Our Open & The Open – West Lancs Golf Club Review

Nish: 0:01

Every story has an ending. Does our quest to play the top 100 courses in 10 years have a good ending? I’m Nish, I’m Chris, and we’re here to guide you through this golfing journey. This is the Top 100 in 10 Golf Podcast, episode 37. Our Open and the Open the West Lancs Golf Club Review. So, chris, we just got back from playing our first Open competition we have. Yeah, how do we feel about?

Chris: 0:25

it. It wasn’t the greatest day on the links for any of our team. I don’t think was it to be fair? No one played well. No, I mean, I think that’s a fairly large understatement. It was pretty, pretty atrocious golfing from everyone, wasn’t it? Yeah? I think, everyone had like two or three holes where they played all right, but then beyond that there, was there was a lot of rubbish, wasn’t there?

Nish: 0:47

And we were so excited.

Chris: 0:49

We were too excited.

Nish: 0:50

Yeah, maybe we need to put a lid on the excitement for next time. Okay, well, we’ll get to the result, because I think we don’t want to dwell on it too much. So a couple of things with it. So we were the competition format. Was that the two best scores from our group?

Chris: 1:05

would count towards the points.

Nish: 1:08

And we got 70 points. Did we get? 70, yeah, we got 70 points, which placed us Second to last, second to last. The team that finished last got 69 points?

Chris: 1:22

Actually, no, I think there’s two teams that finished behind us, but one of those teams only had one person in it.

Nish: 1:28

And they weren’t even that far behind us oh my goodness, that’s pretty embarrassing, isn’t it. Does that mean we get invited back or we don’t get invited back? Probably get invited back, because we’re nice easy pickings for anybody. Now, there was something you mentioned when we were having our pint afterwards with paul and matt, yeah, that there was a rumor that the winner got like a crazy number of points.

Chris: 1:50

I mean, as I was walking through the car park just kind of getting my shoes changed, I just heard someone come across and say oh, someone’s in with 100 points or something. Um, I didn’t seem feasible that.

Chris: 2:01

It’s a lot of points yeah it’s a lot of points, however, go on sorry. So what that? That? That turns out not to be true. So if you go on the website now you can see. So I think it was a. There was joint winners in with 98 points, so I mean, not a million miles short I mean, well, I’m uninitiated in this sort of stuff.

Nish: 2:18

So for somebody who doesn’t know how this kind of stuff works, I mean, what are we talking there then in terms of scoring?

Chris: 2:25

well, I mean, if you think about it what you’ve played to your handicap is 36 points, right, right. So you double that you get to 72. Yeah, and how yeah 72 72 points would be both both players playing to par, basically.

Nish: 2:41

So then we’re saying that the winning team then got another 26 points on top of that, so that over 18 holes means yeah, it means basically each of the players, each of the scoring players, was basically 13 on the par, basically for that round, which is Are we saying that’s legit?

Chris: 3:00

I mean, I think, whenever you play in any of these tournaments, there’s always scores like that Fudged handicap, I mean yeah.

Nish: 3:12

We can say it Basically yeah, of course.

Chris: 3:14

It is Like there’s no way that you’re scoring that well on every, like it’s so consistently good.

Nish: 3:21

You’re basically scoring two net birdies pretty much on every hole and I will say there’s no sour grapes of this, because we had no expectations, we didn’t give a shit we do.

Chris: 3:29

We didn’t know whether we won, lost, or we were just there to play golf.

Nish: 3:32

I just remember all four of us like we were incredulous when we heard the number. We’re like a hundred points, yeah. I mean, I think at this time we’re probably wounded because we thought we’d scored 68. We’re like, oh my god, that’s terrible I mean 70 is still quite embarrassing well, having said that, we got 70.

Chris: 3:47

And what if plenty handicapped two golfers would be 72, so that’s not yeah, crazy, but when you got, when you’re only picking two out of the four scores, it basically means you can have a load of crap holes and you just take your best.

Nish: 3:59

We were all equally terrible.

Chris: 4:01

Yeah, on the round, we the round. We were poor to a man, weren’t we Lovely, lovely yeah.

Nish: 4:07

That’s our first experience of playing an open competition. If anybody wants to give us a game, it’s easy pickings. We just won’t play for any money, but we will sum up our full day actually because we haven’t played well and we’ll add a little caveat to our review here. I suppose, yeah, that we felt it was we were struggling to unpick the quality of the course and how the overall review of the course is yeah against us playing yeah, toilet and I think I’ve been thinking about this kind of since we finished.

Chris: 4:40

I think when you go and play somewhere that’s just like really beautiful, and you go, oh, that’s, you know, a beautiful golf hole, or you’re in a beautiful surroundings and you play rubbish, it’s a lot easier to unpick that. I think where you go and play around somewhere, that’s a very kind of tactical, mechanical golf course, yeah, and you play badly. Yeah, I think you almost missed the point of the course and I think I said that to you afterwards, I think the day after we both came away and it’s fair to say, I think we both came away feeling Shit. No, I think that’s too strong. I think we both came away feeling a little bit underwhelmed by a West Lanx to an extent. Didn’t we About the course, which didn’t feel great because it’s a top 100 course, it’s obviously it’s, you know it’s it’s it’s held in high regard, right, it is the final open qualifying. Was there like two weeks?

Nish: 5:30

before we were there, so it was in immaculate condition yeah, it was beautiful.

Chris: 5:32

They had an open sign up that’s the first thing we saw.

Nish: 5:33

We turned around the corner like, oh, they’ve got the open signs up.

Chris: 5:35

This is amazing, yeah, so this isn’t like some mickey mouse, golf course.

