Indholdsfortegnelse for July 2018 i Golf Digest

Cameron McCormick is working with Jordan Spieth on the expansive range at Cam’s home course, Trinity Forest, in Jordan’s hometown, Dallas. They’ve been doing this since Jordan was 12 years old, so there’s an obvious level of comfort. We’ve mic’d both player and teacher, and three high-definition video cameras are rolling. We’re a fly on the wall, listening in while we watch. They’re ignoring us and totally into the lesson. Jordan hits a 6-iron that carries 200 yards, with a ball speed of 129 miles per hour, a 20-degree launch, an apex of 108 feet, and a right-to-left curve of 48 feet. We know this because we also have them hooked up to Toptracer technology, and our video shows the gentle draw. It looks like a perfect shot, but Jordan…

At the conclusion of this year’s Wells Fargo Championship, having competed in seven PGA Tour events, Tiger Woods ranked 206th on tour in fairway accuracy (51 percent). Early-season performances like at the Farmers Insurance Open, where he hit only 17 fairways in four rounds, contributed a lot to his ranking and aren’t indicative of what he should expect going forward, says Golf Digest 50 Best Teacher David Leadbetter. “That’s why these photos taken early in the season are very interesting,” Leadbetter says. “There’s a lot to like here, but it was probably to be expected that it would take Tiger a few tournaments until he could trust this swing and feel comfortable with his new process. The more tournaments Tiger has played, the more comfortable he has started to look,…

Whether it’s dead straight or has some break, there’s something about long uphill putts that mess with golfers’ minds. Standing over the ball, I bet some of you hear a voice inside your head that says, Make sure you get it to the hole. Next thing you know, your normally calm, smooth motion with the putter becomes short, jabby and erratic. One putt stops 10 feet short thanks to poor contact. The next runs off the back of the green because you pounded it. Even worse, the ball never rolls on the line you intended because the face is open or closed at impact as a result of the labored swing. What gives? You’re letting these putts get you of your game. You think they require a stroke with extra…

“The idea that [Tiger Woods] was some anomaly was strange to us.” “Westworld,” a show HBO calls a “dark odyssey” about artificial consciousness and the evolution of sin, is one of the creepier series on television right now. But actor Jeffrey Wright, who plays the scientist Bernard Lowe, knows reality can be far more sinister than anything you’ll find on stage or screen. Wright was in the gallery on the 18th hole at Carnoustie Golf Links in 1999, where he witnessed Jean Van de Velde’s epic glitch that cost him the Open Championship. “Golf’s version of the Hindenburg,” Wright calls it. “And then, appropriately, it started to rain. It was just the most miserable, weird, glorious spectacle.” Wright’s connection to golf’s weird, glorious spectacle runs deep. He started hitting balls…

“My parents were hippies. None of us played golf.” Unless you follow the PGA Tour closely, you probably haven’t heard of me. My best finish is a T-12. I got my card by finishing 22nd on the Web.com Tour last October. Five months earlier, I’d made $4,800 through 10 events and was thinking about quitting for what must’ve been the 40th time. I WAS BORN IN CALIFORNIA IN 1988. But I grew up in Blacksburg, Va. Our parents were hippies. My brother, sisters and I were raised strict vegetarian, and my dad would rather hang out with us than go to his job managing a health-food store. My siblings had their interests, but I loved sports. Dad coached some of my baseball and soccer teams. We didn’t have much money,…

WHEN YOU’RE HITTING YOUR IRONS GREAT—and getting them closer to the hole—the game sure seems easy. You’re not putting pressure on your short game and adding the stress of constantly grinding for pars and bogeys. You can be freer off the tee with your driver, too, because you’re excited to handle the shot that comes after it. You have the chance to think more aggressively and let your confidence feed itself. ? I’ve had some great stretches this year where it seemed like almost every iron was right at the flag. At the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship in January, I made six birdies over the final nine holes to defend my title. And in the third round of the Masters in April, I made five birdies in a row starting…

My wife and I travel to tournaments with our young children, and we have one strict rule: The kids aren’t allowed to step foot past player dining. I don’t even want them coming out for five minutes to the flash area where I get interviewed after rounds. Maybe it’s just a sign of my maturity, but I believe the amount of obscenities we hear from the crowd has gotten way worse since I began my career. It used to be Phoenix was the raucous one, but now it’s half a dozen events. I’m not the only player who insists his kids stay inside the clubhouse or hotel. Yes, I’ve fantasized about punching spectators. The closest I ever came was a Saturday one year at Phoenix. It wasn’t quite noon, so…

