Formby Golf Club Preview: The Course the Sea Is Trying to Take Back

Nish 0:01

Every good story is about the journey. And this is the story of our journey trying to play the top 100 courses of UK and Ireland in just 10 years. This is the Top 100 in 10 Golf Podcast. Episode 77. Formby Golf Club Preview. Right, so we’re in the car, we’re on the way, and I think we’re really looking forward to this one. It’s Formby Golf Club in Lancashire. Technically, is that Lancashire or is it Merseyside? I’m not sure. When people think of this stretch of coastline, some iconic courses like Birkdale, Hillside, Southport and Ainsdale come to mind. And you might think exposed, windswept, big dunes, nowhere to hide is the key characteristic of Formby. But it doesn’t look like that’s necessarily the case. It feels like it’s something genuinely different on this coastline. Now I think that’s either a big selling point or it’s going to be divisive, but we’ll get into that later. But first, Chris, what do you actually know about Formby Golf Club?

Chris 0:59

Well, Nish, as you know, this was a bit of a not a last minute booking, but it was a fairly fairly late booking, wasn’t it, by our standards? Normally we’re we’re a bit more organised with our planning and our courses, but this one came up, kind of came up as a bit of an opportunity sort of late on. And it’s been a busy few weeks. So if I’m honest, Nish, not a huge amount. I’m on that, but all I know so far is I’m on my way to Formby today. And I’ve obviously heard of Formby as being, you know, it’s it’s a well-regarded course around the area, isn’t it? Um I’ve obviously I’ve been to the area before as well, so I know a little bit about the area. Um so I’m really excited about this one, if I’m honest. Mostly because I love red squirrels. But um is that a thing? Yeah. Red squirrels. Yeah, yeah, you see some red squirrels at Form by.

Nish 1:39

Interesting, yeah. Um last time I saw was would have been at centre parts because we’re poshos and we go centre parts sometimes. Um well, look good. Uh I I think the fact that we don’t know much about this is always a good sign, isn’t it, when we go to golf course with zero expectations. Yeah, we don’t know what’s going on. So look, I’ve done some digging and there is a lot going on at Formby, and we’ll get into that. But before we do, and before we go any further, a real quick one and a quick request for you. If you’re listening to this and you haven’t hit follow yet, please do it now. I don’t want you to hit subscribe, I don’t want you to hit like, I want you to hit follow. That’s on Spotify and Apple. That button is the single thing that actually helps us reach more and more golfers. It tells the algorithm to show it uh to people who like golf podcasts. And our podcast is in the top 20 golf podcasts in the UK, it’s the only independent one. So you’re already doing that. Please carry on doing it and please share

Last-minute booking and the course’s reputation

Nish 2:38

the love. Now back to this episode. So you mentioned there, Chris, about this last-minute-ish nature. There’s no such thing as booking a last-minute top 100 course, is there? No, no, not really, no. Particularly here with the open coming, and that’s what I’m six weeks away. Yeah. We are playing this course with a guest who’s been on our podcast before, that’s Mark. And his friend, who he’s doing the top 100 challenge with, Andrew, who we call the Saint or Sainty, because legend. He’s an absolute legend, which we’ll get to later. But uh it ended up being a bit of a message out the out the blue, really, from Mark, and he sent me a message just saying, uh, we are playing Formby. Do you want to come and join us? There’s two spaces. So we were like, uh yes, that’ll do. Great. Got in touch with the club, booked ourselves on. So we’re really looking forward to it.

Chris 3:29

Absolutely. Mega looking forward to this one. This is one of the ones that I wanted to play for a little while, Formby.

Nish 3:34

Yeah, and the Formby’s felt a little bit out of reach previously. I don’t really know why, because he can’t just contacts me and book it, whatever. But it felt a little bit all of all the other courses in this area, that felt like the one where people were like, oh, I can get you on here. I can’t, you know, can’t do Formby. Yeah. Can’t do Formby. So I don’t know if that’s because the membership’s maybe small or whatever. Yeah, maybe might ask the pro. Um, but Formby golf club is ranked 52 on our current list. Now that is a year or two old. Yeah.

