How'd they do that?
Watch these comical outtakes of 27 pro golfers trying to juggle one golf ball
DP World Tour and G4D Tour players juggle during the Keepy Uppy Challenge. (Courtesy of DP World Tour X account)
As with so many things in golf, Tiger Woods is the original king of the golf ball juggling video. At his absolute peak in 2000, Woods filmed three commercials for Nike that were wildly popular because few had seen someone deftly bounce a ball on a wedge so artistically, or for so long. Each commercial was 30 seconds, and it’s said that Woods did the first one in only four takes.
Numerous fun juggling videos followed, but we hadn’t seen anything like what the players on the DP World Tour and G4D Tour (golfers with disabilities) came up with this week at the DP World’s season-ending championship in Dubai.
Twenty-seven players lined up side by side on the driving range at Jumeirah Golf Estates with wedges in hand for what was dubbed, cheekily enough, the Keepy Uppy Challenge. Rising Polish star Adrian Meronk got the juggling started and the goal was to move through 25 other players before reaching Scotsman Robert MacIntyre, who would whack the ball with a baseball (or cricket?) swing to cap the sequence.
Fans ate it up on X, formerly Twitter, and there was even one dig at American players: “Simply wouldn’t happen on PGAT, I imagine Patrick Cantlay would want 100K a hop.”
There was also a very obvious question: How many takes were there?
It didn’t take long for the DP World Tour to respond with an “outtakes” version. The quick answer on takes: seven, and the sequence lasts just about a minute. Which is pretty impressive when you think about it. But there were some amusing misses, including the second guy in the line, Romain Langasque, flubbing the very first try and the 12th man, Dan Hillier, kind of just staring at the ball as it drops.
The best miss belongs to MacIntyre, the affable first-time Ryder Cupper this year who, on his first attempt, takes his big left-handed swing and completely whiffs. The groans are audible as MacIntyre lies in a heap on the ground. (Bobby shouldn’t feel bad; the last of the three Tiger commercials shows all of his misses, and there were plenty.)
Anyway, it makes the celebration all the more raucous when MacIntyre connects on the second try. The players go nuts and swarm their hero. Keepy Uppy has its new kings.