hello and welcome back to another episode of Sam plays golf the cookies
um as always I’m joined by Sam Williams Thomas thank you Bruce is currently
playing golf he’s away Spain in Spain doing Spanish things over there but um
it’s silly season it’s the 2nd of September you keep putting this on social media
What A Silly Season Silly Season it’s like the first few weeks of December where everyone just goes mad and you go out drinking every night of December it
just gets way too much yeah in December but this is and it’s like the golfing equivalent golfing Silly Season it’s
like all the commitments of the Year seem to just get sandwiched into September and
October August is not a busy golf month August is almost like the the Calm before the storm before you
before you get into the Mania of it there’s there’s matches there’s fixtures it’s I think it’s probably the best time
of the year for golf September and October um it’s very mild it’s very you get
things like members guests always happen September yeah yeah there’s a lot of Club championships as well champs yeah
we do have ours earlier in the season yeah and like it’s just a busy time for events there’s a lot of clubs we’ll have
opens and various things like that we’ve obviously just come back from you know weekend at the cashmere cup and silver
medal at r d i mean there’s there’s just a a ton of golf on and it
is Silly Season trips as well now you’re not going to go on a golf trip in summer
holidays when the kids are off where flights are extortional and stuff so I’ll accept that I’m not sure it
deserves to send social media posts but I’ll accept that well okay well I I when I when we’re in a position where I need
to get sign off on social media posts I’ll uh I’ll let you know is that all right well I’ve just I’ve just signed you off okay okay well I’ve told you off
but yeah it’s it’s I don’t know maybe it’s a poor take maybe it’s just us um kids that feel like this a lot of
people seem to seem to Echo the sentiment but um well they were they came back on social media there’s a lot
of trips going on a lot of people are saying they go in Scotland and but I think it’s so validated right that was
validated life is Silly Season we’re always on tour yeah gold flies pretty crazy isn’t it but um yeah how have you
been anyway you’ve uh well since you last spoke we’ve done the last pod in
the biscuit Mountain we’ve moved out so now I no longer live there uh so that’s been pretty manic since well hence the
the lack of sort of potting the last sort of couple of weeks but we’ve got one to catch up on which is another
episode of Sam plays golf there should be a little uh many micro series within course Diaries Sam plays Golf Course
Diaries is increasingly becoming some Players golf because just the sheer level of apathy on on yours and Bruce’s
part to to to Chronicle and journal your your golfing license
that’s the problem you’re going out and playing this you’re literally playing these places all the time but anyway
look funnily enough Church Stratton is not too far from where you’ve moved to actually it’s a little bit out sort of
no is it right is it far is it it’s kind of equidistant your place from um from church Stratton from bromsgrove
which is near enough Irrelevant for information for anyone who listens to this podcast that doesn’t live in bromsgrove or beudley
um but yeah I mean it’s it’s kind of right into the sort of depth of
Shropshire which we’ll come on to but we’re recording this podcast we should say in my front room which is the first time we’ve done that
yeah I think it’s definitely the first time this has had a pod in it unless you’ve been doing super secret pods without me but I’m pretty certain this
is the first time it’s had a podcast in it no um it’s a very lovely room it’s got golf on in the background although
on silent unlike the park Ferry tour and like the pilot where we left the the sound right looks heinously difficult
um so yeah look so what will we’re here to do a little podcast today about church Stratton
maybe worth talking about how this one came about I I think I’ve been mentioning this course a few times to
you saying we should probably go and check this out since you were since you were very young yeah you’ve been mentioning Church Stratton
um quite a lot and you also you put up something else by the way I’m going to throw out there now Sam’s code for oh
yeah I haven’t played this since I was very young is this is just not true no no I’ve never played Church Stratton
before I’d never been so no but when you say when I say that you’ve been talking about it since you’re very young it’s
code for you haven’t been talking about it but I have been saying for weeks saying like we should definitely go and play Church Stratton yeah and then I I
was quite curious to go oh like just just throw some names of courses out I seem to remember when we were in August
right at the start of August our club Blackwell had some greens treatment done it’s a quiet golfing month as we’ve
already said it’s like yeah let’s go and find a few places and do a few core stories delamere was it was a was one
recently um and the course with the highest number of votes was church Stratton yeah
which is which is a strange one really because it’s not it’s not when the most people have have heard of really it’s not it’s not
highly up on the radar I mean it was it’s another one of those
kind of Cliff top Cliff top dramatic
there’s something going on outside here we don’t usually get this in the biscuit now what’s going on outside
this can’t be a permanent pod location we must we must sort this out
well you know just I knew it was one of the one of these sort of dramatic courses is it like is it like you know
I’ve heard it being compared to Cleve Hill I’ve heard it being compared to a
kingdom I don’t think for the same ilk it’s quite hard to to summarize these
courses into a into one sort of theme um but we’ll sort of probably try and do
that through the course of the part like that I think if you go around that sort of Shropshire cotswoldy sort of trail
