“Build a Bridge and Get Over It”: Ronan Mullarney on Losing His Card, Finding Perspective, and Fighting His Way Back

Ronan Mullarney (Pic: Alps Tour Golf / Raffaele Canepa)

Two years is a long time in professional golf, long enough to lose a tour card, long enough to rebuild a career, long enough to learn who you really are when the game stops going your way. When Ronan Mullarney sat back down with us on The Bogey Men this month, he’d lived all of that and more.

“Two very drastically different years,” he said early in the conversation. “2024 was my first year on the Challenge Tour… and that didn’t go very well. I played Alps then again last year and I went, oh, I’m pretty well. So I’m back on the Hotel Planner… for 2026.”

Ronan is always good for an honest, self-aware conversation, which is rare when talking to modern day athletes, let's be fair. He's a person who takes his setbacks on the chin, learns from them and is resilient enough to get back up and move forward.

Professional golf can be brutal. There’s no scoreboard flashing red, no coach screaming from the sideline, just a long, sometimes lonely season, small margins, and the slow realisation that your best golf hasn’t been enough.

“It’s not nice,” Ronan admitted, remembering the moment he fell off the Challenge Tour. “You don’t want it to happen to you… but it is what you sign up for.”

“You don’t feel good. It’s like the end of the world for a couple of days… but then 2–3 weeks pass, you want to get back at it.”

“You can feel sorry for yourself as long as you want, it’s not going to make it feel any better. So you kind of build a bridge and get over it as quick as possible.”

So, 2025 was the chance for Ronan to reset and re-focus, back to the Alps Pro Tour and some familiar surroundings. Ronan opened the year with a T2 in Egypt, then stacked up top-10s in Andorra and Biarritz as the season gathered momentum.

The climax of Ronan’s season, and arguably the comeback, came at the Alps Tour Grand Final.

He knew exactly what he needed to regain his Challenge Tour card.

“I needed to finish above one certain person… or maybe a top-ten finish would be safe.” Then he paused. “But it was a poisonous concoction, all the guys around me.”

The chaos was real. “The guy in fifth actually won the event… one guy behind me went eight under final day… I was thinking, ‘How is this happening today?’” It all came down to the final round of the final event, and Ronan fired a round of 68 to finish the week on nine-under par, just enough to grab fifth place in the season long points race and secure his status on the Hotel Planner Tour for 2026.

I asked Ronan if he'd given himself the opportunity to enjoy what he'd achieved but in classic Roy Keane fashion, Ronan says he was just doing his job

“You just feel like you did a good job for the year… and now you go again.”

Go again he does. He’s heading back to Europe’s second-highest tour with more maturity, more perspective, and more belief.

Listen to the full conversation with Ronan Mullarney below.