00:00Hello everyone, Mike Harris from Golf Monthly, and you join me at the Springs Golf Club in
00:07Oxfordshire. It is a fairly ungodly 6.30 in the morning. I set my alarm for 4.45 to get up to get here.
00:16This is not just a general easy
00:20Friday morning knock though. I'm playing 18 holes of speed golf with PGA Pro Luke Willett,
00:28aka The Iron Golfer.
00:30Luke is an incredible athlete along with being a PGA Pro. He's able to play 18 holes.
00:37I think his record time is 44 minutes and having only
00:4278 shots. I don't think I'm going to get anywhere near that today,
00:46but I'm out here to find out what it's like to play speed golf.
00:49I'm playing with Alex Neri, one of my colleagues from Golf Monthly. We're not athletes. We're not runners.
00:56We do a bit of fitness and we play quite a lot of golf, but how are we going to get on?
01:00What are we going to learn today? Luke says he loves speed golf because it disconnects him to make him feel connected.
01:07It's all about being stripped down, really eyeballing shots, not overthinking golf.
01:13Certainly something that I probably struggle with. So today,
01:16really light pencil bag, just got a half set of clubs. Interestingly, you'd see Luke has only got four clubs.
01:23He told me not to take a driver because not to waste time pegging it up,
01:27but I'm afraid the driver is my straightest club in the bag. I'm worried about spraying it around.
01:32We'll see how I get on out there, but just a minimal half set of clubs.
01:37It is literally hit it, find it, hit it again, keep on going for the 18 holes.
01:42It's about four and a half miles around the 18 holes. Luke reckons we might be able to do it in about 17 minutes,
01:48which is an awful lot quicker than I normally play 18 holes. Let's get to the first tee and see what happens.
02:49We are halfway round in 31 minutes, and that was for a five, a par.
03:02I'm actually playing quite well, short and straight off the tee.
03:07Definitely the play, doesn't matter if you duff it, it's much harder if you are running offline, looking for balls.
03:15Although a couple of times Alex has hit it offline, it has allowed me a chance for a breather.
03:19Just about to go on the 10th hole. This is unbelievable. I'm loving it. Par three. How far?
03:32Oh, great swing.
03:33Yes, I love your shot. 180, I guess.
03:45Hold 15, 55 minutes, I think we might break that 70-minute target that we set for the first tee.
04:15Definitely, nudge it down the middle is the play every time. I'm actually playing all right.
04:24I overthink my golf, and in this format, you just can't overthink it.
04:29Can't be looking at yardages, can't be reading putts from both sides.
04:33It's brilliant. I am loving this. It's hard work.
04:36Hamstrings are feeling really tight, but I'm buzzing. It's great.
04:40Final push, last three and a half holes.
05:10Yes, come on, go on Alex.
05:24Very good shot, congrats.
05:3670 minutes, 31 seconds. We just missed our target time of 70 minutes.
05:44I'm going to catch my breath. I'm going to catch up with Luke
05:49and try and work out what we've learned from playing speed golf this morning at the springs.
05:53That was a lot of fun. We have finished our round of speed golf.
06:00We've had a chance to have a bit of a rest, a little bit of a lie down,
06:04had a full English breakfast, which I think I thoroughly deserved.
06:08Luke just had a cup of coffee and water. He is an athlete, unlike me, but that was a lot of fun.
06:14We've had a chance to reflect on it. Didn't quite break that 70-minute target.
06:19We were 70 minutes and 31 seconds, but still that is an awful lot shorter than a regular
06:27three ball to play 18 holes of golf. I'm just looking at the scorecard.
06:32Luke shot one under par. He was five under at the turn.
06:38Turned in 31, then made a birdie, chipped in for a birdie at the 10th.
06:44Incredible. I shot 87, but with a quadruple and a treble, so could have been all right
06:53without that. Alex, third member of our group, got it in under 100, which was great.
07:00Wheels came off a little bit for him, but then it was interesting. Luke, you helped Alex get the
07:04wheels back on, really. That was like you told him to put the driver away and start playing on.
07:10Tell us, how do you think we got on? Obviously, for you, we slowed you down a lot. You would
07:15normally get around in, what I said, about 35, 40 minutes? Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed.
07:21You guys were great. You embraced the unknown. You tried something new. Golf is one of the oldest
07:27sports around. That's what's beautiful about it. Guess what? You can always experience a new
07:32version of golf, and that's what you guys did. Golf is for anyone, and these guys rocked that
07:37today. It was really interesting. I love my technology. I've got a laser. I've got a GPS.
07:45I'm forever looking at the yardages. A couple of times, I think you laughed at me when I go,
07:49what's the yardage here? Just hit it. How often do you go through the back of a green?
07:57Certainly, missing a green, shorten at the front, just bump it up, have a putt. Sam and I wouldn't
08:03have been that far off my handicap. Take out the quadruple and the treble, and I'd have been
08:10okay. What do you think next time, Luke? Is there anything else? Because I know you said at the
08:14start, you wouldn't hit a driver because you didn't want to peg it up. That would take a bit,
08:18but I felt I drove it quite well today. I had that little cut going on, just almost like a little
08:24chippy one, 180, 200 yards, found the fairway. Anything that I could do or Alex could do
08:29differently next time? Yes. Going forward, speed golf is all about trying the unknown,
08:35like we just said there. It's about exploring. Have a little experiment. Try stuff out. Never
08:41stop trying stuff out. That's why, look, today was a great round for me. One under par. I feel
08:46great. It was a good time. That's world record stuff. Where did I get to? How did I get to that?
08:52Well, it was by exploring. All I would actually say is, I would just say embrace that. Explore.
08:58I will come around with anyone. I'll leave that open to you guys. Pick up the phone,
09:04ask me, and I'll take you around. The point is, just explore. It might not always be,
09:11I want to have a fast round, but that's kind of cool. It might be, I want to improve my golf. You
09:16can do that. You can do whatever you want, but explore and then you'll find stuff out.
09:20I go around this great place here. There's red kites flying around. Your course might be armadillos.
09:25Who knows? Explore. It was brilliant. It was a really fantastic experience. A really great buzz.
09:32I was just chatting to Luke afterwards over breakfast and said, how does that compare to
09:36other rounds? What did I feel like at the end? I reckon the only time that I felt more of a buzz
09:42is, I played the old course once in a competition, finished par birdie to break 80. Today,
09:50the elation I felt finishing on the 18th hole. It was interesting chatting to Alex as well.
09:55Alex has done a lot of really intense cycling, cycled up a place like Alpe d'Huez. He was saying
10:01similar buzz once you finish that round of golf. The elation you got. Really good workout.
10:09What's the time now? It's half nine. I'm going to head home. I'm going to go and do a day's work,
10:15but it's been absolutely brilliant. Luke, thank you for having us. It's been a brilliant
10:19morning at the Springs Speed Golf. I don't know. Give it a go. It's a bit of fun. It's a bit of
10:25something different, but a lot of fun. Definitely going to try it again, but from the Springs Golf
10:32course, it's goodbye.
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