If Rhys Davies needed a sight for sore eyes and a tired body after two months of solid golf, it came in watching Louis Oosthuizen lifting the Claret Jug at St Andrews last Sunday.
Because if he couldn’t win the 150th Open championship then why not the 27-year-old South African he beat in a final-day shoot-out four months earlier to capture the Hassan Trophy in Morocco?
For Davies it was just another graphic illustration what can be achieved in the game when everything simply clicks into place on a given week.
And, if the 25-year-old Bridgend ace needed any sort of pick me up from his own early Open exit at St Andrews, then Oosthuizen and Ryder Cup captain Colin Montgomerie showed perfect timing this week.
At a time when Davies is readying himself for a massive month in his already cash-laden year, Montgomerie stated on Tuesday he hopes the young Welshman makes his European team at the Celtic Manor.
Just 48 hours earlier, while still clasping the Claret Jug, Oosthuizen paid his own tribute to the Challenge Tour graduate for “completely outplaying” him in Morocco, which provided one of the building blocks to his Open victory.
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“Everyone around me said I had a major in me, but it was a matter of me believing it,” Oosthuizen said. “My win at Malaga got my head around things. I felt I played better golf in the Hassan Trophy, but I was just outplayed by Rhys Davies.
“If I had beaten Rhys I wouldn’t have gone to Malaga. But I did and won the Andalucia Open there and things have worked out so nicely for me since. Those two tournaments did help in what I’ve achieved at St Andrews.”
And, though Davies himself prefers to focus on the next tournament rather than getting all flustered about Ryder Cup qualification, it’s clear he remains very much in Monty’s thoughts.
“We have Rhys Davies, who is 15th as we speak on the points list with the top nine making it,” said the European skipper this week when announcing his three vice-captains for the Celtic Manor in Darren Clarke, Thomas Bjorn and Paul McGinley.
“He has ample opportunity in the next six remaining events to try and make the team and we hope he does.”
That should provide music to the ears of Davies as he contemplates a return to the European Tour next week at the Irish Open in Killarney before a two-week sojourn to America where he’s guaranteed two more firsts in a record-breaking 2010.
“Hearing Colin say this week he hopes I make the team is nice for him to say, but it isn’t going to change what I’m doing this summer,” said Davies.
“Obviously it was very good to hear those words from Monty. It would be a dream come true for a Welshman to make the Ryder Cup team.
“It would be amazing for the country and for Welsh golf, but this European Ryder Cup team has the makings of being the best and with that comes the difficulty of getting onto that team.
“You only have to look at the top of the world rankings and see how many of our players are there to see how tough European golf is at the moment.
“It’s going to be a great team whoever is on it and a successful one as well.”
While Davies has sat out this week’s Scandinavian Masters, in Sweden, Oosthuizen has honoured a commitment to make the tournament despite banking £850,000 and his first major title four days earlier.
And he headed out of Scotland on a private jet amid accusations an unknown winning The Open, in the wake of Todd Hamilton and Ben Curtis capturing the Claret Jug in recent years, is doing untold damage to the biggest and best major.
He’s also had to weather snipes his emphatic seven-shot win last Sunday was built around him having the better of the conditions on the opening two days after missing the fierce wind which sprang up on Friday afternoon.
But Davies is fighting Ossthuizen’s corner.
“Louis has been a world-class player for a while,” he said.
“I appreciate his win on Sunday might have been slightly surprising in some respects, but he’s always been a really top-class performer in Europe.
“He hasn’t won as many tournaments as he might have expected, but it’s all coming good for him now and his success is fully deserved.
“I saw him at close hand in Morocco and he is a world-class player and he showed that for four days at St Andrews last week. But what it also showed is there are such fine lines between playing well and not playing well.
“If you play well and take the chances presented to you, Louis showed at St Andrews what can be achieved.
“He destroyed everybody last week, he was simply that good. It seems that final-day battle in Morocco gave him a boost forward as much as me.”
Though Davies prefers to bat away questions regarding his Ryder Cup participation, rankings and money lists show he needs a couple of big weeks coming up if he’s to make Monty’s star-studded line-up at the Celtic Manor.
And to that end a week’s rest is just the tonic ahead of his trip to the Emerald Isle.
“I’m having a bit of a breather to regroup in some ways before the Irish Open next week,” he added. “It’s not much to regroup from but a matter of getting my mind and body back fresh again.
“I need to make sure I’m raring to go again in Ireland before another couple of big weeks for me across in America.
“I’ve had a lot of golf previously and I know I’ve got a lot more to come.
“I’ve played far more golf than I would have expected to at the start of the year and that’s something I have got to be very careful about.
“I came into the season on a Challenge Tour ranking and that entitled me to play in some events, but not all the big ones, and my success early on entitled me to play a lot more of the big events.
“That’s great and what I play golf for, but it takes a bit of wear and tear on you and I’m learning from that and learning how to plan a schedule.
“My plan is for Ireland and two weeks in America. I’m not guaranteed for the Bridgestone Invitational, which would be my World Golf Championship debut.
“I’m 50 in the world at the moment, but I’m likely to drop out of the top 50 by not playing this week and the two cut-off points for the Bridgestone is next Monday and the Monday after. Should I not get into that one, I’ve got an invite for my PGA Tour bow at New York’s Turning Stone Resort Championship.
“The sponsors for that event have been superb and said they would love to have me at that tournament if I don’t get in for the Bridgestone.
“I’m thoroughly looking forward to whatever event I play there and the following week I know I’m playing the final major of the year with the US PGA at Whistling Strait, Wisconsin.
“I’ve played there before in my college days, but it was the other course and not the one they’re staging the PGA on.
“For me that’s a lot of things to look forward to in the coming weeks and whatever way you look at it I’ve got some fantastic tournaments coming up.”
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