Full Swing, Netflix
Golf is unique in professional sport in that the competitors only get paid if they are successful.
Professional golf is played over a four-day tournament (Thursday to Sunday traditionally) and after two days the field, which can number up to 150, is reduced to 65.
If you ‘miss the cut’ you don’t get paid. That means you’ve worked for free for three days. The pro-am where professionals play a round with sponsors’ invitees on Wednesday is compulsory for most.
You've already spent money travelling to the venue, which can be anywhere in the world, accommodation, paying your caddie a fee and meeting their travel and accommodation expenses.
Not that we should start feeling sorry for professional golfers.
It’s brutally competitive but if you’re good enough the rewards are enormous.
The top events on the PGA tour in the US have prize funds of $20 million each.
And after hits with Formula One and tennis, Netflix has decided to extend its behind the scenes sports genre into golf.
The streaming giant is also currently filming at the Six Nations rugby for a series to be released in 2024.
Eight episodes of Full Swing have dropped on Netflix, including one on our own Rory McIlroy where he rails against the new Saudi Arabia backed LIV tour.
Saudi petro-dollars have been luring away some of the big names from the PGA tour and the traditionalists are not happy.
McIlroy has been to the forefront of standing against the sports-washing but he’s wondering if he focused on it too much in the last year.
"It's been contentious at times and I have maybe leaned into that part of it a little too much, and made it a little too personal in my mind,” he says.
"But I feel like what some people have done has affected the rest of the profession.
"I'm just trying to defend what I think is right."
Thirteen players feature over the eight episodes including Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, England’s Ian Poulter, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Scottie Scheffler, Matt Fitzpatrick and Tony Finau, but the most interesting episode is about a player only dedicated fans will have heard of.
Joel Dahmen is a self-confessed journeyman professional.
His lack of confidence is highly unusual in a world of oversized egos and bulletproof belief.
“The best players, they’re way better than I am. I’ll never be a top-10 player in the world and I’ll never win majors,” Dahmen says in words you don’t hear from professional golfers or almost any pro athlete.
And he adds: “Somebody’s got to be the 70th-best golfer in the world (and) it might as well be me.”
There’s a list of other stuff that will make you like him.
He gets emotional when recalling the death of his mother to cancer when he was at college and routinely tells his caddie and best friend, Geno, that he “loves” him.
Dahmen got fined by the tour after taking his shirt off when he holed a birdie putt at the infamously raucous 16th at the Phoenix Open.
And he qualified for the US Open after turning to alcohol between rounds in a 36-hole day after he thought he’d blown his chance by lunch.
Geno thinks Joel is one of the best players in the world and could make the top 50 (a ranking that unlocks access to the tournaments with the biggest prize money) if he just believed in himself a bit more.
I’m confident Dahmen has gained a load of new fans after this Full Swing episode and there’s at least one superstar who has lost support.
