The NCG Golf Podcast

In this week's episode of The Slam, a National Club Golfer podcast in association with Callaway, Alex Perry and Matt Chivers discuss the raucous LIV Golf event in Adelaide and why the PGA Tour should be taking notes. Elsewhere, is the LPGA in the best shape ever? The first women's major of 2023 would certainly point that way. And how about that bizarre rules incident on the Korn Ferry Tour? Is gol...

Is a bacon roll a crucial part of your golfing day? Do you still enjoy getting together for a post-round feast? And is the key to a player's heart really through their stomach? On this week's From the Clubhouse podcast, in association with TaylorMade Golf, Tom Irwin and Steve Carroll are discussing the culinary options we have as members and visitors at golf clubs. The pair go through their best e...

Playoffs are an annoying way to end a golf tournament, aren't they? After 72 holes of stroke play, the stars don't want to go out there and play more. So in this episode of The Slam, a National Club Golfer podcast in association with Callaway, Alex Perry and Matt Chivers have some sensible and some not-so sensible ideas to fix it.  We also tackle Patrick Cantlay and slow play, Rory McIlroy's contr...

Do you put on a Seve-style game face when you tee it up in the knockout or do you find match play such a fuss you don't even bother to enter? In this week's From the Clubhouse podcast, in association with TaylorMade Golf, Tom Irwin and Steve Carroll go on a deep dive into club match play competitions.  Tom gets his medals out from successful forays into person-to-person combat and dissects the del...

In the latest episode of The Slam - a National Club Golfer podcast in association with Callaway - Alex Perry joins Matt Chivers from Georgia as he discusses his truly unforgettable week on the ground at the Masters, as well as the drama from the final round. Jon Rahm secured his second major title in an emotional fashion, on what would've been Seve Ballesteros' 66th birthday. Alex and Matt break d...

What a time to be alive! The Masters is on TV, Augusta National is looking as superb as ever, and by Monday morning we'll be itching to get the clubs out of the garage and attack the fairways at our own course. And, yet, following the wettest March in the UK for decades, what we're going to experience probably couldn't be further away from those superbly manicured fairways and perfect greens in Ge...

On this episode of The Slam - a National Club Golfer podcast in association with Callaway - Alex Perry and Matt Chivers are joined by NCG's resident tipster, Oddschecker's Tom Jacobs, to break down the contenders as we head into what we're calling "the most open Masters ever". There will be a number of LIV Golf players teeing up at Augusta. Can one of them get over the line? And what would that me...

Have you paid your golf club membership subscription yet? For lots of us, deadline day is approaching very fast and it might be a last gasp decision whether to dig deep and stump up. In this week's From the Clubhouse podcast, in association with TaylorMade Golf, Tom Irwin and Steve Carroll consider the value of golf club membership. Is it better value for money to be a member of a golf club, pay u...

On this episode of The Slam, a National Club Golfer podcasts in association with Callaway, Alex Perry and Matt Chivers discuss the WGC-Match Play and, in particular, its absence from next season's schedule, the nonsense that is the third-place playoff, and the Golf Channel's controversial graphic that had social media alight. They are also joined by Ryder Cup obsessive Rob Giannotti, of Blue on th...

We don't want you to think of us as one-trick-ponies but it's another podcast and another week talking about the World Handicap System. That's because Tom Irwin and Steve Carroll took the From the Clubhouse podcast, in association with TaylorMade Golf, on the road and visited Woodhall Spa, the headquarters of England Golf, to speak to James Luke, the governing body's new Head of Handicapping and C...

In this week's episode of The Slam, a National Club Golfer podcast in association with Callaway, Alex Perry and Matt Chivers discuss the ridiculous finish at the Valspar Championship, where Jordan Spieth was clearly just keeping his form for the upcoming Masters and Grand Slam pursuit at the PGA Championship, while golf's nicest man Tommy Fleetwood was also in the mix for a first win on the US cir...

'Golf is doing well and we don't want to undermine this'. So said the R&A and USGA as they unveiled a proposal to unleash a new competition golf ball on elite events - but steered well clear of anything that could affect the recreational game. Should club golfers feel left out as governing bodies seek comment on their plans to reduce hitting distances at the highest level? On this week's From the...

The USGA and R&A are proposing a significant roll back in golf ball distance for elite competition. This change would mean bifurcation in golf, with different rules for professionals compared to club golfers.  Tom Irwin, Hannah Holden and Jack Backhouse discuss the proposed rule changes, why changes are being made and if the governing bodies are doing the right thing. 

