Maria’s not Dunne and dusted yet

Skerries star is bowing out at top of international game but insists there’s plenty more to come on domestic front.

M ARIA Dunne has decided to go out at the top and retire from international golf.

But if you think that’s the last you’ve heard of the Skerries’ battler, you’re very much mistaken.

While she’s now 34 and reached the highest levels of the amateur game, there may be more glory days to come. As she joked with a well wisher on Twitter this week, she’s yet to win the Irish Amateur Close and pal Paula Grant has already won that title twice.

“I will definitely continue to play weekly and try to win a medal or two in Skerries as well as play the home events,” Maria said this week as she announced her decision to put her green jersey away.

“I’ll also have a lot more time on my hands now, so you never know what is around the corner!”

Writing Maria Dunne off is never a good idea.

She thought she had enjoyed her career highlight in 2015 when she made the Curtis Cup team just seven years after suffering such excruciatingly painful back problems that she’d had to crawl from her car to her front door.

But while that victory alongside Leona Maguire and Olivia Mehaffey at Dun Laoghaire will always be special, it was not until Ireland won the Ladies’ Home Internationals at Little Aston in August that she decided it was time to hang up his international spikes.

“It just confirmed that the time was right,” Maria said of a win that ended a 13-year wait for an Irish victory. “I am making the decision for me and not anyone else, not many people get to choose to step away on their own terms so that’s special.”

It was a case of the wheel turning full circle for a player who is a wonderful role model for her sport and now one of the ILGU’s Golf4Girls4Life ambassadors.

She made her international debut in the Home Internationals at Cruden Bay in 2003, where she helped Ireland win the title for the first time in 18 years.

After missing out on a second successive Irish win in 2004, she played again in 2005 and 2006, but was stuck down by back problems that made walking, never mind golf, a challenge.

“Some days it would be fine and others I would sit down and not be able to get back up again,” she explained. “It was very unpredictable so that was difficult to deal with.

“I was trying to compete at the time and as you can imagine it wasn’t going very well, I was losing a lot of confidence.

“I worked through it with physios and consultants, but that took time. Once I had it under control it was a case of working on my fitness to make sure the injury didn’t return. My physical fitness has been a big part of my life since then.”

She returned to the international scene in 2011 – a feat she attributes to the encouragement and faith of her coach of 19 years, Roger Yates.

“We sat down in 2011 and he asked me did I want to be Maria Dunne – ex Irish International or did I want to play for Ireland one more time, I wanted to compete and play again, I didn’t think I was done!” she confessed.

“Once I was willing to put in the work, Roger was willing to work with me.

“It was like when I was younger and was just trying to make the next step up, so from Homes in 2012 I thought maybe I could make the European Team Championships again, which I did the following year.

“Then I thought maybe I could make the World Amateur Team, which I did the following year again. Finally I then thought… ‘Oh, could I be a Curtis Cup player?’

“From Roger’s belief in me, I took out that anything is possible and I probably wouldn’t have made that Curtis Cup team without that.”

Her career highlights are myriad but having made the Curtis Cup team two years ago, she achieved two more goals this summer when she opened with a nine-under par 66 and won the Irish Women’s Open Stroke Play Championship at Baltray to secure a call up for the Great Britain and Ireland Vagliano Trophy team.

“It was magic to get that win because I was really under pressure at that point,” she said. “The season hadn’t started so well and I was questioning if I should have finished up at the end of 2016.

“My expectations of myself were much higher having made Curtis Cup last year. Not until I just let those thoughts go did I play some really good golf at the Stroke Play, get the win and kick start my 2017 season.”

Her goal now is to “win the odd medal” at Skerries and perhaps clinch that long overdue Irish Amateur Close title.

But having travelled the world playing golf, she also wants to give something back to the game and the ILGU.

Speaking as a Golf4Girls4Life Ambassador, she said: “To be a role model in any phase of your life is really special, I appreciate so much being asked to be an ambassador as I know how role models have inspired me over the years.

“I’m excited to attend some of the Golf4Girls4Life Festivals later this year and to be involved.

“What I think is great about the programme is that it doesn’t aim to find the next Leona or the most talented person in the group, it’s about giving the girls the opportunity to see what golf is and getting everyone to take part – that’s what matters”.