Indholdsfortegnelse for March/April 2024 i Golf Digest

PART OF BANDON DUNES’ charm is its out-of-the-way location on the Oregon coast, but golf-trippers who flew there in the first years after the resort opened in 1999 often experienced an unpleasant truth: On the planes that connect from Denver or San Francisco to the tiny regional airport in North Bend, when luggage exceeds the weight limit, the first thing off the plane is almost always somebody’s golf bag. As Bandon grew into a booming property with multiple world-class courses during the next decade, that “bag lag” became a serious customer-service issue, so the resort partnered with Ship Sticks, a start-up that promised to take the friction out of golf travel. Co-founders Jonathan Marsico and Nick Coleman came up with the concept for Ship Sticks in 2010 after Coleman resorted…

THE FIRST BOOK I remember my father reading was Situation Golf by Arnold Palmer. The first golf tournament I remember watching was the 1972 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach won by Jack Nicklaus. In the way only sporting heroes speak to you, I’ve been rooting for pro golf my whole life, so take this as a lover’s lament, not the grieving of a cynic: Pro golf is broken, and I’m worried about how it can be put back together. We shouldn’t be surprised by the inquiry because it follows a familiar pattern. Bret Stephens in The New York Times wrote that “brokenness has become the defining feature of much of American life: broken families, broken public schools, broken small towns and inner cities, broken universities, broken health care, broken media,…

Few symbols of success are more recognizable, coveted and iconic than the green jacket of Augusta National Golf Club, and there are only two ways to get one—accept an invitation for membership or win the Masters Tournament. Either way, you pretty much have the world by the balatas. With a big asterisk, a third way to don an Augusta jacket is to work the tournament. It won’t be a tailored Pantone 342 (rye green) single-breasted sport coat emblazoned with the club logo and three brass buttons, but it still gets you inside the gates. Assisting the membership in running the greatest sporting event on Earth takes a small army—well, maybe not that small—of hired help and volunteers. If you’ve attended the Masters, you’ve come to recognize these folks by their…

Editor’s note: It is no exaggeration to say that Hughes Norton operated at the epicenter of professional golf for nearly 20 years, helping legendary super-agent Mark McCormack grow the personal-management business McCormack created that at its height called the majority of the top 25 players in the world clients. While at IMG, Norton represented Greg Norman when the Australian World No. 1 was at the peak of his powers and built a relationship with Earl Woods that resulted in the highest-profile new-professional-golfer-representation agreement of all time. Norton also led the negotiations that would make Tiger Woods the highest-earning active golfer on the planet before he hit his first shot for pay at the 1996 Greater Milwaukee Open. In this excerpt from his upcoming memoir, Rainmaker, Norton offers the first glimpse inside…

FROM A TIGHT FAIRWAY LIE, such as the one pictured above, the first thought that comes to many golfers’ minds is: Please don’t chunk this! Why? Let’s face it, there aren’t many mis-hits more embarrassing than laying the sod over the ball, especially so close to the green. The good news is you’re a lot closer to mastering this delicate pitch than you think. When you’re looking to generate stopping power, you need the clubhead coming from a high place on the backswing because that’s what produces speed and creates more friction between the clubhead and the ball. Most golfers get that part right—their backswings are plenty long enough. Where they struggle is on the follow-through. Instead of keeping their body moving through the shot, they completely stall out and…

DON’T DISCUSS PGA TOUR-PIF POLITICS AT THE TABLE. DO  TELL JOKES INTO ONLY THE GOOD EARS OF THE HONORARY STARTERS. DON’T GET CAUGHT WITH A NON-CONFORMING BUTTER KNIFE. DO  REMOVE YOUR RANGEGOATS HAT IN THE DINING ROOM. DON’T  ANCHOR YOUR SALAD FORK. DO  CHEW WITH YOUR MOUTH CLOSED EVEN WHILE TIGER RECOUNTS HIS 16TH-HOLE CHIP-IN. DON’T  DREDGE UP FOUR-DECADES-OLD CHEATING ALLEGATIONS. DO FOLD YOUR NAPKIN INTO AN AZALEA WHEN YOU HEAD TO THE LAVATORY. DON’T  SNEAK IN YOUR OWN WAFFLE HOUSE. DO REMEMBER THE DRESS CODE: JACKET AND TIE. DON’T PRACTICE AIMPOINT WITH YOUR PEAS. DO LET THE GUY WHO JUST GOT A $300-MILLION PAYDAY PICK UP THE CHECK.…

A FEW TIMES EACH YEAR a story will emerge about a cheating scandal in pro golf. That is not a lot when you consider how many shots are televised and that fans have cameras on their phones waiting to catch the slightest bit of impropriety. When I was caddieing on tour more than 30 years ago, there weren’t many cameras, and no one had a phone in his or her pocket. Unless it was egregious, whatever happened usually went unpublished. I know because I saw cheating regularly, and it made me quit my job. I spent close to a decade on the PGA and European tours during the 1980s and ’90s. In those days, it wasn’t that hard to pick up a loose bag. I was a good amateur and…

