Walton Heath Old & New Course Review: Baked in a Heatwave

Nish 0:35

Every good story is about the journey, and this is a story of our journey trying to play the top 100 courses in the UK and Ireland in just 10 years. This is the Top 100 in 10 Golf Podcast. Episode 87, the Walton Heath Golf Club Review. So, this is part two of our Walton Heath review. We’ve already covered the Welcome in the Club House in House in part one. Myself and Jim did that. So please give that a listen. It was really interesting. In this episode, we’re going to talk about the golf, which was over uh two Heathland golf courses, which are right in the middle of the Surrey sandbelt. And the M25. And the M25. And it’s a club and a course that comes with some serious pedigree. So this is the story of how that two-course pairs event went for us. But before we get into it, wherever you’re listening to this podcast, please hit follow. It’s the one single action that you can do that spreads this podcast to other people who’ve got similar interests to you. So please do that. Helps us out a load. And we’ve got some great courses that we’ve already got lined up for next year. And it’s simply because you’ve been doing the following and sharing of the episode. Now back to this episode. So we’ve not got together as a threesome for for ages, have we? I know.

Chris 1:57

I just said to my kids I’m going podcasting. They were like, I kind of forgot you did that, Daddy. What is that? Yeah. Yeah. Whereas before they were like, Oh, you’re not going podcasting again, are you?

Jim 2:08

You’ve had them all summer.

Chris 2:09

Well, exactly, yeah. Yeah.

Walton Heath Booking Mix-Up in the UK Heatwave

Nish 2:11

It’s nice to know we’ve reset the clock and all of that then. Yeah. Well, look, we we played Walton Heath right in the middle of our great British heat wave third one that that happened in this summer. And we did it on a pairs event. We did, yeah. Which was fascinating, um, because they sort of always are, but the two-day event was interesting, wasn’t it? Because we just had like a I mean, the first one we turned up, it turns out the they’d they’d kind of messed up our booking and then we were just couldn’t play. It was an interesting start to the uh to the journey, wasn’t it? So but it ended up being just the two of us playing, which I think actually worked in our favour because we could sort of relax and take our time with the course and get into it. Six hours as well. I take six hours around, is it? Well, do you know what? We were being held up quite a lot, weren’t we? Because we were waiting around. We were waiting around loads. Um but look, we were playing the golf course in golden hour.

Chris 3:03

Yeah, yeah.

Nish 3:03

So

Playing Partners and Why We’re Reviewing Both Courses

Nish 3:04

we’d lost our tea time basically when we got there. So it was Chris Chris kicked off, and I was like, I’m backing away. You know that Homer Simpson meme when he backs into the bush. I’ll let him take care of this. I’m just gonna go and take some pictures of the clubhouse, Chris. Yeah, um, but uh before we carry in go into the golf, I must give a massive shout out to our playing partners on day two, and that was Malcolm and Simon. They were brilliant to the city. Yeah, they were great guys, weren’t they? So Malcolm from Scotland, actually two guys from Scotland, pals, um, and have been pals since like primary school. Yeah, yeah. But they sort of live in defence of the country. So Malcolm’s still up in Scotland, Simon’s moved down to London, and they had good banter between the two of them. Yeah, no, it was good. They were so down to earth that it sort of put us at ease as well. Yeah, yeah, they were nice. Sometimes with these pairs, you don’t know who you paired up with, so basically they outbanted you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so well, look, they we are covering both golf courses in this, and there’s a reason for doing that, and that is because the new course and the old course are totally intertwined on the land, so you kind of cross T’s and holes and all sorts of things. And when they did the Ryder Cup there, they played a composite course. They also recently played an AIG women’s event at Walton Heath, and they did the same thing, they did a composite course. So we were like, well, let’s do a composite uh review. Um so we’re gonna try and give you an idea of which course we’re talking about at various points. We just must remember that, otherwise, we’re gonna get ourselves in a bit of a tango. So

Walton Heath Old Course Ranked 39, New Course Ranked 88

Nish 4:40

a little bit about the courses. So the old course is ranked 39, and as we discovered in the preview, has not been out of rankings since rankings began in what was it, the 70s? No, it was the 50s. Something shit, yeah. Way earlier than we thought. So yeah, let’s say it’s 38, whatever. 30. But it’s like oh shit, that’s pretty heavyweight. Um, so it’s 39 there, it’s a world top 100 course, I think. It’s a world top 100 course, I’m not sure. Yes, it is. It is it, yeah. And then the new course is ranked 88. That is in List as we first started. Yeah. The condition of the course, Chris, bearing in mind, we were right in the middle of the heat wave.

Playing Walton Heath in a Heatwave: Baked Fairways

Chris 5:22

Yeah, I mean, it was yeah, I mean it’d been like 30 odd degrees for like months before, hadn’t it? So it’d been uh pretty dry and pretty pretty hard everywhere. And it was to be fair, it was pretty dry and pretty hard, wasn’t it? I mean the greens were in pretty decent nick, but it was pretty brown out there, wasn’t it? I’ve not played anywhere that’s that that brown brown ever like I’ve got one word, it’s baked.

Nish 5:44

Baked, yeah, it was totally baked. Yeah, and that’s not the good baked, it’s the bad fits.

Chris 5:49

I mean, Nish was driving like over 200 yards occasionally. So that’s how that’s how hard and dry it was with roll, yeah.

Jim 5:55

With roll. Um that was just with the putter.

Nish 5:58

Yeah. Well, do you know you probably could have done a lot of the times, you know.

Jim 6:03

Yeah.

Nish 6:04

Um, so it was but the greens were great, weren’t they? Yeah.

Chris 6:08

I mean, it was still it wasn’t like it was baked, but it wasn’t shabby, was it?

Nish 6:11

Like it was no, it was um it was all still pretty my eyes struggled to get into thinking about what the course is like for a while, and that was because it was so brown everywhere you couldn’t distinguish between where the rough was and where your fairway was. Yeah, and that meant that normally you because you’ve got the outline of the whole thing, you know, you’ve got something to focus on, and it was a bit like, oh my god. I mean, it look it visually for playing your golf, it made it a bit easier because it was like, well, just everything’s brown, like normally it’s like, oh my god, I’ve got this tiny little narrow fairway to go for. But it was I struggled with that. It took me five or six holes to get used.

Chris 6:49

It’s very different, like you say, it’s kind of part of that Surrey, that Surrey sandbelt, but it did it did feel different from the other Surrey courses that we played, didn’t it? Um it’s a bit more kind of open and expansive and rugged, and you can get kind of see you almost see like the 36 holes once you kind of cross over the road from the from the first and the all course, you can see most of it in front of you, can’t you?

Nish 7:06

Yeah, well, we said, didn’t we? It’s like that was quite Gullane-esque, wasn’t it? That where you just basically the whole thing was just laid out in front of you on the second T.

Chris 7:13

Whereas a lot of the other Surrey ones, you’re kind of like in between the trees and kind of you can’t really see much other than the hole that you play in, but it wasn’t like that at all, was it?

Nish 7:20

Um we could see who the culprits were holding us up. But you could say it was the place was like it was all four balls ahead of us. It was like it was crawling with people, it was just coming everywhere.

Chris 7:29

First round at the old course was like, was it nearly six hours? It took us as long, wasn’t it? Yeah, five hours something. I mean, I’m lucky.