that hooks around from the sort of west side of the Midlands round to the sort of South
you you have these brilliant sort of hills and and and and terrain where for
some unknown reason back in you know the the turn the late 1800s the early 1900s
people took it upon themselves to establish a golf course the land is
incredibly complicated to try and figure out a golf course but it’s so dramatic and it’s so picturesque that you’re kind
of really glad they did but you must have you must think that you know it’s kind of it was the path of most resistance to build Church Stratton Golf
Club where they built Church Trent Golf Club yeah I mean I’d say
the land in Inland in the UK doesn’t really lend itself phenomenally to go
off with Park and stuff but what they’ve managed to do around this sort of shop ship order same as the gloucestershire
with pains working cleave and um is they’ve if they found some
Sandstone or chalk base usually and usually put them pretty high up yeah yeah it’s good land so look it’s how
it’s How they’ve tried to go around it really isn’t it yeah so get them to drain I mean look the the there’s
actually quite a little bit of provenance to um Church Stratton which which is like a
lot of people definitely wouldn’t know that there’s unmistakable charm to the course but
Jack Morris was the person who laid out the the first nine holes with the help of the local professional now who is
Jack Morris Well Jack Morris is none other than the nephew of old Tom Morris and he was the professional at Royal
Liverpool Hoy lake so you know this is 1898 this is like
30 plus years since Hoy Lake had been sort of established you know he’d been around the game for a long time a guest
kind of explains that desire to go and seek out well-draining
land so there’s this sort of initial nine-hole routing that gets developed there’s you know the the typical
exhibition match to sort of Mark the opening of the course it turns out that was played by Taylor and Varden
um and then six years later the second nine is then built and then
you’ve kind of wind the clock on another sort of 20 or 30 years and then the great revisionist James braid comes and
so the tide is the whole thing up so over the course of this sort of 30 years the the the the the holes and the
routing and everything develop around it so um yeah look it’s a brilliant place I had so much fun there’s so much to talk
about and try and try and pick through here I feel like I want to start with um the guys I played with them yeah so
you had you I had some people reach out to you and say that when you look when you come and
play with us and some interesting characters I’d say yeah well a few loads of people said go and play Church Street
and I was like well I’m already sold I know this place is like quite easily drivable from within the Midlands
um it’s just a perfect spot that I want to go and play golf one of the guys I was messaging with said like you know be
great to play I’m away in Ireland but funnily enough I’m quite Polly with a guy called James Taylor and you know
he’s he loves playing golf he’s over there all the time he’d love to host you um you might know him he’s a cricketer
not the country singer not the country singer that would have been that would have been a good one another great James Taylor by the way I mean a big James
Taylor fan James Taylor’s and um I don’t know how you I haven’t met a
James Taylor I don’t like it how would you work the plurals on that so if you’re fans of two James Taylor’s you’re
yeah James I’m a big fan of James Taylor’s apostrophe afterwards yeah
like I think if it was like um um Bruce Fitzpatrick you’d say I’m a big
fan of Bruce Fitzpatrick’s if they were that would be individually I mean luckily there’s only one of them
but it’s weird though isn’t it we digress yeah James Taylor um
for anyone who knows a little bit about Cricket James Taylor’s a an outstanding cricketer
um played Red Bull and white ball Cricket one day test match stuff free at a national level for England
um really really promising Talent um a great record you know brilliant career
that was very sadly cut short so he had um he was diagnosed with a sort of a heart condition very similar to you
remember fabris from Amber yeah so but fill that story in for people that don’t
know that I think was the um the football player who basically sort of fell to the ground and had a
mid-match mid-match sudden heart um you know incredibly rare but incredibly serious that the upshot is
any form of strenuous exercise you you you’re in Mortal danger at any given moment so he knew nothing about this and
you know I think that whole period of his life must you know it’s an incredible sort of story
and there’s quite a few interviews with James talking about it and I’d encourage people to search that out but
you know he then never played golf up to that point he had to retire from the game of cricket and then
I think kind of somewhat begrudgingly it seemed at the time took up golf
and like all good Sportsmen just like once the bits between your teeth you just don’t give up it’s like yeah I want
to be the best at this well we’ve got a cricketer um who plays top level Cricket at
Blackwell I won’t mention his name in case he doesn’t want me to but um I was playing with him the other day and said
um do you do do a lot quicker display Golf and he he was he said actually it’s rare
if you find a cricketer that doesn’t play golf because it’s kind of those skills translate quite well
um and uh and yeah they kind of obviously very competitive yeah it’s a weird one Cricket like that like you
said there’s a huge natural progression the big difference is obviously it’s a stationary object
versus a moving object and it’s well he was saying in his golf swing he he finds it quite difficult not to really get
ahead of the ball because like thinking Cricket you kind of Step In constantly and you’re leading through with the armor now you’re kind of really trying
to attack the ball and you get ahead of it whereas that’s his tendency because he’s about to man that’s his tendency to try and get ahead of it and he can he
