Indholdsfortegnelse for July 2019 i Golf Digest

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief “Bigger and better than ever.” AS I SAT DOWN to write your letter this morning, my phone pinged with an email from Nick Cutler, the managing director of Australian Golf Digest. “I have fielded calls from all the governing bodies down here. All very positive,” he wrote. Ten o’clock last night, our international editor, Ju Kuang Tan, texted from Singapore: “The synergies are mind-boggling!” At 4:59 a.m. ET, Golf Digest Ireland editor Linton Walsh sent: “Outstanding partnership!” Back home in New York yesterday, Graydon Carter emailed: “You lucked out in a big way, Jerry.” Our columnist Jim Nantz said it best in an email: “Thrilled to see the future of GD in the hands of some folks with the financial wherewithal and distribution to make it bigger…

TAKE A GUESS what the average percentage was on the PGA Tour last year for putts made from four feet. Seventy percent? Eighty percent? Eighty-five percent? Guess again. It was 92 percent. While that might not surprise you, it should serve as inspiration if your success rate from this distance isn’t nearly as impressive. Bottom line, you should be making a lot more four-footers, just like the pros. So what’s their secret? It’s something you might not have considered. Obviously a lot of reps on the practice green help make them close to automatic. But there’s more to it than that. The biggest difference between good putters and poor putters is body control. That might sound funny, because you don’t think of the body moving very much in the putting…

ON THE WAY to my most successful season in professional golf, including a win at the PGA Tour’s RSM Classic, I avoided bogey 62 percent of the time when I missed a green in regulation. Without those saves, the 2017-’18 season might have been my first and last on tour. So if I can give you one piece of advice about your game, it’s to start looking at your wedges as the tools for survival—and success. First, learn everything you can about the ones you use (loft, bounce, grind, etc.) and if they’re right for your game (go see a clubfitter). Once you’re happy with your clubs, use them—and use them a lot. If you don’t practice, you’ll never understand how each wedge and swing technique affects ball flight and…

MOUNTAIN HIGHS you don’t need to be an Ozark mountain daredevil to play Ozarks National in Hollister, Mo., but on some tee boxes you’ll feel like one. At least six holes teeter on the edge of escarpments, a kettle hole must be carried to hit the par-3 eighth green, the par-3 12th sits on the far edge of a canyon, and an even wider, deeper gulch lies just off the tee on the long par-4 13th. It’s all a bit surprising, coming from the architectural team of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, who normally espouse the ground game first. But their clever use of rugged topography is what makes the 7,036-yard, par-71 Ozarks National (golfigcedar.com) so intriguing. More thrills can be found at the Gary Player-designed Mountain Top 13-hole par-3…

To come at Royal Portrush from the Antrim Coast Road in Northern Ireland is to find a kind of golf brigadoon meets “Game of Thrones.” The ruins of Dunluce Castle–which has been used as GoT’s Castle Greyjoy–date to the 1500s and stare along the cliffs of The Whiterocks down to a seaside village that was a resort town before there were cars to get to it. Between that headland and the castle lie dunes that roll like a sea with bad intentions. So natural a setting for golf is this ground that they’ve been playing the game here since the 1880s. The great old course takes its name from Dunluce, and like the castle, its holes now seem to breathe with renewed vigor, menacing and majestic, beast and beauty, terror…

THROUGHOUT Phil Mickelson’s 28 years as a pro, swing gurus, stats nerds and armchair psychologists have all taken stabs at the reasons for his brilliance. It has been a losing battle. The Paleo diet, martial-arts classes and amazing short game aren’t everything, and the puzzle of his career is clearly more complex. At age 49 on June 16, with 44 PGA Tour wins and five majors, Mickelson has flashes where he plays as well as he ever has. When he won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February, he suddenly was not a fading adornment to the pro-golf scene, but a major factor again. He also became one of the best examples of longevity in tour history. Lately, the “What will Phil do next?” meme has taken on special meaning,…

THINK OUTSIDE THE BOTTLE UPF (ultraviolet protection factor) is the rating given to clothing on how effectively it blocks UV radiation. Similar to SPF, you want fabric with 15-50 coverage. A typical cotton T-shirt has a UPF 5 rating. Be wary of clothing with a UPF finish—this coating on the fabric will diminish through average wear and laundering. The Adidas Ultimate365 Climacool golf shirt ($75) has UPF-treated thread for UV protection that will last longer. FIND EYEWEAR WITH SUNSCREEN STANDARDS Sunglasses serve a much larger purpose than style. Sunglasses protect your eyes from UV rays that threaten eye health. Similar to sunscreen, choose a pair that blocks damaging UVA and UVB rays. Oversize or wraparound glasses are best to decrease the UV entering from the side. Electric’s Knoxville XL Sport…

