Rhys James is a comedian and author who is about to release his first book, ‘You’ll Like It When You Get There: A Life Lived Reluctantly’.
I’m not really a gamer, so the answer really is golf. I used to play FIFA a bit. In the pandemic, I’d play Pro Clubs where you create your own player and you play on headsets with your friends who are also individual players in a team. But as soon as lockdown lifted, no one was ever around to do that. So I don’t really play games. I rebought all of the GTAs. I just played them again in anticipation – far too early – for a new one. They’re still just the best. I’ve only really played them and Red Dead Redemption 2 in the last 10 years probably.
My obsession is golf so I’m mostly just playing that. It’s a new obsession certainly. I’ve played over the years but it’s only in the last year or so that I’ve got properly into it and it’s all I think about. My girlfriend pointed out to some friends the other day, which I wasn’t aware of, that I am constantly doing my golf swing in any reflection I can find whilst she’s trying to speak to me. I didn’t know about that but she sent a text to my brother – he read it out to a group who we had just played golf with and everyone took the piss out of me. Fair enough.
When I’m playing it, I hate it. Nothing makes me angrier than being incompetent at this thing I want to be good at so badly. I think part of the appeal is that it’s so hard you can never conquer it. You can play football better than you did last week but not objectively. You can only subjectively think ‘I was a bit better today’ but with golf, you literally just look at your score from the previous time you played and you’re trying to just beat that.
It’s so satisfying to hit a good golf shot that you only really need one or two of them in a round to come back. It makes you think ‘if I can just do that every shot, I’ll be brilliant at golf’. But of course you can’t, the actual pros don’t. When my alarm goes off because I’ve got an early tea time, it’s the only thing that I just immediately get out of bed and get ready to go and do. Even when I’ve got a work thing that I really desperately wanted and I pitched for – this is my dream! – when the alarm goes off, I still think ‘oh God, maybe I just won’t be a comedian’. Right now, that’s it. It’s the only thing. Basically all my spare time is just on golf clothing websites and golf club websites.
Rhys’ new book ‘You’ll Like It When You Get There: A Life Lived Reluctantly’ is out now. Tour tickets are available here.