Bulletin’s big Q&A with Australian PGA Championship player Jack Wilson
Jack Wilson ruffled a few feathers early with his wild looks but he has grown a cult following — and the game — with his charismatic style. He chats all things golf, dealing with spiders in the hair, shaving his locks to help children and families battling with cancer and living out his dream with mate and caddie, Rizz.
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JACK Wilson ruffled a few feathers early with his wild looks but he has grown a cult following — and the game — with his charismatic style. He chats all things golf, dealing with spiders in the hair, shaving his locks to help children and families battling with cancer and living out his dream with mate and caddie, Rizz.
Let’s start with the shave. You have said goodbye to your dreadlocks for a good cause, what is it?
I have been very lucky, at the start of the year my caddie Rizz and I got invited to a fundraiser for charity Challenge. They support kids and families who are dealing with cancer. It’s an organisation heavily linked with golf. I grew up in the Goulburn Valley which was an hour down the road from Jarrod Lyle (who died from cancer). Briony, Jarrod’s wife, is a big part of Challenge and we got talking after the fundraiser and I started being ambassador for Leuk the Duck.
It has snowballed since then and I have hung out with some kids in hospital. I said to Briony a few months ago that I’d be willing to shave my head if we could do something special. She formed it into “The Dreaded Shave”. We decided to do it on ‘Yellow Day’ the second round of the PGA Championship where everyone was out here in a sea of yellow. To be a little addition to that day in memory of Jarrod was a special opportunity that I was humbled to have. You can still donate by going to www.challenge.org.au/donation/ and select “The Dreaded Shave”.
You have a cult following thanks to your unique hairstyle. How special was it to use it for such a good cause?
The platform I created with my dreadlocks and beard, confusing golf for the last four or five years, and recently with the addition of Rizz – we have been perplexing people and it’s allowed us to do something really special and use that to raise funds to support kids with cancer and more specifically, going towards the custom-built hair wigs for kids who lose their hair during treatment.
An expense that costs about $4000 a wig is something families going through this can’t afford. To give kids that choice and confidence back … it’s something I’m grateful to be able to do. The goal was $20,000 but Briony said if we get to $50,000 then my beard went to. I would have been lying if I said I wasn’t scared about it. I washed them for the last time on Wednesday night and it will be different not going through that hour-long process again. My girlfriend has only ever seen me with dreadlocks and a beard so I might be single.
Growing up so close to Jarrod (pictured) and playing the same sport, did you ever get to rub shoulders with him?
Jarrod was someone we all looked up to. He was a little older than me so I knew all the stories and watched him on television. I spent a bit of time with his family. His younger brother and his sister ran a restaurant in Shepparton we often frequented when we were there and they were a big part of the region’s golf team.
I never got the opportunity to spend as much time with Jarrod. It’s been special working with Briony. I can’t imagine what she has been through over the years. The work she puts back into this organisation is inspirational.
Shaving is even more significant for you because your dreadlocks and beard are essentially your brand, aren’t they?
Yeah. It has become my identity. Not a lot of people remember me from having short, clean-shaven hair. I finished third here (at the Australian PGA Championship) in 2013. Although my message and brand was there before it has helped me amplify that and that’s to make golf more accessible and entertaining to a wider demographic.
It’s all about trying to grab a crowd that might not normally be here. If I upset a few traditionalists I don’t think it’s too disrupting as opposed to the benefits it could do. I hope I’ll handle myself the same (with it gone).
Is there any concern you may not get invited to the same number of events now it’s gone?
Not really. Hopefully I can continue to create good content and that is really where the invitations come from, the way I conduct myself out there. I provide entertainment (and) host pro-ams better than most.
Will you consider growing the hair back or stay clean cut for now?
I can play around with it now. All these boys have got the short back and sides with salad on top, maybe I give that a run or the fade. I’ll definitely go back to growing a beard.
So how did the golfing community react when you first brought the hairstyle in?
I copped a fair bit of stick early on. Turning up with dreadlocks was something no one really expected. It was a state of rebellion.
I was told in golf I needed to stay between the lines. There was a lot of push back and that fuelled me to continue with it.
You finished third to winner Adam Scott and runner-up Rickie Fowler in the 2013 Australian PGA Championship (pictured). What was that like?
