We’re Playing an Open at West Lancs Golf Club

Nish: 0:01

Every story has an ending. Does our quest to play the top 100 courses in 10 years have a good ending? I’m Nish, I’m Chris, I’m Jimmy and we’re here to guide you through this golfing journey. This is the Top 100 in 10 Golf Podcast. West Lancs Golf Club Preview.

Nish: 0:18

So our friend, Bernard Darwin, who we’ve encountered a few times, wrote about West Lancs, as it’s affectionately known. The West Lancashire Golf Club is decidedly one of the more venerable English golf clubs since it was founded. The course lies on a noble stretch of golfing land which is second to none, not even to the East Lothian or the country around Prestwick or Troon. High praise, indeed Nice. I’m sure he said something similar about Glen Eagles as well, but we’ll let him off. But yeah, his name keeps cropping up, doesn’t it? Bernard Darwin.

Chris: 0:56

A lot of golf chat from that man.

Nish: 0:57

Yeah, seems quite a lot coming out. So yeah, I’ll say, like previously at Ganton, I’d heard of West Lancs, this time at least, but didn’t really know anything about the club or the course as such, because you always hear about your Birkdale’s S&A Hillside. To a lesser degree you hear about Hoy Lake.

Chris: 1:20

I mean, there’s a lot of clubs clustered around that little area right, and this is probably the lesser known of all those, I would say. Yeah yeah, yeah, definitely, I’d say. The other ones are probably better known, aren’t they?

Jim: 1:32

Yeah, I think they’re out of the ones that were in the top 100, certainly.

Chris: 1:36

Yeah, oh yeah, I mean they’re out of the courses.

Jim: 1:38

Yeah, yeah absolutely.

Nish: 1:40

Yeah, yeah, I forgot form being that as well, I mean for me crikey. I mean again the. The interesting thing with this whole challenge is isn’t just a we’re just gonna play 100 golf courses. There’s a load of other stuff comes with it right, so learning about these golf journalists learning about players that you didn’t know you mentioned because of gary walson home in the ganson preview.

Nish: 2:01

Yeah, yeah, these names and things. But then another thing that comes out from that is that loads of people say, you know, and as we’ve been chatting to people on instagram or whatever, and then, oh yeah, I might have a connection here, I might have a connection there whatever everybody to a man always goes but I won’t be able to help you at formby. But I won’t be able to help you at formby. But I won’t be able to help you at Formby because it just feels like Formby is like a full on closed ranks, like you need to be ultra connected in there or just pay as much as you can pay and get into it. I mean, I might be wrong, who knows, tell me, fleetwood, I’ll sort you out, don’t worry.

Chris: 2:41

Yeah, yeah yeah, well, it also actually. Is he Formby, or is he formby hall formby?

Nish: 2:46

hall. But, uh, obviously linked to formby as well. Yeah, uh, years ago I might have been able to get a link in through tommy fleetwood because we I know through a friend of mine, uh, the person who was his um, like mental conditioning coach type person, uh, during the rider cup four years ago it was um, but they fell out so who you?

Chris: 3:20

and his coach yeah, so, and it wasn’t it was.

Nish: 3:23

I don’t think it was even a falling out, I think it was just more like he doesn’t want to work with you anymore. And then he didn’t do the ringing up to sack him got somebody else to do it and he was like just want to say just want to speak to him just to say we’ve had a good time you know great.

Chris: 3:41

I wish you all the best, maybe not if you’re sacking them, but if you at least say it’s been a pleasure working with you. All the best for the future loners losers no social skills.

Jim: 3:53

Anyway, I’m sat amongst the middle of two it all stacks up, jim avid golfers well, west Lancs is ranked 86th on our list.

Nish: 4:06

So, after all of that and one of the other facts was, uh, that it’s the ninth oldest golf club in england. It’s pretty wild, isn’t it? Yeah, in england yeah 1873 it was founded, right. But yeah it’s. It’s got all this history about it and regard whatever it’s 86 on the list. It was a bit surprised by that, I suppose. Was that the original?

Jim: 4:29

list. And what is it now? Is it still in a similar position? We?

Nish: 4:32

haven’t updated positions. Actually, we just left everything kind of where it is. But yeah, it’s so low down. I mean, wales was around now, that was more, yeah.

Jim: 4:42

Abu Dhabi, abu D down, I mean what else?

