Innehållsförteckning för Oct 2023 - Issue 413 från Golf Australia

The tranquillity of an alfresco breakfast being enjoyed in a quiet piazza in Trastevere, Rome, was suddenly broken by my wife leaping to her feet, phone in hand in a desperate rush to ‘Shazam’ a tune that had caught her ear on the café’s playlist. “He’s the greatest singer in Italian history,” declared the young barista with a beaming smile, probably too young to know or understand that Pavarotti or Bocelli amongst others might like a word in response to his proclamation. I’m not certain ‘exaggeration’ is anything that Italians can claim as uniquely their own but there’s a sense those involved locally in the planning for the 2023 Ryder Cup from September 29 to October 1 would have you think this one, the first ever to be played on…

A common misconception about the golf swing is that you want both arms fully extended at impact. But if you watch the swings of the best players on Tour you will see this is not the case. Tour Champion Viktor Hovland is no exception when it comes to his impact position and the role each arm plays. As you can see, he maintains a bend in his right elbow into impact and there’s even some bend in his left as well. When you keep the right elbow tucked in close to the rib cage like Hovland, the arms and club become an extension of the body – allowing you to generate serious power with the bigger muscles of your hips and legs. This right elbow bend (for right-handers) also a…

Unfortunately, hold-ups are a part of playing the game, and one we all must deal with. But here, we have a choice: We can stare down the hole at the group ahead, grumbling about the dreadful pace of play today and taking every opportunity to get uptight and annoyed at the situation. We’ve all done this… and we all know the poor state of mind it puts us in when the green finally clears. But don’t we have a lovely excuse for the poor effort that inevitably follows?! We can take a more enlightened approach that keeps us in our best possible frame of mind. “Control the controllables” might have become a cliché in recent years, but it remains central to maintaining a healthy attitude. There is nothing you can…

After featuring courses from the northern part of the Peninsula last month, it’s time to look at what the oceanside of the Bellarine has to offer … and surprise, surprise, it oozes class. The incredible popularity of the VicOpen since it made its home at Thirteenth Beach Golf Links a decade ago has elevated the Bellarine as a ‘must visit’ golfing destination for golfers across the country. Today, there is such a wealth of courses on the Bellarine that hard choices must be made when planning your golf weekend. On the other hand, it’s always good to have choices. The choice we’re recommending here for a single weekend visit is to play the three highest ranked courses in the area – Thirteenth Beach’s Beach Course, the neighbouring Barwon Heads Golf…

In just under two hours’ drive from Perth, via the Kwinana Freeway and Forrest Highway, you’ll reach Bunbury – the northern gateway to WA’s incredible South West. The South West is home to world renowned beaches and equally famous vineyards. The salty spray of waves and towering ancient forests awaken the senses, while premium wines and exquisite local produce provide a memorable appreciation of the region that lies between Bunbury and Margaret River. Bunbury Golf Club is home to the South West Open, which boasts an impressive list of past winners including Craig Parry, Mike Harwood, Greg Chalmers, Terry Gale and Nick O’Hern, so following in their footsteps adds to the appeal of a round here. The course, which dates back to the late 1940s, is laid out on good…

Playing golf in Ireland is one of those experiences you will treasure for the rest of your life. The PaRnz golfing holidays team is hosting a tour to the Emerald Isle in July 2024, which features rounds of golf on seven spectacular Irish courses and luxury accommodation throughout the tour. The tour – from July 6 to 17 – starts on the outskirts of Dublin staying at Carton House, where the hotel is an historic mansion featuring two championship courses set within 1,100 acres of beautiful sweeping Kildare parkland. Here you will play the acclaimed O’Meara Course before venturing to the nearby K Club, which hosted the 2006 Ryder Cup and this year’s Irish Open. The tour then heads for Cork on the south coast, where you will play one…

Cost: $249.95. Tested by: Jimmy Emanuel, Golf Australia Deputy & Digital Editor FIRST IMPRESSIONS: The first test of a training aid is how simple it is to understand and use immediately and the Mod-Swing is great in this regard. Before you even look at the easy to comprehend instructions, the system is pretty self-explanatory, with the two braces clearly identifiable for leg and elbow, and the three tethers able to be stretched to work out the difference. Then there are the magnetic buckles that are so easy to get on and off, but solid once clipped in. Using the instructions, setting things up is easy and you’re away … and let me tell you if you’re not good at keeping the trail elbow close to the body in the downswing,…

