Three great days and one to forget.
Paul Dunne teed off last on the fourth round of The Open at St Andrews. The 22-year-old was leading the championship and had a number in his head of the round that would win him The Claret Jug.
That number was nowhere near ’78’ but that is what he shot.
Dunne bogeyed the first hole and had some misadventures on the second. At one stage, he was taking five off the tee and facing a double figures score.
Luckily, a diligent steward spotted his first drive and there was a reprieve. Dunne birdied two of the next three holes to get back to -12 but trouble on 10 and 11 saw him drop back and he gave back more shots over the closing stretch.
After signing off for a four-round total of 282, Dunne revealed some of what was going through his head on a tumultuous final day.
‘The first three days [were positive], for sure,’ he told reporters. ‘The last round I don’t think there’s much positives to put on it, on a 78 on a final round. But I’m sure there’s still stuff I can learn from it that’ll be positive going forward and help me in the future.’
Dunne added, ‘I was nervous, yeah, but nothing anything different to the last three days.
‘But the last three days I just kind of got off to a steady start and settled into the round, and today I had a couple shots that I hadn’t seen in any practice or any range sessions I’ve had or anything and it kind of just rattled me a little bit. I didn’t really know where they came from, and yeah, I just never settled in after it.
‘The first one [on the second hole] was way right. They told me when I was on the tee box, just when I was walking off, that they got the first one, so I was just trying to think about trying to save par, really.’
Dunne will link up with the European Walker Cup squad at Royal Lytham, today, and will likely play that event as an amateur.
He said, ‘I’ll just think about [going professional] for the next few days and make a decision, but right now nothing concrete.’
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