby.

Ormsby, Lucas Herbert and New Zealand’s Ryan Fox will represent Australasia for the culmination of the European Tour season at the Jumeirah Golf Estates this week having finished inside the top 60 on the Race to Dubai rankings.

It’s been four years since Ormsby last qualified for the Tour Championship and is reward for a year in which he recorded his first win at the UBS Hong Kong Open and recorded five further top-20 finishes, but he’s not done yet.

Due to defend his title in Hong Kong next week before playing the Australian PGA Championship at RACV Royal Pines Resort on the Gold Coast, Ormsby has high aspirations before he shuts it down for the calendar year.

“It’s our biggest event on tour for the year so you want to do as well as you can,” Ormsby said ahead of practice on Tuesday.

“It’s not like you just want to rock up and have a fun week and see where you finish. I want to play as well as I can.

“Like every other week there are so many things riding on it, in terms of where you finish on the Order of Merit. There are a lot of things that are affected by having a good or poor week here so we’re pushing as hard as we can.”

Coming into the week 45th in the Race to Dubai rankings, Ormsby was tied for 47th when he last played the DP World Tour Championship in 2014, pocketing close to E31,000 for his rounds of 73-71-69-73.

While determined to carry the momentum of a top-20 finish at the Nedbank Challenge into the $US8 million event, Ormsby conceded that qualifying for the season finale brings a level of satisfaction in its’ own right.

“Any Tour Championship or big event has always got a special atmosphere about it,” said Ormsby, who was tied for ninth at the Australian PGA Championship in 2017.

“It’s a bit of a reward for a good year so everyone here deserves to be here.

“We’re all here on merit so everyone’s always in a pretty good place generally around these events.

“I was injured between last time and this time so it’s always nice to get back to these.

“You can tick the box and say you’ve had a successful year if you’ve got to this event so it definitely means a lot to me but you always want more.

“You always keep pushing.”

A final round of 67 on Sunday at Sun City propelled Ormsby up into a tie for 16th in the season’s penultimate event, the 33-year-old attributing his ascension to a hot putter.

“I putted very well on Sunday,” Ormsby explained.

“I was quite frustrated with my game all the way through the week. I kept doing a lot of work after the round.

“It was exciting to make some putts and finish the week the right way.

“I’m working pretty hard on my game at the moment. Sometimes it comes easy, sometimes it’s hard work so it was nice to get rewarded with a hot putter on Sunday and move up the leaderboard.”