Joe Dean is closer than ever to securing a PGA Tour card, but professional golf has not necessarily given him the life he wants. Just months after winning his maiden DP World Tour title, the 32-year-old has admitted that he sometimes misses his old supermarket delivery job—and made a blunt confession about his current profession.
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“I’d rather do something else,” Dean told Today’s Golfer in an interview published Monday. The admission is an unexpected one from a player heading into the DP World Tour Championship with a genuine chance of earning PGA Tour membership for 2027.
Dean’s comments are not necessarily an indication that he has fallen out of love with competing. Rather, they highlight the difficulty of balancing professional ambitions with a life that leaves little room to switch off. His former Morrisons job offered a different kind of routine, one he has previously acknowledged missing.
Dean currently sits 16th in the Race to Dubai standings with 1,758.68 points and 10th among players not already exempt for the PGA Tour. The leading 10 eligible players after Sunday’s DP World Tour Championship will earn PGA Tour cards for 2027. His advantage over 11th-placed Nacho Elvira is just 51.38 points, meaning a solid finish could be enough to secure his place.
The rewards extend beyond membership. The highest-ranked eligible player also earns an exemption into The Players Championship, while the season finale carries a $10 million purse, including $3 million for the winner and a separate $6 million bonus pool for the Race to Dubai’s top 10. With no halfway cut in the 50-man field, Dean is guaranteed four rounds.
After winning the British Masters in August, Dean offered an insight into what he misses about his former working life.
“It’s a completely different lifestyle out here, but I still see my old mates driving around and keep up to date with how they’re doing,” he said.
Dean began delivering groceries for Morrisons in 2020, when the pandemic disrupted his golfing schedule. He continued working even after earning his DP World Tour card through all three stages of Q-School in late 2023, with a month’s wages covering approximately one flight to a tournament. The income also helped him and his wife, Emily Lyle, purchase their first home.
“The Morrisons job has allowed me and my fiancée to get in the position to buy our first house,” he said in 2024. “If I’d have stuck to golf and not done that I wouldn’t have got the home we’re in now.”
He has never regretted the four years he spent delivering groceries.
“I did it for four years,” Dean said. “It was great. I never regret doing it. I met some really good friends and it grounded me really well.”
His coach has also regularly reminded him not to let professional golf become his entire identity.
“He keeps saying to me: ‘Don’t let the game define you.’ This is not your typical nine-to-five job. It is a lifestyle. It’s hard to get out of that lifestyle.”
Dean’s journey explains why that distinction matters. In February 2024, he was ranked 2,930th in the world when he finished joint runner-up at the Kenya Open. The £170,000 payday was something he described as “life-changing,” yet he was back behind the wheel of a Morrisons van within a fortnight.
His breakthrough this summer also came after a difficult route into The Open. Dean lost a three-for-one playoff to Matthew Jordan in final qualifying at West Lancashire, seemingly ending his hopes of making the championship. However, he won the inaugural Last Chance Qualifier at Royal Birkdale on the Monday of tournament week to claim the final place in the field.
The following week, he married Lyle, his caddie since junior golf. Seven days later, she was back on the bag at The Belfry, where Dean produced a closing 63 featuring nine birdies to win the British Masters by three shots and collect £437,000.
“All those painful hours and all the work put in has finally led to something, so I’m happy,” he said after the victory.
Now, Dean has another opportunity to take his career to a new level. He sits right on the edge at number 10 in the battle for the 10 dual-membership PGA Tour cards available via the Race to Dubai rankings. Because of tight point spreads and high volatility heading into the finale at Jumeirah Golf Estates, he must play well in Dubai to defend his spot against players close behind him.
What Dean has never quite explained, however, is what he would choose if he could leave professional golf behind. He has spoken fondly of his former colleagues and the friendships he made, but has never identified a specific alternative or suggested he intends to walk away.
That is what makes his admission more revealing than a straightforward complaint about life on tour. Dean has achieved what he once struggled to afford, yet he still finds himself looking back at a job he needed to fund his golfing ambitions. On Sunday, he could secure a PGA Tour card and take another significant step in his career. Whether that achievement will make him any less nostalgic for his old life is another question entirely.