Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2022 i Golf Magazine

GOLF HAS MANY LISTS: top courses, players, ways to max out your credit card on Masters-themed merch. We run plenty of lists in this magazine and on GOLF.com, and part of my job is to help concoct them. One hit me the other night: the hardest jobs in golf. Two entries came to me in a flash: 1) playing professional and 2) Tour caddie. I give a nod to the pros because we can all agree that carving out a sustained career on the pro circuit takes a lifetime of work, even before making your first cut, and demands talent most people never acquire. Tour caddie? Imagine lugging a Prius on your shoulder for 30 miles a week, with one ill-considered club pull potentially your last. As I began paging…

GOLF.COM / SMART GOLF STARTS HERE / MARCH 2022 Up Close with Dylan Dethier Padraig Harrington At age 50, the two-time Champion Golfer of the Year and recent Ryder Cup captain still has pop—and assurances that your funky swing is a winner THE PNC CHAMPIONSHIP, ON THE PRACTICE GREEN, HITTING PUTTS AT SUNSET Dylan Dethier: What has you excited about starting a new golf season? Padraig Harrington: I’m excited about improving myself. Last season, I got lapped at a couple of Champions Tour events, and I hit it way past everybody! So I’m going, I’m getting beat. Why is that? It’s a matter of getting back to the stuff I was good at when I was good. Being mentally strong and—well, really, that was it. DD: How do you keep yourself…

—Jim Palmer, Oak Ridge, Tenn. A: One of the things Rules Guy loves about the Rules of Golf are their ability to surprise him, and while baseball’s Jim Palmer was known for his heater, we’re about to throw you a curve. Prior to research—yes, Notorious TRG must sometimes look things up—we would have said this is legal, because, on the putting green, who could care how one handles their ball? And before 2019 we would have been correct, but things have changed. You’re thinking about what you’re doing as aligning the ball, but the Rules of Golf now see it as replacing the ball, and a ball must be replaced by hand. Were you to play the ball rotated by your putter and not by hand, even from the correct…

GAINED 23 YARDS OF DISTANCE off the tee—all without even changing my swing. Here’s how. It appeared on GOLF.com on December 7, 2021, over a short piece by my slender colleague Zephyr Melton. Z drives it in play but a Walmart parking lot behind our colleague James Colgan, who is the size of a heavyweight Olympic rower. Or he did. Then came Zephyr’s extra 23. He gained his new distance the new way. He bought it. He retired his college-era (Texas), out-of-the-bin R1 TaylorMade with a stiff but possibly tired shaft. In went a PING G425 Max with a shaft stiff enough for a Tour player. Hello 275. Poor Zephyr. He may not know it, but he’s in the arms race now. He’ll be looking for another 23 from his next…

The game’s always been about chasing yards, and the guy who’s gobbling up most of them these days has made the quest his own personal assault on smashing any and all speed barriers. Agree or disagree with Bryson DeChambeau’s lust for power, you can’t argue that it hasn’t worked. Since transforming his mind, body and—yes, you can say his soul—from mild-mannered Tour player to the tee box behemoth you currently see on TV, DeChambeau has picked up three wins, a major trophy, a Ryder Cup, about $12.5 million in winnings and an impressive finish in the Long Drive Championship. Ask him, though, and he’ll humbly reply, “Anybody can do what I’ve done.” Here, in his own words, is golf’s mightiest swinger on how you can take advantage of new technologies…

The biggest and most forgiving driver ever made by Cleveland. We appreciate the strides Cleveland has made in the last few years to make golf more friendly. The company has fully embraced its commitment to make the game more enjoyable for more player types, from experts to beginners, and this holds especially true in its latest iteration of Launcher XL drivers and woods engineered, simply, to make golf more fun. Fun, in our mind, and probably in yours too, is hitting longer and straighter drives, and the Launcher XL is carefully designed to do just that without any frills. And while the technology used in these woods may appear simple, that’s the illusion Cleveland wants to project. “The focus of the technology we put into the Launcher XL series was…

