Indholdsfortegnelse for May 2023 i Golf Magazine

From the Editor PARENTS KNOW THAT ALL KIDS ARE DIFFERENT. Even the ones in your own home. Mine? As unalike as fire and ice; chalk and cheese; Rory Mcllroy’s current TaylorMade ball and the one proposed in the recent USGA/R&A Model Local Rule. In other words, bifurcated. You can say the same for GOLF Magazine issues. A month ago, we waxed poetic on the Masters, the golf season’s first major. And, while we certainly celebrate major No. 2 on the calender within these pages—the PGA Championship and its title defender Justin Thomas (p. 52)—for the most part, the content in this issue waxes more prosaic on another master: you. More specifically, your game. The playing season is in full bloom, after all. Take our feature on blossoming Tour coach (actually,…

Up Close with Dylan Dethier Séamus Power At 36, the earnest Irishman is putting together his best season on the PGA Tour. But he’ll be the first to tell you his sights are set on something major. ST. PATRICK’S DAY MORNING, ON THE PHONE FROM HIS HOME IN LAS VEGAS Dylan Dethier: Hey. It’s St. Paddy’s Day. In the States, how does a guy like you lean into his Irish culture? Séamus Power: Well, today I’m going to be leaning into it all over the place, probably at some pub in a few hours. Every Irish person is very proud of being Irish. There’s a lot of pride for such a small country. DD: You grew up in Waterford, Ireland’s oldest city. How on earth did you end up at…

It’s easy to access golf instruction these days. This thing called YouTube or Instagram. Even the pages of this magazine. Everywhere you look tips are everywhere for the taking. Helpful? Absolutely. The search and glut of information can also be overwhelming for some players, to say nothing of conflicting. But Parker McLachlin—who played collegiate golf at U.C.L.A. and first earned his PGA Tour card in 2007— is cooking up a different way to help players at all skill levels improve their games. Rather than chasing 300-plus-yard drives, Parker delivers fundamentals on saving strokes where it matters the most: in the short game. McLachlin, who goes by the Instagram handle @shortgamechef, regularly provides videos on both his social media account and website (ShortGameChef.com), encouraging better play from 100 yards and in.…

THINK / PLAY / LIVE: THE ENLIGHTENED GAME Lessons BETTER BALL STRIKING FALLING OFF PLANE in the beginning moments of your swing is tough to overcome, if at all. The most common mistake here is rolling your hands away from the target as you start back, getting the clubhead way inside your hands and the handle way out in front of the clubface. Try this: Make an arrow out of some cardboard and attach it to the shaft of one of your irons like I have in the photo at left. Place it so that the arrow points in the same direction as the clubface. The goal is to start back and get the arrow to point toward your target line. That means you’re on plane, the face is square to the…

THERE ARE FEWA THINGS I enjoy more than talking about Nelly Korda’s swing. We’ve been working together for a while now, and I still marvel at how some of her positions (like the one at left) match with the fantastic looks of golf’s all-time greats—players like Bobby Jones, Mickey Wright and Tiger. As you might imagine, it’s been a pleasure to coach her. But what can Nelly do for you? Here are four things you can copy: 1. She is “in it” and “on it” up top, but “out of the way” down below. 2. Nelly maintains the key angles at impact that she established at address: spine angle (or forward tilt), leg position and side bend. 3. The clubhead is releasing freely without undue manipulation. 4. Her right arm…

During the spring and summer of 1988, Sandy Lyle (Masters), Curtis Strange (U.S. Open), Seve Ballesteros (Open Championship) and Jeff Sluman (PGA) made equipment history by winning all four majors wielding a PING putter. The feat hasn’t been replicated in 35 years. To celebrate that historic season, PING is introducing the PING Slam collection to celebrate the four models (Pal, Pal 2, Zing 2 and Anser) used by the major winners. Bookmark alert! Each Tuesday of this year’s four majors, PING will give collectors the chance to secure the limited-edition putters (just 88 of each model will be available at ping-pld.com for $900; limit one per customer, starting with Lyle’s Masterswinning Pal on April 4). The putter is milled from an aluminumbronze alloy and serialized for authenticity. And, if you…

Lessons SEE PAGE 91 FOR MORE TIPS FROM THE BEST TEACHERS IN THE GAME GREAT PITCHERS ARE SMOOTH SWINGERS. There’s no force or jab in their action. But that’s what you see in the pitch swings of many rec golfers—too much tension and not enough smoothness. One drill can change all that. Just make practice pitch swings using only your trail arm. Take your regular stance and trail-hand grip and start motioning the club back and through. (Start without a ball first, then add one once you get the right feel.) All I want you to do is simply swing the club back and through, using the sole of your wedge to brush the turf softly as you head into your finish. Get a rhythm goingmake a longer backswing and…

