Ah, the joy of being a woman. You can spend your whole life committing to getting extremely good at something, yet one day, a kind man can let you know that actually? You’ve been doing it wrong. This is how you do it instead.
Sarcasm aside, this is what’s known as mansplaining: when a man assumes the woman in front of him knows less by default and proceeds to explain the thing to her in a condescending, often inaccurate way.
In a recent viral example on TikTok, a man who “has been playing golf for 20 years” tries to teach golfing techniques…to a golf coach.
A golf coach gets mansplained at Topgolf
TikToker Chloe (@georgiagolfcoach) posted the exchange last year. However, the clip resurfaced on @vipgolfer and took off again, pulling 3.3 million views there, while Chloe’s original video has topped 15.5 million.
In the clip, Chloe is working through swings in her bay when a stranger from the next stall steps over to advise.
“Excuse me,” he starts, before telling her, “what you’re doing there, you shouldn’t be doing that.” He continues with tips about footwork and tempo: “You should be right foot swing follow through… you’re doing too slow on the way up.”
Chloe stays calm and tries to give context. “I’m going through a swing change at the minute,” she says, more than once, explaining that she’s deliberately slowing things down to build a different pattern.
At this point, she takes another swing and nails it. “See how much better that was,” the man says, causing her to laugh.
“I don’t know whether you watch golf,” she says. “The best players in the world, when they are making a practicing swing or they’re going through a change…”
“No, I understand what you’re saying, but what I’m saying is…” he says as he interrupts her. “I’ve been playing golf for 20 years. You just need to practice and follow through. See how much better that one was?”
Chloe wraps it up politely, “Thank you for the advice.”
What’s a swing change?
In golf, a swing change is exactly what it sounds like: a player deliberately breaks down their usual techniques in order to rebuild them.
That means slowing things down, exaggerating movements, and repeating them over and over until the new mechanics stick. Even pros do this, which is why Chloe kept stressing it when the man interrupted her practice.
What research says about mansplaining
There’s data on how this kind of interaction impacts people.
Stanford researchers Erik Santoro and Hazel Markus found that when women receive unsolicited, prescriptive advice, they report feeling less respected, less powerful, and less trusting.
Michigan State University researchers, led by graduate fellow Caitlin Briggs, tested a similar dynamic in a workplace scenario. Volunteers were “mansplained” the task by either a man or a woman.
The outcome was uneven. “What we found was that women largely had negative outcomes as a result of being mansplained to, whereas it didn’t affect men as much,” Briggs said in coverage of the study, which appeared in the Journal of Business and Psychology.
Women read the behavior as a hit to their competence and linked it to gender bias. Men didn’t interpret it that way. As Briggs put it, male volunteers who got a condescending explanation from a woman “didn’t perceive it any differently if it came from a man or woman, and they didn’t attribute it to a gender bias.”
How viewers reacted
On Chloe’s original post, most comments sided with her.
“He doesn’t know what a swing change is,” one person said.
Another added, “I’ve been driving for 25 years but I’m not about to give Lewis Hamilton some pointers.”
“The way he took credit for your next swing,” wrote a third.
@georgiagolfcoach Can you believe he said this? ?⛳️? #golf #golfswing #golflife #golftok #golftiktok #golfer #golfing #golfgirl #golfpro #golftips #golfclub #drivingrange ♬ original sound – Georgia Ball Golf
The repost on @vipgolfer brought a louder defense of the guy.
“He was trying to help. How’s he supposed to know she’s a pro?” one viewer wrote.
Another asked what the problem was: “Isn’t he just trying to be polite and giving advice?”
“All the men on here mansplaining how she should have reacted to the mansplaining,” pushed back another.
The Mary Sue has reached out to Chloe and Topgolf via email.
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