THE DREAM IS always the same. It doesn’t matter if you’re Tiger Woods or Paul Dunne. At this time of year a golfer’s internal voice is at its noisiest, heard above the drip-drip-drip of the morning rain, the cloudless optimism of men who believe they have the equipment to do something special.
The man sitting opposite you is certainly thinking that way. Wearing navy slacks, a grey sweater and the look of someone who has been working hard in the gym but sees no need to mention it, Paul Dunne steers the conversation in a direction that reminds you of Padraig Harrington.
It isn’t the first time that comparison has been made; Dunne’s slavish devotion to his trade prompting Rory McIlroy to once make the point that he tends to only come across the Greystones-man on the range, irrespective of the time of day.
Another impression – this one delivered by Zach Johnson – was even more flattering; McIlroy the player Dunne was compared to this time. “That speed in his legs,” Johnson said. “It’s so (similar to) Rory.”
Like McIlroy, Dunne is in a hurry. He’s 27 now, five years on from announcing himself at the 2015 Open, when he became the first amateur since 1927 to lead the tournament after three rounds.
A winner on tour in 2017, by last season he became a frustrated figure, missing 12 out of 14 cuts as summer gave way to autumn.
With this in mind, you’d think the last thing we should be talking about is winning majors, but then again this time last year we realistically shouldn’t have been having that kind of conversation with Shane Lowry, either. “Golf is a funny sport,” Dunne says. “It’s not say, like tennis, where the world’s 100th ranked player is never really going to beat Rafael Nadal. But in golf that happens all the time. It’s kind of why it’s exciting.
“Seeing Shane win last year, coming on the back of Padraig’s (Harrington) three majors; Graeme (McDowell) doing it, too – it makes the dreams more realistic, because they are guys who have come from a similar place as me and aren’t too dissimilar in terms of talent. It’s not that I’m saying I’ll definitely go and win one, but who knows, I could qualify for the Open and then go on and do it. These things aren’t that far-fetched. I have faith in my ability to win golf tournaments. Why else would you play?”
Dunne says Shane Lowry's Open win is a source of inspiration. Presseye / Matt Mackey/INPHO
Presseye / Matt Mackey/INPHO / Matt Mackey/INPHO
A hand injury that required surgery stopped him playing in December but despite the inconvenience of being in a cast, he was relaxed chatting about it, intrigued by the nuances of the rehab process, tailoring his gym work accordingly. His return date “sometime in the New Year” was delivered with a knowing smile.
You could see why he was relaxed. As he walked up the stairs of his home golf club, it must have felt like entering the hallway of his parents’ home, the walls a shrine to its most famous member.
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A few of the higher handicappers waved to Dunne as he ordered a coffee but chose not to bother him, preoccupied instead by their scorer’s mathematics.
He was 10 when he first came here, 12 when his handicap dropped to single figures, enthralled with a game that tested – and later tormented – the mind. “I fell in love with it,” he says of the sport, its challenges, its quirks, the whooshing sound he made on his follow-through, his ability to bend the ball around corners.
By 14, he was “in the system”, handpicked as one for the future, soon on the same scholarship to Alabama that McDowell had been on.
But in golfing terms, Paul Dunne’s life didn’t really begin until 7.30pm on that July Sunday in 2015, when he signed his card at the Old Course and walked past a leaderboard that had his name sandwiched between co-leaders, Louis Oosthuizen and Jason Day.
The rest of that evening was a daze; press conferences, TV interviews, radio commitments; a meal in the clubhouse with his family; quick ride home to the house he was staying in; dozing off in front of the telly; head on the pillow by 10.30pm.
When the sunlight squeezed through the curtains the following morning, he was forced to squint at his alarm clock, seeing it was 6.30am, a good four hours before he wanted to wake. Still he wasn’t feeling the strain, joking around outside with a football, eating breakfast, practicising his putting on the lush bedroom carpet.
The thing that got to him was the weather. “Is it going to rain?” he asked. He always struggles with his right-hand grip when it is wet.
