Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i Golf Magazine

From the Editor “THE RITE OF SPRING” is an idiom signaling an escape from the winter months and, more poetically, an awakening. In golf circles, it’s known as the Masters. For most of my life, I assumed the term “The Rite of Spring” was millennia-old. But it’s a mere 110 and based on the ballet/orchestral piece by Vaslav Nijinsky (pliés and jetés) and Igor Stravinsky (music) first performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on May 29, 1913. Only 21 years later, another masterpiece—the Masters Tournament—would debut among Augusta, Georgia’s dogwoods, crab apples and azaleas. Despite humble beginnings, both evolved into worldwide phenomena. There’s more in common here than you think. The Nijinsky-Stravinsky Rite of Spring has 12 movements (should have been 18), and each of its homages to revival/rebirth/ renewal…

Up Close with Dylan Dethier Scottie Scheffler Last year's Masters winner and PGA Tour Player of the Year is back on fire again—and back in the public eye. But would he trade it all for pickleball? THE PLAYERS’ DINING ROOM AT RIVIERA, ONE DAY AFTER HIS ’23 WM PHOENIX OPEN WIN Dylan Dethier: By now, a lot of people know you looked up to Tiger Woods as a kid. Who else were your role models? Scottie Scheffler: I grew up at Royal Oaks [in Dallas], and there were a lot of guys there because of Randy Smith, my coach. Justin Leonard was there, Colt Knost, Anthony Kim—other guys too. Randy molded me, but there were a lot of players out there, and I learned a lot by watching. DD: Being…

While the closest thing we own to a green jacket is a chartreuse blazer with suede elbow patches, Rules Guy remains enamored of Augusta. Thus, on the 10th anniversary of the Master’s second-most-famous rules imbroglio—rest easy, De Vicenzo, you’ll never be dethroned— here are three instances where the rules of the game trended very hard. 2013 TIGER WOODS' MIS-DROP SECOND ROUND, 15TH HOLE “Don’t make two errors in a row” is tried and-true golf wisdom. Tiger being Tiger, his mistakes were exceptional. The first: after laying up on this par 5, hitting the flagstick with his wedge approach, sending the ball careening back into the pond fronting the green. (Aim two inches left!) The second: dropping and playing from the wrong place—two feet back from where he’d originally played—to give…

IN A WORLD WHERE EVERY GOLFER is trying to hit the ball farther, XXIO delivers distance by offering a full line of premium lightweight clubs specifically designed for players with moderate to slower swing speeds. XXIO’s newest Prime Royal Edition driver is equipped with an ultra-lightweight shaft that utilizes high-strength and flexible carbon fiber to come in at an unbelievable 35.5 grams, making it one of the lightest on the market today. The result is a club that is not only easy to swing but also easier to swing faster with less effort. From a materials standpoint, the Prime Royal Edition series uses an incredibly strong Super-TIX PLUS titanium in the face of the woods through the irons. This achieves more ball speed and weight saving by pushing more mass…

Four of the LIV warriors suiting up for Augusta (clockwise from top left): Cameron Smith, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka. HELLO, FRIENDS, AND WELCOME to the first Masters since the outbreak of golf’s civil war. No, Jim Nantz isn’t going to say that. But he might think it. A lot of people probably will. How could the thought not cross a golf fan’s mind in advance of the game’s most prestigious invitational? As they have each spring, since 1934—aside from a pause during World War II and an autumn one-off during the pandemic—the greatest players on the planet will soon gather at Augusta National Golf Club to compete for a green jacket and a place in history. Same as always, except not exactly. There’s no getting around it. A…

“With the tee [35] yards back, shorter hitters won’t get it around the corner and longer hitters [might avoid] the trees. Put it in the pine straw on 13 and it wasn’t really a go-for-it situation. But with 3-wood, longer hitters probably won’t get it around the corner [either]. It’s one of those things, I guess—they’re gonna keep extending golf courses, and it’s gonna be more difficult.” —Brooks Kaepka “It will change the hole. It’s now driver [off the tee] and maybe a long iron into the green. Will they take out trees on the bend? That’ll determine how much harder it is when it comes to goin’ for it in two. There’s probably gonna be a lot more layups, which, I mean—a few years ago, they wanted the roars…

