Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 452 i Today's Golfer

With so many courses closed or waterlogged near me, I’ve been spending more time at the range – and falling in love with Toptracer. If you don’t know what it is, Toptracer’s range camera tech has traced more balls in more bays at more driving ranges in more countries than any other range technology on the planet, including several hundred of mine. And the stats it has thrown up have given me a foundation to build upon now, as the weather starts to improve and courses begin to dry out. I’ll give you an example. My driving distance stats range from 124 to 273 yards, so there’s definitely some work to do on my consistency! Direction also needs practice: just 21 percent of my tee shots with a driver actually…

Pocketing an invite to the Masters is a bit like trying to work out your playing handicap without a calculator. It’s exceptionally difficult. But did you know that every year, you can apply for tickets via a Masters lottery? OK, so we admit it’s a bit of a long shot (you have a 0.55% chance, apparently) but you’ve still got to be in it to win it. This time the ballot is open between June 1-20 and is free for anyone over the age of 21 to sign up. To do so, you simply select the number of tickets you want (up to four for practice rounds and a maximum of two for tournament rounds), then pick the day(s) you wish to attend. You can apply for just one day…

Flexibility holds the key to everything. Without it, the quality of your movement suffers and causes the golf swing to become shorter, robbing you of power and consistency. Most club golfers are preconditioned to look for fixes on the range, but you can save yourself a whole lot of time and money by training your body to withstand the demands placed on the shoulders, back and hips. These golf-specific stretches can be performed without any equipment and will help to train the muscles responsible for good body rotation and stability. Always consult your coach or PT before adopting any new fitness regimen. YOUR COACH Scan here for a free two-week trial. 1 SPIDER-MAN LUNGE Start in a press-up position. Bring one foot forward until it’s planted just outside your hand.…

GET IN TOUCH As well as email (editorial@todaysgolfer.co.uk) and post (Media House, Lynch Wood, Peterborough, PE2 6EA), you can contact us using any of these social platforms… @Thetodaysgolfer @TodaysGolferBauer @Todaysgolfer @Todaysgolfer CLIMATE CRISIS Your May issue highlighted the plight of Fortrose & Rosemarkie and their battle with coastal erosion, a problem sadly echoed by my home club of Montrose. We have lost seven metres to the sea in the past six months. The course seems destined for the seabed, especially as the local council have recommended a ‘managed retreat’ as a solution. I can’t help but feel if this was a problem for Carnoustie, just down the road, they would be moving heaven and literal earth to save the links. The loss of the dunes is not only a problem…

Let’s move on to a power source that is available to everyone, regardless of age or athleticism: the wrists. Yes, we need to use our largest muscles – in the core, legs and backside – to create power, but unless we are blending these moves with a snappy cock and release of the wrists, we will always struggle to deliver the clubhead speed we are capable of. Let’s take a closer look. Cocked and primed The best swing position to understand the value of wrist cock is halfway down – I’ve removed my glove to make things a little clearer. My hands have almost reached belt level but that large angle between my left arm and the clubshaft sees the clubhead itself lagging way behind. This is pure stored speed,…

Strong hitters use the ground to help them create speed and power. Maybe the best way to understand how this works is to imagine yourself hurling a medicine ball straight down at the ground as hard as you can – or better still, do it for real. You’ll find yourself squatting as you prepare to throw, before pushing up through the floor, legs straightening, as you fire the ball downwards. We can create swing force in a similar way. Spring-loaded Watch elite golfers from the top of the swing and you’ll see what looks like a squatting motion as they start to swing down. With both knee and body flex increasing, they are effectively ‘loading’ themselves into the ground, just like you would squat before a standing jump. Flex… extend……

US OPEN Date: June 13-16 Course: Pinehurst No.2, North Carolina Designer: Donald Ross (renovation by Bill Coore/Ben Crenshaw) Par: 70 Yardage: 7,540 Field: 156 players Cut: 60 players and ties. In the event of a tie after 72 holes, a two-hole aggregate playoff will take place on holes 17 and 18. Defending champion: Wyndham Clark MEET YOUR COURSE GUIDES 1 395 yards | Par 4 2014 scoring average: 4.114 (13) SL: “A pretty straightforward lay-up to start with. You can take driver but the fairway pinches in quite a bit with cross bunkers, so you have to weigh up the risk. The difficulty with the second shot is that you have to be so precise, not just with the target line but the distance as well. I played in four…

