He acknowledged later that, still rattled by the flagstick incident, he "wasn't even really thinking" and was erroneously trying to engineer a distance that best suited his next shot.
He believes his distance from Silicon Valley's occasionally myopic thinking, and lots of experimentation, have helped him figure out a way to make millions inserting utilitarian ads into everyday software.
In one rather smart move, Mr Duncan Smith managed both to distance himself from knee-jerk europhobia and to show that he was thinking hard about public services.