Tony Finau’s helpful mudball tip accidentally backfires

Tony Finau is a nice guy, and nice guy Tony was simply trying to share a helpful tip about what to do when there’s a hunk of mud on your golf ball. And then it went rather hilariously wrong.

The video below opens with Finau welcoming everyone and talking about the soft conditions at this week’s Mayakoba Golf Classic, which will result in lots of mudballs, like the one he demonstrates below.

Finau explains that when there’s mud on the ball, the ball will curve in the opposite direction of the side the mud is on. So, if mud is on the left side of the golf ball, the ball will go to the right; if mud is on the right, it’ll go to the left.

Finau says you can account for this by adjusting your aim, or by simply trying to counteract it with your swing. In this case, with the ball on the right side of the ball (which will cause the ball to go left), he tries to hit a fade.

Finau steps up to the ball, swings and… yanks it left, and it keeps going. The person behind the camera tells him: “That ball went into the water.”

Finau laughs it off before jokingly adding: “Turn off the camera.” A good sport, and a good tip gone slightly wrong. Watch the full video below:

Luke Kerr-Dineen

Luke Kerr-Dineen is the Game Improvement Editor at GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com. In his role he oversees the brand’s game improvement content spanning instruction, equipment, health and fitness, across all of GOLF’s multimedia platforms.

An alumni of the International Junior Golf Academy and the University of South Carolina–Beaufort golf team, where he helped them to No. 1 in the national NAIA rankings, Luke moved to New York in 2012 to pursue his Masters degree in Journalism from Columbia University. His work has also appeared in USA Today, Golf Digest, Newsweek and The Daily Beast.