Chris: 4:44

was around.

Jim: 4:45

Now, that was that was more abadovi, abadovi, david’s there on that kind of neck of the woods, weren’t they? Yeah, where was that? Sna? Sna was like 98, yeah, something like that was right at the bottom sna, yeah, yeah, yeah, so.

Nish: 4:54

So I’m expected to shoot a good score at west langs now, because I shot a really good score at rsd and uh that’s how it’s gonna go.

Jim: 5:02

So it is. It is a Lynx course, obviously it is a Lynx course?

Chris: 5:05

yeah, Classic Lynx, isn’t it? I think, yeah, yeah.

Jim: 5:08

The coast of Liverpool Bay is it.

Nish: 5:11

The Mersey.

Jim: 5:13

Estuary, the Mersey Estuary is it called yeah.

Nish: 5:15

Is that what it’s called? Yeah, Crosby Is it in it’s Oblundle Sands? Yes, of course.

Jim: 5:23

Is it Lancashire? No, it’s Merseyside.

Chris: 5:26

It’s Merseyside, even though it’s called West Lancs. It is.

Jim: 5:28

Merseyside. It’s further closer to Liverpool than Ains, than erm Birkdale and Right Ainsdale.

Chris: 5:35

I mean, it’s pretty wild land is really good, or is it the fact that it’s?

Nish: 5:44

liverpool, there’s a dog well it’s like, um, it’s, it’s so. I maybe might know the answer to this. Westlanks was was founded from seven members who were from royal liverpool. They decided they wanted to make another golf course because they were, uh, scottish, yeah, and they wanted to spread the scottish national game a little bit more. Right. But they said a lot of that was a lot of it stemmed, and the popularity of golf stemmed from the fact that it was basically one of the biggest ports in the empire well, I mean it was, it was like it was the, the beating heart of britain wasn’t it?

Nish: 6:15

yeah, yeah. So there’s. There’s people who had money, who could play and be members, and most courses started off as nine holes to see. People would come in and then expand into 18.

Chris: 6:23

Yeah, yeah, um so that would have been the perfect timing as well, wouldn’t it for that? When golf course has been built around, that’s it, and they’re all clustered around there and it’s all around by that time they’re all made so uh you know, that, that kind of little area, which is what’s it called?

Nish: 6:35

you’d probably call it the little golden parcel of lynx land to play golf. You know, it’s what have we got? We’ve got formby, burke, dale, west side wallace.

Chris: 6:48

I mean it’s almost like 10 of our top 100 list, isn’t it?

Nish: 6:51

it’s crazy within a handful of miles of each other and that form. I played form before. The hall is a great course. Yeah, yeah, you know. Um, what else is there now? Because wallace’s just jumped in now. Um, which I think I think I’m missing, missing one off there, but anyway, yeah it. Yeah, it’s V. Yeah, so we’re kind of lucky, we’ve got.

Jim: 7:07

Royal.

Nish: 7:07

Liverpool, royal Liverpool, of course, the granddaddy of them all, I suppose, yeah, royal Liverpool. So yeah, we’re very lucky that we’ve got them on our doorstep really yeah, yeah, yeah, obviously, I mean.

Jim: 7:17

Merseyside didn’t exist as a county until what 1980s was it?

Nish: 7:23

Is that so?

Jim: 7:25

Yeah, 1980s was it, is that so? Yeah, well, greater.

Chris: 7:27

Manchester didn’t exist, it was all Lancashire. It was all Lancashire, wasn’t it?

Jim: 7:29

I didn’t realise that was actually the Wirral was the Wirral was Cheshire yeah, okay at that particular time, and then Merseyside, so just Lancashire, cheshire and then Merseyside came out.

Nish: 7:51

Well, they all became metropolitan areas, didn’t they? Yeah?

Jim: 7:54

um, you know, conurbations effectively yeah and so the great manchester is a conurbation, so it’s almost.

Nish: 8:01

Manchester grew to stockport, salford, oldham, rochdale, bolton, right well, one thing we will see and I’ve seen it on the flyover videos is uh, we’ll see some misery rail trains going by just for you, jim so I’ll take a garish garish

Jim: 8:16

I mean rattling kind of. They had it on one of the flyovers haven’t changed since the uh industrial revolution.