Chris: 5:38

This is a proper, you know, up there top of the rankings links golf course, but I think sometimes, when I think, ultimately we played so badly that we kind of we missed the point of a lot of, because a lot of them are quite strategic in terms of their a lot, there’s a lot of dog legs in there, so you’ve got to kind of move the ball with the right shape or you’ve got to hit the right shot to give yourself the right angle. I mean, we were just like four fairways across most of the time, so you, we probably didn’t even see most of the holes.

Nish: 6:03

Speak for yourself, chris. I wasn’t that iron off the team, you on the other hand, however a testament to your recovery from there, though, because each time you went out wide like you still weren’t scoring disastrously on that hole, I don’t think my driving was too bad actually I think my driving was.

Chris: 6:21

You know, I am some of them.

Nish: 6:22

Yeah, there was a couple of the driving was probably we didn’t really get the driver out no, I didn’t get the driver out at all.

Chris: 6:27

I think maybe once there’s a couple of, that’s particularly the signature.

Nish: 6:29

I will get to the signature hole later, but that was a that was a rotter of a t-shirt on that signature hole challenge and then it was.

Chris: 6:34

There was, there was a few, there was a few shank shots, wasn’t it? The long lines took our t-shirts on the signature.

Nish: 6:39

Well, let’s cover the signature hole. Okay, it wasn’t really even a challenge, was it in the end? But not really we filmed.

Chris: 6:44

The only challenge was trying to film it right, because you stood up on the tee and you went 40 yards left of the fairway.

Nish: 6:50

It was a fairway bunker, chris, so technically I was in the fairway um, but I knew that would come back. It was in the confines of the hole, at least at that point.

Chris: 7:00

Okay, then yours went off to the right.

Nish: 7:02

Yeah, but then you, you said you you got a really good lie actually.

Chris: 7:05

So yeah, I mean, I was so far right that I was basically on the next, next kind of fairway. Nice bit of flat.

Nish: 7:09

Yeah, to play from, but, um, we filmed our t-shirts and we just went. Yeah, I don’t think we’re going to be able to film the rest of. Yeah, so the signature hole, we’ll do it now. It was the 13th hole. We both had a shot at it because it’s a relatively tough hole, because the green was pretty tricky on that one, wasn’t it, I mean yeah.

Chris: 7:32

You know, and I think that was fairly typical of a lot of the greens, wasn’t it Like you’ve got to hit a really good shot into it because the runoffs severe, and I mean ultimately a lot of them up on plateaus, aren’t they the?

Nish: 7:43

greens yeah, yeah, you can’t have to hit that, and there’s not, there’s not really there’s no bailout.

Chris: 7:48

I don’t think on many, on a lot of those holes, which makes it really tough and you’re not I think it was you’re not often hitting particularly short irons in either no, I think you’re not you’re usually a pretty.

Nish: 7:57

You know you’re in like a seven iron, or you know, or a five iron sometimes yeah so there’s some tricky, tricky holes in there yeah, I mean the green complexes, because the cookie jar golf podcast did say that they’re. They are mostly all raised. It’s like they make a big thing in the green complex.

Chris: 8:11

Yeah, I think the first kind of handfuls, first sort of four or five holes, are a bit flatter, weren’t? They and then beyond that, I think yeah, then you kind of get into the um, the territory of it being yeah much more raised and definitely difficult approach shots, sort of stand proud over the the rest of the terrain, don’t they?

Nish: 8:28

But, there’s definitely a lot of that’s unique. I’ve not come across that so far, and even in the ones that we’re going to play the rest of this year that hasn’t come across anywhere.

Chris: 8:36

No, not consistently like that. Yeah, that’s it.

Nish: 8:38

So there’s definitely some uniqueness on there and I think that there is a lot of thought clearly has gone into those green. I can’t believe you’re talking about nerding out on golf course because you can’t talk about our golf. It was so bad, we have to do this but um, there’s a, there’s thought going to those green complex.

Nish: 8:58

I can totally understand that oh yeah totally whether I agree with that or not. I suppose it’s a slightly different matter. But again, that’s separating bad golf from appreciating the golf course. So Chris won the signature hole challenge. Both got a stroke on it. He got five, I got a six.

Chris: 9:15

So it’s a fairly hollow victory, though after the tee shot, to be honest, it just felt awful really it was a beautiful hole, though to look at gorgeous hole there right up on the raised tee box.

Nish: 9:28

Yeah, you can see all that. You can see the ships going by yeah, in a farm and all that kind of stuff. So it was a beautiful tee box and that little stretch of hold that back. Nine, when you get to kind of 11, 12, yeah, I think 12 onwards.

Chris: 9:40

So 12 is a beautiful par three, isn’t?

Nish: 9:42

it. I think that’s the start of West Lancs proper.

Chris: 9:45

for me, that’s the bit that I enjoyed the most.

Nish: 9:46

We liked that, didn’t we? We liked that stretch. Yeah, we really liked that little stretch. I think we engaged a bit more in the round at that point.

Chris: 9:50

I think 12 through 16 was a really nice stretch for me. I enjoyed that the most. Yeah, definitely a lot of just like kind of left to right or right to left kind of dog legs.

Nish: 10:04

It felt fairly that that felt to me like there were. There were a lot of dog legs on that, golf course yeah that from my golfing, and my golfing is based around local clubs. You know we’re not talking about salubrious club yeah at all or anything like that. But we’re talking about your local. Paid 20, 30 quid for a round. Yeah, you get maybe two, three dog legs at most it felt like there were a lot, but west langston. Do you think that’s, that’s deliberate in terms of being a test of golf?

