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?
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.
02:20Every but a half angle which is the first tee and can build a ì„ .
02:49we are halfway round in 31 minutes so
02:55and that was for a five a par 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 off line
03:14looking 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
03:29oh great swing yeah i love your shot 180 i guess okay
03:44hole 15 um 55 minutes i think we might break that
04:1370 minute target that luke set um definitely nudge it down the middle is the play every time i'm
04:22actually playing all right i overthink my golf and in this format you just can't overthink it
04:28can't be looking at yardages can't be reading putts from both sides it's brilliant i am loving this
04:35it's hard work hamstrings are feeling really tight uh buzzing it's great final push last three and a
04:43half poles
04:44so
04:50so
04:53so
04:54so
04:56so
05:02so
05:04so
05:06so
05:08so
05:15so
05:19so
05:21so
05:22so
05:23so
05:25so
05:27so
05:29we have
05:50we have
05:51been playing speed golf this morning at the springs but that was a lot of fun
05:56so we have finished our round of speed golf we've had a chance to have a bit of a rest
06:02a little bit of a lie down had a full english breakfast which i think i thoroughly deserved
06:08uh luke just had a cup of coffee and a water he is an athlete unlike me but that was a lot of
06:14fun we've had a chance to reflect on it didn't quite break that 70 minute target we were 70 minutes
06:20and 31 seconds um but still that is an awful lot shorter than a regular three ball to play 18 holes
06:2918 holes of golf i'm just looking at the scorecard um luke shot one under par um he was five under at the turn turned in 31 then made a birdie chipped in uh for a birdie at the 10th um uh but yeah incredible i shot 87 uh but with a quadruple and a treble so it could have been all right without that and uh alex third member of our group um got it in under 100 which was
06:58which was which was great wheels came off a little bit for him but then it was interesting luke you helped 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 we slowed you down a lot you would normally get round in what i said about 35 40 minutes
07:18fingers crossed yeah yeah fingers crossed look you guys were great you embraced the unknown you tried something new
07:25golf is one of the oldest sports around that's what's beautiful about it and guess what you can always experience a new version of golf and that's what you guys did golf is for anyone yeah and these guys rock that today
07:38yeah it was really interesting i think one of the things that i probably i love my technology i've got a laser i've got a a gps i'm forever looking at the yardages and a couple of times i think you laughed at me when i go what's the yardage here it's like just just hit it just hit it you know what
07:53how often do you how often do you go through the back of a green uh certainly missing a green short and at the front just bump it up have a putt um sam and i wouldn't have been that far off off my handicap take out the quadruple and the uh and the treble and i'd have been i'd have been okay what do you think next time luke is there anything else because i know you said at the start
08:14you wouldn't hit a driver because you didn't want to peg it up that would take a bit but but i've was sort of i felt i drove it quite well today i had that little cut going on just almost like a little chippy one 180 200 yards found the fairway anything that i could do or alex could do differently next time yeah going forwards speed golf is all about trying the unknown like we just said there and it's about exploring you know have a little experiment try stuff out never stop trying stuff out and that's that's why
08:43that's that's why look today was a great round for me one under par i feel great it was a good time that's world record stuff um where did i get to how did i get to that well it was by exploring yeah so all i would actually say is i'll just say embrace that explore you know i i will come around with anyone you know i'll leave that open to you guys um you know pick up the phone ask me and i'll take you around but the point is just explore yeah and you're
09:13around but that's kind of cool yeah uh it might be i want to improve my golf you can do that you can do whatever you want but explore and then you'll find stuff out i go around this great place here there's red kites flying around your course might be armadillo's who knows you know explore it was uh it was brilliant it was a really fantastic experience a really great buzzer i was just chatting to luke afterwards over breakfast and sort of said how does that compare to other rounds what did i feel like at the end and i reckon
09:43uh i played the old course once in a competition uh finished par birdie to break 80 um but today the elation i felt um finishing on the 18th hole and it was interesting chatting to alex as well alex has done a lot of really intense cycling cycled up a place like albdues he was saying similar sort of buzz once you finish that round of golf the elation you've got um really good workout um gonna it's what what's the time now we've it's sort of half
10:13uh i'm gonna head home gonna go and do a day's work but it's been absolutely brilliant luke thank you for having us thank you been a brilliant um morning at the springs speed golf uh 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 um definitely gonna try it again but from the springs golf course it's goodbye
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