Nish: 8:23

Yeah, one of the whole flyovers. I’ll just use a different video, lads you know, don’t use it. I mean, I’m surprised they had moving pictures on their website to be perfectly honest with you. But yeah, 1873. Old school innit Proper old so they just had their 150-year anniversary.

Nish: 8:42

Wow, which is crazy. That’s pretty wild, isn’t it? Yeah, but then, equally, there’s things that are very sort of almost modern about it. So it’s got a two-story modern clubhouse that’s sun-trapped and it’s kind of a day you know. They’ve got nice, nice lounges and areas for people to overlook the, the golf course and enjoy drinking the sun, and all this kind of stuff.

Jim: 9:04

yeah, um, probably history and obviously the welsh mountains in the background.

Nish: 9:09

Yeah, and, and it says full tower, if we get a nice clear day because it’s right near Crosby, we should hopefully get a view of Anthony Gormley’s bronze statues that are scattered all over the beach. So that’d be quite nice, wouldn’t it, if? The golf’s going shit, we can just drink in the well it doesn’t matter how the golf goes, because it’s two scores out of four so as long as.

Jim: 9:32

Paul and.

Nish: 9:32

Matt are doing alright, we’re okay.

Jim: 9:33

I’m just going to put my feet on that, darren. This is the competition isn’t it yeah.

Nish: 9:38

So we’re a team of four. So we’re basically the way we’ve played this round. So Paul we’ve mentioned on the podcast in the early episodes is your mate from school and Matt is Paul’s kid’s mate’s dad, sort of thing. So they know each other from school, sort of thing. And we played S&A. We were very kindly invited by Matt Great day out.

Nish: 10:03

That was a great day out and he’s a great guy and we’d sort of left and we’d promised each other that we would play more Top 100 courses together and I think we were all determined at that point like, let’s not make it just a, it’s a passing thing, yeah, as you just say it, let’s let’s actually follow through on it, sort of thing. So so you’ve been ever since well, and paul sent the message actually I haven’t heard from him for absolutely fucking months, I think messages me more than you now.

Jim: 10:33

Yeah, yeah I knew I created monster when I first introduced them, and you from that very, very moment I was. I was just, you know, persona non grata so we, we had a, we had a.

Nish: 10:48

We have a normal lad’s christmas day out. We always pick a place and just go for the day and get a train home. So we went liverpool this time and we’re like right, jim, you can show us the sites and all that kind of stuff.

Chris: 10:59

There were many sites and uh paul came in. Were there any moving pictures of the site?

Nish: 11:05

there were a lot of moving pictures as well of the sites, uh, but uh, let’s be deleted, unfortunately, paul came in paul came and joined us with a couple of other uh, jim’s pals from from school, but they, they left and then it was just paul and it’s dead funny. It’s like it’s one of the things. I sort of know him well enough. We played quite a lot of golf together and, you know, spent quite a lot of time with him. Obviously he’s got a lot more history with with jim and in those situations the only thing that happens is that you two end up start teaming up against the person that you mutually know don’t you.

Chris: 11:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just like start ripping the shit out.

Nish: 11:38

Yeah, halfway through it was like oh god, I’m doing, that, aren’t I?

Chris: 11:41

I’m doing that, whatever, I’m just gonna go with it.

Nish: 11:43

This happened it was great, it’s good, good banter, so actually it’s gonna be a great round anyway, and matt was a top guy. He was yeah, yeah and he’s a really good golfer as well. So, yeah, I think he’s matt’s playing in the niche invitational and I got his uh handicap center.

Chris: 11:59

He saw that couple through, okay, and he’s been moving down since last time we played with him I’m gonna just tell you what matt’s handicap.

Nish: 12:08

Yeah, no, no single figures yeah, I think he’s playing a four wasn’t the last time we played with him and, as we know, paul’s like 11 himself and his recovery’s always good, so I think we should just put I might just take my slippers with me.

Jim: 12:18

Yeah, fuck it, we’ll just we’ll just watch yeah is that part of the dress code, though, because you know, obviously we were talking they’re golf branded slippers or they will be by the time.

Nish: 12:27

I’ve moved a couple of things the trainers and moved them onto my slippers. Uh, that’s. That’s actually, I think, on the website, on the westlanks website, very much talk about, you know, the stuff that is allowed to, like hoodies and stuff, as long as it’s a recognized official golf whatever, so like you can wear a hoodie. Uh, yeah, so we’re gonna. Well, that’s the reason, that’s the way we’re doing it. And then what happened was matt messaged us to say the open at uh event right at west langs, which is a team one, is gonna gonna happen. We need a team of four. Do you guys want to join us? All right, yes, thank you very much, we will do that, yeah.

