Relaxed Maybin taking it all in his stride

Stop the presses! Hold the phones! Here comes a newsflash: golf really isn’t the centre of the universe.

At least if you’re Gareth Maybin. Many of his contemporaries in the professional ranks may disagree with the Ulsterman as they live, breath and sleep golf in the pursuit of excellence, yet they will be looking slightly enviously in Maybin’s direction after he shot a five-under-par 65 in yesterday’s Irish Open second round to leave him four shots off the lead, particularly as the man himself can take it or leave it.

The 30-year-old from Ballyclare used to be like his fellow foot soldiers on the European Tour, immersed in swing thoughts, software and video analysis, his mind entrenched in the golfing lab. And it repaid him with three runner-up finishes on Tour in 2009 and 2010, the last of which came behind Graeme McDowell at the Valderrama Masters. Yet Maybin had an epiphany a year ago as weighed up his priorities following the birth of his first child, a son called Reeve, and the upshot is, well, golf may pay the bills but it is not the be-all and end-all of his existence.

“I think golf has gone very technology-based and science-based, it can wreck your head,” Maybin said following his second round at Fota Island.

“All these Trackman devices, shafts, different swing grooves and all this stuff. Sometimes you kick back and say, how did I actually get myself here to start with? It was through hard work, grit and determination and doing what you knew how to do. Sometimes, you need to revert back to that.

“Videos, phones, must have seen 20 different coaches expecting them to have the answer. Ultimately, the answer lay with me.

“I look at those guys for whom golf is their main focus and I think, ‘well, I don’t want to be like that’. I’ll do it my way and if it works, it works and if it doesn’t, no big deal. I’ll move on.”

So far, so good, though, with Maybin earning a top-10 finish at the Spanish Open last month and now putting himself in contention on home soil in Cork at an Irish Open. As for that epiphany, the moment he decided golf was not all it was cracked up to be?

“Probably about half three in the morning when I cam home from Kelly’s nightclub,” he joked, before adding: “When you have a kid it changes, it is very very hard to describe. He is everything now and golf is still important, I am not trying to say it is not important. It is a way for financial means and all the rest, you just move on and when you get older things become less important and the small things in life such as a glass of wine or kids become very important.”

Maybin certainly cuts a more relaxed figure on the golf course these days, and yesterday in round two it gave him a bogey-free round of 65 that left him four shots behind halfway leader Mikko Ilonen of Finland.

The highlights came on his inward nine, over the first nine holes on the card, where he carded five birdies over the first seven and then made two great up and downs to close out his round.

“It’s maybe trying to play golf a little bit more as opposed to play the golf swing, sometimes I get too caught up in the technique and go out there and try to make a perfect golf swing when I actually don’t need to make a perfect golf swing.

“This game is not about how good your good is, no doubt it’s how bad your bad is and if you can manage that you’ll be okay. We’re only halfway here with two rounds to play so we have a long, long way to go.”

And come what may, Maybin will stay cool and calm and at all times remember what’s really important to him.

“I will just go out and play like I was playing today and there may be a few more people watching but it’s all good, I will go out there and it would be nice to get an Irish winner of some kind.

“I’ll go out tonight and have a couple of pints. I’ll just relax and tee up tomorrow and see what happens.”