Sky Sports presenter Iona Stephen speaks to Golf Business Quarterly about how golf gives her a priceless sense of belonging as well as offering sanctuary.
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UNTIL recording my ‘Iona Investigates’ series for the R&A, I hadn’t had chance to go back to the beginning and think about the impact that golf has had on my life, which it has absolutely transformed from a personal and professional point of view.
I work in live television. It is a stressful industry – I'd be lying if I said it wasn't. I'm so grateful that even though I work in the golf industry, the game still provides me with sanctuary and therapy. Golf gives me a feeling of the troubles and the weight that we carry in our chest melting away. It keeps me sane, grounded and connected to the people that I love.
The first golf club I joined was Ranfurly Castle. At the time I was 17. I was leaving school and going to university with not a clue of what I wanted to do but feeling like the world needed me to know what I wanted to do.
We all go through different phases in our life – it’s just this constant, changing journey and nothing ever stays still. I have often thought of life as coming in five-year stages. And at this chunk in my life, I was going to be an architect, but, in my head, I was thinking, 'I’m still very young and I haven't got a clue what I want to do.' I felt the whole weight of the world on my shoulders. I didn't recognise it at the time, but I definitely had anxiety.
I played field hockey internationally and that was a great outlet for me. But it was during that time at university that I discovered golf, and I can only really describe it as transformational in terms of my mental health and the weight that it took off my shoulders. It gave me a sanctuary in life where I could go to the golf course, leave my phone in the car and be out there for four hours with total peace and quiet and feel like I was mentally totally engaged with the challenge of trying to golf my ball from A to B.
It was a game changer. It gave me clarity to start thinking about what I wanted in my life, and what I was really passionate about, and not what others were expecting of me and what the world was expecting of me – or at least what I thought the world was expecting of me. I couldn't spend enough time on the golf course at that period. I remember leaving the architects studio. All my friends were like, 'are you going out?', and I'd say, 'I'm off to the golf course – I've got some thinking to do.' I'd rush out to the course at any opportunity
I realised I didn’t want to be an architect, so I transferred to the University of St Andrews to do History of Art instead. But really, I wanted access to the range and all the golf facilities there. It was a gateway to a better version of myself.
At every turn, I encourage people to join a golf club and get involved. It’s stereotyped as an expensive game but there are so many clubs out there that are very affordable with flexible memberships for people at all stages of life.
I think what club membership gives us is a feeling of belonging. As human beings, at a very basic level, we love to feel like we belong. So much of life we have to tackle on our own. The moments in life that I've had the most joy and felt the most peace is when I’ve thought, ‘I'm part of this and I'm not alone.' There are other people who feel like they're sharing this journey with you, and that resonates on and off the golf course. You've got the shared love and passion of golf, but it transcends through your whole life.
Ultimately, you end up meeting people that you can call family for the rest of your life. That's what it's given to me, and that's what I hope it can give to many people.
Iona Stephen is a former professional golfer and now host and broadcaster working with many of golf’s key networks, including GolfTV, Sky Sports Golf, the BBC and NBC Golf Channel. The three-part ‘Iona Investigates’ series can be found on the R&A’s YouTube channel
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