Nish: 13:04

So if anybody is looking to to play top 100, of course, probably a good tip is to look out for um for open tournament yeah, I mean it was pretty.

Chris: 13:12

It was pretty, it was like 90 quid or something. Yeah, I think, I think yeah, 90, 95 pounds we paid.

Nish: 13:18

It’s 2.5 per person if we wanted to play at this time of year and obviously the course is going to be great, Nick.

Jim: 13:25

Yeah, it should be.

Nish: 13:26

And it’s there to promote the course, isn’t it? The open, that’s the whole point. The only thing you need to have is you’ll need to have an official handicap for that. So, again, if you’re a casual golfer, that’s quite easy to do, because you can do it with iGolf now, uh, as Chris has been doing, you can submit your scores on that. Or if you are with a golf club, um, you should be able to just get on the England Golf app if you’re in England, obviously, but England Golf app and log your, log your scorecards on there and get your get your handicap up, so it should no problem.

Chris: 13:53

It was funny, wasn’t it? Because we had a little group chat about the initial invitation the other day and we were putting our handicaps in and I put mine in at whatever it is 10.1, and Paul instantly popped up and was like I think you need to add a few more shots to that, because obviously last time we played at Saturday I was absolutely.

Nish: 14:09

He’s terrible. Still scored 96 each right, but he was terrible.

Chris: 14:15

So Paul’s there going? I mean, there’s no way. This kid’s playing on fucking 10.

Nish: 14:18

We’re going to get absolutely hammered your handicap’s in that strange flux period, though, isn’t it? I think you need another four or five rounds before it normalises.

Chris: 14:26

Well, I think you need like 20 rounds, don’t you? I think you’ve only got like eight rounds seven or eight rounds in there, I think.

Nish: 14:38

I think, paul is uber, uber competitive, is he? You know, I’ve never noticed that never, ever noticed that.

Jim: 14:43

Always with me, it’s like you, it’s you with me, and then him and me yeah, yeah, absolutely that’s that’s being back at school, is there?

Nish: 14:51

that’s a whole like competitive thing from school, that clearly yeah, but we’re not.

Jim: 14:56

He was very competitive, but we shared a flat when we first moved to manchester 20 years ago. Pretty much so, um, yeah, and he was. Yeah, he’s always been massively competitive, massively competitive does that mean?

Chris: 15:08

does that mean he’s going to be a very? Does that mean he’s going to be a different kettle of fish when we’re playing in a tournament? Because that Ike was just very kind of, you know, it was quite casual and he was relaxed and it was good crack and stuff when we played at S&A. Do you think he’s going to be like a different character? Do you think me and him might just like flash heads? Well, we’re on the same team, aren’t we?

Nish: 15:25

it’s just the two best scores out of our four ball just watch out for the look it can kill. I reckon you’ll take up all the par 3 slack, you think that’s my job for the day you’ll clear up on the par 3’s.

Nish: 15:42

I think in terms of other bits of history, the only other bit of history I’ve got from West Lancs which is pretty significant was it was in Lancashire, which at this time we worked out at that time would have been absolutely massive, wouldn’t it Lancashire? Because it would have contained merseyside, it would have had greater manchester in it as well. It the first ever ladies golf club was formed at west lancashire golf club, so it was a very proud the ladies golf club.

Nish: 16:07

Then was it no, no, no, it was, it’s in 1873, yeah, and then after that oh sorry, that was after, right they formed the first ladies’ club, but it was very early on, so I think it was quite forward-thinking in that respect. And they do say, actually as well as part of their history, that they have always been a very friendly, inclusive golf club. So that’s their whole kind of friendly vibe about it.

Chris: 16:29

It’s interesting, isn’t it? Because they’re all, Because ultimately those top ones right, they are not particularly inclusive and not particularly welcoming, I would say, to visitors.

Nish: 16:45

really, Some of the best club courses in the world, aren’t they? Yeah?

Chris: 16:47

yeah, like.

Nish: 16:49

B-Boy Lake, Birkdale, S&A.

