As the world has been upended over the last few months by the coronavirus pandemic, Zoom and other video conferencing platforms have become a newly ubiquitous part of life for many, both professionally and socially.
The European Tour has made a name for itself in recent years by producing a slew of viral content, from the popular Hole-in-One and 14-Club Challenges to interviews with the Awkward Reporter. On Monday, the Tour produced yet another hilarious edition to the canon: The Conference Call.
The premise: Martin Kaymer attempts to gather eight of his Tour peers (Henrik Stenson, Colin Montgomerie, Padraig Harrington, Tommy Fleetwood, Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose, Lee Westwood and Gary Player) for an important discussion on some logistics concerning the upcoming BMW PGA Championship. The problem? As everyone knows, when gathering any sizeable group on Zoom, chaos easily reigns.
The best part about this video is the way each of the participants is willing to laugh at himself — or rather, the perceptions others have about them. Kaymer plays the straight man, exasperated by the antics of the others on the call, while the rest are free to ham it up.
Fleetwood is great as the Zoomer who can’t stop making distracting noises, interrupting the meeting with a blender, a hair dryer, and by tending to his toddler son. Harrington gets a laugh as an inept video conferencer whose frustrated profanity is luckily muted by a poor connection. Rose gets to poke fun at his image as Mr. Polished Professional, by first praising Kaymer for getting everyone together for the meeting, then forgetting to mute his microphone as he drops a F-bomb while lamenting how lame and unorganized Kaymer’s meeting is.
Westwood joins in by explaining that he’s just about finished with a workout on his bike, and proceeds to pedal through most of the rest of the conversation. Monty explains that he’s taking the meeting in his car, even though he’s not going anywhere, because “I just like to spend a couple of hours in here everyday.”
Garcia is the designated note-taker, and earns a laugh by attempting to transcribe everything — including bleeped outbursts by Harrington and Rose. Stenson plays the guy who can’t get enough of seeing himself against different Zoom backgrounds, like the Coliseum (“Hey guys, that’s weird. I didn’t know we were holding this meeting in … ancient Rome!”), and even Kaymer gets to poke a little fun at himself, when a screen share with the group reveals a moody portrait of Kaymer as his desktop background, and a Wikipedia page open to “Martin Kaymer.”
The best part of the video, though, is courtesy of Gary Player. Kaymer greets Player at the beginning, and when Player immediately launches into a “back-in-my-day” storytelling session, Kaymer quickly mutes him. It’s a running gag, since we see see Player throughout the video as he continues to unspool the same unending story. By the end of the call, Player is the only one left, asking “Hello? Hello? Nobody’s here.”
For anyone who has taken part in a multi-person video conference, the video is hugely relatable and offers some humorous respite during these decidedly trying times. You can watch the video in its entirety below.
