Have you heard the term “ho-hum par”? By definition, it’s the most boring possible score one could make on a hole. Birdie? Fist pump. Bogey? Grimace. Triple bogey? Hide any sharp objects nearby. But a par? Snoozefest. Don’t care.
Why, then, am I obsessed with a video series where making par is the only goal?
If you don’t know about Cheeky Golf Club, your algorithm is failing you. It is comprised of two, sometimes three, brothers of ambiguous background—my best guess is New Zealanders now living in London that may have spent some time in the States—watching one of the brothers play golf. Other than a few brand partnership posts (get that bag, boys!), every video starts off with more or less the same script:
[EXT: FIRST TEE OF GOLF COURSE – DAY]
WE OPEN on two young men with one golf bag, both looking to camera.
BROTHER 1
It’s Day 310 of playing golf every single day, until I make 18 pars in a row. I’m still a 7.9 handicap.
BROTHER 2
Today’s the day, let’s go play some golf.
BROTHER 1
Let’s do it.
BROTHERS 1 and 2 dap.
And from there we see the golf play out. A very average golfer plays very average golf on a very average course. Underneath, the same royalty-free music track scores every video. Sometimes he pars the first and moves on to the second hole. Sometimes he pars that hole and moves on to the third. Every now and then, he pars all three and the day’s effort becomes a multi-post series. Even after the intro, it’s the same formula every day. Drive, approach, putt, putt (par), dap. Drive, approach, putt (birdie), happy dap. Drive, approach, putt, missed putt (bogey), melancholy but hopeful dap.
To be clear, attempting to shoot 18 pars in a row is a Sisyphean effort for any mid-handicapper. It is a feat rarely achieved on the PGA Tour, let alone by a hacker at your local muni. To put it plainly: It ain’t gonna happen. But for the Brothers Cheek, that part doesn’t seem to matter. All the good things that come with it—being outside, spending time with family, improving at golf—are less a byproduct and more the point. In other words, maybe the real treasure is all the pars made along the way.
So if this is just an exercise in futility, why do I care? It might be that I’m looking for something to care about. Despite now having more than ever to watch on TV, I find myself losing interest not just in professional golf, but TV itself. The pro game’s fractured state, exacerbated by the unending greed that seems to influence every decision just turns me off. And it’s no secret that television ratings are going down while YouTube views go up. But maybe that was always going to happen in today’s media ecosystem, and it doesn’t have anything to do with rival tours or shiny new indoor leagues. Either way, my small screen has gotten smaller.
What’s weird about Cheeky Golf Club is it’s not a golf club, and the boys aren’t even particularly cheeky. They’re not even particularly good golfers—in fact, we only see one of them ever hit the ball. The other is just there for moral support. But I liken it to the relaxation watching of the early-pandemic era, where creatives found a way to be just that, holed up at home, quarantined from the rest of the world. Musicians were playing full concerts at home. Actors were logging onto Zoom to do table reads of their old movies. Every morning, at the same time, I opened Instagram Live to watch the owner of my favorite pizza restaurant cut and shape the dough balls for the day. Its dullness was the draw, a quotidian exercise in maintaining a sense of normalcy. It feels strange to be nostalgic about such a strange and recent time, but those were my moments of zen.
So as the brothers approach their 365th day of Cheeky Golf Club, I’d like to make a toast to their persistence, as well as a radical suggestion in today’s world of constant reinvention for the sake of attracting a wider audience: don’t change anything. Do not deviate at all from your original formula. Don’t up your production. Keep it simple and just keep doing what got you here. I’ll keep tuning in. To Cheeky Golf Club!
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com