Innehållsförteckning för August 2016 från Golf Australia

As much as we could admire his ability to do freakish things with a golf ball at the height of his powers, few, if any, of us could relate to the man. He could be stand-offish, especially with the press, and because of his celebrity he really only mixed in circles dominated by a few select pro golfers and celebrities. In many ways, England’s Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston is the anti-Tiger – a player with exceptional natural talent, whose self-deprecating humour and down-to-earth outlook continues to win him a legion of fans. His appeal was in evidence at the Open Championship as the rugged-up masses jumped on board the Beef train. The 27-year-old, who regularly beams with a smile from behind his lumberjack beard, made his second appearance in The Open…

 THERE has been a seemingly endless debate about golf’s presence in the Olympic Games and a long line of the game’s male superstars have made their excuses and chosen not to play. HOW DOES THE I.O.C GET AWAY WITH NOT PAYING THE STARS, AND BY STARS I MEAN EVERY SINGLE ATHLETE? The Olympics itself is no stranger to controversy and we have all watched for years as systematic cheating on an industrial scale stole glory from those who chose to play by the rules. How many played by the rules no one knows.The millions who watched thought they were watching something real when often they were instead watching a fraud. Every four years those who many thought of as heroes were unmasked as impostors. We all know their names. Worse,…

I’M SORRY. But I’ve had enough … of the United States Golf Association, that is. How many more blunders, gaffes and moments of sheer incompetence must we endure before golf’s rules-makers in the US and Mexico relinquish the right to set up courses for one of the game’s four most important events? The list is both long and inglorious: 1. The lasting memory of the 1998 US Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco is sadly not the eventual victory of Lee Janzen. No, from two days earlier it is the sight of runner-up Payne Stewart – arms crossed, jaw chewing gum furiously – watching as his ball trickled down the stupidly-fast slope on the 18th green. That same over-juiced gradient provoked a foul-mouthed rant to an official from…

When Henrik Stenson arrived on the European Tour in 2000 he had already been earmarked as a future Ryder Cup player and major championship winner in waiting. Tall and strong, he was armed with the kind of violent swing that could easily dismantle even the toughest of golf courses. But within months of his breakthrough Tour win in 2001, he was fighting the swing ‘yips’. There were times he had absolutely no idea where each shot was going. At the European Open in Dublin, his hitting was so wild he needed to hit three tee shots before putting one in play. He persevered through nine holes before withdrawing, almost unable to take the club back in fear of where the shot would end up. He began work with a sports…

My father was a passionate Sunday morning golfer; linking up with mates for a round most weeks. He was passable on the greens, had a reasonable short game, but had a world-class slice off the tee. Much of my childhood was spent ferreting around in the rough looking for his ball while he cursed his way around Wembley. Uncle Stewie suggested standing more over the ball; Kevin reckoned his backswing was the reason for his parabolic splay every time he pulled out the driver. Dad consulted books, read magazines and spoke to anyone who would lend an ear, trying to find an answer. He tried everything. Everything but the obvious. He never went to the club professional. I’m not sure why. It could have been that he was too embarrassed.…

HIGH SOCIETY The Golf Society offers designer golf clothing and footwear from the world’s premier brands in an Australian first: an authorised online golf apparel retailer presenting season collections mostly in line with the European and American markets. The Golf Society is a concept-store experience with Australia’s best range of men’s and ladies golf shirts, pants, shorts, gloves, shoes and outerwear along with the latest aspirational brand updates and insights. Current specials include Puma golf shoes, such as the Titan Tour Ice model, which are up to 50 percent off. Contact: For stockists or more details, phone 1300 735 409 or visit www.thegolfsociety.com.au KIDS’ CLUBS Golphin, an award-winning Scottish-based company that designs and manufactures specialised golf equipment for children, recently launched in Australia. Golphin clubs, designed to benefit children aged…

