00:00 Hello everyone, Mike Harris from Golf Monthly and you join me at the Springs Golf Club in Oxfordshire.
00:08 It is a fairly ungodly 6.30 in the morning. I set my alarm for 4.45 to get up to get here.
00:16 This is not just a general easy Friday morning knock though.
00:22 I'm playing 18 holes of speed golf with PGA Pro Luke Willett aka The Iron Golfer.
00:30 Luke is an incredible athlete along with being a PGA Pro.
00:35 He's able to play 18 holes. I think his record time is 44 minutes and having only 78 shots.
00:43 I don't think I'm going to get anywhere near that today but I'm out here to find out what it's like to play speed golf.
00:50 I'm playing with Alex Neri, one of my colleagues from Golf Monthly.
00:53 We're not athletes, we're not runners. We do a bit of fitness and we play quite a lot of golf.
00:59 But how are we going to get on? What are we going to learn today?
01:02 Luke says he loves speed golf because it disconnects him to make him feel connected.
01:07 It's all about being stripped down, really eyeballing shots, not overthinking golf.
01:13 Certainly something that I probably struggle with.
01:15 So today, really light pencil bag, just got a half set of clubs.
01:20 Interestingly, you'd see Luke has only got four clubs.
01:23 He told me not to take a driver because not to waste time pegging it up.
01:27 But I'm afraid the driver is my straightest club in the bag.
01:30 I'm worried about spraying it around. We'll see how I get on out there.
01:34 But just a minimal half set of clubs. It is literally hit it, find it, hit it again.
01:40 Keep on going for the 18 holes.
01:43 It's about four and a half miles around the 18 holes.
01:46 Luke reckons we might be able to do it in about 17 minutes,
01:48 which is an awful lot quicker than I normally play 18 holes.
01:53 Let's get to the first tee and see what happens.
01:56 [MUSIC]
02:06 [MUSIC]
02:16 [MUSIC]
02:26 [MUSIC]
02:51 We are halfway around in 31 minutes.
02:54 And that was for a five, a par.
03:01 I'm actually playing quite well.
03:04 Short and straight off the tee, definitely the play.
03:08 Doesn't matter if you duff it.
03:10 It's much harder if you are running offline looking for balls.
03:14 Although a couple of times, Alex has hit it offline,
03:18 has allowed me a chance for a breather.
03:19 So just about to go on the 10th hole.
03:23 This is unbelievable. I'm loving it.
03:26 Par three. How far?
03:29 [MUSIC]
03:32 Oh, great swing.
03:33 - Yeah, I love your shot. 180, I guess.
03:35 - Okay.
03:36 [MUSIC]
03:47 [MUSIC]
03:57 Hole 15, 55 minutes.
04:11 I think we might break that 70-minute target that Luke set.
04:16 I'm definitely nudging it down the middle.
04:20 It's the play.
04:21 Every time I'm actually playing all right.
04:23 I overthink my golf and in this format, you just can't overthink it.
04:28 Can't be looking at yardages, can't be reading putts from both sides.
04:33 It's brilliant. I am loving this.
04:35 It's hard work.
04:36 Hamstrings are feeling really tight.
04:38 But I'm buzzing. It's great.
04:40 Final push, last three and a half holes.
04:43 [MUSIC]
04:53 [MUSIC]
05:03 [MUSIC]
05:13 [MUSIC]
05:36 70 minutes, 31 seconds.
05:39 We just missed our target time of 70 minutes.
05:44 I'm going to catch my breath.
05:45 I'm going to catch up with Luke
05:47 and try and work out what we've learned from playing speed golf this morning at the springs.
05:53 That was a lot of fun.
05:55 We have finished our round of speed golf.
06:00 We've had a chance to have a bit of a rest, a little bit of a lie down.
06:04 Had a full English breakfast, which I think I thoroughly deserved.
06:07 Luke just had a cup of coffee and a water.
06:11 He is an athlete, unlike me, but that was a lot of fun.
06:14 We've had a chance to reflect on it.
06:16 Didn't quite break that 70-minute target.
06:19 We were 70 minutes and 31 seconds,
06:22 but still that is an awful lot shorter than a regular three ball to play 18 holes of golf.
06:30 I'm just looking at the scorecard.
06:32 Luke shot one under par.
06:34 He was five under at the turn, turned in 31,
06:39 then made a birdie, chipped in for a birdie at the 10th.
