Innehållsförteckning för August 2016 från Golf Digest

In a year when brash talk is getting so much coverage in the media, it’s ironic that the brashest talker of them all slipped away without a word. Muhammad Ali died at 74 from the ravaging effects of Parkinson’s disease, and even golf paused for a moment of silence. The heavyweight champion was never known to be a golfer except for one afternoon in March 1973. He was training for a fight against Ken Norton in San Diego. One day Ali showed up at the Stardust Country Club (now the Riverwalk Golf Club) near his training camp. The associate pro, Brad Wilson, would later write an article for Golf Digest on his encounter. Wilson was watching San Diego Chargers defensive end Deacon Jones hit balls on the range when Ali’s…

Whether it’s first-tee jitters, the deciding shot on 18 or a round with the new boss, you might be destined for failure before you even take the club back. Anxiety can prevent you from making a full and fluid swing and can corrupt good mechanics. The key is to recognize when it’s happening so you can deal with it. Here are four steps you should try. David Leadbetter is a Golf Digest Teaching Professional. 1. HOVER IT When you sole the club on the ground, you’ll tend to push down on it. That increases the tension in your hand and arm muscles. Instead, hover the clubhead an inch or so above the turf. 2. SOFTEN UP Stop worrying about your grip pressure. Focus on how relaxed your arms feel at…

You miss the fairway by a yard or two and find yourself with a perched lie in the first cut. Sweet, right? You feel like you could launch a driver off that lie. The challenge is that if you take your normal swing, you risk sliding under the ball and making contact on the top part of the clubface. There’s no power there. You get kind of a sickening, hollow impact, and the ball comes out with no zip. The reason that happens is, when you drive your legs on the downswing, it causes the clubhead to move down into the turf. That’s great when you have a normal lie, but when the ball is fluffed up, you have to make a few adjustments. First, stand taller at address and…

If you’re like us, you’ve reached the point where what you really need more than anything in your life is 15 more yards. Like now. Forget about lessons, diet or exercise. Those things take time. You want something you can order online or shop for on QVC. You want a Phil Mickelson kind of insider-trading distance tip that you can cash in before Saturday morning. Pills, voodoo, an injection of any kind, whatever it takes, but you need those pop-ups to start turning into home runs, pronto. So we surveyed equipment experts, including some of Golf Digest’s 100 Best Clubfitters, to find instant cures to boost your performance. Maybe each one isn’t for you, but trying out two or three or even four will likely save your season and have…

Although rare, it’s possible to play lights out—for good. In 2014, 30,047 people visited the emergency room with golf-course-related injuries and 15,225 more as a result of a golf-cart “incident.” We learned this in our effort to determine the odds of dying on a golf course. Unfortunately, after consulting with an expert in risk management at Harvard University and poring over obituaries and data from the Centers for Disease Control, we determined that the figure is undeterminable. Too many variables. The best we could come up with is that it’s somewhere far south of 0.5 percent. That’s the good news. The bad news? Some golfers have died in horrible ways. Here are the 10 most bizarre on-course deaths we found. 1. A man in Ireland was searching for his ball…

EDITOR’S NOTE Amy Cuddy, Ph.D., is a social psychologist and associate professor at Harvard Business School. Her 2012 TED Talk, “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are,” has been viewed 34 million times. Published in December 2015, her best-selling book Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges analyzes how posture affects performance. Assistant Editor Keely Levins interviewed Cuddy on her theories and how they apply to golf. Q Your TED Talk and your book focus on power posing. What do we need to know? People tend to think body language is about communicating with others, not with the self. Body language is really about what your body is saying to you, not what you’re saying to other people. When you use your body to respond to situations, especially stressful…

WHEN IS IT? The men’s event is Aug. 11-14, and the women’s event is Aug. 17-20. Both will be played on the newly constructed Olympic Golf Course in Rio de Janeiro. WHAT’S THE FORMAT? Seventy-two holes of individual stroke play with no cut. There’s no team element. Essentially, it’s like a World Golf Championships event. One difference, however, is the possibility of playoffs to determine gold, silver and bronze medals. WHAT’S AT STAKE? Besides national pride and everlasting glory, the gold medalists will receive exemptions into professional majors: four tournaments for the men’s winner in 2017 and five for the women (the Evian Championship in 2016 and four majors in 2017). HOW DO YOU MAKE THE TEAM? If you’re just learning about this, it’s probably too late for you. The…