Chris 4:03

It’s up to 39, if you say, I think it’s up to now, yeah. So it’s it’s risen the ranks over the last few years.

Nish 4:09

Big

Green fees and pricing reality check

Nish 4:10

hitter. Yeah. Big hitter. Absolutely. I’ll give you some deets on how much this costs to play. So a round of golf, Monday to Friday, peak season, costs 285 quid or 315 quid at the weekend. Uh the shoulder rate Monday to Friday is 180 or 205 at the weekend, and off season is 155 Monday to Friday and 175 at the weekend. So it’s punchy, it’s up there, it’s certainly a top 40 pricing that they’ve got. Um, with that, and what do you feel when you see pricing like that, Chris?

Chris 4:47

If I’m honest, Nish, I think I’ve almost just kind of got used to it. I feel like when we first started this, there was a kind of collection of those courses which were really expensive, and then everything else was sort of more reasonably priced, you know, maybe like 150 to 200 quid. I just think there’s there’s so few of those left in the list now that I just you get you look at it and it’s there’s 300 quid, 350 quid, and you go, alright, okay, yeah, that’s another top 100 course.

Nish 5:12

Um we’ve become those people, haven’t we? Where I look at 155 on a Monday to Friday in in the winter, November to like February, and I’m like, that’s alright. It’s not, it clearly isn’t, but you know, you do become immune to this when you start reading numbers, and like I very much understand that psychology of pricing, yeah, you know, and and and sort of get that.

Chris 5:36

Fully accountants running in it for everyone this year. And the bean counters, they’ve done it, yeah.

Nish 5:40

So well,

Fact 1 — the clock tower and its Titanic connection

Nish 5:41

look, let’s let’s try and give this some some structure. What we’re gonna cover today is we’re gonna cover some really interesting facts about Formby. Now, the website, interestingly enough, gives you a hit a timeline history, but it doesn’t give you any details on anything. So you’ve got to go and do a bit of digging. So I, AI, have done that and got some facts. Now, please feel free to fact-check these and and let me know. We’re also then gonna talk about four holes to look out for on the course, and then there’s one really interesting quirky feature about this um golf course and club, uh, which I haven’t experienced anywhere else. So we’ll do that and then we’ll get to our signature hole and side bets. So the first fact I’m gonna give you, this one piqued my interest straight away, is that there is a very famous clock tower on the clubhouse at Formby. And it’s considered one of the most iconic clock towers in golf. How many clock towers in golf there are, I don’t really know. But it was donated.

Chris 6:47

I think you’ve done you’ve done pretty well then, Ish, to say clock tower three times without getting yourself in trouble.

Nish 6:51

Yeah. I could say whatever I want, it’s my podcast. Um, but it was donated to the club in 1909 by a gentleman called Bruce Ismay. Now, any historians among you, I’m a bit of a history buff, uh, would probably recognise that name. He’s quite a famous or infamous character, Bruce Ismay. He was the owner or chairman of White Star Line. Now, White Star Line is a name that’s burned in my psyche because they’re the company that made the Titanic. And I’ve been fascinated by the Titanic ever since I was a little kid and I heard the story. Okay. Really fascinated. Like to the extent where I made mum and dad take us to the cinema to watch Titanic, all that kind of thing. The whole f the whole film. The actual film, yeah, you know, with Rose abandoning Jack and all that.

Chris 7:41

I don’t know if I’ve ever watched the whole film all the way through. I’ve probably seen it collectively all the way through in the snippets that I’ve watched. It’s dumb shit, mate. Don’t do it. Don’t you have to that paint? I’m not sure anyone’s ever done that before, Nish.

Nish 7:54

No, no, but look, it so obviously the Whiteslier line was based in Liverpool. So it was a 25th birthday present donated to uh the clubhouse. Now, this was before the Titanic was built and sank.