EAST GIPPSLAND • VICTORIA When husband and wife, Adrian and Rachel Bromage, saw an opportunity to take over the nine-hole golf course in the small East Gippsland town of Metung, their interest was all about water. It was shortly before the arrival of the pandemic and the Bromages were already designing Metung Hot Springs a few hundred metres from the golf course which, at the time, was known as Kings Cove Country Club. “We needed somewhere to, for want of a better word, I’ll say ‘dispose’, but it turned into a really good story about [water] reuse,” Adrian said. The Bromages grew up in East Gippsland and were married in 2000. Adrian had made a name for himself in Perth in the late 1990s playing Australian Rules football for East…

With a searing hot summer on the horizon, taking the right action and protecting yourself on the golf course is crucial. Golf is a sport played by people from all walks of life; it is a fantastic way to get outdoors, be social and get your daily dose of exercise. But, before organising your next tee time, it is vital to take on board the information provided by new research from the University of South Australia showing that golfers have a higher risk of skin cancer compared to the greater population. Skin cancer occurs when skin cells are damaged. It is dominantly due to overexposure to UV radiation from the sun when playing golf. With the help of global partners, the study shows one in four golfers had received some…

King Island had an enviable reputation for a long time as the origin of incredible produce that was making its way into the kitchens of some of the world’s best chefs right around the world. That hasn’t changed. But the opening of world class golf courses Cape Wickham and Ocean Dunes in 2015 thrust King Island onto the global golfing stage and suddenly people from around the world were lining up to visit the Bass Strait island. Any golfer who has ever experienced hot golf destinations like California’s Monterrey Peninsula, Bandon Dunes on the Oregon coast, the south-west of Ireland or the great Scottish links, will be impressed by these wonder courses. Cape Wickham Links debuted at No.5 in Golf Australia magazine’s Top-100 ranking less than three months after opening…

The Gold Coast has been one of Australia’s favourite golf holiday destinations for nearly 40 years. The golf is obviously the primary attraction but there are so many things to do when you’re not on course, which has wide appeal for golfing couples, golf club groups, mate’s weekends or even the lone golfer away with their family. The north end of the Gold Coast puts you in the neighbourhood of three of the highest ranked layouts in the region – The Links Hope Island and Sanctuary Cove’s Pines and Palms Courses. The Links Hope Island, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, has always been a Gold Coast favourite because its links-like features offer a distinct point of difference with all the other courses on the Coast. Designed by Peter…

From Broken Bay at the mouth of the Hawkesbury River, the Central Coast stretches north towards Newcastle and includes a mix of bays and inlets, pristine beaches, lakes and lush hinterland. If you are looking for the highest ranked courses in the region, you can easily fill three days of golf playing Magenta Shores Golf & Country Club, Shelly Beach Golf Club and Kooindah Waters Golf Club, which are all within close proximity to one another. Kooindah Waters was designed by Ross Watson in collaboration with Craig Parry. It is a short, tight and rustic layout with its unkempt swamps and orange-hued bunkers with railway-sleeper faces. Ranked No.62 in Golf Australia’s Top-100 Public Access Courses in the nation, Kooindah Waters might lack distance for a modern course, but it is…

Mizuno’s RB566 ball is an even softer feeling version of its predecessor with a new micro-dimple configuration to maintain hang-time past the apex of flight. With a softer yet higher energy core, the RB566 offers a great balance of high trajectory, soft feel and all-round performance. The RB566 has a micro / D-dimple design for added hang time. At mid/low ball speeds, the lift effect of the dimple design is effective at extending overall flight. “With a softer ball like the RB566, feel is a priority and aerodynamics become the key to maintaining distance,” Mizuno USA Director of R&D, David Llewellyn, said. “We’ve found that at lower swing speeds, the higher, straighter flight of the RB566 and impact of the smaller dimples outweigh any minor loss of ball speed (of…