MODEL PLAYED: Odyssey Milled Collection RSX #001 putter. FIRST IMPRESSIONS: It’s an appealing-looking putter and one that feels good, too. There’s solid weight to the putterhead, and the leather grip is classy and comfortable in the hands. I’m used to a thicker putter grip but liked the feel of this one immediately. The putter sits nice and square and the white alignment marking against the black putterhead is simple but it works. It also felt to me – as a mallet user – that the heel/toe weighting of the blade-style putter really helped square the face to the target line at address. HOW IT PLAYED: It felt to me as though the user-friendly weighting of the Odyssey Milled Collection RSX #001 putter helped me swing the putter more smoothly. And…

Silverwater Resort is offering Golf Australia readers the opportunity to experience the resort. For your chance to win two nights’ accommodation for two people in a one-bedroom apartment, including breakfast, worth $500, tell us in 25 words or less why you would like to stay at Silverwater Resort and play golf in the area. TO ENTER: E-mail your entry to golf@golfaustralia.com.au including your name and contact number. Entries close on August 30 and winner will be published in the October issue of Golf Australia.…

The World Cup of Golf returns to Melbourne in November, bringing together the greatest players from around the world to compete for their respective countries. Kingston Heath Golf Club will host the event, marking the tournament’s fifth time in Australia and the first at any course here other than Royal Melbourne. Three- and five-night tournament travel packages are now available, including accommodation, tickets, souvenir merchandise and coach transfers – transporting you to Kingston Heath in comfort and style. Package tournament tickets can either be general admission or you could enter the luxury of the exclusive MacKenzie Club. Centrally located in the tournament village, this special-access facility offers first-class amenities in a sports bar setting. The MacKenzie Club includes a premium cash bar, your choice of menu for purchase, large screen…

“IT MAKES IT EVEN MORE SPECIAL TO BEAT A COMPETITOR LIKE PHIL. HE’S BEEN ONE OF THE BEST TO PLAY THE GAME, CERTAINLY IN THE PAST 20 YEARS.”– HENRIK STENSON WINNING SCORE: 20-under-par, 264. DEFEATED: Phil Mickelson by three strokes after an epic weekend duel. Third-placed J.B. Holmes was a whopping 11 shots further behind. DEFINING MOMENTS: Stenson held the 54-hole lead at a major for the first time in his career but lost it to Mickelson on the first hole of the final round. What ensued was arguably the most enthralling head-to-head duel at a major ever, as the pair traded birdies and eagles before the Swede made two telling birdies at Royal Troon’s 14th and 15th holes. Another birdie at the last broke numerous records as Stenson had…

WINTER might still be lingering like an unwanted house guest, but this summer’s schedule of tournaments is shaping as a must-see stretch of golf. Jason Day, Jordan Spieth and Adam Scott are confirmed starters for the Emirates Australian Open at Royal Sydney Golf Club from November 17 to 20. Scott, the 2009 champion, has a score to settle with Royal Sydney after his last-hole loss to Rory McIlroy there three years ago. The Queenslander will back up for a ‘home game’ and play the Australian PGA on the Gold Coast a fortnight later. “The support I receive from the Aussie golf fans makes for a special week, especially when I am playing in my hometown,” Scott said. While nothing is official until the qualification cut-off this month, golf fans can…

BADDS ONTHE UP I really enjoyed Ben Everill’s article on Aaron Baddeley (Golf Australia, June 2016 issue). It doesn’t seem that long ago that we followed him around Royal Sydney when he won the 1999 Australian Open as an 18-year-old kid, beating Greg Norman, Colin Montgomerie and Nick O’Hern. He was having such a great time and then to win against that field was amazing. I really hope he does get his game back and some of his recent results suggest it’s not far away. He was such a great talent. Susan Lake via e-mail POOR EXAMPLE Why does the USGA have such a hatred of US Open fields shooting under par? I watched and listened to much of the four days of the tournament and it seems it’s all…

