SPEED BARRIER
Speedgolf may sound like a crazy alternative to the traditional way of playing, but as Alex Narey discovers, it could give you a timely lift if you are seeking to improve your game on the course
Ioften try to explain to people why I love golf. Is it the courses we play or the company we keep? Is it the release from those stresses of everyday life or that feeling of escapism away from work? It is all those things and more, but really, what I love about golf is the ‘next shot’. Whether I am playing poorly or playing well, the next shot is all that matters. It is why I never want my round to end. But today, I’m not interested in the next shot. Today, I want my round to end. It is approximately 7.34am on an early September morning and while half the country is still asleep, I have played 14 holes and lost seven golf balls. The legs are shaking and the heart is pounding. I have hit rock bottom. Then something happens. Standing over my third shot on the testing par-5 15th at Springs
Golf Club in Oxfordshire – and with about 120 yards to the flag – a voice shouts from across the fairway: “Just let go. Don’t worry about the ball. Just let go.”
Free of any fear, I swing smoothly and make a clean connection, punching an 8-iron below the thick mist which checks and spins back towards the pin. Not only is it the best shot I have hit during this round, but it is probably the best shot I have hit all summer. It was creative and quirky – not the kind of shot I would ever think to play. I miss the short birdie putt, but that doesn’t matter. Encouraged by that one moment of magic, I play the next three holes solidly to complete my round in 99 strokes. Trust me, it could have been so much worse...
The Iron Golfer
‘The voice’ from across the fairway was that of Luke Willett, a PGA Professional and former head teacher at Burhill Golf Club. Willett is no ordinary golfer, and as you may have gathered by now, this was no ordinary round of golf. This was speedgolf, a fitnessorientated alternative to the standard format of electric trolleys, bacon sandwiches and plodding Sundaymorning fourballs.
Speedgolf’s aim is to ‘unite two of the largest lifestyle communities in the world, golf and running’. Played competitively, it takes the combination of strokes played plus the time it takes to complete your round. Unlike regular golf, those pre-shot rituals of practice swings and lining up your putt should be ignored. There is no time to overthink things; overthinking only leads to poor shots.
Willett’s own journey to the highest ranks of speedgolf – where last month he was crowned British champion – has been typically unconventional. He turned pro at the age of 18 and enrolled as a teaching professional at The Belfry. “I was fortunate enough to spend time with the likes of David Leadbetter and Denis Pugh,” he says. “They were cool people and I always had a willingness to learn.
“But while I was teaching, it got to the stage where I asked if this was the way it was always going to be; I wanted to know if I could do something else with the game. I wanted to be a trailblazer.”
What followed was a series of personal challenges; going on, in his own words, a ‘crazy journey’ which started playing urban golf down the middle of Oxford Street in 2018. “That was about taking myself out of my comfort zone and seeing how people I teach feel, because for many, learning to play golf takes them away from their comfort zone,” he says.
Since then, Willett – dubbed ‘The Iron Golfer’
– has continued to take the game into uncharted territory, like his ‘Three Peaks Golf Challenge’ (climbing while golfing up Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon), ‘Golfing Coast to Coast’ (a 225km cycle trek from Cumbria to Whitley Bay playing 18 holes – six on three separate courses – along the way), and his ‘Iron
Golf Challenge’ (a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile
bike ride and marathon, followed by 18 holes at Windermere Golf Club).
“Golf is a game that has been played for centuries,” Willett says. “But it is for anyone and everyone, and it does not have to be played in a certain way. It is about embracing life and having the willingness to embrace it.”
Back to basics
It is his journey playing speedgolf that appears to be stoking his passion for the game he now loves more than ever, and this is the reason I have dragged myself out of my bed at 3.30am to run the best part of five miles loaded with a pencil bag and nothing more than a driver, 8-iron, wedge and putter.
To play the round I am joined by Golf Monthly’s editor, Mike Harris. Pre-round, we both seem unsure of the task ahead. We meander and kick our heels by the putting green, while Luke warms up on the nearby practice area. He hits the odd wedge shot, but his routine appears to be more focused on getting the blood running through the veins as he jogs from tee to green. Approaching the opening hole, I reach to find a tee and pull my driver from my bag. “I don’t use a driver,” Luke says. “Teeing the ball up only wastes time.”
