Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2015 i Golf Australia

GOLF’S popularity has been called into question in recent years, with various domestic and international reports suggesting the game has lost its mojo with memberships dropping and a significant number of clubs feeling the financial pinch. The game’s administrators in this country – Golf Australia and the PGA of Australia – whose task it is to grow the game, have not been helped along the way by sections of the mainstream media offering scant coverage because golf apparently lacks sex appeal. At a time when Australia has men and women winning on various Tours around the world, the biggest golf-related story that recently appeared in a Sydney newspaper was about the kiss Rickie Fowler planted on his girlfriend after winning the Players Championship.There was little or no mention the next…

MACK Hall,a Perth real estate agent and enthusiastic golfer, used to play cricket with Graham MacKenzie, the great Australian fast bowler of the 1960s. Playing a club match together on a typically windy summer’s day in Perth,Hall suggested his fellow fast bowler bowl his seamers into the wind while he go with the sea breeze behind.The very gentlemanly MacKenzie quickly put him in his place with a quiet,‘Why don’t you just ‘eff’ off?” Each May, MacKenzie plays the Mack Hall pro-am at Cottesloe and every year Mack tells the story. It sort of gets old but somehow it doesn’t lose much in the retelling. MacKenzie just laughs. The pro-am is on a Friday followed by the Mack Hall Cottesloe Open, an event played for first time in 1948 and with…

HOLLYWOOD actor Joe Pesci has had some great character roles during his career.Who could he be channelling here? Let us know what do you think? Submit your caption on the entry form found on our website (not in the comment box) for the accompanying photo and the best entry judged by Golf Australia’s editors will win a pair of 2015 adidas Tour 360X shoes, worth $149.The new Tour 360X shoes continue the evolution of the Tour 360 family. With its Tour-proven performance and stability unquestioned, the new model features increased cushioning and comfort. For more information visit the website www.adidasgolf.com  or call 1800 700 011 TO ENTER: Visit www.golfaustralia.com.au and click on the ‘WIN’ icon to submit your entry.Entries close July 1.The winner will be published in the…

I ALMOST always enjoy reading Huggan’s Alley in each month’s edition of Golf Australia . However, I must say, I found John Huggan’s recent column,“Bifurcation is simply common sense”, seriously lacking in the usual quality of analysis that I have come to expect from him. I suggest the only rational reason for bifurcation is to prevent the need for continual lengthening of golf courses where professional tournaments are played (which probably accounts for less than one percent of the courses worldwide), so as to roll back the increasing distances technology has delivered to pro golfers. While John touches on this point, much of the column is devoted to points that seem irrelevant to the subject. He seems to suggest that, because many golfers don’t know the rules,…

AN EXTRAORDINARY meeting took place at Traralgon in country Victoria recently to discuss the experiences of two golfers who played in a German prisoner of war camp more than 75 years ago. One of the golfers was Bombardier William Sampson from Tasmania, who was captured half frozen in the snow with his anti-tank regiment in Greece in April 1940; the other was RAF fighter pilot Oliver Green, who was shot down near Tobruk in northern Africa in 1941, nine days shy of his 21st birthday. Both ended up in Stalag Luft III, a camp for air force POWs at Sagan in Poland, 200 kilometres south-east of Berlin.To ease the boredom of prison life, the golfers in the camp built a rough, nine-hole course, which they played with a few second-hand…

WHAT OUR TESTER SAID: MODEL AND SHAFT PLAYED: Mizuno MP-H5 1-iron to pitching wedge, fitted with regular-flex graphite shafts. FIRST IMPRESSIONS: I like the design of the clubhead, especially the wide sole and the way they sit at address. I probably would have liked to see a little offset but that’s just me and the style I prefer. VERDICT: The first shot I had with the Mizuno MP-H5s was with the 1-iron and I creamed it right onto the back of the green, so that got my attention in a hurry. I found these irons to be more forgiving; I hit a couple of shots fat but the ball still behaved in the air and on the ground like a well-struck shot might. I didn’t notice any appreciable difference in…

