Barnet golfer Andrew Johnston will return to the European Tour after topping the Challenge Tour but acknowledged he must work harder than the last time he mixed with some of the world’s elite.

The 25-year-old finished ninth at the Dubai Festival City Challenge Tour Grand Final last weekend to cap a remarkable season in which he not only secured a full card for next year’s Tour, but picked up his first career wins at that level.

Affectionately known as ‘Beef’, Johnston explains an epiphany in 2012 persuaded him to take his golf more seriously, get a personal trainer and go to the gym more frequently; all of which resulted in him losing more than two stone, which in turn has had a big bearing on his game.

Johnson explained: “I played [on the European Tour] in 2012 and you see the top players in the gym before and after they practice and they practice a lot longer and harder. I thought ‘you don’t need to do that’, but you see their names at the top, so it obviously works.”

“This year almost proves what I have done works, so that gives me great confidence,” muses Johnston. “When I started doing these things, I was like: ‘Is this going to work?’ If I know I have prepared as best as I can then I know I have done everything in my power to succeed and it is in my hands.”

Reflecting on his successful season, Johnston added: “I am just really pleased to finish top. I know I had quite a big lead with two events to go, but just to finish and see your name at the top is special.

“All you can think about is the few guys up there who can overtake,” he admits, reflecting on a nerve-wracking final event in Dubai. “I try not to concentrate on others but it was hard to concentrate on my own game in Dubai.”

It was not until Johnston won both the Scottish Hydro Challenge and the Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge in the space of a month that he believed he could finish top of the European Challenge Tour.

“At the start of the year, the aim was to finish in the top 15 and get my European Tour card back. But after winning those two events I sat down with my manager and he said the goal should be to finish as number one – and it feels great.

“It is strange because when you win the first event (Scottish Hydro Challenge) you do not want it to be a fluke, so winning the second event (Le Vaudreuil) gave me the most confidence,” explains Johnston.

Despite his success, Johnston, who is from Friern Barnet, is still a regular visitor at the North Middlesex Golf Club, where he has been a member since the age of nine.

“It is so good being a member there, being able to practice or pop along for a cup of tea – it is like a second home to me,” said Johnston, who attended St John’s CofE Primary School.

“When I turned professional, the members helped me out and paid for me to practice somewhere warm in the winter.”

Howard Till, manager at North Middlesex, said: “Andrew is so supportive of North Middlesex and a great advocate of the club. He is the nicest man you can meet and so good for the club. He is still a member and you will see him practicing on the green for two hours, perfecting the same four-yard putt over and over.”