First introduced in 1976, the Zebra putter was way ahead of its time, with its mallet-shaped head, adjustable weight system, and the unique black-and-white stripe alignment aid proving an instant hit with tour professionals and club golfers alike. Ray Floyd used one of the very first Zebra putters to win the Masters in 1976, while 18 years later Zimbabwe’s Nick Price captured the 1994 Open Championship atTurnberry with a Zebra putter in his bag. After several decades out of the limelight, Zebra is back, under the new ownership of Golf Brands Inc, with the launch a new range of putters. Two years in the making, and with design input from some of the most experienced putter designers in the business, the latest models to carry the iconic Zebra name have…

Cost: $379. Tested by: Jimmy Emanuel, Golf Australia Deputy & Digital Editor FIRST IMPRESSIONS: ECCO are known for functional, comfortable shoes across a range of different categories, and the golf line are no different. The second pair of golf shoes I ever owned were ECCOs, in the days where they produced more traditional, spiked models only, and while the range is far more diverse these days, the same quality remains. All of that is certainly true of the BIOM HYBRID 4 that brings a great deal of comfort, traction, support and style to the spikeless golf shoe category, with the very soft leather one of the standout features when first taking them out of the box. Testing the BOA model, once the shoes were on the simplicity and effectiveness of…

Cam Smith has confirmed he will return home for Australia’s flagship events – the Fortinet Australian PGA Championship and the ISPS HANDA Australian Open – this summer but admits he is still in the dark about the world ranking saga, which could see him miss the 2024 Paris Olympics. Players automatically qualify for the Olympics if they are ranked inside the top-15 of the official world golf ranking (maximum of four per nation). At the time of writing, Smith was ranked No.11 in the world. Under the current system – LIV events not receiving world ranking points – the Queenslander will have limited opportunities to keep himself inside the automatic qualification bracket. Although it is unlikely the 2022 Open Champion won’t be pulling on the Australian green and gold in…

One of Melbourne’s oldest golf clubs, Kew, is set to embark on a major redesign. Harley Kruse of Kruse Golf (KG), Mike Clayton and Lukas Michel of Clayton, DeVries & Pont (CDP) have teamed up in a course design collaboration for the club, which sits next to theYarra River about 20 minutes’ drive east of the CBD. The design team has prepared a masterplan of course improvements for Kew that was ranked No.96 in Golf Australia’s list of theTop-100 Courses in Australia in 2022. The elements of the redesign are expected to be rolled out over the next few years. “Kew is one of several Melbourne courses located along theYarra River,” Clayton said. “Our plan aims to rectify some of the problems resulting from a freeway which was built through…

The promise of Arthur Newman (2013) as described in the film’s trailer is “they’re having the time of everyone else’s life!”, what you get however is a glum examination of personal identity with a dash of morbid romance, a hint of mild comedy and a heavy-handed attempt at emotional depth. Wallace Avery (Colin Firth) is disillusioned with his life as a failed golf pro-come-mid-level manager in a regional FedEx office. He is divorced, not present for his teenage son and going through the motions of a shallow relationship with girlfriend, Mina, played by the late Anne Heche. The only non-beige bit of colour written into Wallace’s joyless persona is a kooky affection for cheap convenience store hot dogs, but even that gets ruined one day by a store that only…

“… GUYS CARED FAR MORE ABOUT THE MONEY-LIST THAN THE WORLD RANKING.” If there is one thing that I have never really cared about in my career it is my world ranking at any particular moment in time. Okay, it would have been nice to reach No.1 – No.3 was my highest-ever – and I know I was in the top-10 for a bit. But I didn’t really care. Not much anyway. When it came to the rankings, I took the view that I knew what I knew. If I arrived at a tournament and saw Ernie Els was, say, No.7 in the world, I never took it even remotely seriously. I still thought he was No.2 behind Tiger. If someone had said to me there were six players better…

