After one bad hole ruined a lot of good work at last week’s Greenbrier Classic Matt Jones will be itching to get to Illinois this week and a tournament that has proved fruitful in the past.

Jones is hovering around the top-125 on the 2017 FedEx Cup points list and needs a high finish in one of the handful of remaining events to earn back full playing rights for 2018.

This week’s John Deere Classic could prove critical in that quest, the combination of a weakened field and his own good track record perhaps combining to produce the one good week he needs.

Jones played a lot of good golf last week at the Greenbrier before being derailed by an ugly quadruple bogey eight on Saturday but there was a lot more good than not in West Virginia.

With many of the Tour’s top players electing to skip the event and either play the Scottish Open or have a week off ahead of The Open Championship Jones has a chance to make a big move at TPC Deere Run.

In seven appearances at the venue Jones has three top-10’s on his resume, two of those top five results indicating a liking for the layout.

At 138^th on the FedEx standings Jones likely needs in the vicinity of a further 200 points to get back to the Tour and anything in the top five this week would go a long way towards achieving that.

Jones isn’t the only Australian taking aim at full playing rights to the 2018 Tour with Curtis Luck also in need of some big finishes if he hopes to avoid the Web.com Tour finals.

His T20 at The Greenbrier assured the West Australian a place in the four tournament series that will determine cards for next year but there remains the slim possibility of bypassing that and playing his way straight to the TOUR.

To do that he will need to produce some of his best golf, likely needing two top five finishes or a victory to be assured of a card.

While it is a tall order the 20-year-old has already proved he is a quick study with his results to date and it would be no surprise to see him contend again this week.

With both a 2018 card and a berth at next week’s Open Championship to play for motivation will be high and Luck is good enough to contend if he brings his A-game.

Jones and Luck are part of an eight strong Australian contingent with Stuart Appleby, Cameron Percy, Steven Bowditch, Greg Chalmers, Brett Drewitt and Geoff Ogilvy also in the field.

Ogilvy has shown enough form in recent weeks to suggest he is ready to put together four good rounds and the chance to play his way to Birkdale will be high on his mind.

This is just the third appearance for the Victorian at TPC Deere Run where missed the cut on debut in 2004 but finished T16 last year.