Tony Bellew has his back turned. For the moment, he’s focused solely on what’s happening outside. “What a shot that is,” he says, totally transfixed as one of his fellow club members at Southport & Ainsdale strikes an iron into the par-3 1st hole, never as easy shot, especially in front of a watching clubhouse. This game has Bellew gripped.
In case you’re not familiar with the name, Tony ‘Bomber’ Bellew is the former British, Commonwealth, European and WBC Cruiserweight Champion Of The World. Maybe you’ve seen him without the gloves on, for he’s appeared in a few movies, as well as television programmes including a League Of Their Own and SAS: Who Dares Wins. Boxing, punditry, acting, they’re all passions of his, but how did someone growing up in a challenging part of Liverpool become addicted to what he viewed as a “rich man’s sport”?
It certainly didn’t happen in the same way as it does for a lot of people: plastic clubs aged two; junior member at the local club aged seven, rounds with the family on summer holidays. “We certainly weren’t that [rich],” says Bellew, whose life has featured many twists and turns.
Growing up on the tough streets of Toxteth and Wavertree, he had a choice to make: a life getting into trouble, or the straight and narrow, one that didn’t involve going to prison. It wasn’t his fists that saved him as such, but his work ethic. Talent only gets you so far. For Bellew, there is no substitute for hard work.
“I will not stop until I get a single figure handicap,” he says, with a steely determination, before recalling the first time he saw a golf club. It was many years ago when a friend pitched up at the park with what looked like a “loaf of bread on the end of a stick.” Handy that, he thought, in case someone tries to burgle my house.
The former boxing champion unleashes a powerful drive
(Image credit: Kevin Murray)
Now the proud owner of a set of TaylorMade Stealth irons, and the only damage these weapons will be doing are on the scoring front around his favourite Merseyside links – that’s if he can get his swing in order. At the moment, as is evident over a few holes near his home in Southport, it lacks for nothing in terms of power – it’s the consistency that’s bothering him a bit.
The golf bug, though, has bitten Bellew. He knows what it’s like to hit one cleanly, to experience the immense sense of satisfaction of a ball flying straight and true. He likens a flushed iron to…
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