Nish 7:37

We’re lucky we didn’t play right in the heat of the day. There was four o’clock, didn’t we? But before we even started, so we had to make our way over to and we pulled this up in the um clubhouse and facilities review the facilities reviewing the toilets. Um I could do, I could start doing that. Uh the driving range, because we had to go across like this football pitch, which was burnt out, and then you get to this range, and it’s just like I think expansive brown, and it was just like, oh my god, like what is going on here? This is crazy. Um but uh it kind of like set you up because it was just hot and dusty, and like, okay, right, we’re in for a long afternoon. Yeah, a long hot afternoon. Yeah. Um let’s get to the real meat of it all, old and new. Where did your preferences lie?

Old Course vs New Course: First Impressions

Chris 8:28

My preferences uh definitely with the old course. I mean, I preferred the old course. Definitely um the new course was was more fun and more playable. So that it’s that’s that kind of age old thing, isn’t it? That the old course is a bit longer. Wasn’t that much longer, actually, but it’s certainly a bit harder, a bit tougher, and then the new course was just a bit a bit easier and a bit more fun. I think that’s probably a reasonable assessment of them. Yeah.

Jim 8:54

Not quite pitch and put level, but you know.

Chris 8:56

No, I mean neither were pitch and put, they were, they were they were tough courses, both of them.

Nish 9:00

Um I I’m I’m I’m surprised you’d so definitive, actually. Okay. And the reason I say that is like now I’ve got to know your playing preferences.

Chris 9:08

Yeah, yeah.

Nish 9:09

Like short, gettable par fours. I mean, there was a lot of them, yeah, yeah, a lot of them on the new course. The new course is essentially just almost that. Yeah, just really long par fives, yeah, all the par fours are gettable, yeah, and you know, they’ll both have good parts.

Chris 9:22

So and to be to be fair, actually, maybe it’s not quite as defined as that because I think on the old course, I got to like, yeah, backpedaling like an Italian tank. Um, but like I think I got to like seven or eight on on the old course, and I was like, I’m not sure what this is all about. I wasn’t that I wasn’t that blown away by it. I was like, Yeah, I’m actually like compared to the other Surrey courses, this is absolutely nothing compared to the other ones. I was like, it’s not even in the same league, and then all of a sudden you’re gonna get nine, and then you play sort of nine plus then the back nine, you’re like, oh right, I get it. I get it. So it’s definitely a back nine course, the old. Um yeah, I definitely wasn’t blown away after the first seven or eight holes.

Jim 10:06

Yeah, in terms of what the playability or the terrain is difficult to do.

Chris 10:11

Like those other those other Heathland courses are like stunning and they’re like really beautiful. I don’t it didn’t really feel like Walton Heath had that. Like I think it’s it almost felt a bit more like a kind of Ganton to me, which is which is great. I love Ganton, but it’s that more it’s a bit more kind of strategic and a bit more kind of grown up, but it doesn’t have that visual beauty that the the Surrey courses often have, and it’s just like the pristine-ness and the greenness and the trees and stuff. It wasn’t really like that, it was a bit more kind of like I say, a bit more rugged and a bit more open. So it just felt a bit different, didn’t it?

Nish 10:42

I wonder if it was a victim of being a bit burnt out, to be honest.

Chris 10:45

I think potentially, yeah.

Nish 10:46

I mean

The Walton Heath Heather: A Brutal Examination

Nish 10:46

because the trees would have been popped a little bit more than a little bit. Yeah, I think there’s probably a little bit of that to be fair, yeah. But it I mean you can only play what’s in front of you, can’t you? Yeah, and by the way, we’re nitpicking about amazing golf courses again. Like, you know, it wasn’t disastrous, but we weren’t yeah, I think we’d both agree we weren’t like, oh my god, what is this golf course? It’s amazing, guys. Yeah, which we have had at some places, yeah. Um there was a something in the preview that that came up, and it was JBU brought it up in the in the reviews, and that was about the heather being absolutely brutal. Oh my god, correct, absolutely correct. Uh we’ve not played anywhere like that.

Chris 11:25

We’ve always kind of we’ve always said between we’ve played quite a few of the Heathland courses now, haven’t we? We’ve always said actually, you know what, it’s not that bad. Like you get in there, you can find your ball usually, you can get out, it might be a slightly tougher shot. Oh my god, you go in the hit, you’re going the go in the heather at um Walton Heath, and you are not getting out. It’s like two or three shots to get out. Like sometimes I was like, I actually could see a bit of the ball, but I was like, I might actually take a drop here because I genuinely don’t think I can get my golf club to the ball.

Nish 11:54

Correct, yeah, yeah.

Chris 11:55

It was so thick, and so it was just the time of year we played it, or it was really branchy, and it was like thick branches, wasn’t it?

Nish 12:01

Yeah, and you just you Chris is actually pretty good at those recoveries and things like that. So for him, he’s thinking, like, okay, I can advance the ball here and not just knock it into play and get it back on the f and take your punishment. There was just none of that, just you couldn’t do it.

Chris 12:14

And then I mean there were several times on that day, so on that first day where I had like two, three, maybe even four shots just to try and get out the heather. Yeah, it was a real mind. It was mad, wasn’t it?

Nish 12:23

Yeah, and that was if you found your ball. Well, yeah, yeah, you know, but we probably lost more between us than we ever have done. Right, for sure. And then it was so we were like, Oh god, is that is it just us? So we just like a bit on a bit of a downer about whatever, and then when we met up with Malcolm and Simon on the uh the second day, we were like, Exactly. What do you think about the heather? They were like, Oh my god, it’s terrible. Like, what I’m like, right, okay. And it was it’s weird because it kind of until halfway through the back nine, when we we’d just been traumatized by it, yeah, yeah. And I think we were just like there’s that stretch, that 14-17 stretch, you kind of go out and back and out and back, and you kind of see a few holes at the I was like, Fuck, actually, look at the terrain, yeah. And it’s just literally just like fair weight, a wee bit enough, and just heather everywhere, yeah, yeah. In front of the T, side of the T, like along the fairway. It’s like you can’t you couldn’t escape it.

Chris 13:11

No, it was everywhere, and it’s like it’s not not just like a little strip of it, is it? It’s like these massive, like vast fields of it almost, isn’t it? And it’s brutal, it was it was pretty brutal heather examination, I think it was. I mean you can see why it’s used for some of those like big amateur events because it’s not it’s not an easy golf course that if you don’t keep it on the straight and narrow, you’re gonna get some big numbers pretty quickly, aren’t you?

Nish 13:30

Yeah, I think um if you yeah, I’d say sort of it’s been a few weeks, well, but it’s probably been a couple of months since we’ve actually played it and now we’re sitting there for review. So to re-familiarise yourself with the the golf course. When you do look at planners and things online, so they haven’t got all everything laid out on the website. A lot of websites do have that you can see every hoik and you know visual, whatever. You you gotta just kind of go on third-party websites to see, and on the face of it, a lot of them are just long and straight. Yeah, that is not the story of those golf those golf holes at all. That challenge there, the visual challenge of those, yeah. The bunkers are really well positioned.

Chris 14:06

The bunkers at Walton Heath were almost ridiculous because I felt like every hole was like a massive bunker right in the middle of the fairway, right exactly where you want to land. I just felt like I was like, another one, another one. This is this is getting unfair. Um I mean it’s actually it makes it more interesting, actually, when you start thinking about it, it makes definitely makes it more strategic, yeah, which is why I prefer I think I preferred the old to the new. I mean, to be fair, they both had that, but the new is just a bit shorter, so you kind of had options to kind of go over it or yeah, be a bit aggressive, or you had a shorter shot in anyway, if you if you uh took an iron or something off the T.