On the Cover Some of life’s most precious moments go unnoticed—and here’s one that almost got away. After Hideki Matsuyama closed out his one-stroke victory at the 2021 Masters, CBS Sports’ cameras appropriately followed him through the roaring greenside gallery on 18 and up the rope line, where the first Asian-born player ever to win a green jacket was greeted with ecstatic hugs and fist bumps. Visibly overwhelmed and teary, Matsuyama walked all the way to the scoring area still carrying his putter. Simultaneously, the crowd ringing the 18th green scattered, hustling into position for the nearby trophy ceremony. Were it not for alert CBS cameraman Eric Leidel, perhaps the most low-key and poetic gesture in Masters history would have gone unrecorded. With all eyes elsewhere, Matsuyama’s boyhood friend and…

It’s wonderful to see Jordan swinging his driver more freely again, with a better attack angle, if you go back to his banner 2015 season, Spieth’s downswing was wide and shallow and in sequence. It’s no secret that things started going sideways (literally) around 2018, when his driving accuracy dipped about 10 percent from when he was hot. His driver swing was noticeably steeper, and Jordan himself talked about how difficult it was to time his swing at impact. GOLF Top 100 Teacher Cameron McCormack had him work on dropping the club into the slot and rotating powerfully into the ball. This has not only netted more fairways hit, but it’s also generating a lot more swing speed and resultant distance gains. One look at the image at left and…

The new forged cavity-back CB-302 irons from Miura ($350 each; miuragolf.com) come with a simple promise: Provide all golfers with legendary craftsmanship, feel and playability without producing the ballooning ballflight common to game-improvement clubs. The added playability comes courtesy of a wider sole, a variable cavity depth and a precise amount of trailing relief—a combo to whet the appetite of players seeking an iron that feels buttery yet lends a heavy dose of forgiveness on off-center strikes. And for those who like to “work” the ball? No sweat—each CB-302 generates the much-loved penetrating ballflight only a high-quality forged iron can give. And, of course, these new irons possess Miura’s trademark good looks. Available in 4-GW, the CB-302s are a successor to the popular CB-301s. Get 'em while they’re hot!…

Lessons SEE PAGE 93 FOR MORE TIPS FROM THE BEST TEACHERS IN THE GAME YOU CRUSH YOUR IRONS but top your hybrids. Sound familiar? Hybrids are unique, helpful clubs, yet different, lighter for sure. The trick is to treat them like you do your irons, not your fairway woods. It starts with the setup: Play the ball in the middle of your stance with the club’s sole resting fiat on the ground. (Placing the ball too far forward is what often leads to fat and/ or topped shots.) Check that you haven’t “hooded” the clubface by making sure the alignment markings on your grip point straight down. As far as the swing goes, again, treat it like any iron shot. Commit to “thumping” the club on the ground, with your…

TOTES SWEET What’s better than a Masters invite? A cool Augusta-themed staff bag. And no one does it better than TaylorMade. FOR A PRO GOLFER, transferring gear-clubs, training aids, snacks and whatever else they stuff inside the pockets—from one staff bag to the next ranks right up there with undergoing a root canal or an afternoon at the DMV. No one enjoys the process. “It’s tedious,” says Collin Morikawa. “But there are weeks where you don’t mind moving things around.” One of those weeks occurs in April when the sports world shifts its gaze toward Augusta National and the Masters. When Morikawa earned a spot in the 2020 field, he soon found out it came with a unique perk: custom TaylorMade gear to celebrate the event, including a one-of-a-kind green-and-white…

