Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2020 i Golf Digest

WE DON’T ALWAYS put the defending champion on the cover of our Masters Issue, but this was a foregone conclusion. The work for the cover story began the moment that fifth green jacket was slipped on Tiger’s shoulders, and the burden of a fraught decade lifted off. In the ensuing days and weeks, as the declarations reverberated across Twitter that golf was saved and would never be the same, contributing editors John Huggan and Dave Shedloski, along with GOLFTV’s Henni Zuël, quietly set about interviewing everyone who was close to the action while memories were sharp. This conscientious start was followed with a sustained effort to collect even more voices as the season wore on. Their oral history of Woods’ win (page 70), with contributions from our Daniel Rapaport and…

EVAN GEISELMAN IS ON THE SURFER’S equivalent of the Korn Ferry Tour. He’s spent the past three seasons grazing the edge but not quite dropping into the World Surf League, where you get the ultimate prize money, endorsements and glory. That dream nearly ended in 2015, when a barrel on Oahu’s famous Banzai Pipeline brought down Geiselman, snapping his leash and slamming him unconscious into unforgiving coral. If not for the immediate and brave rescue by a fellow surfer, Andre Botha, he wouldn’t have lived. “It gave me a better understanding of what to be grateful for,” Geiselman says. “To appreciate my family, my friends, my girlfriend every day.” Part of that renewed love of life involves playing more golf—which pairs nicely with the surfer’s life of traveling to sunny…

IT TAKES ZERO athletic ability to set up to the ball perfectly every time. What it does take is knowing the correct positions and having the discipline to get them right. Let’s start with the driver. Set the clubface square behind the ball, then take your stance so your feet are wider than your shoulders (right). Play the ball off your front heel, with your weight 50-50. Your head should be behind the ball, and the shaft should be neutral, not leaning forward or back. Now, want a tip for extra power? Flare out your back foot for more turn on the backswing. See the next page to learn how to set up for irons and wedges. HARMON is a Golf Digest Teaching Professional. FAIRWAY IRON SHOT CLUBFACE Square STANCE…

“When the left shoulder stops, there’s still some work to do.” THE CLOSER YOU examine tour players’ swings, the more subtleties you’ll discover. One such move is so indiscernible in real time, you have to replay it in slow motion or see a 3-D rendition to verify what’s happening. But it is happening, and it’s a big reason the best players can generate so much speed when they swing down into the ball. When you think of coiling during the backswing, you probably think it’s the rotation of the upper body against a stable lower body. But that’s only part one of how a tour player coils. Part two happens near the top of the swing, and it’s hard to see. As a good golfer’s lead shoulder (left for right-handers)…

YOU MIGHT USE YOUR USGA HANDICAP INDEX (if you have one) mostly for playing matches and betting, but what the number measures is your “regular game.”‣ And that’s good to know, but what if you want to find out what your game would look like if you were able to turn every knob up to the max? With the body, brain and talent you have, just how good could you get?‣ We set out to answer that question for you—quantitatively and qualitatively—with the help of experts in data analysis, swing instruction and sport psychology. Lucius Riccio is a sports-data researcher at Columbia University and one of the original members of the USGA committee that developed golf course Slope Ratings. James Sieckmann and Nick Clearwater are Golf Digest 50 Best Teachers…

SOME OF MY FONDEST memories of the Masters don’t involve what goes on between the ropes. As a credentialed photographer, I’m allowed to roam the course at dawn—about 15 to 30 minutes before the gates open to the public. On the best of these mornings, there’s a layer of fog that’s just beginning to lift as I enter the grounds. The grass unfolds like an emerald carpet, as beautiful and pristine as you’ve been told. The only markings are the footprints and geometric patterns formed in the dew by the grounds crew’s final preparations. The morning’s first light cuts through the haze, casting ribbons of pale gold across the humps and swells of the tee boxes and fairways. I have only minutes to make a few photographs before thousands of…