Nish 14:45

Now, looking a couple of notes I’ve got here, we’ll get to sort of whole specifics and things like that. Yeah. But the one thing about the old course specifically that I found incredibly odd. And now, having spoken to a few people who’ve played Walton Heath the old course, exactly the same thing has come up.

Chris 15:00

Is it the first hole?

Nish 15:01

The first hole. It is it’s like the worst. Fuck. We only did 17 holes. Oh, we’ve got to add one on. Oh right, what do we do? What do we do? What do we do? Oh, do it before we cross the road to go over to the golf course, just stick a stick a stick a hole there. It’s fine. Yeah. And it’s really and it’s totally different to the rest of the golf course.

Chris 15:21

It is the dullest opening hole we’ve played. It was by well, the dullest hole I think we’ve probably played on this top 100.

Nish 15:28

It was a terrible golf hole.

Chris 15:29

I totally agree.

Nish 15:31

It just didn’t make any sense. So I think if you this is not done to bag out walls of heat, this is to prepare you.

Chris 15:36

I mean, the thing is, like, the first is like we say, it’s terrible. You cross over the road, you play the second, it’s fantastic, fantastic hole at that point. Um, like it’s not it’s a it’s an incredible golf course, but the first is just it feels totally out of place, doesn’t it?

Nish 15:50

Did you speak to anyone in the club and ask why? Yeah. Do you know what? I didn’t actually do that, and that’s a bit stupid of me to do so because you’re there, aren’t you? It’s like, what’s the history of that first hole? How has that come about? Because here’s the other weird thing, then, and you can see this on Google Maps. When you cross over to where hole two is, there’s this massive expanse, and all the golf course is sort of like up to the right hand side. There’s a massive load of land on the left hand side, which I assume belongs to the golf club.

Chris 16:17

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the whole thing is vast, right? Like the actual space that the course is around.

Speaker 1 16:21

Is there not a hole just there? Like you could start with a par three there or something.

Chris 16:24

Do you reckon because there’s been so many like architects involved, they just came to some massive argument over this one hole that we’re like, right, yeah. Do you know like we can’t decide, we can’t make a decision on this hole. Let’s move on to the second, and then they just ran out of money. But by the time they get around to the 18th, and it didn’t get by the body.

Nish 16:38

Does anybody know how James Braid died? Maybe it was like Pistols at Dawn, yeah. You know, it’s it’s just it it’s weird, it’s a really weird thing, that hole. We played it and we got up, we sort of finished. We didn’t say it to each other, but then when we played two and three, may actually maybe when we got to the back nine, we then sort of said, Did you not think that first was really, really weird? And both like, yeah, it was just the weirdest hole. Like just it was it belonged like in our local Parkland municipal course sort of thing. It was very strange, but um yeah, don’t don’t judge it on that. It doesn’t matter. Please don’t, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just leave it’s it’s 17 epic holes, just forget about the first one. Um, another thing I’ve got over here is uh no halfway huts.

Chris 17:21

No, right. Considering like I mean, hey, it’s it’s a massive course, like Walton Heath, it’s like one of the original kind of establishment courses, isn’t it? Yeah, um, it’s the 36 holer. There’s an overlap between the holes, like it feels like there’s a great great locations to put a to put a halfway hook. Nothing. It seemed a bit odd that absolutely nothing.

Jim 17:40

And you’re probably gasping in the 30 degrees. Yeah, but it was so hot.

Chris 17:44

It was just a water fountain with like brown water coming out of it. We’re like, well, I’ve got to fucking drink it. It was the weirdest tasting water I’ve ever drunk.

Jim 17:53

Gasping for a drink.

Chris 17:54

I mean, I would have rather have drunk out of the well at Hollingwell than uh that water.

Nish 18:00

Um right, well, look, let’s let’s talk about. Shall we I’m thinking we’ll we’ll we’ll get to maybe we’ll split up how we do our top three holes, I think. So let’s do the old course top three holes. Yeah, we’ll get to some scorecard stuff and then we’ll do this so we don’t give everybody too much drain on mental capacity. I would say everybody, I mean me. But um right, top three holes then, Chris. We’ll go one at a time, maybe on the old course you go first.

Chris 18:24

Okay, can I have four?

Nish 18:27

Oh that’s highly unusual, but yeah, of course.

Chris 18:30

I can’t have four between the four, so I’ll I’ll give you four.

Nish 18:33

You’re just being indecisive, or I am just being indecisive, yeah.

Chris 18:36

It’s not that they were like the four most incredible holes that I had to put on them. They were great holes, don’t get me wrong.

Nish 18:40

But a very indecisive friend of ours, Tom, has just had a baby, so in his honour, we’ll let you have four.

Chris 18:45

Perfect. Thanks, Tom. Um, so yeah, the first one that I’ve that I’ve come to is the ninth, which was like for me, I think that was the start of Waltham Heath proper. So you’ve got a nice kind of dog leg down to the left, you start to have that bit more undulation. To be fair, actually, I’m being a bit harsh on the first eight holes because actually the second second and probably the third are actually pretty good holes as well. But but um, but yeah, I think really I think it properly starts.

Speaker 1 19:10

I feel like I feel like whatever Chris is expressing then like five minutes later is gonna change his mind. So can’t do that.

Chris 19:16

Yeah, I’m in an indecisive mood today. Um which do you prefer?

Nish 19:21

New or old? Old. But overdubbed with new.

Chris 19:27

Um so yeah, nice little dog leg down to the left. So kind of got a shortish path or again, that kind of plays into my uh my liking. Yeah. Um and it’s just one of those where you’ve got a nice kind of you’ve got a nice view from the T and you’ve got a kind of short short, but you’ve got to shape it around the corner. So it’s a bit like, like I say, a bit like Ganton, where you there’s a proper strategy required to get to get through it. Yeah.

Old Course Top Holes: 5, 9, 11, 14 and 16

Nish 19:47

Um so my first one, I will I will back you up on hole nine. Yeah, okay. Uh there was that tree as well overhanging, wasn’t there? Yeah just on just before the green, and it turned there. It was lovely. Again, we hit it golden hour, so it’s nice. The sun was shining through the trees. It was. So it was lovely that anyway, yeah. And then but I’ve written a heather, yeah. And they’re down in between that you’ve got then you just thought, oh my god, like I’ve got I I didn’t hit my t shirt well, so therefore it took another three shots to get out of the heather to but you couldn’t deny that that was a beautiful hole.

Chris 20:26

Yeah, it was, it was gorgeous, wasn’t it? Um, and like I say, that’s when I started to really understand it, and I kind of got into it at that point and things that’s probably why that hole’s in there. It’s probably if it hadn’t been where it was and had not enjoyed the first date so much, it might not have been in there. But let’s put that to one side for now. Uh next next is the 11th, which was a gorgeous, gorgeous par three. Uh shortish, downhill, massive gaping bunker on the front left. Um, again, gave me kind of Ganton vibes. But lovely. I remember that one. Lovely par three. Yeah.

Nish 20:58

Oh yeah, that was. Yeah.

Chris 21:00

Yeah, no, I like that again.

Nish 21:01

Surprising amount of undulation, wasn’t there?

