The Cradle Of Golf – Gullane Golf Club Preview

Nish: 0:00

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, I’m Jim and we’re here to guide you through this golfing journey. This is the Top 100 in 10 Golf Podcast, episode 40, the Cradle of Golf, gullane no 1 Golf Club Preview. So every now and again you go back to the beginning, and this parcel of Linksland has been home to golf since the 1600s, I believe. Is it 1650, 1650?

Chris: 0:31

I believe yeah which is crazy. That’s pretty old crazy that it’s like all of the cromwell kind of vibes, isn’t it that sort of time?

Nish: 0:42

I mean, that’s a that’s a long time ago, right cromwell vibes what the fuck time ago, right Cromwell vibes, what the?

Jim: 0:46

fuck is that?

Nish: 0:46

Are you getting? Cromwell vibes we’re trying to get down with the kids.

Chris: 0:48

No, I didn’t go here. What is?

Jim: 0:50

a Cromwell vibe, but okay.

Nish: 0:55

So we’re playing golf in a village of Gullane, even though that’s not quite how it’s spelt.

Chris: 1:01

It’s not pronounced like that, either is it Gullan. So I mean, I’m personally, I’m sticking to this. I would pronounce it Gullane. Yeah, which seems like a sensible option. Yeah, I’m sticking to my guns there, but that’s literally the only version that is not acceptable by the sounds of it, you could interview the general manager. Yeah, I’ll do that so it sounds like we’ve got Gullin, gullin, gullin, gullin, gullin. Oh my goodness, gullan, gullan, gullan, gullan, but not Gullain. No, gullain Gullain’s not on the list, I’m afraid.

Nish: 1:36

Oh man, the only pronunciation that seems to make sense is not included in that? Yeah, yeah, okay. Well, look, it’s called the Village of Golf, this place. It’s got 4,000 inhabitants. That’s it, yeah, and it’s all about. And you’ve pissed off all of them.

Jim: 1:52

Yeah, we’ve annoyed every single one of them.

Chris: 1:54

That dodgy English pronunciation.

Nish: 1:56

Gullan Golf Club has got these three courses which we’ll sort of get into a little little bit, but they back on to muirfield, which everybody that I’ve spoken to up in scotland says is the best golf course in scotland.

Chris: 2:12

Yeah, and unless you’re from st andrews, I mean. Yeah, that sounds like a pretty controversial point, to be honest.

Nish: 2:15

Even that though you know, even like people, they’re like it’s not the greatest course, but it’s the home of golf sort of thing, and it’s like so you’ve got muirfield there, and then you’ve got luffness as well, like right by. And it’s like so you’ve got Muirfield there, and then you’ve got is it Lough Ness?

Chris: 2:25

as well like right by. So it’s like five or six North Berwick, just around the corner North Berwick this is like hallowed Scottish golf turf.

Nish: 2:33

It’s like pilgrimage sort of place. This, yeah, yeah so I’m looking with Prices to Boot, yeah, so I just feel like a bit of a special golf experience.

Chris: 2:41

Actually, this it’s also completely by accident yeah, completely by accident, but it’s one of those ones that is, like you say, from like the village it’s like one of those old school links is where you’re actually. You’re teeing off from kind of in and around the village, which I’m looking forward to, because we’ve not really done one of them yet. No, no there’s not really that many of them on it’s a I’m not going to say it’s odd, because it’s, this is it.

Nish: 3:04

This is like proper grassroots Scottish golf, almost you know, but it is Proper Links golf, proper Links golf.

Chris: 3:11

Yeah, yeah, but like the golf is basically the town, isn’t it? It’s like St Andrews style or the Dublin Island, I think, isn’t it when you’re teeing off from within the village.

Jim: 3:27

Now the club actually have been fantastic in engaging with us and it came about by accident, because we originally had. You were meant to play Trump International, weren’t you Trump International?

Nish: 3:29

yeah, and we got trumped. We got trumped Not the first person to say that.

Chris: 3:35

No, yeah, so they need to counsel on us.

Jim: 3:37

So I think there’s about five billion people around the world, Actually more than five billion people around the world have been pot playing.

Nish: 3:45

Yeah, 5 billion room around the world and be pop playing, yeah, and I was sort of scrabbling around to try and find another place to play and I think Chris just sort of said I think I said this is the only one in the area that’s bookable online, so they’ve got a tea time, let’s try and do it. I did it for two days, looked online again and it all very for me.

Jim: 4:06

And then looked again and it had all gone.

Chris: 4:07

I thought every minute that’s not my forte, that Jim once I’ve done something. I’ve ticked it off the list. That’s it. It’s gone.

Nish: 4:12

I know I’m on safe ground.

Jim: 4:13

I’ve forgotten the stuff to do.

