While the now 54-year-old Goulburn resident no longer plays full-time on the European Tour, he will still form part of the New South Wales Open, Australian Open and Australian PGA fields in a busy end to 2019.

He is under no illusions as to how tough it will be to find success at those events as he takes on younger opponents who have played more tournaments than him this year.

However, O'Malley has been in good touch on the Legends Tour over the past month as he finished tied fourth at the New South Wales Senior Masters and was joint runner-up at the Australian PGA Senior Championships.

His final round at the Australian PGA Senior Championships last Sunday featured six birdies as he finished one stroke behind victor Peter Senior.

"I played well in the second round too I just had a couple of bogeys, I had a couple of bad breaks, apart from that it was pretty good," he said of his latest result.

"The week before we had the New South Wales Senior Open at Thurgoona and I finished fourth there, so it's been a good couple of weeks and good to get a bit of form.

"It's a lot harder competing against the young boys these days in major events, so it's good to build some form and get a bit of confidence."

Prior to those two events, O'Malley spent time in Europe. He played seven Staysure Tour tournaments, made the cut in all of them and finished a close second in the Swiss Seniors Open.

O'Malley said the standard of golf in those senior events is still good and a handy preparation for the bigger tournaments he will play in December; tournaments he wants to do well at even though he will not rank among the favourites.

"It's very competitive still, most of the guys I am competing against were the guys I was playing against when I was on tour over there for a number of years. So the top 20-30 guys are still pretty good and competitive, after that it drops off a bit," he said.

"You've got to play very good golf to be in contention, if you play decent you finish in between 10 and 20, if you don't play any good you finish further down.

"Obviously the competition gets a bit stronger in the majors, but if you go in there without any sort of form at all, it's a hard time. I've only got a couple more years, but I still want to play those tournaments in 2020 which means I will have played over quite a number of decades.

"I feel like I can contend in any of the senior tour events we play, so I've just got to continue that form and get a little bit better to contend in the major tour events.

"Every time you go out and play you want to compete and compete at a good level, so I feel like if I'm just showing up it's hard. That's why I want to be in decent form going into those events."

The New South Wales Open, the first big event O'Malley will contest, runs from November 28 to December 1.

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