We’re not going to ruffle any feathers by saying that Mizuno is a company best known for its irons, not for its metalwoods. The folks at Mizuno know full well that their reputation hinges mostly on its latest steel forgings and, more concisely, how well Mizuno continues to develop new iron technologies that mix classic good looks with new levels of playability. “Because we’re best known for our irons, there’s a real sense of openness and freedom to think outside the box when it comes to our wood designs,” says Chris Voshall, product manager at Mizuno. “But it wasn’t always that way. For years, we developed our woods alongside our irons, with similar flows of research and development and product cycles, etc. It’s almost like they were piggybacked on. And,…

PXG and luxury have been synonymous since the upstart club manufacturer’s founding in 2014. No matter the price tag, Bob Parsons’ company has always aimed to make the highest performing clubs on the market. The results have led to a cultlike following—and a lot of game-changing tech. Eight years later, that mission remains the same. However, PXG has now expanded its product line to cater not only to those with deep wallets. Enter the PXG 0211 lineup. “We said, ‘Hey, let’s create a really high-quality product but do it in a way where price isn’t a huge roadblock,’ ” says PXG’s chief product officer Brad Schweigert. And so, the 0211 drivers were born. The line was initially launched in 2019 with the introduction of more affordable irons, too, and in…

Scan this code to see how Stealth matches up to previous TaylorMade driver offerings in a special video on golf.com TaylorMade knows what you’re probably thinking: The carbon face thing has been done before. Yes—but stick with us. In the early 2000s, several companies released drivers with carbon composite faces. Nothing stuck. The knock on the material was that it never produced the sound (too dull) or ball speed numbers (too slow) to make it a viable long-term option. Plus, titanium was already on its way to dominating clubhead design. Still, engineers continued to tinker with carbon, finding the material beneficial for removing discretionary mass from the crown and sole and repositioning it in strategic locations to enhance launch, spin and stability. Indeed, carbon had a place in the industry,…

The XXIO company has ruled the lightweight luxury category for some time now. Its premium grip to clubhead offerings embrace meticulous manufacturing detail and precision to ensure each club is as light as possible. The latest entries in the XXIO catalog is the subtly named 12 (following last year’s 11) and a redux of the popular X line. Also new: ActivWing, a stability-inducing technology that stabilizes the clubhead during the first part of the downswing, a critical point that leads to smoother and more stable acceleration through the ball. It’s visible tech—look for the trapezoidal feature protruding from the crown, which, when aerodynamic forces are applied during the swing, helps to correct the face angle for fewer slices. “Every generation, we look at how we can better our lightweight technologies…

SWINGING THE CLUB is often made out to sound complicated. It’s not. You just need to get your head around a few key points. For example: Use your upper body to load around your legs on the way back and then unload with your legs on the way down. Easy, right? It’s certainly not complicated. This down-to-earth idea is part of the philosophy I’ve used to teach a multitude of successful pros, including reigning PGA Tour player of the year Patrick Cantlay and Rolex Women’s World Golf No. 1 Nelly Korda. I’m confident it can make you a better golfer too. Here are five things to focus on. 1. Set up athletically A good swing starts with good address fundamentals. It’s critical to bend from your waist and let your…

A COMMON ERROR I see with most players is the assumption that pitch and chip shots are just smaller versions of the full swing. That isn’t the case. In a full swing, the goal is to create lag in the hands for an explosive release through impact. If you do the same on a short shot, things get ugly real fast. Because the swing arc is shorter and slower on a pitch or chip, releasing the hands happens far too late in the downswing when you try to create lag. This also explains why weekend players tend to pull their chips and/or hit them fat or thin. Adding lag to your chips exposes the leading edge of the wedge too much, causing you to dig into instead of glide across…

ONE OF THE MAIN INGREDIENTS to a sound and repeatable putting stroke is keeping your hands as inactive as possible. Most great putters drive their strokes by “rocking” their arms and shoulders without activating their hands and wrists. I’m not saying that the wrists shouldn’t hinge as you putt, but, rather, that they shouldn’t be the dominating motion. A fun way to practice keeping your hand action to a minimum is to grab a cup half full of water (or, if you’re feeling bold, a wineglass with wine in it!) and place it between your hands in lieu of your putter. With the cup, rehearse your putting stroke. The goal is to keep the water steady in the cup as you move back and through. If it sloshes too much,…