Nish: 4:15

Chris has forgotten about it. He doesn’t even know that he asked me to do it yeah, that’s it, it’s gone, but I list it’s gone, uh, but I I decided to ring up. I did it.

Jim: 4:24

Old school, I was inspired how did they pronounce it when they said well, good, that’s how it started.

Nish: 4:30

That’s how the whole pronunciation thing started. So a lovely lady called lisa picked up the phone and she said hello, gulland golf club. Lisa speaking, how can I help you? And I was like hello, okay, so it’s Gullen is it? And she went yeah, yeah, that’s how you say it. I was like okay, great fine are you sure it’s not Gullane? But she was brilliant on the phone and it was. If you’re looking online and you’re trying to play Gullen and you don’t see your you don’t see your tea, don’t see your uh tea time.

Nish: 5:06

Give them a call, it’s well worth it. She had loads of tea times. She just like listed them all. I was like, roughly what time would you like to play? Then gave me five choices, sort of thing. I was like, okay, this is great. But she did the whole sort of booking procedure and I got the kind of the patter about you know, do you need anything like, do you need tronies, need clubs, do you need a caddy? All this kind of stuff. And that’s when I sort of said to her well, no, no, you know, we actually got all of that because we’re doing a three-day trip and we do a podcast. You went oh, my sales manager is sat right next to me. Maybe you can have a little chat with him. So, lovely chap called dylan uh had a chat with him and he’s made himself available for an interview, which is going to be fantastic. So we will have, hopefully, some good content from Ghislaine from that.

Jim: 5:50

I’m happy to call it Ghislaine to be honest, ghislaine, it just looks wrong.

Nish: 5:54

Are you going to have the Not on the day?

Chris: 5:56

I’m not, it was going to save the ball to that when you cross the border into Scotland. You’re doing that, Chris.

Nish: 6:02

Welcome to Ghislaine. So that’s how the kind of booking came about. Yeah, it was a lovely, pleasant experience doing that, and I do thoroughly recommend Rigi, because sometimes you get a bit obsessed with just going. I’ll just book it online and it’s easy to do. But yeah, cruden Bay, you had to contact them. That’s a lovely way of doing it, isn’t?

Chris: 6:20

it. Yeah, absolutely, somebody guides you through it.

Nish: 6:25

It’s so um, it feels old-fashioned and traditional, but it’s what you used to do about five years ago. Like you almost didn’t have any pre-covid, there was no, hardly any online booking. It was all just like you ring up the, ring up the pro shop and book your tea time yeah, I mean, I still just write letters to most people yeah, yes, I carry a pigeon, yeah yeah, put my little seal of a seal of approval, get a wax seal out and off it goes with ringing up.

Nish: 6:46

If you, if you, if you book it online, you have to pay usually don’t you for your tea time. If you ring up the pro shop and book a tea time, you never have to pay. You pay it on the day.

Jim: 6:54

Top tip for scroungers yeah, anyway, money saving, diner dashes, you know martin lewis money saving tips there.

Nish: 7:02

Uh, now okay, so let’s not go there.

Jim: 7:04

Nish, what’s happened to Martin Lewis? Oh, no, no, no, it’s just.

Nish: 7:07

You think he’s God, I do like Martin Lewis, to be fair Of all the people that are getting knighthoods.

Jim: 7:13

He deserves one. Oh, he’s giving me some advice. I’ll just go on Martin Lewis’ website.

Chris: 7:17

Jim, I’ve built my entire career around giving people financial. Go to some dude off a telly telling you how to get your electricity before be cheap I’d give him a night out over anybody else.

Nish: 7:26

Some of those other useless people getting it. Uh, now the um controversial, a bit of club history joke. So gulland number one, which is the original course they’re, they’re all. They’re numbered in order of when they were designed. But gulland number one, nobody actually knows the set date of when it was done and who the designer was.

Chris: 7:44

I mean, that’s the designer was lost in time. Lost in time, yeah, he was like 17, yeah, 16.

Nish: 7:49

He bumped off after they’d done the course. It was like nah, that’s it, you’re off.

Chris: 7:53

I mean that’s just a testament to just how old, how old, this place is seriously old, full on.

Nish: 8:00

only to Muirfield for the number of tour events it’s hosted. Again, I didn’t know that. I hadn’t really heard of Gullan no 1 until the list comes out. Well, neither have I, because it’s called Gullane.

Chris: 8:13

Oh, do you mean Gullane no 1, right, yeah, sure.

Nish: 8:18

But they were seeing something that they reckon that. So 1650 was this sort of rough date, wasn’t it? But that would have been golf as we know it right, because that’s probably only been since about the mid 1700s or something like that.

Jim: 8:33

I’m not sure, probably a bit later than that.

Nish: 8:34

I would have thought as well yeah, I mean they’re saying that they reckon that around about 1800 was one of those first actual record of golf actually being played yeah, and 18 record of golf actually being played.