Hearing the words ‘US Open champion’ attached to my name will never get old. It’s pretty awesome when they announce me on the first tee as the reigning US Open champion at different tournaments. It feels great. There was a lot of adversity in that final round on Sunday last year, but I handled it really well. Mentally, I felt really strong. I think in the end that’s what got me the W, because my game wasn’t as sharp as it was when I won at Quail Hollow the month before. At LACC, I wasn’t hitting my irons that well, but I was putting and chipping really well and my mentality was just so strong. That’s what fills me with the most pride. I think my fairway wood on the…

There is a touch of the boy band survivor about Matteo Manassero. He was the star who blossomed at a remarkably young age and enjoyed a series of big hits. The future appeared golden, then it all went terribly wrong, and now he’s back. Still popular, still handsome and still blessed with a thick mop of dark hair. When the 31-year-old Italian sat down with Today’s Golfer during February’s Bahrain Championship, it was staggering to think that he’d first announced himself to the world almost half his lifetime ago. He was the youngest winner of the Amateur Championship in 2009, just a few weeks after his 16th birthday. A month later, he played the first two rounds of The Open at Turnberry alongside his idol Sergio Garcia and Tom Watson,…

In this common scenario, your ball has hung up on some longer grass to the side of the green, leaving you a downhill chip on to a fast surface that’s running away from you. While it looks like a relatively simple assignment, I would recommend three very different ways to play the shot, with your choice depending on your skill level. Make an honest assessment of your abilities and you can pick your most effective approach. YOUR COACH ADRIAN FRYER solidgolf.co.uk Fellow of the PGA based at Liverpool Golf Centre liverpoolgolfcentre.co.uk Shot at the beautiful Dunas Course at Terras da Comporta, Lisbon, Portugal. comporta.com As long as the grass is not much higher than fairway length, putting the ball makes a lot of sense here. The putter’s powerful, delofted face…

It is not just amateurs who need to work on holing more putts in the crucial 6-8ft range. Even on tour we miss as many as we make from 8ft; almost every week, the top of the leaderboard is populated by guys who have managed to turn that stat in their favour. My own performance on these makeable and missable putts improved dramatically when I switched to the so-called Claw grip – a hold now used by around 30% of DP World Tour players. In this article I will share with you why it works, and give you a simple three-step process to form it. If your confidence is low, I’d definitely urge you to give it a try. YOUR COACH PEDRO FIGUEIREDO A DP World Tour professional. Follow him…

In our constant search for better golf and lower scores, we inevitably turn our attention to the 1.5 seconds it takes to swing the club… and perhaps those intense moments before we take the club away. But what if I told you there is something you can do away from the swing itself – in those long interludes between shots – that could have a massive effect on your execution? I’m talking here about breathing. Not many of us give much thought to how we breathe; it’s simply something that goes on automatically while we place our attention on other things. But make no mistake, the way we breathe has the capacity to affect performance. Ancient disciplines such as martial arts, tai chi and yoga all recognise the importance of…

KBS have launched their brand-new KBS MAX HL shafts, the first high-launch, high-spin graphite wood shafts aimed specifically at golfers with slower swing speeds, to help them get the ball in the air and fly further. Unlike the traditional way KBS fit shafts using flex as a guide, the MAX HL wood shafts are intended to be fitted to golfers using average swing speed measurements. To make it easier for fitters and golfers to find the perfect KBS MAX HL wood shaft, KBS have outlined which of the three weights will best suit certain swing speeds: 45g for 73-80mph, 42g for 65-72mph and 40g (for 65mph and below). KBS Director of R&D Kim Braly told us: “The MAX HL is a super lightweight driver shaft for the club golfer who…

Mini drivers are becoming increasingly popular among tour players and Callaway have become the latest brand to get in on the act with their new Paradym Ai Smoke Ti 340 Mini. Following TaylorMade’s BRNR Mini and Titleist’s TSR Mini, the Paradym has appeared in the bags of Xander Schauffele and Christiaan Bezuidenhout on the PGA Tour. The ‘340’ in its title refers to the size of the head – 340cc. The crown looks to sport the same carbon fibre material found in the Paradym Ai Smoke drivers, and on the bottom of the club face it reads ‘Ai Smart Face’, which suggests it incorporates the same face tech found in the drivers. Unlike the TaylorMade, it hasn’t reached pro shops yet but we expect it will, alongside the Titleist, to…