From scratch- to 28-handicappers, every golfer says the same thing:“I want to be more consistent.” Achieving a good degree of consistency takes some application; but if the fundamental elements of your set-up and swing are flawed then no amount of practice time will yield results. In this article, we will target those fundamentals. A good, consistent golf swing is all about creating good impact conditions.The tricky thing about the swing is that because every action produces an equal and opposite reaction, it just takes a few undesirable movements early on to create bigger problems when the club meets ball. The following tips and drills will give you the ability to start and then maintain neutral positions.When your swing path moves up and down the line – with your clubface not…

PHIL’S WEDGE GRIND Five-time major champion Phil Mickelson and Roger Cleveland, Callaway’s long-time chief club designer, have teamed up to craft a wedge with the look and performance that met with Mickelson’s wishes after endless rounds of testing. The PM-Grind wedge features a unique shape with more surface area, 39 percent more groove area covering the entire face and a high toe that moves weight higher in the clubface, making it easier to hit shots out of deep rough. The PM-Grind wedge comes in 56° (13° bounce), 60° (10° bounce) and 64° (10° bounce) lofts.A 58° (10° bounce) loft is available in right-hand only. RRP: $200. Contact: Callaway Golf on 1800 217 777 or visit au.callawaygolf.com SLIM & LIGHT Garmin’s Approach S6 GPS golf watch provides golfers with…

WHAT OUR TESTER SAID: MODEL AND SHAFT PLAYED: TaylorMade AeroBurner 3-wood fitted with a stiff-flex graphite shaft. FIRST IMPRESSIONS: I’m keen to test this club because lately I haven’t been hitting my own 3-wood very well. I like the compact look of the AeroBurner clubhead – it’s almost more like the size and profile of a 5-wood than a 3-wood. It also sits nice and flush at address and has a little offset, which I like because I fade the ball. VERDICT: The TaylorMade AeroBurner 3-wood is a solid club.When you catch one out of the middle it flies well, with a good, piercing ball flight. It was comparable for carry with my 3-wood when I flush one, which I was happy with.The accuracy and trajectory were also pretty positive.Two…

TWO-TIME Open champion Greg Norman will not take his place in the field for this year’s championship at St Andrews because he “doesn’t want to take the spot” of a young player who could be the“next Greg Norman”. The Shark, who won The Open in 1986 and 1993, turned 60 this year and was eligible to take his place in the field as a past champion. But past champion exemptions, without special dispensation, conclude at 60, which means Norman won’t ever play The Open to say goodbye to his fans. Norman told BBC Sport he thought it would be unfair to rob a young aspiring star of their rightful place in The Open, when he was no chance of winning the championship. “I don’t practise anymore and to play The…

THE Open Championship returns to the Old Course in July and hopefully the weather will be kinder than in 2010 when play was suspended during the second round due to high winds. Preparation is the key to a successful golf event, whether it is the club medal or The Open.You cannot control the weather, but you can take some steps to mitigate its impact. • Obtain an accurate weather forecast and set up the course accordingly, e.g. greens that are not too fast and hole positions that are not too exposed if it’s going to be very windy, and select hole positions that are not prone to flooding if it’s going to be wet. • Have at least one member of the committee on duty who will be able to…

STANDING in the middle of Roseville Golf Club’s 14th fairway, just three metres from one of the world’s most intriguing birds, is proof positive that a well-maintained golf course and a thriving natural environment are not mutually exclusive. Roseville course superintendent Mark O’Sullivan had that exact encounter with a native lyrebird, world renowned for its incredible mimicking abilities, earlier this year and says it shows how important the course and surrounding bushland are to each other. “Both the course and the environment can be enhanced with the right management,” he says. Both O’Sullivan and general manager Noel Robertson are emphatic about the long-term culture regarding the environment at Roseville. “Everything we do has as its main driver environmental responsibility,” Robertson says.“Whether that be course works or projects involving the surrounding…

WITH a tip of the cap to the late,great New York sportswriter Jimmy Cannon: Nobody asked me, but … The guy who decided golf courses have to be immaculate was missing the point of the game. A lot of eyes narrow when Colin Montgomerie enters a European Tour locker room. Tiger Woods losing the 54-hole lead at the 2009 US PGA Championship to Y.E.Yang was the golf equivalent of Ali McGraw’s first cough in “Love Story”. Stacy Lewis saying Royal Melbourne “doesn’t reward good shots” might be the dumbest-ever comment by a really good golfer. Everyone goes on about the awful re-design of Wentworth’s West course when the horrible truth is it wasn’t that good to begin with. No one from any kind of minority background is ever going to…