Jim: 8:44

Yeah, I’m 18 holes and in the. Yeah, I think I’ve got the I think I’ve got it’s 1898.

Nish: 8:48

Uh, willie park jr changed the layout to 18 holes. He was the current rate. He was the reigning open champion at the time yeah, well read, but chat gpt’s got this is from their website, so I suppose you know. I don’t know about the veracity of this, but they say it’s the oldest golf club in existence, which was the Dirleton Castle Golf Club, which played golf over the links of.

Chris: 9:16

Gullen. There’s a lot of competition isn’t there in Scotland, I’ve noticed.

Nish: 9:19

Who’s the oldest?

Chris: 9:20

As we’ve kind of ventured up into Scotland. There is a lot of competition as to who’s the oldest, and everyone wants to lay claim to it, and there’s also there’s a lot of dispute in there as well, isn’t there? No one knows it so well. Yeah, exactly yeah.

Nish: 9:30

And the dates don’t sometimes corroborate each other.

Chris: 9:33

You’re just like okay, yeah, that’s what.

Nish: 9:34

I’ve been. I have to give the disclaimer of where be cross-referencing that sort of stuff. So, yeah, maybe, maybe lisa jumped onto wikipedia straight away just like built the profile out and had an extra 200 years and sent it.

Nish: 9:49

Yeah, but then gulland golf club was actually instituted in 1882. Formally oh, it was 1884, sorry. It became 18 holes and then it was that 1898, willie park junior was was asked to design the second, so number two. So they know the date of that and the designer of that, but they don’t know about number one, which is helpful because we’re playing number one. It’s great.

Jim: 10:11

This adds to the mystery, I think.

Nish: 10:14

Yeah, yeah, it’s like a magical mystery.

Jim: 10:16

Who done it? Agatha Christie? Who done it? Who?

Nish: 10:18

done it who made this course.

Jim: 10:21

Yeah.

Nish: 10:26

Yeah, I mean mystery. Nobody cares, do they? Why are?

Jim: 10:30

you talking about it, then it looks fabulous, though it looks absolutely stunning, actually.

Chris: 10:34

It really really does Classic rippled fairways and all that kind of thing. I think the thing that takes it for me in terms of views looks like there’s views kind of over the sea and over into Edinburgh so you can see kind of Arthur’s seat and stuff in the hopefully there’s fires in the distance yeah, fires, did you say fires?

Nish: 10:52

there’s been fires up there as well, arthur’s seat. They are following us around at the minute. Yeah, I mean, we didn’t see any evidence of fire at Hancock. Common fires in and around Edinburgh? Yep crikey, a lovely heat wave is going to help for that isn’t it?

Chris: 11:07

and then the closest we got to a fire, something being on fire was your pudding. To be fair, your pudding was on fire that day. It was, frankly, take that out no, take that I’m not editing that?

Nish: 11:18

no, edit that out. That’s going to be the main clip. Now you’re gonna hand over the controls for me to edit this episode. I will. You’ve got not a clue how to edit this episode and I take it, yours wasn’t it was all right, all right

Nish: 11:32

yeah we don’t know. There’s a little bit of smoke, there was a, there was a lot of stuff going on a lot of people shouting things. Uh. More recent history for gullen, which, which might resonate with our listeners a little bit more, would be in 2013, an 18 year old Matt Fitzpatrick finished runner up in final open qualifying there so that’s more sort of recent history, player wise.

Nish: 11:54

And then they had the Scottish Open in 2015 and also 2018, but in 2015 it was Ricky Fowler, so the listeners stateside will obviously know him. Well, we all know him. But yeah, he, he won. Was that probably his last tournament win?

Chris: 12:09

It’s not usually in the winner’s circle, is it Ricky Fowler?

Jim: 12:11

It’s been a while. He’s quite effusive about the course as well and I think a lot of pro golfers who have played there, and maybe the Scottish Open, have thought what a wonderful course, challenge and warm-up for the, the british open yeah, the open, the open.

Nish: 12:25

There’s no british in there, it’s just the open, yeah, so that’s kind of a little bit of history and I’m looking forward to the fact that we’re going to go into. It’s a small place kind of. You know. I mean, abu dhabi probably didn’t have more than two, three thousand inhabitants, did it really?

Chris: 12:42

yeah, yeah, in terms of the village, I mean, yeah, we didn’t really go into the village much as such, but I think this front, left and centre, isn’t it? You’re already there when you’re on the first take and everything there’s three golf courses.

Nish: 12:53

Yeah, so I am looking, I’m looking forward to that. Hopefully we’ll get time to visit and that is next to the main pro shop. They’ve got the Heritage of Golf Museum which is run by the head professional and it’s just a treasure trove apparently of little golf artifacts and things like that and it’s well worth apparently dipping your head in just to have a little look.

