From the Alps Tour to the upper reaches of the Challenge Tour mountain – it has been quite a year for Matthieu Pavon.
The Frenchman missed out on securing a spot on the Road to Oman through the 2015 Alps Tour Rankings by just 4.30 points but a strong showing at the Final Stage of the European Tour Qualifying School earned him Challenge Tour status for this season.
Three second-places and four further top tens helped the 24 year old take fifth spot in the Road to Oman Rankings and he can now look forward to life on the European Tour, which he started this week at the season-opening Alfred Dunhill Championship.
“It’s been an incredible year,” he said. “I’m really happy with how I’ve done because I didn’t know how to play on the Challenge Tour, it was all new to me, but when I started the year I felt comfortable with it.
“I managed to keep that going all through the season, and it feels pretty good to have kept it going until the end.
“The summer was not that easy for me but I didn’t miss a lot of cuts, I only missed one, and I’m happy with the consistency I showed all year long, with some very good weeks in there as well.
“The thing on the Challenge Tour is that if you want to play with the top guys, you have to go low. I was very surprised about that because all the wins and the top tens were very low, and when you start it’s hard to go that low all the time.
“Then you get caught in the rhythm of it and you just follow them and end up finding yourself with chances to win some tournaments.
“I can definitely take this confidence with me to the European Tour. I know it’s a little bit different, but I’ll just try to think about me and my game and, if I play well, the score is going to be good as well.”