can lose a few but and you play with the face open quite a lot in cricket I think you’ll be bad I mean I played a bit at
Schoolboy and melt the ball I’ll tell you in the summer when you were doing yeah totally but you’d you know I always found like in the Summers when I played
a lot of cricket and golf at the same time I’d be hitting you know cuts for fun like because you just get you back
with the with the face open and anyway look he’s James Taylor has gone from essentially never playing the game to
he’s playing off plus three now um in a remarkable space time we’re talking like five six years here
um totally and utterly obsessed with the game and a really really good players goal for church now he plays uh over in
Nottingham which is where he lives um because I played I played with James and his brother-in-law cam Cam’s an
outrageously good bloke so Cam’s a member at church stretton he’s like Mr Church Stratton so we had a we had a
sort of an afternoon there the three of us which was just cripplingly hot this is back to the point of why September
golf is better because I mean you can have too much of a good thing in this country it was so hot
um I’d say half of September was hotter than the sun half of July half of August half of
August yeah it was crippling hot and the course was baked out and everything cam turns up in this massive pickup truck
and he’s like can’t wait to get going your boy’s got some water and you’re looking at this huge like landscape
you’re gonna have to sort of Traverse to get your way around and I thought that’s a really good idea I’d already shoveled
back to 50 all over myself um and headed out with I think 500 mL of water on board which was like it was
akin to taking a knife to a gunfight basically I mean it’s an interesting one because I mean we don’t want to digress
too far away from the golf course itself but with James it’s clear that um as it is for many people that golf
has become a tool basically basically to overcome issues in his life and he’s
just a tremendously interesting bloke on his own but let’s not move away from uh
the course itself because we do need to address um you know I I can’t stress enough how
much fun I had with Cam and James are just just outstanding guys um Cam’s brilliant lives around the
corner plays a Tartan I mean the vibe at church stretton is just really relaxed
this is not a is it quite wide open or is it quite like Okay so let’s let’s do
the course because a few things one Circle back on something club culture is worth talking about there that felt really special
um and some of the other bits let’s just talk about the course for a minute so there I can’t think of any other course
in the world that you start with three par threes well in a row yeah
do you actually yeah are they all uphill uh
threes three is like a lung busting because it’s up to get to the T but it’s
kind of flattering it’s like a mountain course isn’t it yeah yeah so it’s kind of Cliff top greens are sort of stitched
into these areas you’ve got that you’ve got that feature where you have the severe runoffs and the severe banks that
border the higher and Lower Side of the greens where they’ve obviously shoveled Earth and then just tip the scrap up to
the side yeah to create them which creates these runoffs which I actually think is a brilliant feature I mean architectural you don’t see much of it
in in a lot of courses Cotswolds yeah because it’s just not needed
um but I mean that the hills are I mean it is a lung busting course these these
Mountain Hill Cliff top courses whatever you call them they tend to the first few holes are always
um invariably uphill to get you to where you need to go because there was for some reason put
the clubhouse on the lowest point they physically you drive up this ridiculous like sort of it’s like a it’s like a
sort of a miniature Swiss road that you sort of snake up to get to this Clubhouse you’ve already you’ve already done the clutching on the car just
trying to get to the car park to be honest with you um but yeah it’s brilliant little Charming building and a little practice
net that sits by The First Tee now the first hole is without doubt one of the most chronically difficult archival
Falls in I’ve ever played what is it a last path right it’s about 165 yard par
three the the land is relatively flat in front of you but then it goes the green sits up I’m gonna say 30 feet minimum on
a sheer bank so you you play over what looks like flat ground but then the ball has still got to carry over this huge
30-foot kind of ascent um where it then sits on top now we’re
playing in this is the height of summer so the course is absolutely baked and firm you almost cannot stop a ball on top of
this green because then what happens if you go along just disappears back down another Ravine over the top over the
back there’s no back so you’ve got this huge you’ve got this huge hill left of the green long as well so that’s
actually quite a good natural backstop and the Green’s orientated in a sort of a front right to back left Direction so
the carry is slightly shorter right but you just cannot miss right this is your first shot of the day you’ve got 165. I
mean James had this laser thing and he had it he had it with slope assist go on and I still couldn’t understand how he
was explaining garages to me but he was like yeah this is like a 190 shot so I was like okay well I’ve I mean I’m gonna
first shot around I’m gonna have to hit five iron at this and quite intimidating when you look at this and you think unless I get this
absolutely on the money High struck you’re not going to sit on the green and I think I did about three laps of that
green before I even got putter in my hand sounds like you want to play a 175 yard bump and run yeah you just wouldn’t
get up the hill it’s it’s like it’s it’s you you couldn’t get that you you couldn’t putt up the hill you couldn’t
do anything you used is it a layup and then a wedge is that probably the best no you just got it you just gotta hit it really good long iron into the green so
that’s whole why I I’m a memorable I’m I know this is going to be a long