Jim: 13:16

They’ve got the old hickory clubs we’re going to miss our tea time aren’t we? I’m going to say you have to do it afterwards and you have to put a time limit on it.

Chris: 13:23

What’s that time limit, like 20 minutes?

Nish: 13:30

You can interview Dylan, I’ll interview you and I’ll go and have a look at the Heritage Museum. Just hear it Look at this Amazing. Chris will come out. Two black eyes calling it glane all the time. Yeah, so that’s a little bit about history and the actual club course. What else do you guys know?

Chris: 13:52

I know that Bernard Darwin described Gullen Hill as one of the most beautiful places in the world. In the world, so not even a golf thing, just the most beautiful place in the world.

Nish: 14:03

Bernie Darwin. I should get the book out already, shouldn’t I?

Chris: 14:06

You mean you’ve not read it?

Nish: 14:08

It’s difficult to read. You know, the language is like English. You could do better with shakespearean, to be honest is it quite old?

Chris: 14:16

oldie world, really oldie world.

Nish: 14:17

You kind of read it going. That makes no sense. That as a sentence. You know I did english lit full-on. We read all sorts of weird and wonderful books at our school but yeah, some of it doesn’t make any sense. And then somebody like you realize there’s a golf book like why are you not describing anything about the golf?

Jim: 14:35

Some guy in a pub or something like that.

Chris: 14:38

Fantastic.

Nish: 14:39

Yeah, old Bernie Darwin, he’s following us around a little bit, isn’t he Guess who’s back. It’s ranked 64 on our rankings, this one 61. Is it?

Chris: 14:48

61? Currently, currently, yeah, so on our list it’s 64.

Nish: 14:51

Is it 61? Currently?

Chris: 14:50

Currently yeah, so on our list it’s 64. Yeah, yeah.

Nish: 14:53

So what’s around it in terms, of course, that we’ve played so far 64. I’m not sure if we’ve hit anything in the 60s.

Chris: 15:00

Yeah, I’m not sure we have actually We’ve done a couple.

Nish: 15:03

Royal St Davies was in the 70s, wasn’t it? I think, yeah, I thought it, yeah, yeah, then you’ve got.

Jim: 15:08

No, you haven’t got anything else in the 60s. Actually I thought you had, but no.

Nish: 15:19

Yeah, I don’t think we’ve played anything in the 60s yet. What about late 70s?

Jim: 15:26

Royal St David’s. There Was that 78 or something. Glen Eagles that’s 79. got Gleneagles. Queen’s Course 77.

Chris: 15:36

Right, Just makes you realise how many we’ve not actually played when you look at them around and thinking, ooh that’s a new one. Of the list going out. She’s not played any of these.

Nish: 15:45

Yeah, none of those, and I’m going to give you a it’s not, this isn’t a strange rule, but it’s a rule at Gulland number one nonetheless. But alcohol is not permitted on any of the three courses. Like, actually explicitly not permitted. Wow, that’s the first time I’ve seen that as a rule, sounds very un-Scottish. Yeah, well yeah, exactly.

Chris: 16:08

But surely, like golf, was invented around like little nipper whiskey in your pocket, you’ve got to be drunk to invent that game, really haven’t you.

Nish: 16:17

We’ll put something 500 yards away and make it tiny so you can’t see it. And then we’re going to get a really thin stick and a ball that’s going to be really hard to hit.

Chris: 16:24

You’ve got to get that ball into that hole In the cold, wet winds of Scotland yeah in the lowest number of shots Madness, absolute madness.

Nish: 16:31

Scotland, yeah, in the lowest number of shots. That’s madness, absolute madness. But yeah, alcohol is not permitted.

Jim: 16:35

I think it might be something in relation to the pace of play, because Gillen is renowned for ready golf and it’s quick pace of play, oh dear whoever’s behind you, oh dear.

Chris: 16:46

Indeed, we encourage our it’s the first one we’ve played in a long time. Actually, it’s not been a team for a while, yeah.

Nish: 16:53

Well, glen Eagles yeah, pretty much yeah. Queens. That went well, though, didn’t it? And the clubhouse looks pretty iconic the way it’s all done. It’s like an old white building. It’s got a bit of a traditional sort of feel to it, so that’d be quite nice. One other sort of feel to it, so that’d be, that’d be quite nice. Um, one other general observation I’ve got over here is there is not a single online review under four or five out of five.

Chris: 17:21

There’s not a single one anywhere on the internet nowhere, nowhere, nowhere everyone’s just like.

Nish: 17:25

This is an amazing place to play golf even the I’ve never played there, so I’m going to give it a one.

