When you’re a father of a 19-month-old daughter, the chances of a lie in are pretty slim.
Then again, when you’re a faither and a golfer, you can be up and at it even before the larks have fluttered a weary wing at the snooze button.
“I was always up at the back of six in the morning anyway as I preferred getting out to practice early,” said Paul O’Hara.
Even that aforementioned young ‘un probably peers through a bleary eye and yawns, “can you just try to sleep for another hour, Dad?”
The O’Hara clan is set to expand this year with the delivery of another baby in May. The golf season will be well in the swing by then and O’Hara has plenty to look forward to.
The 38-year-old’s recent victory at the PGA Play-offs in Cyprus ensured that he would scribble a couple of extra big dates into his diary as he was handed invitations to the DP World Tour’s British Masters, the Irish Open and the flagship BMW PGA Championship.
And no, none of them clash with the due date of his second child.
With a combined purse of $18.5 million, this tasty trinity is a potentially lucrative series of showpiece occasions.
“If I make the cut in a couple of those, I could maybe afford to put the wee one into nursery for four days a week instead of two,” chuckled O’Hara of those regular child-care fees that can be as hefty as the prize fund at a bloomin’ tour event.
Chasing the golfing dream doesn’t come cheaply either. In the early days of his professional career, O’Hara bounced around a variety of European circuits in an attempt to establish a foothold and climb up the touring ladder.
“I was playing all over the shop and it does take a toll,” he reflected. “I won a couple of third-tier events but unless you’re winning regularly, or at least finishing in the top-three, then you’re not making much. Finish out of the top-10 and you're in debt for the week.”
Having stepped away from that unforgiving coalface, O’Hara continues to find competitive fulfilment closer to home and, over the past decade, has become a consistent and prolific campaigner on both the Tartan Tour and the wider PGA scene.
His undoubted talents have reaped rewards on the other side of the pond too.
In 2023, he made the cut in the PGA Tour’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am while, last April, he picked up another fistful of dollars with victory on the Asher Tour in California.
“Playing back in Scotland and in other PGA events has been great for me,” added O’Hara, whose Play-off success in Cyprus was aided by regular tune-up sessions at the Strathclyde Park Golf Centre.
"It got my hunger back. I’ve also met so many people through Pro-Ams and the reason I got into Pebble Beach was through someone I partnered in an event at Skibo Castle.
“When I stopped playing around Europe, I would never have thought I’d get a chance on the main PGA Tour.
“I remember when I started my PGA training, I was the first reserve for the Bothwell Castle Pro-Am. I got a call about an hour before it started asking if I could play and I was ecstatic. Imagine how I felt about going to Pebble Beach?”
O’Hara, a former Scottish PGA champion and multiple Tartan Tour order of merit winner, gave the PGA Tour’s qualifying school a crack last year.
“This year, I may try the DP World Tour q-school,” he said of a teasing opportunity that still lures in golfers from all walks of life. “You never give up on the dream, do you?”
Going from a staple diet of 18-hole Pro-Ams and 36-hole order of merit shoot-outs on the domestic circuit, to the rigours of three full blown main tour events, will be the kind of giant leap that could almost be accompanied by a crackling utterance from Neil Armstrong.
O’Hara, who has enjoyed a few DP World Tour outings as a reward for previous PGA endeavours down the seasons, is certainly relishing the chance to pit his skills against some of the best in Europe again.
“It’s a huge step up,” he admitted. “Everything must be sharp. Driving, chipping, putting, yardage control. You need to be on it all the time. But I’ve earned the right to be at these events. Hopefully, I can put on a good show.”
And if he does, he may even afford himself a long lie?
