Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Paul simply has to find his best form soon or else he’ll be Dunne for..
PAUL DUNNE is under severe pressure to save his season at this week’s French Open.
Flounder in Paris and he risks falling through the Race to Dubai trapdoor.
To say 2019 has been a miserable year so far for Paul, who burst on the scene at the 2015 Open at St Andrews, is an understatement.
In 23 tournaments dating back to the Abu Dhabi HSBC in January, he has failed to make the cut 13 times.
Since May the Greystones golfer has made the weekend just twice – at the Czech Masters and KLM Open – and recorded a dispiriting 10 missed cuts in 12 outings.
Worryingly, six of those have come in his last seven events, a bleak trend indicating a downward spiral at the worst possible time of the season. Only 18 months ago, Dunne was ranked 65th in the world. Today he is 299th.
The 26-year-old is also down to 116th in the Race to Dubai, meaning he is at risk of missing out on his playing rights for next season.
The French Open is the penultimate event of the regular campaign, so there is little room for error if he hopes to climb back inside the top-110.
Dunne, who recently parted company with longtime caddie Darren Reynolds, needs a big week to get over the line.
He’s capable of it, but climbing out of the rut is tough.
I have been in the very same position as Paul as a player and I’ve wrestled the same demons. Believe me, I can empathise with how he’s feeling.
The pressure is paralysing and doubt stalks your every move. Just when you need to play with confidence, fear consumes everything you do and feel around the course.
At your greatest time of need you are a shadow of yourself and playing scared.
It isn’t easy changing the narrative or mindset, but the time does come when you have no other option but to dig deep and accept nothing less than the right result. I hope it’s this week. Le Golf National is a demanding course at the best of times but with your card and career on the line the challenge will be magnified.
On the plus side, the field isn’t the strongest and that always helps.
Double major winner Martin Kaymer and defending champion Alex Noren are two of the higher profile names in a shallow field.
It’s actually a huge disappointment that 13 months after Europe won the Ryder Cup in Paris, Noren is the only returning star of the victorious European team.
In 2020 the French Open returns to its original summer date, but for this year’s edition it’s very much a case of Paris in the fall.
The perfect time for Dunne to turn over a new leaf.