Chris: 16:50

But then there’s other ones kind of in and around it the S&As and the West Lanks. They’ve got to really kind of compete, haven’t they? They’re on the same stretch of land. They’re maybe not quite at that level in terms of elite course. Yeah, they’ve got, they’ve got to offer something else, haven’t they?

Nish: 17:02

yeah, I mean I must say the the as much as the bad day the pro was having sni. That probably tainted it a little bit. For us was the members were great yeah very friendly everyone was saying hello and you know there was no like, didn’t feel like there was any snootiness about it so yeah, I mean, it’s fun.

Nish: 17:18

That’s how you compete, don’t you Be friendly and welcoming and get visitors in? Oh yeah, that was a, I will bring. I mean this is genius. There’s no. This isn’t like the try to be RC, it’s just. The way it was phrased is just absolutely fucking hilarious. So it’s gone. West Lancs prides itself on being a welcoming, inclusive golf club, as long as you have a handicap. Which I thought was quite funny. It was like the visitors coming and playing.

Nish: 17:47

So I think that their whole thing is that you know, as long as you’re a competent golfer because it’ll be a toughish course. You know we welcome you with open arms and all that kind of thing. So actually I’m really looking forward to playing there.

Chris: 17:58

I think it’ll be a great day. I think it will be. I’m looking forward to playing with the boys again, middle of summer it’s going to be amazing, isn’t it? Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?

Nish: 18:07

And our two scores don’t have to count either. So even better than that, mildred Ideal. Yeah, do you know anything else about West Lancs? Either of you two hosted the Ryder Cup. It hasn’t hosted the Ryder Cup, you’re quite right. It has 18 holes of golf. Championship golf, yeah, 18 holes, Final Open qualifier.

Chris: 18:26

We already said that. I can’t remember. Yeah, we hadn’t said that actually.

Nish: 18:29

Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, final qualifying venue for the Open 2023 through to 2026. Yeah, it’s got a full driving range of 300 yards, chris Sweet, so you can have a good practice.

Chris: 18:39

But yeah, it’s where Matthew Jordan qualified, there, didn’t he?

Nish: 18:43

before he went on to finish where did he finish 10th?

Chris: 18:47

10th in the Hoy Lake Hoy. Lake yeah, so it’s his kind of neck of the woods, isn’t it? Yeah, that’s right, yeah, it’s yeah’m just looking forward to it as a day out really, and it’s unique apparently as well.

Nish: 19:04

Sorry, it’s not unique. There’s very limited number of links courses that do a loop of nine where the ninth hole comes back to the clubhouse, then another loop of nine, and the reason for that is that usually you’re dealing in a very narrow pass of land. As we found out, abu dhabi we were looking at that bit of land, like how they squeezed the golf course into that area.

Nish: 19:23

You know a golf ball down there yeah, um, so it’s got that kind of and so there’s a nice halfway hut and all that kind of stuff, so we’ve. I mean, I don’t think it’s gonna be the telephones to ring the order up or anything like that, but you can apparently ring up the morning to pre-order your food if you like. No nice used to a phone box now.

Nish: 19:40

Yeah, yeah yeah, with a menu and just going hey, hello yeah yeah, so I think that kind of you know covers kind of the historical element. It’s a very historical club because it goes back such a long time and very few clubs celebrated 150 years. Yeah, well, I guess I’ll be another, another eight in eng.

Chris: 20:00

England Eight or nine.

Jim: 20:00

Yeah yeah, another eight in England.

Nish: 20:01

I mean, what’s Scotland? Some of them are getting on to like 400 years, 500 years, aren’t they? But one of the things that I picked up from and it’s a podcast that I know a lot of people do listen to is the Cookie Jar podcast, cookie Jar Golf. They say in a lot of it that the all the green complexes are elevated from the surrounding links land, so it makes a real feature of getting up to the green, which I’d be interested to see how that works out, because I couldn’t really see that basically means you’re also gonna fucking run off the green any, any errant shots.

Nish: 20:33

Yeah, you’re gonna lose down those little runoffs I couldn’t figure out if it was bunker heavy or not from the flyovers. I didn’t really take that in. I didn’t absorb that information.

Jim: 20:43

Well it’s strange that they say in the Signature Hole there’s no bunkers around the green.

Nish: 20:46

And what is the Signature Hole?

Jim: 20:48

Might as well do that. Now it’s called the Bar the Bar.

