Richard Pennell
Special guest
Richard Pennell is a modern day literary talent – some of you might know him by his twitter alter ego @pitchmarks which has taken the golf world by storm over the past 4 years.
Richard's love affair with golf started at Heath Park in Cardiff where he honed his early game through multiple laps of this local favourite.
He dabbled in greenkeeping prior to moving towards the administrative side of the game at a series of high profile London clubs such as New Zealand, Woking and Royal Wimbeldon. He is currently membership secretary at West Byfleet GC.
During the dark days of C19 Richard devoted his attention to honong his writkng skills, initially for the sole enjoyment of the members of Woking GC. These regular missives quickly morphed into a weekly substack blog.
He now writes regularly for publications such as Links Magazine, The Links Diary, McKellar Journal and Todays Golfer.
Richard has also expended his repetoire as a published book author, with Grass Routes arriving in 2023 and Common Grounds in 2025. Both books have been published by those great people at Grant Books.
Richard Pennell has been a guest on 4 episodes.
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Episode 74: Common Grounds with Richard Pennell
December 23rd, 2025 | 1 hr 35 mins
Richard Pennell returns to the Firm & Fast Golf Podcast to chat about his new book Common Grounds which focuses slightly more rustic golf adventures.
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Episode 54: The Irish Golf Wanderings of Mr. Richard J. Pennell
December 5th, 2024 | 1 hr 37 mins
Aspiring honorary Irishman, Richard Pennell, joins us on this episode to reminisce about the four golf trips he undertook to Ireland over the past 12 months. He classes it as 'work', it's well for some :).
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Episode 26: Grass Routes with Richard Pennell
June 29th, 2023 | 1 hr 58 mins
firm & fast, grass routes, richard pennell, stymied blog
Friend of the pod Richard Pennell is also known by the @pitchmarks moniker on the socials. A life long procrastinator, Richard finally grasped the writing nettle during lockdown to assist members of Woking GC to deal with covid induced isolation, he would go on to write an as yet unpublished book (it's a masterpiece) and subsequently launch his stymied substack bog in November 2021. 90 plus missives have been published so far - he has some news, which he wants to share with us... it's great to have him back!
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Episode 6: Richard Pennell - Greenkeeping 101
March 18th, 2022 | 2 hrs 9 mins
educatipn, golf expert, golf irrigation, great golf, pitchmark repair
Better known for his recent alter ego @pitchmarks on twitter, Mr. Richard Pennell has many strings to his bow. A writer, golfer, green keeper, managing secretary and golf weirdo (my words to be clear)..... Richard is a font of knowledge on all things golfing.... tune in if you are a golfer that wantsto learn some more about green keeping, agronomy and more