Innholdsfortegnelse for Nov 2023 - Issue 414 i Golf Australia

I have had the privilege to be in and around golf for the past four and a bit decades. I’ve played a lot of rounds of golf, here and overseas, in that time. I’ve also watched a lot of golf, particularly in my 28 years here at Golf Australia magazine. And being first-hand to that amount of golf has afforded me the opportunity to witness some incredible golf shots. The two obvious ones are Adam Scott’s play-off approach into the 10th green in almost complete darkness to set up his Masters win and Cam Smith’s from-off-the-green putt at the 71st hole at St. Andrews on his way to winningThe Open. Both incredible moments. But as I was reading Matt Cleary’s feature on the greatest shots ever played on Australian soil…

Britain’s most decorated amateur golfer and a leading figure in the sport, Sir Michael Bonallack OBE, sadly passed away recently. He was 88. The former Captain and Secretary of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews had been suffering from ill health in recent times but was able to attend the opening ceremony of the recent Walker Cup match at St Andrews where he was given a standing ovation by the many fans who were there to celebrate the centenary of the first staging of the match at the home of golf. CEO of The R&A and Secretary of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club, Martin Slumbers, said: “We are deeply saddened to hear of Sir Michael’s passing. He made a huge contribution to golf not only as…

It started in late 2016 at the World Cup in Australia. I got down there and I felt like I’d picked up a bug. It went away but then it came back again. I kept going through these cycles. One week feeling good, the next feeling bad. Tired all the time. I started to realise something was wrong. I went on a hunting trip in the fall of 2016. There’s a good chance that’s where I picked it up. I felt relief once I was diagnosed with Lyme disease. When you figure out what’s wrong, you can be treated. I never saw a tick or a bite. I just couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. It was a mystery. It took a toll on me physically and mentally.…

Like everyone else in golf, I’ve been captivated recently by the emergence and somewhat meteoric rise of Ludvig Aberg. The word “special” has been getting used a lot in reference to the young Swede, which is not surprising given the quality of his play and his results immediately after turning professional. Anyway, the rise and rise of Ludvig got me thinking. I’m like most tour pros in it takes an awful lot to really impress me. But a few players have over the years. The different ones. These are the special ones. The ones that make you stop, look and listen. Here then are the few who have done all of that for me. GREG NORMAN I spent a lot of time when I was young watching tournament golf in…

JEFFREY GUAN HOME CLUB: The Australian GC (NSW). World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR): 53. BEST RESULT: 3rd 2023 Southern and Pacific Coast Amateurs (USA), (pictured below). IF THINGS ARE GOING WELL: Thinks well beyond his years and has the game to go really low. WHEN THE PRESSURE RISES: Remains remarkably unflappable; ability to play the percentages is elite regardless of the heat. JACK BUCHANAN HOME CLUB: Glenelg GC (SA) WAGR: 116. BEST RESULT: 2nd Pacific Coast Amateur (USA). IF THINGS ARE GOING WELL: Plays with great freedom, will be chatty and can “flick the switch”. WHEN THE PRESSURE RISES: Can compound one error with another and tends to quicken his putting stroke. LUKAS MICHEL HOME CLUB: Metropolitan GC (VIC) WAGR: 304. BEST RESULT: 2019 U.S Mid-Amateur champion IF THINGS ARE…

Of course we all know about Rory McIlroy’s driving; it’s the part of his game that draws the most attention, and the biggest gasps. But underpinning the incredible consistency shown by the current World No.2 in recent years is a fantastic and underrated irons game. The ballstriking quality he demonstrates week in, week out has taken him to a lofty eighth in the current PGA Tour Strokes Gained: Approach category, gaining him almost a shot a round on the most skilled golfers in the game. Clearly, it’s not just Rory’s driving we should be trying to emulate, then. In this instruction special, elite coach Chris Ryan dissects Rory’s organised and compact motion to highlight five attributes that help make him such a skilled green finder. They can do the same…

