cnn
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Trying golf for the first time, something didn't seem right about Eliezer Paul-Gindiri's conventional swing.
Uncomfortable, he adjusted his grip. Her solution literally changed her life single-handedly.
“It was a moment that came out of nowhere,” Paul-Gindiri told CNN. “I held it in one hand and it felt really comfortable and mobile. I was like 'Wait a minute, let me try this.'
“Now that I think about it, I ask myself, 'What made me do that?' Is God. “God blessed me with a talent that came out of nowhere.”
Swinging the club over his head, Paul-Gindiri stepped to the tee and hit a devastating drive into the Arizona night sky. Cue wowed friends watching on the practice field, including the one who had just captured the moment on camera.
The footage was far from cinematic standard, and Paul-Gindiri barely gave it a second thought when he posted the clip to his newly created TikTok account that night.
The next morning, he was awakened by the buzzing of a phone lighting up with notifications. Overnight, the video had reached 1.5 million views.
That was February 2021. A year and a half later, Paul-Gindiri is a certified TikTok sensation, posting engagement numbers as dazzling as her one-handed swing.
With 1.9 million followers and more than 500 million views, the 22-year-old has posted one viral hit after another with increasingly bold and creative variations on his unorthodox technique.
“I think it's just the uniqueness of it and it's something new for golf,” Paul-Gindiri said. “You see the same things over and over again and it gets boring. So once people saw it, they were like, 'what the hell?' “They had never seen anything like it.”
The account name, Snappy Gilmore, came about after a friend advised him to incorporate a pre-swing run. The nickname is a nod to the 1996 comedy “Happy Gilmore,” in which Adam Sandler plays a failed ice hockey star turned professional golfer, with the help of a radical, booming swing.
Whisper it quietly, but Paul-Gindiri had never seen the cult classic before combining the technique with his own. Naturally, that was quickly modified and Paul-Gindiri soon reunited with Christopher McDonald, who played the film's antagonist, Shooter McGavin, to show off his skills.
“It was incredible,” said Paul-Gindiri, who guided McDonald to an impressive one-handed attempt. “Really nice guy, we had a great time.”
Meeting the real-life Happy, Sandler, remains on the bucket list, especially so Paul-Gindiri can thank his namesake for the iconic run-up that has increased the distance of his shots. Averaging 250 yards, his best one-handed shot flew 330 yards, he said.
That average sits just 50 yards below the PGA Tour average of 299.6 yards this season, as Cameron Champ leads the way with 321.4 yards.
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Paul-Gindiri has shown his technique to several Tour players, including legendary hitting great Bryson DeChambeau. The oldest rider in the 2021 Tour seemed stunned when the pair met in May, and Paul-Gindiri said this is a common reaction among professionals.
“They were trying to figure out how I do it,” he added. “I've met a couple of PGA Tour players and they just tell me what I do is crazy and that I should keep doing what I'm doing.”
Incredibly, Paul-Gindiri even used to putt with one hand, although he has since switched to the conventional two-handed grip as he looks to master both grips and improve on his personal best of 76 rounds, achieved entirely with one hand. That beats his current two-handed best (a six over 77 cards last week) by one stroke.
However, the social media star has her sights set on goals beyond the street. Paul-Gindiri, an enthusiastic footballer and long-suffering Manchester United fan, dreams of following in the footsteps of his idol, Cristiano Ronaldo.
Having left his family in Nigeria to move alone to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2017, Paul-Gindiri played for Contra Costa College for two years. The pandemic interrupted his foray into the semi-pro game and his football activities slowed when he moved to Arizona, but he is determined to pick up where he left off this year.
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And while he may not have any tricks up his sleeve as unorthodox as a one-handed swing, his athletic flexibility extends to the soccer field.
“I'm very good with both feet,” he said. “People don't know if I'm left-handed or right-handed, so I guess that's my little resource.”
However, even as he juggles these aspirations with college, it appears his maverick commitments to golf will continue. A year and a half after that fateful night on the course, Paul-Gindiri is as determined as ever to inspire people to take up the game, especially those for whom the conventional swing can be difficult to replicate, such as amputees or people with disabilities. disabilities, he said.
“There are a lot of people… who think they can't play golf and seeing what I do brings a completely different perspective to the game,” he said. “Not only that, I'll bring in people who would never have had an interest in golf. They saw what I do and said, 'Oh, this is really cool, I really want to try this.'
“If I had never gone to the range that night, I wouldn't be who I am today, so that keeps me active and makes me happy.”