Which was the first course you played in London? Richmond Park. I played with a bunch of mates from Sky and that was really where my golf journey began. Some of the widest fairways in the UK and I still managed to miss them! What’s your favourite course in London? I’ve been lucky enough to play St George’s Hill a couple of times and loved the experience. The course is very cleverly woven through a beautiful piece of land – and it’s surprisingly fair. Walton Heath grows on me every time I visit, it’s just stunning. Do you have a favourite lower-profile London course? I was briefly a member at Hampton Court Palace and I love going back there. It’s a gorgeous drive through a royal park to the course,…

BARE MY SOUL MIKE LORENZO-VERA What was your first car and what do you drive now? It was a BMW X6. You are now wondering why, eh? It’s because I got my driver’s licence very late. And now I drive a BMW 7 Series. So a slow learner but you like cars? I absolutely love cars. I tuned the chip in the X6 so that it had 800 horsepower. That lasted for about two days – the engine did not like it! It’s a good thing that BMW was very nice to me and fixed it on warranty. After that, I bought a Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560. And then, because I had kids, I needed a four-seater, so I got a Ferrari FF. That almost cost me my relationship with my…

BLUEPRINT £200 (s), £210 (g) per club Category: Muscleback blade Forgiveness rating: 2/5 Handicap range: Four and below Construction: Forged from a single piece of 8620 carbon steel 7-iron loft: 33° WHO ARE THEY FOR? The T is a second generation PING Blueprint iron, which tells us the brand’s switch to forged constructions for elite player irons is working. Until now, PING and forging have been uneasy bedfellows, as before Blueprint, their forged iron repertoire from the 1960s to the present day ran to just two Anser models, in 2010 and 2012. Forged irons usually win over 90% of tour events, yet fewer than 10% of professionals believe a muscleback blade like the Blueprint T is the best choice for their game, so it’s a very limited audience. The T…

We all watch professional sports to be entertained, and in every sport there’s a star who stands out from the crowd. It is not just about talent. Often it is those who mix charisma and character with the ability to win. Those who seem to exist on a higher plane. In basketball right now we are seeing something exceptional in Caitlin Clark. Clark has been the main driver for the dramatic uptake in women’s basketball viewership around the world. In the recent NCAA title game, where she represented Iowa, 51,000 people watched live and 18.9 million viewers tuned in. To put that into perspective, the average Premier League match gets 1.2 million viewers in the UK. Off the court, the 22-year-old has reportedly signed a record $28m sponsorship deal with…

YOUR COACH The average driving distance on the DP World Tour is just under 300 yards. There is, I believe, a modern narrative that suggests we can all hit the ball miles because we are athletes. That might be the case with the very biggest hitters, but at all levels long driving remains far more about technique than brawn. It’s clear that the average driving distances of 225 yards for men and 177 yards for women – both well below potential – have much more to do with poor technique than any lack of athleticism. Any handicap golfer can increase the distance they hit the ball, regardless of strength or stature. The six power sources I detail here will help you on your way. But as you work on them,…

The angle at which your driver approaches the ball can influence the swing path, the ball’s launch angle and its spin rate – three elements that massively affect yardage. To get on top of this we must of course first understand what sort of attack angle we are looking for… but also how to achieve it, which means delving into the counter-intuitive nature of the golf swing. Let me explain. Avoid this: Steep The biggest attack angle mistake – unfortunately one so many club golfers make – is to attack the ball too steeply, the club swinging from high to low through the ball. Such an attack tends to accompany an out-to-in, slicing swing path, lowering launch and raising spin. This is one of the weakest strikes you can deliver.…

For the sixth and final power source, we enter the tricky world of athleticism. While I appreciate this is not something we possess in equal measure, I do believe every golfer can make their swing a little more ‘athletic’… and more powerful as a consequence. Here’s how: Elastic snap In some respects our muscles are like elastic bands. They have a natural stretch-shorten cycle; and just as an elastic band, stretched to its limit, snaps back incredibly fast, our muscles can create speed if similarly stretched. Need for speed Power through stretch is something we have already hinted at in this article. The wide arc we learned in Power Source #1 will help create it, so will the flexion-toextension swing pattern we have just seen in Power Source #5. But…

