Meet Felixstowe Lad Oliver Lloyd, on a New Golfing Youtube Journey

Hello, I’m Oliver Lloyd and I’m originally from Boston in Lincolnshire. I’m an ex-professional dancer from aged 18-28. I worked on cruise ships for 10 years traveling around the world, seeing beautiful places and meeting amazing people. In 2018 I decided to retire from dancing and wanted to find a land-based job and settle down with a change in lifestyle. I spent a few months unemployed trying to find a new career to go down. I started to work for Associated British Ports and worked in the Port of Ipswich. I moved down to Felixstowe ready to start my new venture in life, from working on ships to now working with ships.

I missed being as active as I was on ships with rehearsals, shows, activities and meeting new people all the time. I wanted to get back into a sport to challenge myself to ultimately get me out and about, active and moving again.

I first started playing golf just before the first lockdown last year, by just going to the driving range with my brother. It was a fun way to have a catch up with family and get out of the house for a while, and as I really enjoyed myself, I decided I wanted to try to get into golf properly. 

I have been a member at Felixstowe Ferry Golf Club since July last year but due to the lockdowns I wasn’t really been able to play all too much. However, with the restrictions being lifted and golf returning back to normal I decided to document my progress and challenge myself to improve my game and work hard to become a better player which is why I decided to start a Youtube channel. I have been working on the channel for nearly a month now and really enjoy everything about it. It’s making me think of new ideas for videos along with the fun of editing the videos. It’s a process that I’m really jumping into and wanting to generate a community of followers along my journey. I have videos which I try to release every other day and I currently have two series running; one of which is a quest to get a golf handicap; and my second is a 1 hole 1 club challenge where I take on a par 5 513 yard hole with just one club only. It’s been an amazing opportunity to get creative again and push my boundaries to play shots at clubs I wouldn’t normally choose.

I think the main reason I like and enjoy golf and my youtube channel, is that it gives me something to think about and work on asides from my job and makes me want to get out on the course. It’s given me motivation to get active again after so long not dancing, and it’s a brilliant way to meet new people.

A surprising benefit to having a Youtube channel is that is makes me think ahead and plan what I would like to do for videos. I now make a schedule of when to film and what days to upload. Also, the videos will remain there once uploaded so I will always be able to look back on my first few rounds and see how far I‘ve come on. The downside to youtube is it’s not always easy to have the time to be able to film, edit and upload; as with everything in life, there’s always times where life gets a little crazy, but I’m dedicated to make this work.