PROFILE: EDDIE PEPPERELL
The popular Englishman talks exclusively to Golf Australia magazine about courting controversy, career ambitions, and his willingness to accept his flaws.
He’s well aware that his jokey persona has led some circles of the golfing media to christen him a party-boy, but Eddie Pepperell insists he’s nothing of the sort. Here he talks exclusively to Golf Australia about courting controversy, career ambitions, and his willingness to accept his flaws.
Eddie Pepperell may only be 27, but there’s something about him that smacks of an old pro long before the money flooded in to mould the sport of golf into the shiny, sponsored, TV-ready creation it is today.
Self-depreciating, sardonic, and sincere in turns, Pepperell has garnered himself a fair amount of attention for his conduct both on- and o - the course. While more conservative fans of the sport may have sneered at his admittance that a hangover was a contributing factor to carding a 67 in the final round at last year’s Open Championship, there are many others who have taken this unconventional athlete to heart.
And yes, says Pepperell, he was su ering the after e ects of one too many wines at Carnoustie, but a cursory glance at some of his other exploits at the same course can paint a very di erent picture.
“I’ve had it all really,” he jokes. “One Dunhill Links I played Carnoustie on the second day, and I snapped my putter on the green. I had to play 15 holes with a 2-iron. I was 12 over through 10, and thinking I could shoot 90, but I ended up playing the best three holes of my life, ended up driving it about 40 feet and then tapped it in with a two iron – that’s probably still the best 3 I’ve ever made in my career.”
The question of how many beverages Pepperell had partaken in before that particular show of golfing strength isn’t raised. And even when the conversation does swing towards the media’s preoccupation with his alcoholic habits, Pepperell is typically even-handed in his assessment.
“I drink more at golf tournaments actually, I don’t drink too much when I’m at home,” he smiles. “I think that started at 2016 – which was when I started playing badly so I guess I was using it as a bit of a crutch. I won’t judge either way as a good or bad thing, but it’s probably not a good thing though if I’m being honest.
“Since then I’ve found a glass or two every night before a tournament is quite relaxing, it clears my head and I don’t see any damage in it. It’s funny what happened after the Open, where people were trying to show me as a party boy, it couldn’t be
THERE’S A LOT OF WAYS TO SKIN A CAT WHEN YOU’RE A GOLFER AND IT’S PRIMARILY A SKILL-BASED GAME AND A TECHNICAL GAME. – EDDIE PEPPERELL
further from the truth.”
So, Pepperell is not a “party boy.” But nor is he, by his own admittance, a “proper athlete” – that moniker he reserved for the likes of Tiger Woods at the same Open presser. He’s the well-spoken, wine-loving golfer with British and Qatar Masters wins to his name and a bright future in golf ahead of him. More than that, perhaps, is his natural candidness and easy-going nature that marks him out as an amicable interviewee.
“It was as much a dig at myself as it was a compliment to Tiger,” he says of that wellpublicised “proper athlete” remark. “That’s not to say that I’m not athletic, I’m not to his level and I don’t waste my time and energy on trying to get to that level.
“There’s a lot of ways to skin a cat when you’re a golfer and it’s primarily a skill-based game and a technical game. It’s becoming more physical as it gets more modern.
“I see modern kids come out on Tour who bomb the ball a long, long way and they are physically very strong but they’re not winning out on Tour; golf is still primarily an art form and you’ve got to be very skilled still about it. I’ve changed my focus over the last couple of years making sure I’m on top of that and the physical side takes more of a backseat and I just make sure I’m healthy and I’m not restricting myself. If I’m living, then I’m generally pretty happy to be honest.”
Pepperell’s personal game-plan appears to be paying o . Having recently added his native Masters to the Qatar victory he won at the start of last year, the Brit is starting to show some of the on-course prowess that led to him taking runner-up in the Boys Amateur Championship during his fledgling career. But that was a decade ago, and Pepperell is now playing in a multibillion-dollar game, with both professional pride and extortionate purses on the line.
“Golf is like every other industry in that at the top it’s very healthy, but there’s no real foundation,” he says of the modern game. “There seems to have been an erosion of the middle ground across the board.
“I’m reminded of that chart with Tiger Woods’ wins and the correlation between that and golf participation, and there was none. There was a correlation between prize money and TV and Tiger Woods’ career, but not participation and I guess that’s what I’m looping to, that while the top may be looking phenomenal – and it is, with Tiger doing what he’s doing now as well, the top is so, so good – but there are a bunch more macro and socio-ecomonic factors which will determine the future of golf on a much more local level. I don’t know what that future looks like, but it’ll certainly be interesting.”
To hear a sportsman talk about “macro and socio-economic factors” and graphical correlations may seem surprising, but for Pepperell, such an interest is par for the course. As any reader of his online blog – and there are many of them – can attest, the frank-talking doesn’t just come to a sudden stop when Pepperell is outside of a microphone’s range.
“I had a lot going on in my mind, I was reading books all the time, and I was getting too distracted so I thought I’d just get it all out in a creative way and that’s what I ended up doing,” he says of his blog. “Then as time went on I became a bit more