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Richard Finch celebrates victory in New Zealand

At the end of October I was writing here about the 'heroic performance' put in by Richard Finch in Mallorca to retain his card on the European Tour.

That was the end of the 2007 European season and now after only a couple of weeks of the 2008 season - yes I know it is still 2007 - Finch has travelled to New Zealand and picked up his maiden Tour win.

I spent 40 minutes of this week talking to him on the telephone and he just can't believe it. He is understandably and deservedly elated and I am delighted for him too because this great victory in Lord of the Rings country is no less than he deserves.

As I mentioned back in October, I have been helping Finch with his short game and it is very gratifying to see him, and some of the other players I have been working with such as Lee Westwood, winning tournaments.

We had a long chat after the tournament in Mallorca and I told him that what he had achieved over those four days was amazing and that he should take from it the knowledge that he can play golf under the most extreme pressure. If you can handle playing for your livelihood then you can handle anything.

He told me this week that he felt so calm in New Zealand and the reason for this is because his game stood up to the scrutiny of Mallorca.

He also talked about how he can't believe that he has gone from struggling to keep his card, needing to finish no worse than 12th in Mallorca and now he has an exemption for the best part of three seasons and an invitation to the HSBC champions tournament.

So our talk turned to the future and having finished 113th on the Order of Merit in 2006 and 110th in 2007, I think we are going to see a different Richard Finch in next two seasons. He is a winner now and knows he can win and will win again. What he wants is to be in position where he can win as often as possible.

Finch, like Westwood, is a good ball striker. Often the case with good ball-strikers is that they don't spend a lot of time working on their short game.

I was pleased to hear him tell me this week that he had set his Sky + box for Golf Night and has watched his performance again, so that he could see himself under pressure and he is now able to to see clearly the improvements that need to be made.

I think it has been great for him to see the things we have been practising because it will give him a greater understanding of the ways he can improve his consistency. The experience of watching himself has given him the rock-solid belief in what I have been telling him.

What 99.9 per cent of players will do when under pressure is resort back to their old technique. It is not something you think of, but psychologically it just happens. You go back to what feels comfortable.

I said 99.9 per cent of players revert to their old swing because the one player who doesn't do that is Westwood. Lee has the huge mental strength to apply what he is learning and trying to do to his swing when under pressure.

I say to Lee that he should never be outside of top 10 in any event he plays. His ball-striking is top ten in the world, his short game is getting there and so there should be very few weeks when he is not challenging.

I am not going to put Finch in same the class as Westwood just yet but with the improvements he has made to his game, he is a different player, and so full of self-belief and with a tremendous vision for where he wants to go, that he is moving in the right direction.

Right now meanwhile, he is a very happy bunny and what an early Christmas present a maiden Tour victory is for him.