Type ‘Grow the game – golf’ into your favourite internet search engine and you might be surprised by the results. On Google there are 48,200,000 matches while Yahoo says there are 22,200,000 answers. Bing falls somewhere in the middle, saying there are 36,000,000 results that are relevant to the phrase. No matter which is right, what is clear is that attempting to increase the numbers of people who play golf is at the forefront of a lot of people’s minds. Internationally, golf is a multi-billion dollar industry which extends far beyond the sale of clubs, balls and apparel. In fact, while the golf equipment market is significant, the bigger economic impact of the game is in employment, with the game providing jobs in areas as diverse as hospitality, green keeping,…

Birdie, eagle, birdie, eagle. It was Rickie Fowler’s polite way of telling his fellow professionals to keep their golf opinions firmly to themselves. After a weekend of high drama at the Players Championship, and a week of high controversy within the game, the “most overrated” man in golf left TPC Sawgrass in no doubt about his major credentials ahead of the US Open this June 18 to 21. Standing alone on the island 17th green, Fowler holed out from five feet to win the biggest title of his career, emphatically answering his critics by defeating the strongest field in golf with a back-end blitz and a wry smile. “I’d say this was a pretty big one,” smiled Fowler, just days after an anonymous poll of PGA Tour players labelled him,…

YOU could be getting better results on the course, simply by preparing yourself better before you hit off,especially on the greens. I have no doubt you are probably like most amateur golfers I see, whose idea of hitting some practice putts while they wait to tee off means dropping two balls and aimlessly hitting some 20- or 30-foot putts as they chat to a mate. If this is you, it’s no wonder you have three, four or five three-putts a round. If you want to get rid of the three-putts you need to have a practice putting green routine. Find a hole on the putting green and set yourself up about three feet from the cup. Ideally, the putt needs to be a flat one. Now, lay two clubs down…

THE dreaded shank is not an affliction restricted to mid- or high-handicappers. Every golfer can hit a shank, but the cause of that shank does vary depending on your ability and swing path. Better players generally swing the club on an inside-the-target-line path to the ball, whereas players with a higher handicap, more often than not, attack the ball with an outside-to-inside swing path. Both swing paths can result in a shank. The common thread between all players who hit a shank is they are starting their downswing from the top by doing one of three things – transferring their weight, turning their shoulders or driving their hips. If, for example, your first thought to start the downswing is to drive your hips towards the target, then the club drops…

PLAYERS CHAMPION WINNING SCORE: 12-under-par, 276 DEFEATED: Fellow American Kevin Kisner and Spain’s Sergio Garcia in a play-off. DEFINING MOMENTS: Having birdied the iconic par-3 17th hole in regulation and again in the three-hole aggregate play-off, Fowler stood on the tee facing the island green for a third time. But now it was sudden-death against Kisner, after Garcia bowed out of the running. Kisner, who had also birdied the hole twice on Sunday afternoon, hit first and watched anxiously as his tee shot just cleared the bunker and rolled down to about 15 feet. Fowler then nailed his approach into four feet, leaving an uphill putt. When Kisner’s birdie try ran out of steam and drifted below the hole leaving him with a par, Fowler moved in and made his…

THE COURSE LOCATION: Verdelho Drive,The Vines,WA.The resort is about a 45-minute drive north-east of Perth via West Swan Rd. CONTACT: (08) 9297 3000. WEBSITE: www.vines.com.au DESIGNERS: Graham Marsh and Ross Watson (1989). SLOPE RATINGS: Lakes – men: 129/126/121; women: 128. Ellenbrook – men: 125/122/121; women: 125. PLAYING SURFACES: Penncross bentgrass (greens), Greenlees Park couch (tees and fairways). COURSE SUPERINTENDENT: Dion Warr. PGA PROFESSIONAL: Mark Tibbles. GREEN FEES: Lakes $84; Ellenbrook $64 ($10 less for resort guests). THE CLUB MEMBERSHIPS: Several membership categories operate at The Vines, from full membership ($2,750 annually) through to juniors (with two categories, for ages 12 to 17 and 18 to 20) and transitional, fly-in/fly-out and country members. Corporate memberships are also available. CORPORATE GOLF: Having two courses allows The Vines to run seamless corporate…

