For me, sport is about moments and Tiger had more moments than anyone in the TV era.

But I’m also curious to understand what led up to these moments. The moments are what we as fans remember but what got him there?

He obviously has a case to make for the title of best golfer of all time but do we ever look at him and think, what can we learn from him? Or was he just so out of our league that it’s a futile exercise?

For me, that starts with asking a seemingly obvious question; what was Tiger Woods actually good at?

When asked about peak Tiger by those not old enough to have seen him play we could all probably give a soundbite on what makes him so great. Something like:

• He was the best clutch putter in the world

• His recovery skills were the best in the world

• He just had an aura

These are all arguably true but according to the data, none of these things are actually what made him stand out from his peers - the aura helped but you can’t really measure that.

Take his recovery skills for example. Tiger hit some unbelievable recovery shots but according to the numbers, he was only about 1% better than the tour average in this particular area of the game. There were other things that moved the needle significantly more.

I’ve never actually found Tiger himself particularly good at explaining what he’s good at. To me, he’s the ultimate example of an athlete who can perform, but just can’t explain their performance to others in a way that’s actually helpful. Therefore, I feel the responsibility is on us to try to work out why he was so good rather than listen to his explanations.

Before I go into the details I just want to make sure that we’re on the same page - the point of this piece is not to offer advice. Rather, it’s my own curiosity. I’ve looked into it as best I could and I’m just reporting my findings.

I cannot and will not tell you what to take from it. What you do with this information is up to you.

Us weekend warriors

I played in our local Sunday competition last week and walked off with a feeling that I’m sure you’re familiar with - “I feel I played better than I scored”. This happens to me a lot and maybe it does for you too.

As I drove home I did the usual thing of counting all the shots that I should have saved, “if I didn’t 3 putt that hole” of “if I had just aimed away from that flag I would have made a par rather than a double” etc…

We all likely have a bias about how good we think we should have been versus the reality. We all feel like we “left shots out there” but sometimes, if I’m honest with myself I didn’t leave any shots out there, I’m just a bit shitter than I’d like to be.

However, after I got home from golf last I flicked open a YouTube video and came across this video about Tiger from Golf Digest on what actually made him so good and it caught my attention (big shout out to Golf Digest on producing some key stats).

Tiger was the ultimate player to get the most out of his game. Of course he was freakishly talented in a way that none of us will ever be but this video talked through some of the specifics of what actually made him as good as he was.

You could be cynical and just say, “hit it further, straighter and hole more putts” but I despise such simple cynicism. It sounds intelligent but really it’s just cowardice. It’s a cop out. If you pay close attention you can learn something here.

I digress.

Strokes Gained - if you understand strokes gained feel free to skip to the next section

First things first - how are we measuring this?

You’ve likely heard the term “strokes gained” and although I’m certainly not an expert here, I’ll do my best to give a simple explainer of strokes gained as it’s an important frame to look through. If you know how strokes gained works then feel free to jump to the next section.

Back in the day, if you wanted to measure how good someone’s putting was for example, you might look at how many putts they took per round.

Let’s take John and Bill playing in a two-ball on a Sunday morning around your local course.

Let’s say John takes 36 putts in the round and Bill takes 32 putts in the round.

Immediately, you could say that Bill putted better than John but that doesn’t quite tell you the whole story.

What if John was an exceptional ball striker and hit all 18 greens in regulation in his round? That would mean John would have lots of putts from 20-30 feet. No matter how good you are, you’re not going to hole many putts from that distance. 36 putts means he 2 putted every hole - not bad if every first putt is from 25 feet.

Whereas say Bill is not a good ball striker and he missed all 18 greens in regulation so he’s left with a lot of chips and pitches around the greens. He chips his ball up to 5 feet on most holes and makes 4 of these putts.

Bill’s 5 footer for par is not the same as John’s 25 footer for birdie so each putt can’t carry the same weight.

A Columbia Business School professor called Mark Broadie came along in the early 2000’s and he put together a better way to measure golf stats called “strokes gained”. According to Broadie, if John had a 30 footer for birdie, he had about a 5% chance of making that putt. So if John makes that putt, he gains an average of 0.95 shots against everyone else in the field. That’s nearly 1 full shot.

