Earning my place in the field this week in Dubai is, if nothing else, confirmation that I’m heading in the right direction.

I’ve earnt my right to play so I feel like I belong in the tournament.

It was a goal of mine at the start of the year to get to Dubai so it’s nice to tick that off the list.

There are some perks to finishing top 30 on the moneylist too so that’s the next goal. It never really stops and I’m not satisfied yet.

Having weeks like last week at the Nedbank Challenge and regularly putting myself in those positions will only help with my confidence and self-belief.

I feel like I put myself in position to win a few times this year and it hasn’t really panned out but there’s no question getting that first win is the next thing I’d like to do.

I played a practice round with Tommy Fleetwood who went on to win the tournament last week and he is so professional about what he does.

He ticks every box and that’s what I picked up on by playing with him; he just does all the right things. He gives himself the best chance to play well so I wasn’t surprised at all to see him win, even if he hadn’t won in a while.

Winning is tough out here. It’s a hard sport to win at, especially at the top level. Most of the time you’re playing against 150 guys every week and it’s so competitive.

You’ve just got to keep putting yourself in that position to win time and time again. That’s what the top players do best. They’ll give themselves six or eight chances a year when they know they’re going to be in contention. If they can do that then they’re bound to pick up one or two wins.

I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job this year of getting myself into contention, I just haven’t quite finished it off.

Twelve months ago I just missed out on qualifying for Dubai but I would have been more disappointed if I’d missed out this year.

Last year everything was a bonus for me. I went from trying to keep my card in Europe, getting into the HSBC Champions event in China, played well in Turkey and South Africa and only just missed out on Dubai in the end.

Considering how I started the year with a few top-10s I would have been more disappointed if I’d missed out this year.

I had a bit of a dry spell through the middle of the year but thankfully I played well at Sun City last week and here I am.

All in all it’s been a funny year. A lot has changed. I started working with a new coach – an English guy by the name of Liam James – at the backend of last year which worked really well at the start of the year.

Because I’d secured my card we thought it was a good time to make a couple of changes. I was playing really good golf through the middle of the year but I just wasn’t scoring very well. I missed some cuts by a shot and lost a bit of momentum.

That was hard because I felt as though I was putting in the work and I was heading in the right direction yet I wasn’t really seeing the results.

I probably felt like I was in a bit of a rut at times. I missed maybe two or three cuts in a row at one stage and that feels like a long time. But the more I’m out here the more I see the top players not really stress too much if they miss a cut.

It’s more about taking advantage of the good weeks because missing cuts is just part of the job.

The truth of it is that golf is such a results-orientated sport that most of the time all you have to measure yourself against is the score on the board. You can play pretty well out here and still miss the cut by a shot or two.

It’s hard not to just look at the result at the end of the week but I’m trying to get better at looking at the process. If you miss the cut, you miss the cut and just move on to the next week.

It’s been a really solid year and certainly my most consistent year so far. It would be nice to finish it off with another good week here in Dubai.