podcast it feels like but I think it’s worth it because yeah there’s so much to this it’s nice to talk anyway I like I
like the sound of my own voice um I’m personally not a fan because we travel quite a lot and I
think it’s a Blackwell thing that you never hit a ball before you hit the first tee shot never
so you might have a putt that’s it yeah there’s like there’s practices for wimps type yeah which is which is absolutely
atrocious and I know that but because of that that I hate hitting an iron off the
First Tee yeah I hate it like I didn’t want to see as much Club face as I can
on the first wave there because I haven’t hit the ball yet so um yeah I’m not a massive fan of of
pulling irons it’s like the first tee shot at
Prestwick where you know you’ve got to hit a long iron down there and it’s just not the club you want to be hitting and it’s not a long golf hole and it is
quite forgiving but it’s just forcing you to do something that feels quite counter-intuitive to someone who’s got the AL hazelles in the locker as well
yeah just looking down with something with a huzzle but they’re like I don’t really want to hit this oh you totally stuffed if you if you shank off the
first time yeah totally stuff I mean that I think that applies to 99 of golf shots
um I mean we’re getting really sidetracked on one but you can sense immediately it’s like yeah I get it on
the planet you just know you you know you’re playing somewhere that day that he’s going to live in remember it’s a
volcano green oh it sounds like yeah it’s an outrageous volcano green I mean it it really is perched up incredibly
High I think it’s quite hard for photos or anything and we’ll have to go over there with the Drone I I committed you
to that um oh brilliant but we’ve got to go and play it again it’s so good it’s
it’s like a really it’s it’s like a I’d say it’s like it’s like a way better version of like a sort of a Prestwick
Payne’s wick for the um for some of the Quirk value it’s it’s a little bit more refined yeah it’s there’s a there’s
there’s the features are as provocative but it plays as a fairer challenge if that makes sense it doesn’t feel quite
as just totally prohibitive I’m gonna push back on pains with there because that quote value was through the through
the roof and also if we’d have respected Payne’s week I think it could have yeah we just chose not to respect it and got
absolutely kicked around because of it so you so I’m going to move aside you you want one is just this outrageous one
then two gets is is equally as outrageous probably the green to the T
to Green elevation is equivalent to one again um playing about 130 wedge you’ve got
this sort of mounding on the left then mounding on the right a bit longer and the greens perched over that lovely
little green um you’ve kind of got to let it fall in from the right beautiful wedge shot up
there again it’s one of those sort of thrilling blind shots you know again you’re like crikey this is really crazy
and then you come off that and you walk across and you you get to look over the 18th hole that comes in which is this
part three again to finish um which plays down this little sort of
corridor of a Ravine and three then is perched up right on the edge of this
little peninsula of this this little Rocky outcrop and you played the final part three then over you know what is
probably about 170 yards from Emery um to agree and you can actually for the first time you can see the bottom of the
flag albeit only just um it’s the first time you’ve got a glimpse of the bottom of the hole from a
shot you’re playing um and that completes like the opening Trifecta of Madness at church Stratton
but I find with with places like that especially if you don’t play golf there regularly that’s really endearing yeah
it’s just experiential isn’t it like I mean you know if you’re turning up trying to play card and pencil golf at church stretton the first time you’ve
looked at it you didn’t put it you didn’t put a uh
but wouldn’t it just totally ruin the experience because you know the the
whole thing is like you’re taking it all in and the views are just staggering um but there are aspects that it’s not
just this is where I’m saying it’s not just kind of Quirk for quirk’s sake the the architectural merits of the golf
holes are incredibly strong so there’s there’s holes like four which are
you know mind-blowingly good part for for like crazy crazy good
um you know you you sort of horse shoe around this huge deep ravine which has
got just ferns everywhere like you’re just dead you can’t go in there like it’s it’s game over but you can bail out
left and you can you just want to Bob something like 220 230 down there now
the more you hug the right hand side I like how you say Bob most people’s drives average players drives like 230
yeah well not ball Strikers like yourself no no no no no no no we was very firmly it was all running down
there you could probably hit a lot more in the winter to be fair but the more you hug the ride you play the
second shot where it’s like this firm stuff sort of comes right in and across the par four so you’ve almost you’ve
pretty much got to go over it with your second shot and then the green kind of is up perched
up the top sort of in one of those Cotswold style greens where it’s stitched into the hill
now if you’re playing it from the the far left you’ve got to play across the angle
and that means the ball is much more likely to be rejected so you can you’ve got a lot of safety left off the tee but
you’re still going to be hitting like a six iron in or a seven iron in or something you’re gonna be hitting a decent about a club into this green
if you’re playing across the angle you know what happens the ball just it’s rejected it’s 50 yards it’s down the
hill like you you’re fighting for five if you’re playing from the far from the tight right which is the the sort of
that’s the more um tricky Driver Line you’re playing up the hill where you’ve got straight Hill
looking back at you so it’s not going to be rejected it’s just going to be killed into the face of the slope
um very very clever hole really really good um and and then you know that’s where
