Innehållsförteckning för June 2016 från Golf Digest

2.2 MILLION People who tried golf for the first time in 2015 (the most since 2002). SOURCE: NATIONAL GOLF FOUNDATION A member at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth knows Jordan Spieth’s father, Shawn. At one point in Jordan’s rocketship ride last year, she wrote Shawn an email expressing concern about Jordan’s ability to handle the pressure of success. “You don’t have to worry about Jordan,” the father replied. “His faith and his character will see him through.” So when the pressure of failure came knocking at the 12th hole on Sunday at the Masters, my mind flashed back to that email. There are certain rules of Augusta National, even for people who have never been to the course. Don’t miss it left off the second tee; it’s known as…

“Don’t stare at the green or your putter. Everybody knows you stubbed it.” We’ve all done it. You try to put a little extra pop on that long putt, and the putterhead scuffs the ground behind the ball, sending it halfway to the hole. You look down at the green, you examine the putter, you shake your head. But everyone knows . . . you stubbed it. Usually the stub comes from making a backstroke that’s too short, which forces you to really accelerate the putterhead coming through. This changes your rhythm and grip pressure. Look at Jason Day or Jordan Spieth: They take the putter back with consistent rhythm and sufficient length for the distance of the putt. Post-impact the stroke is firm, not loose. The left wrist is…

“To me, winning by one is the same as winning by 10.” In an important round, I always tried to get off to a solid—but never heroic— start. After a couple of holes the nerves leave and then you can just go play golf. Not until the 14th or 15th hole do the shots really become pressurized and you might feel those butterflies come back. Some players want to blow away the competition. They hit the gas early. Tiger was like that when he first got on tour, and today you might occassionally see Rory and others play that way. The all-out style never fit my mind. Being overconfident is when you’re most prone to mistakes. Trying to close out a match? You might do well to remember how I…

“I’ve changed the setting on my adjustable driver…” ▶ Never: 38% ▶ Several times: 33% ▶ Once: 29% SOURCE: GOLF DIGEST READERS Q Can the pros tweak their adjustable drivers during a tournament? LINDA SCHOEPFLIN, NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. You might have seen Rory McIlroy taking a wrench to his driver during the WGC-Cadillac Championship in March like he was ratcheting a lug nut off a 2016 Hyundai Veloster. He doesn’t own a Hyundai; we just like saying Veloster. Anyway, Rory could do that because he had a screw loose—on his club. Rule 4-3 states that a club can be repaired during a round if it is damaged during the normal course of play, and the repair can be done without holding things up. What Rory could not do was change…

37 MILLION  Non-golfers interested in learning how to play. SOURCE: NATIONAL GOLF FOUNDATION SENTRYWORLD GOLF COURSE STEVENS POINT, WIS. THREE YEARS AGO, architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. and team totally remodeled SentryWorld, a layout he designed in 1982. They ripped up every hole, re-routed four of them, added two new ones. But one hole they hardly touched was its famous par 3 with 45,000 blooming flowers encircling the green (below). It was created at the insistence of John Joanis, then-president of Sentry Insurance, which owns the course. When SentryWorld ($125 with cart) won Golf Digest’s first Best New Public Course award in 1984, it was the seventh hole. Today it’s the 16th. In a sense, the Flower Hole gets redesigned every year. Using petunias, snapdragons, marigolds, geraniums and other annuals…

455 MILLION Rounds played in the United States in 2015; up 1.8% from 2014. SOURCE: NATIONAL GOLF FOUNDATION If you love golf, you should love rain. It creates open tee times on crowded courses, and it keeps slowpokes and choppers at home. You have to be prepared, though. I’ve played hundreds of rounds in lousy weather, in half a dozen countries. Here’s what I’ve learned. 1 The most important piece of equipment is rain gloves. They don’t keep your hands dry, and they don’t “work better the wetter they get.” But they absolutely prevent your clubs from slipping, even in a deluge. 2 If you wear rain gloves, you don’t need to keep your grips dry, and that means you don’t need a towel. Leave it in the trunk. It’s…