My opening tee shot on the short par 4 sets the early tone: an ugly hook that finds the adjacent 18th fairway. Luke fires his down the
“Speedgolf is the best lesson – even for better players”
middle, as does Mike. I meet them both on the green about three-and-a-half minutes later.
A par follows on the par-3 2nd, but then the wheels come off as the breathing becomes heavier. An attack of the ‘unmentionables’ begins on the 6th hole and I genuinely start to worry that I may run out of balls. By the turn I am sweating profusely, but can only watch in awe as my playing partners continue to play almost regulation golf. Sensing my struggles, Luke offers a helping hand.
“Put the driver away to keep it in play,” he says. “Don’t worry about where the ball goes. It is all about getting over the finishing line today.”
Reality strikes
And so it goes on: a fairway missed, another lost ball, double-bogey, triple-bogey, before Luke’s divine intervention on that 15th hole, which helps me understand what the last half hour has been about. I have approached it with the wrong attitude, but now I only see the benefits. Speedgolf has nothing to do with the emotions you feel during a regular round of golf: it is not about compiling a score and the heartbreak of those near-misses. Rather, it is about stripping everything back and cleaning the slate. It’s good for the soul and, speaking quite frankly, good for the ticker, too.
As I finish up on the
18th green with the most satisfying doublebogey six of my life, there is a sense of real satisfaction for what we have just achieved: completing a round of golf in a few seconds over 70 minutes. But more importantly, I realise I’ve been given a true ‘golfing lesson’. Forget ball position and grip pressure; forget the result; forget the yardage. Trust your swing and the rest will follow.
“Speedgolf is the best lesson any golfer can have, even good golfers,” adds Willett. “Real learning happens when you just let go.”
Amid all the personal carnage, it is important to note that Willett, for all the quirkiness and all those crazy challenges, remains a seriously fine golfer. So fine, in fact, that he completes the par-72 layout in a one-under-par 71 strokes – quite remarkable when you consider he had only three or four clubs in his bag, and no driver.
So what next? As well as targeting the world championship next year, Willett wants to be the first player to break speedgolf’s 100 barrier (for example, a round of 66 with a time of sub-34 minutes). But there are even bigger aspirations.
“I want to grow it,” he says. “It is snowboarding to skiing. It is running; it is for the masses. You need pioneers and I want to be that person. It has reignited my love for the game.”
f ever Europe had a lucky charm it would be Anna Nordqvist. Back in 2013 the Swede hit the opening tee shot at the Solheim Cup in Colorado and, three days later, the visitors would claim their first victory on American soil. Eight years later Nordqvist was the safe pair of hands on Inverness Club’s unique 1st tee as she led Europe off and, against the odds once again, the visitors retained the famous trophy.
If this year’s Ryder Cup taught us anything it was that winning away in the States – with no visiting support – is a formidable task, but Catriona Matthew’s side led throughout. In the middle of it all was the three-time Major champion and comfortably Europe’s most experienced player, Nordqvist.
“I asked Mat [Matilda Castren] and she said she’d be happy if I hit the first tee shot!” Nordqvist recalls. “In 2013 I had so much adrenaline I hit it a good 25 yards further.
This year it was a good set-up for me to take the odds and I didn’t miss the middle of the fairway. When it’s raining outside or I’m tired and don’t want to practise, I will always think of those moments. When I’m done playing eventually, they will be the moments that I will look back on.”
Next time around, Europe will have a new skipper at the helm, with Matthew ruling herself out of a third straight stint. They will certainly have some pretty big shoes to fill after the Scot and her team pieced together one of the greatest ever European wins.
“This was one of the best teams we’ve had in terms of personalities and players being in form,” Nordqvist says. “We easily had 14 to 15 girls to choose from which is quite unheard of; usually the last couple of players are picked to find fits for pairings.
“The Americans got really loud when they were making a two or three-footer to halve a hole and, if you were on the other side of the course, you were expecting them to have won a hole but, after a while, we worked that out and the quieter it was the better.”
Turning the tables
To give us some perspective of how things have changed, Trish Johnson played on eight European Solheim Cup teams and won only twice; Nordqvist has now played on the past seven and has emerged victorious more times than she has lost. Had Germany in 2015, where Europe led 10-6, gone their way then they would have won five of the past six.
