Uncomfortably, he adjusted his grip. His solution literally changed his life on its own.
“It was a moment (that) came out of nowhere,” Paul-Gindiri told CNN. “I held it in one hand and it was really comfortable and rippling. I was like, ‘Wait a minute, let me try this.’
“Now that I think about it, I’m like, ‘what made me do this?’ It’s God. God blessed me with a talent that just came out of nowhere.”
Spinning the club overhead, Paul-Gindiri approached the tee and crashed a devastating drive into the Arizona night sky. Cue dropped jaws among friends watching at the driving range, including the one who just captured the moment on camera.
The footage was far from cinematic standards, and Paul-Gindiri barely gave it a second thought as he posted the clip to his newly created TikTok account that night.
The next morning, he woke up to the hum of a phone lighting up with notifications. Overnight, the video had soared to 1.5 million views.
That was February 2021. A year and a half later, Paul-Gindiri is a certified TikTok sensation boasting engagement numbers as tantalizing as his one-handed swing.
With 1.9 million subscribers and over half a billion views, the 22-year-old has released viral hit after viral hit with increasingly daring and creative variations of his unorthodox technique.
“I think it’s just its uniqueness and it’s something new in golf,” Paul-Gindiri said. “You see the same stuff over and over again, it gets boring. So once people see it, they’re like, ‘What the hell is this?’ They never seen nothing like that.”
happy to knock
“It was awesome,” said Paul-Gindiri, who coached McDonald in an impressive one-handed attempt. “Really nice guy, we had a great time.”
Meeting the real Happy, Sandler, remains on the bucket list, not least so Paul-Gindiri can thank his namesake for the iconic run that increased his shot distance. Averaging 250 yards, his best one-handed shot traveled 330 yards, he said.
That average sits just 50 yards below the 299.6 yard average on the PGA Tour this season, while Cameron Champ leads with 321.4 yards.
“They were trying to figure out how I’m doing,” he added. “I’ve met a few PGA Tour players and they tell me what I’m doing is crazy, and I should keep doing what I’m doing.”
Future goals
Incredibly, Paul-Gindiri even used to putt one-handed, although he has since switched to the conventional two-handed grip as he seeks to master both grips and improve on his personal best 76-round, made entirely by hand. That surpasses his current two-handed record — a six-for-77 carded last week — by a stroke.
Still, the social media star is aiming for targets beyond the fairway. A keen footballer and lifelong Manchester United fan, Paul-Gindiri dreams of following in the footsteps of his idol, Cristiano Ronaldo.
After leaving his family in Nigeria to settle alone in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2017, Paul-Gindiri played for Contra Costa College for two years. A foray into semi-professional play has been cut short by the pandemic and football activities have been slowed during a move to Arizona, but he is determined to pick up where he left off this year.
And while he might not have tricks up his sleeve as unorthodox as a one-handed swing, his athletic flexibility extends to the football field.
“I’m really good with both feet,” he said. “People don’t know if I’m left-footed or right-footed, so I guess that’s my go-to little thing.”
Yet even as he juggles those aspirations with college, his maverick commitments to golf seem set to continue. A year and a half after that fateful evening at the shooting range, Paul-Gindiri is more determined than ever to inspire people to get into the game, especially those for whom the conventional swing can be hard to replicate – like amputees or people with disabilities, he said.
“There are a lot of people… who think they can’t play golf and seeing what I do brings a whole different perspective to the game,” he said. “On top of that, I bring in people who would never have had an interest in golf. They’ve seen what I’m doing and they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s really cool, I really want to give it a shot.’
“If I had never gone to the shooting range that night, I wouldn’t be who I am today, so that keeps me going and makes me happy.”
