Golf Is Ruining My Life shouldn’t work. It’s not polished, not planned, and it definitely won’t get you to scratch. But Tom Price and Tom Green have tapped into something every golfer understands – and now they’re taking it on tour.
There’s a moment every golfer recognises.
It usually comes late at night, long after a round that promised everything and delivered very little. You’re lying in bed, replaying it all – the one good drive, the missed putt, the swing thought that briefly felt like a breakthrough before disappearing somewhere around the 8th hole. You tell yourself you’re done with it. You mean it, too.
And then, by morning, you’re already thinking about when you can next play.
That strange, slightly unhealthy relationship with golf – the obsession, the frustration, the irrational optimism – is what Tom Price and Tom Green have built an entire podcast around. ‘The Toms’, as they have become known, didn’t set out to become the UK’s No.1 indie golf podcast. In fact, when Price first mooted the idea during the pair’s first meeting on a terrace after a round in 2021, they didn’t really set out to do much at all.
“We were both members at Muswell Hill and Price came over and said, ‘We should do a podcast’,” Green recalls. “Then we did absolutely nothing about it for a year and a half.
“We then started playing four or five times per week and I was utterly obsessed. I’d stay up until after midnight so I could see if my handicap had come down.”
He laughs. “My career suffered!”
Price smiles. “It was a little bit too much, a little bit obsessive – almost like it was making up for something else that was wrong in our lives,” he says. “We were both frustrated with our careers at that stage, but it was too much.”
It was that realisation that created the podcast idea.
“I remember saying to Tom, ‘Mate, golf is ruining my life’ – that’s our USP, we’ll just moan about golf,” Price says, summing up the podcast with the kind of blunt honesty that has become its calling card. “And that’s what we do. We moan in a masochistic way about how much we love how horrible the game is.”
It sounds like a throwaway line. It isn’t.
Golf is a game you love that doesn’t always love you back – and yet you keep turning up, convinced the next round might finally be the one.
Somewhere in that contradiction, Price and Green have found a huge audience who feel exactly the same.
Two radio hosts, two generations, one shared problem
Price is 45 – or, as he puts it, “aging off 45.8… and going up”. Green is 31, which Price describes as being an “age bandit”.
Different eras, different routes into the game, same outcome. Today, Price plays off 5.1 at Muswell Hill, while Green is an 8.1 handicap at Porter’s Park, both still chasing the consistency that flickers into life from time to time.
They are established broadcasters. Green hosts mornings on Hits Radio, Price fronts drivetime on Magic. Between them they’re heard by millions every week, have interviewed some of the biggest names in the world and spent years perfecting the art of live conversation.
Golf, though, isn’t something you can control.
Green’s story starts in the Tiger Woods boom, playing golf on his console and growing up on a street of junior golfers. “It was that first era of golf becoming really cool again and losing that exclusive feeling, and that was thanks to Tiger,” he says. “We all joined Preston Golf Club. They all took it quite seriously and I was pretty rubbish at it. They were all off four or five and I was hacking around off 18.”
He drifted away as radio took over, only to return in his mid–20s after a moment of quiet panic.
“I got the Kiss FM breakfast show, which was a huge moment, then I was interviewed by GQ magazine and asked what I did outside of work,” he says. “I realised I just didn’t do anything bar radio, which was really depressing.”
Lessons with a friend at Royal Wimbledon quickly followed, then rounds, then something more consuming. “Since then I’ve played like three times a week,” he adds.
Price’s route was more traditional. Growing up in South Wales, he fell for the game during a four–day Open Championship binge on free-to-air TV.
“Pretty much around my 13th birthday I became absolutely addicted to it,” he says. “We built a net in the garden. I’d hit balls all day.”
