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Cape Town - It's been four years since Thomas Aiken won on tour. However, the South African predicts a win in the near future.
Aiken has had a more decent season than most - managing three top 10 finishes in 2018 - his best coming in an agonising playoff loss against England's Paul Waring at the Nordea Masters in Sweden.
The 35-year-old finished 74th on the European Tour's Race to Dubai rankings for the 2017/18 season, pocketing a cool €597 380 (R9.3 million) in 29 events.
One aspect in which Aiken hasn't performed in is at the Majors, not featuring in one in 2018 with his last appearance coming at the 2017 US Open.
Aiken's last win came at the then European Tour tournament, the Africa Open, which he won in a playoff against Englishman Ross Fisher in February 2014.
"It's been a pretty long year, it's nice to be play again in Mauritius, as I haven't been here since 2015. It's a nice week to bring the family and play," Aiken told Sport24 at the Mauritius Open this past weekend, which was sponsored by the Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority.
"I should've won the last two seasons, I lost in a playoff in Sweden and last year in Qatar and I messed up in the last couple of holes to finish one shot back."
However, the 294th-ranked golfer in the world rankings believes that he can feel win coming sooner than many predict.
"So the game is definitely there. Every week I tee up, I feel like I'm going to win. It's just whether you sink putts or not. This week I had a horrible week with the putter, I didn't sink anything at all so it was a little disappointing. (But) there's a lot of positivity going into the next few weeks and going into next season," said Aiken.
"I changed some equipment earlier on this year, which took me a while to get used to. Callaway really helped and hopefully we can go from strength to strength with that. I'm really looking forward to a very big year in 2019."
READ: Aiken concerned over SA Open sponsor struggles
Aiken finished T23 at the AfrAsia Mauritius Open and hopes his decent finish at Anahita will bode well ahead of two big weeks in South Africa with the SA Open and the Alfred Dunhill Championship.
"I obviously want to lead with momentum to the next weeks back at home, having the South African Open, which is always big. And then at Leopard Creek with all the course changes it has had, it's going to be interesting what has been done (to the course)," said Aiken.
"I've heard a lot of interesting things (about Leopard Creek) so it'll be interesting to hear how it'll play out, I've heard it'll play a little more challenging than normal.
"Hopefully we're in for a good couple of weeks to end off the year before we have a nice break."
The South African Open gets under way from Thursday at Randpark Golf Club.
