A long but rewarding journey - John Parry feeling sense of belonging in Dubai

By Mathieu Wood

It may have been a long road to this point, but John Parry now feels a sense of belonging on the DP World Tour.

The Englishman, who is making his Rolex Series debut at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, is the Race to Dubai Rankings leader after claiming his second DP World Tour title at the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open – more than 14 years after his first.

The hard road he has trodden since victory at the Vivendi Cup in 2010 in his rookie season on the DP World Tour makes the success he has achieved over the last 12 months all the more meaningful.

After dropping back down to the European Challenge Tour at the end of the 2023 season, Parry won three times last year to earn automatic promotion back to golf’s global tour.

But it is his success in Mauritius – which saw him win the Opening Swing, a USD$200,000 bonus, and gain his place in the field at Emirates Golf Club – that underlined to Parry what he is capable of achieving.

“Back then (in 2010) I was in and out whereas now when I have got a chance, I feel like I have got a pretty good shot at winning,” he told the DP World Tour in Dubai.

“I am now putting myself into contention, whereas then it was rare. I now feel like I can put myself in the position to win more.

“I also understand my game a lot more, how to play and I’m not so technical with my swing.”

Such is the standard on the Challenge Tour, the transition to the DP World Tour is being overcome increasingly more frequently.

You only need to note how 15 of the 2023 class of Challenge Tour graduates retained their full playing privileges as proof, with two of those – Jesper Svensson and Matteo Manassero – both earning PGA TOUR cards for 2025.

But, despite Parry’s form and prior experience on the DP World Tour, he admits to feeling a sense of self-doubt after earning automatic promotion back to the top tier in September.

“I got to the point where I thought 'can I compete to win?',” said the 38-year-old, who is 103rd on the latest Official World Ranking.

“Like, I might be able to compete and have a top 10 or whatever, but you do question yourself.

“I won once, so you do have that doubt: can you do it again? Was it just a one-off week? So to win again gives me that validation I can keep doing it.”

To reach such a point seemed hard to imagine when he was battling to make cuts on the EuroPro Tour in 2021.

Even more so after he contemplated walking away from the elite level of the sport at a time when he played just one European Tour group event between 2019 and 2021.

“I remember in 2018 playing on the Challenge Tour and just stopping (midway through the season),” he added.

“It wasn’t even a case of trying to make cuts. I knew when I teed it up, I had no chance of competing. I was thinking at the time what was the point. I literally couldn’t hit the ball.

“You’re spending a lot of money to travel and play in the events and not making a lot of money. And it wasn’t for the want of trying, I was practising.

“When you’re working hard at your game and not getting the results is the hard bit to accept.

“I couldn’t work out what I was doing wrong. I actually think the EuroPro Tour was good for me, it allowed me to take a massive step back and start again.

“The first thing you had to do was leave your ego aside.”

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So, what does he believe saw him lose such confidence after initially establishing himself on the DP World Tour?

Parry, who needed three successful trips to Qualifying School to stay on Tour until losing his card in 2017, believes it all comes back to his victory in 2010 which he thinks “papered over some cracks”.

“My expectations went up,” he said.

“You win once and think you should keep getting into those positions, so I was definitely getting frustrated.

“I then think I went searching, asking myself 'why aren’t I doing it every week?'. I need to change my swing.

“Like, I wasn’t very consistent [in my rookie season]. It was almost like I was losing my card and then I had a blinder the last six weeks.”

But Parry is now a player fully trusting of his game, having prioritised improving his iron play on his return from a near two-month lay-off with a neck injury in early 2024.

“My iron play was the big letdown when I analysed my numbers,” he said.

“The hard thing in golf is someone can tell you what you’re not very good at but it’s actually improving it that is the hard thing.”

And in an increasingly frequent occurrence, the powers of social media proved instrumental in unlocking a shift in his swing that paid dividends.

“I watched a YouTube video by Athletic Motion Golf, who use the biomechanics of what the best players in the world do to help golfers," added Parry

“It was kind of a bit potluck that I saw something I felt I needed to do myself. In years gone by I would have worked on it over the off-season, got a little better and then reverted back or tried something else after a bad week.

“But last year, if I had a bad week I just wrote it off as having not played very well but I knew that it worked.

“It was key though for me to see signs of it having an impact in the early weeks of the [Challenge Tour] season. Then seeing it perform under pressure trying to win in India was the catalyst I was doing the right things. It really helped me stick with that process for the whole of the season.”

Further victories in France and Italy followed, with the latter confirming him as the second three-time winner of the campaign after Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen and securing automatic promotion to the DP World Tour.

From there he made the cut in three consecutive starts, before bringing his form into the start of the 2025 Race to Dubai season.

After a top ten at the season-opening BMW Australian PGA Championship, he bounced back from a missed cut to finish tied second at the Alfred Dunhill Championship before a brilliant burst of scoring on the back nine saw him win in Mauritius.

Now, after a welcome break over the festive period, Parry returns to action alongside Major champions, Ryder Cup stars and Rolex Series winners as he gets his first experience of the DP World Tour’s premium category of events.

Such is the calibre of field, Parry was only guarenteed his spot in Dubai with his win in Mauritius, but he now has the security of being guaranteed a spot in future Rolex Series events through to the end of the 2026 season.

“The main goal for the rest of the season is to end the year having won more than once," he said.

“Playing at the Majors would be the other big goal. I didn’t play in any of the upcoming DP World Tour events last year, so I’d only be collecting points [to improve his world ranking]. All the hard work has paid off for me to play these events.”