Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 1, 2021 i Golf Digest

“All golfers struggle to explain what they’re feeling.” ’ve been asked a lot lately, “What’s wrong with Jordan Spieth?” It’s curious when a guy who has flown so high above his peers at every level of the game since childhood drops back to Earth. Not since the 2017 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale has the 27-year-old won—or much contended. Greatness usually finds a way to rise again, but for now I can offer only insight into what’s right with the three-time major champ. In December 2020, a short video made the rounds of Spieth giving an autistic 14-year-old, Joseph Maguire, a golf lesson via Zoom. The boy hitting balls in a simulator in New York City as Jordan looked on from Dallas spoke volumes even with the sound off. Their…

Editor-in-Chief I got a call the other night from my old buddy Moon Man who wanted to let me know that the hero of our glory days had died of COVID. Close readers of this column might remember him from a 2004 ranking of the Top 5 Putters I’ve Ever Seen: (1) Tiger Woods, (2) Jack Nicklaus, (3) Bobby Locke, (4) Billy Casper, (5) Ed (the Bear) Billus, an opponent of mine on Philadelphia munys who did not miss a single putt that mattered, 1973-’88. Actually, upon reflection, I think he was a little better than Locke and Casper. The Bear is what we called him at Juniata Golf Course in Northeast Philly, where everybody had a nickname, and the regular wager was $2 per nine holes. I’d stand on…

A penchant for categorization has always come naturally. Perhaps that’s why I’m a golf-architecture writer. I’m programmed to think in terms of places, eras and design styles, of order, histories and lineages. I’ve always sought to find meaning in traceable connections and affiliations. Perhaps this is why the editor presented me, as opposed to someone else, an unusual assignment. I was to travel deep in-country, the editor explained, to examine a gathering called “The Ringer.” I was vaguely familiar—from what I could tell from social media, it was a semiannual, multi-day golf bacchanal of exceedingly hip and tuned-in players, something like Coachella for golf fundamentalists. Participants came with custom-made, single-strap MacKenzie or Jones golf bags and hit balls with hickory clubs or vintage persimmon drivers. Further recon indicated a subculture…

For most golfers, the decision to join—or not join—a private golf club encompasses a complicated mix of considerations. A family’s domestic budget, the quality and style of the course, the collective “personality” of the membership, club status, distance from home and ease or difficulty of access, friendships and business relationships, non-private options—all these come into play. / For me, there’s another consideration as well. By birth and upbringing, I’m a working-class kid, and over the years since I left the old neighborhood, I’ve wrestled with some fairly serious chip-on-the-shoulder prejudices. Golf has helped me get over them, but even so, the thought of joining an exclusively private club has been, for me, anything but simple. My family wasn’t poor. We had a house near the end of the Boston subway…

We’re all probably guilty of making this game harder by taking too complex an approach to our playing strategy. If you want to overcome issues you’ve had in your game for years, it’s time to address them more sensibly. To get you started, here are three common problems that can be overcome with simple solutions. —WITH RON KASPRISKE GET TO WHERE YOU WANT TO GO There are a lot of different swings in pro golf, but all of them eventually look like this (left). There’s a weight shift toward the target, there’s body rotation toward the target, and there’s an extension of the arms and club through impact. The lesson: If you struggle to consistently hit good shots, you can simplify things by focusing on where you want to go.…

CLARETDREAMER PITCH MARK REPAIR TOOL ($55) Make repairing pitch marks feel like an art form with this tricolored divot-tool collection made of wood. It’s one example of Claretdreamer’s extensive line of handmade accessories. BUBBAWHIPS PORTRUSH WHIPS ALIGNMENT STICK (starting at $69) Inspired by vintage golf-club shafts, these handcrafted hickory alignment sticks pair well with the single-strap-golf-bag look and have been spotted in a fair share of staff bags on the PGA Tour. FORAY GOLF QUEEN LOGO BEANIE ($30) Available in gray, navy (above) or black, this knit beanie shuffles the deck to give the queen of clubs a stylishly golf-ready upgrade. NEWCLUB NEEDLEPOINT FLASKS FROM SMATHERS & BRANSON ($65) NewClub is a golf society that provides access to tee times at select private courses to its inclusive community of passionate…