Chris 8:10

So I think it’s quite apt, to be honest, Nish, because my my golf game currently feels a bit like a sinking ship. It’s sinking, it’s listing severely, isn’t it?

Nish 8:18

Yeah. Now, the the reason my Bruce Ismay was uh infamous is because he survived the sinking of the Titanic and he was one of the people that got into one of the 16 lifeboats and uh 1,500 people other people drowned, uh including Leonardo DiCaprio. So uh yeah, that’s that clock tower, um, which I thought was really interesting for me anyway. I thought it was quite cool. Um fact number two, which people listening to this podcast might be more interested in, is about the architects of the course.

Fact 2 — four architects, a who’s who of golf design

Nish 8:52

There are four principal architects of this course, and it’s like a who’s who of 20th century golf architecture. So the original course is laid out by Willie Park Jr. Willie Park Jr. is of Gullane fame.

Chris 9:04

Yeah, yeah. So amazing. I think we’ve liked most of the Willie Park Jr. ones that we have played.

Nish 9:10

Absolutely. Yeah. Then in 1922, a chap called James Braid comes along. James Braid has designed some of my absolute favourite courses, like Glen eagles. He’s designed Lanark as well. So, you know, the real big hitter there. And then in 1933, another gentleman from down south comes up. He’s called Harry Colt. And Harry Colt will design some other favourite courses, like Hollinwell, Hankley Common, places like that. So they’re three behemoths of golf architecture. Probably the only one missing out of that, really, is probably Alistair McKenzie. McKenzie, yeah. Probably. Yeah. And surely he’s influenced somebody somewhere anyway in this. So that is pretty amazing. And then, interestingly enough, and this is going to bleed into another factoid later, is that in um the 70s and 80s, a gentleman called Donald Steele died. Well, now I will admit I don’t know anything about this guy. Donald Steele, never heard the name. But he was called in because three holes had disappeared into the sea. Um, which sounds really dramatic, doesn’t it? But there is a big problem with coastal erosion at Formby. So um, yeah, he was called in to yeah, redesign.

Chris 10:26

Or just can we create three new holes? Because it’s not even kind of like right. I guess it is fairly close to the beach, but it’s not, it’s not like a traditional lynx, is it, where you’re kind of running, running right down the side of the ocean. It’s not really like that, is it? It’s kind of a bit more inland than that.

Nish 10:38

Well, I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll just give a shout-out to our sponsors here for this episode, and that’s Claude AI. Um I I can’t give you any further knowledge, Chris, because this is what I’ve got from Claude AI. Uh giving away our trade secrets. Uh, fact number three before I get back onto Coastal Erosion, is that in 1984 they uh uh the form be hosted the amateur championships. So they’ve hosted other tournaments like the Curtis Cup, uh, there’s been a senior championship just recently, they’re not sure who won that. Um so it’s got some good championship pedigree. Yeah, for sure. Um there were two gentlemen who played the contested the amateur championship that year, and it happened to be the club’s St. Centenary year. That final was between Jose Maria Olazabal and Colin Monty Montgomerie, who ended up obviously being Ryder Cup captains and winning and all this sort of stuff. And the two absolute beasts of the European game. Yeah, so that was the Amateur Championship.

Chris 11:39

That was the Amateur Championship, yes.

Nish 11:41

What year would that have been in there? That was 1984. Uh and uh who was it who won? Alather won 5-4. Hammered him. Absolutely nailed him, didn’t he? Yeah, Monty was pretty shit, wasn’t he, really? He always bottled it in the big moments, didn’t he? He did, yeah. Um, but there’s a photograph of that somewhere. So uh now we’re not allowed to actually take any pictures in the clubhouse. So I’m hoping I’ll just grab some stuff off the website to put on um to put in the the video version of this episode. I haven’t got a video version of this episode actually, we’re in a car. Yeah, sorry, forget all that, scrap that. Um so I thought that was quite quite a nice bit of history with those two riders.

Chris 12:21

Maybe we should we should set a little camera up and we could do a bit of uh James Corden style singing on the way to form, but how do you feel about that? Yeah, should we do that?