Chris: 10:36

absolutely, and I think that’s, you know, I think that’s why you’ve got the final open qualifying going on there, because there is a real need to hit the right shot and the right shape shot, to be in the right place to hit your next shot, and you kind of have to be in position to have any chance of going for those greens.

Chris: 10:50

Because if you’re out of position I mean there’s one I think it’s the seventh hole, which is a pretty short par four. I hit my, I hit a five wood out. I’m coming from the wrong angle. The green’s only what? 8, 10 yards deep, yeah, and beyond that. You’ve just got these massive drop offs.

Nish: 11:11

Yeah, so you’ve got so I thought it was a fairly good reason to be safe shot.

Chris: 11:15

But I actually got up to the green and it managed to sneak its way off the back. Because it’s such a small target, because you’re not, because you’re not coming from the right angle.

Nish: 11:23

Yeah, I think, it.

Chris: 11:24

So I think that’s the real challenge there is you have to be in position pretty much all the time.

Nish: 11:29

I think, yeah, there’s another one as well where I think, um, I’ll bring, I’ll bring this whole up for two reasons. Number one because of what you were just saying there, so there is actually a legitimate reason to bring this up. But the other one is because he got mentioned a lot in the preview episode. But paul hit a lovely three hybrid and I drove him with my five iron. So if you’re listening, paul, then it was my five iron. It was a pretty lazy five iron as well. I mean. That feels like a good.

Chris: 11:51

It’s a good moral victory. Well, yeah, a good point to maybe talk about the.

Nish: 11:57

About pulverizing Paul in the side bet. I think so, yeah in the side bet.

Chris: 12:00

Let’s talk about the side bet challenge. So our side bet was in the absence of Jim.

Nish: 12:05

Now, Jim would be relishing this right now Because we got a real flavour because we played with Paul a bit more recently, like I know what he’s like and he’s great. He’s great value. He’s consistent. But I can definitely tell when he was, a lot of him was definitely very competitive. Jim definitely corroborates that, but he didn’t know. But our side bet was that it was basically a three-way match play, wasn’t it? Yeah, it was whoever beat him on most holes then won, so beat is probably a kind word. Really, it was an absolute annihilation.

Chris: 12:38

You were four up, weren’t you Four up so?

Nish: 12:41

high on your face, paul, so you’re right for stealing the Nish Invitational trophy.

Chris: 12:46

Well done Chris, well done Thanks mate.

Nish: 12:48

Yeah, that would have been terrible if we’d have lost that.

Chris: 12:50

Yeah, absolutely terrible yeah.

Nish: 12:52

Yeah, I bring that hole up because that was definitely one. So I’d hit my five iron exactly where I wanted, between the two bunkers that I was aiming for, and it had ended up the what you’d call the rights, the correct side of the fairway. So it opened the hole up. Like I could see every bit of that green complex there was a bit. I think you were a little bit short before the turn, yeah, and then, yeah, I think you actually landed it on the green, but because it had to go really high up and sort of stop dead, it just trickled off the edge, yeah, and you just got no, I mean, from there, you’ve got no shot.

Chris: 13:26

Yeah, you’re at the mercy of the gods, aren’t you really?

Nish: 13:29

You know the green’s eight, ten feet above you, exactly right yeah, so you really do have to position it well, and that means being in control of your golf ball, which means that’s, you know, I’ve got, I’ve got a tough course, but I’ve got with a question mark on that because you, the way you play, probably makes it tougher than it is.

Chris: 13:47

yeah, absolutely, and you could, if you do have control of where the ball goes. I mean, that’s the links test, right yeah?

Nish: 13:54

yeah, you’ve got to be in control.

Chris: 13:55

If you’re not in control of it, you’re going to get punished, and that’s exactly what happened I’ll give you an example of links golf.

Nish: 13:59

Ladies and gentlemen, I hit a seven iron, 215 yards, just just to give you some context for that, just because it was a little bit lower than planned and it just scooted on and didn’t stop but a day, I suppose. I mean we talk about the, the course and and it’s okay, I’ll put toughness in in inverted commas you can, you can I think you can go out there and still have you know, can have a good scoring round.

Chris: 14:23

If you do have a plan, I think that course required I mean you had a plan, you had a plan written down, just a shit plan.

Nish: 14:30

You just execute it you can have any plan you want, but you have to execute it.

Chris: 14:36

How did that work for you? I?

Nish: 14:37

I liked the so basically what I’ve done and I think I will do this again because I did, I did quite like it. So I’d. Because I use my watch to to my scores and things, I don’t really pay attention much to the par of the hole. I don’t really take that and sometimes I even get to the green and go is this a par five or a par four? So I wrote myself a little list out each hole what my handicap par should be and then, because I think what I struggled with in a couple of courses is approaches into the green, now you have your yardage book and you look at that and I still could just buy that you can look at it on your watch If you don’t really get a feel. I don’t think until you visualize it, of what’s actually going on when you want to go.

Nish: 15:24

Now, like I say, that relies on me putting the ball where I need to put it. However, I felt good knowing that I could just look at something really quickly and it was like all the danger is short, so you need to. Going long is not safe, but it’s okay to go along because there’s not a bunker at the back yeah, yeah.

Chris: 15:37

So this is the whole. He’s got a chef, a thing, right. So you aim for the yeah safe, so aim for the safe zones. Correct, so that felt better.

Nish: 15:45

I think as a first I need to do it again because as a first go on that course it’s clearly not worse because I’ve not scored well at all and not played very well, but I don’t think that was that fault of that system. But it felt better knowing that I didn’t have that system in place. Yeah, so I’m going to create more work for myself for the next few rounds and see how it goes.