From his back yard that overlooks the 16th hole at Timarron Country Club in Southlake, Texas, Jeff Kane sees every day—every hour, for that matter—the stunning impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on golf. From the dawn-patrol foursomes finishing their rounds before lunch to the late-comers hustling home in the gloaming, there isn’t enough light and aren’t enough holes to satiate golfers right now. Simply getting a tee time has become something of a blood sport for Kane and his club cohorts. If you don’t snap up a slot on the computer in the first minute, you’re stuck hoping for an invite from somebody with faster fingers. “A sword fight,” Kane says of the battle. We’ve seen it nationwide since COVID-19 took hold in March. Courses are flooded by people…

Amenity? That’s a foreign word on the Korn Ferry Tour. Just last year a player fired me, and I can’t find another full-time bag on the PGA Tour. That’s why I’m here. It’s not where I want to be. Hell, it’s where I can’t be—not for very long, at least. The truth is this: I can’t make a living as a caddie on the Korn Ferry Tour. Simple economics, really. Fifteen players on the KFT made $200,000 or more in 2020. Worse ways to punch a timecard, right? But for us, well, what we take home varies depending on who we work with and what he does in a given week. Let’s say 8 percent of those winnings come to us. Scrolling through the top 15 money winners (Will Zalatoris…

1. What’s your ideal off day? Wake up, eat a great breakfast, probably go to the beach and just hang out with my girlfriend, Katherine Zhu, and family. Eat a great lunch, hang out again at the beach and eat an amazing dinner. Always food. 2. If you weren’t a professional golfer, what would you be? I would be another professional athlete—if I were taller and stronger and everything else that a basketball player or a baseball player would be. 3. Favorite professional sports team? Lakers and Dodgers. 4. Who would play you in a movie? Maybe Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan’s a lot older than me, but I have a lot of wrinkles. [Laughs.] 5. How many pairs of Adidas sneakers do you own? Too many to count! And I’ve…

ON THURSDAY MORNING MARCH 12, BLUE SKIES SHONE WITHOUT A BREATH OF WIND AT TPC SAWGRASS IN PONTE VEDRA BEACH. ALL BUSINESSES AND SCHOOLS THROUGHOUT SURROUNDING ST. JOHNS COUNTY WERE OPEN. Andy Levinson, senior vice president of tournament administration for the PGA Tour, sat comfortably at an information booth in a hospitality tent. It was an annual tradition for he and Andy Pazder, chief of tournaments and competition, to work a shift together as ambassadors to kick off the Players Championship. Tour brass directing fans on the best routes to the 17th green or the restroom had something of the cheerful air of the queen volunteering at a soup kitchen. “It was always one of the most fun days of the year,” Levinson says. “I’m there by myself wondering where…

THERE ARE PLENTY OF FITNESS ROUTINES that come with the promise of tightening your abs, improving your cardiovascular health, shaving 20 pounds off your midsection and making you feel 10 years younger. But this isn’t one of them. This one is all about the exercises that can make you a better golfer without having to spend hours and hours in the gym. For this workout, you’ll be focusing on only two areas of the body, says performance coach Tyler Campbell. That’s it, just two. And if you do this quick-and-easy routine regularly, your golf game will improve through osmosis. “Exercises that improve hip mobility and rotation through your mid-back will give you the best chance to make a more efficient swing with proper sequencing,” says Campbell, who trains clients at the…

“Get your weight forward, and keep it steady.” The naked eye can spot a lot of differences between how pros and amateurs hit greenside bunker shots, but what you might not notice is the difference in footwork—and that difference translates to better execution. According to data collected by biomechanist J.J. Rivet, when pros set up for a bunker shot, they have roughly 65 percent of their weight on the lead foot and that percentage rises only to 73 percent by impact. And when you check for movement in that lead foot during the swing, you won’t find much. A pro’s foot stays flat and doesn’t turn or roll toward the target. The only movement is a weight shift from the toes to the heel along an anatomical bar that runs…