Nish 12:29

Carbo

Fact 4 — coastal erosion and the disappearing 9th green

Nish 12:30

karaoke style. Um right, I’m gonna go back to coastal erosion because that’s my thing. So, coastal erosion. Fact number four is that the sea is literally eating up this golf course. So um Formby Point is the far the fastest eroding coastline in the UK. Oh wow. Did you know that? I did not know that. No, I didn’t know that either.

Chris 12:50

My knowledge of coastal erosion is not as not as good as yours, apparently.

Nish 12:53

Yeah, uh you know, I well, you know, I’ve always taken a keen interest in coastal erosion. Um apparently the Irish Sea is taking about two and a half metres of land per year. Now that doesn’t seem right to me, but that’s quite a lot, isn’t it? Irish coming back for some land. I know, reclaiming their territory, are they? Um so what they’re saying here is that by 2085, which is fingers crossed within our lifetime, um, this coastline is likely to be on the championship blue tee on the 10th hole. Now I don’t think that means that the first nine holes all disappear, but that’s a pretty big chunk of land that could disappear. Yeah. Um so then the club what they’ve done is they’ve hired uh you know in-fashioned designers at the moment, Mackenzie and Ebert, they’ve done work at Wallasey just recently, which has seen them jump in the rankings as well, actually. So doing something well. Um and they’ve they’ve got a plan to uh uh do something, whatever it is, reclaim land or or shore up the uh extremities of the course. Uh running right through to 2085, actually. Wow, I mean that’s that’s some long term planning. Long term planning. Strategic planning, that isn’t it? Yeah, so the the the the coastal erosion thing kind of doesn’t really like it just sounds like it’s bitter, you know, land disappearing, but then Claude hit me with this. It said the original ninth green, so that’s on the original Willie Park Jr. layout, is actually now 25 years, uh 25 yards out onto the beach. Wow. That’s quite a significant chunk. It’s pretty wild, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah.

Chris 14:32

Like you always think of coastal erosion as being like a few millimetres a year or whatever. But that’s that’s going at some rate, that isn’t it?

Nish 14:39

That is some rate, and you know, you kind of think obviously Formby’s point is the fastest, as we’ve found out, the fastest eroded coastline, but this is happening all around the country. You’d think that’d be fairly well protected by like Ireland, right? Yeah, well, they’re not doing us any favours then, are they? Um yeah, like it’s weird, isn’t it? I mean, that makes you then think about the courses on that west coast of all this similar kind of point. You know, I I’d never actually considered that coastal erosion could be a threat to what we’re doing.

Chris 15:12

Yeah, I mean I guess so. I mean I mean hopefully we’ll be finished by 2085, but you never know. Might be a few stragglers on the list of the first time. I don’t think we’ll find a member at Skibo till 2085, but you know golf might not be a thing by 2085. He might not be, yeah, a thing of the past.

Nish 15:27

But I just I find it odd that that’s a consideration for us now. And and it did kind of get me thinking that you know, is some of these courses might change. I mean, Formia is gonna change forever as a result of that. You know, obviously Donald Steele came in in the 70s and 80s and built three new holes. Mackenzie and Ebert are gonna do something. Like, is now the time to be playing these courses to get the more authentic original experience?

Chris 15:57

I mean I guess so, because like you say, it’s gonna be happening, you know, sea levels are gonna be rising, aren’t they? So it’s gonna be happening on pretty much all these coastal courses, right?

Nish 16:04

I remember famously Peter Finch did a video about Royal Aberdeen and there was a tea box that’s disappearing again like CNL of the shit. Yeah, so uh you know, is it? I don’t know. Is this the time to be doing have we picked the perfect time to do the challenge where we might still play these courses in their original as good as uh guys? And then with not work going on either, you know. Obviously, that’s something there’s some serious work that needs to be done. I mean, I’m guessing we’re not gonna see bulldozers anywhere doing anything today or anything like that.

