He is perhaps the last French golfer whose name said something to the general public. Victor Dubuisson, the last Habs to participate in the Ryder Cup, which he won in 2014, has just bowed out at only 33 years old. The ex-prodigy of the little white ball was coming out of several complicated years on the DP World Tour, the European circuit, on which he had lost his playing rights for 2024, for lack of convincing results.
“I’ve been thinking for a few years about the fact that I’ve been away from being a professional golfer for some time now. I found it more and more difficult to cope with life on the Tour. It’s great, but the loneliness had become extremely heavy. I feel like I’ve reached my limits and I know that I can find pleasure elsewhere, I’m convinced of that. I turn the page but life goes on,” he confided to our colleagues from L’Équipe.
“A master of strategy”
Former amateur world number 1, Victor Dubuisson still remains to this day the best Frenchman in history in the world rankings, among men, with a 15th place. Nephew of Hervé Dubuisson, French basketball star in the 1980s, he notably had a memorable 2014.
That season, the Cannes player revealed himself to America at the World Match Play Championships. In a Dantesque final lost to the Australian Jason Day, he released his ball magnificently, stuck in the Arizona cacti. And this, twice. Two blows which obviously earned him the nickname “Cactus Boy”.
Also in 2014, he had two Top 10 finishes at the Majors before being selected for the Ryder Cup in Scotland. At Gleneagles, “Dubush” finished undefeated (two doubles wins, one singles match shared) to allow Europe to win its third consecutive Ryder Cup. The last time French golf saw one of its own participate.
“He’s probably happier like that.”
And yet, despite this year 2014 and a career punctuated by two successes on the European circuit in Turkey, ahead of a certain Tiger Woods in 2013, then in 2015, Victor Dubuisson remains a fallen hope. “He was a master of strategy. One of the smartest players France has had on the course. But he remains a shooting star, like a football player who scored 35 goals in a season and then nothing. It’s a waste from a sporting point of view, even if he’s probably happier like that,” Julien Xanthopoulos, former professional golfer and consultant for Canal +, tells us.
Even the main person concerned recognizes it. “A lot of people will say that I could have done more and that I could have been number 1 in the world. (…) I understand these frustrations. I even agree with that. Yes, I could have done more,” he still explains for L’Équipe. His main regret? This year 2015 in the United States, where he failed to stay on the American PGA Tour circuit.
A well-known passion for fishing
Then, an eardrum problem forced him to put golf aside for the entire 2018 season. Since then, he has never managed to return to the Top 100 of the Race to Dubai (the DP World Tour season rankings) . 284th in 2023, Victor Dubuisson had lost his playing rights on the European circuit, before receiving an invitation to play on the LIV, the new Saudi circuit where many big American stars are churning out millions of dollars.
“It was a great opportunity, but I thought about it a lot and it’s not what I want deep down. I know this may be shocking but I’m not a money person. I don’t organize my life around that,” he says. Even though retirement was approaching and his passion for fishing was much better known than that for golf, no one really imagined him retiring at just 33 years old.
Except perhaps the most specialists. “I always saw him as a rock star, quitting overnight. But, be careful, why not also start again soon,” says Julien Xanthopoulos.
What’s next now? Victor Dubuisson says he “discovered a passion for coaching”, but not at the highest level. “That’s not my ambition at all, no. It doesn’t appeal to me anymore. I spent fifteen years alone on the tour, curled up on myself. I missed contact with people, having good times, etc. So, it’s more just simple human relationships around golf that I want to have,” confides the person concerned.
At 33, the man who embodied all the hopes of the little white ball in France seems to have a lot to give as his genius was known to all. Perhaps he still had more to give on the course. The feeling at the time of his retirement remains mixed. Between a bit of disappointment about a complicated golfer to manage – “a bacon head” he himself said – who ended up wasting himself, and a bit of nostalgia as his talent was talked about across the Atlantic. For Julien Xanthopoulos, the choice is made. “What I keep is a player who made me proud to have such a brilliant Frenchman on the course! »
