Four local golfers will be teeing up at the Celtic Manor Wales Open, which starts tomorrow.

Fresh from his best finish at the European Open at the weekend, Nailsea's Chris Wood hopes to go better than his tied fifth place at The London Club.

Disappointed at not winning the event, it shows just how far Wood has come since bursting onto the golfing scene as an amateur at last year's Open.

Wood, 22, a member at Long Ashton, said: "I never felt that I was striking the ball well last week but managed to hole putts and pitch really well.

"To be honest, after practice on Wednesday, I felt like I wasn't hitting the ball that well and would've been happy just to make the cut.

"But golf is funny like that – you never know what's around the corner."

"It was a good opportunity to win a tournament in my first year and so as far as that is concerned I am disappointed.

"But this week I hope that I can continue to improve.

"I will be staying at home and commuting across the bridge to the course every day so that should be good.

"And I'm sure that there will be plenty of family and friends who will be cheering me on."

Wood has gone a long way to securing his European Tour card for next year – one of the most difficult achievements for any rookie on the circuit – by winning £64,440 last weekend.

However, the 2009 season is already a triumph for Wood who needs one more top 10 finish during the year to guarantee his Tour card.

He has moved up from 89th to 70th in the Race To Dubai, the new name for the European Tour money list, and he now sees himself pushing towards the top 50 and a potential victory.

Bristol's David Dixon will hope to bounce back from his missed cut at the European Open.

Dixon, currently ranked 88th on the Race to Dubai money list, has amassed £137,000 (159,000 Euros) from his 15 events.

John Morgan, from Portishead who has failed to make the cut in his last two tournaments is hoping that a bit of local knowledge will help his cause this week.

He hopes to recapture the form which led him to tie for ninth place at the Andalucia Open back in March.

Also qualified is Trevor Jones, from Chipping Sodbury and a pro at the Hambrook Golf Centre, who qualified after winning the Welsh national title last year.

But the two big names will be the forthcoming Ryder Cup captains, Colin Montgomerie and Corey Pavin.

Ranked 187th and 281st in the world you would not normally find themselves the centre of attention going into a tournament. But it is different this week. Montgomerie and Pavin are the players concerned and their minds will not just be on trying to achieve their first top-10 finishes since last June.

They are now, of course, the European and United States Ryder Cup captains and Celtic Manor is where the first match on Welsh soil will take place in October next year.

Pavin is on his first trip to the venue and says he will be encouraging likely team members to enter the event next year so they can start to get a feel for the lay-out.

How successful he will be in that remains to be seen, certainly if it comes two weeks before the US Open again, but Montgomerie is probably going to have to do the same.

Europe's top stars do not yet know the course anything like as well as they did Valderrama, The Belfry and The K Club, where they were successful in 1997, 2002 and 2006 respectively.

Following the withdrawals of Oliver Wilson, Soren Hansen (both bad backs) and Robert Karlsson (inner ear infection), the only member of last year's team in this week's line-up is Miguel Angel Jimenez.

And he played 11 holes in eight over par last June – the first time the tournament had been staged on the cup course – before retiring with a knee problem.

With Padraig Harrington and Wilson missing the cut that week and Hansen and Graeme McDowell finishing well down the field, Karlsson was the only member of Nick Faldo's side to depart with great memories. He shot a closing 64 to be runner-up to Australian Scott Strange.

Montgomerie asked not to be paired with Pavin in the opening two rounds, presumably because he wants to keep Ryder Cup chat separate from his attempt to re-ignite a career that has seen him drop 66 places in the world rankings this year.

His last competitive hole was a triple-bogey seven at the European Open and he complained of having "no confidence at all."

In contrast, on Sunday Pavin had his lowest round of the year, a 65 that lifted him to 18th place at the Colonial tournament.