SOUTHPORT, England — Joe Dean, an English golfer who grew up two hours from Royal Birkdale in Sheffield, hasn’t started writing his wedding speech despite the big day being next week.
The 32-year-old will have a heck of a story to tell after a dramatic eagle helped him emerge as the winner among the 12 competitors in R&A’s inaugural Last-Chance Qualifier for the 154th Open Championship with his fiancée Emily on the bag.
“Next Tuesday, yeah, we're getting married … it was cheaper,” Dean said through laughter after saving par from a greenside bunker for a two-under-par 68 and a one-shot victory over Andrew Wilson.
When Dean spoke to reporters on Monday afternoon, the likeable DP World Tour pro did not yet have a place to stay for the remainder of the week. Alex Fitxpatrick, younger brother of Matt and one of the breakout stars on the PGA Tour this year, walked into the media scrum and had a funny exchange with his friend and fellow Sheffield native.
Fitzpatrick: From a logistical part for you this week, have you already have things in place? Do you know where you're staying? Have you thought that far ahead?
Dean: “No, you've got a big enough house.”
Fitzpatrick: Are you going to be finding a place to stay this week?
Dean: “Surely, you've got a big enough garden.”
Asked to clarify, Dean explained he actually hadn’t planned that far in advance, uncertain obviously what his fate might be. “No, I don't. I'm sleeping in my car at the moment; hopefully, there will be something, I've got a couple of friends that are around the area,” he said.
It’s a good problem to face after winning the inaugural 18-hole qualification event for the links major.
The R&A used a set of criteria to fill the 12-man field including the first two alternates in the Open Championship field as well as other categories such as “players who missed out having been in a playoff at 36-hole final qualifying,” which was Dean’s path into the Monday shootout.
On Monday at Royal Birkdale, Dean produced a stunning eagle courtesy of a 6-iron second shot into the renovated par-5 14th—formerly the par-5 15th that Jordan Spieth made famous with his “go get that!” eagle putt during his 2017 Open victory—that settled to three feet. The eagle 3 proved the decisive blow to chasers Wilson (69) and Aldrich Potgieter (70).
“I just hit a really good drive down the middle, had 250 [yards] to the flag straight down wind and hit probably the best 6-iron I've ever hit,” Dean said.
Dean gifted the R&A the local, feel-good story it craved for its Monday qualifier with the moving journey he presents as he prepares to play in his third career major (and Open).
He grew up in Sheffield playing competitive golf, occasionally, against the older Fitzpatrick—who went on to win a U.S. Open title and become a Ryder Cup star.
Dean bounced around developmental and mini-tours in Europe, winning a Europro Tour event in 2021. But he struggled to fund the travel costs of tournament golf. From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and even after, Dean worked as a delivery driver for Morrisons supermarket in the U.K.
Dean has his soon-to-be wife Emily on the bag Monday at Royal Birkdale. The two are scheduled to be married next week.
Oisin Keniry/R&A
“In March 2020 … Emily took me down to the supermarket,” Dean recalled. “She enrolled me within a week or two [of the global COVID-19 outbreak]. Yeah, I probably did it for … four years. It was great. I never regret doing it. Met some really good friends and grounded me really well. My coach keeps saying to me, ‘Don't let the game define you.’
“I was playing just one-day events, a lot of mini-tours. I got to the point where Tour School was starting to get out of reach with the cost it was getting to.
As Dean explains it, he fortunately had some good friends around me who encouraged him to give DP World Tour Q School a try in November 2023. “I was like, why not? I have nothing to lose.”
He played his way up to the DP World Tour, and in January 2024, got enough money together, a few sponsors. Shortly there after, he finished third at the Magical Kenya Open and never looked back.
“Any opportunity to get in The Open again, I'll gladly turn up and play," Dean said. “One-day events, I seem to play better. I don't quite know why, the mentality of trying to keep the same throughout any round and every round.”
Dean has a pretty nice pairing come Thursday and Friday, playing with 2016 Open champion Henrik Stenson and PGA Tour veteran Max Homa.
And if Dean is able to make the 36-hole cut, his wedding speech will only get better. Once he gets around to writing it.