Chris 16:36

So by 2085, you might be quite happy in this. There’ll be no more links golf to play. No more links golf. The thing of the past with parklands. Well, does that not will that not make the parkland courses essentially just lynx courses? Are they gonna flatten all the trees out of the parkland courses, do you think?

Nish 16:49

Or they’ll just they’ll just be coastal anyway. Get me on a heathland, mate. Get me on a heath then. That’s that’s the only safe space. The only safe space to play golf, absolutely. So I don’t know. Uh uh, you know, uh nobody’s gonna get in touch with me from the coastal erosion society and say this is a this is a big thing, but is that a thing? I don’t know. It’s the coastal erosion society a thing. If it isn’t, maybe we should start it. But you know, I don’t know. It wasn’t in the kink song, I don’t think. No. Um yeah, I I don’t know. Another another thing to consider, uh, I mean we’re we’re what this is we didn’t talk about this at the start actually. Once we play for me today, we have only got

Holes to watch — the par 3s, the pine corridor, Braid’s closer

Nish 17:30

two courses on England’s golf course. This is also number 25 today. This is a quarter of the way in. Number 24. Number 24 today, I think. Yeah. Sure. I was thinking 25. We did no 23 was um Castletown. Was it? Yeah, this is number course number 24. Okay. So yeah, lip hook would be 25, wouldn’t it? That’s a big thing to celebrate, actually, isn’t it? Yeah, it feels like a burst. A quarter of the way there. Feels like a lot. It’s a long, yeah, it’s a long way, isn’t it? We’re gonna rack it up quick, actually. We should be near to get up to 30, I think, by this end of this year. Excellent. There’s a little journey update for you. Um right, forgive the rather haphazard nature of today’s episode. I’m trying to read this off my phone.

Chris 18:11

Um whilst driving a car.

Nish 18:13

Whilst driving a car. Well, I’m not driving, just to put it out there. Um Right, that’s coasted erosion. I’ve done enough of that. Let’s do the four holes to watch. Because I’m looking at the clock and we’ve got 18 minutes left to get to 4B. So four holes to watch and one really interesting quirky feature. So the first one is the third, which many reviewers independently call this the best tea shop in the northwest of England. Now, bearing in mind there are some absolutely massive reputational causes in the northwest. That’s a pretty bold claim. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? It’s a par five, it’s 520 yards. Um it can tempt big hitters to go for the green in two, so I think you might have a little nibble here, but there are deep bunkers lurking and guarding the the approach. And the green is two-tiered. Classic McKenzie style. Um so the danger is it looks gettable, but if you’re greedy, it might punish you. So that’s that’s that’s the third uh par five. Then we’ve got a seventh. So this is one of Donald Steele’s uh redesigned or newly designed holes. Um it’s an uphill dog leg par four. It’s called Donald Steele’s well, it’s not called Donald Steele’s pine corridor, it’s described here as Donald Steele’s pine corridor. So you do your tee off through pine trees and then you turn right through pine trees. So I’m hoping they’re cut up and there’s not many branches overhanging. Um but uh reviewers consistently pick out hole seven, eight, nine as an unexpectedly strong stretch of Formby golf club.

Chris 19:49

I think we’re gonna, I think there’s gonna be a lot of boxes ticked on form today. I think it’s I think it’s um described as the prettiest of the of the courses up on this case, isn’t it? Yeah. Oh my god, amazing. I think kind of bundle that into I mean the quality of the course is is right up there as well, right? So I I think we’re gonna like today.

Nish 20:06

Now you’re gonna like this, Chris. There’s a bit of folklore about the seventh. Apparently the dunes near the seventh were used by smugglers to hide contraband. Excellent. There you go.

Chris 20:14

Pick up some uh should have brought our metal detectors or something, shouldn’t we? Yeah. Pick up some goodies on the way around. Yeah, I don’t know. Nice bottle of rum to see uh yeah, yeah, Captain Jack’s. Drown our sorrows after seven holes.