the whole course then starts to open up and you start to see everything around and you’ve got you know these these huge
hills over in Shropshire with which kind of Define the lamb but then you’ve got massive long basins as well it’s quite a
remote part of the world it’s just a really remote place it’s not for somewhere that’s quite
Central to England it’s just really rural yeah well there’s a lot of that around there isn’t there I think it’s
too hilly for anyone to bother to build on so I just kind of ignored it and worked around it but not all of it’s that Hill you know you like you when
you’re up there you look at it and go Christ yeah those are like really big mountains and and sort of hills and then
you’ve just got miles of just flat laps so what else have we got in terms of standout holes what else really caught
your eye um so I mean I I’d say the standout hole
for me was eighth cop um is it one of those that’s got named
holes as well yeah it’s good nice lent holes as well like some old school but it’s it’s yeah it’s a historic Golf Club
there’s no get away from this this is not um eight there’s a is a fairly sort of
it’s a short Par Four I mean it you know with the firm ground I think I hit four
iron at it you know a lot of the golf holes to the green so a lot of the golf holes at church Stratton are
are really drivable very few of them you’re hitting anything that’s remotely long into them
um it sounds like the defense is the greens though not the yeah definitely and the land the land’s the really big
defense you know you’ve got huge slopes and runoffs everywhere so you know and and when it’s firm the ball’s just
getting rejected in every angle so it’s playing like hyper linksy but we’re in that drought but it you know you get the
sense it plays pretty firm most of the time anyway hey it’s this little short par for stunning you know the infinity
Behind the Green is like off into the hills where you can just see absolutely you know everything in the in the
landscape but no golf it all falls down to the right you’ve got a little bit of safety left
but you know you’ve got it you can kind of go at the pin and really take this on
as a par four if you get a hair wrong you’re going to make six you can quite easily six or seven iron up the left and
probably get quite a sort of straightforward Tupa if you look at the 18th hole at North Barrack it’s a little
bit like that you can go you can go all out and sort of go yeah you know what I’m going to try and get close to this and attack the golf hole and make a dare
I say a two or a three or you can you can probably have ultimate comfort with up the left and hit a little bump and
running is it the fair foot deal that sort of thing is fifth or six six yeah I
mean again um no it’s not there’s nowhere nearest dog leg is that it’s like that’s uh you
know that that’s really not on off the tee whereas this one is almost certainly George Donahue yeah but I mean he’s like
300 carry and there’s no Miss but this is this is totally on and it’s you know
it’s accessible any most golfers are going to get around this place it’s not it’s not hideously penal
um but there are just certain certain spots where you cannot mess cool so we’ve got the eighth and back
nine and what tickled your fans you kind of get right out there so you look over there’s the you know these huge Gorges
over the back side of the of the of the course so the front side it’s an Old Quarry site the kind of yeah yeah huge
quarries out there you know again it was a hot evening you could see people out in the distance like sort of skinny days
in the quarries and stuff is it common land like a lot of these are common land these Hilltop ones you get a lot of yeah
you’ve got you’ve got you’ve got faster animals out there you’ve got all that sort of stuff you’ve got electric electric fences around some of the
greens okay um so yeah you’ve got you’ve got a lot of that stuff going on
um I mean you’ve got you just got brilliant goal piles like tens great paths throwback Par Four over you know right to the very edge 11 you pay back
um you play a part three I want to say it’s like 12. um which you know you sort of play uphill
to a to a green where it all sort of feeds off at the right um
there’s just crazy golf holes out there just so many of them I suppose it would
be quite hard not to talk about the the 15th hole if you were to pin me on what what’s
what’s special about 15. so 15 is a 321 yard Par Four uh
I put it in the green side left trap with a six iron okay did you make birdie
no absolutely not I think I meant five in the end okay I only made five um says it’s Dan Hill is that oh you
just no it’s uphill yeah it was uh so so the 15th you’re on this like
you kind of know that you’re on the you know you’re getting towards the end of the course but you know you’re nowhere near the clubhouse yeah it’s never had
that feeling yeah well it’s like I said earlier on though you find with these old Cliff top Hill Top Mountain Top
courses the first few holes are always Mega uphill
holes are always like here we go boys it’s like well that’s the thing and I think when you get to 15 you realize
that you’ve spent most of the back nine and you haven’t really lost any elevation because from I would say like
the sixth or so you’ve reached a quite a high level and you stick around that for a good nine holes you’re not plunging up
and down the hills at quite the same magnitude you know Nine’s a big climb to be fair up the hill but there’s a few
few big walks but you haven’t lost any elevation and you’re starting to realize I’ve got four holes left I’ve got to get
down this hill somehow like I’m gonna have to hit some big shots downhill 15 you sort of play out
the the hole Falls immediately down the left there’s like netting up behind the
16th T because clearly you can blow your drive and then it will just careen into the into the 16th T where people can
stand it’s totally blind um and once the ball is kind of summited
up on the up on the hill and down to the left it doesn’t matter what time of the year it is gravity has taken that thing
