welcome to the madness
So, this is the bit where I’m supposed to introduce myself. Since turning professional, over three decades have flown by in the blink of an eye, packed with so many crazy experiences there are too many to mention.
You’d think after all that, I’d have a slick, polished introduction ready to go. But the truth is, my golfing life has been anything but a smooth ride. It’s been a fluctuating series of highs and lows—at times, some monumental lows—but golfers are, in my experience, eternal optimists. You keep going in the hope that the next glorious view is just around the corner.
My name’s Tom Long, though just about everyone calls me Tommy (hence Tommy does Golf). I’m a British PGA Pro who, for the last 20 years, has been lucky enough to call New Zealand home.
My golfing journey has taken me quite literally around the world. I’ve competed around Europe and the States and have worked as a PGA professional in the UK, Italy, Dubai, the Caribbean, and New Zealand. Along the way, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to share the fairways with some true legends. We’re talking sportsmen and women who’ve achieved some crazy heights—from Olympic gold medals and Super Bowl MVP honours to winning World Cups. Oh, and a few golf major championship winners, too.
The greatest thing about sharing the fairways with these people is that you quickly realise they’re all, on the whole, wonderfully normal and humble. They get that things can change in the blink of an eye.
And that’s the beauty of golf itself. It’s the great leveller. You can’t buy a good game; you have to work at it, really hard. That’s why I think you don’t meet many arrogant people in the world of golf. We all know we’re only a shank away from disaster or from being unexpectedly infected with the dreaded yips. This game keeps you honest – you play the ball how it lies !
I’ve met some truly colourful characters and learned a hell of a lot along the way. I even popped up on TV presenting tuition tips on Sky Sports back in the mid-2000s. I’ve also been writing for golf magazines for the best part of three decades.
But here’s the thing: after years of giving lessons and writing instruction articles about the perfect grip, the ideal swing plane, etc., I’ve had an epiphany.
It’s my time to have fun again, because time waits for no man!
It’s time to fall back in love with the game—not just the game of perfect shots, but to embrace the inevitable bad ones, laugh off the inexplicable shanks, and simply celebrate the sheer, unadulterated joy of that one pure strike that keeps you coming back for more punishment.
And that’s what Tommy does Golf is all about.
This is my passion project. My mid-life crisis, if you like. This blog will be my random, unfiltered opinion on everything golf. One day it might be about the latest tour drama, the next it could be a rant about the price of a club sandwich at the halfway house.
But that’s not all. I’m dragging a couple of mates—fellow mid-century-aged PGA pros—into the fray. Between the three of us, we’ve clocked over a hundred years in this industry. We’ve got stories to tell, that’s for sure. There will be plenty of banter, and these tales will no doubt come out in due course, in no particular order.
Together, we’ll be launching the Tommy does Golf podcast. It’ll be unfiltered, unscripted, and hopefully full of laughs. No corporate nonsense, just three old mates talking about the game we love.
There will be YouTube content, too. I’ll try to make it entertaining and easy to watch.
No doubt as this blog goes on, I’ll reveal plenty more about my golfing journey. A great old friend of mine would always say to me, ‘Tommy, life is not a dress rehearsal, so live it large.’ So from here on in, I’ll do my best to not play it safe, not lay it up, or leave putts short. It’s full throttle to the finish line, wherever and whenever that might be.
Let’s have it!!
Cheers,
Tommy