GOLD BLEND In its basic form, the golf swing is a blend of body rotation and arm swing. Our core creates the ‘around’ element of our motion, while the arms deliver the ‘up-and-down’ part. To create efficient, repeatable motion and deliver optimal power, the two need to work in harmony with each other… a swing attribute often described as ‘connection’. When we see this in action – as with Rory – we see a swing that looks coordinated, rhythmic and powerful, with every part of the body engaged in hitting the ball. Unfortunately, when that arms-body blend is not there, we see the opposite. The movement is jerky, awkward and weak, giving the appearance and feel of a golfer fighting their swing. HOW TO TRAIN CONNECTION Let’s take a closer…

If you’re one of the millions of golfers who would like to get rid of their slice, read on. Here’s a very simple drill you can use to minimise your chances of hitting this dreaded shot (pic 1) that flies wildly away from the centre of the fairway or green. Firstly, position your left hand (for right-handers) out in front of you so the palm is pointing towards the ground. From here, just turn your body and your left arm – mimicking the follow-through of your swing – so the palm of your left hand is now pointed towards the target (pic 2). This action will help you get a better feeling of correctly re-hinging the golf club and closing the clubface through impact, instead of leaving the clubface open,…

Club fitting in golf is hardly a new concept. But fitting and club building has come along in leaps and bounds in recent years to enhance every golfer’s ability to improve and play their best golf. As some of the biggest names in golf equipment and club fitting outline over the following pages, fitting specifically to the model you are investing your money in is important, so too the balance of set makeup, when buying new clubs. And that’s the point. If you are willing to make the investment in new clubs for your game, no matter your skill level it is well worth making sure they are fitted to fast track your journey to better golf. BETTER FIT. BETTER GAME. EXPERIENCE TITLEIST GOLF CLUBS To play your best golf,…

1 CHILL OUT Carbon fibre is bought in sheets that come rolled around huge cardboard tubes. Each roll is a different type of carbon, so when put together in myriad combinations, the brand can create any one of their various shaft recipes. The carbon fibre arrives impregnated with tiny amounts of resin (glue). To keep the material at a stable and consistent temperature, all rolls are stored inside a chiller. Rolls are individually brought out of the chiller to the cutting table. 2 LASER-CUT Fujikura’s engineers create extremely complex cutting sheets for each of their individual shaft models, weights and flexes. The dimensions and pattern for each part (remember, every shaft can range from seven to 23 different pieces) is pre-programmed into a laser cutter. The computer-controlled cutter consistently and accurately cuts…

Cost: $119.95 Tested by: Callum Hill, Golf Australia writer FIRST IMPRESSIONS: I have never been much of a compression wearer; I have always struggled with the rubbing of seams and the tightness under my arms making me uncomfortable. It was evident from the instant I put on the Zerofit COLD SKIN that it differed from compression garments I have tried previously. Putting it on is the obvious first step, and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it slipped on, no squeezing and wrestling with yourself to get into it. But this didn’t compromise the skin-tight fitting once it was on. The look of the COLD SKIN is excellent; the V-neck, in particular, looks fantastic with a golf polo, not to mention you don’t have the discomfort of the garment rubbing…

MEN’S GOLF SHOES (WIDE) Designed for the all-day grinders and dawn-patrollers, destined for the feet of the dedicated that just moseyed back to the driving range after 18. They give you robust comfort and unreal energy return, whether you’re swinging through or playing through, while all-new spikes offer exceptional traction from tee to green. Plus, the old-school look will earn a knowing head nod from your peers after picking your putt out of the cup. Old-School Look Full-grain leather has a supple feel and sophisticated look, nodding to golf shoes from past generations. Locked-In Feel An internal strap stretches over then secures your foot, contouring to its shape. All-Round Response We stitched a Zoom Air unit directly to the upper instead of being set into foam, so it responds to…

