Peter Senior made a courageous effort to regain his full playing privileges on the US Champions Tour but came up shy despite posting his third top-10 finish of the year at the Toshiba tournament in California.

Senior needed to finish no worse than second outright to have a chance to push into the top-30 on the 2015 money list and made a blistering start to his final round to be 3-under through four holes and within two of the lead.

But the 56-year-old couldn’t maintain the momentum and managed only one more birdie between the fourth hole and the clubhouse, eventually finishing T7 at 13-under-par for the week.

While he will still have limited playing rights in 2016, Senior had been hoping to play a full schedule after suffering with injury problems for much of the year.

Senior will now return to Australia where he is expected to play all three of the major summer of golf events having missed them in 2014 for the first time in 35 years because of injury.