Golfer Paul Dunne has said a summer holiday with friends to Florida helped him to get over a mid-season slump and secure his European Tour card for next year.
Speaking on RTÉ's Game On, the Wicklow admitted that he went through a "rough stretch" during the summer, stretching from the French Open to The Open itself.
"Every week seemed to be quite windy and I was trying to work on something with my swing while playing at the same time and it was just wrecking me head really," he said. "I really struggled with it mentally."
However, due to the fact that golf returned to the Olympic stage this summer, Dunne was granted a reprieve in the form of a five-week break from competition.
"I went away with my friends on holiday for ten days, no golf. We had one or two beers, spent a week on a beach just renting jet skis, hanging out in the house, going to a local restaurant or bar.
"Just a normal lads holiday away, it wasn’t anything crazy it was just pretty chilled out."
"I find if I take ten days off like that there comes a point where you wanna get up for something in the morning. I guess by the end of it I was ready to get back to work again."
Back to work he went, playing nine of the final 11 weeks as he did enough to ensure he gets to do it all again next year.
However, Dunne will have the luxury of being able to plan when and where he plays, and more importantly when he doesn't.
"It'll be nice to plan the events where I think I can play well in and take breaks where I need them and take weeks off to practice.
"I haven't planned it yet but I’m going to look ahead in the next couple of weeks and try and set something out."
He said that he was taken aback early in the season by the reality of life on the tour.
"There’s a lot of long haul flights in between events but you get used to that pretty quick - it’s just about managing yourself to get over the jet lag.
"I guess I just didn’t really know how much of a toll it takes on you to play five or six events in a row.
"I kind of thought it’d be pretty easy because you have Monday and Tuesday off but they aren’t really off days, they’re travel and practice and that kind of thing."
His brother David, a sport scientist of sorts according to Dunne, stressed the importance of rest at the start of the year, although it may have fallen on deaf ears at first.
"It’s something that when people say to you, you don’t listen until you experience it and you start to play bad or get in a bad headspace," he said.
Dunne added that his brother, who also works with English rugby side Harlequins, also provided plenty of nutrition advice during the year.
"I speak to him quite a bit, he’s my brother first and foremost before he’s my nutritionist. He gives me advice like he’d give anyone else and it’s up to me to stick to it. He’s not gonna hit me if I don’t listen to him.
"He helps me out a lot and I’ve learned a lot off him about managing my energy levels over the weeks."