down the hill for you yeah so it’s it’s the yardage is totally irrelevant you’ve got to get the right line it’s a
thrilling golf shot it’s anything but fair it’s just a case of picking the right line you play there regularly
you’re going to know roughly what to hit and what sort of what sort of uh line to take and the ball just tumbles and
tumbles all the way down to the green with a with a hole like that from how you describe it as well like
um that bunker might have just been my being your friend it could have been like that six iron was going at the back
and gone you know yeah yeah totally got no idea really and the green all running away and it said and it’s really tricky
around the greens because of all that stuff we talked about with the runoffs and these little steep edges off where they’ve stitched they tend to be steep
but then they mow them really well so it’s Steep and tight as well so and like you think you think all right I could I
could put this but actually I’m not very good putter from seven eight feet yeah under the Greek under the green or above
the green and also it’s not quite like 100 like sort of Fescue link side Turf
where it’s firm and baked out and tightly moaned but it’s rock hard underneath so you get the bounce yeah
it’s always got that little sponginess to it yeah so yeah if you go in with a
wedge you can easily just dunch it yeah and I also think you get a tiny bit more of like of a nappy grass up on the Hills
up there it’s not as um yeah it’s not as as I’m no agronomist
man but yeah no I mean it is happier and and and and then you you kind of then play 16 great part three it sort of goes
right out into the corner 17 another little sort of Par Four rolls away and down to the green and then you sort of
walk back around past the third team play the 18th and the 18th is this you
know Crazy Little Thing If it wasn’t for this hollowed out bit at the bottom you could you could kind of putt it down to
the green it’s like the um is it 15th we played at a gallon three it’s a yeah 15th or 16th
178 yards or something yeah so this is 174 yards yeah we all hit wedge in there
you know it’s not uh you know so you’re plunging down at least 60 feet of elevation change again it’s it’s crazy
but who doesn’t like a par three that plays hideously downhill to a pin that you can say it’s it’s ultimate fun a bit
like Applebee’s fifth or sixth whatever it was yeah like just just hideously
down here yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly it’s like like unfairly downhill like yeah but I mean it and that kind of
then closes it out and you just come off the course and think like wow like there’s
no none of the holes are forgettable um it’s totally sustainable golf like
you know you’ve got the land’s been looked after by The Animals you know you’ve got a very very
modest um no no but they can get away with around
these places can’t they yeah I mean the land superb for it now I mean and
there’s a few characters there I mean it became quite obvious I met James who’s the club professional there
um briefly when I got there and I think I was about 20 minutes before James and Cam and uh I walked in I tried to snare
a LEGO golf ball it was it always felt like it was on the cusp of one of those places that would stock logo golf balls
um which was sad news and I ended up buying a ball marker instead um but I said oh I’m you know James
there’s no one else there like the course is empty Clubhouse was shut I thought crack it’s four o’clock like surely the clubhouse is opening here
and he goes oh yeah you’re doing something to do with the internet aren’t you I was like I was like yeah that’ll
do yeah um so we um I had a nice chat with him what a great guy but then it
was only when I was playing and cam was telling me and he was like yeah like James is like Mr church stretton he just
does everything I think it was his daughter or something that worked behind the bar there you kind of he was a really unassuming
guy lovely bloke but you know everyone that I spoke to because I I ended up having dinner with
a load of the members that play like this little evening evening sort of um Thursday evening series or whatever
they do and there you can just tell that you know James was a guy he was like without without James this this place
just wouldn’t be you know I’m sure it would exist but it wouldn’t exist in anything like the same
guys and yeah it was quite nice to to hear that really because you think you
know there must be a lot of people like James up and down the country who just make these sort of places so memorable and so great because it sounds like a
film we should do really the unsung heroes yeah guys yeah yeah but no I mean that man honesty boxes and stuff like
that 100 such James Mori like he was a but he’s a he’s a um he’s obviously a
huge advocate for the club and then back to the point where I said the the clubhouse was shut
um it then kind of the guys that are playing behind us were all playing this little series they do I think it’s like
on a Thursday evening it kind of goes with the light so in this in the peak summer months they play
18 holes but as the sunlight starts to weigh in the number of holes they play comes down so they end up sort of
playing starts on like nine holes and then it goes up to like 12 and 14 and 16 and 18 for a bit and it runs over the
whole thing and I think cam was leading it’s like the it’s like the FedEx Cup or whatever so he was like leading the he
was leading the order of Merit I think for a while don’t think he was after the Thursday I played with him I think he
had a trickier day with the with the uh with the long stacks but had dinner with a
few of these guys like portions for dinner were just biblical I was in the clubhouse yeah like we sat on the ground
I mean so they opened the clubhouse back up yeah that’s what I mean it’s like the clubhouse is basically shut until five six o’clock when everyone’s coming out
right and then you’ve got like ham and eggs pies curries coming out I mean the
chips were pretty much served in wheelbarrows I mean the portions I don’t know how much they eat in Shropshire but it was the only important question