At Monmouth and The Rolls of Monmouth – where Greg Norman was the touring pro – golf was less about discipline and more about chaos. “We’d all go to the golf club for, let’s call it freedom and independence,” Price says, a broad grin across his face as he gestures quote marks with his hands. “It was about being naughty and smoking cigarettes. People climbing over fences to find balls, getting chased by sheep. It was quite chaotic and stupid. But a golf course is a wonderful place to have a childhood.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Green says. “I remember almost wetting myself laughing so many times. You’re in this amazing place where you’re surrounded by adults so you know you should behave, but that always makes everything instantly funnier and the giggles kick in.”
Price captained his school golf team, playing the likes of Huntercombe and Burnham & Berrow – something he regrets using as an opening gambit to new acquaintances at university. “It didn’t lead to the sexiest freshers’ week,” he jokes. “Quite a lonely time for me.”
But that sense of fun is something both feel gets lost in the game.
“Golfers take the game too seriously, everyone gets too het up and I include myself in that,” Price says. “It’s so silly and futile, and that’s wonderful – but it gets forgotten.”
That shift in how golf is perceived is something both have noticed over the past decade.
“I think it’s amazing that I don’t feel ashamed to say I’m a golfer anymore because I really did,” Price says. “I’d say I play a bit of golf and people would respond with things like, ‘Oh is that in–between the skiing and riding horses?’ There was a lot of inverted snobbery around it, and I’m so pleased that’s changed so much.”
Green agrees, pointing to a combination of fashion, accessibility, and content as key drivers.
“It’s only four years or so since there was uproar about players wearing hoodies, so I think it shows how far golf’s come in such a short time,” he says.
“The fashion’s so important, it’s made it more accessible and cooler, as have the number of young celebrities who play in and love the game.
“But I think the most important thing that’s happened in golf in recent times is people like Rick Shiels and Peter Finch. If it wasn’t for those guys and their content, I don’t think I’d have got back into the game. I got addicted to YouTube golf before lockdown and that’s huge.
“Yes, golf content creators are divisive, but what they’ve done to bring the sport to the forefront is so vital.”
Life beyond the pod (and why golf fills the gaps)
Away from the podcast, both have full lives.
Green sums his up neatly: “Wife, radio, golf, running, and curries.”
Price’s is broader. A comedian, actor and presenter, he has appeared in countless shows including Torchwood and Stella. He’s also an excellent stand–up, and hosts another successful podcast, My Mate Bought a Toaster, where celebrity guests discuss their online shopping histories. He lives in North London with his wife, author Beth Morrey, and their two children – a life that includes an annual tradition of tongue-in-cheek “back to school” photos.
For both, golf has had to fit around everything else.
“It didn’t,” Price says. “It took a real back seat.”
Until it didn’t anymore.
“We were playing four times a week,” he adds. “I’d say too much,”
It’s not just the time on the course. It’s the hours either side of it – the mental replay, the internal monologue, the running commentary that never quite switches off. At times, it feels less like a hobby and more like a conversation you’re having with yourself that no one else can hear.
There’s a recognition, too, that golf can become something slightly unhealthy.
“A little bit obsessive – like it’s making up for something else wrong in our lives,” Price says.
The idea that wasn’t really an idea
The podcast itself arrived in the most golf-like way imaginable: casually, slowly, and without much urgency.
When it finally did, the concept was simple.
No instruction. No analysis. No plan. “The most planning I’ve ever done for this podcast is write three bullet points,” Green says. “It’s not that. We turn the mics on and see where it goes.”
It’s just two golfers trying to make sense of a game that rarely makes sense. And in March 2022, the first episode went live. The response? Let’s just say it wasn’t challenging the leaderboard.
For a long time, it existed in a small, slightly chaotic bubble.
“I thought it was going to absolutely flop,” Green says. “And it did. For about a year and a half, no one listened.”
The reality of those early recordings is a long way from what the podcast looks like now.
“I remember sitting in my flat in Preston,” he says, “having a frozen pizza, a pint of Stella, with a microphone laying on the sofa, doing this podcast thinking no one’s ever going to listen to this. And no one did. No one did for absolutely ages.”
