Nailsea star heads the field in Holland

Nailsea golfer Chris Wood finds himself the highest ranked golfer at this week's European Tour event in Holland, which starts today.

With some of the leading players taking the week off after back-to-back tournaments in America, the 21-year-old hopes to be able to put the troubles he encountered in the States behind him.

Currently standing at 38th on the European Tour money list – 58th in the world rankings – he has amassed more than £500,000 in prize money from his 19 starts this season as he begins an assault on the KLM Open at the Kennemer Golf Club, Zandvoort.

It means that with big-name players such as Lee Westwood, Rory Mcilroy and Masters champion, Angel Cabrera, all taking the week off, Wood finds himself the top-ranked player.

But he will be up against some other big names who are well below him on the Race to Dubai money list, such as Colin Montgomerie (91st), Darren Clarke (95th) and Jose Maria Olazabal (174th).

They will all be hoping to make a move up the Order of Merit and make it into the lucrative end of season Race to Dubai tournament played out by the top 60 money ranked golfers on the European Tour.

Clarke is the defending champion, although his four-stroke win over Paul McGinley last year was not enough to persuade Nick Faldo to hand him one of his Ryder Cup wild cards a week later.

Montgomerie did not get one either, of course, and the eight-time European No 1 has now gone nearly 14 months without a top-10 finish.

"I've been working on my game a lot since I missed out at the Open by a shot and things are looking up," he said last week. But then came rounds of 75 and 78 on the longest lay-out in major history.

At 6,626 yards, Kennemer is more than 1,000 yards shorter and it is also the course on which Olazabal won the title way back in 1989 – after a Tour record nine-hole play-off with Ronan Rafferty and Roger Chapman.

Montgomerie is another past champion, but his 1993 success came at Noordwijske.

Local players, David Dixon from Bristol and Portishead's John Morgan are both hoping to kick-start their season with better performances.

Yeovil's Marcus Higley also tees it up after a fine performance at the SAS Masters in Sweden three weeks ago.