In a special Players Championship edition of The Slam - a National Club Golfer podcast in association with Callaway - Alex Perry and Hannah Holden sit by the 17th green at TPC Sawgrass watching players take on the famous island green while discussing their week in Florida. Then, later, usual co-host Matt Chivers joins to discuss Scottie Scheffler's incredible win, his Grand Slam hopes, the PGA Tou...

Medal, Stableford, fourball. It's a holy trinity for golfers and makes up the vast majority of what we play at our clubs. But Tom Irwin and Steve Carroll like to spread their wings a bit wider and, in this episode of the From the Clubhouse podcast, in association with TaylorMade Golf, they get stuck into their favourite golf formats. Tom expounds on his love of foursomes, while Steve asks if some...

It's Players week and the NCG team are in place at TPC Sawgrass. But the biggest talking point ahead of the PGA Tour's flagship event? LIV Golf, of course.  In this episode of The Slam, a National Club Golfer podcast in association with Callaway, Alex Perry and Matt Chivers break down the big debate about last year's champion Cameron Smith, and how Rory McIlroy is concerned about more than just Gr...

Does club golf for you revolve around turning up and chucking balls in the air, or are we now hooked on the concept of booked tee times?  Covid considerably changed the landscape of how some of us play our golf and in this week's From the Clubhouse podcast, in association with TaylorMade Golf, Tom Irwin and Steve Carroll consider what's on offer at clubs and whether the humble roll up has passed i...

50% of TaylorMade golf balls sold are no longer plain white, so is visual technology the biggest change in golf ball design in recent years?  NCG's Hannah Holden, Tom Irwin and Jack Backhouse discuss the evolution of the golf ball and how TaylorMade are changing the game with their eye-catching golf ball designs.  They also catch up with TaylorMade golf ball designer Mike Fox to take a deep dive i...

If you blinked, you missed it, but it's one down, 14 to go as LIV Golf's season opener in Mayakoba flashed by without incident. In this episode of The Slam, a National Club Golfer podcast in association with Callaway Golf, Alex Perry and Matt Chivers discuss the reasons why LIV Golf - whether it lasts five years or 50, will never replace what we have with the existing PGA Tour, DP World Tour, LPGA...

Just mentioning the words "independent golfer" is enough to send some of your clubs into a sweat.  But England Golf's iGolf scheme now boasts some 30,000 subscribers and the initial fury that greeted the plan to give players who were not members of a golf club an official handicap has all but subsided. Have golf clubs, though, really got to grips with nomadic players and the benefits they can brin...

The Slam - a National Club Golfer podcast in association with Callaway Golf - is back for 2023!  Alex Perry is joined by a brand new co-host, Matt Chivers, and the pair discuss Jon Rahm's remarkable form, Lydia Ko's return to the top, and have their say on that "prank" by Tiger Woods at the Genesis Invitational. Elsewhere, LIV Golf is back and one of its stars is already thinking about coming back...

We're obsessed with pace of play. Find a corner of the clubhouse and someone will probably be unhappy about how long today's round has taken. Yes, the time it takes to play the game is often a fractious point of debate. But what can we do about it? In this week's From the Clubhouse podcast, in association with TaylorMade Golf, Tom Irwin and Steve Carroll talk about the various issues they encounte...

On this week’s All the Gear, a podcast from National Club Golfer , Tom Irwin, Jack Backhouse and Hannah Holden, delve into what it was like to visit and play TPC Sawgrass, how the course has changed and why it is such a good venue for The Players. They also take a deep dive into their week at the PGA Show. Was demo day as good as it sounds, how did Kyle Berkshire help increase their club head spee...

Did you know if your ball lies on the green, and is no more than five feet from the hole, there is a Rule of Handicapping that allows you to pick it up and add a stroke to your score? In this week's From the Clubhouse podcast, in association with TaylorMade Golf, Steve Carroll and Tom Irwin delve deeper into the concept of 'most likely score', which can be used when a hole is started but a player...

What is it about golf rules that get us so hot under the collar? Tree-gate, as it’s now being called, divided opinion among commentators and spectators as Patrick Reed’s every movement was analysed and criticised at the Dubai Desert Classic. Steve Carroll, who has passed the R&A’s top rules exam, is joined by Tom Irwin and the pair break down events in the palm tree during the third round of the D...