“Stop scooping! Extend your right arm.” THERE’S so much talk about impact and the positions of your body and the club. But with the club-head moving 90 miles an hour, it’s impossible to control exact positions. Instead, think bigger: Think motions. You’ll improve your impact without getting fixated on the actual strike. Let’s start with lower-body action. You can see in the photo above how my right knee is kicking in—that’s a big one. It proves my weight is moving to my front side, which should happen throughout the forward swing. Weight shift is critical because when you’re moving forward, you have a good chance to hit the ball first, then the ground. If your weight is stuck on your back foot or, even worse, moving away from the target,…

TO COMPETE—and win—on the PGA Tour without the ability to routinely bash drives, you need excellence in other aspects of the game. Kevin Kisner has amassed more than $19 million in career earnings and won three PGA Tour events, including this year’s WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, by keeping his drives in play. “Kiz has built a more stable and efficient swing,” says his instructor, John Tillery. “There aren’t many compensations in his motion, which has helped his consistency.” How consistent? Since 2015, Kisner has ranked 33rd or better on the PGA Tour in driving accuracy, hitting about two-thirds of his fairways. He’s done this while never ranking better than 107th in distance, emphasizing just how important staying out of the rough is to his success. “Kiz has a move that…

I’LL CONCEDE THAT nothing panics a golfer like hitting two or three shanks in a row. But coming in at No. 2 on the pop charts is a case of the tops. Hitting multiple shots that fail to clear the limbo stick is pretty unnerving. Even worse, the reason it’s happening is clear to the patient—except it’s not. Most golfers mistakenly think they’re topping it because their club is skimming the top half of the ball on the way down. They think they’re getting out in front of it when they swing. Actually, the opposite is true. The club’s low point is behind the ball, sometimes well behind, and the clubhead is catching the top half of the ball as it ascends. If you look at golfers who top it,…

DON’T TELL Stefan Janoski golf is a safe sport. He once saw a golfer ricochet his tee shot off a tree. It came straight back, smacked the guy in the head and knocked him down. Even still, Janoski concedes golf is much less dangerous than the sport that made him famous. The 39-year-old Californian is a skateboarding legend, renowned for leaping over obstacles, gliding along handrails and spinning his board 360 degrees in the air with a casual flip of his toe. He and his skater buddies—guys like Arto Saari and Brandon Biebel—will often tee it up together. “Golf is actually a lot like skateboarding,” Janoski says. “You go with your friends, but it’s still a solitary thing. You’re dependent totally on yourself.” Janoski and his friends don’t worry a…

Q I keep wondering why PGA Tour caddies, almost to a man, continue to wear shorts when the weather is cold, windy and wet? Is it a macho caddie thing? ANDREW WASSERMAN, CORAL SPRINGS, FLA. A They do it in part, we believe, to show off those great calves. But veteran looper Kip Henley—currently working for the PGA Tour’s Austin Cook—says there’s more to it than that: “Caddies pack light. We want to avoid baggage fees and enjoy convenience when checking in and out of hotels. And a player’s bag with his extra gear is already heavy as hell. We follow the sun, so there are only two places on earth that every caddie will have rain and cold gear: Pebble Beach and the Open. A side note to all…

many golfers have hovered at the same handicap level for so long, it’s tempting to ignore their names and refer to them as a number. “Hey, 15, how’s the family?” If you’ve been shooting the same scores for years (or decades), I’ll spare you the lecture about practicing more. Instead, I’m going to offer a less-taxing solution to attaining the next level of golf. My studies on amateur and professional golfers have identified habits and skills that can significantly lower your handicap, and they don’t require Malcolm Gladwell’s recommended 10,000 hours of repetition to master. For example, when examining golfers who have won at least five majors, I found that all of them took no more than eight seconds to hit a shot from the time they addressed it. Another…

When i’m called in to help with a ruling, I try to keep it impersonal. There’s no face on a golf ball, right? But you can’t help but feel some humanity. At Las Vegas in 2005, Kevin Stadler started the third round near the top of the leader board. It was near the end of the season, and he was in danger of losing his card. He desperately needed a good finish. On the first hole, I was sitting behind the green when Kevin approached me and showed me one of his sand wedges, which clearly was bent. It was nonconforming. Kevin had no idea where it had happened—could have been while he was warming up—but he started the round with it like that, and there just was nothing to…

