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, set my alarm for 4.45 to get up
00:15to 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
00:58of
00:58golf but how are we going to get on? What are we going to learn today? Luke says he loves
01:03speed 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
01:26it
01:27up but 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
01:38it,
01:39find it, hit it again, keep on going for the 18 holes. It's about four and a half miles around
01:44the 18
01:45holes. Luke reckons we might be able to do it in about 70 minutes which is an awful lot quicker.
01:51than I normally play 18 holes. Let's get to the first tee and see what happens.
02:21So I'm going .
02:33What is it?
02:40Okay.
02:49It's because over the 50 minutes it gets perfect.
02:51We are halfway round in 31 minutes so and that was for 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 just about to
03:23go on the 10th hole this is unbelievable I am loving it uh path three how far
03:32oh great swing yeah I love your shot 180 I guess
04:08hole 15 55 minutes I think we might break that 70 minute target that Luke set
04:17um definitely nudge it down the middle is the play every time I'm actually playing
04:23all right I overthink my golf and in this format you just can't overthink it can't be
04:29looking at yardages can't be reading putts from both sides it's brilliant I am loving
04:35this it's hard work hamstrings are feeling really tight uh buzzing it's great final
04:41push last three and a half holes
04:44oh
04:45oh
04:46oh
04:49oh
04:53oh
04:54oh
04:54oh
05:02oh
05:02oh
05:04oh
05:05oh
05:17oh
05:18oh
05:19oh
05:21oh
05:21oh
05:21oh
05:21oh
05:21oh
05:21oh
05:27oh
05:28oh
05:29oh
05:29oh
05:29oh
05:29oh
05:29oh
05:29oh
05:29oh
05:31oh
05:3670 minutes 31 seconds so we just missed our target time of of 70 minutes gonna catch my breath
05:46gonna catch up with luke uh and try and work out what we've learned from playing speed golf this
05:52morning at the springs but that was a lot of fun so we have finished our round of speed golf
06:00we've
06:00had a chance to have a bit of a rest a little bit of a lie down had a full
06:04english breakfast which i
06:05think i thoroughly deserved uh luke just had a cup of coffee and water he is an athlete
06:12unlike me but that was a lot of fun we've had a chance to reflect on it didn't quite break
06:18that
06:1870 minute target we were 70 minutes and 31 seconds but still that is an awful lot shorter than a
06:27regular three ball to play 18 holes of golf i'm just looking at the scorecard um luke shot one under
06:34par
06:34um he was five under at the turn turned in 31 then made a birdie chipped in uh for a
06:42birdie at the 10th
06:43um uh but yeah incredible i shot 87 uh but with a quadruple and a treble so it could have
06:52been all
06:52right without that and uh alex third member of our group um got it in under 100 which was which
06:59was
06:59great wheels came off a little bit for him but then it was interesting luke you helped alex get the
07:04wheels back on really and and that was like you told him to put the driver away for sure and
07:09start
07:09playing on tell us how do you think we got on in our i mean obviously for you we slowed
07:14you down a lot
07:15you would normally get around in what i said about 35 40 minutes fingers crossed yeah yeah fingers
07:20crossed look you guys are great you embraced the unknown you tried something new golf is one of
07:26the oldest sports around that's what's beautiful about it and guess what you can always experience
07:32a new version of golf and that's what you guys did golf is for anyone yeah and these guys rock
07:36that
07:37today yeah it was really interesting i think one of the things that i probably i love my technology
07:42i've got a laser i've got a gps i'm forever looking at the yardages and a couple of times i
07:48think
07:48you laughed at me when i go what's the yardage here it's like just just hit it just hit it
07:53you
07:53know what how often do you go through the back of a green uh certainly missing a green short and
07:59at
07:59the front just bump it up have a putt um sam and i wouldn't have been that far off off
08:05my handicap
08:05take out the quadruple and the uh and the treble and i'd have been i'd have been okay what do
08:11you think
08:11next 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
08:19i've
08:19was sort of i felt i drove it quite well today i had that little cut going on just almost
08:23like a
08:23little chippy one 180 200 yards found the fairway anything that i could do or alex could do differently
08:30next time yeah going forwards speed golf is all about trying the unknown like we just said there
08:36and it's about exploring you know have a little experiment try stuff out never stop trying stuff out
08:42and that's that's why look today was a great round for me one under par i feel great it was
08:47a good
08:47time that's world record stuff um where did i get to how did i get to that well it was
08:53by exploring
08:54yeah so all i would actually say is i'll just say embrace that explore you know i i will come
08:59around
08:59with anyone you know i'll leave that open to you guys um you know pick up the phone ask me
09:05and i'll
09:05take you around but the point is just explore yeah and you're it might not always be i want to
09:12have a
09:12fast round but that's kind of cool yeah uh it might be i want to improve my golf you can
09:16do that you can
09:17do whatever 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 armadillos who knows you know explore it was uh it
09:28was 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
09:38like at the end and i reckon the only time that i felt more of a buzz is i played
09:43the old course once
09:44in a competition uh finished par birdie to break 80 um but today the elation i felt um finishing on
09:53the 18th hole and it's interesting chatting to alex as well alex has done a lot of really intense
09:57cycling cycled up a place like Alpe d'Huez he was saying similar sort of buzz once he finished that
10:03round of golf the elation you've got um really good workout um gonna it's what what's the time
10:10now we've it's sort of half nine uh i'm gonna head home gonna go and do a day's work but
10:15it's been
10:16absolutely brilliant luke thank you for having us thank you been a brilliant um morning at the springs
10:20speed golf uh i don't know give it a go it's a bit of fun it's a bit of something
10:25different but
10:26um a lot of fun um definitely gonna try it again but from the springs golf course it's goodbye
10:34you
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