Golf is often regarded as a genteel sport with sedate and well-mannered spectators. It’s a sport that can be exciting and enthralling, but one that lasts for three to four hours (sometimes five hours, depending on who’s playing – and I’m talking about pros here!) While wondering what to write about this week I stumbled upon “The Hero Challenge” on the European Tour’s You Tube Channel which tries to dispel these myths portraying golf as a boring pastime. I discovered that there have been several of these events; this particular one took place in the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo’s amphitheatre in front of Edinburgh Castle at the beginning of the week of the 2019 Scottish Open and was billed as “The European Tour’s fast and fun night golf event”. It’s basically a hyped up version of target golf, hosted by Vernon Kaye and watched by a crowd of over 4,000 spectators (plus it was broadcast live on Sky Sports and attracted over 500,000 viewers to the official live stream on Twitter). It features six golfers who were competing in the Scottish Open that week, including a few big names (I’ll keep you in suspense!).
I think the idea is good – it creates some excitement and there’s a bit of banter and chat, however the full show lasts ages! To be honest, I fast-forwarded lots of the chat – it’s three minutes before you catch a glimpse of a golfer and it’s another three minutes before a shot is hit, but if you’re out for the night (and you’ve wrapped up well in the Scottish Capital) it’s probably a decent night’s entertainment. What do you think?