Confidence literally means ‘with faith’. In a golfing context, confidence means playing with the faith that things will turn out okay. Confident golfers swing the club without being afraid of the outcome… and it results in freer, more rhythmic motion and better technical movement patterns. Well, that’s all well and good. But the problem for most of us is that trying to cultivate confidence feels like banging our heads against a brick wall. ◼ Confidence comes from playing well. ◼ To play well, we need to feel confident. Just how are we supposed to break through this paradoxical state of affairs? The answer could well be found in a new book by a rising star of sports psychology, Raymond Prior. In Golf Beneath the Surface; the New Science of Golf…

When we perceive a task to be difficult, our confidence tends to drop and our anxiety levels rise. Conversely, when we sense the goal is more within our grasp, we approach the mission feeling calm and assured. You don’t need me to tell you which one of those states is more conducive to playing good golf! But one thing you might not be aware of is that on every shot you play, you have the capacity to control how hard or easy it feels. Unfortunately – and often through well-intentioned advice – it is often the former. Let me explain. Long game: Would you rather aim at a 30mm leaf… or a 30-yard fairway? Picture yourself assessing your target on a tee shot. Recent advice has been to make that target…

We are going along beautifully, when out of nowhere we catch a regulation pitch shot very heavy. Shocked by this sudden miscue, we lose our focus. Suddenly, on a hole we felt we were in control of, we’ve thrown in a ‘snowman’… and that super round we were building is ruined. Unfortunately, this is a pattern every golfer is familiar with. Our chief weapon against one bad shot becoming a card-ripping event is to pay more attention to what happens to us in the aftermath of the shot – the so-called ‘post-shot phase’. If we are honest with ourselves, we know how a poor reaction to a bad shot can bleed into the next shot… and the next. Surprise, embarrassment, anger, frustration, poor body language, a lack of acceptance it…

Almost every good golfer has one, and any golfer who wants to get better probably needs one. A swing trigger is a last move before swinging the club back from the ball. For example, Jack Nicklaus would turn his slightly to the right. Gary Player would kick-in his right knee, while Greg Norman would slide his club out behind the ball before winding up with that great wide swing arc. A swing trigger is usually used to prevent a fault in the swing and kicks in when you are ready to ‘go’ with your backswing. Every golfer needs some kind of trigger to start the swing, because you don’t want to start the backswing from a static position. Henrik Stenson has a ‘unique’ swing trigger which helps him to prevent…

Some might vigorously argue that the Melbourne Sandbelt is the finest destination in the world to play golf. It’s hard to argue with the fact there are world class golf courses seemingly around every corner across Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs. And planning a golf weekend in the Sandbelt is one full of tough choices … what courses do you leave out? Here’s two tips for you – get on where you can, you won’t be disappointed, and book well in advance. If you have never played in the Sandbelt before, you may as well aim high and play the best of the best for your maiden experience. Playing a round at Royal Melbourne (on either its West or East Course), Kingston Heath and Victoria Golf Clubs – which are all within…

Yarrawonga – on the southern side of the NSW-Victorian border beside the mighty Murray River and Lake Mulwala – with its ideal climate and big river views has long been a haven for tourists, especially visiting golfers. A narrow two-lane bridge links Yarrawonga with Mulwala, on the northern shore in NSW, which is home to the Yarrawonga Mulwala Golf Club Resort. In the 96 years since moving to Mulwala, the club has grown to become the largest public access golf resort in Australia. It is widely recognised as the pick of the resorts along the Murray, just three hours’ drive north of Melbourne. At the heart of the complex is a first class-clubhouse – boasting a health and fitness centre, bistro, bar, movie theatre and massage facilities – which now…

Australia is made up of millions of square kilometres of desert, so when the idea of playing golf in the centre of the country is mentioned, thoughts of sandy, arid, rocky conditions spring to mind. And although you are more than likely to encounter these conditions at Alice Springs Golf Club, you will also encounter well-manicured grassed greens, fairways and tees. Opened in 1984, the Peter Thomson and Mike Wolveridge-designed course is definitely an oasis in the desert that is worth travelling for. The 18 holes meander through small ranges with rocky outcrops, natural swales and dry watercourses (unless it has rained recently) with the iconic MacDonnell Ranges a constant and picturesque backdrop to the south. Visiting golfers are likely to spend as much time with a camera in their…