‘THE LOCALS AT WOOMERA RECOMMEND PUTTING WITH YOUR GLOVE ON BECAUSE SCORPIONS CAN LURK IN THE HOLE.’ This go-ahead club of 130 members, which is run entirely by volunteer labour, will stage the Victorian junior, women’s and men’s sand green championships in August and September.Then in October it will play host to an estimated 10,000 visitors who will flock to its fairways to see a reenactment of the 1314 battle of Bannockburn in Scotland between the forces of Robert the Bruce and Edward II. In the lead-up they are getting the course ready, ordering up big from the bottle shop, organising catering in the clubhouse, barbecues around the course and attending to the myriad details that ensure the smooth running of an event. The 5,542-metre, par-69 layout looks great, framed…

“WE JUST DON’T KNOW HOW SPECIAL THAT IS IN GOLF CIRCLES BECAUSE THERE ISN’T A GOLFER ALIVE WHO HAS EVER WON AN OLYMPIC MEDAL.”– SCOTT HEND An eclectic quartet of Australians will venture into unknown territory literally and figuratively when they become the first athletes from their country in more than a century to compete in an Olympic golf tournament. It’s been a drawn-out, much-discussed and regularly criticised wait for the sport’s return, while the foreign landscape and competitive environment will be just one element for Scott Hend, Marcus Fraser, Minjee Lee and Su Oh to conquer in order to win a medal in Brazil. Alongside beating the 116 other competitors will be peripheral clouds hanging over Rio de Janeiro, ranging from question marks over the unimaginative format through to…

It has been 23 years since an Australian got his name etched on the Claret Jug. On that day in 1993, Greg Norman scorched around Royal St George’s in 64 to beat his long-time rival Nick Faldo by two strokes. There was plenty of promise heading into the 145th Open Championship that one of the 11 Australians in the field – led by World No.1 Jason Day and fellow Queenslander Adam Scott – that the drought would end on the windy west coast of Scotland. But a first-round tee-time draw saw ten out of 11 Aussies in the field set down to play primarily in the morning, which ultimately proved to be the wrong side of the draw. As they battled high winds, the afternoon wave – that included the…

GARETH JOHNSTON PGA head professional and director of golf at Calcot Park in Berkshire, England. Practice for most amateurs is hitting a basket of balls at the range once a week, going through your irons and woods before heading home after an hour of mixed results. Putting practice is either neglected completely or amounts to rolling a handful of balls 15 minutes before your tee-time. This is completely the wrong approach. Working on and maintaining a sound putting stroke is the fastest route to lowering your scores. I am not telling you to adopt a Tour pro’s attitude and spend hours on the putting green every week. But investing just a little time at home or the course in your set-up and stroke will shave three or four shots off…

CLUB MANDALAY Corporate golf days are all about entertaining those important clients, rewarding your staff with a day out of the office or raising funds for charity or an organisation. Club Mandalay and its team of professionals can assist you in creating a corporate golf day to remember. Club Mandalay is one of Melbourne’s newest additions for corporate golf and provides a stunning setting with a golf course perfect for your next event. Designed by five-time Open champion Peter Thomson and his architecture firm Thomson Perrett, Club Mandalay is located in Melbourne’s north just off the Hume Highway in the new suburb of Beveridge.The course sits in the heart of the Mandalay Estate. The par-72 layout measures 6,285 metres from the back tees and offers stunning views and a golf…

The flatstick is the moneystick in any golfer’s bag. Those booming drives and pinpoint irons don’t count for much if there are two or three (or more) putts attached to the end of them. Yet the choice of blade can be as confounding as the discipline of putting itself. Part art and part science, this is the department of the game where power is pointless, spin is ruinous and feel and confidence mean everything. A large aspect of the decision around putter choice now rests upon more than the style of putter alone. While the choice between blade-style and mallets (and others) has traditionally been a large factor, increasingly the decision runs far deeper, to the shape and stroke pattern that best suits individual players. Terms like “face balanced” and…

