Tour pro slams Rick Shiels' 'depressing' attempt to qualify for The Open

English tour pro Eddie Pepperell was clearly not a fan of golf YouTubers such as Rick Shiels, Peter Finch and Andy Carter attempting to qualify for The Open. 

Pepperell, no stranger to offering strong opinions, dived into the topic in the latest instalment of The Chipping Forecast.

Shiels returned a scorecard of nine-over 81 at Caldy Golf Club and ultimately finished in a tie for 100th place in the regional qualifier last week. 

The aforementioned Finch also endured a nightmare, posting a 12-over 83 at Hesketh to finish in 102nd place. 

Carter was the pick of the bunch with a one-over 72 at the same venue to finish in a tie for eighth, narrowly missing out on a spot. 

"You rightly described it as tragi-comic I think," Pepperell said, referring to a discussion in the pod about Joe Biden's back-and-forth with Donald Trump about who was the better golfer.

"But the only thing I thought was more tragi-comic was watching Rick Shiels attempt to qualify, at regional qualifying, [for The Open]. 

"That I found quite depressing."

"People aren't turned on by the sport itself"

Chipping Forecast presenter Andrew Cotter pointed out that he didn't have a problem with YouTubers attempting to qualify for The Open. 

Neither did BBC Sport reporter Iain Carter. "More power to them," he said. 

Cotter put it to Pepperell that as a tour pro he's only ever thought about hitting good golf shots and never worried about being an entertainer or what people think. 

"Well, yeah, I guess that's the issue with the YouTube thing," Pepperell said. "It's a different realm entirely. 

"It's the WWE vocation of golf, but then again, it points to the wider conundrum in sport in general. 

"People aren't turned on by the sport itself so they are looking for these other products and that is what they are offering."

Pepperell added: "The question is, do their followers, when they watch them fail to qualify at The Open, what do they take from that?

"[Because] the world that they exist in is not a real world, it's not a real world of golf, it's edited and it's all for show. 

"And I think that's inspiring the youngsters and when they watch them go and shoot 83 at wherever it was - Hesketh - that's the element of golf that I don't know is inspiring. 

"And that's the issue for golf. I'm not saying... I don't hate it, I don't have [too many strong] feelings about it. 

"It's just that one is the real world of golf and one is just a fake world."

Pepperell said he found the illusory element of golf on YouTube as 'disquieting'. 

"You see something and you think, 'Oh, I want to do that', and then in five or 10 years' time you realise the difficulty of the journey and you end up giving up and throwing it out on the street. 

"And that's the issue, the real world and the real sport is so much harder than what is being presented. 

"And that's the illusion, the illusory element of it all that I find disquieting."

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