Here’s the dilemma Gil Hanse faced building the Olympic Golf Course, a municipal layout required to double as a championship venue. Defend par too strenuously, and he’d be accused of providing something too tough for public consumption. Err on the side of playability, and he’d be labeled a pastry chef who produces only cream puffs. To balance his design, Hanse did what the greatest golf architects have done for more than a century: He sought to test a professional golfer’s mental acumen and physical skills with a course that looks simple but contains complexities not readily apparent. As Hanse explained to an audience at a USGA Golf Architecture Symposium in April 2015, he’d tried to emulate the philosophy of the great Sandbelt courses like Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath in…

‘I GET MAD AY MYSELF. AND I’M VOCAL ABOUT IT.’ Ross, 34, won a silver medal in the 2012 Olympics with beach volleyball partner Jennifer Kessy. This year, Ross is teaming with Kerri Walsh Jennings, who with Misty May-Treanor won the gold medal in 2012. Ross grew up in Newport Beach, Calif., and was a star for the University of Southern California women’s team before starting her professional career. She says she’s a pretty good putter and is comfortable, not surprisingly, in the sand. MY FIRST GOLF EXPERIENCE WAS IN NORWAY. I was new on tour, and Todd Rogers, who organized the Norwegian tournament, got players together to play with some VIPs. I told Todd, “I’ve never golfed before, but if you want me to, I’ll do it.” They gave…

My technique in greenside bunkers comes courtesy of Butch Harmon. With his advice over the years, I’ve boiled this shot down to a few easy steps that make getting out of the sand routine for me. I’ll share them with you here—and show you my favorite bunker drill. I posed for these photos at Corona del Mar State Beach in Southern California because I wanted to emphasize that bunker play shouldn’t be scary. OK, maybe it’s no day at the beach, but you shouldn’t feel like getting in the sand sentences you to a double or triple. Here’s how I get out. STARTING LINES First, let’s look at my favorite drill because it helps to understand the geometry of bunker play. The line between my feet represents ball position: just…

We’ve heard plenty about how today’s drivers reduce spin. Now some models are touting extremely low spin, designed for high-swing-speed golfers who prefer a smaller clubhead that’s often heavier. But we wondered what you’re really giving up. With the help of the Golf Laboratories swing robot, LDRIC, we compared low-spin and standard models of several drivers at three swing speeds: 80 miles per hour (seniors and better women), 95 (average men) and 110 (elite). The lowspin drivers reduced spin by an average of 18 percent overall and as much as 25 percent at the highest speeds. Still, because at lower speeds spin is less crucial to distance than launch angle, the low-spin drivers only produced about three more yards in distance at 80 and 95 mph. At 110 mph, the…

From smartphones to range finders to fitness bands, most of us carry more megabytes than golf balls when we play. But what’s allowed by the Rules of Golf? During the past decade, rules-makers have had to adjust the do’s and don’ts of Rule 14-3 (Use of Artificial Devices and Unusual Equipment/Abnormal Use of Equipment) multiple times to stay current with technological advances. This includes significant changes that were enacted in January. Given the prolific use of electronics on the golf course today, you’re no longer automatically disqualified if you violate Rule 14-3. Instead, you’re charged with a two-stroke penalty in stroke play, or a loss of hole in match play, for your first violation during a round. Break the rule again, and you’re disqualified. For an update of Rule 14-3…

KNOCK IT DOWN Generally speaking, you don’t want to hit a wedge shot higher than it’s necessary to carry an obstacle or stop it near the hole. Sending the ball sky-high just makes it harder to be accurate. This philosophy certainly holds true when you play in the wind. When I prep for the British Open, I spend time working on hitting lower shots into those firm and undulating greens. Not only do I want to keep the ball from getting knocked down too soon when I’m going into the wind, I want to get it to check up on the green when the breeze is behind me. To accomplish either of these things, you need to make the right club selection and alter your normal full-swing technique. I’ll walk…

Lochte, 31 (left), and Jones, 32, are swimming gold medalists who are lured by golf when they’re not training in the pool. Lochte, of Daytona Beach, has won 11 medals (five gold) in three Olympics, including gold in the 400-meter individual medley and the 4 x 200 freestyle relay at London in 2012. Jones, of Charlotte, has four medals, including a gold in the 4 x 100 freestyle relay at Beijing in 2008. Lochte plays more golf than Jones, but both see the game occupying bigger parts of their lives once the Summer Games in Brazil are over. LOCHTE I’d rather shoot an even-par round than win a bronze medal. JONES There’s no such thing as bronze medals. We don’t like those. JONES The U.S. Olympic Training Center is in…

