Innehållsförteckning för Dec-15 från Golf Digest

When I was a young man and just starting to kick around at Golf Digest, I was often introduced as an “Evans caddie scholar.” Wrong on three counts, I’d protest. I had once met Chick Evans, but I was not one of his foundation’s award winners. I had never caddied in my life, if you don’t count the time I drove a getaway cart in a big-money match at the muny of my misspent youth. And by no means or description was I ever a scholar. While a journalism student at Northwestern in the 1970s, my curiosity led me to looking up Chick Evans in the Chicago phone book, calling him and visiting his Lincoln Park apartment on a fall afternoon. He was in his late 80s by then and…

It takes only one good shot to make an easy par. I try to design into nearly every par 4 the following situation: To get in position for an easy par, the golfer must hit at least one good shot. That good, bold shot can either be with the tee ball or the approach. If your strong suit is driving, maybe you take on more difficulty from the tee. But sometimes it’s more sensible to play a conservative first shot and then take your chances with a tougher second. Any hazards and the condition of the turf should help you decide. Take the ninth hole at Sherwood Country Club (shown), just northwest of Los Angeles. The farther the tee shot goes, the narrower the fairway gets. Pull off an aggressive…

You’ve just hit a great drive on a par 5, and now you have a choice: Play a medium iron safely up the fairway, short of a water hazard, or blast a fairway wood over it. Let’s say it’s a 220-yard carry. That might be a stretch, but the ball is sitting up so nice. You think, What to do? You grab your 3-wood and whale away. But you catch it a little thin, and the ball skips across the water a couple times—then down it goes. When you’re facing a long water carry, you’ll tend to tighten up. A short, fast swing is the typical result. Beware of taking a stranglehold on the club, tightening the wrists, which sets up an incomplete backswing. It’s hard to hit it solid…

SEI YOUNG KIM AGE 22 LIVES SOUTH KOREA STORY WON TWICE IN HER ROOKIE SEASON ON THE LPGA TOUR. STARTING STRONG When I began the season, I had a goal of winning three times in 2015. After two wins by April, I’ve slowed a little. But still, to be in the top 15 in the world as a rookie is exciting. LIFE ON THE ROAD Good friends, like Kelly Shon, helped me transition to tour life. There’s a group of us from South Korea who are close. It’s nice to just relax and talk. TOYS FOR THE FUTURE One day, I’ll buy a nice car for myself. I love Porsches and the BMW i8. But for now, I need to focus on golf. —WITH STEPHEN HENNESSEY Studying the mark I…

Tendons connect muscles to bones, and when you do things like put a death grip on a golf club and hit an entire pyramid of range balls, the muscles around your elbows often become bruised or torn. The acute pain you feel on the inside (golfer’s elbow) or outside (tennis elbow) of the joint “is a very common problem for golfers,” says Golf Digest fitness advisor Dr. Ara Suppiah. The following are his recommendations for treatment and rehabilitation. TREATMENTS Reduce the pain by icing the area for 20 minutes every so often during the first few days while taking doctor-approved, anti-inflammatory drugs like naproxen sodium (Aleve), Suppiah says. Wearing a compression sleeve or brace can increase blood flow and healing agents to the area. Some braces are even designed for…

1 Microsoft Band/myRoundPro The free TaylorMade roundtracking GPS app works with the fitness band so you can check strokes gained tee to green and your heart rate on those flop shots. microsoft.com / $250 2 ClubHub These gripcap sensors transmit all sorts of data (GPS yardages, swing speed, face angle, tempo, full-swing animations) to a smartphone so golfers can analyze every swing they make. clubhubgolf.com / $500 3 Arccos This round-tracking/GPS system can map every shot just like the PGA Tour’s Shot Tracker, and golfers can share their rounds, blow by blow. It also tracks skill level in every aspect of the game. arccosgolf.com / $300 4 VPAR Tour players aren’t the only ones who want leader-board updates, so this app offers a live-scoring function for any tournament or competition.…

Ali Krieger is just getting started as a golfer, and one thing the U.S. Women’s soccer star needs from tee to green is teammates. “I’m so used to playing a team sport, I could use their motivation and support on the golf course,” she says. “I’m just not very good yet individually.” Krieger, 31, started all seven matches for the 2015 Women’s World Cup champions, and while playing for the Washington Spirit in the National Women’s Soccer League during the summer she spent a few evenings hitting balls at Topgolf in Northern Virginia. Ali recalls winning her share of family putt-putt battles during Myrtle Beach vacations, but she’s targeting some more lucrative golf competitions. “I want to get good enough so I can play in Mia Hamm’s golf tournament for…

