Paul Not Dunne Yet

Getty Image

Paul Dunne says he hopes to take the increasing attention in his stride after making the cut at the Open Championship for the first time with another excellent 69 at St Andrews.

The 22-year-old amateur from Greystones ensured involvement over the weekend at St Andrews by matching his first-round 69 on the second day to move to six under par for the tournament.

Dunne, who came through final qualifying at Woburn for a second year in succession, said: "It'll be a new experience, I'm not 100% sure how I'll handle it.

"Hopefully I'll just take it like second nature - but you never know. Obviously the forecast is for high winds tomorrow, so the course is going to play really tough."

Dunne's only blemish came when he missed a short par putt on the 16th but he made amends by making a birdie on the last.

He will now go into the final two days' play with a strong chance of winning the Silver Medal for the leading amateur.

Dunne said: "Obviously that would be brilliant. It would be nice to get the Silver Medal in my last year as an amateur. It would be something I would remember forever.

"But there's a lot of golf and a lot of bad weather to play in before that. I'm not going to think about it, I'm just going to see what the weather is like when I arrive here, put a new number in my head and go about business tomorrow."

Asked what numbers he had targeted from the first two days, Dunne said he had been hoping for a 68 and then, after seeing Friday's forecast, a 72.

"I thought if I could just get anything in under par it would be a really good score, so I was delighted to shoot 69."