As I was warming up, I was thinking ‘great, I’m ready for this’. But I wasn’t.
“I wasn’t one of those 22-year-olds in the Jordan Spieth mould, a guy who knew how to ride out bad holes on a final round. My golfing experience wasn’t as deep.”
In golfing terms that was a lifetime ago. By the end of that year he’d turned pro, getting €550 in his first wage slip after finishing fifth at Q school. It should have been €50 less but the guy he was rooming with was still an amateur, so they bumped up his prize.
He laughs about those innocent times, paying €22-a-night for his room in a tennis club, sitting on the reception room floor with his roomie to watch a film on Netflix because the wifi didn’t work in the bedroom. Later that year, he’d get €47,000 at the Dunhill and he just couldn’t stop himself standing and staring at the figure.
Dunne is looking to rediscover his form in 2020. Oisin Keniry / INPHO
Oisin Keniry / INPHO / INPHO
Four years on, his earnings have passed the €3m mark but he’s half-embarrassed to talk about it.
Money is irrelevant to me,” he says. “Yes, our income is really high but our expenses are super high. Look, I’m just not in this for money; I’m in this because I want to win more than the player next to me. Everything still goes back to when I was that 12-year-old, up against my mates, wanting to beat them.
“I’m not saying it’s unimportant. I remember that feeling when I was able to buy my own apartment. That satisfaction, I’d say everyone gets that when they can move into their own home for the first time. I’m lucky. I know all that. But, for me, it’s about winning tournaments not dollars.”
It’s something he believes he can do again, two-and-a-bit years on since his British Masters win. Even if his form did disappear at the tail end of 2019, he makes a convincing point that once you’ve seen off the field – McIlroy came second that week; Lowry seventh – the belief will never disappear.
Dunne finished ahead of Rory McIlroy at the 2017 British Masters Oisin Keniry / INPHO
Oisin Keniry / INPHO / INPHO
“I like to write,” Dunne says. “I keep different journals beside my bed, just to recall different things I felt at different stages of tournaments. That is my place to vent. You pull off a difficult shot; do things on a course that no one, aside from yourself, will know about and you draw a lot of satisfaction from those moments. Every now and then I go back to those journals and read up on things.”
Lately, he came across a line he wrote when he was at the French Open in 2017, teeing off the final round at 8.30am, followed by a gallery of two people, his brother and his girlfriend.
It’s a dead atmosphere, those kind of mornings,” he says.
But he learned something about himself, responding to the cajoling and motivating of that little voice inside his head; shooting a 65, ending up in a tie for 13th. The next day a text came through from the Tour, telling him he’d won €95,964. “Those are points, that gets your ranking up, that just shows you can never give up. Look, playing for a tenner with your mate on a Tuesday is often more fun than teeing up in 48th place on a Sunday but there’s a lesson from that day. Never give up.”
He felt better about himself as he shared a cab back to the airport that night, and when he filled in his journal that evening, he noted down the number of different countries he’d been to since he turned pro. Sadly, he noted something else. “Golf course, restaurant, airport, hotel, that’s all you ever see.”
There was never time for anything else. “If I wanted to go see the Eiffel Tower, then something would have to be sacrificed. It’s just the way it is. You aren’t going there on holiday; you are working.”
Only once does he remember indulging in a bit of tourism, spending half a day with his family going around the Giants Causeway and Bushmills when the Irish Open was at Portstewart. Now and then he wanders around cities when there’s a down day between tournaments but the reality of his life is that he lives out of a suitcase, getting home for about 18 to 20 weeks a year.
But this is the life he chose. It is a career and a sport that can torture the mind but he’s learned how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. “Sure it is a very tough game mentally because you have so much time by yourself. In terms of tormenting yourself and having the time to overthink things, it is probably a sport that stands out. But look, it’s not life or death.
Rally car drivers, boxers and jockeys, they are dealing with the possibility of physical pain or potential death on the back of a wrong decision. We’re not.”