Chris 21:03

Yeah, yeah, there was. Yeah.

Nish 21:04

Um what would you think would be a flat bit of land, but anything but?

Chris 21:08

Yeah, no, it wasn’t. It was it was kind of weird undulations, there wasn’t like never felt like it it was particularly undulating, but then actually you kind of realize the next day. Yeah, exactly. And you kind of realise that actually you get in some weird funky positions and stuff, don’t you? Um what’s this about?

Nish 21:28

Right, so that was a yours was eleven there, wasn’t it? Eleven, yeah. Right. So I’ve gone with my second uh top three hole in the old course. I’ve gone with the fifth, actually. The fifth was do you remember when we were finished on the fifth green? There was a guy in a buggy, and he was walking, he’d driven past us and he was talking to us and he was telling us about pace of play and so. So it’s that hole. So you tee off a bit high up and it’s a s it’s a really long, gentle, sweeping dog on it left. Yeah, and then it sort of just kinks to the right at the end for where the green is, and it was a lovely approach, it’s downhill all the way as you’re hitting in. Yeah, and it’s just a lovely approach shot. I I just love that green complex, it was really nice for me, and I thought it was a nice, gentle, gentle, but I think if that lush green would look stunning. Yeah. And you’re flanked by the trees on the left hand side. Yeah.

Chris 22:19

So you know I feel like I’m I feel like I’m giving Walnut Walton Heath a bit of a bad rap here, actually. But actually, like I loved Walton Heath. I need to I need to be more positive in my uh appraisal.

Nish 22:29

Anyone thought we’d just decided last minute to knock on and say, Could we do a podcast episode? He’s actually come prepared today.

Chris 22:37

That’s the problem, Jim. It’s the problem. We just do it on the fly. Do it on the fly, mate. Yeah, way better.

Nish 22:43

Just roll with the punches on the fly. I like it. Yeah. Okay, right. Right. So so far we’ve gone with five, nine, eleven.

Chris 22:52

I think basically we’re just going to cover all the holes between us. Yes. Should we just do that? Next for me was 14. 14. Um, so yeah, lovely par five. Again, it’s kind of the bit where you get up to the sort of I don’t know if it is quite the highest part of the course, but it certainly feels like the highest part of the course because you can kind of see it all sweeping down below you down to the left. Um so yeah, so that so the reason that we’d lost our tea time that morning was because my mother-in-law had died the morning that we were going to swart them heat literally as we were getting in the car. So I was like, Do we go? So I rang my wife and she was like, Yeah, you should go. And I was like, Okay, so so anyway, so it was a bit of a kind of rush down there. We lost our tea time, a bit stressful. Go out there, but then we got to sort of 13 and then 14. We we were getting held up quite a bit by the group in front, and we just had a time to sit on the tee, and actually that was brilliant because you’ve got to just take it all in, have a have a good exhale, sat there, and actually you realize that you know there’s loads of birds in the trees, and like actually, it’s a really beautiful vista from there. Um, so I think that was a nice little moment for me. I just kind of sat and had a little moment, sat on that tea box and nice stretch of that golf course started there as well, yeah.

Nish 24:00

I think so. That’s put us in the mood at that point. We’re like, yeah, okay, we’re here now.

Chris 24:03

It’s one of those, like it like I say, you can probably take or leave the first time, but actually when the finishing holes are so good that you come off just going, wow, that was in that was amazing.

Nish 24:13

I agree. Um totally agree. I have a notable memory from the 14th. So the 14th was on the and the competition was not designated as the longest drive hole. So stepped up. Get the putter out. I will I absolutely stomped a drive, baby draw right down the middle, and bearing in mind how burnt out this golf course is, and it was downhill, and I was like, oh, that’s a good, and it just felt everything felt good about it. And I’m walking up to it, and I’m like, that’s gone a long way. So it ended up going 317 yards, okay. And I’m looking, I’m going, I can’t see a marker anywhere. Like, and I can’t see anyone in the distance. Like, fuck, I think I’ve got the longest drive here. So I’m walking up, concentrated on just looking for my ball. Okay, I was like, I think I might have it. Turn right a little bit, and there’s this stake that was about three yards ahead of my ball.

Speaker 1 25:08

I was like, ah, got it, absolutely got it.

Nish 25:11

I would have loved taking that right at the end. Me being not very good at golf as well, that would have been amazing. Kicking a few extra yards, you can you can do that right now, yeah. Yeah, I probably could have just done that, couldn’t I? Really? But you’ve got to keep me honest to yourself. Absolutely. We treat these. What wouldn’t you have won?

unknown 25:26

I don’t know.

Nish 25:27

I think what’s the point? I think do you get it?

Chris 25:28

Maybe just that was stuck in the fairway. Don’t know. Take that home with you.

Nish 25:33

Yeah. I mean, it was quite a good marker, wouldn’t it? It was like a hickory club thing that just popped into the green. But anyway, sorry.

Chris 25:39

But yeah, really, because it’s kind of back-to-back par fives there, isn’t it? So 13-14, both great par fives. Actually, I think what what the strength of Walton Heath is actually like normally we come up and go, Oh, those par threes were great. Actually, I think the par fives certainly on both, but certainly on the old course were incredibly good par fives. Yeah.

Nish 25:58

Um I think a par fives quite I’ve found so far. It’s quite hard to to to make it read.

Chris 26:03

Yeah, like normally you come away from a par five and go, whatever, yeah. Yeah. I I can only yeah, maybe like Formby that one of the par five at Formby was one of the ones that we’ve come away and going, yeah, that was incredible. But there’s not many out there that we’ve come away going, I love that par five. But to love a collection of par fives, I think it’s pretty unusual.

Nish 26:19

Very good reading of that, yeah. I think you’re right. Yeah, really good par fives.

Chris 26:22

Yeah, great. Because the next one. Sorry, you got another one.

Nish 26:26

Oh, I’ll do I’ll do mine. Uh so my last, so I stuck to three. Yes. Follow the rules. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I I went with 16. Yeah. Um, if you got me 16. That’s good. Yeah, that’s my other one as well. Yeah, 16 was 16 was a brilliant hole. So that was a five. Another far five. Yeah, but it was really challenging. It’s like a really it wasn’t pretty short.

Chris 26:49

I mean, I hit I had 150 yards, it’s like a drive of nine iron. Yeah, yeah, it was a short part of it.

Nish 26:54

It wasn’t long, but um it’s it’s a it’s a tightish drive, I think. I actually sprayed mine to the other the adjoining fairway, which actually gave me a really good line in. So that’s a top tip for me. Go on to the next fairway, and you’re actually you’ve got a brilliant line in. And there’s the thing that’s a feature about this that’s that hole’s got a massive bunker before the green.

Chris 27:15

Yeah, it’s massive, massive bunker. I mean, that’s yeah.

Nish 27:18

Like it’s one of those like I think a lot of courses have like a Himalaya bunker, don’t they?

Chris 27:21

Yeah, it’s like a really massive thing in the like I mean it’s a massive green, but like the bunker feels like it’s almost the same size, just like next to it, this huge things are usually magnets for my golf ball, but uh no, totally avoided it.

Nish 27:32

It was great, yeah. But um, it was just really nice on the eye, and it was right in the middle of this great stretch of hole.

Chris 27:37

It’s kind of get a ball, and it just, yeah, like you say, uh the two great bunkers in that hole because the fairway bunker is also great as well. It’s like again, another one of those that’s right.