IF YOU APPRECIATE METAPHOR, the best one in golf is Charles Price’s tightrope: “Tournament golf is when they raise the rope to 60 feet,” he wrote. “Championship golf is when they take the net away.” But if you prefer numbers, consider this: Since 1977, there have been 29 scores of 60 or better in regular PGA Tour events (23 60s and six 59s). In the four major championships each year since 1973, the lowest score—shot 27 times—is 63. ▶ In a regular tournament, 63 doesn’t get much attention. At the 2014 Humana Challenge, Patrick Reed shot three consecutive 63s. But if that number is shot “when they take the net away,” we pay attention. ▶ Forty-three years ago, Johnny Miller fired the first 63 in a major, at the 1973…

LIKE MANY OF YOU, the thought of hitting shots 20 or 30 yards farther led me to make changes to my swing that turned out to be more trouble than they were worth. I gained some distance, yes, but I lost a lot of accuracy, and my scoring suffered. I’ve since gone back to the way I swung the club in 2011, when I was No. 1 in the World Ranking. Now I feel like my ball-striking is pretty close to the way it used to be. The things I’m working on now with my coach, Pat Goss, are fundamentals I’m sure can help you, too. It starts at address. Feel like you’re bending forward from your hip joints but staying tall with your chest (above). Resist the urge to…

What do you do when you really need to bomb a drive? ▶ Hit up on the ball ▶ Swing harder ▶ Make a bigger turn ▶ Give it the Happy Gilmore SOURCE: GOLF DIGEST READERS When guys in particular want some extra yards, they usually stand farther from the ball and really stretch out their arms. They feel more powerful in this extended position. But the reality is, they end up producing less swing speed and hitting a weak drive to the right. Let me explain. The problem with extending your arms is, you get more bent over, and your weight moves out to your toes (above, left). When you swing from there, gravity pulls you out even farther, so you react by pulling up to save your balance.…

SMYLIE KAUFMAN AGE 24 LIVES Birmingham, Ala. STORY Won 2015 Shriners Hospitals for Children Open; was in final pairing Sunday at 2016 Masters. FUN EVEN IN DEFEAT The Masters was so cool. That last round really stunk, but the crowd and how loud it was, the roars, is something I won’t ever forget. I got to watch Jordan Spieth and just see what it was kind of like. So I’m going to try to build on it, and I’ll see what I can do. STAYING ON POINT I’m a competitor in all that I do. I was a point guard in high school in Alabama, and we won a state title. What can I say? I like to win. One of the cool kids After I won in Vegas I…

Through 37 years and multiple majors as Oakmont’s head professional, Bob Ford has been as much a fixture at the club as the Church Pews bunker or the sprawling, Tudor-style clubhouse. This June’s Open, Oakmont’s record ninth, will be Ford’s fourth—and his finale at the historic club. For the past 16 years Ford, 62, has been doing enviable double duty at two of the country’s most prestigious private clubs: summers at Oakmont in the Pittsburgh suburbs and winters at Seminole in Juno Beach, Fla. But come year’s end, Ford will step aside from the position he has held at Oakmont since 1979. Ford started as a 19-yearold working the month of the 1973 U.S. Open for Lew Worsham, the 1947 Open champion who preceded him as Oakmont’s pro. Ford recalls…

When the U.S. Open returns to Oakmont Country Club June 16-19, there will be much talk about history—the legendary rounds of Jones and Hogan, the Nicklaus-Palmer playoff of 1962, Johnny Miller’s final-round miracle of 1973. But don’t expect to hear much about a lessnoble part of the club’s legacy: the fact that for 88 years, like so many of the country’s most prestigious golf clubs, Oakmont did not admit African-Americans. ▶ It was a tradition Oakmont stood by even after Alabama’s Shoal Creek was almost stripped of the PGA Championship in 1990 over its discriminatory policies. In the wake of that controversy, George Thompson, a club spokesman and former president, suggested that Oakmont had to decide whether to defend its right of “free association” even if it meant no longer…

