Casey looks to forget injury woes at Qatar Masters

Doha: England's Paul Casey is eager to return to the top of the leaderboard, keeping his recent injury worries firmly behind him, and the world No 7 has the Commercialbank Qatar Masters, to be played from January 28-31 and presented by Dolphin Energy, as a key date in his 2010 diary.

The 32-year-old Englishman will have mixed feelings about 2009 after a rib injury forced him to miss almost half of a season that had promised so much and included three global wins that elevated him to a career-high world No 3.

But Casey prefers to look on the positive side of a year that still saw him finish fifth in the Tour rankings despite frequent visits to the treatment room. "It's very easy to look forward because I haven't really been able to play golf since the Open," said Casey. "I've tried to come back and I haven't been ready and that's been frustrating. Now I feel hungry to play a lot of golf. I've already got the schedule at home and mapped it out — 2009 could have been such a great year and it was a great year, but it was just half a year. If I can just stay fit and healthy, there's no reason why I can't do better next year as I did in the beginning of 2009."

The Qatar Masters line-up also includes other stars like Kenny Perry, Sergio Garcia, Camilo Villegas, Retief Goosen and defending champion Alvaro Quiros.