Nish 27:44

Right no, mate, I was on the other fairway, yeah, yeah.

Chris 27:46

But it’s right exactly where you want to drive, just kind of there’s like cuts into the fairway just on the right hand side. I literally drove it like distance-wise, right in the middle of the bunker, but it had just angled down to the left, right into the middle of the fairway, into the like the narrowest part of the fairway, which is about 10 yards wide to the same same degree as Woodhall Spa or anything like that. No, no, but I think in terms of their position, they were brilliantly done. Like you had to think about every single one of them. If you’re hitting a driver, you’ve got to be thinking about where you’re gonna be landed and how far it’s gonna roll, especially when it’s hard like that.

Nish 28:16

I I’ve just recently played a um society day. I was kindly invited down to play Swinley Forest again, did 36 holes there. There’s a lot of people agree with what I my reading of Woodhall Spa actually. There’s a lot of people just like don’t get it, it’s hard for hardness’ sake, like what is the deal with it? Why is it rank so highly home of England golf? That kind of thing. I was like, right, okay, not just me being bitter about it. Listen to the podcast, and they just I just want to agree with you.

Speaker 1 28:44

Somebody recognised me. Somebody actually went, I thought I recognised your face.

Nish 28:49

I was like, it was a podcast though. Suppose you watch on YouTube, I suppose, but um that was quite nice. I’ll follow you on Instagram. Yeah, well, they’re just lying to me. There’s something to say about myself. Um, but yeah, though they’re our top three holes, and yeah, I think that’s it’s a good mixture actually between front and front and back, then we’ve done five, nine, eleven, yeah, 14, 16.

Jim 29:08

I mean, we have covered like 60% of the course, but so would any of those holes make it into the Dream 18?

Chris 29:16

Good question.

Jim 29:18

16 has a chance.

Chris 29:19

I think 16 doesn’t definitely have a fighting game.

Nish 29:21

It doesn’t have a chance, yeah. Probably not, but yeah, it would have it would it would it would be the one that you’d nominate, I think. Um probably well we both picked it, haven’t we? So yeah, I think that was the best hole on the course for me.

Jim 29:33

Yeah, and it’s interesting that none of you actually picked the signature hole, which is hole two. Hole two, yeah.

Chris 29:41

Signature was definitely 16. AI AI is giving you an absolute. Yeah, yeah, I sold you up a kipper mate. No, to be fair, the second wasn’t was a lovely hole, to be fair. It was.

Jim 29:50

But maybe your view is slightly tainted by the fact that you just played the one, the first hole, which wasn’t inspiring.

Chris 29:55

Although I think playing one actually made two feel better. Two feel better, yeah. Yeah, because two was like, alright, yeah, this is yeah, this is all right, we’re in

Old Course Signature Hole Challenge

Chris 30:00

now, yeah.

Nish 30:01

Well, let’s go there, let’s go to the signature hole challenge. So it was on two. Yeah. We were just like, oh, what is this goal? Oh, well, it’s this goal, of course, right, okay, fine. Um and what do we do now? So I sent my drive. I’ve been driving it really well actually, recently, haven’t I?

Chris 30:17

Stupidly well, annoyingly well.

Nish 30:19

It’s crazy. Um, but it went a little bit left, but it still had still had the distance, so it was good. I think you, Chris, right down the middle, weren’t you?

Chris 30:27

I was, yeah, I had a good duck drive down the middle.

Nish 30:30

We both then got our approach shots, and we probably ended up about I think we both probably left ourselves with a 20-25 footer. So we’re not gonna go to the scorecard. Yeah, no well, I know. Um and then we had it all prepared, ready, all good to record, whatever. And we both duly two putted, so we halved it in parts. We didn’t get shots in them, so it was all annoying. It was all all square and halved for that signature hole challenge on the old course. Very uneventful, very boring, but it was a lovely lovely hole. No dramas. Um scorecard. Chris, do you want to know what you scored?

Old Course Scorecards and Match Play Result

Chris 31:12

I mean, it wasn’t a good day for me the the first day. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for playing golf, to be fair. It’d been a no it’d been a long, interesting day.

Nish 31:19

Well, I I was 97, that was net plus eight. I scored more than 97. You scored more than 97. Wow, what did I score? 104. Did I? Net plus 21.

Chris 31:32

104.

Nish 31:34

Yeah. Oh my god.

Jim 31:35

It’s fucking brilliant in my mind, but I mean I knew it was bad, but I didn’t realise it was that bad.

Nish 31:42

To be fair. You’re stuck in the header again, are you, mate? Yeah, it was uh chastening day, shall we say? Wow. Now the side bet we did, so we did it as a 36-hole match play, because it’s a rider cup venue. We always do a match play. Hang on a minute.

Chris 31:58

I’m pretty sure I said on this podcast not that long ago that if I shot over a hundred again, I was I was gonna quit. I wasn’t gonna play anymore. I don’t remember that.

Nish 32:06

I mean, look, if that were to happen, and don’t let me force your decision on you. It would make me play these courses a lot easier to get one person on TV a lot easier than two. Uh did you you said I should need to go back and listen to that, don’t you? I’m pretty sure I did, yeah. Yeah. That’s not a good day out, is it? It wasn’t a good day out. Yeah. Let’s let’s let’s let’s move on. Anyway, look, on the old course, I won five and four. As you can you can imagine what was going on there. So um I don’t didn’t derive any real pleasure from it. Yeah, right. That’s uh given the circumstances. Very, very humble. Yeah, given the circumstances, all that kind of thing. So we’ll we’ll we’ll continue with what happened on our 36 hole match play when we talk about the new course. So the new course, Chris. Now, what do you think about the par threes actually, just in general? Let’s do the par threes just in general. Across both courses, yeah. Yeah, pretty pretty good. Good. I thought they were pretty tough.

Chris 33:02

Tough ones, yeah.

Nish 33:03

Yeah, really tough.

Chris 33:04

I think maybe, like I say, maybe not quite as picturesque as some of the other the kind of Surrey sandbelt ones, because I think normally those par threes just pop, don’t they? And you go, Whoa, this is what it’s all about.

Nish 33:13

I don’t think they were quite at that sort of level in terms of the beauty, but in inside different bits, other holes and stuff, weren’t they? So we were never like fringed by a tree or anything like that.

Chris 33:23

It was just that yeah, and again, I think the par threes gave me that kind of gantan vibe, you know. They’re like the big kind of cavernous bunkers around them. Um and they were tough, tough holes. There was no no gimme’s there, you know, there’s no easy twos or anything.

Nish 33:36

I think the par threes felt like you were shooting below your feet like downhill, which made me to like try and stop the ball and yeah, and I think because it was so hard as well, it was it was pretty hard to actually get the ball to stop in on the greens, wasn’t it? It was um yeah, I’ll use that as an excuse. Yeah, it’s hard to get it to stop, yeah. Um I can’t remember this now actually, so I’ll ask you, Chris, because you might have a recollection. Did you get anywhere near hole in one? Did you have anything that was covering the flag at any point? I can’t remember now.

Chris 34:03

The only one that I can really remember was what the one where it was the the £10 charity uh donation thing.

Nish 34:10

That was quite a memorable hole, wasn’t it?

