- 1 year ago
In this video, Michael Harris and Alex Narey played speed golf at The Springs. They were joined by speed golf expert Luke Willett to see what this unique version of the game is like. How fast can they play a full 18 holes, what will the added speed do to the scoring, would they recommend you give it a go?
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00:00Hello everyone, Mike Harris from Golf Monthly and you join me at the Springs Golf Club in
00:06Oxfordshire. It is a fairly ungodly 6.30 in the morning, set my alarm for 4.45 to get up to get
00:15here. This is not just a general easy Friday morning knock though. I'm playing 18 holes of
00:24speed golf with PGA Pro Luke Willett aka the Iron Golfer. Luke is an incredible athlete along with
00:33being a PGA Pro. He's able to play 18 holes. I think his record time is 44 minutes and having
00:41only 78 shots. I don't think I'm going to get anywhere near that today but I'm out here to
00:47find out what it's like to play speed golf. I'm playing with Alex Neri, one of my colleagues from
00:52Golf Monthly. We're not athletes, we're not runners. We do a bit of fitness and we play quite a lot of
00:58golf but how are we going to get on? What are we going to learn today? Luke says he loves speed golf
01:04because it disconnects him to make him feel connected. It's all about being stripped down,
01:09really eyeballing shots, not overthinking golf. Certainly something that I probably struggle
01:14with. So today, really light pencil bag, just got a half set of clubs. Interestingly to see,
01:21Luke has only got four clubs. He 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. It is literally hit it,
01:39find it, hit it again, keep on going for the 18 holes. It's about four and a half miles around the
01:4518 holes. Luke reckons we might be able to do it in about 70 minutes which is an awful lot quicker.
01:50than I normally play 18 holes. Let's get to the first tee and see what happens.
02:22.
02:23.
02:31.
02:43we are halfway round in 31 minutes so
02:55and that was for a five a par we're actually playing quite well short and straight off the
03:07tee definitely the play doesn't matter if you duff it it's much harder if you are running offline
03:13looking for balls although a couple of times alex has hit it offline has allowed me a chance of a
03:19breather so uh just about to go on the 10th hole this is unbelievable i am loving it uh path three
03:28how far oh great swing yeah i love your shot 180 i guess okay
03:58hole 15 um 55 minutes i think we might break that 70 minute target that luke set
04:15um definitely nudge it down the middle is the play every time i'm actually playing all right
04:23i overthink my golf and in this format you just can't overthink it can't be looking at yardages
04:30can't be reading putts from both sides it's brilliant i am loving this it's hard work
04:36hamstrings are feeling really tight uh buzzing it's great final push last three and a half holes
04:53yes
05:00come on
05:1470 minutes 31 seconds so we just missed our target time of 70 minutes
05:44gonna catch my breath i'm gonna catch up with luke uh and try and work out what we've learned from
05:51playing speed golf this morning at the springs but that was a lot of fun so we have finished
05:59our round of speed golf we'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 uh luke just had a cup of
06:10coffee and water he is an athlete unlike me but that was a lot of fun we've had a chance to reflect
06:15on it didn't quite break that 70 minute target we were 70 minutes and 31 seconds but still that is an
06:24awful lot shorter than a regular three ball to play 18 holes of golf i'm just looking at the scorecard
06:31um luke shot one under par um he was five under at the turn turned in 31 then made a birdie chipped in
06:41uh for a birdie at the 10th um uh but yeah incredible i shot 87 uh but with a quadruple and a treble
06:51so could have been all right without that and uh alex third member of our group um got it in under 100
06:58which was which was great wheels came off a little bit for him but then it was interesting luke you
07:02helped alex get the wheels back on really and and that was like you told him to put the driver away
07:08for sure and start playing on tell us how do you think we got on in our i mean obviously for you
07:14we slowed you down a lot you would normally get around in what i said about 35 40 minutes
07:19fingers crossed yeah yeah fingers crossed look you guys are great you embraced the unknown you tried
07:24something new golf is one of the oldest sports around that's what's beautiful about it and guess
07:30what you can always experience a new version of golf and that's what you guys did golf is for anyone
07:35and these guys rock that today yeah it was really interesting i think one of the things that
07:41i probably i love my technology i've got a laser i've got a a gps i'm forever looking at the yardages and
07:47a couple of times i think you laughed at me when i go what's the yardage here just like just just hit
07:52it just hit it you know what how often do you go through the back of a green uh certainly missing
07:57a green shorten at the front just bump it up have a putt um sam and i wouldn't have been that far off
08:05off my handicap take out the quadruple and the uh and the treble and i'd have been i'd have been okay
08:10what do you think next time luke is there anything else because i know you said at the start
08:15you wouldn't hit a driver because you didn't want to peg it up that would take a bit but but i was sort of
08:20i thought i drove it quite well today i had that little cut going on just almost like a little
08:23chippy one 180 200 yards found the fairway anything that i could do or alex could do differently next
08:30time yeah going forward speed golf is all about trying the unknown like we just said there and it's
08:37about exploring you know have a little experiment try stuff out never stop trying stuff out and that's
08:43that's why look today was a great round for me one under par i feel great it was a good time that's
08:47world record stuff um where did i get to how did i get to that well it was by exploring yeah so all
08:55i would actually say is i'll just say embrace that explore you know i i will come around with anyone
09:00you know i'll leave that open to you guys um you know pick up the phone ask me and i'll take you
09:06around but the point is just explore yeah and your it might not always be i want to have a fast round
09:13but that's kind of cool yeah uh it might be i want to improve my golf you can do that you can do
09:17whatever you want but explore and then you'll find stuff out i go around this great place here
09:22there's red kites flying around your course might be armadillo's who knows you know explore it was uh
09:28it was brilliant it was a really fantastic experience a really great buzzer i was just chatting to luke
09:33afterwards over breakfast and sort of said how does that compare to other rounds what did i feel like
09:38at the end and i reckon the only time that i felt more of a buzz is i played the old course once in a
09:44competition uh finished par birdie to break 80. um but today the elation i felt um finishing on the
09:5318th hole and it's interesting chatting to alex as well alex has done a lot of really intense cycling
09:58cycled up a place like Alpe d'Huez he was saying similar sort of buzz once you finish that round of golf
10:04the elation you've got um really good workout um gonna it's what what's the time now we've it's sort of
10:11half nine uh i'm gonna head home gonna go and do a day's work but it has been absolutely brilliant
10:16luke thank you for having us thank you been a brilliant um morning at the springs speed golf
10:22uh i don't know give it a go it's a bit of fun it's a bit of something different but um a lot of fun
10:27um definitely gonna try it again but from the springs golf course it's goodbye