Chris: 20:52

It’s a wild thing to have a named Signature Hole, isn’t it?

Jim: 20:56

They did have them at Glen Eagles, we did, but we just didn’t.

Nish: 20:58

It was Kingshame, oh yeah, Kingshame. They had an S&A as well, didn’t they?

Jim: 21:01

Yes, so the bar is a par four. It’s a whole 13, the bar.

Chris: 21:07

Unlucky for some Unlucky for some. Mostly Nish.

Nish: 21:09

I feel like we’ve had a 13th before. Was that at Royal St David’s?

Chris: 21:21

Was.

Nish: 21:21

I mean, if that was a 13th, then it doesn’t bode well for what’s to come. That was disastrous for all three of us. We played that so badly there wasn’t really anything to it either really was there. You could just knock an iron up and play it.

Chris: 21:33

It was an embarrassment to the podcast that day it was.

Nish: 21:36

That was the first full day of filming a signature, but they also say on the Cookie Jar Golf podcast that the back nine is supposed to be absolutely brilliant, like, really exhilarating.

Chris: 21:46

Exhilarating. Wow has it got like rides and stuff.

Jim: 21:49

It’s close to South Port Pleasureland, I think it’s called.

Nish: 21:52

Matt seems like a pretty unflappable character. We’ll see how exhilarated he feels at the back nine.

Chris: 22:03

That’ll be our uh barometer for whether it’s exhilarating or not yeah, I’m really interested to see what happens to me on a competition day because this is full on proper.

Nish: 22:12

It’s live leaderboards they’ve got. So I don’t know how they’re gonna do that, but you you know people could actually on this one because it’s the open competition for west lancet itself. On the day of the competition you can follow our progress on the live leaderboard. It’ll be on their website okay that’s interesting, isn’t it?

Jim: 22:35

so your podcast to me. What do you need going?

Chris: 22:36

yeah I think you should do a live reaction, that’s Jim’s productivity reduced. You are not going to believe what’s just happened so what day is that that? Is on a.

Nish: 22:46

Thursday.

Chris: 22:47

It’s.

Nish: 22:47

Thursday, the 17th oh July. Yes. Follow in the diary, folks I know you can follow along so you can see how Matt and Paul are dragging it along.

Jim: 23:02

Oh, they just picked up, follow along so you can see how Matt and Paul are dragging us all along. Oh, they just picked up again, or they just disintegrate, because it’s a different competition how do you put?

Chris: 23:08

your scores in. There must be an app. Or do you have scorers?

Nish: 23:13

Maybe they have scorers on each hole, you never know. That means they’re open, isn’t it? And means they’re open, isn’t it? And it’s a pretty celebrated club, so they might have a system for for do I don’t? I do you know what? I don’t know, I don’t match? Come back and sort that out. Yeah, so, so that’s so. The signature hold is the 13th. Yeah, so we’ll do our normal match play on that. Have you considered what you would like to give us as a side bet, james?

Chris: 23:37

I think, given who we’re playing with, there should be something about winding Paul up. We’ve got to tie one of those snakes to his there should be some sort of challenge that we’ve got to.

Nish: 23:48

I’ll tell you something, I reckon, because it’s competitive, I think we’re going to get serious. I think if you tried to mess with him, I think we’d get short sharp from that. I think he’d deck us. I think he’d actually genuinely if you tried to put him off with something, he would not be happy with that. I’m going to be way worse than him probably. I’m on easy street on this because surely?

Nish: 24:10

one of the other three are going to score decently, I’m just like, whatever this might be one of those I said in the Ganton preview same thing of the Ganton preview, same thing. Maybe this is the round that I just go. I’m not putting a scorecard, I’m not doing anything, I’m just going to enjoy the round.

Chris: 24:23

You kind of have to when you’re playing in a competition. Well doing that, yes, but somebody else can do that for me.

Nish: 24:27

Just you know I got four, whatever, and just not let it be a thing to worry about. I do not think you’ve got that in you.

Chris: 24:35

I don’t know people that have got I enjoyed that.

Nish: 24:37

I did enjoy that at ready for that. Actually just just going free and easy I mean, I was even like suddenly, uh 16th game, I’m going to try and drive the green here.

Chris: 24:44

I think there’s a. There’s a balance, though isn’t there, because I think if you’re just going on, it’s so nonchalantly, are you not going to score well, like you’ve got? There’s got to be a balance between wanting it too much and not wanting enough you’ve got to be relaxed.