Nish: 16:06

But okay, I mean, we’ll see. We’ll see, I suppose. But yeah, the day sort of in general. Look we we have mentioned this a couple times, but we had classic standard, almost now top 110 golf weather. Yeah, we actually left stopport and it was chilly and overcast and we’re thinking I’ve got a sweater gilet on, yeah, I’m thinking it’s gonna be.

Chris: 16:29

I had to go and buy a hat in the pro shop because I’ve not brought a cat with me and I’ve got a fairly balding head these days, so uh, yeah we like, we get, we turn up.

Nish: 16:36

Obviously you’ve got your air-conditioned car, haven’t you?

Chris: 16:37

and it’s cold in the car, it’s just cold outside we got, we got out and we were like we were in jumpers and trousers and everyone else in there was in like shorts and t-shirts, like what’s what’s going on here? We’re only like you know, yeah yeah, they’ve got out.

Nish: 16:49

It’s like, oh my god, somebody’s turned the furnace. Like we’re in a furnace here, like it’s it was 15 degrees how was it baking? Absolutely boiling. We were at the point we were having lunch on the balcony and I had to go inside because it was warm I was like I need to get the air conditioning inside so we got amazing, amazing weather and the welcome from everybody there was wonderful, really, really friendly.

Nish: 17:11

The pros fantastic in the pro shop. The staff in the bar were amazing as well. Really looked after us like a proper good scouse.

Chris: 17:18

Welcome we got absolutely west lengths yeah and then we sort of.

Nish: 17:22

I think we were there about two and a half hours before our tea time. Yeah, so we got time for a nice leisurely lunch.

Chris: 17:28

Yeah.

Nish: 17:29

My bacon brie cranberry sandwich was fantastic.

Chris: 17:32

Yeah, it’s quite low key, wasn’t it? In terms of the club, like it’s a fairly impressive building, but in terms of and I think Matt said it it’s like I think he said that’s one of his, his favorite courses on that on that coastline, yeah, on that kind of golden coast, yeah, because the course does the talking. There’s no kind of like you know, there’s none of the kind of pompousness around the club. It’s just kind of it’s just there to go. Here you go.

Nish: 18:04

We’re a golf club and there’s none of the kind of other stuff on top of that that you get at some of the other kind of bigger clubs. We’ve sort of been talking about club websites and the feel that you get from it, yeah, and I’ve been getting a bit geeky about all of that. But West Lancs has a more traditional top-end golf course website. It does have that, which would immediately start pushing you down thinking that that’s then how the club is.

Chris: 18:21

Yeah.

Nish: 18:28

But it really wasn’t. No, it wasn’t getting that feeling at all like, and we’ve said this before about clubs.

Chris: 18:30

You sort of you walk in, you just get a vibe straight away, don’t you? And I suspect a lot of the, a lot of the members there are really good golfers I suspect they’re there for their golf and they’re there for the course and I suspect you’ve got a lot of yeah, scratch and, kind of like you know, young kids and stuff going out there playing golf I suspect a lot, a lot of membership is made up heavily laden trophy cabinet.

Nish: 18:45

So yeah, probably, I think you’re probably right there now we once we’d obviously done all of that. We then took advantage of the practice facilities. So they’ve got a an open air range.

Nish: 18:53

They’ve got a little short green yeah and a massive like practice green before you. Yeah, didn’t really set us up for going out there because it was pretty flat, the practice green and then you got out there and’t really set us up for going out there because it was pretty flat, the practice green and then you got out there and these little but the greens were interesting because there were subtle breaks everywhere. I thought, I never got a pace of them, but that’s quite rare for me.

Chris: 19:13

You struggled on the greens, didn’t you?

Nish: 19:14

You did, but that’s not the. They were immaculate. No, and the?

Chris: 19:18

point is I mean obviously. I mean obviously like Ganton Open Qualifying had been there a couple of weeks ago. They were slick and they were absolutely like carpets, weren’t?

Nish: 19:26

they, they were, they were Ganton-esque. The quality of those greens. They’re probably the best we’ve put it on.

Chris: 19:31

Yeah, I think. Yeah, not as quick as Ganton, but yeah, certainly is. Yeah, I think Ganton was still better. It was true, yeah.

Nish: 19:46

We sort of took advantage of all those kind of facilities and stuff like that.

Nish: 19:48

And then obviously we headed over and I didn’t know what was going on. Never played in any of these like open comps or anything like that. Yeah, zero clue. And we wrapped up and and uh, I’m like right, we’ll just sign in. He goes yeah, what, what name is it? And we’re off at 10 past four, whatever. And uh, then he said he said something and it was like this conversation was happening in greek and I had no idea what was going on.

Nish: 20:02

It was you and the pro and he was like so it’s 10 pound for your twos. And then there’s this and you’re like oh, I’m buying this. And I was like oh, I’m buying this. And then I was like 10 pounds for your twos you paid for our like golf for the christmas after we went. I know that’s going into the comp. That’s the prize money sort of whatever or the twos, twos comp.

Chris: 20:20

Yeah, yeah, if you two’s got, but I was like right, great, so towards out.

Nish: 20:23

I’m glad you’re here, chris, because I have no, no idea what you guys have just spoken about.

Chris: 20:26

It’s like some kind of code, secret golf code like a handshake.