It would be an exaggeration to claim an air of contentment was emanating from Marcus Fraser. But there was definitely a whiff of encouragement in the air. Sitting on the clubhouse verandah at the Fairmont course just south of the Home of Golf, Fraser had just signed for a 71, one-under-par, in the opening round of the Asian Tour’s St. Andrews Bay Championship. That score – “a solid effort” – doubled as a step in the right direction. To that point, 2023 had been a year of almost unremitting on-course struggles for the 45-year-old Melburnian. Still, that he should have endured eight missed cuts in his previous nine starts (and would fail to make the weekend in Scotland after a second 71 proved to be one-shot too many) wasn’t surprising…

TRANSITION AND LOW-POINT SHIFT Just for this section, picture the golf swing as a circle, with the clubhead swinging on a circular arc. At address, the base of this arc is pretty much at the ball. But by impact, every elite golfer – with Rory a perfect example – shifts this low point slightly forwards (towards the target) and down (under the ground) when they are hitting irons. We see this in the form of a divot, taken after the ball is struck. Promoting ball-turf contact and a powerful, compressing strike, this shift is an important element of iron technique; and one Rory sets up through the quality of his transition. DOUBLE SHIFT Watch Rory from the top and you will see two distinct movement patterns: ■ He moves laterally,…

PRESSURE-PACKED PUNCH In the first part of this article we looked at how Rory uses his transition to set up a powerful ball-turf strike. But of course the strike still has to be administered… and Rory creates it through ensuring the handle of his golf club leads the head through the strike zone. This builds forward lean into the shaft, which has two important implications for the strike: ■ It guarantees a downward attack angle, promoting a clean, crisp strike and allowing a clubface designed with loft to pile pressure into the ball. ■ It delofts the clubface, effectively turning an 8-iron into a 7-iron. STRIKE ENEMY NO.1: EARLY RELEASE It’s this impact asset that allows Rory to inject so much fizz into his iron shots. Many amateurs, though, create…

With pitching and chipping, most of the weight shifting you do actually comes with the set-up. You don’t start your swing with the weight centred, and the weight won’t shift around the fixed axis toward the inside of your back leg and through the swing to the finish on the inside of your front leg. For pitching and chipping you need to keep your lower body, aka your legs, really quiet, like Xander Schauffele is doing here. The short game isn’t about power it’s about touch and feel. For pitching the ball, the most effective way to take power out of the equation is to keep the lower body quiet. You simply don’t need leg drive to launch these shots. Shifting about 70 percent of your weight onto the front…

The 50-metre pitch is a regular shot for many of us and it should be one of the easiest shots in the game to play, but a lot of players butcher it simply by making a disconnected swing. A disconnected swing is when your arms and body don’t work together in harmony and usually results in a fat or thinned pitch shot. You should try and incorporate arms and body together, feeling like your arms swing nice and wide – back and through (pics 1 & 2) – while your upper body turns in sync with your arms and then moves towards the target on the follow-through. This is in contrast to a lot of pitch swings I see where the wrists hinge early, the downswing gets steep and digs…

THE VINES RESORT Green fee: Ellenbrook – $60 (18 holes, weekdays), $70 (weekends); Lakes – $85 (18 holes, weekdays), $90 (Sunday). www.vines.com.au LAKE KARRINYUP CC Green fee: Private club. Upon application. www.lkcc.com.au MT LAWLEY GC Green fee: Private club. Upon application. www.mlgc.com.au THE WESTERN AUSTRALIAN GC Green fee: Private club. Upon application. www.wagolfclub.com.au COTTESLOE GC Green fee: Private club. Upon application. www.cottesloegc.com SEA VIEW GC Green fee: $38 (18 holes, weekdays); $43 (weekend). www.seaviewgolfclub.com.au WEMBLEY GOLF COMPLEX Green fee: $39 (18 holes, weekdays); $46 (weekend), when booked online. www.wembleygolf.com.au MARANGAROO GOLF COURSE Green fee: $35 (18 holes, weekdays); $40 (weekend). www.marangaroogolf.com.au CARRAMAR GOLF COURSE Green fee: $35 (18 holes, weekdays); $40 (weekend). www.carramargolf.com.au WANNEROO GC Green fee: $60 (18 holes, weekdays) www.wgc.net.au JOONDALUP RESORT Green fee: $129 (18 holes, Mon-Thu,…

