Indholdsfortegnelse for Nov-15 i Golf Digest

He started working with Greg Norman in 1992 and brought him back to No. 1 in the world by 1994. He started working with Tiger Woods in 1993 and took him to No. 1 in the world in 1997. He started working with Phil Mickelson in 2007 and helped him revive his career with 12 more PGA Tour victories, including a Masters and a British Open. In late 2013, Butch Harmon started working with Rickie Fowler, the young kid who looked so promising after winning the 2012 Wells Fargo but couldn’t repeat. Rickie picks it up from there: “I first met Butch playing with Phil in those [high-stakes] games Tuesdays on tour. Butch was easy to be around, fun, a great guy to hang with. So much history. I liked…

“Make a fairway wider by using the slope to your advantage.” One tee shot that really unsettles golfers is a dogleg that bends in the opposite direction of their natural shot shape. For example, No. 18 at Muirfield Village (shown) poses a dilemma to the right-handed golfer whose stock shot is a draw. If you’re a draw player on this hole, you could go with your usual ball flight, using the rationale you’re most likely to produce a solid strike with the swing you know. Or you might try the shot you don’t play as much, a fade, because it allows a larger margin of error in finding the fairway. Rather than going on gut instinct, learn to look at landing areas critically. Then you can apply the best strategy…

DAVID LINGMERTH AGE 28 LIVES Jacksonville STORY Won the 2015 Memorial Tournament in a playoff against Justin Rose. RYDER CUP AMBITIONS I’ve met with Darren Clarke and other European Ryder Cup players this summer. It’s cool that they think I could contribute to their team. I’m going to do my best to qualify, which entails joining the European Tour next season. You know, just having my name mentioned in Ryder Cup talks is a pretty big thrill for me. KEEPING MY COOL Leading the PGA and British Open this year was a thrill, and a learning experience on how to handle your emotions. —WITH STEPHEN HENNESSEY First win at Jack’s? Pretty surreal During NCAAs in 2009, Jack came and gave a talk to the teams. I was in awe of…

Attention to anyone using an anchored putting stroke: Your time is almost up. When golf’s governing bodies—the USGA and R&A— jointly announced the ban on anchored strokes May 21, 2013 (all anchored strokes, not just putting), the implementation date of Jan. 1, 2016 seemed far away. Now it’s almost here. That means golfers who have gotten used to sticking a club against their chest, gut, chin, ear or any other body part to prevent the club from swinging unhindered are on the clock to find an alternative. This includes 2013 Masters champion Adam Scott (right), who was still anchoring his putter late in the 2015 season. Forget whether you agree with Rule 14-1b. You’re going to have to live with it. Because if you anchor, someone in your foursome is…

The players who are close to him say they’ve never seen his wrong side. Not once. The PGA Tour arranges our lockers in alphabetical order. Week in and week out, you’re changing your shoes and unpacking your bags next to the same handful of guys. My best friends are mostly my peers, guys who were rookies when I was a rookie, but inevitably I’ve become chummy with the fellas whose last names start with letters close to mine. With one notable exception: Phil Mickelson and I aren’t friends. Outside the two rounds we’ve played together, we haven’t spoken two words to one another. The first time Phil and I were paired, it was pretty late on a Sunday. We were both in the hunt. The conditions were tough, windy, and…

I know a lot of amateurs lower their expectations on approach shots from 200-plus yards. Granted, your odds of hitting a green from out there are never great, but my advice on fairway woods will help. Start with this drill: Practice making controlled swings that allow you to finish in balance like I am here. That’s the tempo you want. Treat it like you were swinging an iron to a specific distance. If a shot is too long for a 7-iron, you hit a 6. Same thinking here: Every fairway wood has a distance limit. Don’t try to stretch it. “To hit a cut, set up with your feet and shoulders open.” GO LEFT TO RIGHT FOR CONSISTENCY I like to fade or cut the ball, which I recommend for…

Most golfers hate partial wedge shots because they don’t have a good plan for playing them. They tend to make too big a backswing and then have to decel at impact to avoid smashing the ball over the green. When you slow down like that, everything gets out of sync, which makes it tough to catch the ball solid. The secret to these shots is making a shorter, wider backswing (below, left), so you can accelerate through the ball. You want to be able to rotate your torso and swing your arms faster on the downswing—that’s an athletic move that produces more consistent results. When everything moves through the shot together, you can make a firm strike and not worry about putting too much on it. I tell my students…