Nish: 20:30

It’s like the mason’s handshake or something but we? We then went out after catching up with matt and paul and discussing strategy. We did none of that that’s how seriously we were taking it. Uh, but we got to the first tee and you know, by this time I’m already sweating buckets because I’ve got this sweater on and then and I sort of pull the sweater up, but I’ve got sweat patches everywhere. I’m committed, now I’ve got to stick with it can’t do anything about it.

Nish: 20:58

So, um, brian, who is the starter? So we must name check brian. He was fantastic because he just asked us straight out have you ever played here before? And we’re like well, matt has, but we haven’t, and he went right.

Chris: 21:09

Well, before Matt gets here, yeah yeah, here’s like seven or eight key points of what you need to get around. It was great, it was, and he was even like well, this hole you’re coming up.

Nish: 21:18

This is the eighth to see the green, but there’s a line. You pick that line, go for that one.

Chris: 21:21

Trust it all that kind of stuff great.

Nish: 21:23

You know he’s like. You’ll enjoy it. You’ll have a great time all this kind of stuff and it’s like again to to somebody who’s maybe played only a few top courses. You know, starters can be a bit intimidating. Some of them are like old boys, aren’t they? And you’re like, yeah, what are you doing on my course? You’re gonna wreck it and you’re worried about your t-shirt.

Chris: 21:41

I didn’t get that from Brian at all His was like I’m here to facilitate your day. I think most starters tend to be probably golfers who probably can’t play that much golf anymore, can’t play as much golf as they do and then they just want to be part of it. They want to be on the tee chatting to golfers and kind of on the course. This is going to be famous last words, dan Chris but I’ve gotten over on over first tee nerves.

Nish: 22:09

I’ve really gotten to the point where I don’t give a shit what anybody thinks. What happens in my first tee shot right. So that’s gone. The one time that we’ve been playing that I’ve felt a little bit under the pump. On the first tee yeah, was ganton, that old boy gave me oh, did it. Oh, vibes, vibes definitely that’s like because I think I took driver, so I was, at least I want to take well you wouldn’t appreciate taking a divot smashing two into the ghost.

Nish: 22:26

Yeah, and that’s why I didn’t take an iron off that first tea. I was like I don’t want to wreck this tea box, but um, but yeah, but like brian, it was almost like he was in our group, brian yeah, well, I did ask him if he’d come and carry for us, didn’t? He, but yeah, he wasn’t interested, he was very good he was, he had been out there for 10 hours already.

Chris: 22:40

Well, I know, yeah, he’d done the whole day he started at eight in the morning or something.

Nish: 22:43

He was out at four o’clock still. So, yeah, he was absolutely fantastic. And then, I think, just kind of final thing on the club, we said there is definitely a back nine we felt was a lot better than well, no, maybe a lot might be strong, but it was definitely better, it was more, it was more. There were more interesting holes, interesting features, and even when he did dog legs they weren’t like just a flat one, it was like you dip down first and then go back up.

Chris: 23:10

Yeah, a couple of blind tee shots and that kind of stuff as well. Yeah, yeah, quite. We liked that a little bit, didn’t we yeah?

Nish: 23:14

Yeah, and then we were having a chat about just on our way back and that was the sort of our difference in expectations of a course and it was an interesting point that came up for me, and it wasn’t anything we’d spoken about directly, but it was just how we were assessing the course. So we did both say that the course is great.

Nish: 23:35

It’s a great golf course, and it’s impeccably well manicured, yeah, impeccably well looked after, very highly regarded, yeah, and it is a proper challenge and test of your golf, absolutely yeah, the bunk we failed miserably, which we massively failed on the bunkers.

Nish: 23:50

Bunkering is becoming a thing on this podcast now, but I thought the bunkers were well placed, but they weren’t like intimidating bunkers. There was nothing there that you’re like oh my god, this is so deep, I can’t get out of the thing. No, but they’re all small, which I found gave you a high probability you’re going to have a bad stance, so I think I went in two bunkers, yeah me too one of them.

Chris: 24:11

I couldn’t even play out sideways because it had just gone in and just sat under the lip so I couldn’t even get my club to it so I just had to at least I just had to get it to go backwards, almost to get it to fall into the bunker.

Nish: 24:21

Yeah, yeah.

Chris: 24:22

I mean that’s. That’s the first time I can ever remember it took me three shots to get out of a bunker.

Nish: 24:26

I’ve never seen you need anything more than one shot to get out of a bunker. It’s very unusual. It never happens.

Chris: 24:30

Yeah, very unusual that was the first hole. What was?

Nish: 24:34

it. That was the first hole, brilliant, great start, like I think it’s. It was a really good, tough but fair, golf course. I think my overall thoughts were that there’s a lot of stuff that that club I don’t use, the club in the now general sense is doing really well. Atmosphere, vibe, welcome all that kind of stuff.

Chris: 25:00

Facilities yeah, I could imagine. I can definitely imagine being a member there.

Nish: 25:04

100, yeah, yeah, I couldn’t yeah, for sure, yeah, yeah um, but in terms, for me, the thing that this is going to sound really weird after what I’ve just said, but for me then what, let’s let it down was that I, the course for me was there was no highlights. Yeah, on that course there was a great stretch of holes and they were nice, but I think they were like there were three or four holes in isolation out of the 18 that didn’t like I wouldn’t nominate any holes from there for for dream 18 and there’s not really anything that are massive. I didn’t take many pictures.

Chris: 25:35

I think that tells you a lot yeah, about what I was about with that course it’s that age old thing, isn’t it? And I think like we differ in how we look at these courses, and often I’m there for the test and the challenge and you’re there for the, for the scenery and the and the and they’re for the valet parking. Chris, that’s absolutely but interestingly we both came away from that one, not not underwhelmed by any, by any means, but we didn’t come away going. Oh my god, that was, that was incredible.

