Drive it 300 yards every time – or never miss a putt inside six-feet?

Each week, four of the NCG team get together to ask each other the pressing questions. The only rule is: The question must be golf related. In this edition, James Savage, Keel Timmins, Alex Perry and Mark Townsend take to the tee…

James: Do you change your shoes in the locker room or the car park?

Keel: Car park. Even though my club doesn’t allow that. I like to live dangerously. I can also jump over the fence straight onto the course rather than having to go through the main entrance and engage in small talk with the members.

Alex: Depends on when I arrive really. Quick nine holes over the road? Absolutely changing my shoes while leaning on the boot of my car. Headed for 18 somewhere nice? I’m taking all my golf gear in a separate holdall and taking in the changing rooms – after a bacon sandwich in the bar, of course.

Mark: Neither. I take Ready Golf quite literally and arrive fully prepared to get out the car, fumble around with some tees and smother one up the left. I find changing shoes quite tiring these days and I need to stretch my hamstrings first to get the job done.

Keel: What’s your ultimate golf snack during a round?

Alex: Always one of those flapjacks from the pro shop. Why can’t you buy those flapjacks anywhere except pro shops?

Mark: I still can’t get this right. I’m allergic to nuts which seems to rule out anything healthy, I have spent far too long shoving Mars bars into my grid to know that doesn’t work, and soup is just a ball ache to transport around. If time permits for a sit-down I’ll always enjoy a sausage-bacon combo, if it doesn’t bananas are unbeatable and I won’t hate myself for a change.

James: Probably some sort of protein shake. I don’t want to be peaking and troughing from too much sugar or E numbers. I want to keep things on a level. Sorry, I’m joking. Sausage roll. It has to be something which can be eaten fairly quickly. And you’ll be eating while walking so won’t get covered in flaky pastry.

Mark: Which European golfer would you least like to go for a pint with? And you can’t all say Paul Casey as that’s too easy…

James: Thomas Bjorn. I’d be worried about annoying him. Reckon he can sink a few jars too. And I don’t want to be seen to be sucking up to the European Ryder Cup captain.

Keel: Tyrrell Hatton. Drink too warm? That glass is being launched at the nearest bystander. Nobody would be safe.

Alex: I like that you stipulated “European” – opening it up to the rest of the world would also make it too easy. I had a very unpleasant experience with Darren Clarke once…

Alex: If a genie offered to give you the ability to hit 300 yard drives into A1 every time or never miss a putt inside six feet, which would you choose and why?

Keel: I feel like I make just over 50 per cent of six-footers at the moment. Hitting a 300-yard drive into the middle of the fairway almost never happens, and I think that would drastically improve my scoring, so I’ll go for that.

Mark: The 300-yard drive would save me maybe half a dozen shots, the putting maybe one or two. I lag every putt I hit so am rarely too far away, I never hit it that close with an iron and I can’t chip so six-footers aren’t really a big part of my experience.

James: Anyone who says the drive is a mug. Or a brilliant putter. If I never missed a putt inside six feet I’d be four or five shots better every round I played.