Don’t get ‘line crazy.’ You’ll forget to hit the putt. You study the break from every angle. You set up meticulously, make a nice, smooth stroke and start the ball right on line. It’s looking good, looking real good, but comes up one revolution short. Of course, this happens all the time, but that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow—probably tougher. What can you learn? Well, you either tried to wish it in and made a wimpy stroke, or you got “line crazy” and forgot about speed. Maybe you were afraid of leaving a comebacker. Whatever the case, you feel like snapping your putter in half. (Don’t.) Next time, try to manage your nervous energy. After you’ve picked the line and set the putter behind the ball, focus on…

Bubba hits it on the upswing and averages 302 in the air. To maximize driving distance, long-ball hitters like Bubba Watson (above) catch the ball on the upswing. Sweeping it off the tee increases the distance the ball stays in the air and reduces backspin, so it rolls more when it lands. This is the same approach to the driver I use when teaching my new A Swing. All you need to do is make some easy adjustments to hit longer drives. Follow these steps. David Leadbetter, author of The A Swing, operates 24 golf academies worldwide. 1. TILT BEHIND THE BALL ▶ Address the ball so it’s in line with your left heel, and widen your stance beyond shoulder width. Your spine should be tilted away from the target,…

CHARLES KELLEY / AGE 34 / RESIDES Nashville / FROM Augusta, Ga. NOTED Singer/guitarist for country music’s Lady Antebellum. Brother Josh also is a famous country artist. Played competitive golf as a junior, including winning the Future Masters 10-and-under age group in 1992. Older winners that year included Charles Howell III and Lucas Glover. Graduated from the University of Georgia in 2004 (finance). He and his wife, Cassie, are expecting their first child in February. MY PASSION FOR GOLF came before music. I grew up in Augusta. My oldest brother, John, is 10 years older than me and played golf at Wake Forest. He was an amazing junior golfer, so my brother Josh and I idolized him. We got into golf really early. I WAS A PRETTY GOOD golfer. At…

The collectible 1964 Rolex Daytona ($20,000, right) and the multifunction models on the next page remind us why chronographs are worn by astronauts, pilots and race-car drivers. From the rugged quartzmovement Casio G-Shock to the elegant, mechanical Tiffany CT60, these watches are stylish, versatile and timeless.…

Q When does a golf ball achieve its maximum instantaneous velocity? Is it when it leaves the clubface? ROGER WELBORN, SACRAMENTO A  Whoa, Roger. Those are pretty big words. Maybe we should explain what “maximum instantaneous velocity” means before answering your question. MIV is determined by first designating a unit of time. For example, you could use an attosecond, which is one quintillionth of a second (or about the amount of time the average teenager spends listening to a calculus teacher). Once you have designated a unit of time, then you can measure a ball’s speed during that unit and compare it to its speed during equal units. Luckily, you don’t have to do that, because USGA engineer Steve Quintavalla already has your answer: “The ball starts slowing down immediately…

Content sellers eye the future in network TV, cable and emerging digital platforms. It’s a tumultuous time in live-sports programming as crucial television negotiations for golf loom against a backdrop of new media developing seemingly endless options catering to individual tastes. With the USGA championships owned by Fox Sports through 2026, the British Open controlled by NBC/Golf Channel through 2028, the Ryder Cup under contract with NBC/Golf Channel until 2030 and pretty much everyone agreeing the Masters will keep its one-year deals with CBS and ESPN essentially in perpetuity, the next key TV dates in golf are 2019 and 2021. That’s an eternity in the rapidly changing world of media, but those deals are already very much on the minds of the key players. In 2019, the contracts CBS and…

For Gary Player’s 80th birthday on Nov. 1, friends and family will gather to deliver cards, gifts, a book of memories, 80 birthday spanks and a pinch to grow an inch. Which is only fair, seeing how in his 62 years as a pro, it was Player who did most of the spanking. He won 165 tournaments worldwide, 24 of them on the PGA Tour and nine of them major championships. He’s one of five players to capture the career Grand Slam. After he turned 50, he won 19 times on the Champions Tour, six of them senior majors. He has also raised more than $50 million for charity through The Player Foundation. As a golfer, course designer and philanthropist, Player has iced a lot of cakes. ▶ Along the…

There are a lot of bullies on the golf course. Bunkers, water hazards, tall trees, high grass—you name it. The more you focus on those bullies, the more they mess with your head, and the worse you play. So how do you ignore them? I have a method that has helped everyone from tour players to 25-handicappers. I want you to use the power of intention. What I mean by that is, before each shot go through your normal checklist, determining distance, wind direction, elevation change—all the usual variables. Then focus on what you want the ball to do and where you want it to end up. But here’s the most important part: Once you’ve done that, try to hit the shot with as much bravery as you can muster.…

