Play a Hole with Locky from Rudimental

Words by: Alex Ames
Photography by:Ollie Allison & Graeme McCubbin

"We say that Glastonbury is probably the Champions League of a musicians' career and Rudimental have managed to do it twice, headlining The Other Stage. I didn't feel nervous one bit, nowhere in comparison to feeling as nervous as I did at the pro-am."

Locky, how did you get into golf?

I remember I had to do some promo for the PGA and it was about a novice playing golf with a professional and that professional was Andrew Beef Johnson.

He was doing trick shots and you know I was just trying to make contact with the ball at the time because I'd never ever picked up a golf club ever.  Beefy said, you know you're going to get these golf clubs now and you're never going to put them down.

He was actually wrong, I did put them down for two years because I was so busy with Rudimental. Then when COVID came along, they were still in the garage. I did an interview for Sky Sports and they wanted to talk about golf and reopening for Covid. And I said, yeah, I'll do that. Anything to do to be on Sky Sports. And so I started playing. I picked up the golf clubs that I’d been given by Titleist from that first gig we did with BMW and that was probably two and a half years ago now and I've managed to get myself down to 11.9 [handicap] as of today. 

And you booked a spot at the BMW Pro Am at Wentworth, how did it feel to play in front of an audience like that on live TV?

It was the most nerve-wracking thing I think I've done and I've played in front of hundreds of thousands of people. You have one opportunity on each tee box to hit a shot and impress an audience and you know all eyes are glued on you and what your shot's going to be like. It’s uh pretty nerve-wracking, especially the first tee off at Wentworth. It's very daunting I've not experienced anything like, I was talking to the boys about it the other day I could feel my heart beating through my chest and I've never ever been that anxious and nervous about anything.

We say that Glastonbury is probably the Champions League of a musicians' career and Rudimental have managed to do it twice, headlining The Other Stage. I didn't feel nervous one bit, nowhere in comparison to feeling as nervous as I did at the pro-am.

It's been a decade since home released. How does it feel looking back on that monumental moment in your career?

Yeah, no, it's crazy. It's nuts that I'm still here talking to magazines like Clash, doing interviews. I've got a Radio 1 interview I've got to do today off the back of our new single and we're talking about a decade of our debut album, “Home”. This music industry career can be very short-lived for many artists and we feel very fortunate and it humbles us every day to know that, you know, we've got another year, another 10 years in the game.

And did the Locky of 10 years ago see himself taking up golf?

Hell no, definitely not. The thing about me as well is that I kind of play in any weather. So I play when the greens are iced over, when it's been pouring down with rain. That’s the Locky of today.

It was a bit like that with the weather in Scotland. Can you tell us about going up there and what you were doing up there with MANORS Golf? 

Yeah, Scotland was an amazing time, a beautiful moment. As soon as you touch down, especially at St. Andrews, you feel the euphoria of golf everywhere. You've got students running around with their golf bags on their back. There's golf shops everywhere, and then you've obviously got the old course and the new course, which was on the doorstep of our hotel. It's a very special place you feel it in the air and to be surrounded with like-minded people, people that have a massive love for golf within the MANORS community was just an amazing experience for me because to be honest with you I've not been away on a golf trip with a group of people before. I've been on holiday and played golf by myself but I've never experienced that before so it was good to see that and you know the team were absolutely welcoming and the apparel, oh the apparel is amazing…MANORS get it spot on.

Do you see golf intersecting with your career in the future, as you move forward?

Well 100% I'm looking to retire sooner than expected. Just so that I can play golf and become a scratch golfer. But on a serious note, I've got a spare set of clubs and they are going to live on a tour bus or in storage so that they can be put on an aeroplane quite simply, wherever we're going.

My tour manager now knows that wherever we're going, if we can book our hotels closer to a golf resort, that would be great because that's all I'm going to be doing. 

And what are you working on at the moment with your golf game? What do you hope to achieve this year?

Well, the ultimate goal is to be in single digits. The problem with golf is no matter how much you think you're progressing, you can be humbled so nicely. So although I feel like it's a realistic objective and goal, it can so easily be taken out of my hands. But that's the goal to get down to single digits. I don't know if it's possible, this might be naive of me, but Somewhere along the future I would love to be playing off scratch, or at least two.

What can we expect from Locky and Rudimental for the rest of this year? 

Yeah, it's mad because I feel like I'm living two lives or two careers rather. You've got the Locksmith part of Rudimental where we're releasing music, gonna be performing on some of the biggest stages in the world this year. We're headlining the West Hall stage at Glastonbury. We've got our own headline show at the Crystal Palace Bowl on the 5th of August to celebrate 10 years of “Home”. Headlining Parklife, there's a lot of live shows going on and it just feels a bit unreal to be saying that after 10 years that people still want us to turn up, which is great. So yeah, that's the plan for Rudimental, to release more music, get some music in the charts at whatever level. And then you've got Locksmith, where I've got my fitness apparel. The main goal at the current moment is to hopefully do a joint collaboration with MANORS.

Which would be amazing. That's one of my biggest goals right now because I love the ethos around MANORS brand. And it's very, very similar to what I stand for. You know, being accessible for all types of people who want to play golf and who want to get involved in exercise as well. So yeah, that's my vibe.