Yannik Paul was keeping his 2024 focus on long-term goals after two near-misses on the DP World Tour in 2023.
The German was in contention to make the European Ryder Cup team right up until the closing stages of qualification and narrowly missed out on one of the ten PGA TOUR cards available via the Race to Dubai Rankings in Partnership with Rolex.
He showed no ill effects from those disappointments, however, starting his 2024 campaign with a 64 at the Dubai Invitational and he was not finding it difficult to keep everything in perspective.
"I always make a vision board for the year, for the career but also in my private life," he said.
"I believe when you manifest it, it will come to you. Maybe not always right away but I think long-term, if you have a good mental state a lot of good things can happen.
"We always dream about certain things and I would love to be playing next year at the Ryder Cup but there is a long way to go - I just want to get better.
"It would have been nice to play in the States but all I want to do is get better. I really enjoy it out here as well. I love playing in the Middle East, I love playing in Europe and I like travelling so I'm still really grateful.
"I love playing golf so I'm happy."
The 2022 Mallorca Golf Open champion carded eight birdies and a single bogey on day one at Dubai Creek Resort and was pleased with his first competitive 18 holes since November.
"I played really good, I hit a lot of good shots," he said.
"The game felt in a good place but you never know after a little bit of a break so I just tried to execute good shots and not have my expectations too high and it worked really well today."
