Michael Hoey and Paul Dunne are enjoying the game again and they can transform their careers in Scotland after making brilliant starts in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.

Winner of the tournament in 2011, when he held off Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell, Hoey (42) holed a 60-yard pitch for an eagle two at the sixth (his 15th), then birdied the eighth and ninth to post a bogey-free seven-under 65 at Kingsbarns to share fifth place, one stroke behind leaders Nicolas Colsaerts, Adri Arnaus, Tyrrell Hatton and Haotong Li. 

Scores

Chasing his card via the Challenge Tour rankings, the Ballymoney man almost quit the game last year but insists his improved short game has given him a new lease of life.

"It's €1,300 a week to play Challenge Tour,” said Hoey, who took a part-time job during the pandemic to make ends meet. “So even though I played quite well this year, you're not coming away with a living, unfortunately. 

“I’m just feeling like it's a bit of a second chance this year and that’s probably why I'm playing better because I have a better attitude. I felt like I had retired last year, I had almost officially retired in my mind, pack it in, whatever you call it.

“I feel like I've got a second chance this year and it's a bonus, so I've got a better attitude and it's showing on the golf course.”

Hoey can regain his card with a big week in Scotland but he’s also got a chance of making the top 20 in the Road to Mallorca who graduate from the Challenge Tour.

Ranked 31st with at three Challenge Tour starts remaining, he believes he’s got a good chance.

“I haven't quite done enough this year,” Hoey said. “I’ve got a few events left, but so many good players that you have to be in the top three a lot and I haven't quite done that. 

“But I'm still seeing myself doing well next year. I've had a good category and I can still play some European Tour events. This week, you never know. Just trying to one day at a time and nice to speak to some of the media. Haven't spoken to the media for two years. Just shows you're actually playing good.”

As for his round, he felt he took advantage of the best of the weather to go bogey-free.

“I got lucky with the draw,” said Hoey. “It looked like Armageddon so to think I would have shot two-over might have been a good score. But I'm playing good. I said to the guys, no bogeys, I made so many bogeys over my golf career. I've made a lot of birdies but bogeys have got me. This year, the short game, I'm putting well, and it's been -- it's really the short game this year that I'm playing some better golf. Just happy with that.”

As for his eagle-par-birdie-birdie finish, he said: “Last week I holed two shots. I haven't holed a shot in two years and today I holed a chip from 60 yards from the rough. Just got a great bounce and it was just a bit of luck, which you need. There is so little difference between the Challenge Tour and this level. If you can play well there…

“This week, you never know. I will take it one day at a time. I am at the Old Course tomorrow and I can’t believe how good the scores are. Guys are shooting eight-under. I thought I might be leading but that’s the modern game.” 

Dunne (28) also believes he’s back on track after a miserable run of form having admitted earlier this year that his struggles with a hand injury and his loss of form left him less than enthusiastic about getting out on tour.

Ranked 236th in the Race to Dubai after missing 11 of 16 cuts, he shrugged off a lost ball at the ninth and made birdie with his second ball to close with a bogey en route in a five-under 67 at St Andrews, where he was tied for the 54-hole lead in The Open as an amateur in 2015.

“I feel fine,” he said in reference to his struggles with desire and the mental game this year. “Obviously for a while when I was struggling with my game, I wasn't really looking forward to playing every day, especially when I wasn't sure if I was going to get into tournaments and when I did get into them, not feeling like my game is in a good enough place to compete kind of made me not want to go and play.

“I've been putting some work in recently, over the last, say, four or five weeks, I've started to see it get much better in practise, and then gradually start to make its way to the course bit by bit. 

“I feel like I'm trending in the right direction again and I've kind of pinpointed the right things to keep doing every day and yeah, here’s hoping it continues.

“I just kind of want to go out and enjoy it again. It's been so long since I felt my swing was in a relatively comfortable place. I'm just trying to enjoy that feeling and the scores are what they are, and just keep moving the right direction and see where it takes me.”

Dunne was tied 11th with Kinsale’s John Murphy 37th after a three-under 69 after an excellent day at Carnoustie. 

Jonathan Caldwell shot a level par 72 on the Old Course to lie 105th with Cormac Sharvin 149th alongside Harrington after a 75 at Kingsbarns.

In the PGA Tour’s Sanderson Farms Championship at the Country Club of Jackson, Seamus Power followed three birdies and two bogeys with a double-bogey six at his 17th hole (the eighth) and opened with a level par 72 in Mississippi.

He was tied 102nd,  eight strokes behind Californian Sahith Theegala (23) whose bogey-free, eight-under 64 gave him a one-stroke lead over Nick Watney and Harold Varner III.

On the Challenge Tour, Gavin Moynihan shot a four-under 68 to share 21st, seven shots behind Germany’s Marcel Schneider in the Swiss Challenge with Stuart Grehan 43rd after a 70.