1. JOSH SCOBEE +2.5 Ex-Steelers kicker was top active athlete (third) at Tahoe’s American Century Championship in July. 2. TYLER CLIPPARD +1.9 Bespectacled reliever (blue frames for Mets) wears glasses for golf, too. 3. JOHN-MICHAEL LILES +1.6 Carolina Hurricanes defenseman played high school golf. 4. MATT RYAN +1.2 As documented on YouTube, Falcons QB is more proficient in charity golf than singing “Sweet Caroline.” T-5. DEREK ANDERSON +0.6 Panthers backup QB plays at Whisper Rock in Scottsdale. T-5. CAL CLUTTERBUCK +0.6 Islanders RW loves Pebble but plays more at Lookout Point in Ontario. T-7. JOE PAVELSKI +0.4 Sharks center hosts an event to support youth hockey. T-7. KYLE WILLIAMS +0.4 Bills Pro Bowl DT, who played at LSU, belongs to Squire Creek in Louisiana. T-9. SAM BRADFORD 0 Eagles QB…

I’ve come out in the top 15 in driving distance on tour the past several years, so the driver is sort of what I’m known for. But power is really an asset with the irons. My stock 7-iron flies 190 yards, but when I need to get at a tucked pin I can push it to 205. I also can dial it back to about 150, which I’ve done at British Opens to keep the ball under the wind. A 55-yard differential with a single club can make for a versatile weapon. Whatever the range is with your irons, I’ll show you here how to manage the short and long ends of it. THE CONTROL SETUP Growing up in Kansas, where the wind can howl, I learned that a low,…

A. ESN WR72 A week in advance, you can set your tee time. Seven minutes before that tee time, the watch will go into golf mode and search for the course. You just select the course. PRICE $230 B. CALLAWAY GPSync Watch The course is a great place to ignore your phone. But in case something important happens, this watch syncs with your phone so calls and emails pop up. PRICE $230 C. GARMIN Approach S5 The color touchscreen keeps things simple. Of the watches we tested, this one also has the largest database of courses. PRICE $350 D. BUSHNELL Neo XS Half the battle of avoiding hazards is knowing how far away they are. This watch shows distances for up to four hazards a hole. PRICE $200 E. SKYCADDIE…

You’ve probably been told to shift your body weight to your front leg on the downswing. That’s all good in theory, but many amateurs exaggerate this lower-body shift to the point where they’re forced to hang back with the upper body to make contact with the ball. A better way to go about this is to imagine you’re moving like a baseball pitcher. Instead of thinking Get to the left side, think Get off the right side. A pitcher’s trail foot is firmly planted against the rubber strip on the mound throughout the throwing motion. It’s used as leverage to get the trailing side of the body to move aggressively toward home plate and help generate more speed for the pitch. You should mimic this throwing action as you swing…

On the Golf Channel last spring, longtime tour pro John Cook demonstrated Jordan Spieth’s crosshanded putting technique, and narrowly missed a seven-footer on a practice green on the set. Then Cook discussed what’s probably the most talked-about element of Spieth’s method: the fact that he sometimes looks at the hole, instead of the ball, as he putts. “For myself, I don’t really understand that,” Cook said. But he gave it a go anyway—and sank the sevenfooter he’d just missed. Well, hmmm. I myself started looking at the hole, on all putts, seven or eight years ago, after reading about a study in which a group of amateurs had surprised researchers by putting significantly better that way, despite having been given minimal opportunity to rehearse. Even more surprising, the improvement was…

‘IT’S NICE TO HIT AND NOT BE HIT BACK.’ In a much-hyped Dec. 12 payfor-view event in Las Vegas, Ultimate Fighting Championship middleweight Luke Rockhold will fight champ Chris Weidman for the title using the mixed martial arts skills that have him on a fourwin streak. Regardless of the outcome, Rockhold expects to recuperate by playing a lot of golf near his home in Santa Cruz, Calif. “It’s nice to hit and not be hit back,“ he says. To hear the fiercely com-petitive 6-foot-3, 185-pounder tell it, martial arts and golf have much in common, even if one is contested in an eightsided cage (or Octagon, in UFC parlance) and the other in open spaces. To excel at either pursuit one must have core strength, balance, power—and the ability to…

Even in the well-buffered world that is golf—even in our world, in other words—it’s a wonder that some kids make it. ▶ Malachi Zeitner, son of an Iowa golf professional and the nephew of another, lost his mother to drugs and jail when he was not much more than a toddler. When he was 8, his father, Brandon, got married to another woman and moved to Chicago, where he took a job as an assistant pro, and, when the marriage failed, succumbed to an alcoholic habit he’d kept secret from his family. He died in 2007. Malachi, then 12, moved back to Sioux City, Iowa, to live with his grandparents and might still be there if it weren’t for a meeting about caddies his uncle attended in Ohio, and the…