ADDRESS: Botany Bay National Park, La Perouse, NSW 2036. CONTACT: (02) 9661 4455; (02) 9311 2573 (pro shop); www.nswgolfclub.com.au DESIGNERS: Dr Alister MacKenzie (1926); Eric Apperly (1932-’37 & 1948-’51); Greg Norman & Bob Harrison (2010); Greg Norman (ongoing). GREEN FEES: Limited tee-times are available for visitors, who are members of a golf club, on Monday, Thursday and Friday. GOLF AUSTRALIA MAGAZINE TOP-100 COURSES HISTORY: No.5 (2012); No.5 (2014); No.7 (2016). RANKING JUDGE’S COMMENTS: “Grand land and rollicking golf among the dunes.” – James Bennett (2016) “One gets excited just driving up to the clubhouse thinking about the breathtaking course and views you are about to take in. Some of the greens can become incredibly hard in the wind.” – Cameron Howell (2016). “There has been a significant amount…

 HAD a couple of rules officials approached me on the 12th tee in the final round of a US Open I was leading to tell me I might be getting a penalty for something that happened seven holes earlier, I’m not exactly sure what I would have said or done. THEN THERE IS THE RULES OFFICIAL FOLLOWING THE GROUP. WHAT IS THAT GUY THERE FOR IF HIS DECISIONS ARE GOING TO BE SECOND-GUESSED? I know I would have argued though. I wouldn’t have immediately played on without knowing the score as Dustin Johnson did at Oakmont back in June. I wouldn’t have made any demands, but I would have asked the officials to make a decision on the spot. If they were going to penalise me I would have wanted…

The first Olympic golf tournament in more than a century takes place this month in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Multi-million-dollar prize funds are frozen, men and women professionals will play the same course over two weeks with the both fields playing for nothing more than national pride and a shot at winning a fabled gold medal. It was a similar situation last time when many of the world’s best amateurs rolled into St Louis for the 1904 Olympic Golf Championship. Held at the prestigious Glen Echo Golf Club, it was a strictly amateur men-only affair with professionals and female players persona non grata. There were individual and team events scheduled for the third week in September but, somewhat unusually, gold medals were also on offer in a long-drive competition and…

DUSTIN JOHNSON (T9) Coming off his US Open and WGC–Bridgestone Invitational victories, the red-hot favourite at the start of the week made enough birdies over four days to be a serious threat. He’ll look back atTroon’s brutal 11th hole as his Achilles’ heel, having made double-bogey and triple-bogey in consecutive rounds. JORDAN SPIETH (T30) One of Troon’s back-nine victims. He dropped nine shots on the inward half over four rounds. The American was another player who struggled to adapt to the slower greens. RORY McILROY (T5) Reached the halfway mark eight shots back of the lead despite fighting rounds of 69-71 but played his way out of the event with an ill-disciplined 73 on day three. He returned to form in the final round to post a four-under 67 and…

As with any part of the game, we are all different when it comes to our putting method and routine. No doubt all of you will have heard the game’s great putters labelled as ‘feel’ or ‘methodical’ on the greens without really knowing what this means or which category you fall into. Put simply, the way you visualise putts will require a specific strategy for reading greens. Do you like to work in straight or curved lines, for instance? PGA pros Steve Astle and David Brooks are equally accomplished with the short stick but their routines could not be more different. We gave them the same putt on the stunning fourth hole at Costa Navarino’s Bay Course and asked them to talk us through their respective methods. 1 THE TECHY…

