Glasgow golfer Marc Warren is hoping a cold winter at home can help him make a hot start to the 2018 European Tour season.

Warren, 36, is on a six week break before he resumes the new campaign in South Africa at the start of January.

At this time of the year, many Scottish pro golfers head for warmer climes to fine tune their game away from the winter weather.

But Warren, who had an injury hindered 2017, is hoping the home comforts can reap the rewards in the new year.

The three-time Tour winner said: “I’ve tried going to Florida for the winter but I probably had my worst years on tour after I had done that.

“I felt I was doing everything right when I was out there. I was doing a bit of training and did some putting out there which isn’t easily accessible in Scotland in the winter, so I thought I was giving myself an advantage.

“But it had the opposite effect. So I think for me, mentally and physically, I’ve decided to just have that down time, especially as the next tournament is so far away. The clubs are away just now.”

The 2018 campaign will be Warren’s 13th consecutive season on the main European Tour. The former World Cup winner endured his fair share of misfortune in 2017 with that niggling shoulder problem which was finally cured towards the tail end of the year. That clean bill of health allowed him to produce a late flourish which lifted him away from the danger zone of the rankings and into the upper reaches.

By his own admission, Warren tends to be a slow starter but his aches and pains made that progress even more laborious.

He added: “Once or twice I’ve had decent starts, but majority of the time it’s been the second half of the season when things click. This year, though, I felt as if I had a really good winter, I worked hard physically and felt as if I was ready to get out and play well

“My hopes were quite high, but then I got a shoulder injury at Dubai and from then it was a bit of a struggle. It was a long, tough summer. I’ll try to use these five, six weeks to get physically stronger again and hopefully prevent those things happening again.”