It’s a beautiful October day at Santa Ponsa Golf 1, the car park is full when I arrive and the cafe is buzzing. It’s lunchtime and the morning players have finished, time for a snack and a chat about their game. In between them all is Peter Ledwidge, a well known face in the golfing community on the island, the current Senior Balearic Pro Champion and a very popular teacher. Peter spends every working day on a golf course, so where else could we have met? With the golf courses full of visiting players and the Mallorca Open happening at Son Muntaner this weekend, it seems the perfect time to talk golf.
When did you first start playing golf? “I started off playing snooker, that was my sport. I hadn’t played properly before I moved to live in Mallorca in 1996. I took it up as it fitted in well with my bar. I would play in the morning and then open it in the afternoon. I was playing for around six months, and then I joined the Hazards and they gave me a handicap of 16 and seven years later I was playing from scratch.”
What do you like about the game? “It’s the constant challenge you never master. There is always something glaringly obvious that you can get better at, and the social aspects are amazing. But I think the real appeal of golf is that people from all those different abilities can compete against each other and have fun. And by that I mean because of the handicap system, a professional with zero handicap can play against a 28 handicapper, and it can be a fair match.
And the beauty of it is that there's nothing I can do to affect what you do. I can’t snooker you. It’s you against the golf course, not against the other player. Snooker and Golf are very similar sports, you have to engage your conscious brain and not many people are good at that. That’s why you have specialists who just take corners in football for example, and those people will also be good at Golf, for sure. I am a Mastermind Factor Golf Coach which I use a lot in my teaching.”
What helps people to improve their game? “When they learn to manage their expectations and understand their results, what is a good result and what isn’t. Most people are way too hard on themselves. So a lot of my coaching is designed to manage their expectations and, and show them how they can feel good about what they're doing rather than have to constantly feel frustrated. No one likes an angry golfer, they aren’t fun to play with. When you are managing your game you are making better decisions.”
What makes you different? “In my opinion the golf world in general is guilty of teaching badly. You see beginners hitting the same ball from the same place over and over again, but you’d never do that on a golf course in a game. In golf every shot is unique. So I spend a lot of time teaching seasoned golfers how to practice better. If you want to get better at golf, stop practising like that.
One of my favourite stories is about Don Bradman. He had a cricket average of 99.97. He grew up bouncing a golf ball against a water tank and defending it with a stump. So when he came to play for real he had a much wider cricket bat than the stump he was used to. He practised hard and played easy.”
How many lessons does it take for a complete beginner get to play a hole? “I would say six, I would take them to work on the various elements before I would take you out to play a hole on a course”
How many steps do you average in a day? “It’s lunchtime and I have already done 8000, I will probably get to 20,000 today, that would be normal.”
You’ve got three grandsons, do you hope they will play? “As soon as I can they will be rolling a tennis ball with a plastic club, and as they get better the hole will get smaller!”
What’s the golf scene like in Mallorca? “It’s high season at the moment, up to probably the first week of November. The courses are all packed and they are at their most expensive rate. And the Mallorca Open is doing a great deal of good for Mallorca golf internationally.”
Will you watch the competition? “No, I can’t I have students and then I am taking a group to Almeria for an intensive course, but I will see it on the TV I hope.”
You compete as well as teach, what are your ambitions at the moment? “I’d like to play a competition on the European Seniors Tour.”
What is it with you and owls? You have an owl keeping your golf club warm. “He’s called Alfonso and he is named after a wise Spanish king called Alfonso. The story goes that Alfonso did not want to eat, he only wanted to drink wine, but his physicians said he had to eat a little bit every time he drank. So they made his servants place food on top of the glasses of wine, like a lid, or a cover. And the Spanish word for that is “Tapas” and that’s how the word came into being. It’s a clever way to get a result, and I like that, I teach my students in the same way, we are smarter about things, wiser I think. I get results, people come to me and get better quickly. I love that, it gives me great job satisfaction. I also teach Spanish pro players to become teachers, that also gives me a great sense of pride, I am teaching Spanish people in their own language how to become better teachers. I get to spend the whole day every day doing a job that I love, on a golf course, in the open air, with lovely people, how much better could it get than that. I don’t think I will ever retire!”
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