Adrian Meronk Daily Diary: My short-term target is to make 2023 Europe Ryder Cup Team

Today (Wednesday) is Pro-Am Day at this week’s $8 million BMW PGA Championship, a Rolex Series event on the DP World Tour.

It is always a very special Pro-Am this week at the Headquarters of the DP World Tour, probably my favourite Pro-Am of the year, with BMW bringing out all the celebrities and it draws the crowds and today is no exception. It actually feels like a tournament day.

I played early this morning (Wednesday) from Tee 12 in the shotgun start with my three amateurs: TV broadcaster Di Stewart (9 handicap), Will Greenwood an England rugby player and member of the 2003-winning World Cup team (11 handicap) and former England cricket legend, who now does cricket commentary, Kevin Pietersen (3 handicap).

It is always fun to meet successful people from different areas of life, especially in the sports space.

My first round tee time in Match 14 tomorrow (Thursday) morning is at 8.55am and I am paired with Hurly Long of Germany and Italian Eduardo Molinari. I sit in eighth place in the current 2021-2022 DP World Tour Rankings and Hurly is in 20th place.

I mention this for no other reason that our third player in the group, Molinari, is a vice-captain of the 2023 Ryder Cup team, under captain Luke Donald, and this week the 2023 Ryder Cup qualifying process begins for Team Europe.

It is one of my short-term career targets to make the 2023 European Ryder Cup Team and to play in Italy, and in any sport or any long Order of Merit series of events, it is always important to start ‘fast off the blocks,’ hence the significance of this week. I really want to impress the vice-captain with my game in the first two rounds and, hopefully, he will mention this to captain Donald.

To reinforce the importance of this week, it is so nice to have a one tee start with all 144 players teeing off Tee one, just like some of the majors and the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai on the Earth course at Jumeirah Golf Estates later this year in November.

I have just seen the weather forecast for tomorrow (Thursday), it says is will mainly be cloudy with scattered showers and thunderstorms likely and winds of between 10 and 20mph. This will make the 7,267-yard West Course at Wentworth very tough to play with the trees lining the fairways sheltering the holes or not. I am being told the tournament is a sell out for Friday and the weekend — we do not hear that very often outside of the majors.

One sleep more and it is ‘Go Time,’

A big week for us all.

Wish me good luck and speak to you after round one.

— Adrian Meronk is Dubai based, from Poland and is currently eighth in the DP World Tour Rankings and 60th in the OWGR. He is sponsored by White Eagle Sports, an events company also based in Dubai.