Fully Equipped THE MASTERS IS THE ONLY MAJOR played on the same course each year, which gives players who’ve made multiple trips around Augusta National a distinct advantage. Here are two gear changes tournament veterans usually make to increase their chances of slipping on the green jacket. 1. Justin Thomas (left) has learned over the years that spin is an important ally on ANGC’s firm-and-fast setup. It’s one of the reasons he breaks in fresh 57- and 60.5-degree Vokey wedges just before the event. He wants just the right amount of zip with his scoring tools. 2. Having the correct equipment setup for the risk-reward par 5s can improve your odds of making eagle. A club with a high launch that can land softly on the green from over 200…

2023 Masters Preview One and Done To complete the career grand slam, Rory Mcllroy needs only a win at Augusta National. Here are his major triumphs— and his many close-call finishes: The Open Championship Win: 2014 Top 5s: 2010 (T3), 2016 (T5), 2017 (T4), 2018 (T2), 2022 (3rd) The PGA Championship Wins: 2012, 2014 Top 5s: 2009 (T3), 2010 (T3) The U.S. Open Win: 2011 Top 5: 2022 (T5) The Masters Win: - Top 5s: 2015 (4th), 2018 (T5), 2021 (T5), 2022 (2nd) IT WAS SUNDAY at the 2011 Masters when Rory Mcllroy, the bushy-haired, baby-faced 21-year-old phenom from small-town Northern Ireland, stepped up to Augusta National’s 10th tee, clinging to the one shot remaining from his overnight fourshot lead. What followed belongs somewhere in the What If Wing of…

There are lots of fashion dos and don'ts. No white after Labor Day. No socks with sandals. And, for God’s sake, no black socks with sandals. It’s rarer to find individual articles of clothing with their own rules. Augusta National’s green jacket is one such garment. Exclusive to ANGC members and Masters champions, the three-button single-breasted jacket was introduced in 1937 to make members identifiable to tournament patrons with questions and to waiters with the dinner bill. It was bestowed upon Masters winners starting with Sam Snead, in 1949, making him an honorary member—a privilege granted to all prior champions retroactively and to all future champions. At a place where the pimento-cheese sandwich recipe is a closely held secret, information regarding the jacket’s protocol doesn’t hang on magnolia trees. Some…

► Pressure is real. I’ve always been pretty chill on the course, but after I won the Augusta Women’s Am, it got harder to stay composed sometimes. The expectations got bigger. People I didn’t even know suddenly expected greatness, and those expectations came with pressure to perform. It wasn’t always easy to deal with that. ► How to block out the noise. The ANWA win vaulted me into the spotlight. One day, no one knew who I was. The next, everyone knew my name. I had to learn how to block out the distractions. At the end of the day, I play golf because I love it. I’m not in it for the recognition. When I go out there, I just want to have fun. It’s an important reminder when…

THINK / PLAY / LIVE: THE ENLIGHTENED GAME IT’S NORMAL TO ENVY players who seemingly are able to get up and down from anywhere around the greens. Well, this tip will help you become one of them. To be a strong, consistent chipper, you have to know how to control the bottom of your swing arc. I see so many rec players who, when they take the club back, stand up tall at the top of their backswing. There’s only one way to get to impact from there and that’s to drop back down. When that happens, it’s inevitable that you’ll hit too far behind the ball. Chunk City. Then you’ll start malting arm adjustments and end up hitting it thin. Try this drill: Hit some chips around the green…

GETTING THE BALL to go where you want it to—with any club, but, especially, with your irons —is a matter of managing the clubface through impact. If you’re like a lot of my students who struggle hitting shots straight, you see the clubface as some foreign object, far away from you and difficult to control. It’s not. An important lesson for any golfer to learn is that the face is simply an extension of your hands—whatever your hands do, the face follows suit. For this reason alone, I often place a clubhead in my student’s trail hand, face pointing outward from the palm (see right). A lot of rec players feel like their hands should move “up” through impact, supposedly in an attempt to get the ball airborne. That’s the…