1999 US OPEN Four months before his life was cut short in a plane crash, Payne Stewart holed out from 18ft on the final hole to win a thrilling battle against Phil Mickelson. His iconic celebration is memorialised with a statue behind the 18th. 2005 US OPEN World No.80 Michael Campbell defied odds of 150-1 to hold off a charging Tiger Woods and secure a two-stroke victory for his only Major title. No player finished under par for the week. 2014 US OPEN In a repeat of the 2014 Players, Martin Kaymer dominated from start to finish and thrashed the field by eight shots on nine under par. The German had previously predicted eight over would win it!…

1 WE’LL BEGIN WITH A BAD REVELATION FOR SOUTHPAWS. A LEFT-HANDER HAS NEVER WON THE US OPEN. 2 IT IS NOT MUCH BETTER NEWS FOR DEBUTANTS. THE LAST FIRST-TIMER TO WIN WAS 1913 US OPEN CHAMPION FRANCIS OUIMET. 3 NO ONE HAS EVER HELD THE US OPEN AND US SENIOR OPEN TITLES SIMULTANEOUSLY. 4 EACH OF THE PAST 15 CHAMPIONS HAD TASTED VICTORY EARLIER THAT YEAR OR IN THE PREVIOUS SEASON. 5 MAJOR PEDIGREE IS A BIG INDICATOR OF SUCCESS. ALL OF THE LAST 14 WINNERS HAD PREVIOUSLY CLOCKED A TOP-25 FINISH AT A US OPEN AND AT LEAST ONE TOP 10 IN A MAJOR. 6 THE LAST 10 CHAMPS HAD ALL PLAYED NINE PREVIOUS US OPENS AT MOST. TEN OF THE LAST 12 WERE AGED 31 OR YOUNGER. 7…

To clarify the figure above, a 15-handicapper typically hits the ball 18 yards closer to the hole when approaching the green with an 8-iron as opposed to a 6-iron. The chances of hitting the green also jump by 12% with the more lofted club, from 15-27% (data from Shot Scope, shotscope.com). These figures lay bare the benefit of increased distance off the tee. With the typical 15-handicapper averaging 162 yards with a 6-iron and 146 yards with an 8-iron, a tee shot gain of 16 yards would give the opportunity to hit the shorter club and gain that huge performance advantage. TRY THIS One of the simplest and quickest ways to add distance is to tee the ball higher. So many club players lose distance through attack angle, chopping down…

Shot Scope have launched the V5 GPS and shot tracking watch, expanding on the popular V series with a new stylish and functional device that offers automatic performance tracking. Following on from the success of the V3, the TG Award-winning V5 boasts a clean look with a sporty matte-black bezel and is packed with game-enhancing features. “It’s the complete golf watch, with every aspect of the game seamlessly recorded and analysed,” says David Hunter, Chief Executive Officer at Shot Scope. “Our customers who have become familiar with the previous model will see some fantastic game-enhancing upgrades, like the inclusion of dog-leg data, a digital scorecard, green view and pin placement information, as well as a slicker, round- faced design that can be worn off the course. “The V5 boasts advanced…

Bushnell Golf – the No.1 laser rangefinder brand in golf – have teamed up with Stewart Golf to give TG readers the chance to win an exclusive prize worth more than £4,000. Bushnell Golf have celebrated the launch of their TG Award-winning Pro X3+ laser by commissioning a bespoke, branded Stewart Golf X10 Follow electric trolley that one very lucky reader can win. What’s more, they will also win a Pro X3+ – Bushnell’s most powerful, precise laser rangefinder yet. The Pro X3+ – worth £549 – builds on the success of Bushnell’s previous models and now shows wind speed and direction in the display. That addition brings an extra layer of confidence, allowing the user to determine how wind conditions will affect their shot. Used and trusted by more…

Which was the first course you played in London? Oaks Park Sport centre, a nineholer. I had to queue for around an hour to get on, with no tee times. Eight par 3s and one par 4. I loved it as I was a kid and there was a hole that was 100 yards, straight and downhill, so I could reach the green! What’s your favourite course in London and why? The Addington is now my favourite track to play, not least because I know that the owner and MD Ryan Noades has poured time, money and, more importantly, passion into every part of the course, enhancing and respecting its heritage and returning it to how it was designed to be played. The views are also amazing and you have…

