The eternal optimist would suggest that there’s a lot to like about Georgia Ball’s recent viral video. Here we have a young PGA Professional who is clearly incredible at golf, in sporty, fashionable clothing with as much patience as she has talent. If we are to take the video at face value then Ball is exactly what everybody wants more of in the game.
Unfortunately on the other side of the range bay is someone who has been in the game for ’20 years’ and someone who has probably put those who don’t play off the game for the majority of that time. Whether it be at the range or down at his local golf club or in the pub or round a dinner table he’s been boring anyone who’s still left around him on how to play the game.
The advice is as generic as it is mundane and, quite rightly, he’s been written off by everyone who’s watched the video – which is now well into the millions. His patronising drivel has now been heard on mainstream TV, even reaching the likes of This Morning, as well as lighting up social media with his nonsense.
Given it has reached such a vast audience hopefully there will be lessons learned across the golfing globe. We can be a strange bunch as golfers. For whatever reason, probably because we have a handicap figure next to our names, we feel like we can dish out this type of moribund advice to others.
Here we have a case of out-and-out mansplaining as he condescends and patronises Ball with no substance whatsoever. Elsewhere we have others who, whether it’s because they think that their handicap gives them the right to be this type of person, or because they probably do it in all walks of their life as we're all subjected to their infinite wisdom.
Whatever the case the knowledge passed on will generally be what they’ve just heard or watched on YouTube/social media and will be parroted across to the unwilling listener with little or no understanding of what’s actually being said.
We all play with these people. They’ll be in the middle of some ‘swing changes’, all of which we’ll get to hear about in great detail, and they’ll share these nuggets as some sort of one-fix-all solution. So, whatever your age, handicap or physical limitations, if you’re able to ‘clear your left side’ you can expect your handicap to soon plummet.
The greatest lesson here is that it should point us all down a road to making the most of some genuine expert advice by visiting your local PGA Professional.
Two things have stood out for me over the past years on how classy some exceptional golfers can be. During an interview with Paul Lawrie I had a few minutes at the end of our chat which I tried to use all for my own benefit. At the time I was at the absolute nadir of some spectacular chipping yips so I began to pick his brains, over the phone, for a couple of nuggets.
If anyone, Lawrie’s nickname is 'Chippie' because of his excellence around the greens, could feed me something, anything, it would be him.
‘Go and see your PGA Pro…’
I countered this by mumbling the possibility of mixing up my grip pressure or weight distribution but he simply repeated what he’d first said before pointing out the obvious that he couldn’t even see me, let alone watch me knife a straightforward chip shot.
The other came courtesy of another Open champion, a two-time winner in fact, on the 10th green at Abu Dhabi Golf Club. In truth I thought I was playing quite nicely but, after making a sorry mess of a greenside chip, I basically broke down in front of Padraig Harrington.
To this point he'd said nothing before, very bluntly and actually quite sweetly, asking if I was ready to ‘address the elephant in the room?’
To that point I was secretly delighted that my shortcomings had been kept on the back burner, away from a man whose exceptional short game had won him three Majors, before he deciphered precisely how a lack of any technique would present itself and which shots I would most struggle with before spending five minutes with me beside the green.
He then predicted, quite rightly, how it would improve as I’d do a version of what he’d just told me but then it would unravel again as I’d slip back into old habits if I didn’t go for some proper lessons.
Over lunch he gave me an encyclopaedic breakdown of the rest of my game which was as welcome as it was fascinating but, even more interesting, was the fact that he managed to take in what any of us were doing given his extensive preparations for the tournament the following day.
Had I not had my wobble he may well have kept his extensive thoughts to himself.
The good news in all this is that we might all add a layer of self-awareness of how we come across in our golfing environments. It’s quite a pleasant feature of the game to offer some well-meaning advice to our playing partners but, break it down into its simplest parts, and there generally won’t be much, if any, merit to what’s being shared.
We can all do our bit here by following Lawrie’s simple logic. Stop kidding yourself that you're the next Butch Harmon and suggest some help from someone who's genuinely qualified to pass on some sound advice.