Nish 20:26

Yeah. Um then we hit the 10th. So this is the first glimpse of the sea, a par three, it’s an elevated Tee. Um, and it’s that’s then quite unique at Formby. Gives you a clear glimpse of the Irish Sea. Uh, but because much of the other course is sheltered by pines and heather. Um so apparently it’s genuinely a very arresting view when we get there. So we should get our uh phones

Formby Ladies — the hidden course within the course

Nish 20:49

out and get ready for that. Um the old oh you can also see, well, uh they probably haven’t marked it, but the old where the old ninth green was, you would have been able to see from this tee. Uh then a little flag there, we just play out. Yeah, it feels like they should mark that, but then I suppose those waters are coming in, aren’t they, all the time? Do we get to see Gormley’s statues? Yeah, but that’s not far away. That’s just Yeah. Actually, it’s a bit a bit of further up the coast, I suppose. Is it? Okay, fair enough. Um and then the last notable hole is the 15th, which is called which is James Braid’s closer. So this is part of his 1922 design. Uh it’s a par four. Um what has he done now here? Um, so a lot of course reviewers flag the 15th as one of the best holes on the back nine. And that closing four holes has been really, really strong at Formby. And also you’ve got that iconic clubhouse that you shoot in towards when you hit 18. So that’s gonna be amazing straight away. I know that. And then my quirky fact about Formby is that the whole of Formby golf club runs in a massive. Massive anti-clockwise circle that contains Formby Ladies Golf Club. And Formby Ladies Golf Club sits entirely inside that men’s course, operates completely independently, has its own clubhouse, its own green keeping staff, and its own membership.

Chris 22:16

I do fancy going playing Formby Ladies, that’s supposed to be really good, isn’t it? It’s supposed to be an amazing colour.

Nish 22:22

Tricky short course. And then Claude tells me, and I don’t know if this is true, but maybe somebody can drop it in the comments, that that’s one of only three such situations in the whole of the country where another course is contained within the colours. Where else a wider course have we played another one where that’s actually?

Chris 22:37

Yeah,

Side bets, signature hole, and pre-round excitement levels

Chris 22:38

up in oh, what’s it called? The one I the one I didn’t like. Cruden Bay. Oh yeah, there was a par three course in there. It’s not a whole course, but yeah, there’s a par three course in the middle.

Nish 22:47

But there wasn’t there because there’s I forgot about that, the one I didn’t like. I love that. Oh, brilliant. Right, so as we tip down to 13 minutes to go, everyone’s getting a time check on our journey. Um, I asked Jim to on the previous episodes to do a couple of things for us, and that is look for any online reviews, good or bad, and also uh give us a side bet and signature hole challenge. So maybe I’ll end with reviews because it’s it’s quite a funny one. But the side bet and signature hole challenge. Signature hole uh is the Jim has identified as the PAR 5 8th hole. So immediately that’s advantage and this. I sort of do seem to do alright in the par fives, and now I’ve given it the kiss of death, haven’t I? But um that’s that’s a net score on the eight. Now I haven’t got any information on the eight, so I couldn’t tell you anything about it. Um however that’s what Jim has set us. Do you get shot on there? Uh you don’t got any information. I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t I yeah, I don’t know what the stroke index is actually, but um yeah, we’ll have well we’ll have to check that, won’t we? I suppose. If it’s eight, I don’t know. Do signature holes end up being quite hard holes? No. I don’t know. Not necessarily. Maybe. I hope I get shot on it. That’d be nice. Uh and then his side bet was quite a good one. So he said the most net birdies.

Chris 24:03

Um most net birdies in the whole round.

Nish 24:05

In the whole round. Okay. And then if there are no birdies or we’re tied on that, is then I mean, I tell you what, if we’ve had no net birdies during the day, we’ve we’ve had a shocker.

Chris 24:12

We’ve had a bit of a shocker, but yeah. Uh I mean it’s very possible with my my game at the minute, to be fair.

