Chris Wood's career as a full-time golf professional on the European Tour got off to a solid start after he finished tied 16th in the Alfred Dunhill Championship in South Africa.

The 21-year-old, from Nailsea, carded a four-under-par 68 in the final round to finish on 11 under, the same score as Clevedon's John Morgan and one of the European Tour's superstars, Lee Westwood.

A cheque of almost £11,000 was Wood's reward, but he is determined to improve in the next event this week in Cape Town.

"It was a solid start to my season and I'm pretty happy with my performance," he said. "I shot under par every day and my game wasn't nearly as rusty as I expected after having some time off."

The 21-year-old shot five birdies and only an unlucky plugged lie in a bunker on the 18th prompted his only bogey. "My iron play was good this week and my putting was better than it has been recently because the greens here were so good," he said. "But I was hooking my drives because of poor rhythm and that was the cause of all my dropped shots really. I can work on that now for this week."

The South African Open in Pearl Valley in the Western Cape starts on Thursday and will be Wood's last European Tour event of the year. He is hoping to have learned enough about the conditions in South Africa to have an even better tournament.

"I think you can get used to the heat because that was a factor all week," he said. "You get to the tournament at 7 o'clock in the morning when the temperature is as cool as it gets, but you're still sweating. I got sunburned on the first day, but I won't make that mistake again."

The tournament was won by South Africa's Richard Sterne with a score of 17 under par and won £136,000. England's Robert Rock and Sweden's Johan Edfors were joint second one shot behind.

John Morgan was in the top five at one stage during the final day, but eventually fell away with a two-over-par 74. Morgan needed a top 10 finish in order to be eligible for the next tournament, but has instead returned home and will pick up his European Tour career in 2009.

Morgan was suffering from a virus all week and was pleased overall that he stayed patient with his game despite his illness. "I've been sick once every day during the tournament and could not push too hard, so it wasn't a bad start for me," he said.