You add all of these putts up over the round and you work out how many shots you either gained or lost against the average of the field that day.

Likewise, if you miss a 5 footer, you’ve actually lost 0.8 of a shot against the field. So going back to our example, Bill missed 14 of his 5 footers so despite having only 32 putts that day, he actually had a terrible day on the greens.

John’s 36 putts was therefore actually better than Bill’s 32 putts.

Strokes gained.

Back to Tiger

Using Mark Broadie’s clever stats we now know that there were 4 very specific things Tiger was better at than everyone else.

The percentage next to each one is roughly how much of his edge over the rest of the tour came from that one area.

1. Avoid The Big Miss - 22%

Hank Haney wrote this great book about his time coaching Tiger in the years 2004-2010 where he boiled down their entire goal down to one statement - avoid the big miss. Tiger was an athlete. He paved the way for golfers getting fit and strong and therefore he was long off the tee but he actually wasn’t always the longest. John Daly was longer than him. So why didn’t John Daly win everything?

Tiger knew length matters but if you miss big too often the distance gains aren’t actually worth it.

Off the tee Tiger gained 22% of his shots but he did this using what Luke from Golf Digest calls a “tee shot trade off strategy”, I.e. he hit less drivers and more 3-woods and stinger 2 irons despite having some of the highest clubhead speed. Thus he got the ball in play all the time and if he did miss, he would miss in the correct place.

Tiger figured out that golf isn’t necessarily about how good your good shots are, it’s about how good your bad shots are.

You’ve heard him say that he was able to win with his B game or even his C game. This is how.

Tiger was actually pretty wayward off the tee. He usually ranked about 150th in driving accuracy but the biggest thing he did was he very rarely hit it out of bounds or into a hazard. In fact, the PGA Tour average for hitting the ball out of bounds or in a hazard is they do it 1.3% of the time. Tiger did it 1.1% of the time. This may not seem like much but over a tournament and a season it’s very big.

You’ve probably heard about the 2000 Open Championship where he didn’t hit it in a single bunker over the course of the week. The Old course has 112 bunkers so over 4 rounds he missed 448 bunkers.

That’s a microcosm of his career.

He would hit it OB or have to take a penalty once in every 5 or 6 rounds on average. That’s slightly better than me I reckon.

This meant he didn’t prioritise hitting fairways, he prioritised missing disaster areas and because he was longer than average, he could avoid hitting driver.

This doesn’t automatically mean you should put the driver away, in fact if you’re not pretty long already, the data says don’t do that. Again, we must be careful to learn the right lesson here.

2. Distance control - 20%

Tiger was arguably the best iron player to ever live but what made him so good was his distance control. With his irons, he hit it at least pin high 90% of the time. I definitely do not do this.

Obviously he was a supreme ball striker so he could rely on consistently striking it well but he actually knew his distances better than anyone. I think this is low hanging fruit for me anyway, I could only roughly tell you how far I hit each club.

Tiger was aggressive to targets 20 feet from each flag. He knew how to attack sucker pins by always working the ball towards pins, i.e. if it was a front right pin, he would aim left and fade it towards it. The ball would pitch in the middle of the green and spin towards the flag. Gaining a few valuable feet when the ball landed.

He knew he wouldn’t pull that shot off every time but usually the ball would work slightly closer to the flag when it landed and because his distance control was so good he could pull this off.

His average distance from the flag from 150-200 yards was 25 feet.

So the big takeaways here are:

• He aimed 20-30 feet from flags

• He shaped the ball towards every flag, i.e. hitting a fade and draw depending on what was required (this is hard for us amateurs)

• Got the ball to at least pin high 90% of the time

3. Par 5’s (11%)

We’ve established that Tiger was longer than most on tour and although this helped him, it wasn’t the only thing that helped him score better than everyone else on par 5’s.

