The days are getting shorter, the clock has gone back, and winter rules now apply. As Brian Doran puts it ‘the fun is over’ as he looks back on a dream year which saw him put his name on the Irish amateur golfing map.
A maiden major title at the Mullingar Scratch Cup, a first Barton Shield pennant with Millicent Golf Club, an international cap and a Bridgestone Order of Merit win, it’s fair to say Doran’s year exceeds the usual out of 10 scale.
“15, 16 it was that good! Ah no, definitely 10,” Doran laughs. “It still feels surreal just sitting back and chatting to people about certain moments and not just the tournaments themselves, it’s beyond what I dreamed, to be honest – the whole year.”
For Doran, his winter routine will be much of the same but just more of it as he hunts further improvement ahead of his first year being involved with the Golf Ireland High Performance Panel.
The Millicent golfer capped off a breakthrough season by winning the Bridgestone Order of Merit following a fifth-place finish at the North of Ireland Championship and his reward is a place among Ireland’s amateur elite – an outcome far beyond his aspirations.
Up until this season Doran wasn’t even a regular competitor in elite amateur championships. A south of Ireland appearance and maybe one other was usually the height of his excursions.
After a disappointing 2023 campaign the Millicent club man reevaluated his plans for this term, realising that there was no point ‘half arsing’ his winter preparation to play in championships.
This year wasn’t quite his last dance, but it became evidently clear that if he was going to be playing in the championships, he was going to have to make sure he was adequately prepared.
“I said all year I just wanted to give it a go and see how I get on. When you say that it sounds like you’re talking about making a few cuts and maybe a top five or top-10 finish but the way it’s gone has just been unbelievable,” Doran explains. “People have asked me that a lot. I never featured at Boys’ level and made a couple of cuts in the South of Ireland. Didn’t play much last winter and tried playing in championships and it didn’t go too well. It’s not nice seeing your name near the bottom of leaderboards.
“I just said to myself and to my girlfriend that I would give this year a go. Do some strength and conditioning in the gym and work on the range. Doing the same things but doing more of it. My putting definitely improved, and I got very clutch from inside 10 feet thankfully.
“Giving it a go meant try to win something. I didn’t think that would mean winning in Mullingar or coming second in the South – a Scratch Cup would have been nice just to get some silverware.
“I wanted to make cuts and see what happens in matchplay. I like matchplay. It’s a lot less stressful than making cuts. Giving it a go was never meant to be what the year turned into. I’d never shot a couple of rounds under par in a championship. It’s great for the club, I only joined around this time last year. They all say they are new to this; well, I am certainly very new to this and the whole environment of the standard of golf I have played the last few months.
“The club have been great, they are loving it as much as I am, we are in it together. Every tournament when you finish there is a new email each week with more congratulation, I’d say they are sick of it! It’s great for myself and my family.”
Life as a part time amateur has its challenges. In previous years Doran struggled to get the work/golf balance right but having a job as a packaging operator with Pfizer involves night shifts, so his lack of appetite to get up early the next morning is understandable.
It was one obstacle that he was going to have to overcome.
“Even with the night shifts they take a toll on your body, they never get easier. Then you sleep for six hours, it’s not great but it’s something. Go to the gym, range and go play a few holes. Then when the shift work was finished during the season, it was about getting back into a routine the week of a tournament.
“You know you could get tired going into the latter stages of a tournament, but I have to say the strength and conditioning with Robbie Cannon really helped me. He introduced a couple of exercises that I hadn’t done before. I took a lot of time off work and was fortunate enough to be given the days as well.
“Because we live in lovely Ireland, winter was spent on the range most of the time, but my coach Tom O’Neill is based in Tulfarris so if Millicent was closed I could go up there and practice away.
“You don’t have to hit loads of balls to get better. It’s about zoning in on your practice, working on your technique and putting that into 25 balls over an hour rather than 100 balls. Less is more.
“I enjoyed tournaments as days off work, even as the season went on I never thought ‘I have to win this or that’.”
The tired mornings were worth it as once the championship season began, the results followed almost immediately. Not quite there to make up the numbers, but not feeling ready to win, a runner-up finish in the Munster Strokeplay to Paul Coughlan in Cork was a great start to the season for Doran.
