It rated 10 out of 10 on the pain scale at the time, but English golfer Paul Casey says his snowboarding accident might end up proving to be the best thing that's happened to his career.

Casey dislocated his right shoulder after crashing his snowboard in Colorado on Christmas Eve last year.

The 35-year-old reached a career-high of No.3 in the world in 2009 and was still ranked 19th before his snowboarding mishap.

But with the four-month rehabilitation and the mental roadblocks that followed, his world ranking has slump to 132, with Casey missing the cut in 11 of 13 tournaments during one horror stretch this year.

However, after finally overcoming his mental and physical demons, Casey feels he is ready to once again make a charge up the world ladder.

And after working on several technical issues during his injury-enforced absence, Casey is confident he can become an even better player than he was before.

"The mental side of it, trusting the shoulder - it's had a knock-on effect this year which has been frustrating," Casey said.

"But in hindsight, maybe it's one of the best snowboard crashes I've ever had because it allowed me to really deconstruct my golf game and go through and look at everything and see what I need to do and what I need to work on to be as good a player as I can be.

"This year has been very frustrating and, obviously, it was my own fault.

"But I feel very good sitting here about the way things are going now and the way the future is looking."

Casey finished third at a tournament in Korea last week and said he was confident heading into the $1.96 million Perth International at Lake Karrinyup, which starts on Thursday.

The right-hander is eager to break back into the world's top 50, and believes he has the weapons to do it.

And as for his snowboard?

"I haven't sold the snowboard ... but I'm not sure I'll go snowboarding this season," Casey said with a laugh.