06:43 Incredible.
06:46 I shot 87, but with a quadruple and a treble,
06:51 so it could have been all right without that.
06:53 Alex, third member of our group, got it in under 100, which was great.
07:00 Wheels came off a little bit for him, but then it was interesting.
07:02 Luke, you helped Alex get the wheels back on, really.
07:05 That was like you told him to put the driver away and start playing on.
07:10 Tell us, how do you think we got on?
07:11 Obviously, for you, we slowed you down a lot.
07:15 You would normally get around in, what I said, about 35, 40 minutes?
07:18 Fingers crossed.
07:19 Yes, fingers crossed.
07:21 You guys were great.
07:22 You embraced the unknown.
07:24 You tried something new.
07:25 Golf is one of the oldest sports around.
07:27 That's what's beautiful about it.
07:29 Guess what?
07:31 You can always experience a new version of golf, and that's what you guys did.
07:34 Golf is for anyone, and these guys rocked that today.
07:37 Yes, it was really interesting.
07:39 I think one of the things that--
07:40 I love my technology.
07:42 I've got a laser.
07:44 I've got a GPS.
07:45 I'm forever looking at the yardages.
07:47 A couple of times, I think you laughed at me when I go, "What's the yardage here?"
07:50 It's like, "Just hit it.
07:52 Just hit it."
07:53 How often do you go through the back of a green,
07:56 certainly missing a green, short and at the front,
07:59 just bump it up, have a putt?
08:01 Sam and I wouldn't have been that far off my handicap.
08:05 Take out the quadruple and the treble, and I'd have been okay.
08:10 What do you think next time, Luke?
08:12 Is there anything else?
08:13 Because I know you said at the start,
08:14 you wouldn't hit a driver because you didn't want to peg it up.
08:18 That would take a bit.
08:18 But I felt I drove it quite well today.
08:21 I had that little cut going on, just almost like a little chippy one,
08:24 180, 200 yards, found the fairway.
08:27 Anything that I could do or Alec could do differently next time?
08:30 Yes.
08:31 Going forward, speed golf is all about trying the unknown, like we just said there.
08:36 It's about exploring.
08:38 Have a little experiment.
08:40 Try stuff out.
08:41 Never stop trying stuff out.
08:42 Today was a great round for me.
08:45 One under par.
08:45 I feel great.
08:46 We had a good time.
08:47 That's world record stuff.
08:48 Where did I get to?
08:51 How did I get to that?
08:52 Well, it was by exploring.
08:54 All I would actually say is, I would just say embrace that.
08:57 Explore.
08:58 I will come around with anyone.
09:00 I'll leave that open to you guys.
09:02 Pick up the phone, ask me, and I'll take you around.
09:06 But the point is, just explore.
09:08 It might not always be, I want to have a fast round, but that's kind of cool.
09:13 It might be, I want to improve my golf.
09:16 You can do that.
09:17 You can do whatever you want, but explore and then you'll find stuff out.
09:20 I go around this great place here.
09:22 There's red kites flying around.
09:24 Your course might be armadillos.
09:25 Who knows?
09:25 Explore.
09:28 It was brilliant.
09:29 It was a really fantastic experience.
09:31 A really great buzz.
09:32 I was just chatting to Luke afterwards over breakfast and said,
09:35 "How does that compare to other rounds?
09:37 What did I feel like at the end?"
09:38 I reckon the only time that I felt more of a buzz is,
09:42 I played the old course once in a competition, finished par birdie to break 80.
09:48 Today, the elation I felt finishing on the 18th hole.
09:53 It was interesting chatting to Alex as well.
09:55 Alex has done a lot of really intense cycling,
09:58 cycled up to a place like Alpe d'Huez.
10:00 He was saying similar buzz once you finish that round of golf.
10:04 The elation you got.
10:05 Really good workout.
10:07 What's the time now?
10:10 It's half nine.
10:12 I'm going to head home.
10:13 I'm going to go and do a day's work, but it has been absolutely brilliant.
10:16 Luke, thank you for having us.
10:18 Thank you.
10:18 It's been a brilliant morning at the Springs.
10:21 Speed golf.
10:21 I don't know.
10:23 Give it a go.
10:23 It's a bit of fun.
10:24 It's a bit of something different, but a lot of fun.
10:27 Definitely going to try it again, but from the Springs golf course, it's goodbye.
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