Tiger used a strategy on par 5’s called “place then push”. Again, you would think Tiger was just the longest off the tee so he could go for more par 5’s in 2 and although his length helped he actually didn’t necessarily attack par 5’s with his drive. He did it with his 2nd shots.

Tiger always made sure to put the ball in play off the tee on par 5’s so that he could then go for the green in 2 with his 2nd shot. Tiger was excellent with his 3 wood and long irons and used a “low riser” ball flight with these clubs meaning they would land with more spin and control but he could only do this by getting himself in play off the tee.

4. Putting from 7-21 feet (10%)

Tiger also employed a really interesting strategy with his putting. Whenever he had putts from 7-21 feet he would attack them, knowing that his make % on the way back if he missed was going to be really high. This means he would be really aggressive with 10 footers, never leaving them short.

Again, Tiger was a better putter than all of us but according to the data he made more putts than anyone from 7-21 feet but he also rarely left them short.

My takeaway from all of this

Those four were the biggest moves, adding up to close to two thirds of his edge over the tour. The rest was made up of lots of small things, like the recovery shots we talked about earlier. They were spectacular and we remember them, but they weren’t where most of the gains came from.

Can we actually learn anything from all of this?

The biggest thing that resonated with me is that he knew his flaws as much as his strengths and played to them. There’s some stuff I know about my game intuitively but there’s lots I probably don’t know that well and I feel like I should do a much better job of analysing it.

To summarise, here’s what I learned:

• Tiger avoided the big miss better than anyone

• He prioritised hitting his irons the right distance and was happy to aim 20-30 from flags

• He got it in play off the tee on par 5’s then was aggressive with his 2nd shot

• He was aggressive from 7-21 feet with his putts

• He knew his flaws and worked around them

I’m a big believer that golf is a game to be explored and that the score doesn’t always matter but equally, we’re all competitive and want to shoot the best score possible.

Whatever you want to take from this, I think it’s also ok to just step back and admire the golfer, whatever you think of the rest.

Those iconic moments only arrived because of a stacking of smaller moments that the rest of us may not have paid attention to.

I think that’s a philosophy we can all live by.

The Read: The Big Miss by Hank Haney - incredible insight to what it was like working and being close to Tiger. Borderline too personal if you ask me - Hank probably overshared but a fascinating read.

The Caddines Line: Tiger’s biggest philosophy was that it’s not about how good your good shots are, it’s about how bad your bad shots are.

Mac O’Grady was driving back to his motel on a November evening in Florida in 1982. It was a cool but beautiful evening and as he pulled out of the car park of the famous TPC Sawgrass he rolled the car window down. A gentle smile of satisfaction across his face.

It was a special day.

Before getting to his motel room Mac pulled into the car park of a small nearby golf club. He parked the car, walked around to the trunk and took out a sports bag. He put the bag on the passenger seat of his car and sat back down. He pulled out a baseball bat from the bag and marked it with a date. Then he pulled out another baseball bat and put it on a different date.

Mac did this 16 times.

16 different bats.

He put each bat back in the bag, flung the bag over his shoulder, walked out to the course and found a tree. He pulled out the first bat and swung ferociously at the tree until the bat broke. By the 11th bat his shoulder was aching and he was crying.

He kept going until all 16 bats were broken.

Homeless

A few years earlier Mac was homeless, sleeping under a bridge and on church benches. He’d read poetry at night and dream about his future.

He grew up in Los Angeles, apparently with an abusive father and a mother who died from a brain aneurysm when he was 16.

But Mac was a golfer. I could say he was a talented golfer but that would probably be doing him a disservice. He was an obsessed golfer. His dream was to play on the PGA Tour and he chased that dream so much so that he was prepared to be homeless in pursuit of that dream. He couldn’t work because he had to spend his days on the range working on his golf swing.

Apparently he memorised every word of the book, “The Golfing Machine” an incredibly technical book about how to build the perfect golf swing.

His swing got so good that he actually almost played to the same level left handed as right handed. He once shot 65 in the morning right handed, had some lunch and shot 69 in the afternoon left handed.

But his putter would so often fail him. He would stand over a 3 footer and feel a rattle down his arm. He spent most of his career putting left handed because of these yips.