Chris: 17:29

All that kind of nonsense, yeah not a neighboring course, you didn’t tell me they were playing golf, yeah, yeah yeah, the chips were a bit soggy, you know just nothing.

Nish: 17:36

It’s all just four and five out of five. So, and that that sets us, sets it apart a bit, I think not seeing that yet, and they’ve got something called an infinity green on the eighth infinity green.

Chris: 17:50

But what on earth is an infinity green? I assume it’s like an infinity pool, right? So you’ve got the green going up to the sea and you just see the sea. See the sea. Yeah, I think I’ve heard that term somewhere else before as well Infinity green. I think that’s exactly what it is, yeah, or maybe it’s just a really, really, really yeah, and they say you’re not allowed to drink on this thing.

Nish: 18:12

Somebody saw a green going all the way out.

Chris: 18:14

Yeah, fine, not to drink, but other things are encouraged.

Nish: 18:17

Yeah, that’s it. Holes of names.

Chris: 18:21

They’ve all got a proper full-on name, Even though they couldn’t be bothered to call the courses anything, just one, two and three got in there and called the hole something.

Nish: 18:30

Yeah, we’ll give the holes names, but the course is going to call onto it, I guess if you’ve got three courses.

Chris: 18:35

It gets a bit tricky if you’ve got names, doesn’t it? It gets a bit confusing. Also, pairing a name with Gullane. How do you rhyme by the time you’ve figured out how to say the first word pronouncing the second word it’s going to be nigh on impossible to name the course, isn’t it?

Nish: 18:59

oh, dear dylan’s gonna love this. When I send it to him, he’ll have a massive thing like this is how it’s pronounced being like flashcards or whatever it is. Uh, and then it probably won’t let you in. It probably won’t let us in now.

Nish: 19:05

Yeah, absolutely um now the other thing they’ve also done is that they’ve kept on renewing the clubhouse. There’s loads of history about new clubhouses built, for new, for expanding membership, new clubhouses built. So I can’t quite like that, because it felt like, even though it’s this village, even though it’s like this traditional place to play golf and whatever this, they’re not resting on their laurels, they’re not just like well, this is us and that’s how we are yeah like no, no, we need new clubhouse.

Nish: 19:30

It needs to be bigger and needs to be to accommodate modern needs, and let’s do it, yeah, rather than just no, no, no, no, no.

Chris: 19:37

We like our little corner to smoke cigars and all this sort of stuff it’s interesting, isn’t it, as to whether these because, like we say, there’s, and some of these certainly around some of the bigger scottish ones, there’s like a piece of land where there’s somewhere in between sort of 10, 12 golf courses in some instances, and some of them are the real big boys. You know, you’ve got muirfield next door, you’ve got north berwick next door. There’s some real big courses there.

Chris: 20:00

Yeah, do the courses around it just hang on the coattails of those bigger courses, or do they? Are they competing with those bigger courses as well?

Nish: 20:07

it’ll be interesting to kind of yeah, to see that and see how they compare. I never heard of it. It’s not a name that’s ever really jumped out.

Nish: 20:15

And you know, you hear about your Troons and even places like you know, prestwick, north Berwick, all that kind. They’ve kind of come about because of people like Rick Shiels going out and playing them and saying, oh, this is like a great value course, that’s as good as a St Andrews or muirfield or whatever, but at half the price. Yeah, it’s only really that’s when you hear the names. But that the name of gullen has never entered the conversation at any point. I don’t think, yeah, fair enough. Yeah, maybe because people can’t be bothered with the one, two, three stuff. I don’t know but um yeah, so I think it’s.

Nish: 20:48

That’s been quite a nice change. I think I know we’ve mentioned on the last couple of previews about courses with the way the websites are done, and again I think they’ve just gone about it their own way, like this is what we want to present. You know we don’t want I can’t remember now. Did Gullen have? I don’t think Gullen had flyovers either, did they Of the holes on the website, but I think that was. I don’t know. I think I’m getting. I’m enjoying the fact that we don’t have full on. You can see everything that’s going to happen because they’ve got good photos of each of the holes.

Jim: 21:24

Yeah, absolutely stunning.

Nish: 21:25

But yeah, no flyers, but not like you can just literally walk every single square inch of this golf course which, by the way, you forget anyway, I mean it just feels like there’s not really much point to it.

Nish: 21:34

Um, and another thing I picked up here was that the 18th has no bunkers around it, so there’s a bit of respite at the end, okay, which I’m trying to think, if there’s any. There’s any other big calls? I think it feels like a couple of the big ones have like the 18th is like a bit easier like san andrews, I guess would be the obvious.

Chris: 21:53

Yeah, you’re on your way in right, obvious choice.

Nish: 21:56

You’ve had enough of a battering out, there come on yeah here’s an easy one to finish with welcome home, that kind of thing, which I find quite interesting. Yeah, I mean, that’s kind of what I had about about going.

