SPAIN’S PABLO Martin will be trying this week to join an exclusive group of golfers who have won a European Tour event three times in a row.

Martin, who at the Portuguese Open in 2007 became the circuit’s first amateur winner, is going for a hat-trick of titles in the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopards Creek in South Africa.

If successful he would join Ian Woosnam, Nick Faldo, Tiger Woods and Ernie Els.

Woods, the only player to do it at more than one event, was the last to achieve the feat in the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational four years ago.

“Hopefully I can do it again,” said Martin. “I don’t know what it is about the place. If I knew what it was I would do it every week.”

Martin’s task is made all the more tougher by the fact he has not made a halfway cut since July. “I need to find something because I haven’t a lot of confidence at the moment. I don’t know what to expect, but you just never know with this game.”

Martin plays the first two rounds with former Ryder Cup player Oliver Wilson, whose agenda is very different.

Wilson has flown from Asia to South Africa to try to keep his Tour career afloat three years after representing Europe against the Americans in Louisville.

There is not as much money on offer as at the Iskandar Johor Open in Malaysia, with a first prize of €158,500, but the field is nowhere near as strong.

Wilson has tumbled to 132nd on the money list, with only the top 115 keeping their cards after the Hong Kong Open in a fortnight’s time.

Paul Cutler is the only Irish interest in the field, a week after picking up his first cheque as a professional in Singapore.