3 MILLION Golfers under age 18. Up 20% from 2010. SOURCE: NATIONAL GOLF FOUNDATION Parking your tee shot in the sand on a par 4 or par 5 doesn’t have to sentence you to a bogey or worse. You can execute fairway-bunker shots with consistency if you focus on stability at address and control during the swing. There’s one overriding swing thought you should use: Hit the ball solidly. Follow these four steps to set up success in the sand. David Leadbetter operates 25 golf academies worldwide. 1. STABILIZE Twisting your feet a little into the sand will give you a good, solid foundation over the ball. Also, roll your ankles inward slightly. This will prevent you from swaying during the swing. These adjustments help facilitate solid contact. 2. GRIP…

‘Favor your lead foot to hit a good pitch shot.’ Putting the time in to improve your full swing is important, but for pure return on practice investment, the short game is where you’ll get the quickest deduction from your scores. You hit more of these kinds of shots than any other, and the fixes and adjustments required are things any player can handle physically. Make these changes to your pitching and chipping and spend an hour at the shortgame practice area at your course, and you’ll be hitting it closer to the hole more consistently by this weekend. Best of all, you can do it with the clubs you already have in your bag. —WITH MATTHEW RUDY Alex Fisher, one of Golf Digest’s Best Young Teachers, is the director…

Situation: You need to knock it inside 10 feet. What shot do you want? ▶ 40-yard pitch from the fairway: 32% ▶ 40-yard pitch from light rough: 25% ▶ Greenside bunker shot: 22% ▶ Full sand wedge: 21% SOURCE: GOLF DIGEST READERS If you want to be a better player, copy what better players do. When tour pros need to hit a greenside shot that stops quickly, they almost always grab a club with a lot of loft. They make the ball stop by hitting it high more than trying to spin it. You might be nervous about the idea of using your sand wedge outside the bunkers, but it’s easier than you probably think. The sand wedge is the heaviest club in your bag, so it can power through…

Is there a better way to get your clubs from Point A to Point B? Planning a road trip this summer? If your travels involve an airline, you might be in for a surprise at check-in. Nearly across the board, airlines have been jacking up fees for luggage. Some have also fiddled with weight requirements, which can result in even bigger fees for golf travelers. Airlines often waive these irritating add-on charges for people who use airline-branded credit cards, or who have elite frequent-flyer status. But for everybody else, it’s worth paying careful attention when shopping for a ticket these days. That low fare you found might actually be a higher fare in disguise. Weight restrictions are a particular trouble spot. Most airlines set the maximum allowable weight for checked…

In the roughly 1½ seconds it takes to make a golf swing, you’re asking a lot of yourself if you’re trying to consciously monitor body and club positions. Watching video of your swing isn’t super useful, either, without a qualified instructor at your side. So what can you do? When you’re on the range or waiting to hit your next shot, one of the easiest and most informative ways to improve is to hit the pause button at various points in your swing and check what you’re doing. This will give you great feedback and help you know if you’re in the right places—or what you need to improve—to hit a solid shot. ▶ I don’t want to make this too complicated, so here I’m going to give you five…

AS THE U.S. OPEN approaches, Oakmont Country Club begins to bring its greens into compliance with the exacting championship standards of the United States Golf Association—by slowing them down. That’s what the club’s members mean when they say that if you want to see the course when it’s truly challenging, you have to visit not during the Open but during the men’s member-guest. I believe them. I’ve played Oakmont just once, in 1995, and I don’t care if I never play it again. “We like to punish the members and traumatize the guests,” the club’s president said 15 years later, when I was still recovering from my round. Shortly before I played Oakmont, I watched highlights from the previous year’s Open, which Ernie Els had won. The fairways during that…

Before we get started, big thanks to the United States Golf Association for their treatise, “Steps to Make Your Course Unaffordable,” published December 2015 in the Green Section’s corner of the governing body’s website. What, you didn’t see it? Well, fearing the obscurity that often befalls such brilliant posts— there’s no deeper rough than the Internet—more than the golfing public’s inability to detect sarcasm from an organization typically characterized by the serious cut of its blue blazers, we thought we’d go ahead and appropriate their message here, in the weight and permanency of print, in usage just shy of plagiarism. ▶ Bunkers: The more the merrier. Especially the really steep ones with complex shapes. Trim, rake and water each by hand. The sand consistency will never be uniform, but at…