The First Attempts

In 1971 Mac arrived at PGA Tour Qualifying School in an attempt to get his tour card.

He failed.

In the years after he would spend season after season travelling around the world as best he could afford on The European Tour trying to earn enough money to survive.

Every November he would make the voyage back to Florida for PGA Tour Q School and every year he would fail. When he missed out on Q School for the 12th time, a PGA Tour official sneered at him, “When are you going to leave us alone? “

That only made Mac more determined.

Every year he would miss some short putts and miss out by a shot or two.

“I had many deaths on the golf course,” he once said.

Deaths. That’s what he called them. One such death came while trying to qualify for the Open Championship one year. He was going along nicely until he found a pot bunker on the closing stretch. He lashed at it 16 times and couldn’t get the ball out. He walked off the course.

Another death came at Sunningdale when he took a 14 on the first hole.

In 1978 he met a Japanese air hostess and said to her, one day I’m going to marry a Japanese woman. She laughed back - “Will you marry me?”

Two years later he did.

1982

Mac was an outcast. A mad genius obsessed with achieving his dream.

Then along came 1982.

He played 27 tournaments in a row on the European Tour that year, trying to get his game right. He travelled from Tunisia to Sweden to Scotland.

In the November he arrived to Florida again.

Q School was 6 rounds, top 50 get a PGA Tour card but really you want to be in the top 15 to get into every event on tour the following year.

The event would be held at 2 courses around the famous TPC Sawgrass. The first 4 rounds would be on a nearby, lesser known course with the last 2 rounds held at famous TPC Sawgrass that you’re familiar with, home of the Players Championship.

Another attempt to conquer his demons. He shot 79 in the first round and was towards the back of the field. The dream looked dead for another year.

In round 2 he went out in 42 on the front nine and it looked like his chances were gone, but he birdied four of his last five holes to salvage a 76.

Round 3 was a 71 and he was in 144th place.

But he battled through in a way that summed up his career.

In the 4th round it was blowing a gale and basically nobody could break 75 but Mac had played in this kind of wind all year. This was his time. He shot 66 and bolted up the leaderboard.

He was 24th with 2 rounds to go.

Round 5 at TPC Sawgrass started badly. He was three over par going to the par 3 8th when he holed out of a bunker for a birdie. Then he holed four 10-footers in a row to save par. He was faced with one of the most famous stretches in golf where he birdied 13, 14, 15, 16 and the island green 17.

He was right in the hunt to get his card when he reached the 18th tee of that second last round. The famous 18th tee at TPC Sawgrass lay in front of him. Water all down the left hand side of the fairway. He took a 1-iron for safety and aimed down the right but hit it in a bush. All his work unravelling in front of his eyes. He pictured his many deaths over the years.

But he found his ball and made a double bogey.

Final Round

Here he was, the final round with the chance to get his PGA Tour card on the 17th time of trying. The wind was blowing again as it often does at Sawgrass. He came to the last hole +1 for the round and inside the cut line.

The same water stared at him on that 18th tee but he wasn’t going to hit a 1-iron this time. He lashed the driver.

The ball was in play.

He played for safety, wedged down the fairway for his 2nd shot.

He stood over a shot from 160 yards to the flag - somehow trying to stay calm. Years prior, he used to drive around LA at snail’s pace trying to practice patience and calmness. Drivers would blare their horn at him but he would block out the noise. He was practicing for this exact moment.

He made his swing and looked up. The ball was flying straight at the flag. It stopped 1 foot from the hole. He walked up and tapped in from 1 foot.

Mac was headed to the PGA Tour on the 17th time of trying.

Parallels with Rory

Rory McIlroy took 17 attempts to win his first Masters for his career Grand Slam, the exact same number of attempts that Mac took to get his PGA Tour card.

Just like Roryr, Mac cried as he walked off the 18th hole that day at Sawgrass. But unlike Rory in 2025 who, was surrounded by cameras and adulation, a moment that was captured and broadcast around the world there was no such attention on Mac that November day in TPC Sawgrass 1982.

