Paul Dunne puts priority on home front as Birkdale on the back burner

Money is the barometer of success in professional golf and while Paul Dunne would love to tee it up in The Open in a fortnight, his major challenge is to conquer the narrow fairways of Portstewart’s Strand Course this week and get his hands on as much of the $7 million (€6.17m) prize fund as he can.

The world No 165’s decision to skip final qualifying for Royal Birkdale at Woburn on Wednesday — a venue where he had twice led the qualifiers for golf’s oldest major — shows how seriously he is taking his second Dubai Duty Free Irish Open as a professional.

While it’s also a huge week for the other 16 Irishmen in the field — Shane Lowry badly needs to give is season a kick-start as the meat of the summer approaches — Dunne knows that a big cheque can solve his Royal Birkdale ‘problem’ and set him up for a huge run of big time appearances in 2018.