I see a lot of amateurs holding the club too tightly. I notice it most when they try to waggle. The movement looks stiff and short. To swing correctly, the right amount of grip pressure—and where you apply it—is important. You should feel the club being supported by the last three fingers of your left hand (above, left). Those fingers should grip the firmest. My longtime teach er, the late Stan Thirsk, used to remind me to keep the club in the fingers of my left hand and never let it slip into the palm. In the right hand, the middle two fingers do most of the work. The forefinger and thumb of the right hand should feel relaxed. In fact, I’ve seen many great players, including Ben Hogan and…

When somebody sends me a tweet during a round looking for help, I know it’s pretty serious. And a lot of times the subject is a shank. The classic shank comes when the clubhead gets farther away from you at impact than it was at address, or you move closer to the ball during the swing. As a result, the ball hits off the hosel and darts sideways. Start by getting the right distance from the ball. Your arms should hang from your shoulders— not reach—and you should keep the body posture that creates throughout the swing. To avoid moving toward the ball or swinging your arms out, use my obstacle drill (left, inset). Hank Haney is based at the Hank Haney Golf Ranch, Lewisville, Texas. To get fixed in…

Dave Tutelman, a retired Bell Labs engineer, is a sports-technology savant. Among his many passions is figuring out how golf-club technology works, including developing a ball-flight simulation program. We asked him to estimate how many yards average golfers are missing out on with the driver. He said 30, and that’s just carry. Improving the efficiency of impact (a better fitting driver is critical) might get you as many as 18 yards. The right loft could yield another six. A lower center of gravity might produce a few more, and so on. Sure, some of those improvements can be fueled by lessons, but others come from getting the driver properly fit to maximize your strengths (and mask your weaknesses). That’s where adjustable clubs can make a difference. Instead of being afraid…

Want to pull off this shot? Get in the gym. You might like to spend hours on the range grooving your swing, but from a neurological standpoint, that’s probably not a good idea, says Golf Digest fitness advisor Ben Shear. If you only train on perfectly flat practice ranges, how can you expect your body to perform when you’re trying to flush a shot off a downhill or sidehill lie, or standing with one foot in and one foot out of a bunker? “It takes a good amount of coordination, strength and flexibility to hit shots from awkward lies,” Shear says. “Even something as standard as a deeprough lie can give you fits if your body isn’t prepared.” That’s why it’s important to train your nervous system to be comfortable…

“If I die, give me pars the rest of the way.” Until recently Mike Meldman was, in his words, “terrible at golf.” If you counted every stroke, says one of his senior staffers, he probably couldn’t break 175. Instructor Hank Haney, who has taught Meldman for the past three years, says his swing presented a bigger challenge than Charles Barkley’s. It was more than a little ironic—because even as Meldman struggled with the game, he was emerging as the undisputed leader in luxury golf. His Discovery Land Co. has developed 13 golf communities and now has five more underway: two in New York, two in Hawaii and one in Las Vegas. Empty lots at most of his clubs start at about $1 million, memberships go for $100,000 and up, and…

As ranked by their peers 2015 / 2016 ALABAMA 1 MARK BLACKBURN Greystone G. & C.C., Birmingham 2 TONY RUGGIERO C.C. of Mobile 3 WAYNE FLINT Highland Park G. Cse., Birmingham 4 ERIC ESHLEMAN C.C. of Birmingham 5 NEIL THOMPSON Oxmoor Valley, Birmingham 6 LAYNE SAVOIE FarmLinks at Pursell Farms, Sylacauga 7 BRIAN SPEAKMAN Greystone G. & C.C., Birmingham ALASKA 1 JOE BUTLER Palmer G. Cse. ARIZONA 1 STAN UTLEY (14) Grayhawk G.C., Scottsdale 2 PIA NILSSON (16) Vision 54, Scottsdale 3 MIKE MALASKA (18) Malaska G., Mesa 4 LYNN MARRIOTT (T-25) Vision 54, Scottsdale 5 PETER KOSTIS (33) Grayhawk Learning Ctr., Scottsdale 6 mike labauve (41) Westin Kierland Resort & Spa, Scottsdale 7 DONALD CRAWLEY Boulders G. Academy, Carefree 8 CRAIG BUNKER Camelback G.C., Scottsdale 9 SCOTT BUNKER Red…

Actors, athletes and daredevils. Inventors, pioneers and teachers. Golfers of every kind: young and old, famous and obscure, pro and amateur. In the long history of Golf Digest—we celebrate our 65th anniversary this year—no feature has brought to life the people in and around golf more distinctively than the My Shot series. Beginning in 2002, when we visited 89-year-old Sam Snead at his home in Virginia, we’ve invited the game’s most compelling characters to provide a first-person telling of who they are, not just as golfers but as people. From each has come opinion, wisdom, humor, hope, regret and ruminations on what Bobby Jones called the greatest game of all. ▶ Turn the pages and take in the revealing passages and portraits: Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson on their golf…