ON the face of it, Rob Dinwiddie has not made the best of starts to 2015 on the European Tour. The reality, however, is quite different after a forgettable and demoralising previous 12 months.

Dinwiddie has played four tournaments this year already and is set to appear in the Tshwane Open in South Africa today. Despite missing the cuts in them all, he has felt significant progress and improvements after an injury nightmare.

The Barnard Castle golfer’s time on Tour has been blighted by injuries, but his main concern has been a back problem which has struggled to go away. Last April the situation worsened, restricting his Tour appearances to just 11.

“It has been tricky since I first hurt my back,” said Dinwiddie, who had to apply successfully for a medical exemption to retain his card for this year. “I did try to play on for a few tournaments, but it kept coming back and eventually I had to withdraw from the schedule.

“I had ruptured a disc in my lower back and a fragment of the disc trapped a nerve in my left leg, so my balance was off and the back pain was magnified. I was told it would take six months for me to get back to normal if the fragment dissolved.

“Thankfully it did dissolve and I did not need surgery. Now I feel fit and stronger than I have for a long time. It’s been nice to be working with a physio – Simon Gilchrist – who was not blinded with golf techniques.”

Gilchrist has introduced Dinwiddie to new exercises to take some of the pressure off his legs to help his back problem and he has started playing this year with that advice in mind. It is so far so good this time around, given how he had to have three epidural injections to numb the pain just to hit the fairways last year.

“It’s been a really tough time for me because you can go back to 2009/10 when my problems first started,” said Dinwiddie. “I just wanted to come back and play well last year and it never happened because of my back.

“That’s behind me now, hopefully. I am a bit rusty because of the lack of playing competitively but it’s just nice to be feeling positive again after a period when I couldn’t even look at videos of my golf swing. But I’m over that now and I’m looking forward to the rest of the year.”

Dinwiddie is in Pretoria hoping to make an impression at the Tshwane Open when it starts today and making his first cut of the year is highest in his thinking at this stage. He has missed out on the weekend’s play at the Africa Open, Joburg Open, the Hero Indian Open and the South African Open Championship so far.

“I feel like I have been chipping well, putting well and in the first round at the Indian Open I played really well,” said the 32-year-old. “But then I had a rusty period in the second round and I lost my patience, but I have been relatively happy with how I have been playing even if I’m not happy with the results.

“The last few years have been disappointing and it’s nice to have that focus back and it’s about being patient. I had a few shaky weeks because of my lack of competitive golf but I do feel really good and I’m excited about the rest of the year.

“I knew I had a chance of getting my medical exemption because of what had happened to me last year, and it should get me in to most of the big events, although playing at Wentworth (in the BMW PGA Championship) might be a bit tight. I just want to get stuck in and see where it takes me.”