Paul Dunne admitted that he had a late night ahead of his opening round at the BMW International Open because he couldn't take his eyes off the Ireland game.
Speaking on Thursday after shooting a 69 to finish his first round three under par, Dunne showed no ill effects of a slightly shorter sleep than he would have liked.
Dunne stated that he was pretty pleased with the round overall, especially given that he started well but hit a rough patch towards the end of the front nine.
"Any time you can break 70 is good, especially with the rough this thick," said Dunne. "It's scorable if you get the ball on the fairway and I did a good job of that on the back nine"
"I've been working hard the last couple of weeks and starting to see some better range sessions and nice to see it transfer to the course here."
Given that it was his first time at the Gut Lärchenhof club, Dunne commented that the course is "a good test, it's fair. If you drive it well you'll have a lot of good chances [...] it's scorable if you get it in play but the rough is thick that you can't reach the green if you miss the fairway."
Turning his focus to the achievements of the Boys in Green against Italy, Dunne said that the he had been watching the game and that it proved to be a bit of a distraction for him, and perhaps a few other people in his hotel too.
"Yeah it was hard to sleep, the match finished about 11 o'clock, and myself and Carl, who's caddying with me this week, the two of us were up in our hotel last night watching it, roaring and screaming. I think we were waking people up!
"It is something exciting, it's brilliant. It makes you proud to be Irish watching it and hopefully we can do the same to France on Sunday."
He noted that he would take some inspiration from the result, and that there could be a great Irish sporting weekend in store for fans around the country.
"It lifts your spirits, I think it lifts everyone's spirits around the country it's just great to see any Irish team do well, they played with a lot of passion. It could be a great weekend if I do well, Ireland beat South Africa on Saturday and Ireland beat France on Sunday!"
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