Nish: 25:59

We’ve just done that classic british thing. Chris, where you go? I’m not gonna say it was underwhelmed but basically we’re saying we’re underwhelmed. I think we’re underwhelmed in that we um. I’ll explain how I felt about the underwhelming thing, because it’s that sounds like it’s a criticism of the course and it really isn’t.

Nish: 26:14

No, it’s not the course I felt um, as we were doing our chat about it, I felt really harsh on westlanks, yeah, by sort of saying I haven’t got any highlights for it. I think it’s a tough course and there’s this and this and this and it’s like no that. That, as you said, it’s like missing the point of the golf course. Yeah, I think so that that is designed to test your golf and your golfing ability. You pass or fail that test? Yeah, that’s basically it.

Chris: 26:37

Yeah, that’s not the course’s fault, that’s you as a player yeah, yeah, like I said to you, I think ultimately On the day, we weren’t good enough players to fully understand and accept the nuances of that. Golf course, yeah, exactly.

Nish: 26:54

There’s the phrase there we go. We didn’t absorb the nuances of that golf course, but I think, yeah, I’m not rushing back to play West Lancs. Yeah, that’s fair enough.

Chris: 27:04

I’d quite like to go back and play it again. Just better, trying to take it on. I wouldn’t mind having another little, another little go at it yeah what?

Nish: 27:09

there’s only been two rounds, really.

Chris: 27:11

That you what Sillith and this one maybe that you’ve really watched when it’s gone, actually, I really want another crack SNA.

Nish: 27:18

That was pretty bad as well yeah, actually you didn’t. That’s three out of ten, that’s three, that’s 30 percent. I need to find out what the frequency of this happening, chris because I can rig the compositions accordingly. Yeah, okay, but I think that’s for me personally, as now getting a podcast hat on, I think it’s good If we both thought the same thing.

Chris: 27:39

Yeah, absolutely. This becomes boring pretty quickly, doesn’t it? Yin and yang of the top 100 podcast, don’t we? We are.

Nish: 27:45

Who’s the yin and?

Chris: 27:46

who’s the yang?

Nish: 27:48

Let’s not go there. You’re the gin and I’m the. I’m just thinking of the symbol and how it fits together.

Chris: 27:53

No, I don’t want to do that.

Nish: 27:55

We’re happily married, but yeah, I think it’s a great healthy debate, that it really is yeah, because I think it’s the one that’s going to rumble on as well.

Chris: 28:03

Of course it will.

Nish: 28:04

All these courses, which is why we then adapted our own ratings, didn’t?

Chris: 28:07

we went we’re not going to agree on this, so we can’t say we’re going to place these courses, yeah, as a pair, together. We have to almost do it separately maybe we can come with a blended by the time we get to the all 100 done, we’re just going to have like a massive bonfire for what’s going to be number one, or do you think number one will just be like head and shoulders above?

Nish: 28:24

I don’t think it’ll, because jim’s got long arms. He’ll be able to keep us, but I think I think we’ll get to the end and I think we will have vastly different I’m not going to say the top 10, I think the top 10 I’ll. I’m going to guess it’s probably going to be relatively similar because we’re going to yet to hit the real big years, right? Yeah, I think so, and a lot of that you know. Like you go to saint andrews, yeah, it’s going to be special as much as there’s the course and everything like that. But actually, you know, everybody I’ve spoken to in scotland is like, oh yeah, saint andrews, homer golf, whatever. But there are better courses. Like, yeah, great, but you can’t ignore. Yeah, this is the homer golf, you’re playing saint andrews and you know you’re teeing off over the hotel you can’t ignore that.

Nish: 29:08

No, you can’t but so I think those things are probably sitting. I think the interesting places for me are going to be that maybe 11 down to maybe 30, yeah, because that’s, I think, where our real preferences will come in.

Chris: 29:21

I think it’s going to be like real, a real flip there. Yeah, you might be right. Yeah, which would be fascinating. Yeah, that’s, that’s the.

Nish: 29:28

It could be like a eight episode review pod. Where do you score it? But what I mean wonderful, how wonderful is it that we’ve we hit a milestone. It’s our 10th course, yeah. Yeah, feels, serious, feels grown up now, like we’re in, we’re into the meat of the challenge kind of thing, and it was like it’s really interesting how I think I’d love to go and I should do it go listen to our first reviews and how much probably our chat is evolving into a real appraisal of that gold.

Nish: 30:00

Yeah, so sorry, it’s not what we’re about yeah, no, we need to bring the banter back. Uh, right, okay, okay, look, that’s us done with our Open. We should talk about the Open which is just finished.

Chris: 30:15

a couple of hours ago.

Nish: 30:16

Not the British Open, as it’s called sometimes in other parts of the world. It’s the Open, the original one, where it all starts, at the Grand Alley of them all. And when was the last time you didn’t watch the full final round of the Open, chris?

Chris: 30:33

I don’t know, Probably a little while ago to be honest A long time ago.

Nish: 30:37

It’s a day in your sporting calendar, yeah you’d normally set the day aside, wouldn’t you?

Chris: 30:40

To be like, right, I’m going to watch the final day. I didn’t watch it, I mean, and I had a free day today and I didn’t watch it. I watched little snippets of it I suspect the reasons might be slightly different. Okay.

Nish: 30:52

I think yours was from a golf perspective.

Chris: 30:56

I mean, yeah, ultimately there needs to be competition, right? There’s no exciting about that was there, yeah, to make it exciting, and it didn’t feel like there was ever going to be any level of competition until that final day.

