Local Golf Pro Competes At 'Another Level' In PGA Championship

Montauk golf pro Paul Dickinson says his first taste of a PGA Tour “major” tournament was a whirlwind of excitement, challenges and awakening about the level of golf that the PGA Tour’s top players must perform at that left him with a thirst to see it again.

Playing in his first ever PGA Tour event, at one of the game’s four marquee events, the PGA Championship at Southern Hill Country Club in Tulsa Oklahoma last week, was an experience like none other, from rubbing elbows with top tour players like Tiger Woods, Scottie Scheffler and John Rahm, to the soaring challenges of playing among throngs of spectators on a golf course set up to test the skills of the best players in the world.

Even just settling in at a major tournament is a hurdle, the Atlantic Golf Club assistant pro said.

“For me, the hardest thing, that I hadn’t realized would be so challenging, was just getting comfortable in that environment,” he said. “It’s such a gigantic production. There are so many people and so much going on everywhere, it’s a real zoo. There is definitely a learning curve with all of that.”

Dickinson, who qualified for the PGA Championship by finishing in the top 20 of the annual PGA Professionals Championship qualifier last month, leaned on a few of the contacts he has in the PGA Tour world to help him ease into the tumult of trying to play golf, a sport famous for quiet being a key component, in an environment that is anything but quieting.

“One real positive for me was that on Wednesday I knew I needed to get out there with the crowds and play with a tour player to get used to playing in that kind of environment,” he said, “and I know Zach Johnson, I’ve played with him in the past, so I had talked with him and we played together on Wednesday and that helped me get a little more comfortable in that setting because he had a crowd following him.”

Johnson, who won the 2007 Masters and the 2015 Open Championship, will be the captain of the American Ryder Cup team in 2023.

For the Thursday and Friday rounds, Dickinson was grouped with veteran tour players Patton Kizzire and Luke List, who have both won tournaments on the PGA Tour.

Though he didn’t make it under the 4-over-par “cut” line to qualify for the weekend rounds — neither did world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, No. 5 Patrick Cantlay and 2020 Masters Champion Dustin Johnson — Dickinson made birdie on his first hole of play on the PGA Tour.

“The golf course was brutal — it was golf at such a high difficulty level that I’ve never experienced before,” he said. “I played with Patton Kizzire and Luke List and it was so interesting to see how they play, such high ball flight, they attack the golf course very differently than I can with a low ball flight.”

That low ball flight, however, had helped get Dickinson to Southern Hills, when strong winds kicked up at the Texas course where the qualifying tournament was being played, he was able to score while others struggled, lofting him into a top finishing position. He credited his years of playing golf in Montauk in winter with being prepared for the difficult conditions.

And he says he will now begin preparing to be ready for a return to golf’s biggest stage. First will come a run at qualifying for next month’s U.S. Open. And Dickinson will have an automatic exemption to play in the PGA Professionals Championship again next year and another chance at making it onto the Team of 20, as the club professionals who earn a spot in the PGA Championship are known.

“It was a long week, it was very mentally and physically tiring,” Dickinson said. “But it made me hungry for more of it, so I’m going to work hard to make myself better and get back there again.”