Keen to take one result and improve on it in the next tournament, this gave Doran something to build on and he found himself in the final group of a major championship for the first time alongside Max Kennedy at the East of Ireland Amateur Championship in Baltray.
Doran faded with final rounds of 73 and 75 but it was another new experience ticked off and a win soon came at the Interprovincial Championships where he donned the Leinster colours.
“The mindset at the Munster Strokeplay was just being happy to be there. Paul did pull away, but I was happy to finish second and after that it was great to be in the final group of the East to watch how Max Kennedy was doing it.
“Interpros came and it just took off from there, my mindset on the course was hit it, find it, hit it again, hole the putt. I wasn’t getting worked up about outcomes or what will happen if I do this or that or where I finish.” Doran had missed the cut in the West of Ireland Championship by one shot and he was a little embarrassed when he accidentally missed the entry deadline for the Irish Amateur Open Championship also in Co. Sligo Golf Club.
“I didn’t enter the Irish amateur because I didn’t think I would get in. I was over in Aintree at the racing and forgot about the closing date! I was raging about that.
“I went into the East thinking ‘don’t let Cork be a fluke’. It was going quite well for two rounds and just didn’t happen for me on Monday. That didn’t bother me, that’s golf.
“My mindset was just to show that Cork wasn’t a one off. Just back up everything I did and just keep backing it up and hopefully one will crack and thankfully it did.”
Doran’s big splash would come at the end of July and the August Bank Holiday weekend.
This year’s South of Ireland Amateur Championship final in Lahinch brought about two novice golfers at this level in Doran and American overseas member Patrick Adler.
Doran had made the cut in three of his six Lahinch appearances so if he was ever going to have a run at a championship this always felt like his best bet.
However, Adler made his childhood dream come true when he became the first Lahinch member to capture the title for 56 years.
A senior at Marquette University in Milwaukee and an overseas life member of Lahinch, the 21-year-old followed in the footsteps of 1968 champion JD Smyth by lifting the 122nd edition of the championship, beating Doran 3 and 2 at the west Clare links.
Adler would take the trophy and a green jacket across the Atlantic while Doran made the near four-hour drive home alone.
“I was gutted. To drive home in the car on my own was hard,” he recalls. “I’m not going to dwell on losing the final, it was an unbelievable week, my goal was to reach the quarter final and see what happens.
“I’ve made the cut three out of six times and lost in the first round each time, so I wanted to progress. “The first seven holes of the final was like a boxing match, we were trading holes, neither of us could win two in a row. Then Patrick hit a great shot into 8, held a nice putt on 9, I didn’t get up and down on 10 and suddenly I’m three down out of nowhere.
“I left a 20-footer on the lip on 11 and lipped out on 12 and won 13. The hardest part is I could have been all square on 13. I have thought about it – it wasn’t like I played any differently in the final, just the putts didn’t drop.”
Eight days later Doran had his redemption. He bounced back from his disappointment in the South of Ireland Championship to claim his first amateur ‘major’ with a two-shot win in the 62nd Mullingar Scratch Trophy.
The 29-year-old bookended his championship with rounds of 68 with a 71 and a 70 in between. It was a sense of relief and vindication for him as he etched his name alongside Pádraig Harrington, Darren Clarke, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry. But winning didn’t feel like he thought it might.
“When you open the kitchen door at home it’s sitting there in the hallway. I brought it up to Millicent one evening for the Captain’s Prize dinner and everyone was looking at the names on it. I’m sure they’d know one or two more names than I would, but it was unbelievable.
“I played Mullingar quite a lot over the years but had never scored well. My father said to me it would be nice to put a few scores together here because you never score well here. I was like ‘thanks! Sound!’ “I knew the weather was poor for the weekend. I thought it would be cut short to 54 or 36 holes, so I knew a quick start was needed and I got that.
“I played the best golf of the year in the fourth round. I came off thinking ‘how was it only 68?’ To win was great, Great walking up the last to get the win. “In the moment I was thinking ‘I want to go and win more, when is the next one?’ I didn’t want to get bogged down in celebrations.
“I wanted to win something at the start of the year, I didn’t think it would be a championship. It was a very nice feeling coming off the green and everybody congratulating you and when it was done and dusted for the evening it was all eyes to the Senior Cup and the Close.”