Walk the range at a top amateur event, and each swing looks better than the last. On tour ranges, you’ll see so many balls disappear into the horizon, you can’t say who’s in for a career week and who’s slotted for dead last. In five months, Nick Dunlap emerged from both these settings as a champion. Yes, Nick hits it plenty long and putts great, but a lot of players fit that profile who don’t win the U.S. Amateur and then become the first amateur to win a tour event in 33 years. What’s Nick’s secret? Hint: The driving range isn’t where you should look. Nick’s greatest asset is his mind-set, which is a confluence of many factors but still the easiest part of the game for any golfer to…

One of the peculiarities of Augusta National is how little the club’s alterations impact the perception of the golf course. Improvements have taken place nearly every off-season since the inaugural Masters in March 1934, from greenside modifications to major reconfigurations of different holes. Intended to keep the course relevant for the contemporary professional game, many of these changes have gradually mutated the course’s appearance and historical design concepts. Yet despite Augusta National’s evolving character, it continues to be perceived as a monolithic entity. In Golf Digest’s ranking of America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses, Augusta National has slipped outside the top 10 just once since 1966 and has been a fixture in the top three each year since 1985. The Augusta National of 2024 is like the Augusta National of 2004…

I PLAY IN PRO-AMS ALMOST EVERY WEEK, and I meet lots of golfers about my age—I’m 52—who love the game and have the goal of retiring soon and playing more golf. The problem is, many of them can barely carry the ball 200 yards. In 15 years, they might struggle to fly it 160—and if that happens, they’re going to get frustrated and likely end up hating the game at a point in life when they should be enjoying it more than ever. It’s one of the reasons I created the YouTube Channel, “Paddy’s Golf Tips.” I wanted to offer some hope to golfers who are getting older and not hitting the ball the way they once did. I felt that way about my game, too, so I did something…

Today, nearly a year removed from the 2023 Masters, it seems impossible that three Augusta pines fell in front of the 17th tee and didn’t find any of the thousands in attendance on that windswept, knife-gray Friday afternoon. One woman was caught between them, where she stood frozen to the spot, able only to cover her head with her hands, and even she escaped unscathed, like Buster Keaton finding the open window in a collapsing house. The dark humor that follows near misses was as instant as the relief: Maybe, someone joked, she was afraid of breaking Augusta National’s policy against running. By first light Saturday, the fallen trees had disappeared, removed by an army of workers who had fired up their chainsaws before Friday’s crowds had finished filing out.…

I’LL CONCEDE THAT CALLING Rory McIlroy’s swing the best in pro golf is subjective, but I’ve been teaching this game for more than 40 years and have seen my share of great swings. For example, Adam Scott’s might be the best looking. Ludvig Aberg gets the nod for efficiency of motion. Russell Henley is so technically sound, he’s probably the straightest hitter out there. Bryson DeChambeau annihilates the ball. All that said, I rank swings this way: Would you trade yours for Rory’s? I’m betting you and about 99 percent of tour pros would say, “Yes!” As McIlroy is playing in his 16th season on the PGA Tour (which is hard to believe!), Golf Digest recently captured fresh photography of his driver swing and contacted me to do an analysis. Instead…

TAYLOR MOORE ENJOYED A breakthrough season in 2023, capturing his first PGA Tour title at the Valspar Championship and later qualifying for the FedEx Cup’s signature event, the Tour Championship. Yet, Moore’s struggles with the driver in the final two FedEx Cup playoff events left the 30-year-old Texan wondering what could have been. “He didn’t drive it as well as he could last year, especially at the end of the year,” says Josh Gregory, a performance coach at Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas, who works with a number of tour players, including Moore and Will Zalatoris. “It’s still a work in progress, but his ball flight is much straighter now. He should be a top-20 driver of the ball with his speed and length.” Moore weighs only 160 pounds,…

MOST COMMERCIAL GYMS ARE packed with expensive equipment to, well, get you to buy a membership. It’s a logical marketing strategy, but the reality is, once you’re in the door, you’re much more likely to brush past nearly all that equipment than you are to use it. Candidly, most golfers need very little to get a good, well-rounded workout that boosts performance on the course and helps avoid injuries, says Jennifer Fleischer, one of Golf Digest’s 50 Best Fitness Trainers in America. “You’d be surprised how far you can get with a pair of dumbbells, a medicine ball and a resistance band,” she says. “Even doing body-weight exercises with no equipment is super helpful.” If you’ve been cleared for exercise by a medical professional, here are two things to consider…