I see this mistake all the time: Slicers come to a hole with trouble on the right and tee up in the middle of the tee box. Thirty seconds later they’re watching the ball peel off into the junk. The problem is, they’re setting up to hit a straight drive, looking down the middle of the fairway, instead of playing for a left-to-right shot. If you fight a slice, tee your ball on the far right side, next to the right tee marker. That gets your eyes looking down the left side of the hole. Looking straight brings all that trouble into view, which basically draws you to it. You need to start your ball to the left, so get your eyes tracking that way from the beginning. After you…

If you’re able to pitch the ball accurately around the greens, you’ll shoot lower scores. My A Swing can be used for pitch shots with great results—all you need to do is make a few adjustments. Start by thinking of the pitch swing as a mini version of the full swing. Follow these steps to develop your pitching technique and watch your scores drop. David Leadbetter, author of The A Swing, operates 25 golf academies worldwide. SOURCE: GOLF DIGEST R EADERS 1. OPEN THE CLUBFACE The unique motion of the A Swing—with a more upright takeaway— initially puts the clubface in a closed position. To compensate for this on short shots like pitches, point the clubface slightly right of the target before taking your grip. 2. TWEAK YOUR STANCE From…

Having to repeat a sand shot because of a failed attempt is the absolute enemy of good scores. To avoid that, you need a basic greenside bunker shot that will get you on the putting surface every time. In the bunker, set up so the sand wedge can do what it was designed to do: Glide along the surface of the sand. Open your stance and the clubface and set the ball forward of center to get the club pre-set to skid this way. The open stance will encourage a slightly steeper swing, which will allow you to get under the ball. Don’t skimp on the length of your swing back and through. The sand will resist when you hit it, so it’s important to keep your speed up all…

AGE 22 RESIDES Dallas FROM CLOVIS, Calif. NOTED A senior physics major at Southern Methodist. Fifth golfer to win the U.S. Amateur and the NCAA Championship in the same year (joining Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods and Ryan Moore). Received academic honors from the American Athletic Conference. Developed his golf swing after reading the 1979 instruction book The Golfing Machine. “I just had this feeling I could accomplish special things one day.” MY HOGAN CAP has become my signature look. I saw one at a junior event in a golf shop at age 13. I loved the unique look and knew golfers like Ben Hogan and Payne Stewart used to wear them, so I put it on. I won my next event and have worn one ever since. I…

If you want to know why today’s fairway woods (left page) and hybrids produce longer shots, brush up on your science. Specifically, metallurgy. Many new designs use exotic steel alloys in the face to improve ball speed. Their names (455, 475, HT1770, C300) and geeky ingredients (molybdenum, anyone?) might sound dull, but their properties are white hot. These metals have what’s called “high tensile strength,” which means they can endure a lot of stress (sometimes 250,000-plus pounds per square inch) before failure. The greater the strength, the thinner companies can make a clubface, which means more flex and less weight. (That saved weight can be used to preserve stability on off-center hits, control spin and enhance energy transfer.) Those are good reasons to like these metals, but here’s a better…

STEPHEN CURRY Submerged in an ice bath after a two-hour workout that included 300 made shots from all over the floor, Stephen Curry smiles and says through chattering teeth that he can hardly wait to play golf tomorrow. Between winning the NBA championship in mid-June and returning to training camp for the 2015-’16 season in late September, Curry played a lot less golf than he preferred. He and wife Ayesha welcomed their second child, daughter Ryan, in July. Then he took corporate trips to Japan, the Philippines, China, New York and beyond. There was also a family vacation in Mexico, an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and a round of golf with President Obama on Martha’s Vineyard. “It’s been absolutely crazy,” Curry says, “but I’m blessed to…

1 What are millennials, exactly? The most important group of human beings in history, age 20 to 35, and thin. They’re the new guys at your club who say the course is too short and your dress code is prehistoric, meaning pre-Windows 10. Every golf company in America loves millennials, who are so totally high-tech they can understand most driver ads. 2 Are they pretty much all alike? No. There are two types: Entrepreneurial Millennials (EMs) are rich. They start and sell companies like Cub Scouts sell donuts. Broke Millennials (BMs) flock to work for them at “start-ups,” which are basically Junior Achievement projects with serfs. In the time it took to read this, an EM joined your club, added an assessment and lengthened the fifth hole by 50 yards.…