Nish: 24:55

There’s a sweet spot in the middle, I think. If you don’t care about your score, you’re probably relaxing to it and you just go. I don’t think so.

Chris: 25:02

No, I think you’ve got to be when you’re playing golf. You’ve got to be switched on right. You’ve got to be thinking. So if you’re just going around uber casually, I don’t think you’re going to score as well as you could.

Nish: 25:12

Well, I think it depends on how you’re walking between shots and you just concentrate on your shot and then you hit a good shot.

Chris: 25:27

That’s focus right.

Nish: 25:29

Yeah, yeah if you’re like fretting and stressing in the middle.

Chris: 25:33

That’s their negative.

Nish: 25:35

Yeah, but I think, like I say, if you’re, I didn’t hit an errant shot after that, I was so good, I even hit the electric overhead power cables which I was aiming for. Yeah, I was like as soon as I just went, I’m not putting a card in, I’m not bothered, it was just like ping ping ping, ping it was flying. It was great, very liberating. What are you saying then, side bet?

Jim: 25:59

whoever beats paul on the most holes good one interesting can I tell him that this is the side bet?

Nish: 26:13

uh, yeah, do we leave it? And then?

Jim: 26:15

it’s up to you.

Nish: 26:16

I’m not gonna be there okay, I won’t speak to him, obviously.

Jim: 26:19

Question for you yeah, you uh, or I can speak to him. Obviously Question for you. Yeah, you should, or I can speak to him and put it in.

Nish: 26:25

I was going to say so. You should know him well enough. Is pre-knowledge of this competition going to ruin it for him, or is it going to spur him on Spur?

Chris: 26:38

him on. Yeah, because ultimately we want to win right as a team. Well, also, I don’t want him to not enjoy himself, because if we win, I don’t care if he enjoys himself.

Jim: 26:50

I think he’s been playing enough golf in the last several years to have confidence in his own ability actually.

Nish: 26:53

He should have. He’s a very good golfer. Yeah, he should have. He’s a competent golfer.

Jim: 26:57

He’s improved quite considerably. He’s had enough fucking practice. Sorry for crashing you into Vicky, but no, he’s very competitive, so I think it will spur him on, certainly, and I’ll probably make him better.

Nish: 27:15

So best not to tell him until afterwards maybe I think you should tell him afterwards, right? The reason I say that is when remember sna, when oh he started bottling.

Chris: 27:27

It didn’t?

Nish: 27:27

he started bottling it yeah, yeah like he got to the point where we’re just like, yeah, we’re like four up with five to play.

Nish: 27:32

This is easy street, paul, we got this in the bag. Yeah, I always started tanking at that point. Anyway, my batman was horrific, but he went to shit. I couldn’t. I was relying on paul dragging us through and he was nowhere to be seen wow. So I don’t want to crumble, I don’t want to crumble because I’m relying on two people in our group to get a good score, so my score doesn’t matter although it’s kind of a double-edged sword, isn’t it?

Chris: 27:54

because if he plays badly, then it’s easy for us to beat him, so it doesn’t really matter if he plays badly, because that’s effectively, effectively spur us on, I think in terms of the overall competition, I would rather beat Paul than Alfred.

Jim: 28:09

Well, we win, but that’s just our relationship over the last 30 years, yeah.

Nish: 28:13

I feel like you’ve let that taint your choice of side bet.

Chris: 28:16

I like that side bet, though I think it’s a spicy one.

Nish: 28:19

But you know we are supposed to be on the same team, working as a force.

Jim: 28:23

Well, if you don’t tell him it’s fine then isn’t it?

Chris: 28:25

Yeah, so I think if you don’t tell him and then at the end we’re like but ultimately the nature of playing in those teams, though, is that you’re playing as a team, but you’re not really playing as a team. You’re playing as four, someone else is having an absolute shocker. It is annoying. If they don’t contribute at all throughout the day, they contribute like one hole.

Nish: 28:48

I think the standard that the three of us are at I’ll probably say everybody will contribute something.

Chris: 28:53

Yeah, I think. So I actually think we’ll be a really good team. Yeah, because. But the thing is, he’s one decent low handicapper who’s going to score, who’s going to Do the bulk?

Nish: 29:04

Yeah, who’s going to carry us to the pars. Basically, His job is to do the par fours basically.