though was sustainable coronation Chicken on the menu no isn’t that coronation no sandwiches or plate to hot
food not big enough sorry mate there’s not enough food in a circle it was a great Clubhouse atmosphere like
tiny Clubhouse room that you walk into littered With Honor honestly you love
that though because it’s it’s clearly a building that Services the members and that’s what it’s there for well you know I think sometimes clubhouses can can
lose themselves and what they’re trying to what they’re trying to be well I think we talked about didn’t we when we said like you know Dunbar Clubhouse and
they’ve got this money to build a new Clubhouse and I think the club are really excited about it but I love
dunbar’s Clubhouse because it’s it’s like your Nan’s front room almost it’s got like the it’s got the curve they’re
not going to love hearing that no but it is no but there’s a lot of charm to it you know it’s got that it’s got like the
30 year old curtains that hang out they’ve got flowers on and the tables have got skirts and stuff and it isn’t
what you’d put in place but you know there’s so many places that you build and it’s like you’ve got to cover
everything with glass and everything’s going to be a clean and minimum it’s easy to get homogenized so the golf
course is easy to homogenize them and same with Clubhouse is when you’re trying to be modern and stuff and actually a lot of these things are very
cyclical you could you know I think in 30 years time we’ll look back and think why did we think we want us everyone
wants to see us why we put glass everywhere so yeah like everyone everything looks the same so going in
there it’s just a really nice little clubhouse room that’s really just like a little bar restaurant area and then
you’ve got these this little Terrace patio that looks right out and over the over the Hillside and uh right out the
other side of church Stratton and you know comfortable wicker chairs and great beer and the whole thing was just a
delight and they were just nice people great guys to hang out with banters flying and you were like yeah God I mean
if you lived out that way which actually you do it’s like it’s just a no-brainer to hang out and stuff
um I knew I was gonna like it um I desperately want to go back I think
yeah we’ll go we’ll make a trip with it because I need to see it anyway um if anyone wants to play this this
beauty I suppose it’s 150 pounds around or no no obviously not um
I think weekday Green fee is like 30 quid is it like an England golf Union card or
something like that I think everything’s half price so 15 quid you know if you play on a weekend it’s 40. a red like
they do at the moment like green Feast bash away you play for like 20 quid if you tee off before 10 o’clock on a
Saturday I mean that’s like the optimal time to play you want to play it it’s like if you
want to drive your car and rush hour we’ll uh we’ll only charge you 50. she’s just crazy isn’t it that people say
you know the golf’s an accessible game when you can just literally go and play with six or seven sticks and and enjoy
church strength I think quite on a Saturday morning I mean we’re gonna get too deep in the weeds but I think I think if you know where to look it’s
it’s plenty accessible but um yeah if you’re trying if you’re trying to do the most popular thing or the most expensive
kit then yeah it is inaccessible but and I’d definitely like to play a bit more with Cameron James you know
really enjoy the company how did your golf stack up to a plus three handicap uh
James is long James is quite long of course he is he was a perfect um
yeah I mean James hits a really good I mean he’s about a goal for me Isn’t it
I tried to go dim to be fair so on like a we didn’t really three such like we
should talk about this three is such a number to play in like if you actually want to have I like a little
Jewel but you can’t do anything with a three can you say it’s like no one three four three four I don’t think there’s we
need to go on Instagram or on social media we need to put this out there but I’ll let you do that that’s something I
will allow you’ll allow me to do it um is we need to find out if anybody’s got
any good three ball formats because they just suck like there’s no good um split sixes or or threes or twelves
or whatever you call it is that’s just rubbish yeah I just don’t it’s it’s painful it’s always like no one ever
gets into it no it’s just really hard like two boards fine you just Jazz match play maybe there’s a like some cool
three ball match play that I don’t know about some recording know about I really wish that I really wish there was
um I like skins skins is probably the best thing you can do but even with skins like you can play like garbage and
just pick up all the dough because it’s just it’s just the way it is well Cami was playing his own ball as well so he
had a card because he was in his order of Merit thing yeah um I was pulling hard for him in that and
um so me and James are sort of like gone out James um he’s got a newborn I think and he was
like you know the excuses of coming out in the first he was like I’m not playing as much now I’m not playing as much you
know I’ve kind of got really low but now we’ve heard about your golf clearly yeah he was terrified and he would he’s not
playing five times a week or whatever he was doing before we still get three six or seven holes
and he’s like yeah hello it’s nice I quite like a match I’m quite competitive I said well if you want more play a
little level match on the back nine we never actually did in the end but um I was quiet for I was quite up for
going take-to-day with him on the back nine I think it’d be good for taking shots grown men don’t take shots today I
think kind of I think I’d have played him played him level and and another quite enjoyed losing but um he’s a
really tidy golfer it’s quite interesting looking at how someone like that approaches the game
um coming at it so late in life where not later in life you know it’s like most
plus three golfers have have played for a lot longer and they accumulate and I think there’s