THE MOST COMMON miss recreational golfers suffer with their irons is falling short of their intended target. This is in part caused by overestimating their distances and, therefore, not taking near enough club. But there’s another reason: They don’t hit the ball solidly with consistency. Tops and thins are a common miss. A drill I use with my students who struggle with this is to place a tee low in the ground about one inch in front of the ball. The goal is simple: Hit both the ball and the tee. This will bring down your angle of attack, which will ensure ball-first contact with a descending blow. The reward? A crisp downward strike that generates Tour-level compression, distance and backspin. Claude Harmon III is the host of GOLF.com’sOff Course”…

Colt Knost: How’s your golf game when you get to tee it up? Anquan Boldin: It’s decent. With the pandemic, I haven’t played as much as I’d like to. But, hopefully, that’ll kick back up. Drew Stoltz: Larry Fitzgerald’s a big golfer. When you were both in Arizona playing [football], were you guys getting out [on the course] a little bit? Boldin: While I was playing [for the Cardinals], I absolutely played zero golf. Only thing I did in the off-season was play basketball and box a little bit. I didn’t start picking up golf until the latter part of my career. Stoltz: So where we at right now, handicap-wise? You go out, you have a good day—where do we stand? Boldin: [Laughs] If I go, I’m losing a lotta…

60 Layers of carbon used in the face of TaylorMade’s new Stealth drivers, the first “Carbonwood” clubs from the manufacturer (p. 70).(SOURCE: TAYLORMADE) THE TWO-WAY MYTH Even at the highest levels, golfers miss equally as often to either side of the fairway, no matter their shot shapE. (SOURCE: PGA TOUR) 5.3 The increase, in yards, of average driving distance on the PGA Tour from 2011 to 2021. (SOURCE: PGA TOUR) 17.4 The increase, in yards, of average driving distance on the PGA Tour in the 20-year period from 2001 to 2021. (SOURCE: PGA TOUR) 3 RESEARCH BY JAMES COLGAN…

GOLF.COM / THE BEST STUFF IN THE GAME START YOUR ENGINES! Perhaps no other component is more tailored to match—and add oomph—to individual swing characteristics than the shaft. There’s an art (and a science) to finding the perfect fit. “IT’S NO SECRET that the shaft is the most active and dynamic component of virtually any club in the bag,” says Andres Victoriano, VP of customer experience and tour relations at True Spec Golf. “And it’s not just a function of how much a shaft weighs or how much flex it has. It also matters when it flexes, where on the profile the bend occurs and how much twisting [torque] the shaft yields. The wrong shaft can wreak havoc on your clubhead’s ability to do its job, whereas having a properly fit…

1. “Get properly fit for a driver.” —Keith Lyford 2. “Stand on the tee box and visualize the fairway as the ocean. Hit your drive and look for the splash.” —Rick Grayson 3. “Learn to become a better driver of the ball by making lots of slow-motion swings.” —Bryan Gathright 4. “Slow is smooth… smooth is fast.” —Jerry King 5. “Keep your back as you start your downswing. This helps create more space for your hands and arms to move freely down and into impact.” —Michael Hebron 6. “Go with a shorter shaft length and more loft than you think.” —Kevin Kirk 7. “Take one full-speed rehearsal swing and maintain your balance for three seconds.” —John Elliot 8. “Instead of hitting it ‘hard’ try to ‘rhythm’ the cover off the…

Srixon is one of the leading golf ball manufacturers in the world. Its irons are becoming more popular, too, and so are the woods, thanks to top players like Brooks Koepka—who, let’s be honest, could play any club he wanted—adding them to his bag. According to the four-time major champ, Srixon’s new woods “are as good as anything I’ve hit.” Our initial impression of the ZX drivers during the early rounds of this year’s ClubTest was that they looked like sleek sports cars with smooth lines and subtle curves that hide major horsepower underneath. The impression held up during testing: We’ve found the ZX line to be Srixon’s best and most high-performing woods ever, thanks to a bevy of new technologies within the clubhead. Let’s look at the Rebound Frame…

