The DP World Tour begins its European Swing with the Turkish Airlines Open, and that's welcome news if you're a low-category member who earned a card of some kind through the Challenge Tour or Qualifying School last year.

Such are the times that co-sanctioning events with tours in Australia, Asia and Africa is an absolute necessity, one which provides playing opportunities for the fully exempt and pathways for emerging talents on this global golf tour. But it comes with compromise: no longer does 'earning a card' have quite so literal a meaning as it once did.

Many players, particularly those who survived six rounds of Q-School, have had to map out a schedule on the fly, some of them dropping down to the Challenge Tour where they know they can get a game. Others slightly higher up have had to make difficult decisions, such as whether to travel to a tournament as an alternate or stay at home. It's doubtless a very difficult thing to manage at a level where making ends meet is priority one.

Ninth in strokes-gained approach in China, Paul has also started to dial in the driver and therefore it only took a better putting week to contend. In his previous two events, he'd actually produced near-identical tee-to-green numbers, only to struggle with putter in hand.

We've only seen him once since, in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, where he and twin brother Jeremy missed the cut narrowly. Back to business on the DP World Tour, the German can hopefully prove that China was a turning point, one which hasn't exactly sent his price into collapse.

A final note with Paul is that, for one reason or another, his best form shadows Olesen's. Indeed he's been runner-up to him in Thailand, fourth behind him at Al Hamra, second just as Olesen has been in Paris, and eighth at the Belfry, where Olesen secured his comeback win a couple of years ago.

It's fair to say that both are better off on courses where driver isn't the key club and if I'm right to suggest that it won't be here, Paul could once more follow Olesen's lead at a mid-length, mid-tier-scoring course, the kind he seems to prefer.

Romain faithful to Frenchman

Martin Couvra continues to show promise and he's interesting but as his price contracts, ROMAIN LANGASQUE is preferred as a pure value play.

Langasque was 28-33/1 in India recently and is set to go off double that here having missed the cut there, but he's made both since and while hardly spectacular in the way he performed in China, there's been enough to like.

This is a player who started the year in the Hero Cup after a fine end to 2024, arguably his best season yet on the DP World Tour. At the conclusion of each of the last two he's been in Dubai, right in the mix for a PGA Tour card, and I still think he's a class act at this level, with one low-key win not nearly doing justice to his talents.

Langasque threatened a second all of last year, finishing runner-up in the Nedbank, in Denmark and in Belgium (largely tree-lined courses), third in an elite Scottish Open, fifth in India and seventh in Spain, but it's a second top-10 finish in the BMW International Open at Eichenried which piques my interest.