Even the pain of losing his European Tour card doesn’t really hurt as he’s guaranteed at least 20 starts because of his status as a tour winner. “My self-belief hasn’t been affected,” he says. “I’ll be okay.”
Lowry thinks so too, backing his friend to come out this dark place, remembering he was there not too long ago. It’s fair to say things kind of worked out for him in 2019. You can see why Dunne smiled when we mention this. “In golf things can change quickly,” he says.
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Dunne believes he can join Ireland's list of major winners
THE DREAM IS always the same. It doesn’t matter if you’re Tiger Woods or Paul Dunne. At this time of year a golfer’s internal voice is at its noisiest, heard above the drip-drip-drip of the morning rain, the cloudless optimism of men who believe they have the equipment to do something special.
The man sitting opposite you is certainly thinking that way. Wearing navy slacks, a grey sweater and the look of someone who has been working hard in the gym but sees no need to mention it, Paul Dunne steers the conversation in a direction that reminds you of Padraig Harrington.
It isn’t the first time that comparison has been made; Dunne’s slavish devotion to his trade prompting Rory McIlroy to once make the point that he tends to only come across the Greystones-man on the range, irrespective of the time of day.
Another impression – this one delivered by Zach Johnson – was even more flattering; McIlroy the player Dunne was compared to this time. “That speed in his legs,” Johnson said. “It’s so (similar to) Rory.”
Like McIlroy, Dunne is in a hurry. He’s 27 now, five years on from announcing himself at the 2015 Open, when he became the first amateur since 1927 to lead the tournament after three rounds.
A winner on tour in 2017, by last season he became a frustrated figure, missing 12 out of 14 cuts as summer gave way to autumn.
With this in mind, you’d think the last thing we should be talking about is winning majors, but then again this time last year we realistically shouldn’t have been having that kind of conversation with Shane Lowry, either. “Golf is a funny sport,” Dunne says. “It’s not say, like tennis, where the world’s 100th ranked player is never really going to beat Rafael Nadal. But in golf that happens all the time. It’s kind of why it’s exciting.
“Seeing Shane win last year, coming on the back of Padraig’s (Harrington) three majors; Graeme (McDowell) doing it, too – it makes the dreams more realistic, because they are guys who have come from a similar place as me and aren’t too dissimilar in terms of talent. It’s not that I’m saying I’ll definitely go and win one, but who knows, I could qualify for the Open and then go on and do it. These things aren’t that far-fetched. I have faith in my ability to win golf tournaments. Why else would you play?”
A hand injury that required surgery stopped him playing in December but despite the inconvenience of being in a cast, he was relaxed chatting about it, intrigued by the nuances of the rehab process, tailoring his gym work accordingly. His return date “sometime in the New Year” was delivered with a knowing smile.
You could see why he was relaxed. As he walked up the stairs of his home golf club, it must have felt like entering the hallway of his parents’ home, the walls a shrine to its most famous member.
A few of the higher handicappers waved to Dunne as he ordered a coffee but chose not to bother him, preoccupied instead by their scorer’s mathematics.
He was 10 when he first came here, 12 when his handicap dropped to single figures, enthralled with a game that tested – and later tormented – the mind. “I fell in love with it,” he says of the sport, its challenges, its quirks, the whooshing sound he made on his follow-through, his ability to bend the ball around corners.
By 14, he was “in the system”, handpicked as one for the future, soon on the same scholarship to Alabama that McDowell had been on.
But in golfing terms, Paul Dunne’s life didn’t really begin until 7.30pm on that July Sunday in 2015, when he signed his card at the Old Course and walked past a leaderboard that had his name sandwiched between co-leaders, Louis Oosthuizen and Jason Day.
The rest of that evening was a daze; press conferences, TV interviews, radio commitments; a meal in the clubhouse with his family; quick ride home to the house he was staying in; dozing off in front of the telly; head on the pillow by 10.30pm.