I LISTENED recently to a radio program where the host suggested Adam Scott’s career was done because he won’t successfully switch to the short putter. He said Scott was going to be a poor putter for the rest of his playing days. I agree that Scott’s putting future with the short stick is a concern. But I disagree that his career might be over or that he won’t win again. How quickly we forget just how good his game is from tee to green. When you look at the stats from his pre-broomstick days, his short putting was a worry. It only got marginally better, on average, with the anchored putter. With most of the golf world’s so-called experts saying he is a bad putter, would it be any wonder…

FOR me,any competitive sport is at its best when there is more than one “best” player. As good as it was watching Roger Federer all those years,when Rafael Nadal worked out how to beat him,tennis became far more interesting. Golf is the same. Back in the early 1960s,a lot of the game’s appeal centred on Jack Nicklaus usurping Arnold Palmer at the top.And it has been the same since. Tiger Woods was the “next Nicklaus”.The trouble was, when Tiger began to dominate the way he did, his play was all the media ever wanted to talk about. He was amazing to observe, of course, but the gap between him and the rest was too big to sustain interest. He didn’t have a true rival, albeit the likes of Ernie Els,…

Golf Australia, the PGA of Australia and the Australian Sports Commission established MyGolf a few years ago in a joint venture aimed to develop and promote participation in golf for five- to 12-year-olds through a ten-week introductory program. Through the MyGolf program, the aim is to increase participation and engagement in golf by children, and provide a fun, accessible and satisfying introduction to golf by promoting skills development, as well as the social and fun aspects of the sport, to the wider community. Other strategies for golf development for 2015-’16 outlined by Golf Australia include, among others: • Community Instructor Program, to be launched online in partnership with the PGA of Australia; • Swing Fit Female Participation Program, which is a new national female introductory program providing a fun way…

Whether you’re a club golfer or a Tour pro trying to fly a bunker at 300, we’re all constantly searching for those few extra yards off the tee. Over the course of my career, I have gained a better understanding of the keys needed for generating power. From simple tips like adjusting your ball position, to more complex moves like transition, over the next six pages I’ll detail the areas you should focus on for huge power gains. 1 The set-up One of the biggest tendencies I see in amateurs is that they tend to have the ball position way too far back for a driver.That means they hit down on the ball, which is not the best way to achieve optimal launch conditions. I encourage most amateurs to get…

SMOOTHY DOWN UNDER Utilising Smoothy’s industry-leading suspension technology and manufacturing process, the Down Under is designed for the golfer seeking reliability and peak performance in a suspension buggy. The Smoothy suspension buggy has been designed with features that strive to safeguard the golfer from strain and injury, and maximise golf performance. It has exceptional ‘travel’ in the suspension spring system, making the load considerably lighter and easier to manoeuvre.The steel frame weight is only 8.5 kilograms, even though it has a 20-centimetre longer base frame, which provides improved stability and balance. Other features include an umbrella attachment, steel bearing wheels, and a 12-month warranty. RRP: $299. Contact: (02) 9417 4055 or visit www.underpar.com.au CLICGEAR 3.5+ The second generation Clicgear 3.5+ model delivers total performance with improvements in…

FEDERAL GOLF CLUB RED HILL, ACT RANKING: Federal ranks 48th on Golf Australia’s Top-100 Public Access Courses list, a drop of six places from the 2013 ranking. THE DEAL: Federal’s visitor green fee is $75, or $50 for nine holes. Know a member? Great! Play with them and you’ll save $25 off an 18-hole round. GOOD TO KNOW: Federal is the only course in Canberra ranked among Golf Australia’s Top-100 Public Access Courses. It is also home each spring to the Federal Open Amateur, one of the elite events on the national amateur calendar. ANECDOTALLY: Tucked over the hill from Parliament House, Federal blends a high-quality layout with a scenic setting.The course is home to countless kangaroos and the hillside layout looks directly at the Brindabella Ranges, while also bordering…