He didn’t care.

Baseball Bats

That evening Mac swung 16 of those baseball bats against that tree. 16 different bats for each time he’d failed to qualify for the PGA Tour. He also spent $500 making phone calls from his motel room that night to his various friends who’d witnessed his journey.

Mac went on to win twice on the PGA Tour and nearly won a US Open in 1987. He was once quoted as saying, “I’m a mosquito out here among the dinosaurs”.

It’s funny, if you go onto The European Tour website and search for Mac O’Grady all you see is a blank picture that reads: “Meet Mac” followed by a blank space.

It somehow doesn’t quite tell his story.

The Read

If you’re someone who takes their golf seriously, then I just got sent a really cool package by a company called The Long Game Journals that might interest you. This isn’t a paid or sponsored suggestion, but they’re really cool. A guy from Dublin has made these beautiful journals that help you plan your practice and mindset for golf. They’re also decorative and look beautiful in your home office.

Check them out here.

The Caddies Lines

Mac O’Grady once tried to enter a fourball tournament on the PGA Tour by himself. He asked if they would let him play two balls, one right-handed, one left-handed. They said no.

The house was one of those old money houses in a wealthy neighborhood of a wealthy part of America.

Jimmy and his buddy, ‘Quack’ were taking a moment’s rest after a long day’s painting. As they sat there in the overalls the owner of the house came out to inspect their work. The 2 young lads stood up. The owner walked around the house saying nothing.

He came back to the 2 lads who were standing on the front porch.

He was impressed. Jimmy and Quack were diligent in their work.

“I hear you guys are caddies as well as painters?”, asked the owner. “That’s right sir” said Jimmy.

“Well how would you boys like to play Shinnecock Hills tomorrow?”.

Jimmy looked stunned. He had peered over the wall a few times trying to get a glimpse of what was apparently one of the best golf courses in America.

Shinnecock Hills was a place reserved for the wealthy elite, not two 16 year old painters/caddies. But Jimmy and Quack had a 3pm tee time the following day.

They made their way through the course on that special summer’s day, giddy with excitement.

As the 2 lads walked up the 18th fairway, clubs on their back Jimmy said to Quack, “I think that’s the greatest golf course in the world”. Quack laughed back, “Jimmy, you’re 16, you’ve played like 5 golf courses. How could you make a statement like that?”

Jimmy stood by his statement.

Big Boy Jobs

In the years that followed, the two young lads got big boy jobs.

Jimmy served his apprenticeship in the investment banking world and over the course of 10 years he worked hard, learned the trade before, in 1988 he decided to go out on his own. He and some colleagues set up a company called Sandler O’Neill & Partners. Jimmy was a New Yorker having grown up an hour out of the city so it made sense that they would have their HQ in New York City.

Investment Bankers are one of those job titles that we’ve all heard but most of us don’t know what they actually do. My understanding is they do a few things but one of the things they do is, say you want to sell your company or merge with another company, you need to hire someone to facilitate that deal. That’s what Jimmy Dunne and his company did. They help facilitate the transaction.

Jimmy was a deal maker.

His next deal was to bring his pal, Chris Quackenbush or, ‘Quack’ into the firm. The same Quack who he painted that house with in Long Island when they were 16 and who he played that first ever round at Shinnecock with.

Quack joined as a partner to Jimmy and other founders in their New York office.

Three Rules From Dad

Jimmy once got advice from his Dad. He said, “son, there are 3 important things in life apart from your health and your faith:

1. Marry the right woman

2. Go to the best college you can get into

3. Get good enough at golf so you’re not scared to death on the 1st tee”

Jimmy married a girl that grew up on the same street as him on Long Island. He went to college at Notre Dame and he got pretty good at golf.

In fact, Jimmy had fulfilled one of his boyhood dreams and had become a member of his beloved Shinnecock Hills.

Round Hill or Bedford?

But one of Jimmy’s big goals was to qualify for a USGA event, like the US Amateur or the US Mid-Amateur (the Mid-Am is for good golfers over 25, so they avoid all the young college bucks).