Nish: 22:04

But I think, for me personally because I’d kind of rang up and I’d had a little chance to to kind of speak to the guys. You know I’m excited we’re going to get plenty of time and Dylan did say actually he goes. It’s really good that you’re getting there quite early because I’d recommend that you go and warm up. We get complimentary balls at the driving range which we haven’t at quite a few places, yeah, yeah.

Nish: 22:27

And he said you know, so you’ll get maximum enjoyment out of our links if you’re going to do that. So that’s good. And I think they’ve got like two short game practice areas, two greens to chip to put on to warm up. I mean I think, yeah, it’s full on, focused on golf. You are in golf, town Population, you sort of thing. So Jim, going to check it out there for you. What is the signature hole at goal number one?

Jim: 22:56

The signature hole is par five.

Nish: 22:59

It’s a par five, it’s a par five, that’s on the front nine, I think.

Jim: 23:03

It’s the third hole.

Nish: 23:05

Third hole.

Jim: 23:06

Yeah, so for you it will be. Are you playing off yellow?

Chris: 23:10

Yeah, I think we probably will, probably play off the yellow.

Jim: 23:12

For ourselves a little bit of yellow action 479 yards. Avoid the bunkers on the right which are what’s the line yardage 496.

Nish: 23:21

I quite enjoy playing off the whites at Hindhead and Hankley Common. Actually yeah, Because both of those we played off yeah well, both of them are reasonably short courses. I don’t think they sit well. To be honest, I read somewhere that there’s like this little patch of four run of four or five holes which is quite short, rather par threes or short par fours. But anyway, go on. Sorry, I digress.

Jim: 23:46

Yeah, so you avoid the bunkers on the right of the fairway.

Nish: 23:49

Avoid them. You say Avoid them right? Well, try to.

Jim: 23:52

Top tip, Top tip Bunker fairways let’s not go there.

Nish: 23:56

That’s just reminding me actually.

Jim: 23:58

Fairway bunkers, yeah.

Nish: 23:59

That’s reminding me. Actually, there was one website. It’s a course that we’ve played recently. I think it was West Lancs. That was it it, and it was a really good thing. Actually, they had like pro tip right, so just how to play the hole. And on every single hole he kept saying, the best place to avoid the bunkers on the left, avoid the bunkers on the right avoid the fairway. I was like, yes, mate. I mean clearly nobody wants to go in the bunker in the first place Like yeah.

Nish: 24:28

I thought it was a weird. It was like it was filling up paragraph space like cut and paste. Anyway, sorry, jim.

Jim: 24:34

Yeah, so it’s the breathtaking vista as you arrive on this elevated T, elevated.

Chris: 24:39

T nice Like elevated T.

Jim: 24:40

Yeah, nice view over onto the Firth of Forth.

Nish: 24:45

Sorry, you’ve got something stuck in your throat there. That’s why you’re not allowed to drink, on course, because you’ve got to at some point pronounce the Firth of.

Chris: 24:51

Forth. I knew that was coming, so I didn’t want to say anything. So I set him up for that one.

Nish: 24:59

The Firth of Forth. Yeah, what’s it called this whole? Has it got a name on it?

Jim: 25:05

See, I don’t think they’ve got it. Number three Maybe they’re not. No, I couldn’t see it, but actually it’s when you go on to it doesn’t actually say it. When you’re looking up that whole guide Race course, this one’s called race course, yeah.

Chris: 25:22

Nice, then we’ve got to do it. Whoever’s the fastest to play the hole wins. Do some speed golf Shout.

Nish: 25:28

Say great shout.

Jim: 25:32

Latchel thinking. Yeah, that is latchel thinking, yeah.

Nish: 25:35

Side bet. Yeah, absolutely Right. So par five, signature hole. We’ve done a par five before, haven’t we? Was that S&A yes.

Jim: 25:43

Was that a par five? Yeah, yeah.

Nish: 25:45

Yeah, that horrific Gumblies hole. It was terrible. Still don’t understand that. Andrew and Tony, who we played Hindhead with Andrew absolutely loved S&A and we were just like interesting. We both said it exactly the same. It was like proper for a lot of jinx. Like interesting and it was like don’t say any more. He absolutely loves it.

Chris: 26:06

We didn’t leave it at that.

Nish: 26:07

No need to fight with anybody.

Jim: 26:10

It’s fine everyone’s entitled to their wrong opinion. He says that to me a lot, yeah, so okay, right, so yeah, perfect, wonderful, right.

Nish: 26:15

That’s a good signature hole. I think that’d be a nice one to get our team, and it’s early as well it is early.

Chris: 26:20

Yeah, are we actually doing that? That’s the fastest first play of the hole.

Nish: 26:25

Of course we’re not.