“ANY GOLFER WORTH HIS SALT HAS TO CROSS THE SEA AND TRY TO WIN THE BRITISH OPEN.—JACK NICKLAUS” POINT/COUNTERPOINT What to call that one major played outside the United States? BRITISH OPEN It’s confusing if you don’t call it the British Open. Imagine if the Tour de France was called “The Tour”? Chaos. Former champs of all generations—from Johnny Miller to Rory McIlroy—call it the British Open. Technically, it won’t be played in Great Britain in 2019, but it has been all but once the previous 147 times. In that entire span, calling it the British Open has never resulted in a World War, so relax, people.—ALEX MYERS V OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP When it started, in 1860, there were no other Opens. So there was—and is—no need for further explanation or…

Q In your 2018 Editors’ Choice feature, you recommended Electric OHM Grey Lens sunglasses. I also do a lot of fishing and would like to upgrade to the OHM+ Polar (polarized). Will those make a difference for my golf vision? DOUG KUCYK, GROSSE POINT SHORES, MICH. A Polarized lenses are mainly designed to reduce glare when you’re on the water. So, yes, they’re great for fishing. But that level of glare reduction can make it hard to read greens when you’re playing golf. In an ideal world, you’d have a polarized pair for fishing and a non-polarized pair for golf, says Cyle Cadam, Electric’s director of golf. “If you had to have one, I’d have non-polar just because polarized is worse for golf than non-polar is for fishing,” he says.…

IF THE MASTERS, as lore has it, begins on the back nine on Sunday, you could say the 2017 Open Championship began on the 13th hole of the final round at Royal Birkdale. Tied with Matt Kuchar for the lead, Jordan Spieth hit his tee shot “so far right, it was almost left,” according to NBC’s David Feherty. Adds colleague Roger Maltbie: “It went over this mountain.” The search for the ball turned frantic—“It was pandemonium,” according to one of the hundreds of spectators poking through the tall, thick grass—and for Spieth and caddie Michael Greller, thoughts of a quadruple-bogey 7 to give away the 2016 Masters came flooding back. It was in the ensuing moments, you’ll soon see, that Greller told Spieth his second artful fib of the day.…

Which public courses provide a true Old Country experience? If you believe that golf was invented in Scotland, then there’s a little bit of the United Kingdom in every American golf course. But which public courses really provide an Old Country golf experience? Here’s a list of worthy candidates. Remember, we’re talking U.K. golf, which excludes Ireland. Sorry, Whistling Straits, Erin Hills and the glorious links in the sand hills of Nebraska: You’re too Irish. Bandon (Ore.) Dunes G. Resort Three coast-hugging courses provide bump-and-run challenges in ocean gales. More inland, Bandon Trails is no less an authentic links experience. Grand Cypress Resort (The New Course) ORLANDO Jack Nicklaus, who won two Opens at St. Andrews, pulled off the impossible: a version of the Old Course in Central Florida. Lakewood…

I SEE A LOT of amateurs warm up on Wednesdays, which is pro-am day on the PGA Tour. For many of them, it’s a big day and really wanting to play well is an attitude and energy I appreciate being around. However, hitting balls in front of a gallery and alongside the pros is, I’m sure, an experience that could make a club player rush or get frazzled. Whether this is how they get ready to go at their home course, I’m not sure. From what I can see, it seems a lot of amateurs would benefit from applying some structure to their warm-ups. There’s a way to get the body and mind primed to play, and then there’s digging holes beating balls. Hard practice has its place, but never…

DANIELLE KANG QUALIFIED FOR THE U.S.WOMEN’S OPEN AT 14, only about a year and a half after she started playing golf. She won the U.S. Women’s Amateur in 2010 and 2011, turning pro at 19 after that second victory. But it took six years and 144 LPGA Tour starts before she broke through for her first professional win, a major: the 2017 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. We caught up with Kang, 25, after she competed at this year’s LPGA stop in San Francisco. She covers everything from how her relationship with the game changed after her father passed away in 2013, to her erratic sleep patterns, to martial-arts combat—and that time her friend Michelle Wie talked her out of buying a tarantula. WHAT’S A WEEK AT HOME LOOK LIKE COMPARED TO…

▸ Welcome back to Carnoustie’s Barry Burn. Emphasis on burn. ▸ When the Open Championship returns to Scotland July 19-22, every competitor will have to negotiate the snaking ribbon of water that has bitten winners and losers alike. ▸ The last time the Open was played here, in 2007, Padraig Harrington hit two balls into the narrow burn on the 499-yard, par-4 72nd hole—and he won, but only after a dramatic up-and-down for a double-bogey 6 that forced a playoff with Sergio Garcia. ▸ Eight years earlier, Jean Van de Velde blew a three-shot lead with a triple-bogey-7 tragicomedy at 18 and lost a playoff. ▸ Today, Carnoustie is actually 19 yards shorter than it was in 2007, in part to make room for a grandstand behind the first tee,…