“I HIT MY 3-WOOD farther than my driver” is a common refrain heard on courses across the country. Is it true, and, if so, why? The answer depends on your swing speed. To prove this, we armed the ClubTest robot with a 10.5-degree driver and a 15-degree 3-wood and ran swings at 60, 70, 80 and 90 mph with both clubs, tuning the bot to catch the ball in the center of the clubface. Test results showed that at 60 mph, the 3-wood was four yards longer than the driver. At 70 mph, the 3-wood was five yards longer than the driver. At 80 mph, the driver and 3-wood hit the ball equal distances. Here’s the rub: At 90 mph, the driver was 13 yards longer than the 3-wood. Although…

The golf world is filled with mind-blowing tech. We have drivers designed like race cars and rocket scientists working on ball dimples. But the simplest innovation of all might just be the most important: the ability to hold onto your club. And when it comes to top-tier gloves for any season, Foot-Joy holds the upper hand. First, for everyday play: The Pure Touch Limited ($32), bottom, is the best on the market. It’s crazy soft, durable and looks sharp. For bad weather: A reliable pair of rain gloves is a must for every golfer who doesn’t shy away from inclement rounds. Good news! Rain gloves look cool now, and FJ’s new RainGrips ($23) are a game changer in wet conditions. With these on your mitts, club slippage is a thing of…

The term “drivable par 4” is relatively new. Back when hickory shaft clubs defined play, a 300-yarder was considered a “drive and pitch.” Now, gym-fit players with explosive tech take dead aim off the tee—and designers build sub-350 par 4s accordingly. In a nod to our driver ClubTest (p. 54), below are GOLF’s architecture editor’s 10 favorite drivable par 4s from either era (limited to one per architect). RAN MORRISSETT…

THE ANGRIEST MOMENT in golf isn’t when you lip out a putt or top a drive. Nor when you dunk one into a water hazard or find your ball plugged in a bunker. It’s something far worse—an offense so wretched it not only affects your sensibilities as a golfer but also as a human being. I’m talking about the shanked chip. Ooh—it hurts just typing it. The shanked chip lives in the nightmares of anyone who has suffered one (and that means all of us). Amazing how something so bad can come from such a short swing. Madness, I tell you. To this end, I bring you both good and bad news. The good news first: We know that every shanked chip results from one or more of the same…

CANADIAN MARTIN CHUCK, founder of the Tour Striker Golf Academy in Phoenix, Ariz., and one of GOLF’s Top 100 Teachers, is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to the world of instruction. But don’t sleep on his gear knowledge. A recent chat with Chuck on the “Fully Equipped” podcast produced insights that should be heeded during your next testing session. ON THE IMPORTANCE OF A CLUBFITTING: “I tell people all the time: If you love this game, you’ve earned good gear. Get some clubs in your hands that are truly great with the help of a fitter, like True Spec Golf, of course. It doesn’t matter who makes them. If you can find the right set of clubs, golf is so much more enjoyable.” THE TOUR PRO’S SWING HE’D…

With its new line Zof Rogue ST drivers, Callaway has once again pushed the limits of speed and forgiveness by using a design process that combines Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), real player data, Tour feedback and human brainpower. While A.I. sounds new age, the Rogue ST isn’t Callaway’s first foray into its usefulness. The company has been using a system of computer development for years—its previous Mavrik and Epic Speed families, for example, were created with A.I. assistance. The new 2022 Rogue ST drivers, however, are even smarter and more advanced. The company is now using A.I. in different ways to improve parameters such as speed, forgiveness, launch and spin, and optimizing them for different players. The goal for Callaway was to develop a line of drivers that produced more distance and…

When golf equipment manufacturers talk about their work, they can sound a lot like golf instructors discussing the swing in that they’ll tell you every element is interconnected—a complex tangle of cause and effect. Want to build a hotter clubface? You might need to change the weighting in the clubhead. Out for more forgiveness? Sure, but that could cost you feel. In their quest to send shots higher, straighter, farther and faster, engineers and designers play a game of give-and-take, often gaining ground on one front while losing on another. There’s no negotiating with the laws of physics. Throw in cost constraints—not to mention USGA regulations—and compromise is common. But just because you can’t always have it all doesn’t mean that you stop trying. “What you’re out to do is…