Jim: 26:25

What’s a side bet? Sorry, they’re going to knock you out in the third hole by running 500 yards with a set of golf clubs on your back. So I think it’s just net score, lowest net score.

Nish: 26:38

Full stop.

Jim: 26:39

Full stop.

Nish: 26:41

Oh, and the full thing Spicy gym. I like it All right. Okay, take that, is that all right? Yeah, take that, is that alright. Yeah, to be fair, I’d have won it on gross by quite a margin on these last two rounds, mate, so you just lulled them into a false sense of security.

Chris: 26:54

well, no, I don’t want it to go to shanks, jim don’t want it to go to gross but like let’s keep it at it clearly.

Jim: 27:00

But yeah, it was well, to be honest, by what you were saying, your groceries could be the same.

Nish: 27:08

Chris’s not having a good time of it.

Chris: 27:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I played the worst golf I’ve ever played Ever. We’ll keep that for the review, but We’ve done the review.

Nish: 27:18

Oh, we’ve done the review. He’s forgotten about it already, you can compartmentalise that somewhere in the back of your brain.

Chris: 27:25

No, yeah, definitely compartmentalise.

Jim: 27:26

Doesn’t affect the next round. This week is a new week. It’s gone. It’s gone.

Chris: 27:28

Jim, it’s out of there. Never happened, it’s the old Chris’s back.

Nish: 27:32

But just in case you wanted to relive it, the review episode is out tomorrow.

Chris: 27:35

Thanks for that Please do listen. I shout at the listening, yeah.

Nish: 27:39

Like and subscribe. Okay, so what about the side bets?

Chris: 27:47

Oh, you did. Sorry, it was net score, wasn’t it?

Jim: 27:49

Or was it net score? That’s the signature hole challenge.

Nish: 27:51

yeah, so you’re doing a new full side bet right. Yeah, I think side bets Actually sorry, we’re going to bring you back to this now. What is the stroke index on that Eight, eight, so you’d get a shot as well on that Boo-yah how does that work if we?

Jim: 28:14

I don like. I’m liking it but I don’t understand it. Just put it into your squabbit and it’ll tell you work it out.

Nish: 28:17

It does say, yeah, it does, to be fair yeah, yeah, it does work it all out for you and it’s just you figure it out later, though that’s the problem, like you, just it’s only afterwards you can look at it. You go, oh, actually sort of did all right there.

Chris: 28:27

So I think it’s I have to have a basic grip of numbers and maths, which I’m not way behind, just blob every hole like I did at Hindhead, just lose two balls and then go. I’m done, I’m finished, it was.

Nish: 28:38

I’ve had enough. Yeah, I mean, by the time this has gone out, the scores will be made public and stuff like that. And it was like it was a 109, but that is a 109 with an asterisk on it, because we were just like every time we’re blobbing, like not previously when we’ve gone, it’s a 10.

Nish: 28:54

Yeah, like that’s that’s your score on there. But we were doing, if there’s a par three, and you probably were like we’ll put you on for six because it’s the three of you get no points for it. Yeah, but actually yeah, so it could be very comfortably the worst round, actually full stop from what we’ve played so far. What in?

Nish: 29:11

golf 24 rounds 24 rounds that we played on top 100 courses oh, it was definitely my worst round, for sure, no, no combined both of ours. I don’t think I shot anywhere near what you shot at hind head oh no, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, it wasn’t my other one’s like 116, I think, woodall spa or something like that.

Chris: 29:26

I think it wasn’t it. Yeah, a lot. It could be a long three days in Scotland if I’m playing like I did at Hindhead.

Nish: 29:34

There’s a beautiful scenery there, mate. There’s the Heritage Museum you can always pop to if you like, but I’m not allowed to drink on the course at Glade. You’re not allowed to.

Jim: 29:43

Good question here now. I think he’s just made that up because you start having an absolute stinker.

Nish: 29:48

You just go sod it Halfway hot. I’m just getting all the miniatures out.

Chris: 29:52

I mean, you’re driving on this trip. So, yeah, yeah, I am Going for it. I’m going nuts. Yeah, wow, yeah.

Nish: 29:59

You don’t even have that, do you? You don’t have that solace to be able to do that, apparently. So wow, well, they might do. Comes up Tipsy McStagger on the way out. The 18th Supposed to be a nice easy hole. This one isn’t he. He’s making right pigs ear of it. Does anybody want to talk about anything else?

Jim: 30:18

Oh, so we’ve got a side bet though, haven’t we as well? Oh, sorry, side bet, jim. Yeah, I’m so sorry, so the I’m so sorry.

Chris: 30:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah, please sorry, not sorry, yeah. So the side bets, okie dokie, that are not that. You’re just thinking of this on the fly, jim, and just okie dokie, just think.