Around 2001 Jimmy was playing good golf. His handicap was down to 2 and his buddy, Quack said you should try to qualify for the Mid-Am. Qualifying for the Mid-Am would take place in the 2nd week of September.

Quack asked Jimmy which qualifying site are you going to play? Jimmy said, “I’m gonna go to Round Hill in Connecticut on the 10th.”

“Nah don’t go to Round Hill, you should go to Bedford the day after. You can get it under par at Bedford”.

Jimmy took Quack’s advice, as he often did, and went to Bedford for qualifying.

Bedford

Qualifying for a USGA event is a big deal so Jimmy was nervous but he got off to a decent start. He was +1 through 7 holes when an official approached Jimmy’s group.

Something had happened at Jimmy’s office.

Jimmy didn’t know what the official meant.

About 30 minutes prior, a plane had hit the building where his office was on the 104th floor of the South Tower, two World Trade Center.

Jimmy’s best friend Quack was in the building at the time, alongside 82 other people in his company who reported for work that morning. 17 people in the company managed to get out and survived.

Quack was not one of them.

Jimmy would have been in that building had Quack not told him to play at Bedford that day.

Not Something He Was Obliged To Do

In the months and years that followed, Jimmy did everything he could for the families of the people on his team that died that day, raising millions of dollars and putting a lot of the children through college. Not something he was obliged to do but something he did.

Q - In the Hole

9 years later, Jimmy teed it up at Shinnecock on a similar July day to that first ever day he’d played it with Quack. He got off to a good start, was under par after the front 9 before he stood up on one of the most difficult holes on the course, the par 3 11th. He had 7 iron in his hand but his caddie told him to switch to an 8. He hit a shot straight at the flag but couldn’t see where it ended up.

When his caddie walked onto the green he looked in the hole and saw the ball with a big “Q” on it. Jimmy always marked his ball after his mate Quack.

A hole in one.

Jimmy finished that glorious round in 63 shots. A course record at Shinnecock. His favourite golf course in the world. His old buddy Quack was smiling down at him that day.

One More Dream

Jimmy fulfilled one of his other dreams in July 2018 when he qualified for the US Senior Amateur Championship after a +1 round at Tavistock Country Club.

The Most Connected Man in Golf

Jimmy Dunne is now a member at Augusta National, Pine Valley, Cypress Point, Royal Portrush, he’s the President at Seminole and of course Shinnecock Hills. After Rory McIlroy won the 2026 Masters, one of the first people he embraced after his family coming off the 18th green was Jimmy Dunne.

He also helped negotiate the framework agreement between the PGA Tour and the PIF, the backers of LIV, in 2023.

Jimmy Dunne has lived a life and if you ever hear him speak you can see how he’s managed to have all the experiences that he’s had. He says, there’s not a day that goes by that he doesn’t think of his old pal Quack. He maintains to this day, Shinnecock Hills is the greatest course on earth.

Two lads painting houses on Long Island at 16.

The Read:
The Golfers Journal interview with Jimmy Dunne (podcast) which you can listen to here or other podcast platforms.

The Caddie’s Line:
Jimmy Dunne is the President at Seminole and he invited & sponsored Gerry McIlroy to the club where Gerry is now a member.

I’m currently a 4 handicap, which means I’ll often have the honour when I step onto the first tee on a Sunday — and just as often, I’ll spend the next four hours quietly letting my playing partners down on the way to an 82.

A few years ago, I had the yips. I couldn’t putt the ball in the hole from a foot. I was living in Melbourne and it crossed my mind more than once that I could try putting left handed. I’d gone from being able to shoot in the 70’s quite regularly to struggling to break 100. My handicap went from 5 to 12 and would have gone higher if they didn’t set limits on these things.

One day, something changed and I got over my yips. I was liberated. I could go out to play again, the thoughts of putting left handed or maybe even giving up the game entirely dissipated.

Then we had our monthly medal — back markers, therefore with the world handicap system I got some extra shots. When I walked into the pro shop that sunny Sunday morning at Spring Valley Golf Club on the Melbourne sandbelt and signed into the computer before the game I saw the system had given me 14 shots. Respectable handicap but about 9 or 10 shots higher than I was used to.

