There are plenty of sportsmen who inhabit that twilight zone between celebrity and anonymity, and the best way to find out if you’re one of them is to take the supermarket test. There’s a light tap on your shoulder and when you turn round you’re never sure whether you’re about to hear “can I have your autograph please?” or “excuse me, any idea where I can find the cereal counter?”.

Until recently, a 28-year-old golfer from Surrey was more likely to be found pointing at a cereal packet than scribbling his name on the back of it, but his profile has risen so steadily over the past year that on shopping trips around his home town of Cheam he now hears the occasional: “Hey, isn’t that Ross Fisher?”

Turning the odd head in Cheam High Street is not the same as being unable to pull back your curtains without wondering whether the whirring noise coming from behind the rhododendrons is the motor drives on paparazzi cameras, and Fisher had first-hand experience of the circus surrounding Tiger Woods when he was paired with him in the opening two rounds of the HSBC Champions in Shanghai. Fisher, whose marquee grouping was the result of a rise to 19th in the world rankings and his victory in the World Match Play in Spain, had to abort his approach to the opening green three times because of camera clicks during his backswing. “My caddie made me smile,” said Fisher. “He said, ‘Don’t worry, Ross, they’re not taking photos of you. They are trying [pointing to Woods standing a few yards away] to get a few more of him and you’re in the way’.”

Fisher, who is hoping to raise his profile and bank balance a few notches at the European Tour’s flagship end-of-term Race To Dubai tournament this week, revealed that playing in the same group as Woods was enough to make a golfer more recognisable. “I kept hearing people saying, ‘Ah, Fisher, Fisher’ as we walked to tees, which was all part of an amazing experience.”

So what is it like playing golf in the menagerie surrounding Woods? “I’d played with him before, two years ago in Dubai, and that was frantic, but Shanghai was something else. The crowd got so carried away that there were times it got on your nerves, but I love playing in front of big crowds, and mostly it was hugely enjoyable.”

Enjoyable? You don’t hear that too often when a golfer is surrounded by all the Woods hoopla. “Everybody has their own method when they are focused on trying to win,” said Fisher. “But he’s good company and just a normal guy. He may have this image of being shut off in his own world, but we chatted all the way round.” About what? “You name it. Family, friends, having babies, travelling the world, schedules, tournaments, golf clubs, everything. We cracked a few jokes, had a laugh, and he’s a real pleasure to play with.”

When it came to the chinwag about babies, the conversation turned to Fisher’s decision at Turnberry during the summer to put the birth of his first child ahead of the chance to win The Open. The call never came, but with his wife Joanne due to deliver at any moment, Fisher equipped himself with a pager ahead of the final round, and although only one shot off the lead, he had a private jet standing by to whisk him away if she went into labour. But does he expect people to believe that he would have walked off the course, had he been leading The Open by four strokes midway through the inward nine? “I was serious,” he says. “No way was I going to miss the birth of my first child. If the call had come, I’d have been out of there.”

Which made it pertinent to suggest that his head was already somewhere else when he teed off, and might still have been when his chance of going home with the Claret Jug was blown away with a quadruple bogey eight at the fifth hole. “No, it was down to one bad swing,” he says. “If it’s meant to be your week, my tee shot might have ended up in a better place than the horrible lie I found, but it wasn’t to be. That’s golf. These things happen and, after all, it’s just another golf tournament.”

Er, not quite, I suggest. But Fisher seems to be blessed with a special temperament. “I’d loved to have won, but I’ve always thought there are more important things in life than golf, especially now since the birth of my daughter Eve,” he says. “I’m fortunate to get paid for doing something I love.” And getting paid pretty well. He is thinking of joining the likes of Justin Rose and Ian Poulter by buying a house in Florida, although he has no plans to spend more time playing in the USA. “I enjoy it there and that’s where the biggest tournaments are,” he says. “But we’re catching up in Europe; besides, it’s Ryder Cup year, which is one of my main goals for next year.”

After Dubai, his final engagement for this season is representing England with Poulter in the World Cup in China. “We are both coming off big recent wins, and we have a good chance,” says Fisher. They will look the part, with Poulter putting himself in charge of designing the clothes they will be wearing, with matching trousers, shirts, and shoes, although, hopefully, not the Union Jack trousers he once wore. “Poults, as everybody knows,” says Fisher, “has a keen sense of fashion and it’s cool to dress in such a way that people know you’re out there as a team, representing your country.”

The pair also played together for England last year, when Fisher was the less recognised partner, but this time it might be a case of role-reversal. It’s as well Poulter doesn’t speak Chinese, because he’s not exactly devoid of ego, and wouldn’t much care to overhear a spectator saying: “Hey, who’s that guy playing with Fisher?”