THE FIRST TIME HE ATTENDED THE MASTERS, nearly a decade ago, the renowned chef Thomas Keller did what any golf and food enthusiast would do: He wandered the grounds, eating up the atmosphere and savoring the beauty. Then he made a beeline for the concession stand. Spoiler alert: He did not order a chicken biscuit. “It’s the Masters,” Keller says. “You’ve got to go with the pimento cheese.” Just as the salmon tartare cornet is a signature for Keller, the Michelin threestar man behind Per Se, in New York, and The French Laundry, in Northern California, the pimento-cheese sandwich is a staple across large swaths of the South. But no version is more famous than the one sold at the Masters, where a spread of gooey goodness squeezed between white…

GOLF PREVIEWED NEW DRIVERS back in January, complete with robotic testing that highlighted how easy tech has made it to find fairways and add yards. (Look for the videos on GOLF.com.) But whereas you won’t pull driver on every hole, you will (in the absence of a 200-yard-plus par 3) use an iron, continuing these stainless- or carbon-steel beauties’ reputation as the keys to scoring, to say nothing of the overall makeup of your bag. Like we saw with the 2023 crop of drivers, new irons from the major manufacturers do not disappoint, using a variety of advanced tech not only to save you when you miss the center of the clubface but also to help shots rocket like never before when you hit the sweet spot. A new set…

2023 AUGUSTA NATIONAL WOMEN'S AMATEUR Wednesday, March 29 Round 1 Champions Retreat GC Golf Channel: 1:30 to 3:30 p.m* Thursday, March 30 Round 2 Champions Retreat GC Golf Channel: 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Friday, March 31 Full-field practice round Augusta National GC Golf Channel: airtime TBD Saturday, April 1 Final round Augusta National GC NBC: 12 to 3 p.m. 2023 DRIVE, CHIP AND PUTT NATIONAL FINALS Friday, March 31 Golf Channel: airtime TBD 2023 MASTERS TOURNAMENT Monday, April 3 Practice rounds “On the Range” live on Masters.com: 12 to 2 p.m. Tuesday, April 4 Practice rounds “On the Range” live on Masters.com: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, April 5 Practice rounds “On the Range” live on Masters.com: 9 to 11 a.m. Wednesday, April 5 Par 3 Contest Masters.com: 12…

2023 Masters Preview DURING MY PEAK PLAYING YEARS, what got me off the tennis court (and the fishing boat!) during what was then an extended off-season and onto the driving range each January was the thought of playing in the Masters. In 1963, golf’s greatest springtime rite had a particularly strong appeal for me. Since missing the cut on my first visit to Augusta in 1959,1 had finished tied for 13th, tied for seventh and tied for 14th. As reigning U. S. Open champion—I had beat Arnold Palmer in a playoff at Oakmont the previous June—I wanted to redeem myself in America’s shrine of golf so badly I could hardly wait to get on the Augusta National grounds again. Truth told, there was another reason—beyond my previous poor showings—for my…

SHORT BACKSTROKE, long through stroke: That’s what I mostly see from rec players on lags. What results is mostly a “shove” stroke that has almost zero chance of covering the right distance. I recommend doing the opposite, making a longer backstroke and a shorter through stroke. Call the ratio 60:40. Two good things happen when you do: First, the putterhead will rise off the ground a little (1), and second, that little rise will help the putterhead, thanks to gravity, naturally accelerate into the ball without you having to shove, push or jam it forward. Going 60:40 (2 and 3) gives you the pendulum putting action you need to roll smooth and consistent lags. It would actually be a pure pendulum, like you see on a grandfather clock, if the…

G: Let’s start off with an easy one. What’s your favorite Masters memory? GM: I think it was the very first time I went there, back in 1986. G: What happened? GM: The first thing you have to do when you work at Augusta National is talk to the chairman, which, at the time, was Hord Hardin. So Jimmy [Nantz] and [CBS Sports producer] Frank [Chirkinian] and I go down into the catacombs to the chairman’s office. G: Hoo boy. GM: Hord wanted to share guidelines for calling the Masters and how you were expected to act. It was literally like going to the principal’s office, and I’m a seven-year-old smarta--. There was a moment when he paused at a critical juncture in his lecture, and I interjected, “So, Mr.…