Chris 34:12

And we had to we had a bit of a weight, didn’t we, on the tea? So we were chatting to the chatting to the lady for a bit and kind of told them about a day and we, you know, giving a turn, donations, charity or whatever. If you hit the green, you get your ten aback or whatever. And if you get a what was it, the closest to the pin gets uh I don’t know, some sort of prize.

Nish 34:25

Yeah.

Chris 34:26

And I just stood up and shanked it, like properly shanked it, like square to the right. I was like, oh, I didn’t even see where it went. I was like, there’s no point even going to look for that ball, it was so it literally just came off at a right angle.

Nish 34:38

Chris is good at par three, so I’m like, right, I’m like doing this, looking at the green, and this ball shoots off.

Chris 34:46

I mean it’s a good job she was stood behind the Tee when I hit it, because if she’d stood like to the side of the T, she would have genuinely been in danger.

Nish 34:55

It was yeah, it was pretty, it was brutally shanked, wasn’t it? That one yeah, that was quite give an extra ten pound.

Chris 35:02

I got my ten pound back anyway, so she’s sorry for me. Neither of us covered ourselves in glory, did we, on that hole? Um no, I don’t I wasn’t anywhere near any of the pathways to be fair. I had there was one that I hit a reasonable shot into, but it was probably 10-15 feet away.

Jim 35:18

You’ve got over 70 more courses.

Chris 35:21

Yeah, no, we haven’t, less than. Have we done now? 33? We’ve done 20. No, I’ve done 29 now.

Nish 35:26

Have I not done 30? Oh, yeah, we’re 29 and a half. Are you bringing a lot loaned up again? We’re calling it half, aren’t we? Now 29 and a half, we’ve done right about 70. Yeah. Um we do we must talk before we move on to the new course, we must again just reiterate about that 14 onwards stretch. Yeah, it is fantastic, isn’t it? Like it’s just brilliant. You think, oh my god, this is a great golf course, and then you head to that clubhouse, and it’s just like you’re in a great frame of mind there.

Chris 35:54

Yeah, and it’s I think it’s up there with in terms of stretch as a whole. I think it’s up there in terms of one of my favourites four or five holes. It was it was really nice.

Nish 36:00

Yeah, it was nice, it was really nice that. Um okay, let’s move on to the new

Walton Heath New Course: Scores and Overview

Nish 36:05

course then.

Jim 36:06

Yeah.

Nish 36:06

So the new course, I’m gonna start with the scores on the new course actually, because I think it’ll put everyone in the picture of what happened here. So I shot a 98, and that was a plus eleven uh net. Chris shot an 87 redemption. Yeah, plus five net. Now, it also follows a very common reoccurring theme whenever we head down to the sand belt. Chris is that’s an absolute shocker on the first day. Day one.

Speaker 1 36:34

And then redeems himself on the side.

Chris 36:37

Might have to caddy for you next time we go down on day one. Start on start on day two.

Nish 36:43

First day. What it is. Alright, Lip hook, you did Hindhead. Well, it’s literally every trip we’ve done down there. We done we’ve done we’ve done threes. This is the yeah, something like that.

Chris 36:50

Three out of three, hundred percent record of being absolute dog shit on the first day in Surrey.

Nish 36:56

We’ve only had one round at Wentworth and that one. Yeah, that’s it, yeah. Hilarious. Um I played pretty well at Wentworth. I think you did all right actually at Wentworth. Yeah, that’s what I did me, but there you go. Um right, new course. So let’s do overall impressions of the new course then. We sort of touched upon it before, but any notable things about the new course from you?

Chris 37:18

I mean, the heather didn’t feel quite as oppressive as the as the first day, did it? Yeah. On the old course, so it felt a bit easier on that in that aspect. Yeah. Um, like I say, it was it was really fun. I really enjoyed playing the the new course. Yeah. We had a great, great day, didn’t we? Like you said, the two lads we’re playing with were good crack. Um, it didn’t, yeah, it felt a little bit easier. Still a lot of those bunkers right in the middle of the landing zones.

Nish 37:40

A lot of them, yeah. I felt like they used the the heather really well to because a lot of them were like you need to cut corners and things like that. So the heather was used to like catch you with an errant drive. If it goes too long, it’s in heather. Yeah. And then then and you’ve got bunkers as well to contend with.

Chris 37:59

Yeah.

Nish 37:59

Um, and I think a lot of bunkers were just like, right, well, if you can hit it well, go on in. Yeah. Take on the bunker.

Chris 38:04

Like you just felt a lot more gettable, didn’t it? The new course. Like you felt like you felt like you were in a chance, chance with a birdie or you know, a decent score. Whereas the old course, you were like, I’ve got to I’ve got to really work for it to get a par. Even once you get to the greens, you know, you it’s um it’s not easy once you get there.

Nish 38:17

Didn’t have a weird first hole, which was great. Um I quite like the first hole. It was really nice, yeah. And again, it was falling away, wasn’t it, from me as you were as you were playing that hole.

Chris 38:27

Spoiler alert, it’s on my top three.

Nish 38:29

Oh, the first right, okay. Fair enough. Right. Well, let’s go with the first thing.

Chris 38:31

Redemption for the first hole on the uh on the old swap ’em. Let’s go with your top three.

Nish 38:35

Only three

New Course Top Holes: 1, 2, 4, 7, 14 and 17

Nish 38:36

on this occasion.

Chris 38:37

Uh I’d have actually gone for six this time, Jim.

Nish 38:41

Six times three. That’s all eighteen covered, right? Go on then. Well, tell us about the first.

Chris 38:45

So, yeah, at first I thought, yeah, maybe it’s just it maybe it’s just as a comparison to the first on the on the old course. I thought it was a much better hole. Really short part. So it can kind of gets you in the mood for the short par fours. It’s only 200 and 256 yards off the green, 260 off the whites.

Nish 39:01

It’s like a tone setter, isn’t it? Yeah, it is a little bit. There are short gettable par fours here.

Chris 39:05

Yeah. It felt like it, but it’s also just a nice, it’s like it’s really short hole. I think I hit like seven iron wedge. Yeah. Um, because I ended up in a stupid little bit of heather right next to the bunker and couldn’t get anyone near the ball. Um, but yeah, the green just kind of like everything just slopes away from you on the approach shot, so it’s like a really thin, narrow green. Um I just liked it as an opener. I thought it was a pretty easy hole, pretty innocuous looking. But actually, if you hit keep it on the fairway. You’ve got to keep it on the fairway, and you’ve got to hit a decent shot in. Because I had a pretty decent shot. It got a hard bounce, then all of a sudden I’m in the piece of heather on the edge of a bunker, and I’m like, you need a snooker shot to get out.

Nish 39:45

I lost a ball on the very first hole, like hit my first t-shirt. I thought, that’d be fine. I’ve seen it, but where it’s bounced into, we all sort of roughly saw where it landed. Yeah, all got there, four of us looking for a golf ball, and I was like, nowhere to be seen.

Chris 39:55

I mean, what did we both score like sevens or eights or something? Something like that. Something crazy like that.

Nish 40:00

Mark when Simon was something like, oh my god. Who the hell of east here? And it went on. Um, okay, so that was your first one. Um my first top three hole was actually the signature hole. The second, the par three. I thought it was a cracking par three. It was downhill, yeah. Um, again, deep cavernous bunkers. You had uh a big ditch almost, so you have you had to, you know, it was like you’ve got to go for the green here. There’s no there’s no lay it up and let it roll up or whatever. But it’s just nice, it was really easy on the eye, and just like I liked all of visually. I liked all of the par threes, and I think again, lush green conditions, yeah, they’d look great. You’re right, they wouldn’t have the visual pop of having been surrounded by trees or anything like that. But I think you would see a different complexion on that, yeah. Of course.