Chris: 29:08

Well, he’s basically yeah, if he can make pars, he can get If he just pars the whole thing, that’s me.

Nish: 29:13

We’re good everywhere, aren’t we?

Chris: 29:15

Then everybody else can and we can come and smash a load of birdies and eagles.

Nish: 29:19

Just clarify what the side bet is again.

Jim: 29:20

The side bet is Out of Whoever beats Paul On the most holes.

Nish: 29:28

What if neither of us beat Paul, the person who’s closest to Paul’s score?

Jim: 29:32

There’s a tie then.

Nish: 29:34

The side bet’s all or nothing.

Chris: 29:35

Basically no, no, no, just on each hole Per hole, so the number of holes. Match play against Paul’s score.

Nish: 29:42

We can’t tell him that then, because that’s too, that’s a bit, actually a bit harsh on him. We’ll tell him that we’ll do that later and say right, we’ve got to top down what our match play against you was for our side bet but yeah, it’ll be a cracking, a cracking day actually, yeah, mid July on the coast um. You are in england and it is the merseyside coast right we’re just gonna, we’ll do our that will be a good summer. This year we’re having a good, that would be.

Jim: 30:08

That would be course number 10 as well, nice okay feels like a bit of a hitting double figures is a bit of a milestone within the year as well, and with within a within a calendar year correct.

Nish: 30:20

Yeah, within within a 12-month period, we’ll have. Yeah, we’re gonna play. Oh, actually we’ll play the scottish courses before all right, so we get to 13. 12 or 13 depends how trump goes. Yeah, we get to 12 or 13 before we hit the 12-month. That’s good, it’s a good milestone that. Yeah, I think hitting double figures feels feels big, that feels serious.

Jim: 30:39

To me it does yeah I can keep this also feels oh, you know we’ve got a long way to go. But does, yeah, I can keep it also feels oh, fucking shit, you know we’ve got a long way to go but yeah, like I can’t stop, now it’s out.

Chris: 30:46

It sounds like a lot, doesn’t it, when you go like we’ve got 90 to play I know, yeah, I focus on that.

Nish: 30:50

We played 10 double figures.

Chris: 30:52

Yeah, yeah, when you say you got 90, still together it’s like we’re talking about like this, like it’s a chore that we’ve got to go and do the 90, like it’s an absolute privilege being able to go and do these things, isn’t it?

Nish: 31:01

it’s um, maybe we’ll revisit that phrase when we hit the 80s I think so yeah oh god, we just can’t hit the grind yeah, we’ve got to do another balance here as well because, uh, we ought to do a completely shameless plug for our society as well. So the top 110 tour Society has its first event. See, we’re good, we’re good to go, we’re playing Hollingwell. We’re playing on the 26th of September. They’ve been very, very, very kind in dealing with us and, you know, absolutely fantastic. But then also the pressure then becomes. We’ve got people who haven’t played as many courses as we have already and we probably want to try and keep their travel to an absolute minimum as we can. So we want to try and keep the ones that are near us probably saved for, say for that, because most people are just by nature of it, because of who we know they’re based around us. So trying to make so that kind of throws another little fly in the ointment, doesn’t?

Jim: 31:59

it.

Nish: 32:03

Um, it’s, you know, maybe do some of the far-flung ones, but actually it feels, you know, now we’ve done big one, haven’t? We were doing glenny, that’s four and a half hours up driving. So, yeah, kind of I think the big ones are going to be moving like hit, like saint enidoc and it’s not, yeah, saint enidoc, an island next year island, yeah, I think we need to do island next year. That’s a big, big one. So if anybody’s in Ireland who’s listening, who wants to play golf with us, please send us a message. Right, gents? I think that’s a bit of a rambling preview A meandering preview of West Langs.

Nish: 32:35

Yeah, I think we’ve sort of said it. The course and the club is very historic, but I feel like it’s got a different vibe to it than some of the real.

Jim: 32:44

Don’t say that whilst you’re there it’s got a really nice vibe.

Nish: 32:47

It’s not in Blundell, so Some of the established big hitters. You know that everyone’s heard of. You know they probably just exude a bit of different kind of atmosphere around them. You know, just everything comes across a little bit friendlier, it seems, anyway, and then we rock up and we’ll see what happens. But yeah, okay, thank you, cheers guys.