Move to Australia for the weather, they said. Be grand, they said.
Tell that to Tropical Cyclone Alfred. Last weekend we battened down the hatches in preparation for the Category 2 Cyclone that that was at one time tipped to make landfall in Brisbane as a devastating Category 3. In the end it was neither, downgraded to a Cat 1 before being reduced to ex-Cyclone status, or a tropical low, though still plenty powerful enough to down trees, cut electricity lines and fully submerge cars in the flash floods that followed.
Luckily, we escaped largely unscathed but around the time Shane Lowry’s moving day went into reverse at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, it was looking a little rocky on Barcelona Street too – our signal to the PGA Tour lost to Alfie’s bluster – candles and torches at the ready as we prepared to turn the clocks back to 1805.
As it happened, even the power held tough and though the internet dropped out, I was able to hotspot my phone to get some golf viewing in after all, albeit on YouTube. My algorithm had teed me up a No Laying Up Film Room episode – NLU podcast host Soly’s latest crack at the Gasparilla Invitational.
If you’re unfamiliar with No Laying Up, what began as a podcast has spilled into all forms of media but it’s their many YouTube video series – particularly Strapped and Tourist Sauce – that continue to set the golf content bar high each year. I’d recommend every golfer checks them out. Who knows, you might even find yourself invested in the golf game of a no-name amateur with three kids under the age of two trying to plot his way ‘round the Gasparilla after next to no preparation.
What follows is entertaining, highly relatable, car-crash television. Ensconced on the recliner couch, arse suctioned to the leather grooves, I watched all 34 minutes of Soly’s woes with the algorithm serving me up another YouTube golf series before I had the chance to move. This time it was Grant Horvat playing alongside Phil Mickelson in a team scramble against Long John Daly and his son, Little John.
Posted five days prior, the video was nearing 2 million views. Reluctantly, I added another to the pile, putting my disdain for Mickelson aside to see what the fuss was about. I’d watched some clips of Horvat previously. A sweet swinging plus-handicapper who played U.S. college golf before recognising he wasn’t cut out for the pro game. And while personality-wise he’s best described as harmless, here’s a big grinned grifter carving out a niche in the YouTube space that is opening the game up to a whole new audience with over 1 million subscribers on his books.
I watched all 65 minutes of the video, helped largely by Daly’s nonchalant attitude to rocking up 30 minutes late coupled with a mesmeric Mickelson short-game salvo to start. I even managed to separate the art from the artist as Mickelson coached his partner through the match while calling his own shots, golden nuggets of info that the microphones cry out for between pros and caddies during regular tour play.
The long and the short of it is that not only was my boredom satisfied, and not only could I see past my scorn for Mickelson, but yes, Maximus Aurelius, I was legitimately entertained. It was hard not to be, whether it was watching Soly duck-hook his way round a golf course as I thought only I can or marvelling at Daly’s lightning-quick play and one-handed putting stroke, there was too much not to doth your cap to.
The golf came thick and fast. Shot tracers kept your eye in and unlike the tour product littered with ad breaks and studio fluff, it was all packed neatly into episode-sized pieces and uninterrupted by the outside world. I’m not saying it was a cyclonic upheaval of my outlook on the game, but it was certainly eye-opening. With tour figures down, the product diluted and fans disinterested, it’s clear YouTube is cashing in on the eyeballs the status quo craves.
Maybe the mad scientist DeChambeau is a visionary after all?
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