HERE’S YOUR greenside sand lesson in two words: speed and bounce. Splashing a ball out of a bunker takes more power than you might think—that’s the speed part. And to use that speed effectively, the club has to slide through the sand without getting stuck—that’s the bounce. Focus on a few keys. First, grip the handle more in your fingers than your palms. This will help you hinge your wrists on the backswing—notice I have a full wrist set by halfway back (right). I can use that lever to generate speed quickly. Second, lower the handle at address, feeling more bend in your wrists. When your hands are low, the heel of the club is more exposed, and that helps the clubhead glide through at a consistent depth. Setting the…

“Shift to your left side for bigger drives.” WHEN WORKING ON your backswing, you have time to think about what you want to do, and you can even rehearse new movements or feels while you play. The downswing is a different story. It happens so fast, you really have to know what you’re doing before you do it. The first move down into the ball is the part of the swing I’ve been working hard to improve. My backswing feels great. It’s less restricted now, and I’m getting my back facing the target like you see here. It’s when I reach this point in the swing that my attention turns to trying to get all of my weight on my left foot. I want to feel it there before the…

PING G410 LST DRIVER Fast-swinging better players might like this low-spin option, but there’s also highly forgiving perimeter weighting and an adjustable weight to dial in your ball flight. $500 TAYLORMADE P·7TW IRONS These forged blades meet Tiger Woods’ specifications, including the tungsten weighting in the impact area to enhance feel and control trajectory. $2,000 WILSON STAFF D7 FAIRWAY WOOD A lighter grip, shaft and head help increase the average golfer’s swing speed, but the larger shape and shallow face enhance forgiveness and launch, too. $180 PXG 0211 IRONS A more affordable option in the PXG lineup, it still doesn’t cut corners on distance with its hollow design, large, thin face and resilient polymer filling. $1,360 (SET OF SEVEN) PING SIGMA 2 VALOR 400 PUTTER This 10-percent heavier mallet isn’t…

Summer-ready, Deep Purple-approved. Smoke on the Water is boozy, fruity, smoky and perfectly equipped for a weekend at the lake. (Guitar lessons not included.) “TO ME, THE [BRITISH] OPEN IS THE TOURNAMENT I WOULD COME TO IF I HAD TO LEAVE A MONTH BEFORE AND SWIM OVER.LEE TREVINO” APPLICATION DENIED Courses that wanted to be “royal” but were rejected ▸ ROYAL POT BUNKER NIGHTMARE▸ ROYAL PORT-O-POTTY ▸ ROYAL RAIN▸ DELAY ▸ ROYAL FOUR-CLUB WIND 1.5 oz Mezcal¾ oz Cointreau½ oz Hibiscus simple syrup1 oz fresh watermelon juice½ oz fresh-squeezed lime juice1 rosemary sprig Add ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice, shake until chilled, and strain into a glass. For flaming garnish, soak rosemary sprig upsidedown in 100-proof alcohol for five minutes, put sprig upright in glass, and light the…

A gentle moment at Medinah resurfaces after Masters victory. TO EXPLAIN WHY Tiger Woods’ fifth Masters victory struck a chord with millions of people, I think back to an episode that occurred late on Friday afternoon at the 1999 PGA Championship at Medinah. Tiger had just shot 67 to move into third place and was in the scorer’s tent when I approached him to ask if he’d mind coming to our CBS studio for an interview to air during our late-night highlight show. He graciously consented, and as we walked over to the set behind the 18th green I said, “Oh, by the way, my little girl, Caroline, is in there. She’s 5 years old and is really excited to meet you.” Tiger nodded, but he was fresh off a…

LOCATE THE PIN FIRST The hole’s location and the green’s severity should determine if you try to get on in two shots or three. A back pin on a flat green is usually a green light to be aggressive, whereas a tucked pin on a tabletop green beckons for a shorter, higher approach. No matter which strategy you choose, the flagstick also indicates what side of the fairway—or rough—to hit a third shot from. Find the leave with the best angle to attack the pin while being mindful of greenside bunkers and penalty areas. LAY UP LIKE A BOSS You’ll likely have more birdie opportunities if you lay up with your second shot. But where do you play your third from? In addition to positioning a lay-up for the best…

GOLF DIGEST has been publishing a Best in State ranking every other year since 1977, making this the 22nd edition. Deploying our trained panel of more than 1,700 low-handicap golfers to continually assess the courses of this nation is a mission whose main obstacle is daylight. “Indeed, most courses ranked in any state are legitimate America’s 100 Greatest contenders, merely lacking a sufficient number of evaluations to merit consideration,” says Ron Whitten, our senior editor of architecture. It takes 25 evaluations accumulated over a 10-year period to qualify for a state ranking, versus 60 evaluations to be considered for our 100 Greatest. Taking this long view guards against dramatic changes, but Whitten notes three new shake-ups at the premier spots. “In Colorado, Ballyneal moves ahead of Castle Pines; in Louisiana,…