Paul Dunne keen to get started after illness hits in South Africa

After a stomach-aching, dreadful couple of days, things are getting better for Paul Dunne. The 23-year-old rookie set off to South Africa earlier this week aiming to kick-start his year's work on the European Tour only to spend Thursday hooked up to a saline drip in a hospital after being forced to withdraw from the South African Open due to illness.

With a diagnosis of a viral infection and a prognosis that rest and hydration should see him well enough to play in next week’s Joburg Open, Dunne was boosted by sealing a sponsorship deal with wealth management provider Davy Group and confirmation of a sponsor’s invite to play in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines at the end of this month.

Dunne had suffered from a stomach bug on Wednesday and Thursday and failed to get any sleep. At 4.30am on Thursday, when he should have been leaving for an early-morning tee-time, he was forced to call the tournament office to withdraw. “I picked up a club in the hotel room and when I took the club back I stumbled, I was too weak. I’d lost all the fluids that were in my body,” he says.

Energy levels

Instead of going to the course, Dunne was taken by courtesy car to the nearest hospital, received medication and spent almost two hours on a drip.

“I just need to get my energy levels back up. This happens to every player at one point; it just happened to me on my first week out of the year, which is fine, as long as I don’t rush myself back,” he says.

“I am only going to come back if I feel like I can play properly and am fit to play. Everyone gets sick and you try and get over it and back into a normal routine.”

The plan is to rest for the weekend and then hook up with fellow players Kevin Phelan and Ruaidhrí McGee for a practice round on Monday ahead of the Joburg Open, which will likely be his only outing on the European Tour before heading stateside to take up two invites to the US Tour, the Farmers Insurance and AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Dunne had looked for, but failed to receive, invites to the so-called Desert Swing tournaments, the Abu Dhabi championship, the Qatar Masters and the Dubai Desert Classic. He is philosophical, though, aware there is a long year ahead.

“Over Christmas, I might have hit balls down the driving range only twice over a 27-day period. That’s not even rare, it’s something I have never done before. But, then, travelling for nine weeks in a row from stage one of Q-School [up to finishing up at the Australian PGA in December] was something I had never done,” Dunne said.

Having won his card at Q-School, Dunne’s category means he can’t get into every tournament, but he is determined to be patient.

“I’ll try and keep my focus. If I can keep improving each week or each day or feel like I am doing something each day to make myself better, then results take care of themselves over time,” he says.

New sponsorship

“So I am putting no pressure on myself that I have to play well this week or next week. I know if my game keeps going in the direction it has been over the last few years that the results will come in time.”

Of the new sponsorship arrangement with Davy, Dunne, himself a graduate in business finance from the University of Alabama-Birmingham, said: “It’s exciting for me, it’s great to be associated with companies of quality. When it comes down to it, it is how I play. I have to keep focusing on my golf and hopefully I can handle myself well and shine a good light on these companies I am associated with.”

Dunne has also assumed a sporting ambassador role with the Children’s Medical Research Foundation to raise funds for Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin.

“Any support I can give that can make a difference, I will definitely be a part of it,” he says.

For now, his task is to regain his strength with the intention of playing the JoBurg Open and, thereafter, with a short break home to Greystones in a fortnight’s time, a globetrotting odyssey that will take him to the US, Australia, Thailand and India up to late March.