Innehållsförteckning för Issue 6, 2022 från Golf Digest

Me: Hello, Dan. It’s been a while. I’m surprised to see you back. Dan Jenkins: Good to see you, too, pards. The grass was greener on the other side until this offer from LIV Golf came along. Me: Hold on, Semi-Tough. Are you saying you’re taking an offer to join the Saudi tour? Dan: Well, actually, my title is Royal and Ancient Twitterer and Crown Prince of Content. They offered me so many zeroes that I said they could call me late for breakfast and I’d take it. Me: I assume you did it for the good of the game—to grow golf in emerging countries, to benefit junior golf, feed the poor. Dan: Hell, no. I did it for the money. Moo-lah. Capital M. I’ll take it any way but…

If you had to have dinner with one player every night for an entire tournament week, it would be… 1. Rory McIlroy 2. Joel Dahmen 3. Harold Varner III A rookie eager to learn the ropes of tour life should play a practice round with… 1. Phil Mickelson T-2. Jordan Spieth, Webb Simpson, Charley Hoffman A player who is in contention on the weekend should hope to be paired with… 1. Webb Simpson 2. Rickie Fowler T-3. Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa The player most likely to give another player or caddie a free lift to the next event is… T-1. Tony Finau, Rickie Fowler, Jordan Spieth  T-4. Max Homa, Justin Thomas Nobody is nicer to waiters, spotters and volunteers than… 1. Rickie Fowler T-2. Peter Malnati, Webb Simpson,…

ALMOST FROM ITS INCEPTION IN 1994, the Presidents Cup has strained to find relevance. Modeled as a familiar multiday, United States-versus-World team match-play event, it could not compete with the historic importance or intensity of the Ryder Cup, particularly because a series of European wins in the mid-1980s altered the complexion of a clash that began in 1927. American players have sometimes found the feelings of patriotic fervor and apprehension that come naturally in the Ryder Cup difficult to summon in the Presidents Cup. Lanny Wadkins famously wondered why his team had to fly “halfway around the world to Australia to play against a bunch of guys from Orlando,” referring to the number of foreign-born professionals who had taken up residence at Florida clubs. For all their individual talent, the…

+ HOW OFTEN DO YOU GET really upset for two-putting a hole? Probably not often, but cough up three shots on the green and you’re liable to lose your mind. A threeputt stays with you, and too many of them will be a real round-wrecker. Consider: The average PGA Tour player three-putts just once every 36 holes. That might be asking a lot of an amateur, but think how many strokes you’d save if you three-putted only once or twice every 18 holes. The secret to three-putting less is to become exceptionally good at two distances—three and 30 feet. Why these two? Because you have to know how to lag it close and then convert the real shorties. Let me help you with that. THREE-FOOT PUTTS READ, AIM AND COMMIT…

NATE BARGATZE TELLS jokes for a living, but it’s hard to imagine someone being more serious about golf. In addition to avidly playing and practicing amid a jam-packed touring schedule, he has gone as far as seeking professional help during a tournament. “Jason Day told me to club up, and I told him I’m playing in the Tennessee mid-am, ‘Is this illegal?’” Bargatze recalls with a laugh about texting his friend and former World No. 1. “He goes, ‘I mean, it’s wildly illegal.’ He’s like, ‘You can’t text professional golfers during a mid-amateur!’ But it was CO-VID, so I called him my virtual caddie.” Bargatze, 43, has worked hard at trying to become a great golfer. After getting into the game in his 20s, he describes his 30s as “a…

GOLF DIGEST RECENTLY SPENT TIME WITH TONY FINAU AT VICTORY RANCH, a swanky new residential development and golf course overlooking Park City, Utah. There we broke the news to him that he finished first on Golf Digest’s fourth edition of its Tour Nice Guys Ranking (see the list on page 24), and his reaction was wonderfully modest. On the range before he showed us a few shots, he took a fresh glove from its packaging and commented about how much this luxury still tickles him. This from a golfer who has cracked the top 10 in the world ranking, played on a victorious Ryder Cup team and won three times on the PGA Tour. Just an hour west of Park City, beyond the beautiful mountains, Milton Pouha (Tony) Finau grew…

LOOK AT TONY FINAU’S SWING—AND XANDER SCHAUFFELE’S, BROOKS KOEPKA’S, RORY MCILROY’S AND JON RAHM’S—AND TWO THINGS SHOULD IMMEDIATELY STRIKE YOU. FIRST, THEY’RE ALL TREMENDOUS BALL-STRIKERS AND GREAT PLAYERS. SECOND, THEY ALL HAVE NOTICEABLY DIFFERENT BACKSWINGS IN TERMS OF LENGTH AND PATH. SO IF YOU WERE LOOKING FOR AN “IDEAL” BACKSWING TO COPY FROM THESE EXAMPLES, WHICH ONE SHOULD YOU PICK? AND DOES THAT MEAN ALL THE OTHER TOUR PLAYERS ARE DOING IT WRONG? The answer is, there’s no such thing as an ideal backswing length or position; there’s only the one that works best for you. You’re probably going to look different from Tony, Rory, Brooks, etc., and different from friends in your foursome—and that’s OK as long as it matches your grip, your natural build and your level of…

