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Everything seems to be going right for me, says rising star Dan Bradbury

On Saturday at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, Bradbury was threatening to break the decades-old course record of 61 by Ernie Els

There is something remarkably refreshing about the way Dan Bradbury is trying to come to terms with his own success.

To be fair, his rise has been meteoric. Ranked 1,397th in the world, the 23-year-old from Wakefield did not have any status on the DP World Tour, when he shot a 21-under par and won the Joburg Open while playing on a sponsor’s exemption.

That was on 27 November last year. The win earned him a full membership on the DP World Tour, paving the way to attend Rolex Series events in Abu Dhabi and here.

There has been no stopping Bradbury since then, and the fact that he shot a scintillating nine-under par 63 in his second round of the $9 million Hero Dubai Desert Classic on Saturday – the best round of the tournament so far – almost seems par for the course.

Oh…and in between all this, he also made a hole-in-one on the 17th hole of Yas Links during the third round of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. That one shot fetched him a new Genesis G70 Shooting Brake 2.0 Sport, which comes with a hefty price tag of Dh180,000 in the UAE.

He is not sure how he’d get the car delivered to the UK, but it would come in handy. At the moment, Bradbury drives his father’s car – an old Volkswagen. And he has already been besieged by messages from back home asking for a ride.

“They only deliver the car here, so we’re figuring it out at the minute. I don’t have one. I drive my father’s. It’s an old car, but it’s still running,” said Bradbury.

Even the fastest car in the world would have trouble matching the velocity that Bradbury’s career seems to have attained already.

“I mean, it’s kind of what we hoped for, isn’t it? I always had the belief I could get here. It's just happened a lot quicker than I expected,” said Bradbury, who played golf for Lincoln Memorial and Florida State.

“But yeah, everything just seems to be going right for me at the moment. Just trying to ride the wave and keep it going for as long as we can.

“I would say I still go into tournaments with the same mentality. Not like I am being cocky, but it’s a belief that you know you can win. I’m just playing the best golf I can. And I know that when it’s good, it’s good.”

More importantly, the novelty factor of playing with his idols already seem to be wearing off.

“Like I was coming down the ninth, my last hole, and Rory is just starting. So that's quite strange watching us crossing each other. Had a little taste of it with Jon Rahm in Spain last year, so a little bit used to it now. Everyone's just enjoying themselves and I love it out here,” he added.

On Saturday, Bradbury was threatening to break the decades-old course record of 61 by Ernie Els. Starting from the 10th tee, he was eight-under par through 12 holes, but could add just one more birdie in the tough stretch of holes from the fourth to ninth.

Having shot a disappointing one-over par 73 in his opening round, the 63 catapulted him to tied seventh place eight-under par – just two shots behind the leaders.

“We started yesterday (Friday) afternoon, made a couple of birdies there and got called in on 12 (play suspended for darkness) just when getting a little bit of momentum,” said Bradbury.

“So that was frustrating. I just went out today with a point to prove because I didn't think I played that badly in the first round, but shot one-over and was really frustrated with that.

“I didn’t get anything out of my game yesterday and got most of it out of it today.”