I finished four shots behind Adam. I was one behind with four-and-a-half holes to go and we got called off for a lightning delay. I had momentum and was flying. It’s all well and good to say in hindsight and doesn’t mean anything but I went back and watched myself on television and probably thought about the position I was in.
Adam was the world No. 1 at the time and reigning (US) Masters champion and Rickie was a top 10 in the world. I was the trainee at Kingswood. I went out and made double bogey and Scotty came out and tapped in an eagle. I went from one behind to five quick. I gathered a stroke back in the last four holes and made three solid pars to finish third. I just couldn’t quite get it back after that. It was great and a memory I’ll have forever.
Have you been able to pinpoint what you need to do to produce the same form of that 2013 tournament?
It’s tough out here. If it was easy there would be a lot for guys doing it. At the time I was working full-time and had security and I had no exsection. It was all a bonus. The more I’m out here and the harder I work, from that moment on it has been my job. It’s expensive out here too so the pressure of having to make money to pay rent is a tough thing to deal with and one I never really understood. And travelling is something that was a novelty back then where as now it’s my life and the hardest part. You are forever changing different towns, hotel rooms and beds and golf courses. All the things I really didn’t give much respect to and I expected to win and then I didn’t. Then the money starts to go away and the pressure builds. Although I have had results over the time, it is something coming from country Victoria, I didn’t really have money. You get a taste for it and really want it. This is something I want to keep doing. I want to keep playing competitive sport for the rest of my life.
Where are you placed for 2020 in terms of cards for tours and events?
Right now it’s down to this week. My ranking has slipped outside the top 50 so I’ll need a result to maintain PGA Tour of Australasia status for next year.
Tell me about your friendship with caddie “Rizz” and how good he has been on the bag?
We grew up together in country Victoria and have been best mates ever since high school. We always had the dream of going to work together and he is smart dude. He has a science degree and is currently studying his masters in education. He works online every night teaching English to overseas kids, predominantly Chinese. In 2017 he had just come back from a year overseas and we saw the opportunity for him to come to Queenstown with me. We navigated through the idea of him not understanding golf or ever being to a tournament or what he had to do as a caddie. We had a great week, finished fifth and partied the following week over there. We had a good summer that year and he caught the attention of the golfing world.
He is the most popular caddie you will see and it’s partly because he has a ‘Happy Gilmore’ caddie lookalike thing going on. He is also as genuine as they come. We are housemates as well on the Sunshine Coast. He knows more about me than anyone else.
In the role as caddie you have to stand up to the golfer sometimes. Often in his case it’s more attitude and the way I’m conducting myself. If he pulls me into line I know I’m out of place and if he says something, it is worth listening to. It’s great to spend as much time together as we do. No-one knows his full name, he is like Cher. Rizz the caddie has become his thing. When you see him with his hair tied back you don’t recognise who he is.
Have you been able to pinpoint what you need to do to reproduce your form of 2013?
It’s tough out here. If it was easy there would be a lot for guys doing it. At the time I was working full-time and had security. It was all a bonus. The more I’m out here and the harder I work, from that moment on it has been my job. It’s expensive out here too so the pressure of having to make money to pay rent is a tough thing to deal with and one I never really understood. Although I have had results over the time … I didn’t really have money. You get a taste for it and really want it. This is something I want to keep doing. I want to keep playing competitive sport for the rest of my life.
PLAYER BIO:
Name: Jack Wilson
Age: 29
Lives: Sunshine Coast
World ranking: 1072
Top 5 results:
■ Australian PGA
Championship (2013)
Third
■ WA PGA Championship (2013)
First
■ New Zealand Open (2017)
Fifth
■ PNG Golf Open (2019)
Second
■ Australian Open (2016)
Tied 14th
Jack Wilson on hair maintenance:
“I heard about a guy with dreadlocks who got bitten on the head by a redback spider that was in his hair and got really sick or passed away. I’m a really hygienic person. Every week I’m washing them thoroughly for about an hour. It’s quite a process. I use bicarb soda on it too, it’s good for your scalp, it’s an anti-inflammatory thing but I also know the reaction that the bicarb soda has. I know no spiders are living through it.”
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