Chris 40:49

I think after playing those first two holes after playing the old course the other day, you you kind of like just breathed a sigh of relief, didn’t you? Like, it’s not gonna be quite as brutal as yesterday. So yeah, yeah.

Nish 40:59

Um okay, right, we’re fine. I think we’ll we’ll we’ll I mean we suppose we could talk about signature hole now, actually. Uh so signature hole was obviously that um that par three. Number two second. Yep. So I think I hit my tee shot well, but it just had a bit of draw on it, so it went back left of the green mine went. Uh I think yours ended up a little bit just front of the green, I think you were on, weren’t you? Just short of, I think. I think green, I think you were on. I can’t remember that. Yeah, I was pen I can’t remember. Yeah, you had an uphill put. So so I then chipped not very well, just to the fringe. I then putted it close and then knocked in my putt. I got four. So Chris had his first putt, and I think you left it about three or four feet past, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe three though, didn’t you? And the guys were just like, because we told them about the signature hole challenge, and they were like, Oh well, Chris has won it. I was like, Oh no, no, no, no. Three put Chris. You do not know about Chris’s writing. I was like, I’m not even gonna consider giving him that one. Absolutely no, but no, you drained your putt, Chris. That’s the first signature hole you’ve won in a long long time.

Chris 42:10

Yeah, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Nish 42:11

Yeah, long whole time. Welcome to the winner’s circle. Yeah, uh, but that was it was a great hole. I really enjoyed that. So, where does that leave the scores? Just like way ahead. Like, I think I’m about four or three or four up now. I’m absolutely rinsing Chris on this signature hole challenge. 71 more courses to play. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, imagine what the score’s gonna be after 71 holes.

Jim 42:35

Well, you were down about four, but only you won one for the first ten rounds.

Nish 42:40

Yeah, well, they’re all like part three, so you nailed on them, and then suddenly you started getting.

Chris 42:44

You’ve had the second 15, it’s my it’s my turn for this.

Nish 42:47

That’s how the momentum’s gonna shift. Um, okay, what’s your second um top?

Chris 42:53

Uh the second uh we’re not actually we’re not going very far into the golf course here because I’m going for number four. Okay. Um so yeah, again, just another another great short par four. Yeah. So a gettable once it’s only two fifty off the greens, three hundred off the whites.

Nish 43:09

What’s the story with this? Is it straight?

Chris 43:12

It’s pretty straight up half par five, uh par four rather. Um it’s a good risk reward one to be honest. It’s a good one that you can just have a go at. I had I mean I only had a five wood in my hand and just kind of pulled one to the left. A couple of bunkers uh just short of the green, but it’s one of those ones you kind of stand there. Well, kind of gotta go for this. Yeah, there’s there’s heather a bit shorter, so you’re almost just better off going for the green.

Nish 43:32

Um it wasn’t really a driver-heavy golf course. No, you didn’t you didn’t need to be particularly long. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, interesting.

Chris 43:41

Okay, yeah, I just liked it again. Nice visuals, kind of trees behind the green. Yeah, just yeah. It floated my boat with my short par fours.

Nish 43:48

Yeah, um, I’ve gone for my second top three hole. I’ve gone for the seventh. So the seventh was uh it’s a bit of a roller coaster ride, the seventh. So as you’re teeing off, the whole the hole rises up, and then as it hits the top of the hill, it then turns, dog legs, and then it sweeps right down, and then at the end it turns again left, and the green is elevated. Elevated, okay. So it’s like a almost an S-bend or a shik like a chicane type thing. But you’ve got when you’re driving, you can see this big expanse of fairway up ahead, but it’s actually not that far away. You kind of need to cut the corner to go for it. So it’s a bit of a it’s a risk reward, isn’t it? Like, go on, and if you cut the corner, I mean you did. You hit the right level of cut corner, and you were like right down at the base of that here.

Chris 44:39

Yeah, yeah.

Nish 44:39

It must have been an absolute monster drive.

Chris 44:41

Yeah.

Nish 44:42

And you know, and even mine, I I didn’t well, I was intending to, but I didn’t hit it as as intent like I was supposed to. So it went a bit straighter, but even that, because we thought we’d lost the ball where we were looking, it turned out it was much further down. So the ball just gathers downwards, yeah, and and there, and then it’s just a beautiful approach shot. Like I think when you’ve got that a dip anywhere and you’re approaching something elevated, it just on your eye, it just looks good, doesn’t it? It just like it looks really, really nice. It’s beautiful, yeah, uh beautiful hole that. Um, but again, there’s a and then there’s another big bunker, isn’t there, just before the green, I think. And if I’m I’m I’ve you’ve got the course map, haven’t you?

Chris 45:19

Yeah, there’s one, there’s one just shy, there’s one like 40 yards short, and then there’s one just green side, yeah.

Nish 45:23

Yeah, so it’s like kind of you know, I’ve got to fly it here. There’s no uh rolling it up, there’s no Scottish Lynx type shots going on there, you’ve got to go for it, sort of thing. That was a really nice uh nice hold up, I thought. Yeah. Um right, Chris.

Chris 45:37

Uh next one for me is the 14th.

Nish 45:40

14, right.

Chris 45:41

Yeah, so the 14 was I get you talking about that kind of S-shaped little snaky, snaky par four that was exactly like this. So you kind of had a I mean I played I played this hole absolutely horrendously. I’m just gonna put that out there, unless it’s one of those that got stuck in the heather on this one, and I think I don’t know, probably scored like that as me. An eight or a nine. Yeah, I don’t think I ever’s played it particularly well to be honest. But yeah, it’s a great hole because it’s kind of like a you have to you almost have to really short. So unless you want to cut the corner, you’ve got to hit like a shortish iron to the kind of top of the hill, and then it bends down to the left, and then again there’s a little little curve round to the right, and then the the green’s kind of tucked away down there. Um but again, uh you know it’s pretty gettable, sort of 400-yardish, uh sloping away down to the left, so there’s a bit of downhill in play. Um but again, just the visuals just looked great.

Nish 46:25

Looked nice, yeah.

Chris 46:25

So one of those kind of sweeping fairways down the hill. It kind of Walt and Heath did quite a bit of that, I think, didn’t it? I think so. And like I said, I think I think if we would have been playing that when it’s like lush and green, I think we would have got that full kind of surrey sandbelt feel, which I think we may have just missed a little bit, yeah. Some of those holes.

Nish 46:42

Yeah, yeah. The that that 14 is in the middle. I had a I went missing between holes 13 and 16, Jim. The swing deserted me, we couldn’t hit my driver for Toffee. Every iron shot I was hitting was just suddenly just going straight, but either left or right, nowhere near the target. But I do remember, I was like, but this golf course like now is immense. And and actually for me, with the new old debate, the new one out for me, you know, it and it it generally has when we played these places, like Queens over Kings and things like that. It’s the the the quirkier, the yeah, maybe the shorter, gettable ones, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do I like them a bit more? I just I don’t I don’t know why that is, but it just they just seem to work for me a little bit a little bit better. But yeah, I was definitely missing in action for a bit. I was just kind of like head down, can’t interact with anybody like what the hell is going on with my play. Um they’re your top three then, aren’t they? I think, is that right? What have you given us all the uh yeah, yeah, that’s all mine? Yeah so my mine one was then following on from that, mine was 17, so I’ve clicked back into the game at on 17, um, and it’s a drivable par four, so nailed my drive right down the middle. Uh I think it was the furthest out of all of us, actually, and it just left me a little flick of a wedge in pardit, you know, and it was like right, great. But where it is perched, it was it’s kind of on a bit of a I thought I’d hit a really good shot down there.