Nish: 30:37

I mean, it’s not like anybody gave you any warning nobody gave you any warning about a side bet. Did they at?

Jim: 30:41

all, it’s only the 40th episode to our listeners well, one listener who knows me. Anyway, I’m back at work now, so a long day I spilled barbecue chicken down with trousers. Sorry, but uh, yes, there are four par threes yep, there are and really good as well by the way to be stunning yeah yeah, that’d be good test definitely yeah I don’t know.

Nish: 31:06

There’s one that’s elevated as well we were nailing the par threes, though, weren’t we really? I mean, maybe not so much Hindhead, but Hankley Common.

Chris: 31:14

We were on it with the par threes yeah, yeah, we were at Hankley, to be fair like it was there was.

Nish: 31:19

We’ll talk about it. I think the Hankley movie is probably going to be after this episode but we’ll and we both absolutely buttoned our tee shots.

Chris: 31:29

It was actually it got quite competitive towards the end, didn’t it?

Jim: 31:32

but it was great normally on the par 3’s gym.

Chris: 31:34

Normally it’s just me. I’m about 6 to 10 feet away.

Nish: 31:37

Nish dusts one into the trees and has to hit, has to hit a second one off the tee, so he’s three off the tee every time so it’s never really felt like it’s always it was close this time wasn’t it.

Chris: 31:48

But yeah, it was just like it was like it was like professional golf standard, just like out the pin every hole both of us yeah, david was like he was our host was like he sort of walked off that scene.

Nish: 31:57

He was like they were two really really good t-shirts like I think he was a bit like where’s that come from?

Jim: 32:03

yeah, what’s happening the whole of the time? He must have watched the videos from previous rounds, can I?

Nish: 32:10

just check your golf club please. Is that the regulation golf club?

Jim: 32:14

So four par threes, so lowest it’s a par three challenge, par three, challenge, par three, challenge. Lowest score Nice, no net bollocks, just full on. Gross, just full on gross. Full on gross. Well, seeing as though you’re playing so fucking well, mate, you know live up to the expectation.

Nish: 32:34

I mean you know if I, if I, if I strike the ball as well as I do that would be.

Chris: 32:38

It would be a challenge if you’re going to build the hype. Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah it was.

Jim: 32:43

It was. It was when we were talking about the challenge and it was just gross course. And you were oh, we have a.

Nish: 32:53

I think a par threes to be fair, par threes. As I did on the initial invitational, I didn’t allow handicaps in there because I think you are capable of generally speaking, you’re capable of hitting a good shot and that can get you in there.

Jim: 33:07

Generally speaking, jim, not you, jim, not you, or You’re capable of hitting a good shot and that can get you in there.

Nish: 33:10

Generally speaking, jim not you, jim not you or Tom Tom and I made it. But you know, I think you’re capable of doing that. I think a par three is fair game for doing it gross. At least shit’s at putting. So it’s all fine, it’s all good. Yeah, I’m good with that. So we’ve got a signature hole challenge. That’s net. It’s on a par five, but we both get shot on anyway, so it’s just a straight shoot out six shots to do it in the least in and a gross par three challenge on the four fine par threes of Gullan, number one Wonderful.

Nish: 33:43

Well, we will report back on how our round went, because we’re actually playing. This is the time lapse now, but we actually playing. This is the time lapse now, but we’re actually playing this week, but not this week, because this is not when the preview goes out.

Chris: 33:55

This time hopping is becoming very complicated. Wait till you find out when the review goes out.

Jim: 34:01

December 2028.

Nish: 34:05

Wonderful thanks, sheds, I think. I’ve just got one more thing to say. It might potentially affect your edit. The one other fact wonderful thanks, sheds, I think.

Chris: 34:09

I’ve just got one more to say. Chris is going to bring one thing out. It might potentially affect your edit. The one other fact that I have got about Gullen Ghislaine is that she’s in prison… there were a series of. This is a really fucking boring fact, but yeah, it might just influence you slightly. Anyway, there’s a series of concrete blocks built on top of the cliff which were erected in World War II because of potential invasion. So maybe if we’re invading Scotland with our non Terrible golf, with our non-correct pronunciation of.

Chris: 34:43

Gullane, they might come into use, they might roll them back out and so when you say blocks, is that like, just like they just put Concrete towers, I think, right. I’m not entirely sure what they were built for.

Nish: 34:55

And they’re still there, yeah they’re still there Fascinating.

Chris: 35:00

Anyway, I told you it might influence your edit. You can just edit that whole last bit out.

Nish: 35:05

I feel like that bit is the intro. I feel. That’s a test for whether people actually want to download the episode or not.

Jim: 35:12

Put that test for your editing.

Nish: 35:13

Yeah, I think it. I think it’s gonna be a treat. Actually, of course, it looks, looks special, especially that heritage museum.