Clearly the most forgiving clubhead we’ve yet to see from PING—long and straight. Fans of PING woods are a clearheaded, soberminded bunch—they’re into them for the steak, not the sizzle. And the meat has always been the kind of standout stability that yields straight shooters. Distance-chasing, top-end speed freaks get their fix elsewhere. That’s not necessarily the case anymore. The G425 series of drivers, fairway woods and hybrids have seriously ramped up the rpm. Don’t worry, though: This being PING—a company overseen by nothing but trained engineers named Solheim since its founding more than a half century ago—the steering wheels still work as well as ever. The company doesn’t do “one step up, two steps back.” “To make these huge changes of ‘Right, we’re gonna focus on aerodynamics or length…

“There are three customers for ATI 425,” proudly says Josh Talge, Titleist’s VP of club marketing. “The U.S. military, NASA… and Titleist.” If you would like to find the secret sauce behind Titleist’s TSi woods line, a row of black-mirrored office buildings in downtown Pittsburgh is the best place to start. It’s here, at 6 PPG Place, where you’ll find a little-known behemoth: a specialty metals and alloys company named Allegheny Technologies Incorporated, or ATI. As mysterious as ATI may be, the company generates more than $2 billion in annual revenue, with more than 80 percent of its business originating in the aerospace and defense sectors. Tucked away in ATI’s product catalog, behind the jet engine parts and sheet metal, is a superstrength titanium alloy named ATI 425. ATI 425…

LOOK FOR THE DOTS: Each tip throughout this section features a corresponding color code to help you understand which part of your game it will improve the most. Shaky putter Slicer Low handicapper Short-game sufferer Short hitter Swing student High handicapper…

LAST FALL, a PGA Tour player came to me a week before an event with a very cold putter. The first thing I did was have a conversation about the importance of Approach Putt Performance—essentially a putting stat that measures the length of Tour players’ second putt. The Tour average is about 2 feet 4 inches. Heading into competition, this player was 213th out of 223 players in this metric. My advice was counterintuitive but simple: Stop trying to make putts, especially from 15 to 30 feet. Truth is, you must be comfortable leaving a relatively large percentage of putts—about 25 percent—short, even the seemingly makeable ones from inside 10 to 20 feet. Think about it like this: If, for example, on a downhill slope, you hit your putt too…

A GOOD PAIR OF GOLF SHOES might cost you $200. A bad pair might cost you 25 yards. For the thousands of factors affecting the golf swing, feet—and, more pressingly, the shoes attached to them—frequently get overlooked. After all, our feet are our only point of contact with the ground throughout the golf swing. They are a source of power, speed and, in the wrong environment, even the source of injuries. To test this, we conducted an experiment with our friend (and noted shoe aficionado) Joaquin Niemann. First, we had Joaquin swing barefoot. Next, in a pair of sandals, then sneakers, then snowboard boots (above) and then, finally, spiked golf shoes. In golf shoes, Joaquin was his regular self—pumping drives 320 yards with ease through a narrow chute. While swinging…

When: December 2, 2021 Where: Hero World Challenge 10:20 a.m. Arrives putting green. Putts on a mirror under a string line from six feet, repeating the same putt over and over. 10:25 a.m. Caddie Kessler Karain sets up a four-ball putting drill. Reed progresses outward from three to 12 feet. 10:45 a.m. Heads to short-game area. Hits a series of 20-yard shots, messing with different spins and trajectories. 11:15 a.m. Heads to range. Hits driver for several minutes. 11:21 a.m. Finishes range session with several wedge shots, varying length and target. 11:24 a.m. Heads back to practice green. Rolls putts, mostly varying length, break and speed. 11:42 a.m. Walks to tee, peruses snack offerings. 11:44 a.m. Takes several full swings, testing range of motion. 11:49 a.m. Wishes playing partner Abraham Ancer…

TO BE A SUCCESSFUL bunker player you need to know how to control your distances. This starts by knowing that the amount you open the face at address shouldn’t be determined by how far you are from the hole but, rather, by the type of sand you’re hitting from. Softer, fluffier sand requires an open face to lessen digging, while firmer sand requires a more engaged, leading edge to encourage more digging through the hit. Once the face angle is set based on the type of sand, it should remain constant as you swing. Only the speed of your swing should vary. It’s important to make a full backswing to ensure consistent clubhead delivery. As you experiment with different speeds, always envision “throwing” a cushion of sand out to the…