Style GOLF MFAGAZINE WENT BACK IN TIME with its latest merchandise drop: a super-soft T-shirt ($55; fairwayjockey.com) lifted straight from the title’s archives. This groovy design pays homage to one of GOLF’s logos from the Super ’70s, beaming you back to a time when Nicklaus, Palmer, Player and Trevino roamed the fairways, to say nothing of our covers. If it gets a little chilly on course, grab one of our ’70s retro hoodies, which feature the same logo and even more of a hipster vibe.…

Charlie Schaefer’s passion for fashion didn’t go unnoticed. After competing on the Duke golf team from 1998 to 2001, the Detroit native returned home and took a job on the floor of a Polo Ralph Lauren store. Remarkably, Lauren himself dropped in one day and sparked to the 23-year-old. Suddenly, Schaefer was being ushered into the company’s corporate development program. He remembers being stunned. “I’d never had a creative outlet before,” Schaefer says, “and Mr. Lauren really took me under his wing.” Fast-forward 13 years. Schaefer had become a Polo senior VP but one with an itch to scratch: the urge to fuse his two loves—golf and fashion —into his own brand of sophisticated performance wear. Greyson Clothiers, which Schaefer cofounded in 2015 with longtime friend and former No. 1…

1 Greenside Bunker Blast Myth: For a standard bunker shot, aim way open and swing along your toe line. This—supposedly—opens the face and deflects the ball toward the target. It doesn’t work this way. Myth buster: Set up more square, stand a little farther away from the ball and set your hands lower. Then, swing toward the target, making your shot more of a full release than a drag. 2 Plugged Bunker Lie Myth: Get really wide with your stance and close the face, so you have it “hooded” with the toe portion of the club turned in. All you’ve done with this setup is force yourself to make an aggressive—if not violent—swing. Myth buster: In reality, you can stand a little closer to the ball, and your feet don’t…

EVERY SWING HAS TWO CENTERS. To find yours, get in your setup and point one set of fingers at your sternum and the other at your belt buckle (1). Draw an imaginary line between the two and get a sense for how they stack up. The relationship between the two centers will look a little different for every golfer and also depend on what club you’re using. What’s important is that you’re aware of how yours line up and what this stack does when you swing. Notice below, as I settle into my driver posture, my top center moves slightly behind my bottom center, since I’m tilted to hit up on the ball. (If I were hitting, say, a 7-iron, my centers would probably sit in a straight line.) My…

ON SOME HOLES you want to bomb it. On others you’re more inclined to play it safer. Whatever the scenario, you can find success simply by changing how high—or low—you peg the ball. When the long ball beckons, tee the ball way up, with more than half the ball sitting above the crown of your driver. Position the ball off the instep of your front foot. This setup automatically forces you to swing more from the inside-out (i.e., to the right) through impact and hit more up on the ball. The in-out path gives you draw spin. Hitting up launches the ball higher. Together, you can squeeze out 15 to 20 extra yards. When playing it safe, do the opposite: Tee the ball extra low (about an inch off the…

TOO MUCH WRIST movement is a consistency killer on the greens. This is especially true with speed and distance control on midand long-range putts. If you want to roll your ball closer to the hole more regularly, it’s critical that you power your putting stroke with your upper torso, chest, shoulders and the top of your spine. Here’s a simple drill to help you get all these parts working in the right way while still maintaining max feel in your hands. Take two standard alignment sticks and place one under each arm. Get in your normal putting stance and let the sticks cross in front of your body. Grip the two sticks about belt high with your palms facing away from you. (This position locks in your wrists so they…

G: From your career as a major league pitcher, what’s a skill, mental or physical, that you think has translated well to golf? JS: The biggest thing is when I see something clearly—whether it’s a line on a putt or a shot through a narrow gap—it reminds me of being on the mound and trying to [focus on] a square inch off the plate or trying to hit the glove. When I see all this space [around me], not as good. G: Everyone who starts off in golf—they’re not great. You now have a very solid game. What’s one piece of advice or a swing thought or tip that you’ve really held onto? JS: Everything I’ve done in golf has kind of been self-taught. Until recently, I never took a…

Outdueled MARCH 26, 2023 WGC-DELL TECHNOLOGIES MATCH PLAY AUSTIN COUNTRY CLUB AUSTIN, TEXAS After four turbulent days at the lastever WGC Match Play, Austin Country Club seemed destined for one final shot at glory. As Sunday morning’s semifinal matches came down to the wire, the lead in both belonged to, arguably, the world’s two hottest golfers: Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy. But then match play happened. Cameron Young and Sam Burns, the semifinal opponents of McIlroy and Scheffler, each mounted a comeback, winning their matches in extra holes. Suddenly, the very last showdown in this event’s sparkling 23-year history belonged not to golf’s swashbuckling superstars but to a pair of pros best known for camera shyness. The city of Austin welcomed the first WGC Match Play in 1999, a year…

