During his daytime hustle, British expat Michael Bacon dons his educator hat, enlightening eager minds about business and economics at South View School. But as twilight descends, he morphs into a captivating entertainer who enchants thousands of followers across the UAE and beyond through his golf-centric Instagram account - sinkinputts.
Bacon, who was born and raised in Scotland, first started playing the game at the age of 14 when his parents bought him a half set of clubs, but it wouldn’t be until he moved to Dubai ten years ago that he really started taking the game seriously.
“I played a little bit with friends and my dad and uncle who were both good golfers,” said Bacon, detailing his exposure to the game before making the move to the UAE.
“I then played once or twice a year while I was at university in Newcastle, but it wasn't really until I came out to Dubai that I started playing much more regularly.
“I then joined Trump Dubai in 2018 and that’s when my handicap really started coming down.
“But yeah, my dad and family got me into it. Obviously being from Scotland, you must play golf!”
Having fallen head over heels for the game since becoming a member at Trump International Golf Club Dubai, Bacon had the opportunity to play the Gil Hanse-designed track as often as he wanted last year after taking a year-long sabbatical from teaching.
He has his wife to thank for that.
When she took a few years off work to take care of their two kids, she told Bacon he could have a year off work later down the line when she reached a certain level in her job.
“We took that decision last year to allow me to have a year off,” he says.
“I played a lot more, but by the January I’d got maybe a bit bored with having the time off!
“One of my friends suggested that I set up an Instagram account detailing all the golf I was playing as he thought I was funny and good on the camera, so wanted to see how I got on.
“That was it, 13 months ago I set up the account. It was just meant to be a bit of fun at first, but it took off and went absolutely crazy. I’m loving it and it’s given me so many amazing opportunities.”
Bacon, who now plays off a handicap of 6, showcases a wide range of content to his 8000+ followers from fun matches with guests, memes, club fittings, course reviews and a whole lot more.
His output on social media has been inspired by some of the biggest names in that space, with Bacon naming the trio of Rick Shiels, Peter Finch and Good Good Golf, who boast almost 5 million subscribers between them on YouTube, as some of his favourites.
“I think Good Good are absolutely fantastic at what they do,” he says.
“Rick Shiels is a legend, Peter Finch is fantastic, so yeah, I watch all of those guys a lot. I have less time to do that now, but I watch those guys and they are fantastic at what they do.
“Obviously what I do on Instagram is a lot different to what they do. There’s no production value in my stuff!
“In terms of being an influencer now, the page has done amazingly well, way more followers than I could ever have imagined.
“I’ve had invites to go all over the world, Singapore, New York etc. to do it. I guess my opinion on golf clubs and courses carry some weight and I get DMs every single day from dozens of people asking my opinion about courses, prices and clubs.
“That’s amazing and I guess if people are influenced by what I’m saying or doing then it gives kudus to the word influencer, but for me it’s definitely about putting myself out there and having people enjoy the content.
“It’s meant to be positive and bring people up. Hopefully they laugh and smile and it brings some positivity to their day.”
Bacon, who is commonly referred to as 'Sinkin' by fellow teachers, has seen a world of opportunities open up for him in the last year.
From heading to the States to play the famed Bethpage Black to being invited to compete in the Ras Al Khaimah Championship Pro-Am and having DP World Tour star Casey Jarvis on his channel, it’s fair to say he’s been a busy man combining his teaching duties with content creation.
“Being a teacher of business and economics at GCSE, A Level and BTEC as well as doing some leadership things definitely is a challenging role,” he says.
“It takes up a lot of time, so juggling that and the Instagram page can get difficult, it just means when I do get the opportunity to golf, I take full advantage and have fun with friends.
“I’ll do maybe just a couple of holes worth of content and that can set me up for a little bit.
“It's a good conversation starter. The people at work enjoy it as well, we have good banter around it. I now have the nickname Sinkin, not many people call me Michael anymore!
“I love the channel, it’s actually a little bit of therapy from the stresses of teaching.”
If Bacon thought juggling between his passions of educating the next generation and creating fun and engaging content on social media was difficult, it’s about to get a whole lot more time consuming if his future plans are anything to go by.
But that’s no problem for this 39-year-old.
He speaks so passionately about both teaching and his channel that you’d’ expect him to take it in his stride, just as he has with growing the channel to impressive heights over the last year.
“I did dabble with YouTube last year, and it was really taxing on time, but I am going to look to get back into that,” said Bacon when I asked him what the future holds for sinkinputts.
“The Instagram page has gone mental, if we can just continue that upper trend that would be amazing.
“I'd love to go and get some professional kit and start taking it out onto the course to do some really lovely photography stuff with the channel, as well as the positive content we’ve been doing.
“We also do have something amazingly exciting that I haven’t mentioned yet. I’m actually launching my own Scottish clothing brand this year called Loch Wild.
“Every single one of the shirts has now arrived at the house, we spent a bit of money on that. We’re going to have Scottish themed clothing for the whole family, we even have matching shirts, so mums, dads and kids can get some Instagram worthy photos and videos of them all dressed in the same gear.
“So yeah, the channel’s got amazing legs in terms of what we're going to be doing on the actual video front and the content front, with collaborations continuing in the next couple of months.
“The clothing side is going to be absolutely fantastic as well, so I’m really looking forward to being a teacher, golf influencer and launching my own fashion label. It should be really exciting.”
You can follow the @sinkinputts on Instagram to keep up with his golf jounrney.