Whatever the future of golf in Brazil, the real impact of a sport’s inclusion in the Olympics is certain to be much broader. There are large swaths of this planet where the game is still barely known. Becoming an Olympic sport can and does lead to increased governmental funding and the creation or expansion of programs to attract new players. Recall that tennis returned as an Olympic sport in 1988, a moment at which its participation in the United States was beginning to decline. In that year, 147 countries were members of the International Tennis Federation. Now, 28 years later, the number is 211. More telling are the draws in the majors. In 1988, the men’s singles draw at Wimbledon had 25 countries represented. In 2015, there were 44. Among…

“If you miss a shot here, you can’t make it up.” Baltusrol Golf Club, which this summer hosts the PGA Championship for the second time, has a bunch of great holes. But I’d say the par-5 17th on the Lower Course (illustrated) is the most strategically interesting. Right away, the yardage lets you know this is a true three-shotter. It’s 647 yards from the championship tees with an uphill finish to the green, so only gorillas have any chance of knocking it on in two. (John Daly was the first to do it, during the 1993 U.S. Open.) Most par 5s allow you to make up for a weak shot with a strong one, but that luxury doesn’t exist here. Miss the tee shot, and the hole effectively becomes a…

Falling in love with the line is a dangerous thing. Facing a long putt with a lot of break, you know that getting down in two is usually just fine. But you’re really seeing the line on this one, so you step in thinking you could make it. As soon as you hit the putt, you realize it’s way short. There’s a term for what you just did: “falling in love with the line.” You concentrated so hard on the break, you neglected the speed. When I was a kid, my brother and I would practice putting for hours while we waited to get on a packed golf course. We learned by trial and error that distance control is more important than direction on long putts. Even the ones with…

A big key to getting the bottom of your swing in the right place—which is how you make solid contact—is to complete your turn through the shot. That means getting your belt buckle to move around and point to the target. You can try to fake it and flip your arms up and around after impact, but to do it right, you need to keep turning and shift your weight to your front leg. Your back leg is a kickstand for balance. What happens if you don’t get all the way there? It puts the bottom of your swing arc farther back, probably behind the ball. Unless you make some other compensation in your swing, you’re going to mis-hit the shot. To feel the right movement, take some deliberate, half-speed…

Jamming out I love country music. Reba McEntire, George Strait and Thomas Rhett (right) are my favorites. BROOKE HENDERSON AGE 18 LIVES Smiths Falls, Ontario STORY Won 2016 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in a playoff over Lydia Ko. WAVE YOUR FLAG When they announced golf was back in the Olympics, I wasn’t close to qualifying. It motivated me to play my best and make the team. The last golfer to win the gold medal was a Canadian, George Lyon. So it’d be super cool to bring the gold back home. ATHLETIC GENES I gave up hockey when I was 12. I was a goalie like my dad, who played in college. I’m not sure if playing hockey has helped me in golf. But I take a rip at the ball…

In early May, 11 friends and I spent a week playing golf in western Ireland. On the plane to Shannon, I read Boomerang, Michael Lewis’ 2011 book about the global financial crisis. Lewis explains how the Irish, beginning in the 1990s, went from being some of the poorest people in Europe to being some of the richest people in the world, and then went back to being poor again—in effect, by lending themselves billions to buy rope to hang themselves with. As soon as our plane had landed, I switched my brain to golf. But lingering signs of economic folly were impossible to overlook. As we approached Lahinch from Ballybunion, on the third day of our trip, we drove through a blighted landscape of bubble-era “holiday homes,” some of which…

Those who judge athletic excellence strictly on the basis of “faster, higher, stronger” are probably doubtful that golf is good for the Olympics. But anyone who has ever included “farther, straighter, fewer” in the criteria is likely to believe that the Olympics are good for golf. ▶ How much the game will benefit by its return—after 112 years—to the world’s greatest sporting event is to be determined. With the opening ceremonies of the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro on Aug. 5, we’re finally about to find out. ▶ The run-up to Rio hasn’t been smooth, in part because the world’s best players are used to tournament hosts acutely attuned to their preferences. But also because of real-life problems, the decision to go to Brazil has seen a lot of…

‘WHEN WE PLAY, A TYPICAL BET IS A THOUSAND PUSH–UPS.’ Snyder, 20, had a 179-0 record as a high school wrestler and is a member of the Ohio State team. The Woodbine, Md., native won the Olympic Trials at 97 kilograms (213 pounds) and captured the 2016 NCAA Championship at heavyweight (285 pounds) despite being the lightest wrestler in the division. He comes from a large family of golfers. Uncle Timmy, a lifelong caddie, is the one who got him hooked. I CAN HIT THE BALL PRETTY FAR, but my best attribute as a golfer is shaking off bad shots. In a wrestling match, you have only six minutes, so if something goes wrong you need to get past it and move on, or you’re done. OUR WRESTLING TEAM HOSTS…