Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 6, 2021 i Golf Digest

THE OTHER DAY I’m forwarded something called “Dear Younger Me.” A slight roll of the eyes. The device hasn’t been popularized so much as pulverized by pro athletes and their ghostwriters to recount career achievements without the risk of sounding self-indulgent because the message is suppositionally for an audience of one. But the email is from a golf buddy whose taste I respect, so I click. Maybe it’s I who lacks the wisdom to take advantage of the form. The writer of the fictitious letter is a physically failing elderly golfer. His warning is against preoccupation with results that prevent one from truly appreciating the experience of walking around beautiful places with other human souls. One passage reads, “I always felt that if I was just a little better or…

Two peculiarities make golf unique among professional sports. First, only in golf does the winner score the fewest points. Where else does a 3 beat a 4? Second, golf’s spectators at the most critical moments can go from raucous ebullience to prolonged silence with nothing in between. It’s known as a sport of control and decorum. That made the finish of this year’s PGA Championship at Kiawah all the more remarkable for some observers who had never before seen crowds swarm a final pairing—the triumphant Phil Mickelson and the “dinged” Brooks Koepka—who in the end were shaken out of the mob scene onto the 72nd green like the last two Milk Duds from a candy box. Actually, fans have short memories. It was only 2018 when Tiger Woods emerged from…

1. 12-16 ounces of strong coffee from Ethiopian beans. 2. A few tablespoons of triglyceride oil (medium chain) to accelerate fat burning and counter hunger pangs. 3. A scoop of the amino acid L-theanine to control anxiety and coffee jitters. 4. A scoop of unflavored collagen protein powder for soft-tissue repair. 5. A spoonful of Manuka honey to subdue allergies. 6. A spoonful of cinnamon to reduce inflammation. 7. A dash of pink Himalayan salt for electrolytes, decreasing risk of dehydration. 8. Unsweetened almond milk for flavor.…

Matching a golfer to the right golf ball, as much as we would like to help, is largely your responsibility. Working with a qualified fitter is a good place to start: Launch-monitor data can reveal differences here and there with a driver, iron and wedge. However, the most airtight way to identify the ball that complements your game best is out on a golf course, or better yet, at a short-game practice area where you can figure out if a performance feature resonates with you. That is precisely what tour players do, and it is primarily what we do in determining the golf ball Hot List, our guide to the balls that you should focus on when starting the buying process. We considered 85 balls for this year’s Hot List,…

The course was Starfire Golf Club in Scottsdale. The player was Bubba Watson, and he was staring down a 30-yard pitch on the final hole for eagle. Bubba was out here to do one thing, and that was to go as low as possible. We suppose that’s the objective for any round of golf, yes? Only Watson was part of an experiment, and through 17 holes he had passed the test. Now he wanted to end it with an exclamation mark. “The video better be rolling,” Watson hollered. His voice boomed with authority, and though he was motioning toward a camera crew, he wanted to make sure his friends heard him. For a moment, the man who famously kept his top-button buttoned decided to be a bit unbuttoned. “They better…

ONE OF THE WAYS BUSINESSES LIKE mine, The Golf Room, thrive is by keeping track of the things that really make a difference to the bottom line. These KPIs (key performance indicators) are the ones successful companies watch to help stay profitable. You should treat your golf game the same way. There are things you do—and things you can work on—that have way more impact on your score than other things. These KPIs are specific to your skill level, which means that if you want to reach a better level by the end of the season, you should be working on a specific set of indicators to get there. What should you work on? My friend Mark Broadie invented the strokes-gained statistics used by the PGA Tour that identify exactly…

IT’S NO SECRET that the 3-wood is my go-to club. When I won the Players Championship in 2009, I think I hit driver five times all week. At the 2015 Tour Championship, I went 3-wood, 3-wood to hit the green in two on a 600-yard par 5. I use 3-woods so often, I’ve caved in the face on more than one over the years. The reason I love this club is that it’s so damn dependable. It puts the ball in play when I need it most, it produces high shots from long range that hold par-5 greens, and it gives me a chance to get some yardage back when I get out of position. It’s for those reasons that I’ve often wondered why most of the amateurs I play…

IN THE SUMMER OF 2018, I received a no-frills email from Brendon Todd. “Hey, Bradley. I’ve played on tour, and I’m having a bit of a struggle.” I didn’t quite know who he was because my time on tour ended before he made a name for himself. I looked him up and discovered that in 2014 he won on the PGA Tour, something I was never able to accomplish. I also discovered that “a bit of a struggle” was an understatement. Brendon had missed 34 of 37 cuts and dropped outside the top 2,000 in the World Golf Ranking. He came to Holly Tree Country Club in Simpsonville, S.C., where I teach, and told me he was dealing with the “full-swing yips.” He had this wild shot in his bag—a…

The time was 8 p.m. when I stepped onto the first tee at The Lights at Indio Golf Course in Southern California’s Colorado Desert region. Stadium lights illuminated the 136-yard first hole with the rest of the 18-hole par-3 course. As I lined up my tee shot, I heard the electric hum from the lampposts and celebratory shouts from families and teens on parallel holes. The floodlights lining the fairway seeped into the corners of my eyes, straining my vision for a moment. At first my swing felt off-balance as my limbs adjusted to an altered-depth perception. But when I followed through, I traced my ball as it cut through the night sky like a glow-in-the-dark bullet. The satisfying visual made me instantly more comfortable. Night golf presents distinctive challenges,…

The biggest difference we have found in golf-ball performance is in short-game spin. Multilayer balls with a urethane cover spin noticeably more than balls with an ionomer or Surlyn cover construction. Routinely thought of as distance balls, some of these non-urethane-cover models are getting closer. However, looking at the average of the balls that made the Hot List in these two categories, the urethane-cover balls spin close to 70 percent more than non-urethane-cover balls on the half-wedge shot. The numbers are based on robot testing by Golf Laboratories using a Foresight Sports GC Quad launch monitor. That means more check and more consistency for that type of shot. How much? Well, there is a range, but our research reveals the same half-wedge shot with a urethanecover ball will carry a…

You might not think it right away because I’m kind of quiet and a little under-the-radar out there, but I post a lot of low numbers. I once got around in 60 at the Travelers Championship—when I was a 19-year-old amateur. I’ve finished tournaments at 20 under or better half a dozen times, and in the past three years, I’ve shot 65 or lower about once every six rounds. In other words, I know how to go low. I might not be widely known for these hot streaks, but I do have a reputation for my stoic approach to the game. Although I average more than 300 yards off the tee, I’d say my reputation among players is more of a thinker than a bomber. My natural disposition is largely…