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Lightweight and stylish is the simplest way to describe the look and feel of the Approach S20. It was a good fit and I hardly noticed it at all on my wrist swinging the club. I have actually been wearing the Garmin as an everyday watch and step counter for more than a month now. If you’re in the market for a smartwatch – to let you know about e-mails and texts – that also has plenty of golf functions, this is the product for you. THE SET-UP: When you’re getting started, the set-up is really easy. Pair the Approach S20 with your mobile phone via Bluetooth … and that’s it really. Search for the golf course (there are 40,000 courses pre-loaded) and once the satellite gets a…

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Having read a lot of material about the benefits of the SuperStroke putting grips, I thought I would dip my toe in the water after a prolonged period of poor putting, especially from close range. In fact, I went to my local golf shop intending to get a SuperStroke grip fitted to the putter I have been using for several years. But I spotted an Odyssey Works putter with a SuperStroke Slim 3.0 grip already fitted and after holing seven consecutive six-footers on the in-store putting green, I was sold. I instead left with a new putter. My initial feeling about the grip was that it felt much thicker than I expected. But it took only a couple of putts to get used to the feeling. HOW IT…

SILVERWATER RESORT Located on the rolling hills of San Remo, the gateway to Phillip Island, Silverwater Resort offers sweeping views over Western Port Bay, combines conference spaces, function rooms and spacious accommodation in one beautiful setting. Silverwater Resort is the perfect venue for any occasion. The award-winning resort can accommodate conferences from intimate-sized executive board meetings of 16 delegates up to large conferences, events and weddings of 500 guests in the Bay View Room. The Bay View Room (pictured), the newest addition at the 4.5-star resort, offers the latest in audio visual equipment including ceiling mounted ‘dual’ data projectors, presenters screen, electronic blockout blinds, as well as fully integrated lectern and microphones. All of this while taking in the panoramic views of Western Port Bay. For more details visit www.silverwateresort.com.au,…

PHILLIP ISLAND GOLF CLUB Green fee: $40 (18 holes). www.pigc.com.au AUSSIE GOLF RANCH Green fee: $18, $12 juniors (18 holes Saltwater Creek par-3 course); $12, $10 juniors (nine holes two-club pitch and putt course). www.aussiegolfranch.com LEONGATHA GOLF CLUB Green fee: $39 (18 holes). www.leongathagolf.com.au MIRBOO NORTH GOLF CLUB Green fee: $22 (18 holes). www.mirboonorthgolfclub.com.au KORUMBURRA GOLF CLUB Green fee: $25. www.korumburragolf.com.au FOSTER GOLF CLUB Green fee: $30. www.fostergolfclub.com.au YARRAM GOLF CLUB Green fee: $25 (18 holes or all-day). www.yarramgolfclub.com.au LAKES ENTRANCE GOLF CLUB Green fee: $35, $120 (weekly pass). www.lakesentrancegolf.com.au LAKES VIEW GOLF COURSE Green fee: $20 (all-day pass). www.coastalstays.com KINGS COVE GOLF CLUB Green fee: $30 (18 holes). www.kingscoveclub.com.au BAIRNSDALE GOLF & BOWLS CLUB Green fee: $35 (18 holes); $25 if you show this issue of Golf Australia. www.bairnsdalegolfclub.com.au…

ADDRESS: Cranbourne Frankston Rd, Cranbourne, Victoria 3977. CONTACT: (03) 9788 8288; www.ranfurlie.com.au DESIGNER: Mike Clayton (2001). GREEN FEES: Limited tee-times are available for visitors on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday afternoon, Friday and Sunday. GOLF AUSTRALIA MAGAZINE TOP-100 COURSES HISTORY: No.60 (2012); No.65 (2014); No.60 (2016). RANKING JUDGE’S COMMENTS: “It took me a few rounds here to fully appreciate the quality of the design. On my last visit, I was really pleased to find a marked improvement in the conditioning across the entire course. In fact, I couldn’t fault the greens.” – Alex Chapman (2016). “Love the width here, which you don’t often find on modern creations. The bunkering, right across the layout, was terrific.” – Lucas Andrews (2016). “Strategically very good and plenty of fun to play…