While Tiger Woods travelled to Royal Troon on Saturday to begin his preparation for the 152nd Open, Joe Dean spent his weekend in a far more relaxed manner and doing what he enjoys most: washing cars.
‘It’s a guilty pleasure of mine,’ Dean says, speaking to ‘Some people think it’s absolutely mad but it’s as close to therapy as I’m going to get.’
But the Yorkshireman’s favourite pastime also serves as a testament to the unusual, topsy-turvy journey that the professional golfer has been on in recent years.
Once a Challenge Tour player back in 2019, Dean was forced to reassess his options at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, starting shifts as a delivery driver at Morrisons and helping out at his friend’s car detailing business to ensure he could pay his bills.
As the world began to reopen, Dean began the journey of rebuilding his golf career. Initially competing at pro-ams and one-day events in the UK, the 30-year-old eventually gained a DP World Tour card for the very first time in November last year having come through three, grueling stages of qualifying.
But a Tour card is no guarantee to success, let alone starts. Due to his ranking, Dean could only make it into smaller events and, without the backing of enough sponsors, had to return to delivery driving shifts to save up for flights.
Four months on, he could finally afford to compete, flying out to Asia in February for the Qatar Masters. He missed the cut in Doha – not earning a penny – but struck gold at his very next event when he finished in a tie for second at the Magical Kenya Open to take home a £170,000 runners-up cheque.
‘It was a huge moment for me,’ Dean reflects. ‘It wasn’t life-changing, but a massive confidence boost and it put me on the radar with a few more sponsors.
‘There’s thousands of pros who are in the same position where they had to get a job to cover bills in tough times so I think my story resonated with a lot of people out there.’
Able to put his delivery driving shifts behind him, Dean has continued his remarkable rise in recent months and earned almost £420,000 over the course of six events.
Such results have seen him rise from world number 2,930 to just outside the world’s top 250, with another second-place finish at last month’s KLM Open punching his ticket to this week’s Open Championship in what will mark just his second major championship appearance – and first since 2017.
‘Could I have imagined such a rise? Yes. Was it realistic – maybe not,’ Dean says ahead of this week’s event. ‘I’d not been playing more than one-day events for a couple of years but I had belief in what I can do and I was comfortable with my home life when I made the jump back out there.
‘Me and my fiancée had the house we wanted, and things were steady and think that relaxation was a massive key that freed me up. It wasn’t whether I was capable it was more if I had the mental and physical stamina to hang with some of the best players for four long days.
‘I knew if I played the good that this was a possibility but expecting all this to happen so quickly it was something completely different.’
Despite the meteoric rise and influx of cash, Dean has had to work hard to deal with golf’s other demands, most notably the hectic travel and international schedule.
A traumatic experience when he was younger left the Yorkshireman almost incapable of travelling abroad on his own but the 30-year-old has overcome his fears after seeking the help of a hypnotist.
‘When I first turned pro ten years ago, my fiancée was doing a university course so she could travel with me,’ Dean explains. ‘As time went on, I figured out a way to travel to UK events on my own but any travel outside the UK was borderline impossible for me on my own.
‘When I got my card in November my first thought was, “Oh s***, what am I going to do. I’ve qualified for the Tour, but I can’t travel.” My fiancée can’t quit her job and I wasn’t in the mental state to travel.
‘By sheer chance, one of the prizes from topping the 2020tour’s order of merit was free sessions with hypnotherapist, so I got in touch with Darren Hirst the hypnotist and he was so calming about the whole thing.
‘He promised to get me to a point where I could travel – eight or ten sessions later, me and my caddie Max are on a flight to Qatar and I was absolutely fine. I still don’t enjoy it the travel but he’s worked wonders given where I was before we started.’
Travel to this week’s Open in Scotland shouldn’t prove too much trouble for Dean but he will face a tall order up against a world-class field at Troon.
Having not played the course before, the Englishman has relied on YouTube videos and internet research to give him a flavour of the challenge but is also keen to lean on his previous Open experience at Royal Birkdale seven years prior.
‘Back then I was in a mindset of doing everything possible to get the most out of me which I now know doesn’t work for me,’ he reflects.
‘I’ll approach this week a lot differently than I did Birkdale. I haven’t played link golf so far this season, but it will be about conserving energy and trying to make the most of the experience. I never though I would get this opportunity so I’m just looking to soak it all in.’
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