WHAT DOES IT look like in the middle of a swing-restoration project? Jorden Spieth can tell you:"I had gotten long and a little quike, and my grip had drifted very weak," he says of his former swing. "The face was open, and I had to flip it at impact to try to square it." The result? A two-year victory drought and some ugly numbers in the strokes-gained stats that Spieth focuses on. The three-time major winner and his swing coach, Cameron McCormick, have gone back to basics, starting with the grip. “Every year since I was 14, my grip would get weaker during the season, and I had to fix it in the offseason,” Spieth says. “But it got to the point where I just didn’t adjust it back enough.”…

A former citrus grove in South Florida is transformed into a private oasis. “See that field over there?” Bobby Weed says, pointing toward a few hundred acres of grassland abutting a distant tree line. “That’s my ocean.” Weed is standing outside the nearly completed clubhouse at The Grove XXIII, the uber-exclusive golf course he built for his client, NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan (it opened in the fall of 2019), explaining how Shinnecock Hills became the inspiration for the design even though this particular site—formerly a citrus grove near Hobe Sound—is South Florida flat and unambiguously landlocked. The “collection architecture” celebrates the centripetal force of gravity. “We started to gradually raise this land where the clubhouse is, and as we did, we realized we had views across the whole…

“The more confident you are in your line, the better your chance.” IF YOUR green-reading skills aren’t as sharp as you’d like, perhaps it’s time for a fresh method. Jeongeun Lee6, the defending U.S. Women’s Open champion, uses an unusual technique, but it’s based on common sense. She reads putts with her body facing perpendicular to her target and her head turned to the side (left). “Putting is a stroke from the side, not from behind the ball,” Lee6, of South Korea, told Golf Digest through a translator. “Reading it like I do reduces misconception.” Lee6, who has a number on the end of her name to differentiate herself from several other players with the same name on the Korean LPGA Tour, has averaged fewer than 30 putts per round…

JENNIFER KUPCHO is part of golf history. The Saturday before the 2019 MAsters, the world’s top-ranked women’s amateur was among a field of 30 cut from 72 to play the final round of the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur. Kupcho’s tee shot on Wednesday had opened the two rounds of competition at Champions Retreat Golf Club before the tournament’s final round at Augusta National. What was a stroke-play event felt like match play as attention was focused on the final pairing featuring Wake Forest’d Kupcho and Arkansas’ Maria Fassi. The two were the only collegiate players to make it through 2018 LPGA Tour Q school and defer their status until after they graduated last spring. Kupcho was mesmerizing on the back nine at Augusta, overcoming a migraine to go five…

A tale of joy and survival as an amateur in the final group at Pebble Beach. THIS IS MY 50TH YEAR OF PLAYING golf, and I just had the greatest experience a chopper like me could ever imagine. I hit the lottery three times in a week at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. First, I got invited. Second, I made the cut. And third, I played in the final group on Sunday when my partner, Nick Taylor, whipped Phil Mickelson down the stretch to win. Nick, age 31, ranked 229th in the world at the start of the week, is the stereotypical Canadian—great guy, great family—who plays golf with a cool, quiet confidence. Think Gary Cooper with Brad Faxon’s putting touch. He eagled our first hole in the first round…

I’VE BEEN AT AUGUSTA NATIONAL for years, but every day feels like my first. I imagine it’s how a pilot feels ascending into the sky, or when a skipper wakes up surrounded by the blue unknown. Some views never get old. Of course, we’re working, not playing. No Magnolia Lane for us; we enter through a service road. Don’t get me wrong—we’re treated well. The club built us a caddie house not long ago, which has a TV room, computers, even a chef. They let us play the course the day before it closes for the season in May. And because a member, their family or a guest has to be accompanied by staff (which a majority of the time means us) anytime they’re on property—a round, a casual walk,…

