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.
02:20100%.
02:21We'll see you next time on the deck.
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02:42we are halfway round in 31 minutes so and that was for uh a five a par we're actually playing
03:03quite well short and straight off the tee definitely the play doesn't matter if you
03:09duff it it's much harder if you are running offline looking for balls although a couple
03:16of times alex has hit it offline has allowed me a chance for a breather so
03:20uh just about to go on the 10th hole this is unbelievable i am loving it uh par three
03:28how far
03:29oh great swing yeah i love your shot 180 i guess okay
03:36so
03:43so
03:51hole 15 um 55 minutes i think we might break that 70 minute target that luke set um definitely
04:18nudge it down the middle is the play every time i'm actually playing all right i overthink
04:25my golf and in this format you just can't overthink it can't be looking at yardages can't be reading
04:31putts from both sides it's brilliant i am loving this it's hard work hamstrings are feeling really
04:37tight uh buzzing it's great final push last three and a half holes
04:44so
04:51so
04:53so
04:55so
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05:37so
05:39we've just missed our target time of 70 minutes going to catch my breath
05:46going to catch up with luke 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 so we have finished our round
05:59speed golf speed golf we've had a chance to have a bit of a rest a little bit of a lie down
06:03had a full english breakfast which i think i thoroughly deserved uh luke just had a uh
06:09cup of coffee and water he is an athlete uh unlike me but that was a lot of fun we've
06:14had 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
06:2818 holes of golf i'm just looking at the score card um luke shot one under par um he was five
06:36under at the turn turned in 31 then made a birdie chipped in uh for a birdie at the 10th
06:43um uh but yeah incredible i shot 87 uh but with a quadruple and a treble so it could have been
06:52all right without that and uh alex third member of our group um got it in under 100 which was
06:58which was great wheels came off a little bit for him but then it was interesting luke you helped alex
07:03get the wheels back on really and and that was like you told him to put the driver away for sure and
07:09tell us how do you think we got on in our i mean obviously for you we slowed you down a lot you
07:14would normally get round in what i said about 35 40 minutes fingers crossed yeah yeah fingers
07:20crossed look you guys were great you embraced the unknown you tried something new golf is one of the
07:26oldest sports around that's what's beautiful about it and guess what you can always experience
07:31a new version of golf and that's what you guys did golf is for anyone and these guys rock that today
07:36yeah it was really interesting i think one of the things that i probably i love my technology i've
07:42got a laser i've got a a gps i'm forever looking at the yardages and a couple of times i think you
07:48laughed 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 go through the back of a green uh certainly missing a green short and at the front
07:59just bump it up have a putt um sam and i wouldn't have been that far off off my handicap take out the
08:05quadruple and the uh and the treble and i'd have been i'd have been okay what do you think next
08:11time luke is there anything else because i know you said at the start you wouldn't hit a driver
08:16because you didn't want to peg it up that would take a bit but but i've was sort of i felt i drove
08:20it quite well today i had that little cut going on just almost like a little chippy one 180 200
08:25yards found the fairway anything that i could do or alex could do differently next time yeah going
08:31forward speed golf is all about trying the unknown like we just said there and it's about exploring
08:37you know have a little experiment try stuff out never stop trying stuff out and that's that's why
08:43look today was a great round for me one under par i feel great it was a good time that's world record
08:47stuff um where did i get to how did i get to that well it was by exploring yeah so all i would actually say
08:55is 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 explore and then you'll find stuff out
09:19i go around this great place here there's red kites flying around your course might be armadillo's who knows
09:25you know explore it was uh it was brilliant it was a really fantastic experience a really great buzzer
09:31i was just chatting to luke afterwards over breakfast and sort of said how does that compare to other rounds
09:37what did i feel like at the end and i reckon the only time that i felt more of a buzz is i played the old
09:43course once in a competition uh finished par birdie to break 80. um but today the elation i felt um
09:52finishing on the 18th hole and it's interesting chatting to alex as well alex has done a lot of
09:57really intense cycling cycled up a place like Alpe d'Huez he was saying similar sort of buzz once you
10:02finish that round of golf the elation you've got um really good workout um gonna it's what what's the
10:10time now we've it's sort of half nine uh i'm gonna head home gonna go and do a day's work but it has
10:15been absolutely brilliant luke thank you for having us thank you been a brilliant um morning at the
10:20springs 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
10:26um a lot of fun um definitely gonna try it again but from the springs golf course it's goodbye
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