Gary Evans faces an anxious six months after an operation to save his career.

The most successful professional to come out of Sussex is recovering from a shoulder operation that casts a shadow over his playing future.

Even the sun-drenched beaches of his adopted home in Dubai cannot dispel the boredom of a long recuperative process.

He last played in the Irish Open in July fortified by a cortisone injection and has been using pain-killers since last April.

Three weeks ago he had keyhole surgery at a London hospital to remove the spur of a bone impinging on tendons and other soft tissue.

The condition prevented him from achieving a full extension of the right arm through the shot and every movement was agony.

He said: "My swing was something not pleasant to perform or watch. I urgently needed an operation. The surgeon, Stephen Corbett, did a good job and was quite happy with the way it went.

"During surgery there was some other debris to attend to. He cleaned out all the fragments in the joint that had been affected by wear and tear."

But it will be at least three months before Evans can even think seriously about playing again.

He will need plenty of practice to recapture the form that has taken him into the millionaire bracket.

He exercises every day in the gym and has targetted the Dubai Desert Classic in March for a return to the Tour.

Evans said: "That's what I'm hoping for but at present there is very little I can do.

"I cannot run because the vibration affects the shoulder and picking up a club is out of the question at the moment.

"I do what I can to stay in shape but what gets me is that there is so little to do except sit on the beach in the sun.

"It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? But for me it is a huge difference to being on the Tour and playing. I've been a resident here for 18 months and am allowed only 90 days each year back in the UK.

"I'm missing the kids, my mum and everything. I've made one or two friends here but it isn't the same.

"I've told myself not to be bitter and that these things happen. The people I feel sorry for are my sponsors who have had such faith in me.

"I've got to consider the possibility, and it is only a possibility, that things might not turn out as I hoped and I shall have to do something else other than playing on the Tour."

Lawyer and friend James Devane, who is also Evans' manager, was upbeat about the recovery programme.

He said: "The operation was the first and hopefully the last and the prognosis is not as bad as we feared. Hopefully he might be playing, or swinging a club without any problems earlier than March."

Evans is helping to design a new set of Olyo irons that should be on the market in the spring.

If all goes well he will use them when picking up the threads of a career that was hit by a wrist injury ten years ago.

He needed soft tissue reconstruction surgery that sidelined him throughout 1995.

Other low points that followed tested Rustington-born Evans to the full.

Georgia, his first child, was born with a mild version of spina bifida and Olivia has a hole in the heart. Fortunately the children are now healthy.

Three years ago the strain told on his marriage and Gary and Samantha separated. Evans has also had to pull out of his dive towards alcoholism.