English golfer Matt Wallace wears his heart on his sleeve and on Friday he bravely opened up about the highs and lows of professional golf in a row, honest and vulnerable discussion in the DP World Tour’s Green Room.
The DP World Tour has long raised the bar in content creation on tour and the green room has been a funnily awkward area where players go in for a quick flash interview, sitting in a golden chair, staring into a camera with the door shut behind them.
This time it was the turn of Wallace who had just missed the cut at the Genesis Scottish Open.
The world number 92 missed his first cut in six events but was visibly distraught by his performance.
The Green Room often brings the most out of the players while asking the simplest of questions and Wallace opened up on how he is currently feeling on the golf course.
“Oh, dear,” Wallace said as he plopped down to get comfortable after bogeying his last two holes to miss the cut at the Renaissance Club.
“Is this your first time here?” went the first question, delivered by a computer-generated voiceover.
“First time,” Wallace said. “Pretty terrible, straight after signing my card. Didn’t realize it was this quick that they come in here. Yeah, I’m pretty gutted.”
Despite his downbeat nature, Wallace has had a decent season by most standards. He’s ranked 112th in the FedEx Cup meaning he is in a good position to retain his full PGA Tour playing privileges.
He finished tied for 17th at the Valspar Championship in March, tied for fourth at the CJ Cup in May, and then followed it with a T20 at the Myrtle Beach Classic a week later.
However, the 34-year-old is constantly striving to reach the next level and become a mainstay in the world’s top-50.
“What would you like to get off your chest?” went the second question.
“I’m trying to change my attitude toward the game a little bit, by being a bit more positive about it,” Wallace said, wiping his brow. “I just lack a load of self confidence at the moment.”
He paused for a beat and an exhale.
“Yeah, it’s hard.”
“Do you want to talk about how you’re feeling?” went the third Green Room question. “What’s going through your mind?”
“I’m just not where I want to be, you know, in the game” Wallace replied, with a noticeable crack in his voice. “You can’t force it, ya know. You gotta — you gotta roll with the punches and that’s what I’m doing at the moment. So, just working hard every day. Just how it is. The game doesn’t owe you anything, you know. I don’t like to get emotional about it but I’m quite an emotional person, as everyone knows. So yeah, it’s hard.”