No strategy deck. No production team. No grand plan. Just two golfers talking into microphones and hoping someone, somewhere, might feel the same way.
Then things changed.
Short-form clips began to land. TikTok found them. The majors gave them structure. Daily episodes, fast reactions, and the kind of emotional, fan-led coverage that mirrors how golfers actually experience the game.
“It went mental over six months,” Green says. “It’s just us talking to each other, but it suddenly found our audience of people who are as obsessive and passionate as we are.”
“TikTok was the big turning point, and then the Masters last year with the daily episodes and Rory winning,” Price adds. “Now, this may surprise you, but we don’t have loads of expertise, but we talk with emotion and feelings which is relatable for the audience. We can get in our home studios and within an hour of play finishing we can have a podcast out, stuff on YouTube and socials and we’ve found this little niche that has worked. It’s a real thrill.”
“You often find with golf content creators that they’ve played the sport professionally or worked in it at a high level and to get there you almost have to lose a bit of the love because it can’t mean everything, because then it’s harder to get success,” Green says. “We find the people who are most passionate about the game are people in the clubhouse on a Saturday because it’s their hobby and downtime.
“Now, this will surprise you, but we’re not PGA Tour professionals or PGA pros – (“Yet,” Price interjects, jokingly) – which means we still have that almost childlike passion and just love talking about it and, seemingly, that’s relatable.”
Relatable without trying to be
Most golf content is built around knowledge. This isn’t.
“We never sat down and went, ‘Let’s make this relatable,’” Price says. “We just spoke like absolute golf obsessives and eventually we found that huge audience.”
I can confirm that. During guest appearances at the 2025 Ryder Cup, I’d regularly say things that would contradict something they’d said earlier in their record. “That’s why people come to you for information and us for the idiotic,” Price laughs.
But what they talk about is instantly familiar because it’s honest. The sleepless nights before a big round, the inability to focus on anything else, the creeping sense that golf might be taking over your life – it’s all there.
“If I’m playing Littlestone the next day, I can’t sleep,” Price says.
“I watched a whole theatre show and didn’t listen to a word because I had a big golf game the next day.”
Green’s version ends in a way every golfer understands. He thought he’d cracked it.
“I’d had such an amazing summer that I booked a round at Preston Golf Club, where I hadn’t played since I was a junior. My EG app looked amazing – rounds of 78-77-77-76-76, just this beautiful line of scores. I’d got my handicap down to single figures. I moved heaven and earth to play this round – even moved my radio show to Manchester for a day despite knowing Taylor Swift was coming into our London office! That’s how much I wanted to play. And I shot 97. Ninety–seven.
“It was horrible. I’d given golf everything over the summer and all I wanted was this one memory and what it gave me was a 97. The clubs went away for two months.”
“That’s what you get for choosing Preston over Swift,” Price jibes.
The emails, the chaos, the community
While the early episodes were greeted by the sort of silence you expect to find as Rory McIlroy stands over a crucial putt at a major, now their mailbox is louder than the first tee at the Ryder Cup.
“We do something called email corner,” Green explains, “where we just go through all the emails and answer questions.”
“We have a Discord with more than 1,000 fans in there and it’s just constantly going off with golfers communicating, chatting, arranging rounds. It’s amazing.”
What arrives is exactly what you’d expect. Rants, confessions, small victories that no one else quite understands, and the occasional story that sounds too absurd to be true but almost certainly isn’t.
“There was a guy who ranted for ages about how much he hated the game, was going to quit, couldn’t get any better. This went on across several messages and was hilarious,” Price recalls with a laugh. “Then he just messaged saying, ‘Never mind, been to the range, all fixed, cheers.’ That almost sums the show up.”
“What about the guy who decommissioned The Belfry’s lift by having a wee in it?” Green smiles. “That’s the sort of email we’re saving for the live shows.”