Chris 48:13

I was like, absolutely absolutely nailed one down there. I was like, that is gonna be close, and then it ended up like it was pin eye, it was pin eye, but it was like 40 yards left. I was like, Well, how’s that happened? And then I made an absolute mess of it from down there.

Nish 48:25

Yeah, it was funny that wasn’t it? But I thought it was a lovely little par four hole that tricky green, wasn’t it, when you get there?

Chris 48:31

So it’s an easy, easy hole in that it’s short and you can get it, but actually the greens are pretty tough one once you get there.

Nish 48:36

Absolutely. Um and then uh yeah, that was it, I think. My my were the what the any other kind of things that stuck out for you for that from that round, Chris, on the new course.

Chris 48:46

Um I think the thing for me is like I say, lots of short par four, so lots of lots of scoring opportunities, yeah, lots of bunkers right in the middle of fairways again. Um, yeah, really enjoyable round of golf, really enjoyable. Yeah, it was great, wasn’t it?

Nish 48:58

Loved it. Um I’ve a few memories that I’ve got from that is that I got a legit, not net, full on gross birdie on the eighth. It was a par five, and I played that par five absolutely perfectly.

36-Hole Match Play Twist and Final Verdict

Nish 49:08

Big long drive right now. It’s right on the edge of the one fairway bunker. It was like right on the edge of the fairway bunker laid out to to trap here. And I was like, God, I couldn’t have judged that any better. Fluked it. Like crushed my hybrid right down the middle. A little flick of a wedge, left myself about a 10-footer, drained the putt. I was like, it’s easy, this isn’t it? What’s what’s I think actually as it happened, all three of you were just all over the place, and I was like, guys, just keep it in the middle, this is what you have to do. Uh so that that was great. Um, now that the story of how the round unfolded was, and this lays into our match play. Uh, so I told you I went missing in action between holes 13 and 16. So at that point, before I went missing, so I think at about hole 10 or 11, I was four up on our match play, and then I went missing, and then we ended up tying the match, it was all square after 18. I know, um, and that happened because on 18, now do you remember the the 18th hole? Yeah, yeah. So again, so I’d hit a really good drive on 17, hit another really good one on 18. We’d both hit a really good drive. Yeah, you did, yeah. So both basically no one was next to each other, yeah. Yeah, tapping wedge away, weren’t mine was first, and I was like, right, come on, we’re in here. Just get it on the green, you’re alright. It was bang on a hundred yards, and I was like, that’s my gap wedge, perfect. Topped it straight into the massive bunker that’s waiting right before the before the green. I was like, oh, for God’s sake. And then two shots in the bunker, and I was like, I’m not getting out of here.

Chris 50:44

Yeah, you had another bunker.

Nish 50:45

You had another bunker disaster, didn’t you? I’m done. I’m not even the meltdown in the sand. I’m not doing it. Chris, I could hear him up through the back. I was like, Got a shovel, got a shovel for that. Oh yeah, thanks, mate. Yeah, so yeah, I mean, so that was all square. So I don’t know what that means for a 36-hole match play. Does that mean I win it? Five and four, or I guess so.

Jim 51:03

Yeah, yeah.

Nish 51:04

What would be nice to do is in light of everybody doing a composite layout whenever there’s a thing played here, would be if we did a between us go right, what would we agree would be out of those 36, what would be the best 18 to play? That would be I wouldn’t have the first on the old course, I know. Yeah, definitely not. But um yeah, amazing. So wonder wonderful. Yeah, top days, top days, top couple of days. Top couple of days, yeah, absolutely. Um now, last couple of bits. Uh, do you feel that Walton Heath either of them could get into your top five?

Chris 51:40

I don’t think so. No, not for me.

Nish 51:42

Yeah, I think I think I’d go along with that.

Chris 51:45

I think they’re probably reasonably ranked in terms of where they are, sort of old stuff.

Nish 51:49

Yeah, and you’d have it that way, you’d have mid like late 30s and maybe 80s for the yeah. Yeah, I think it probably feels about right. Okay. I’d probably have them the reverse for me. Yeah, yeah. Um but you know, very well established in that top 100 for me. They you know, you get all the feels from that from that place, and we’ve talked about the the clubhouse already, Jim. So um everybody should go and listen. That’s another little shout out for that episode. Go and listen, because there’s some great little things that you can do in a clubhouse and make a day of it, it’s really worth making a day of it.

Chris 52:22

So great place to go. I think because we were there playing it as a pairs event, I almost at times forgot that it’s kind of one of those like old school all boys golden golf courses. But then there was a point, I can’t remember the first or the second day. I think it might have been the second day where there was a guy coming up in his plus fours and his tie, like his little little flat cap and his little I mean he must have been like 90 little pencil bags. Little pencil bag walking down, and I was like, Yes, we’re in Surrey.

Nish 52:47

Yeah, that’s it. It was good, he was great, you know, lovely bloody feel to it, wasn’t it? That so yeah. I mean, that’s our review of of Walton Heath. It’s a two-parter, please check out uh we’ll put the pop the links in the description. Please check out that that next part. Um, any any final words about either of the Walton Heath courses? Like you, Jim, aren’t you going down and playing now? Yeah, have we painted a good picture of it?

Jim 53:09

I know I think you have in in ice. Obviously, it was difficult conditions, bearing in mind the the weather.

Nish 53:14

Yeah.

Jim 53:15

Um you you know, it’s the wonderful thing about our country. It’s it’s so unpredictable when it comes to that. But it can it means that if you go back again, you’ll have you may have a completely different experience. Yeah, a complete totally different experience. Yeah, it’d be great to go and play that when it’s flush.

Chris 53:30

I would like to, yeah, I’d like to, because I think it’d be pristine, I think it’d be beautiful.

Jim 53:34

I think particularly when you’ve been to such a you know a fair few of the golf courses around that area, you know, the hindheads and so on and so so forth. Yeah, um, that’s you know, but they were in better conditions, I suppose, because it was the start of the season. Yeah, you know, it was spring coming into uh into early summer, so that that that changes the complexion of um of the look of the course. And the look of the course is actually something that’s really important, yeah. Absolutely. Obviously, playabilities and history and and everything that goes along with it, the design of the courses, but just when you’re there and you’re looking at it, you’re thinking, wow, isn’t this country absolutely stunning? But when it’s parched, yeah.

Nish 54:09

Where’s all that water gone that we’ve been getting for the last six months? Exactly, exactly. Yeah, it’s you’re you’re spot on, Jim. You’re spot on. Like and the weather it works the opposite way with the weather as well, when it’s horrible, and you’re like, oh, I’ve not even got my head up because it’s been raining so much, I’ve not seen anything. You don’t do like that. All I’ve seen is the green of the grass because you know, and squelch and and whatever. So um play it, play, play it on different days, you know, whatever, whatever you can do. Um, but yeah, um pop pop it on your list. Until next time on the top 100 in 10 Golf podcast.