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.
02:20is always the first and toward the 1901 four clubs. You point eight. If we could see who never
02:22had. It's about three.
02:25If you want to buy 18 ones, let's see it.
02:27Don't forget about 7 ones.
02:29After a great time, you'll be in 1901, tell them to work 3rd differentёр types.
02:32There are two kinds of distractors.
02:34So they'd be in 1901 with 80 to 30 minutes.
02:35Let's go right there and see how it is!
02:41This way you want to stay rolling out.
02:44I like the space on top of the corner of theball you are also inspired thepod.
02:45we 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 off
03:13line looking for balls although a couple of times alex has hit it offline has allowed me a chance
03:19for breather so uh just about to go on the 10th hole this is unbelievable i am loving it uh path
03:28three how far oh great swing yeah i love your shot 180 i guess okay
03:43hole 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
04:48so
04:52so
04:54so
04:56so
05:02so
05:04so
05:06so
05:15so
05:17so
05:19so
05:21so
05:25so
05:38so
05:40so
05:42so
05:44so
05:46so
05:48we're going to go ahead and try and try and work out what we've learned from playing speed
05:51golf 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 a little bit
06:02of a lie down had a full english breakfast which i think i thoroughly deserved uh luke just had a
06:09a cup of coffee and a water he is an athlete unlike me but that was a lot of fun we've had a chance to reflect on it
06:16didn't quite break that 70 minute target we were 70 minutes and 31 seconds
06:22but still that is an awful lot shorter than a regular three ball to play 18 holes of golf
06:29i'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
06:50and a treble so it could have been all right without that and uh alex third member of our group
06:56um got it in under 100 which was which was great wheels came off a little bit for him but then
07:01it was interesting luke you helped alex get the wheels back on really and and that was like
07:07you told him to put the driver away for sure and start playing on tell us how do you think we got
07:11on in our i mean obviously for you we slowed you down a lot you would normally get around in what i
07:16said about 35 40 minutes fingers crossed yeah yeah fingers crossed look you guys are great you
07:22embraced the unknown you tried something new golf is one of the oldest sports around that's what's
07:28beautiful about it and guess what you can always experience a new version of golf and that's what
07:33you guys did golf is for anyone yeah and these guys rock that today yeah it was really interesting
07:39i think one of the things that i probably i love my technology i've got a laser i've got a gps i'm
07:45forever looking at the yardages and a couple of times i think you laughed at me when i go what's
07:50the yardage here just like just just hit it just hit it you know what how often do you go through
07:55the back of a green uh certainly missing a green short and at the front just bump it up
08:00have a putt um sam and i wouldn't have been that far off off my handicap take out the quadruple
08:07and the uh and the treble and i'd have been i'd have been okay what do you think next time luke is
08:12there anything else because i know you said at the start you wouldn't hit a driver because you didn't
08:17want 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
08:22that little cut going on just almost like a little chippy one 180 200 yards found the fairway
08:27anything that i could do or alex could do differently next time yeah going forwards speed golf is all
08:34about trying the unknown like we just said there and it's about exploring you know have a little
08:39experiment try stuff out never stop trying stuff out and that's that's why look today was a great
08:44round for me one under par i feel great it was a good time that's world record stuff um
08:49where did i get to how did i get to that well it was by exploring yeah so all i would actually say
08:56is i'll just say embrace that explore you know i i will come around with anyone you know i'll leave
09:01that open to you guys um you know pick up the phone ask me and i'll take you around but the point is
09:07just explore yeah and you're it might not always be i want to have a fast round but that's kind of cool
09:13yeah uh it might be i want to improve my golf you can do that you can do whatever you want but
09:18explore and then you'll find stuff out i go around this great place here there's red kites flying
09:23around your course might be armadillo's who knows you know explore it was uh it was brilliant it was a
09:29really fantastic experience a really great buzzer i was just chatting to luke afterwards over breakfast
09:34and sort of said how does that compare to other rounds what did i feel like at the end and i reckon
09:39the only time that i felt more of a buzz is i played the old course once in a competition
09:45finished par birdie to break 80 um but today the elation i felt um finishing on the 18th hole and
09:54it's interesting chatting to alex as well alex has done a lot of really intense cycling cycled up
09:59place like albdues he was saying similar sort of buzz once you finish that round of golf the elation you've
10:05got um really good workout um gonna it's what what's the time now we've it's sort of half nine
10:12uh i'm gonna head home gonna go and do a day's work but it has been actually brilliant luke thank
10:17you for having us thank you been a brilliant um morning at the springs speed golf uh i don't know
10:23give it a go it's a bit of fun it's a bit of something different but um a lot of fun um definitely
10:29gonna try it again but from the springs golf course it's goodbye
10:33you
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