The Day Greg Spence Blew Everyone Away

By Peter Owen

Having shared the stage with stars like Shirley Bassey, Michael Buble, Wayne Newton, K. D. Lang and Hugh Jackman, Greg Spence can lay claim to being one of Australia’s finest trumpet players.

You may have seen him on Dancing With The Stars, Hey Hey It’s Saturday, the Logie Awards and Channel 9’s Carols by Candlelight. Greg Spence is trumpeting royalty.

But golf? Well, that’s something entirely different.

Greg, who now lives in a beachside apartment at Coolum after moving from Melbourne, has been a golfer for 35 years – hitting the course only occasionally and, in his own words, playing ‘very crappy’ golf.

When he arrived on the Sunshine Coast, he decided to take the game a little more seriously. He joined Peregian as a Lifestyle member and started practicing.Greg, who teaches trumpet online, has never been afraid to take the path less trod.

A right hander all his life – at all things – Greg decided he would in future play golf left-handed.

He talks about ‘neuroplasticity’ and the brain’s remarkable ability to adapt. When we learn something new, he says, we rewire our brain to adapt to new circumstances. Do it often enough and it becomes automatic.

Greg put it to the test.

Without a coach or anyone to supervise his progress, he daily visited Peregian’s practice range, hitting hundreds of balls – all left-handed – and he gradually honed a new swing.

“I’m absolutely certain my swing now is better than it was when I played right-handed,” he said.

He entered the Sunshine Coast Spring Classic – a 72-hole tournament played across four of the Sunshine Coast’s finest courses – and it was with some trepidation he lined up on the first tee on the first day at Maroochy River.

But he’d played 18 holes of golf every day for a fortnight leading up to the event, launched numerous balls at a screen he’d assembled on his balcony, and he was ready.Greg smashed his first drive down the middle of the fairway and, for the next four hours, showed just how much his brain had adapted.

He returned a score of 40 stableford points – equal with eventual Classic winner Richard Robinson and three more than any other competitor – and was the clear leader of B grade as the players headed for the second day’s play at Twin Waters.

“I didn’t get carried away with my performance at Maroochy River, though I certainly enjoyed playing well,” Greg said. “It’s all part of a six-month project. You have your good days and you have your bad days.”

Greg found out about the bad days when he visited Twin Waters.He managed to accumulate only 20 stableford points, with only one other player recording fewer. He went on to score 24 points at Twin Waters and 19 at Peregian. But Greg was not upset. “This project is an emotional roller-coaster,” he said. “But I believe in it and I’ll stick to it.”

And he can always tell the doubters about the day the trumpeter led the field in the very first Sunshine Coast Spring Classic. Playing left-handed.

This article is an excerpt from Noosa Today