Doran’s success wasn’t just limited to individual honours as it also turned out to be a golden year for Millicent Golf Club as he spearheaded them to the Barton Shield title – the first ever pennant won by the club.
“It’s the first men’s pennant they have ever won. We were lucky enough to win in Bunclody, we came back quite well against Rosslare and played well against Naas in the final. “We wanted to win a pennant at the start of the year, it was great to win one. We’ll celebrate it at the end of year party in the club.”
The fun didn’t stop there for Doran who had even more glory in his sights. Doran’s goal at the start of the season was to cement his place in the top 30 of the Bridgestone Order of Merit to guarantee his place in the championships for 2025 – provided he doesn’t forget to enter again!
However, heading up the M1 towards Royal Portrush for the North of Ireland, he knew a good finish would see him end up top of the pile and win the Bridgestone Order of Merit.
He did. And with it came the call up to the Golf Ireland panel for next year. It was a fitting reward for a very consistent year as he held off Matthew McClean and Paul Coughlan for the season long award.
“It was nice to back up the win in Mullingar over the next two tournaments. Looking back, it was the two third rounds in the North and Dun Laoghaire that put a halt to putting a fight into a championship,” he explains.
“The Championship golf was solid. Every tournament I never went into the next one thinking I needed to win, just trying to get into the final group or second last group, shoot low rounds and see could I go a bit further than the previous week.
“To win the Order of Merit was great, it just shows that the nice run got something in the end. It came up on my phone after the South of Ireland and I had gone from 21st to 7th. The only reason I was going to play the North this year was if I was hovering around the top 30 just to guarantee myself into everything next year.
“That was my goal at the start of the year, to get into that top 30. Then the mindset changed to going to the North and actually trying to win the Order of Merit. I didn’t think about it much [previously], but I knew I was there or thereabouts and the top 3 get onto the Irish panel which is major too. It was the week of the North that it was in my mind.
“Even watching Max (Kennedy) in the East was just incredible, Sean (Keeling) in the Irish Close you just know how good they are. Sean was different gravy, he shot 66 and I shot 69 and it just felt like 79 he made the 66 look so easy.
“That’s what you want to do, play with the better lads and learn from them, even if some are 12 years younger than you! I’m looking forward to that the most. No better way to get better than playing with better players.”
Brian Doran, Irish international has a nice ring to it. Bronze medallist at the European Mid-Amateur Team Championships sounds even better!
A week before the North, Doran, Coughlan, Colm Campbell and TJ Ford headed for France. It wasn’t quite a ‘Joxer goes to Stuttgart’ but Doran had never played golf away from home before and he more than played his part as Ireland secured third place.
“I didn’t know about the event until it was brought to my attention briefly at the Irish Close. Niall MacSweeney rang the two weeks before it and I was driving up here to do some practice, I was shell shocked.
“I didn’t know what to expect from the trip but once we got there it was great, we had a great bunch of lads and girls, and we had great craic. With it being a mid-am we are all the same age, full time working.
“It was class to win a bronze medal, the week was great, played some decent golf, felt very comfortable and didn’t feel out of place at all. It was the first time I had brought the golf clubs outside of Ireland.
“I was more nervous on the first tee the first morning than I was in the South of Ireland final. I had just seen two lads hit it OB 15 yards right of the fairway, so you don’t want to see that! After that it was easy going, TJ (Ford) and I had great craic in the foursomes. It was the stuff of dreams, and it capped off the whole year.
“It’s back to reality for the winter now, the fun is over!”
By the time this article is published, Doran will have already completed a month of his off-season training in the gym. Perhaps before the harsher weather rolls in he will get to work on areas of his short game that need touching up in order to move up another level next year.
“As the year went on, I spent most of the time on the putting green. I just spent hours on it. What I learned this year was that you can drive it anywhere as long as it’s in play then it comes down to putting and chipping to put up a score.
“I spent more time on putting than anything else. I’ll work very hard at my wedge play this winter – it wasn’t quite up to scratch. I was streaky with my wedges. It is the scoring zone for a reason.”
Doran admits golf is becoming a young person’s game after playing with a 16- and 18-year-old this season, but at the age of 29, he definitely has some of his best years ahead of him.