“I would say this year was the best. Winning on American soil is a special feeling,” she says. “Having no fans and just seeing how massive the American crowds were, and them all being against us, made it one of the best performances in European Solheim Cup history.”
At some point soon, hopefully in Spain in 2023, Europe will talk up their chances a little bit more given how the worm has turned in recent times. All teams love to play the role of the underdog, but the ever-changing face of women’s golf is reflected in both the Solheim Cup and the Majors. Since the millennium the familiar sight of the Stars and Stripes has been fading on the Major winners’ podium and, in the past three years, we’ve only seen Nelly Korda prevail.
“A lot of Americans were winning on the LPGA Tour at the beginning of the year and we were the big underdogs, but this summer the European girls, like Leona Maguire, have been playing some really good golf. Matilda Castren won on tour so, going into the matches, we were still the underdogs, particularly with the lack of our fans, but, at
the same time, both teams were pretty solid and it was always going to be a good match,” she says.
At Gleneagles three years ago Nordqvist, still the only player to have had a hole-in-one in the competition, was out in the final match as she, Bronte Law and Suzann Pettersen catapulted Europe over the line in the last three singles. This time around, and for the third time, she was back in the more familiar role of No. 1 and, just like 2017, up against Lexi Thompson.
“My game with Lexi in 2017 was one the best in Solheim history and both of us played well this year too. I felt like a half was fair,” she explains. “I thought I had the last putt and there were a lot of putts that I didn’t make, so that’s something that I need to continue to work on, but Lexi is one of the best players in the world for a reason.”
All-round talent
Nordqvist’s game appears ridiculously metronomic – so how would she mark herself, out of ten, for each element? “Driving: seven, irons: nine, short game: seven, putting: six, mental: eight or nine, physical: seven or eight. The consistency is back in my ball-striking. I worked on some wrong things for a while and my misses were a bit sideways but my short game, with the help of Parker Mclachlin, has been great this year. My putting is where there is the room for improvement.”
But it was Nordqvist’s ability with a hybrid that played a pivotal role in her capturing the Women’s Open at Carnoustie this year. Astonishingly, she is now the first non-american to win Majors in three different decades and only the third European, joining Annika Sorenstam and Laura Davies, to win at least three.
“We all know what to expect with the last four holes at Carnoustie,” she says. “The 15th was into the wind so I hit a 22˚ hybrid and also at 18, and I hit my 19˚ on 16 and 17. It was playing brutally long and there is no way around it; that’s what makes it a great course as it requires good shots under pressure. You can’t get away with anything and you have to challenge the bunkers off the
“The 2021 Solheim team was one of the best we’ve had in terms of personalities”
tee or you are going to be standing there with a really long shot in. I played the last four holes in two-under for the week, which I think is quite amazing. That was one of the keys to winning.”
Fighting back
Nordqvist has often been quoted as singling out Carnoustie and Kingsbarns as two of her favourite courses. She first played the former in 2011, but it was a round with her now husband, Kevin Mcalpine, back in 2017, that stands out as one of the most memorable. They played off mats, used borrowed clubs, there were no scoreboards and, bizarrely, it took place on Boxing Day.
“My husband is from Dundee and it was our first Christmas together, so we went back to his family,” she says. “He has a friend who works there and four of us played. It was four degrees Celsius so we had a few layers on, but it was summer greens on nearly every hole and it was sunny. It was such an amazing day, just awesome. That was the last time I had played it before the Open.”
Nordqvist could very easily have four Majors by now and be very close to a career Grand Slam. At the 2016 US Women’s Open she made it into a play-off with Brittany Lang only for, literally, a grain of sand to move in a fairway bunker and a subsequent two-shot penalty being handed out halfway down the 18th. It was as messy as it was unfortunate, with Nordqvist being told after her third shot while Lang was informed before her approach to the last, but the Swede handled it all with her usual grace and style.
“I was proud of myself how I played that week. I hit 18 greens on the Friday which was the first time anyone had done that in a US Open and I hit 17 on the Sunday when I shot 67. I wish the ruling would have been told in a different way, but it was almost like the fire it gave me was bottled up and I used that at the Evian the following year when I needed a bit more motivation.
“The British [Open] is the greatest Major I’ll ever win as it is so special being from Europe and its history and having watched it for so many years – so there are no regrets.”