Nish 24:17

Yeah, we’re fresh off uh being losing on the last hole uh in the Creator Cup, uh, which I have to say we weren’t that disappointed about because it added a lot of golf pressure to our uh schedule already. Yeah. And I don’t know, it didn’t and it felt like initially it was like this quite not cluby exclusively thing, but it was like, oh yeah, this is like an exciting thing to get involved in. And I think it exploded out of their expectations, and then it ended up being like we need to play like seven qualifying matches to get through to the the regional final, then win that.

Chris 24:53

I really enjoyed the matches, and the guys were playing, you know, the really enjoyable matches, both of them.

Nish 24:57

Shout out to all four guys who were absolutely brilliant. We really enjoyed doing that. Absolutely. Do it again for that. Yeah, yeah, for sure. The the camaraderie you got from people. Yeah, no, it’s good, wasn’t it? I wasn’t but yeah, in terms of the actual jump into playing that again set up. Like, I mean, seven or eight rounds. In the summer.

Chris 25:13

Yeah. Like it’s yeah, on it, and with your green fees on top and all that kind of stuff. So I mean you’re talking about spending probably three, four hundred quid plus your entry fee by the time you’ve got through to the absolutely, yeah. To the regional finals. So yeah.

Nish 25:26

I’d say I don’t think the prize is worth it either, if I’m honest. You get like a grand’s worth of equipment or something, or you get maybe you get more than that, and then you get a uh grand’s worth of trendy golf year outfit. And it’s like, is that really worth that’s that really worth it?

Chris 25:40

I mean, I suspect it’s one of those things, isn’t it? The first year is always a bit of a bit of a fact-finding mission in it. I think they’ve probably got quite a few bits wrong and not really understanding how many people were going to enter it. So they might it might be different next year, I suspect. Yeah. I suspect they’ll learn from those mistakes.

Nish 25:54

Well you’d hope they would anyway. Um if you want some feedback, guys, um, I know you listen, Rick and Pete. Uh give us a shout. We’ll uh we’ll help you out. Um but yeah, so it was it’s most net birdies. If if there are none or if that’s tied, it’s then net pars. And if that’s tied, then he wants to do the net score on the par on the three par fives. That’s what he wants to do. Right. So um yeah, I think that’s quite an interesting side, bet. It just means we can just play and then work it all out later. Yep. Uh I think, because even though I’ll have it on Squabbit, shout out to Squabbit who do our um score cards, uh, I’d never look at it. Just enter the scores and then do one of these.

Chris 26:36

The first few rounds we played, I was like, oh what I shot there. But now I actually I genuinely I don’t even look, I don’t even know I’ve shot most of these top 100 courses recently.

Nish 26:43

I’m I’m feeling that way, but then I feel I’m playing better because of that. Yeah, probably. I feel like I’m a bit more freed up. Yeah. Um possibly. Despite having thinking about filming stuff and whatever, like it’s good to take the scorecard pressure off, isn’t it?

Chris 26:59

Yeah.

Nish 26:59

I had an interesting chat and it’s shout out to the episode we we did with with Alex Katter, Katter Golf. Um, and we had a chat about there’s this movement now to try and bring match play back into um more popularity because it’s the purest form of golf and you know man on man, that kind of thing. Uh or person on person, I should say. Um yeah, I I I quite like that.

Chris 27:24

The matches we played, I’ve really enjoyed that. I mean, I look match play is by far the best format in golf for me to play. Like it’s so much more enjoyable, it keeps you interested all the way. 100%. You can have a shithole and it doesn’t matter, especially if you’re playing like uh you know four balls, foursons.

Nish 27:39

I think there’s a lot to be said for that. Um and like yeah, like four, I mean there’s a couple of courses we’re gonna play down south where you are if you’re playing as a four-ball, you play a four sub. Yeah, that’s how you do it. I’m really looking forward to that. Yeah. I think it’s just a whole different element to it, isn’t it? So um yeah, a lot to be said for that, I think. Um right, the last thing I’ve got here is uh Jim Jim got one review that was negative about Formby, which says a lot about Formby, doesn’t it? Really? Um it was a bad review about a bad afternoon tea experience somebody had. Turns out, once they actually discussed it with the club, that they weren’t actually talking about Formby, they’d actually had it at Formby Hall. So it’s total mistaken identity. All the reviews for Formby are really great. Don’t go for a cream tea yet. But don’t go for a afternoon tea at Formby Hall.