Nish: 31:05

Scott Scheffler, the golf robot. Yeah, he isn’t, though isn’t he such a nice guy? He’s a likeable chap, do you?

Chris: 31:11

know what? The only the bit that I did watch today was the like the presentation, and it, it, just it. He just doesn’t make you feel like he wants it and all the stuff that he said.

Nish: 31:23

I thought about that quite a lot on the coverage afterwards actually. Yeah, like it, just it doesn’t like you don’t go.

Chris: 31:28

Oh, I’m so glad he won. Like it doesn’t give you that feeling at all. It’s like he’s the world number one, so he should win.

Nish: 31:33

I’m glad he won for two reasons. Number one he’s a nice guy and it’s good that nice guys do it all right. Yeah, and he appreciates his brought up on a diet of tiger woods which is like I mean you need that bit like come on thing is, you’re just so consistent that it’s just well.

Nish: 31:50

It’s a bit dumb to watch, but then the other thing I want to see it you want to see a mistake and a unique swing and yeah, and you know foot, footwork and all this kind of stuff and you’re like that’s great, that’s good for for all the hackers out there who’ve got a unique swing because we’ve never had any lessons and all this sort of stuff. But yeah, I’m not excited by him fail. It’s failed to warm to him properly, don’t you? Yeah?

Chris: 32:11

it’s. I think you appreciate him and you appreciate how like I mean. How good is he? I mean he’s just got that ball on a string and around links of course he’s like. I mean he had his putting boots on obviously for the first time on a links course and he just absolutely annihilated the field.

Nish: 32:23

Yeah yeah, I mean, that’s why mackaroy’s box office isn’t he, because there’s a bit of heart on his sleeve.

Chris: 32:28

Yeah, and he’s going to make some mistakes.

Nish: 32:30

Feist in us?

Chris: 32:30

Yeah, and he’s going to boom some 370-yard drives, 390-yard drives, do you know what we’re going to find out?

Nish: 32:36

I was saying to Emma today. So she was like married to my childhood sweetheart, I’ve been best friends since high school. Whatever, I’m a bit meh, I went, but probably in 15 years we’ll find out like what?

Chris: 32:50

like we did with tiger woods yeah, probably that’s when everything will change again yeah, yeah, it was.

Chris: 32:57

Yeah, I mean, I mean at least like tiger was a bit like that in terms of he was kind of robotic, in terms of like he would never you know he wasn’t going around high-fiving people and fist-bumping people but, like you absolutely knew 100% that all he was out there was that he was out there to win and he wanted to win every single tournament that he won. And you’re like you’ve got to respect that, haven’t you? You’ve got to respect that. He’s putting, you know, he’s basically putting his entire life to one side to say I am going to be the best golfer. Scottish F has just got both somehow, which almost feels a bit unfair.

Nish: 33:27

It’s a bit unfair. Yeah, yeah, he doesn’t put all that pressure on himself.

Chris: 33:31

He just goes and overrides everyone at the Open Maybe that’s what we need to do.

Nish: 33:34

So we talked a little bit before we came on the episode and because we’ve just had the US Open and we’ve had the Open back to back, we had this one, which was a processionion can we just have a little as we’re doing the top 100 podcast?

Chris: 33:50

can we just have a little word for port rush, though? How good did port?

Nish: 33:53

it looks absolutely freaking amazing. I think that’s probably the one that I’m most excited about playing you said to me in the car you said uh, on the way over to west lancashire like port rush. Is the reason that?

Chris: 34:03

yeah, I mean, this is the reason that I started looking at all these top 100 courses because I went to Port Rush and I just stood over above it. We drove over above it and I stopped, got out the car and looked down on it from the road and I was like, oh my God.

Nish: 34:17

That is physically looked down on it, not metaphorically looked down. I looked down on Royal Port Rush.

Chris: 34:22

That’ll be once I’ve played it and I can look down and go well, shot 62.

Nish: 34:25

It looks pretty easy on the TV, mate. So you know what was it? Calamity Corner, yeah, whatever. Yeah, I mean, it looks stunning. Yeah, and even though these guys were absolutely ripping it up, yeah, it did. Just, that’s not going to be us. No, you just knew. Yeah, that’s why we are doing this. Yeah, to get that stand on a tee and go. Yeah, oh yeah. And what is port? I don’t even know what port rush is ranked on our thing, but it’s in the top 20, isn’t it?

Chris: 35:01

it’s in the top three or four, I think, yeah, I think it is, isn’t it?

Nish: 35:05

yeah, no, because it’s no, it’s sixth, it’s ranked sixth, so it’s only really bettered by County Down, st Andrews, muirfield, turnberry, turnberry that’s it, isn’t it, muirfield? Turnberry County, down St Andrews. Yeah, yeah, amazing. I mean, what company for that? For that, golf course so yeah, fantastic. Yeah, I’m really looking forward to that. So that’ll be, that’ll be good, good part of an Irish trip. But any other thoughts on any of the days that we’ve had now? They probably did get it a bit easy.

Chris: 35:36

They didn’t get the wind yeah, exactly yeah, they’ve not had. They’ve not had a true Lynx test, I think, because they’ve had it latched it down.

Nish: 35:43

You can have rain, can’t you? You can deal with that.

Chris: 35:45

Yeah, I mean you’ve got a caddy. Dealing with rain is not like when you go out on your own and your gloves are piss wet through.

Nish: 35:50

Sponsors who give them a glove for every shot, sort of thing. So the rain isn’t that much of a.

Chris: 35:56

Ultimately, the rain helps them because it becomes more receptive, right? So I think.

