Tyrrell Hatton has set his sights on breaking into the top 100 golfers in the world during his second season on the European Tour.

The Marlow man rocketed up the rankings after a debut season which saw him finish as runner-up to Brooks Koepka for the Rookie of the Year award, and finish sixth at the World Tour Championships and 36th in the Race to Dubai standings.

Hatton was ranked 995th as recently as May 2013, but has now risen to 131st and the former Great Marlow school pupil is determined to keep climbing his way up the pecking order. He said: “The first goal would be to get inside the top 100 players in the world by the end of the year and stay there.

“The second one would be to get my first win; that would be amazing. And at the end of the year I want to be playing in the Race to Dubai again.

“I don’t want to have one great year and then go backwards. I want to keep pushing on and keep improving, so hopefully I can do that.”

The 23-year-old picked up where he left off at the end of first year on tour, shooting 14-under par to finish sixth at the season opening Abu Dhabi Championship in January.

But since then the Harleyford Gold Club member has missed the cut at the Qatar Masters and the Malaysian Open with a 55th place finish at the Dubai Desert Classic sandwiched in between, and Hatton admits to having struggled over the past few weeks.

“It was great to be back there (Abu Dhabi). I did well there last year so I was kind of feeding off the good vibes from that. It was a bit of a surprise to play as well as I did because I’d done very little practice leading up to the tournament, so I was a bit surprised but it was a nice way to start the year,” he said. “It was a good start in Abu Dhabi, but the last three weeks weren’t really enjoyable because I missed two cuts and wasn’t very well in Dubai.

“I’ve just not been playing well, I lost my swing a little bit and putts just weren’t dropping so it’s hard to build momentum. Although I wasn’t playing well I still gave myself opportunities to make birdies, but when you’re not holing putts you certainly can’t build any momentum and it’s difficult.”

South Africa is the next destination on Hatton’s radar when he jets off to compete in the Joburg Open, which begins on February 26.

Four sub 70 rounds of 67-69-69-66 earned the Marlow golfer his best finish on tour to date as he finished as runner-up to George Coetzee, and he’s hopeful of picking up the win this time around.

He said: “It’s always nice going back to a tournament that you’ve done well at. I’ve got good confidence there and it would be nice to go one better this year.”