Clubhouse Eats IF YOU'VE EVER VISITED South Carolina and its oceanfront golf meccas like Charleston, Hilton Head or Kiawah Island, you’ve probably noticed one item that always (thankfully!) makes its way onto the menu: shrimp. Indeed, the Low Country is known for these delightful crustaceans, prepared all kinds of ways at dining establishments too numerous to name, but, perhaps, nowhere more delectably than at Kiawah Island Golf Resort’s Atlantic Room and Ryder Cup Bar. There, the Crispy Shrimp has spent more than a decade as a signature offering and go-to favorite for guests in the know. “People come from far and wide to have it,” Atlantic Room Executive Chef John Ondo says. “It’s one of the things that you have to order when you’re on the island.” Ondo estimates that the…

GEAR BEST STUFF IN THE GAME 2 Ways to go full retro with new tees and hoodies from your favorite golf magazine 115 Simoleons to tote your golf spikes in the best home they’ll ever know, courtesy of the artisans at Hudson Sutler 2 New rangefinders from Bushnell. Never leave home without them. 1 Special set of irons from Adam Scott and the forging pros at Miura Golf WHEN ADAM SCOTT DEBUTED a Set of Miura prototype irons last season at the Memorial Tournament, the consensus among gearheads was that the blades would never make it to retail. Outside of Tiger Woods’ TaylorMade P7TW set, custom, player-designed irons have tended to remain Tour-only products— and for good reason. They’re incredibly expensive to mass-produce and are sometimes made from materials that…

GEAR Accessories I WAS NEVER ONE to bother with a golf shoe bag. Cover your eyes, country club members, but I typically change my shoes in the parking lot. I’ve even gone as far as to wear my golf shoes on the drive to the course. I decided a shoe bag might be a good idea after a recent trip. I jammed my golf shoes into my travel bag, and, when I went to unpack, one shoe was bent like a pretzel, I could barely get it on. So I picked up a Nylon and Leather Golf Shoe Bag from Hudson Sutler ($115; fairwayjockey.com), and my only regret is not buying one sooner. This bag is one of the nicest pieces of luggage I own, and my shoes are now getting…

Perley Flint. There’s a name you’d remember, right? In 1910, this young Harvard graduate joined the venerable Burt and Packard Shoe Company of Brockton, Massachusetts, the footwear production capital of the world. A passionate golfer, Flint loved to tinker with new, sport-specific designs, from shoe shapes to spike patterns to weight reduction. By the early 1920s, the company, then Field and Flint, had a well-established reputation for innovation and quality. Marketing, not so much. Shoes and features with names like the “Anatomik,” “Burrojap,” “Burtine,” “Korrect Shape” and “Skreemer” just weren’t catching on. Go figure. So, in 1923, a century ago—a world war, a depression, more than a dozen recessions and a global pandemic ago—the company conducted an in-house naming contest for a new feature being considered for an upcoming line…

THINK / PLAY / LIVE PLAY SMART SIX-TIME MAJOR CHAMP Lee Trevino, in a recent chat with short-game expert Parker McLachlin (more from the latter on p. 80), talked about how to use your body to hit solid wedge shots. In classic Merry Mex fashion, Trevino had quite a unique way of explaining it. “It’s like a jackass and a wagon,” he said. “The jackass pulls the wagon. If he stops, the wagon runs over his ass.” Translation: When you’re hitting pitches, be sure to engage your body. In the Trevino comparison, the jackass is your body and the wagon is the club. If you stop moving your body when you get to impact, the club will run over your… well, you know. In other words, the club will flip and…

Good players can tell you where on the clubface their shot was struck. (Hint: mostly in the center of the sweet spot.) Higher handicappers often have no idea where they contact the ball. That was me. Common wisdom would say to go see a teacher and work on a launch monitor, and that’s great advice. But there’s not always time (or budget) for that. Enter Strike Spray ($35 for a 3-pack; fairwayjockey.com). It’s as simple as it sounds: Apply the white powdery mist to the clubface and hit the ball. With one swing it showed me the point of contact (mine was a little high and a bit toward the toe), informing me instantly on what adjustments I needed to make to find the center more consistently. It’s the perfect…

JACK NICKLAUS’ unmistakable top-of-backswing position (1) featured a “flying” right elbow with the club on plane and ready to motion powerfully through impact. Notice how the club shaft points between his (well, my) elbows? That’s where you want to be! Jack worked to keep the shaft between his elbows from address to follow-through. This allowed him to take advantage of his powerful body rotation while remaining neutral at impact. Unless you have the clubhead speed of Jon Rahm or Bubba Watson, you should strive to be neutral at impact too. And the best way to do that is to copy Jack’s shaft position. When you lay the club off at the top like Dustin Johnson does (2) or over the target line like Matthew Wolff (3), there’s just too much…