Price remembers another. “There was a guy who went on a boozy night out and woke up the next morning and had lost his golf clubs. Eventually he went back to the nightclub he’d ended up at, and they showed him the CCTV of him arriving with them on his back,” he chuckles.
“It’s just been a thrill to find a bunch of people who want to share that stuff with us and be part of it.”
From podcast to platform
For a long time, it felt like a passion project that would become little more.
“For the first two years, we’d have been better off working at Costa Coffee,” Green says.
“Every penny had been from me and him.”
Now it’s something else entirely.
They work with major brands, including Ping, Golfbreaks, England Golf, and GolfNow. They produce daily shows during majors and the Ryder Cup and have expanded into YouTube content that leans into the same playful tone as the podcast itself.
“We’re only going to take on challenges where the title rhymes,” Price jokes, referencing videos like ‘Can we break par at Woodhall Spa?’ It’s a deliberately loose idea, but one that neatly captures how they approach everything they do – if it’s fun, it’s worth doing.
They’ve also launched a second show, Talk Birdie To Me, which broadens their reach without losing their voice, and is released every other Friday.
That has already brought in guests such as Lee Westwood and Danny Willett, alongside well-known golf obsessives (and friends) like Alex Horne and John Robins.
“When we were told we’d got Lee Westwood, it was insane,” Price says. “A former World No.1 talking to us two berks! But he was great and, I think, because we’re not grilling them like a traditional journalist might, they’re more relaxed and buy into it.”
The tone doesn’t so much change as shift. The conversations are looser, more human, and often end up circling the same themes as the main show – frustration, obsession, and the strange hold the game has over the people who play it.
“And it’s only 30 minutes, we do it remotely, so it’s easy for them,” Green adds. “But even with that time, again, we can have these conversations that keep moving, that feel pacey and exciting, because it’s what we do on the radio.”
But surely, when there’s a big name waiting on the screen with them, there will be more prep than normal, won’t there?
“We’re vibe based. We’re still just winging it,” Green laughs. “On the only occasion we had some questions prepared for us, when Jamie Murray came in, he said they were rubbish, so we’re better off the other way! There’s so much golf geekery coming out of us that we’re happy just to do that.”
Despite vibing it, Golf is Ruining My Life has become a far more professional outfit in the past 12 months.
“It’s gone from two blokes saying why we can’t hit a draw to a proper operation with a team behind us,” Green says. “Building this and seeing the reaction it gets is definitely the proudest career moment I’ve had. Getting spotted from the radio, in my experience, doesn’t happen, but since doing this I’ve had people coming up to me while I’ve been on the course, or skiing, or on holiday, to say how much they love the pod. It feels like we’re really connecting. It’s a pinch me moment whenever that happens.”
“He gets recognised more than me and it’s really annoying,” Price adds. “Getting recognised on the golf course is wild and insane and I’ll never understand it. What I’m proud of is that you can listen to episodes from two years ago when we had 40 listeners and one from now and I don’t think you’ll hear a big difference. Ultimately, it’s me and him, no plan, talking about whatever’s on our minds about golf.”
“Right now, we’re the No.1 independent golf podcast,” Green says. “The big target is to be the No.1 golf podcast in the UK, which is another reason we’ve expanded. That would be incredible.”
“My advice to anyone thinking about turning their passion project into their job, you’ve got to be willing to do it forever for free,” he adds. “We’d have still been talking to each other even if 40 people were still listening. When you’re willing to do things when they’re not successful that’s the key because then you’ll put the time in for it to be successful.”
As the podcast grows, so too does the challenge of keeping golf what it has always been for them – a release.
“I have quite a strict rule that when I’m playing golf for fun, I don’t do any filming,” Green says. “I don’t want to do anything on the golf course that feels like work when it’s a non-work thing. When we’re filming, even if it’s an amazing course, it does feel like work. It’s not as enjoyable as just going to play a casual round.”