I played ok that day, shot an 81 gross and looked at the leaderboard - nett 67, first place. I’d never won a medal before but this felt pretty hollow. I was a recovering yipster and just happened to get things back on track before the medal. In the weeks and months that followed I got my handicap back down to about 5 or 6 and reached my lowest ever this summer — 3.6 (I’m now very much on the way back up).

I don’t know where that medal is.

Golf is a beautiful game in that a scratch golfer can go out and play against a 20 handicapper and have a genuine match. If the 20 handicap wins, it’s celebrated as a genuine victory. In most sports this isn’t possible. If the All Blacks play against Namibia in rugby, the Namibians don’t get a couple of extra players.

The World Handicap System

The handicap system only works because most people are honest about it — and when it does work, it’s one of the most elegant things in sport.

But it’s also a flawed system (so is capitalism but it seems to be better than the alternatives). It does its best to gauge a player’s level at a given moment in time but it’s never going to be fully accurate — there could be a difference of 10 or even 20 shots in your game week to week.

Handicaps “fluctuate too much”, people say. I’m not a particularly confrontational person so I often just smile and nod — but in my head I think: well if you think the handicap system fluctuates too much, you should see my golf game.

You’re a F**cking Child

I was scrolling on social media a few days ago, which I do more than I’d like to admit, and came across a discussion that you’ve probably had among your Sunday fourball or in your golf WhatsApp groups.

It was a podcast clip where 2 lads were discussing the idea of people holding back on their handicaps so they can win their Captains Prize or other big club tournaments. For us in Ireland, the Captains Prize is arguably the biggest tournament of the year for the average golfer.

There was some back and forth between the 2 lads but the anger grew between them as they got deeper into the point. “You’re a fucking child if you’re someone who minds their handicap and struts up to collect your first prize on Captains Day having saved your handicap all year” is where they landed.

They said if you’re the type of person who does this then you have a deep need for external validation.

Sandbaggers, they’re called in the States, I believe. To be more blunt we could just call them cheaters.

I get it. I’ve actually been on the golf course with guys before where they’ve talked openly about how they’re trying to get shots back ahead of the Captains Prize in a few weeks. In the US an equivalent to the Captains Prize would likely be a big member guest event.

In my eyes this is subtle and deliberate cheating. However…

One of the reasons I fell in love with golf was because it’s you versus you.

In golf, I know my best ever score. That 69 I shot at St.Andrews Beach Golf Club in June 2023 will live in my head forever. I remember the feeling of my hands shaking as I drew my putter back on that final putt. I’ve relived that round more than once in my mind and I could make a good guess that as you read this you’re probably thinking of your best score. You probably know what that number is for you. You probably remember most, if not all the shots from that round. You should be proud of that score, whatever it is.

I genuinely don’t remember if I won the competition that day in June 2023 or not but I remember what club I hit on the par 3 16th hole.

The Captains Prize

During the summer I walked off the 18th genuinely thinking I had a chance of winning of Captains Prize, but it turned out five other players beat me — fair and square as far as I was concerned. I was presented with a nice t-shirt for coming 6th. I was genuinely happy for the guy who won. He was a higher handicapper and seemed like a gentleman. He nervously got through his speech while his wife proudly looked on. That’s a moment he’ll remember for the rest of his life.

If I had won that day I would have been happy, I would have nervously got through my speech while my wife and parents looked on. But what I was more interested in was my gross score. I’d shot rounds of +8 and +5 off the back markers. Not quite PGA Tour level, but I was proud of it. That’s the only category that ever matters to me, no matter what your handicap. The system is great because it gives us all something to play for — but when all is said and done, all I care about is that little number on the bottom right of the scorecard. What did I shoot today?

It’s you versus you.

Caught Cheating

There’s a guy I know who’s a brilliant golfer. But he’s been caught cheating multiple times and was exiled from his club. Any time I see him on the street, it’s the first thing that crosses my mind. His integrity is compromised for life. He may have won lots of competitions over the years, but he lost far more than that.