Chris 28:30

Tell you what, I’ve got a bad review for Formby. We’ve just arrived in the area and it looks like it’s about to shit it down.

Nish 28:35

It looks great, isn’t it? Yeah, it was sunnier in Stockport, which is not what you say very often. Right, well, look, we’re nearly there now, we’ve got seven minutes to arise. So before we close, Chris, I know we talked about um the our expectations and and what we had, but um out of ten before we play, what’s your excitement level for Formby?

Chris 28:58

It’s pretty high, if I’m honest. Like I say, Form is one of those ones that’s really well renowned um within the golfing world.

Nish 29:04

I’ve heard nothing negative about the course ever. Um not even like, oh, it’s really tough or whatever. It’s just everyone’s like, oh, what a magnificent place to play golf.

Chris 29:12

Yeah, I think it’s gonna be easy on the eye, which I think always suits us, and I think it’s gonna be a decent challenge. It’s pretty windy today. I think it’s gonna be a good mix of kind of links golf with a few trees involved. Uh yeah, I think it’s gonna be, I think it’s gonna be a good one today. Yeah, me too.

Nish 29:28

Uh it feels a bit like uh how I felt going up to Wallasey today, actually. Yeah, it feels like it’s a similar sort of day, um, and you know, there’s a bit of a bit of challenging wind, but you know, I think the the sun’s gonna make an appearance at various points. We’re playing with two guys we’ve met before, you know, and and obviously Mark’s been on the podcast and and stuff like that, so that’s always exciting. Yeah, and we’re just experiencing it as a complete, you know, full visitor experience kind of thing. We’re not getting interviews today or anything like that. So are we gonna do match play today against the against the lads? That’s a good shout, actually. Do you think we should do that? Yeah, okay, let’s do that. Let’s do a match play against the guys. Um, and then uh from the the sort of three, four holes I mentioned there.

Chris 30:12

Um this is gonna test your concentration levels while you were driving, especially around here, because we’re just we’re just kind of coming in towards the club here, and I know this area reasonably well. This is where uh basically all the Liverpool footballers live. Yes, absolutely serious, serious housing. Mansionage going on in a minute, yeah.

Nish 30:29

Uh but are there any of any of those holes particularly got you excited? I mean you heard what I was talking about.

Chris 30:33

So it’s I’ve been driving this, so I’ve not really been listening to you, if I’m completely honest.

Nish 30:37

Well, there was that third, which was the par five. That was the best tea shot in the northwest. I mean that sounds pretty good. Donald’s Donald Steele’s Pine Corridor, Dog Leg Uphill Power 4, Glimpse of the Sea, Par 3 Elevated Tee, or there was I mean the par threes are always gonna pique my interest. Yeah, particularly with an elevated Tee, you know, you’re looking out to see. Sounds good to me. Then that’s up your Strasse, isn’t it? Yeah. Um I’m I’m looking forward to the uh seventh. That pine corridor. I think that’s gonna be a vis visual treat, I think, today.

Chris 31:08

So also one of my favourite chippies around here as well. So post-round chippy.

Nish 31:13

Nice. So um go, then who’s who lives around here then? The Raven Moles. There we go. Um wonderful, right. Well, look, that’s our rambling preview of Formby Golf Club today. It hasn’t taken its quite normal standards of incisive uh preview, but uh but I’ve not crashed all the way here, so you haven’t crashed, yeah. That’s a win. But you also haven’t fallen asleep, so there must have been some interest in there for you. And we haven’t sunk like the Titanic until we start playing golf. We’ll see how that goes. So stay tuned. Uh in a few weeks we will have our review from Formby Golf Club. Wish us well. Next time on the top 100 in 10 Golf Podcast, we’ll be reviewing our round at Swinley Forest.