Kiwi Ryan Fox will use the lessons he learned from a disappointing end to his 2017 season to maintain the momentum he has generated this year and push for his maiden win on the European Tour.

Ranked 11th on the Race to Dubai heading into this weekend’s KLM Open at The Dutch in The Netherlands, Fox is almost certain to surpass his performance from 12 months ago where he ended the year in 34th position to retain his card.

His goal to better that this year is essentially already achieved with nine events still to play but the other target for 2018 – a maiden win on the main tour – has remained tantalisingly out of reach.

Successive bombs by Scotland’s Russell Knox on the 18th hole was all that stood in the way of Fox claiming the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open in July but he hopes a more carefully managed schedule will present further opportunities in the coming months.

In the wake of his tie for 27th at the US PGA Championship at Bellerive Country Club – his best finish in a major to date – Fox spent three weeks home in New Zealand and after resuming last week at the Omega European Masters is ready to finish the year strongly.

“Last year I probably played a bit too much,” conceded Fox, who didn’t finish better than tied for 28th in the eight events he played following the European Masters.

“I chased it through the middle of the year and played great but when I got to the back-end of the year I was knackered and didn’t play well at the big events at the end of the year.

“I’ve learned from that this year. When I qualified for majors I managed to take weeks off around them so I wasn’t adding an event to the schedule.

“At the start of the year I wasn’t in the majors so they feel like a bonus event.

“I did the same thing last year and I think I played 31 events which is probably three or four too many by the end of the year.

“I’ve learned from that this year. I took three weeks off after the PGA, went home and had a holiday and met my little nephew, did a little bit of work with my coach Marcus Wheelhouse but the rest was catching up with friends and family and doing a little bit of fishing as well.”

After graduating from the Challenge Tour to the European Tour in 2017, Fox played 29 events and amassed E1,078,689 in prize money to easily retain his status, a three-week stretch where he was top 10 at the French, Irish and Scottish Opens the cornerstone of his rookie season.

In 18 events to date in 2018 he has missed just two cuts, played all of the majors except The Masters and established himself among the game’s elite.

The 31-year-old’s earnings for the year stand at E1,415,379 and forced him to re-adjust one of the two goals he set for himself.

“At the start of the year the two main goals were to finish higher up on the Order of Merit than I did last year and to win,” Fox explained.

“I think I will comfortably beat last year’s position on the Order of Merit so I can say that goal’s ticked off. I’ve now reset that and the main goal is to try and finish in the top-20.

“That’s the one you get some exemptions into events next year from and I’m in a pretty good position to do that.

“I’ve still got to play some pretty decent golf at the end of the year to make sure that I can achieve that.

“I obviously haven’t won yet so that’s another goal I’d really like to tick off before the end of the year.”

Of the nine events still to play on the European Tour this year Fox will miss only the Andulucia Valderrama Masters next month.

Although his results last year might indicate otherwise, he believes the golf courses this week and next at the Portugal Masters both provide opportunities to tick off that second goal he is chasing.

“I enjoy the courses both at KLM and also Portugal,” Fox said.

“I didn’t play particularly well at either of them last year but I felt like they were golf courses that work quite well for my game.

“I’ll play the British Masters and Dunhill Links after the Ryder Cup, skip Valderrama and then play the finals series.

“After that there’s the World Cup of Golf in Melbourne, the Aussie PGA on the Gold Coast and then that’s me done for the year.”

Joining Fox in the field at the KLM Open is fellow Kiwi Josh Geary along with Aussies Wade Ormsby, Sam Brazel, Scott Hend, Jason Norris, Brett Rumford, Lucas Herbert, Andrew Dodt, Jason Scrivener, Adam Bland and Nick Cullen.

Scrivener was the best performed Aussie last year with a top-20 finish while Hend was tied for fourth two years ago, highlighted by a third round of 64.

The Challenge Tour is at the Zhailjau Golf Resort this week for the Kazakhstan Open where Dimi Papadatos and Jack Munro will fly the Australian flag.