They say golf is a microcosm of life. I like that.

How you carry yourself on the course is a reflection of how you carry yourself everywhere else.

Show up, give everything you have, do it fairly, and accept the outcome with grace.

Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing.

Focus on how you carry yourself — and if you do that well, you’re the winner.

I heard about a principle in philosophy recently called Occam’s Razor. It’s one of those phrases that I’d heard smart people say and always nodded my head as if I had a clue what they were talking about. But I looked it up the other day and apparently it means that when you’re faced with competing explanations for something, the simplest on…

Read more

In the 1980s a local maths teacher called Des got to do that for real. And what…

Read more

He wanted to build a five star golf resort on a 600 acre rolling estate in his home county of Fermanagh. Jim was a countryman who had done well.

He’d left his hometown, gone down to the big city (Dublin), built a successful business running a Supervalu shop in Churchtown for 20 years and wanted to ta…

Read more

The first time I ever met Shane Lowry was on a sunny evening in 2006. He was carrying his clubs through the front door of our house.

My parents had a Bed & Breakfast in Wicklow and Shane was 19, staying in our house with his mate Simon Ward while they played The Irish Close Amateur Championship at The European Club (soon to be Br…

Read more

The Quick List

For those who just want the list — here it is. Keep reading for the full story behind each course.

1. Narin and Portnoo Golf Club, Donegal — from €60

2. Lough Erne Resort, Fermanagh — from £60

3. Slieve Russell Golf Club, Cavan — from €65

4. Cruit Island Golf Club, Donegal — €80

5. Woodenbridge Golf Club, Wicklow — €45

6. Arklow Golf Club, Wicklow — from €45

7. Ca…

Read more

Getting rich and staying rich are two completely different skills.

Getting rich requires risk. Ambition. A willingness to bet on yourself when nobody else will. Staying rich requires somet…

Read more

Royal County Down. Royal Portrush. Lahinch. Ballybunion.

These are the heavyweights. The famous courses that sell out every tee time and host Irish Opens and Open Championships. The ones serious golfers travel to from all over the world. I love these courses, I’ve played them all and I would highly …

Read more

There are no members, no website, you can only play if you’re invited by the family who own it, the course can go days or even weeks without …

Read more

I went straight to the wedge section and started taking practice swings with three or four different clubs, careful not to touch the ground so as not to damage the bottom of the club. I’d bee…

Read more

There was something about the name of it that I liked. Rosapenna. It’s almost like a cross between Irish and Spanish. It just sounded cool.

Maybe that’s just me.

Last year I made the voyage for the very first time. Every year since 2005 Rosapenn…

Read more

The Vietnam War was a brutal war. It was also a strange war in many ways - I’m a bit of a history nerd and have done quite a bit of research into it, I’ve even been to the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. But even after all that I have a hard time wrapping…

Read more

This place is a bit mad, I thought to myself, glancing at the nearby shipwreck on the way in.

I’d heard people talk about Cruit Island but didn’t really know what to expect. We’re pretty far from civilisati…

Read more

Google told him the answer - mid 20s.

How would you feel if you saw that?

What plans do you make for your life?

That 13 year old David Howard is now a 27 year old playing in The Open Championship at Royal Birkdale. Before this year, he had never been t…

Read more

It was a chilly day in April and some of the young lads couldn’t have been older than 15 and here they were, all dressed up heading into the clubhouse looking like little gentlemen. I watc…

Read more

I recently received a wedding invitation, but when it arrived in the post and I saw it was black tie, I rolled my eyes - I didn’t own a tux.

I set aside time on a Saturday afternoon three weeks before the wedding, dragged myself to whatever shop it is that sells tuxedos, and after going through the fitting ex…

Read more

Last year, Scottie Scheffler earned $54.6 million on the course.

That’s more than LeBron James.
More than Super Bowl-winning quarterback Sam Darnold.
And only slightly behind Patrick Mahomes (highest paid QB in the NFL).

Which raised a question in my head:

Ho…

Read more