SPORTING PASSIONS PAUL DEAN:Former Ireland outhalf and Lions rugby player Paul Dean achieved his goal of becoming a scratch golfer on his 49th birthday back in June

I CAN die happy. I gave myself a birthday present this year. The 28th of June was my 49th birthday and I had given myself the present of reaching scratch by then.

Well, I got my present on my birthday and in my own club at Blainroe. I shot a 68, four-under par gross. That brought my handicap down to 0.2, which is scratch.

It has been a personal goal for me since I took up golf but it was really about two years ago when I set my mind to doing it. I was playing off a handicap of two at the time and I was worried that I wouldn’t make scratch unless I played every day. But I didn’t want to do it that way for a number of reasons. I wanted to reach it by playing the way I normally played. So I played at weekends and maybe if I got out a couple of times to hit a basket of balls on the range mid-week then I would.

But the golf was very much an accommodation with my family and my business. It had to be that way, not a priority. I devoted time to it but an amount of time that suited the other important things in my life which are my family and my business. I didn’t want to do more than that.

In golf I believe there is a direct correlation between what you put in and what you get out. If you go out and practice every day and compete at weekends you will get better. I’ve no doubt. But I stuck to playing at weekends.

I suppose it was one of my goals in my sporting life and just goes to show that there is life after rugby. I took up golf when I was about 25 and I didn’t play seriously as I was playing amateur rugby. There simply wasn’t enough time to do that.

My rugby career ended after I was badly injured at the beginning of the Lions tour to Australia in 1989. I was 29-years-old. The injury actually happened in the first match. I lasted all of seven minutes before I was helped off the pitch and sent home.

I had torn the anterior cruciate ligament. But by then I had decided to retire from rugby. I’d simply had enough. I was also getting married, had started a new business and had bought a new house. So there were other things going on in my life.

At that time, golf was just a bit of fun but playing rugby teaches you how to be disciplined as it requires a lot of training. I think that training and discipline was certainly good for business and for golf.

At times I didn’t think I would ever get to scratch. Apart from playing at weekends I’d also go out on Friday and Saturday nights, which isn’t exactly the best preparation you could have. But golf is also very much a mental game.

When I set the target about two years ago I went to a professional to see what I should do with my game in order to improve. I told him how I intended to go about it. He changed my game completely and had me hitting a fade rather than the draw that I had been hitting. In practising that change I tore my rotator cuff from repetitive strain.

Then I went to Paul Thompson and he got me to draw the ball again and straightened me out. He occasionally looks at me and keeps the set-up correct but not that frequently, about five times in two years maybe.

Now that I’m 49 there are not a lot of sporting targets you can set for yourself. When you hit 50 you can go on the Seniors Tour. It did cross my mind and I wouldn’t be too far away from it, although, there would be an awful lot of work I would have to do.

But no I’m not interested. I wouldn’t want to have to make a livelihood out of it. That’s for sure. And if I ever did consider it, it would purely be for the competitive aspect.

But away trips?

Away trips are not glamorous. You could say you’re going to Spain to play golf and it sounds glamorous but it is not.

I don’t know what’s on the horizon now. I’ll just continue enjoying golf, playing Senior Cup with my club and rubbing shoulders with some very good golfers. But it’s like what Pádraig Harrington said when he won his first major. It’s like a monkey off my back.

I can die happy.