THE GREAT AMERICAN POET ROBERT FROST once wrote that good fences make good neighbors. He clearly never spent much time in New Jersey. The Ethicist realizes it must seem like the Garden State is the epicenter for every moral dilemma coming down the, um, turnpike, but he’s confident New York (and Connecticut) will get a turn soon enough. In this episode, the jousting is focused on some upscale properties adjacent to Manasquan River Golf Club in Brielle, on the New Jersey Shore an hour south of Manhattan. There, homeowners have more on their minds than the standard complaints about being pelted by crooked tee shots from the venerable 98-year-old club’s members. Specifically, we’re talking about a 65-foot-high net one resident erected to keep Manasquan’s balls from hitting his clapboard. In…

“By failing to prepare, you prepare to fail.”—Ben Franklin THE FIRST ROUND of the season doesn’t have to be a disaster. You can get off to a good start with just a little work on your body and your swing. Leading teacher Travis Fulton, based in Ponte Vedra Beach, says to get your downswing properly grooved for solid shots, lay two clubs on the ground behind your ball (right). Swing slowly, tracing your clubhead’s path above the club on the target line in the takeaway. Then trace your club’s shaft above the shaft angled at 30 degrees to the target line during the downswing. Copy this trace pattern when you hit shots. Kaitlyn Pimentel, one of Golf Digest’s 50 Best Golf-Fitness Trainers in America, has an exercise to develop a…

MATH WE DON’T HATE? MASTERS MEALS VS. THE MOST EXPENSIVE MEALS ON EARTH BARBECUE SANDWICH AND GEORGIA PEACH ICE-CREAM SANDWICH $5 MASTERS CLUB, CRACKERS, COOKIES $5 PIMENTO-CHEESE SANDWICH, CHIPS AND DOMESTIC BEER $7 SUSHI AT MASA $595 TASTING MENU AT SUBLIMOTION $1,757 FLEUR BURGER 5000 AT FLEUR $5,000 THE SIX GUYS YOU SEE AT THE MASTERS 1 THE FIRST-TIMER HYPERVENTILATING INTO A PAPER BAG 2 THE MERCH TENT MERCENARY 3 THE LACTOSE-INTOLERANT GUY WHO JUST ATE THREE PIMENTOCHEESE SANDWICHES 4 THE HISTORIAN VISITING EVERY FAMOUS SPOT LIKE A GAME OF POKÉMON GO. 5 GROWN MAN CRYING 6 THE “MY DAD IS A MEMBER AT…” GUY MASTERS TV BINGO GREENEST THINGS IN SPORTS ‣ The green jacket ‣ New York Jets fan with a Prius ‣ The Green Monster ‣ Mean Joe Greene ‣ The first round…

“Which of these looks like I’m going to hit a good one?” LET ME EXPLAIN THAT headline, because last I checked, the hands are attached to the arms. But I want you to separate them in your mind for a minute. Good players swing their arms down at a high rate of speed, which gets the body turning in support (above, right). Poor players often let their hands, mainly the trail hand, take over during the downswing. That instinct to use the hands slows down the arm swing and inhibits body movement (above, left). The result: less power and control. So let’s get back to fast arms, slow hands. Get it right, and the shaft leans forward at impact for a downward strike that compresses the ball. You also get…

IN THE SUMMER of 2018, after a round of golf at The Country Club in the Pepper Pike suburb of Cleveland, I spent some time perusing the numerous artifacts on the walls of the cavernous locker room. Not far from the original match-play bracket of the 1935 U.S. Amateur played at “Country” was a reproduction of what appeared to be an 18-hole scorecard. But looking more closely, I saw it wasn’t a scorecard at all, but a list titled, “Bobby Jones’s ‘ideal’ course.” Examining the list in more detail, I noticed that the first hole on Jones’ course is the par-4 15th hole at The Country Club, which explained why a course-proud member posted it. I then became curious as to the list’s origins. One history-conscious member suggested I reach…