a lot more knowledge around yeah shot selection perhaps or
um just experiencing getting the ball in the hole yeah as opposed to just being a great ball Striker every goal for a
generational ball no but every goal for every time they go on the course they’re accumulating knowledge about how to get the ball in the hole and very often that
is not by hitting better golf shots but I don’t think it’s just by playing I don’t think you get to be a professional
an elite professional Sportsman an international professional sports yeah I mean he’s like one of these without
being pretty good at just being able to adapt to that sort of he’s built that by and I
think he’d say by his own admission by just working really hard at the technical aspects of golf and to do to
get the results that he’s got from his game Without Really accumulating a ton of
like golfing IQ of just just figuring it out you know like you know like really good
you know scratch players that have been around the game for 30 40 years like
they can just have a really rancid down ball striking and they’ll just figure it out did James hasn’t got all that kind
of 30 40 years in the background to just lean on so seeing how he attacks it is quite interesting because he he gets it
around really well but I also think I mean speaking as an as a non the nominal low golfer but I think if
you’re like three or below certainly if you scratch or below you just have to
have a really hot short game there’s no way around it you just need to be able to get up and down yeah yeah like fun
yeah otherwise you just can’t maintain now you’re not gonna hear every Green so you’ve got to have if you’d like scratch
or below like a blisteringly good short game and that’s really hard to learn this is a huge digression of what we’re no no it’s interesting I think you know
you have got it and it’s and they’re also different they’re all such different disciplines aren’t they and it’s
you know to do any one of those at an elite level um in the space he’s done it it’s difficult to do it all and be able to
you know have a really you know fully packaged golf game is and therefore his techniques tight like everything’s
everything looks good it looks like you know if if you just drop kicked him through a really you know like a an
intensive program on you know how you play the game at a technical level that’s what you’d get like you just and
there’s obviously a mindset there with an elite Sportsman around how they apply themselves to these things and work at it it’s just a it’s just a fascinating
lost shoot but but Cami also just what guy like I mean it as a member up there and just like living locally and stuff
and you could see the just the endless afternoons you’d have up there just the fun and and yeah I just really enjoyed
that what’s quite nice about these places on hilltops as well is that you can drive up there get have a few
have a few fresheners and just roll back down the hill yeah yeah just just literally pencil exactly exactly it’s no
problem at all it’s a really nice place church straight like I’ve never been to the town you drive through it’s lovely like there’s you know all this nice
stuff going on um but yet another glowing glowing endorsement of another
um kind of unsung or underrated or just just
lesser-known golf club and I suppose the app shop for a lot of these these things that we do is that I
think I think many people including us to be fair can get too fixated on the
courses you’ve heard of and the courses you know and just to take a recommendation every now and again is if someone’s recommending it to you it’s
probably worth going to see so um something that we highly suggest that our listeners do more often yeah totally
and I think I think anyone could just pull the triggering ahead up there I think um
I didn’t get the sense this place is heaving every day of the week but yeah you could go there you could even
go there on sketchy weather and just be like you know what if I’ve got and if the weather turns I’ve made there’s opportunities to loop back to
the house you’re out there he feels like you’re out there and quite exposed it’s the only thing I’ll say like we played it on a quite still day you wouldn’t
want a lightning to come I mean you’d be dead he’d just be dead but if you if you got
out there and the weather really turned I can imagine it would feel like a slightly less tranquil experience we had
very little wind and it was I mean it was actually uncomfortably hot to be fair it was it was well north of 30.
um even in the evening but you get it on the wind it’s going to be a terrifyingly difficult challenge of
course like terrifyingly difficult changes the Dynamics completely yeah you just get but there’s so many of the par
fours are reachable so many of them you don’t need anything more than a two iron to get near actually
um it’s just a it really is you know it feels like a soundtrack to the podcast but because we play a lot of these types
of courses and enjoy them you know it is a match play course again it is a it is not a cardboard when they were designed
I find it interesting I don’t want to bring them live and stuff but there’s a few months back a couple of maybe six
weeks back John Rahm was asked about Liv and he said you know I want to play 72 hole
stroke player format they’ve been playing for hundreds of years I’m like dude like 74 stroke player brought in like the 40s and 50s like before that
was a match play that’s all they did all these courses were designed when all they did was match play so most of these
these courses that were designed back in the late 1800s early 1900s were designed
to go you know play a match and have fun but well it’s been a pleasure doing that with you I’m looking forward to the day
that I can interview you about a golf course you’ve played I’ve got a few in the locker we could we
could we could go back in history and and and and and do a couple out but we’re gonna try and do a few more of these core Stars we enjoy doing and
they’re good fun we hope you guys enjoy listening to them but uh until next time adios