Overlooking the beautiful Gulf of St Vincent near Normanville on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula, the Links Lady Bay Resort has emerged as a fine golf destination. While the Jack Newton, Graeme Grant and John Spencer-designed links layout – ranked No.31 in Golf Australia magazine’s Top-100 Public Access Courses – is undoubtedly the major drawcard, there are also beaches, boating adventures and the McLaren Vale wine nearby. The resort has an overnight play and stay package where you will stay in a luxurious king spa suite where a bottle of local wine will be waiting. You will have a continental breakfast delivered to your room so you can enjoy the morning overlooking the golf course and Lady Bay. The package also includes 18 holes for two in a cart. You will…

Mizuno’s new squat, powerful, player’s ST-G driver combines the scope to optimise launch and spin with the ball speed enhancements of Mizuno’s CORTECH chamber. Two convergent weight tracks allow the ST-G to be anything from a low spin bomber, fade or draw biased or simply a more stable compact driver. “The ST-G 440cc is very stable in the category of compact driver heads. The addition of Mizuno’s CORTECH chamber greatly influenced our ability to create more consistent ball speeds across the face,” Mizuno Director of Research and Development, David Llewellyn said. The driver’s CORTECH chamber is the key to the success of this driver. It encases a stainless-steel weight with elastomeric TPU – taking stress from the clubface and creating an additional energy source. At the same time locating weight…

Ripit Grips has just launched a new putter grip that has been inspired by colourful street art of Australian artist, Happy Decay. Happy has worked with some big companies including Tesla, Prada, Porsche and Nike, and now his work – in particular, a mural to be found in Miami on the Gold Coast – features on a putter grip, called Monsters Ink. That brick canvas now wraps what Ripit it calls the “most comfortable putter grip in golf.” Bringing art to the game and changing the way its represented is what Ripit does. The Square Face variant allows your hands to be as relaxed as possible through your putting stroke and stay square at impact. The stitched seam at the rear of the grip allows for repetitive hand alignment. RRP:…

How do you reflect on your five years since winning The Open? I would say 2019 was still a pretty good year, but after that it’s been a bit of a struggle. At the time I couldn’t have foreseen what was coming, but that’s life, that’s golf. Yeah, it’s been a challenging time. Obviously, I’m still trying to work my way through it and find some form. A lot of people focus on what happened at the 2019 Masters, but is there more to it than that, because we know you also relocated to America with your family… That Masters was tough, but I don’t think the impact was as big as people made out. With moving, it was challenging at the time but you get settled pretty quickly. It’s…

Greetings from Wentworth. Covering the biggest event on the European Tour (oh, alright, DP World Tour), the BMW PGA Championship, is always one of the highlights of the Old World season. The proximity to London guarantees sizeable crowds. And the prestige of a title that has been won by many luminaries – Arnold Palmer, Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, Nick Faldo, Jose Maria Olazabal, Tony Jacklin, Ian Woosnam, Peter Alliss, Luke Donald, Rory McIlroy and Colin Montgomerie, to name but a few – means the field is way above average on a circuit that routinely struggles to tempt its biggest names away from the more lucrative clutches of the PGA Tour. Ah, but here’s the thing. While the golf played by a top-class field lacking only a sprinkling of leading Americans…

It was the Monday before the 2011 Presidents Cup and, after months of pre-event hype, the vaunted Americans were finally on the hallowed soil of the Royal Melbourne Golf Club. Gates were closed to the public and there were just a couple of lucky writers walking around with arguably one of the strongest teams ever to play representative golf. Yet because these Americans had largely been without recent tournament experience on the Sandbelt, most of the scribes – myself included – had written off their chances. How could they play on these flint-hard greens? How could they adapt in time to the bump shots required to score? How could they put aside bomb and gouge, a weekly tour tactic that’s destined for disaster at the Mecca of Australian golf? As…