When the sunlight squeezed through the curtains the following morning, he was forced to squint at his alarm clock, seeing it was 6.30am, a good four hours before he wanted to wake. Still he wasn’t feeling the strain, joking around outside with a football, eating breakfast, practicising his putting on the lush bedroom carpet.
The thing that got to him was the weather. “Is it going to rain?” he asked. He always struggles with his right-hand grip when it is wet.
“I wasn’t one of those 22-year-olds in the Jordan Spieth mould, a guy who knew how to ride out bad holes on a final round. My golfing experience wasn’t as deep.”
In golfing terms that was a lifetime ago. By the end of that year he’d turned pro, getting €550 in his first wage slip after finishing fifth at Q school. It should have been €50 less but the guy he was rooming with was still an amateur, so they bumped up his prize.
He laughs about those innocent times, paying €22-a-night for his room in a tennis club, sitting on the reception room floor with his roomie to watch a film on Netflix because the wifi didn’t work in the bedroom. Later that year, he’d get €47,000 at the Dunhill and he just couldn’t stop himself standing and staring at the figure.
Four years on, his earnings have passed the €3m mark but he’s half-embarrassed to talk about it.
“I’m not saying it’s unimportant. I remember that feeling when I was able to buy my own apartment. That satisfaction, I’d say everyone gets that when they can move into their own home for the first time. I’m lucky. I know all that. But, for me, it’s about winning tournaments not dollars.”
It’s something he believes he can do again, two-and-a-bit years on since his British Masters win. Even if his form did disappear at the tail end of 2019, he makes a convincing point that once you’ve seen off the field – McIlroy came second that week; Lowry seventh – the belief will never disappear.
“I like to write,” Dunne says. “I keep different journals beside my bed, just to recall different things I felt at different stages of tournaments. That is my place to vent. You pull off a difficult shot; do things on a course that no one, aside from yourself, will know about and you draw a lot of satisfaction from those moments. Every now and then I go back to those journals and read up on things.”
Lately, he came across a line he wrote when he was at the French Open in 2017, teeing off the final round at 8.30am, followed by a gallery of two people, his brother and his girlfriend.
But he learned something about himself, responding to the cajoling and motivating of that little voice inside his head; shooting a 65, ending up in a tie for 13th. The next day a text came through from the Tour, telling him he’d won €95,964. “Those are points, that gets your ranking up, that just shows you can never give up. Look, playing for a tenner with your mate on a Tuesday is often more fun than teeing up in 48th place on a Sunday but there’s a lesson from that day. Never give up.”
He felt better about himself as he shared a cab back to the airport that night, and when he filled in his journal that evening, he noted down the number of different countries he’d been to since he turned pro. Sadly, he noted something else. “Golf course, restaurant, airport, hotel, that’s all you ever see.”
There was never time for anything else. “If I wanted to go see the Eiffel Tower, then something would have to be sacrificed. It’s just the way it is. You aren’t going there on holiday; you are working.”
Only once does he remember indulging in a bit of tourism, spending half a day with his family going around the Giants Causeway and Bushmills when the Irish Open was at Portstewart. Now and then he wanders around cities when there’s a down day between tournaments but the reality of his life is that he lives out of a suitcase, getting home for about 18 to 20 weeks a year.
But this is the life he chose. It is a career and a sport that can torture the mind but he’s learned how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. “Sure it is a very tough game mentally because you have so much time by yourself. In terms of tormenting yourself and having the time to overthink things, it is probably a sport that stands out. But look, it’s not life or death.
Even the pain of losing his European Tour card doesn’t really hurt as he’s guaranteed at least 20 starts because of his status as a tour winner. “My self-belief hasn’t been affected,” he says. “I’ll be okay.”
Lowry thinks so too, backing his friend to come out this dark place, remembering he was there not too long ago. It’s fair to say things kind of worked out for him in 2019. You can see why Dunne smiled when we mention this. “In golf things can change quickly,” he says.
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Destiny Majors Paul Dunne Shane Lowry