If it’s good enough for Scottie Scheffler it’s good enough for Patrick Keeling. The Roganstown star teed it up in round two of the Flogas Irish Men’s Amateur Open Championship and let God’s plan unfold and what a script he played out to with a magnificent course record of 62.
At the time of writing it puts Keeling on top of the leaderboard on ten-under after eight birdies and an eagle. Perhaps one of Irish golf’s forgotten men having not played competitively at home in almost two years, he made the entire field sit up and take notice.
Teeing off on the back nine from level-par the Dubliner opened with three straight pars before three birdies in four holes kickstarted his day in the benign morning conditions. A chip in eagle on the par-5 18th saw him turn in 31 and raise hope that he could post a good number and get into contention.
Back to back birdies on the 2nd and 3rd put him seven-under through twelve holes and raised hope that he could at least level the course record of 64 held by Matthew McClean and Stephen Coulter. After a short birdie putt was missed on the 5th, Keeling bounced back with two routine birdies on the par fives 6th and 8th to move to nine-under with one to play and needing just a par for a 63. He would go one better, a mouth-watering low draw was hit into the par-3 9th and he fist pumped the putt home to great applause from the crowd who had filtered to the green to witness history.
“I’ve put in a lot of hard work over the last few months and not seeing results but there were glimmers of hope, working with coaches in America and Sean McGonagle, a sports psychologist I have been with for years, he has been just brilliant to get me out of technical thought and just playing and reacting to shots and I did a good job of that today and trusted in my process and stayed in my rhythm,” said Keeling afterwards.
Keeling’s talents have always been known, he was a serial winner on the Toro Tour as a teenager, but the US collegiate scene hasn’t quite worked out for him to date since moving to Louisville in 2024 with some tough results putting him down a rabbit hole.
But like world number one golfer, Scheffler, he has put all of his belief in Jesus Christ which has given him a renewed sense of clarity and relaxation on the course. He mentioned that he felt like he was blacking out on the Seapoint Links as he just let the good golf flow.
“It’s something new to me, I haven’t always been able to do that. I can overthink in the past and still struggle with it but since being over in America and finding a faith in Jesus and understanding that there is so much more than a round of golf so perspective is big and that doesn’t fix your golf but good or bad I can keep a positive enough approach to it.
“I remember Rory in the Masters last year he spoke of how he got defensive on hole 13 so I tried to stick to my game plan. I was aggressive to my targets, I wasn’t swinging like a maniac, staying in rhythm and stuck to my tempo and hit some really nice shots. Got some fortunate bounces to start off the round which was big too.”
Keeling was three-over at one stage early on day one of the championship and he credits a gutsy three-under back nine in the difficult Thursday afternoon conditions as the springboard he needed heading into today.
“That’s nearly how it always is on links courses. I haven’t experienced it for a while, haven’t played tournament golf in Ireland in a good while, it’s nice to get the feet wet again and get that experience. I came out really tight yesterday, first tournament in a while, even though I knew my game was good I just wasn’t playing freely. I’m lucky to have family and friends come out and watch which puts things into perspective then had a really good back nine yesterday to get back to level and I felt ready to go today.”
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