+ JOHN SMOLTZ RETIRED from Major League Baseball in 2009, but the 55-year-old Hall of Fame pitcher still looks like he could suit up and get batters out. These days, however, Smoltz dominates on an entirely different playing field. Despite chronic hip and back issues from his 22 years in the bigs, he carries a plus-1.6 Index. We paired the Fox MLB lead analyst with Golf Digest 50 Best Teacher Brian Manzella for a lesson at Smoltz’s Atlanta-area home club, Hawks Ridge. “Watching him hit a few balls, it was clear John has tremendous control over the clubface,” says Manzella, who teaches at The Studio in the Sky in New Orleans. “But his swing path was too much to the right—and he was clearly afraid that using his famous right…

NO ONE IN MY FAMILY PLAYS GOLF. It wasn’t a popular sport in the small city of Ratchaburi in Thailand where I grew up. As a child, I was sick a lot. It wasn’t anything serious, but I got colds constantly. A doctor told my dad, Montree, and my mom, Siriwan, that I needed to play a sport—either golf or tennis—so I’d be outside, and I could control my own schedule. We watched golf on TV, and I chose that over tennis. Tennis requires too much running. My dad found a teacher in Bangkok. It was an hour drive each way, so we went on the weekends. My dad owns a carwash, and my mom is a hairdresser. They worked around their schedules to take me. I liked golf immediately.…

ON THE SURFACE, a leadership job at a country club might not seem so different today than it was even in the 1960s. Some clubs still chase after those “simpler” times when golf was the ultimate priority, men wore jackets instead of denim and the menu in the dining room offered whatever you wanted provided it was steak, chicken or fish. But the reality is very different. Tastes were evolving even before the pandemic turned the past two years into a work-from-home experiment for many club members. A general manager is now essentially running seven businesses—a retail shop, pool, restaurant, maintenance facility, banquet hall, fitness center and entertainment venue—for groups that range from busy professionals with young kids to retirees. Head pros must keep those groups happy with fewer assistant…

COLE HAMMER’S NAME IS HARD TO FORGET. You probably first heard it in 2015, when the 5-9, 125-pound 15-year-old was the third youngest to qualify for the U.S. Open. That was two years after Hammer committed to the University of Texas—where he would play four years and compile one of the best amateur records this side of Tiger Woods. In 2018, Hammer won the Western and Azalea amateurs, was co-medalist at the U.S. Amateur and won the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball with LSU’s Garrett Barber. In 2019, he won the Mark McCormack medal as top amateur in the world and was on the first of two winning Walker Cup teams. That June, he was a part of the Longhorn team that won the NCAA Championship. Finishing in the top five of…

AGE 30 LIVES Listowel, Ontario STORY Won the 2019 Valero Texas Open, becoming the first Monday qualifier to win in nine years. FIGURING IT OUT I graduated from Kent State with a degree in Actuarial Mathematics. Risk assessment and making good decisions are attributes that translate to my golf game. I have an analytical mind, but I don’t overdo it with the stats. It’s more about thinking things through properly. I got that from my studies. CLUB YARDS* DRIVER 290 3-WOOD 265 3-HYBRID 245 4-IRON 225 5-IRON 210 6-IRON 197 7-IRON 185 8-IRON 170 9-IRON 157 PW 145 50˚WEDGE 130 56˚WEDGE 115 60˚WEDGE 95 * CARRY DISTANCE DRIVER SPECS Ping G400 LST, 9°, UST Elements Gold 6F5 shaft, 45.25 inches, D-4 swingweight. This is an older model, but I like how the ball flies, so I’m…

GOOD BOGEY WHAT IT REALLY MEANS NO, REALLY, A BOGEY IS GOOD FOR YOU. SMART PLAY TO LAY UP WHAT IT REALLY MEANS THE ONLY PLAY WITH THOSE TOOTHPICK ARMS. GOOD CONTACT WHAT IT REALLY MEANS AT LEAST YOU MADE CONTACT THIS TIME. NICE LAG WHAT IT REALLY MEANS NO ONE EXPECTED YOU TO GET IT THERE. YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY HAVE A SWING THERE. WHAT IT REALLY MEANS UNFORTUNATELY, IT’S STILL YOUR SWING. THE GREAT THING ABOUT YOU IS THAT YOU PLAY FOR FUN. WHAT IT REALLY MEANS I STOPPED UPDATING YOUR SCORECARD AN HOUR AGO. DON'T WORRY. YOU CAN HIT. WHAT IT REALLY MEANS YOU’RE NOT REACHING THEM IN A MILLION YEARS. RIGHT LINE. WHAT IT REALLY MEANS WRONG SPEED, WRONG STROKE, WRONG CLUB, WRONG COURSE, WRONG DAY.…