PURE FREEDOM It’s not easy to show balance in a photo, but this image of Rory gives us a series of indicators as to its quality and value: ■ His downward centre of pressure remains constant, under the laces; there’s no falling into the heels or toes. ■ He retains his distance from the ball… and his posture through the strike. ■ The sensation of being balanced allows him to swing with confidence… and hit hard. It’s no exaggeration to say that if we want to understand where the wonderful freedom we all associate with Rory’s swing comes from, we need look no further than his marvellous balance. COMPENSATION: The true cost of poor balance We only tend to see the value of balance when we lose it. We all…

TAKE A LOOK AT THIS IMAGE. NOTE HOW: ■ Rory’s lead knee is lower than his trail knee. ■ His lead shoulder is lower than his trail shoulder. ■ His shoulder angle points just a couple of feet outside the ball. ■ His lead arm is marginally steeper than his shoulder angle. These four elements are all strong signs of a swing that is moving along the ideal, pitched plane or angle. This tilt helps Rory in two key ways: ■ It keeps the club on a sound, neutral path. ■ It helps him control the low point of his action, which improves strike. For the right-handed golfer, a swing that is planed too flat will tend to see the path move to the right and its low point move…

There is a real skill involved in reading greens successfully and if you can improve this aspect of your game, you will take great strides to becoming a better putter and shooting lower scores. Some of you are always conscious of slow play and, as such, don’t give your putts a proper read before sending the ball on its way. Reading the green before you putt doesn’t need to be a lengthy process and it can all start before you have even marked your ball. Start the process of reading the green as you are walking up to the green (pic 1). You can often get a better idea of the general direction of slopes from afar. Up close you can see smaller breaks, but further away you get a…

PRESENTED BY Once upon a time, it was a little-known links on Victoria’s south-west coast. Today, the links at Port Fairy is firmly entrenched among the best 50 courses in the nation. It is no longer the mystery it once was, even as recently as 15 years ago. Golfers used to ‘discover’ its delights by chance, perhaps looking for a game after trekking along the Great Ocean Road. These days, it’s not uncommon to see golfers extricating their clubs from travel covers in the car park, having specifically navigated the three-and-a-half-hour drive from Melbourne and, perhaps, further afield. Those visiting the links for the first time might be mistaken for thinking the course had been in the ground for a hundred years or more. While the club dates back to…

Most brands working with the best golfers on the planet expect to pay millions of dollars in sponsorship, as tour pro endorsement is the most expensive way to get noticed in golf. Somehow, though, Japanese shaft manufacturer Fujikura buck that trend. The high-end ‘ fibre giant has carved out such an enviable reputation for making the best, most stable shafts available (for Major champions, more than half the world’s top-10 and swathes of other tour stars), the brand are fast becoming recognised as the stock driver shaft out on tour. And somehow they’ve done it without paying a single dime or dollar to anyone using their product. So how do they do it? To find out, we took a trip to the company’s U.S headquarters in Carlsbad, California. There, we…

Cost: $379.95 Tested by: Callum Hill, Golf Australia writer FIRST IMPRESSIONS: It was a bit before my time when Ray Floyd was winning the Masters in 1976 with a Zebra mallet putter, and Nick Price was hoisting the Claret Jug at Turnberry in 1994 using similar. So, my first impression of the Zebra AIT 1 was when it came out of the box. It was the first time I had held and laid eyes on a Zebra putter, and I wasn’t disappointed. At first glance, it was different from anything I had seen or used before; the Zebra stripe pattern across the top of the putter offers a pleasant aesthetic and certainly helps with alignment. The AIT 1 is slightly heavier than other mallet putters I have tried, and I…