Price nods. “You need to have rounds where there are no cameras on. That’s what keeps it fresh. Ultimately, what’s good about golf is even if it does become our full-time job, we just want to get better at the game and any career stuff on the side is a bonus. In the best possible way, we don’t feel professional. It still feels like two fans, and we have to keep that.”
That extends to their relationship, too.
“We get on very well, we’re the same personality type, but we have pretty strict rules around it,” Price explains. “We have clear boundaries where we’ll be done with the show for the week and then not speak again until Tuesday. We’re not Ant and Dec or Morecambe and Wise.”
“I think if our radio shows aligned better, we’d play more golf together during the week, but before we played Woodhall Spa in March it had been six months since we had a round together, which is mad,” Green adds.
Taking it on the road
Next comes the live tour: An Evening for Swingers.
“At last, a new golf tour that’s not Saudi backed,” Green jokes.
The title alone tells you what to expect – or at least what not to expect. This isn’t a polished theatre production or a carefully choreographed evening of golf instruction. It’s something closer to the podcast itself: conversational, chaotic, and built around the shared understanding that the majority in the room already gets it.
“I think we were just bored in winter,” Green says. “We said, ‘Let’s go on tour’, and then booked the venues.
“If we don’t fill them, we still pay, not that we’re worried,” he adds with a grin.
Only afterwards did they stop to consider what a live show might involve.
“We’ll write the show at some stage,” Price admits.
WHERE TO CATCH GIRML: AN EVENING FOR SWINGERS
Sunday, June 14: Bristol, Hen & Chickens – BUY TICKETS
Sunday, June 21: Birmingham, Glee Club – BUY TICKETS
Sunday, June 28: Liverpool, Hot Water Comedy Club – BUY TICKETS
Sunday, July 5: London, Leicester Square Theatre – BUY TICKETS
The structure will involve more than three bullet points, including bringing comedian Rob Deering on board as a director – certain set pieces, stories they know work, moments designed to bring the audience into it – but the expectation is that none of the nights will feel quite the same.
“It’ll have an overarching structure,” Price says, “but things will change from room to room. It has to.”
That unpredictability is part of the appeal. Unlike stand-up, where a comedian might be working to win over a crowd, Price and Green will walk on stage to rooms full of people who already understand the tone, the jokes, and the central idea that golf is both brilliant and faintly ridiculous.
“That’s the weird bit,” Price says. “I’ve spent 15 years on the comedy circuit trying to prove I’m funny in every gig I do. But when I’ve done GIRML live events, I’ve found that so strange because they already get you and like what you do.”
Green sees it as a different kind of challenge.
“It’s like the dads at a Harry Styles gig,” he says. “They’ve got to get something out of it as well.”
What that translates to is still evolving. There will be audience interaction, stories that never made it onto the podcast, and the kind of confessional, slightly ridiculous moments that have become a staple of the show.
“Competitions, confessions and chronic back pain,” as their own tour blurb puts it.
And, in keeping with everything they’ve done so far, it’s been built backwards.
“We’ve got something at the end of the show that we’re really excited about,” Green says. “That thing is top secret, but it’s amazing and, genuinely, if you’re not in the room and hear about it, I think you’ll really kick yourself. We’re basically working everything back from that.”
It’s not the traditional way of building a live show. But then again, very little about this journey has been traditional.
From the sofa to success
From an idea born on a golf club patio after another bad round to recording early episodes on a sofa with a pint of Stella. Now they’re hitting the road for a live tour and welcoming some of the biggest names in golf to the UK’s biggest independent golf podcast.
Golf might still be ruining their lives on the course. But it’s working out well off it.
Episodes of Golf is Ruining My Life are released every Monday and Thursday, with Talk Birdie To Me released every other Friday. Listen now on Apple or Spotify.
You can follow the Toms’ journey on TikTok and Instagram, as well as watching the show and their exploits on the course on YouTube. You can even buy GIRML merch!