We’re sitting at the kitchen table of the Oxfordshire home that he and Jen moved into this year. The dogs have quietened and the man of the house explains what it is about the game that beats him up, and then renews him. He loves it. He hates it. Sometimes thinks he could leave it, but never does.
At least not permanently. In early February, somewhere between tournaments in Dubai and Singapore, Eddie Pepperell decided to step away. Three months out for a reset. A run of missed cuts brought clarity. At the Italian Open this week, he returns. He feels ready to see if what he has been doing in peacetime can survive the battlefield.
There is, though, a wantonness to golf that cannot be explained. The last tee shot he hit on the European Tour was in the Singapore Classic three months ago, and the memory has stayed with him. It was the 18th hole, a long par-four into a stiffish breeze at the Laguna National Golf Resort. He had 250 yards to carry the bunker. Not that difficult if you’re playing well, tough when you’re trying to make the cut. He needs a birdie to have a chance. He doesn’t hit the drive well. It finds the sand. Standing on that tee, a wave of self-loathing washes over him. No one cares and few will understand what he does next. In a moment of uncontrollable anger, he holds the shaft of the driver in both hands and smashes it on his knee.
It really was time to take a break. Three months on, does it seem to him that breaking clubs isn’t the smartest response to adversity? “I don’t know,” he replies. “Breaking clubs, I’ve not got an issue with. Some players don’t do it at all. I’ve broken probably a hundred in my career.”
A hundred? Really?
“Oh yeah. I think I’ve done 25 in one year. Jamie [Herbert], my caddie at the time, made a note and described each one. It was quite funny. I did four in one round in Sweden one year. I remember giving my three-wood and my driver away on the last tee to a couple of little kids, brothers, and I threw my lob wedge and my sand wedge in the lake on the 9th green and had to play the back nine with a pitching wedge.”
I remind him that I saw him break a club on the 9th at Carnoustie in the second round of the 2018 Dunhill Links Championship. “That was a classic,” he says. “After the round that evening I went to Auchterlonies in St Andrews to get them to reshaft it. And they don’t have the same shaft, but they have something similar. So I’m saying, ‘OK, put it in,’ because it’s better than nothing. Then, next day, I’m on the par-three 11th at the Old Course, into a breeze and it’s a six-iron. This is the first time I’ve used the new shaft. I stiffed it. It felt good. So I said to Mick [Doran, his caddie], ‘Right, next week at the British Masters at Walton Heath, I’m going to get this shaft on all my irons,’ which I did. With the new shafts at Walton Heath, I holed a five-iron, holed a nine-iron and I won the tournament. The first of my career.
“All because I broke that six-iron at Carnoustie. The new shafts were dramatically different in terms of the way they performed, and there is actually footage of me on the Sunday hitting a four-iron into a tough par-four, and it went dead straight and the wind didn’t touch it. And you can hear me say to Mick, ‘These shafts are unbelievable.’
“A week before, it was chaos. A week later, you look the most controlled player in golf. This is the essence of the game, the mad thing about it. You can’t account for it. You can’t plan for it.”
Can we not prepare for a period of Jon Rahm dominance? Pepperell thinks Rahm, the new Masters champion, is the only one who can dominate and offers this view while acknowledging that he is a fan of Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler. He doesn’t see any weakness in the Spaniard’s game and thinks the key to greatness in golf is to do everything well rather than one thing brilliantly. If the sport’s authorities introduce a uniform ball that reduces distance, Pepperell says this will play to Rahm’s excellence with his mid-irons.
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“I saw a stat the other day. Before Jon, only Tiger has won more tournaments than he’s missed cuts,” he says. “Jon has won 20 tournaments [as a professional] and missed only 14 cuts. That is a pretty remarkable thing. He could dominate in a way we haven’t seen since Tiger, or the way Rory did from 2012 to 2014. I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of 2024 Jon has six majors.”
Pepperell was pleased that the DP World Tour won its case against the rival LIV Golf series and believes it is an important moment. At times he has seemed like a one-man vigilante band, calling out those LIV players who have been critical of the tours they have abandoned. He has, at different moments, challenged Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, Sergio García, Henrik Stenson and, most recently, Richard Bland.
For the most part, the back-and-forths have taken place on social media, where Pepperell, 32, enjoys a devoted following. Honesty and humility set him apart from other professional athletes who mostly see social media as a means to sell their brand, their sponsors and, not least, their idealised view of themselves.
The trouble for Pepperell comes because he has a pathological dislike of players signing for LIV and then speaking ill of the established tours. Last week’s contretemps with Bland was typical. It began innocuously. Someone said that “the party hole” at the LIV tournament in Adelaide showed the new tour was innovating. Pepperell said not really, as the PGA Tour had long has this kind of hole at the Phoenix Open in Arizona.
Bland then offered his tuppence worth. “Ed . . . tell me where on DP World there’s been a hole like this? Because in 22yrs of playing the tour I can’t think of any. But maybe [in] your 15 minutes on tour, you know different.”
Bland, a much loved journeyman pro, was about to discover that if you come for the king of Twitter, you’d better not miss. Pepperell replied: “Where to start. Suppose it’s simple: in my 15 minutes I won more events than you did in 22 years,” before adding, “The Tour, which you spent 22 years on, did OK for you mate.”
Four days later, Pepperell has one regret. “After Blandy’s ‘15 minutes’ comment, I wanted to respond. But what happens on social media is that there’s then a pile-on and Richard got a lot of abuse, which isn’t right. He apologised for his original comment and then deleted his account, which is a shame.”
Last year, when Westwood spoke disparagingly about the European Tour, Pepperell offered some advice: “Take your cake and enjoy it in the corner.” When the Ryder Cup captain at the time, Henrik Stenson, jumped ship, explaining it in terms of the merits of the new LIV series, Pepperell was unimpressed: “Henrik, just be honest, it was a bucket load of cash and you couldn’t resist it, like the rest of the guys.”
In all these instances, golf fans empathise with Pepperell. He says what they’re thinking. They will be glad to have him back in action. He feels ready. Six weeks ago he converted a big room at his new home into an impressive golf studio with a simulator and every means of delivering data. He has spent hour after hour working on his swing and belief in his game has been restored.
At Queenwood Golf Club in Surrey he has played his practice rounds. “I think I’m hitting it well, and feel ready for what’s to come. I’m going to be playing in a lot of tournaments through the summer and autumn and I’m looking forward to it.”
So no more breaking of shafts? He couldn’t make any promises.