Nish: 36:01

When I played in lashing down rain last week it was, and I’ve got like one white leather glove. Everything’s still wet when you play two days later. Yeah, that was it, yeah it took two days for my shoes to dry out and I’m just like I’ve got to protect this one glove that I’ve got Otherwise. I’m playing without it. Yeah, they don’t have any of that, do they? But I suppose? Well, I mean, day one and two were kind of no-transcript, just kind of yeah, yeah, yeah, we got scott ruined the competition a bit.

Nish: 36:40

Yeah, stop winning scottie. We don’t, we don’t like it and then I was, I was I think I read a post on instagram or something like that, and somebody said this might be the first year in decades that I’m not going to watch the final round and that was when brian harman was leading and he said I’ve got nothing against brian harman yeah you know, credit to you, whatever he goes, but I cannot stand watching him over a golf ball with all them.

Nish: 37:07

I can’t, I can’t watch it, just can’t watch it. But yeah, there was sort of those same figures were like emerging, weren’t they? And then suddenly Scotty just goes. Nah, this is mine, I’ve got it.

Chris: 37:18

I think I’d almost watched. I’d almost rather watch like an 18 handicap go and play around a golf than someone that’s just got so much control over a golf course that it just becomes dull. Do you know what I mean? There needs to be some kind of level of jeopardy.

Nish: 37:32

You made a point. That has been something that a lot of people are talking about in the world of golf right now. Right, and that is what is more entertaining to golf fans right now. Is it tournament golf? Yeah, or is it tournament golf, yeah. Or is it youtube golf, where you’re watching players who are, you know, high singles handicap to maybe 18 handicap? Yeah, they’re playing decent golf courses because they get invited on whatever. Yeah, and you’re watching real, real play?

Chris: 38:05

yeah, you know, and I mean I think people have a laugh. It’s interesting because, ultimately, what you want to see is you want to see that competitive combat, that element of two guys going at each other, and when that’s not there, all of a sudden, golf is pretty dull to watch at that level because you’re just like oh yeah, he’s in the middle of another green.

Nish: 38:23

Exactly.

Chris: 38:25

He’s put it in or he’s two put.

Nish: 38:27

You were watching those last four holes there was no point where I mean the commentators have got to do their best, haven’t they? To try and feel like they’re ramping it up and building excitement but you know they were just like oh and so there’s pressure on his. He’s like there’s not. He’s four shots clear, like I say, he’s got the ball on like the worst that’s going to happen. He might get one bogey, yeah.

Chris: 38:47

I think he made a double, didn’t he? Oh yeah, he went in the bunker and made a double, but beyond that, and he just made a birdie on the next hole and that was back to I might have done a U-turn on my thoughts on the US Open with how they tricked up that goal.

Nish: 39:00

Of course because that could give us a some excitement and the players were bunched together and you didn’t know who was going to win, and JJ Spawn came out on top but then you know, this could have equally happened around there, couldn’t it?

Nish: 39:11

I don’t know, fans that’s what you need a load of fans right near the green blowing the ball off. Just go. No, sorry you might hit the green, but it’s off now. So Bernie Ecclestone style sprinklers on the F1 track. So yeah, I mean they were our thoughts in the open really A bit gutted. I suppose because it’s our showpiece, it’s our thing, it’s our like bit of history on stamp on golf. It’s not putting me off wanting to go to Birtdale actually.

Chris: 39:41

It was a shame, though, wasn’t it, because there was so many great players up there as well that it could have been such a great contest Could have great players up there as well that it could have been such a great contest, but it didn’t quite pan out that way.

Nish: 39:49

It’s interesting that you take Scheffler’s score out of it, and then there’s a massive bunch of players sort of 13 under, 12 under, 11 under.

Chris: 39:54

I’ll tell you what talking about taking scores out of it. Word for Bryce DeChambeau.

Nish: 39:59

He’s 7 over after day 1 and then comes back 9 or 10 under.

Chris: 40:02

I think he finished. Yeah, yeah, actually he’d have been in the mix, right, he’d have been.

Nish: 40:06

He’d have been the leader pretty much and again he you know come back with all that sort of chat. You know he he’s somebody that divided opinion at the start. It’s probably winning a lot of people back and probably would have been a very, very popular winner if he’d have gone on and won that yeah I mean if you wouldn’t have to shooting seven over a day, exactly, fair play, fair play to him.

Nish: 40:24

I, I’m I’m really beginning to like the guy. Still don’t like his golf swing, but I like the guy as a golfer. But wonderful, I think we’re all done with that. Now, before we sign off, we’ve got a massive favour to ask you, our loyal listeners. We’re going up for a People’s Choice Award in the British Podcast Awards and we would love to get nominated and take on some of the real big boys in our industry. So these awards are usually always won by kind of agency run podcasts and podcasts that have massive marketing budgets.

Nish: 41:03

We do all of this ourselves. We do all of our editing, all of our production, all of our recording. It’s all done in each of the kitchens, in our spare time, and we love to fly the flag for independent podcasts. So if we could really trouble you for a nomination, it takes less than a minute to do. We will drop a link in the episode description if you just follow through to that. You register your email address, make sure you tick to not receive the marketing communications, because we don’t want you to get spammed, and then you just vote. Search top 110 for the podcast you want to vote for. Pop your vote in and it would be amazing if we could even get a nomination, that would be unbelievable. So we could just ask you for that small favor today, 30 seconds of your time. We would absolutely love it and let’s hope we get a nomination next time. The top 100 in 10 golf podcast we’ll be previewing cruden bay golf club, which we’re playing as part of a little triple header scottish trip.