NO QUALIFICATIONS - BUT BELGIAN GOLF GURU
IS LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK!

Brought to you by Golfhub Ireland
and JO MAES

Who is Josh ?It has gone a bit quiet around Josh Vonstiephoet, the Belgian self-professed golf 'guru'.
Jos Vanstiphout, his real name, has assisted numerous tour pros to win golf tournaments and it has made him a rich man in the process. His qualifications have always been doubted by the other educated psychologists on tour and rightfully so because he has none.
Jos was one of 10 kids and left school at 13. He floated through a variety of jobs from cleaning toilets to advertising sales. He also joined a pop/rock group called Jerimia in the 70's and represented Belgium at the World Song Festival in Tokyo competing against the likes of Demis Roussos and Vicky Leandros.
'If you don't believe in the product, don't sell it. Dream, believe, work your ass off and success will come' was his philosophy during his time as advertising sales. He was going to use a similar philosophy on the Golf Tour but before he could go there, there was one thing left to do, he had to play the game.
So he started playing golf at age 41 and got down to a 10-handicap within the year. He read 500+ philosophy books and the one book that struck him was 'The inner game of Golf' by Timothy Gallwey. He withdrew close to 30,000 Euros and went to the States to look the guy up. He ended up spending a month together with Gallwey and decided he was ready for the tour.
Unfortunately, the tour wasn't ready for him. He invested a fortune turning up on tournaments every week with people thinking of him as a 'big bloody joke'.
No one believed in what he was saying. Luckily for Jos, one man did. Ross Drummond asked his caddy, journalist Lawrence Donegan, if he should work with 'that funny little Belgian guy'. He thought it was good for his book and said 'yes.'
Ross Drummond hired Jos for £250 per week and, funnily enough, after 19 winless seasons on tour, Drummond finished second behind a then little known South African golfer called Goosen. Drummond decided that £250 was too much and Jos went on to bigger things.
At the 2002 Open in Muirfield, Jos had two players in the play-off. Ernie Els had not won a major in five years and a tournament in a year before he hired Jos. In the eight months after signing him, Ernie won eight tournaments plus the Open.
Levet, in the same play-off, won the British Masters 10 days after signing Jos. Vanstiphout also had Goosen and Hansen in the top 10 that year, providing him with a handy bonus at the end of the weekend.
In the meantime, Jos has moved residence to Monaco and has no shortage of golfers who want to work with him. He's a bundle of energy, often on the putting green at dawn, chain-smoking, leaving the range at dusk heading to the hotel for some night time pep talk sessions.
Does he care about his lack of qualifications?
"Do you think the boys on tour care about qualifications, a diploma, a piece of paper?" Jos spits. "Goosen has made more money in six months than in the previous five years. Do you think he cares? And Ernie, do you think he wants to see my CV?
"No Sir, at the end of the month they say, thanks very much , Jos - and here's your cheque!"
+++By the way, the reason it’s gone a bit quiet around ‘Josh’ is because he took some time off to stand by his ex-wife who was terminally ill. (She died). He’s back now with Ernie and also took on Marcel Siem.
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