Find out more about PING's iron family at www.ping.com If you want to know how good you are, go to an empty field with your 9-iron, perch up a single ball, and program yourself to hit the ball exactly 125 yards. Hit the shot, then pace off the yardage. If you came within five yards, you’re a player. So wrote Sam Snead, shortly before his death in 2002. He intuitively understood that iron play was central to a golfer’s performance and score… though he’d perhaps have been gratified to see just how emphatically modern shot capture and analytics have backed up his instincts. Every piece of data created on green approach performance points to a direct correlation with handicap and score. If you want to make progress in your game,…

DRIVER TaylorMade Qi10 (8°) Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 7 X No, this isn’t a misprint. Scottie uses the standard Qi10, rather than the LS favoured by most TM tour players. His average clubhead speed of 119mph is clearly enough to warrant using a low-spin model, but we can’t argue with the results. He won the same week he put it in play and ranks first for Strokes Gained: Off The Tee this season. WOOD TaylorMade Qi10 (15°) Shaft: Fujikura Ventus Black 8 X Since benching the Nike VR Pro in 2022, the 27-year-old has had a different 3-wood in the bag every season. His latest upgrade, from a Stealth 2 Plus into a Qi10, coincided with him signing a multiyear contract extension with TaylorMade. UTILITY Srixon Z U85 (3-4) Shaft:…

Of all the things you can do to hit the ball further, adding width to your swing is arguably the easiest to explain and the easiest to achieve. So let’s start here, with a brief explanation of what we mean by width, before moving on to a swing feel you can use to create more width instantly. Arc force Maybe the best way to define width in a golf swing context is the distance between the golf ball and the handle of the club. When we make this distance as large as possible, we get two benefits: 1. More width sends the club on a longer journey, giving it more time and space to build speed. 2. A wide arc forces us to recruit the largest muscles in our body,…

DRILL: SHARPEN YOUR TILT TO STEEPEN YOUR BACKSWING This exercise focuses on developing the necessary tilt in your shoulders to steepen your backswing effectively. Ideally, do it with a clubshaft or alignment stick. 1 Stand upright Place the stick/shaft across the front of your shoulders, and criss-cross your arms to hold it in place as shown. Make sure it’s horizontal and at right angles to your spine. 2 Time to tilt Your feeling now is to get your lead shoulder – left for the righthander – as close to your lead hip as possible. You’ll feel a crunch through the lead side of your torso. Keep your hips/belt level. 3 Shoulder turn Now, rotate your shoulders through 90º – you’ll feel a top-of-thebackswing with the ideal shoulder tilt built in. If you’re used…

Emerald-green grass. Five inches of club-tangling rough. Single-file fairways. We all have that image of an archetypal US Open course, but it almost certainly looks nothing like this. Pinehurst No.2 is a glorious anomaly and perhaps the only tree-lined course where rough and water are not even a factor. The fairways are supersized, by US Open standards, and bleed into sandy scrub with copper-coloured wire grass poking out. The greens sit like upturned saucers and shed balls several feet below. Where you end up is all part of the fun. Sometimes in sand, often in a tightly-mown collection area which blurs the line between which Open Championship this actually is. It makes for a special kind of test for a US Open and one which feels long overdue after a…

For the Home of Golf, read the Cradle of Golf. While we cherish St Andrews as the sleepy, enchanting birthplace of the game, America look to Pinehurst as its spiritual home. Both names engender the same enviable mystique at what lies in wait, and neither reality is disappointing. There are striking similarities between the two. Both are fairly remote, Pinehurst being a couple of hours’ drive from cities in different directions. Both have multiple courses of a rare calibre. Both have a feeling of being a place for discerning golfers, Pinehurst arguably to an even greater extent. It feels as if it has hung on to its innocence a little more than St Andrews. There is an unmistakably authentic feel to everything. The ‘Cradle’ label comes from the fact it…

THIS MUCH I KNOW To read the full interview, scan here Retief Goosen is a man so relaxed he is almost comatose. For the best part of three decades, he lived up to his ‘Ice Man’ moniker on the European and PGA Tours, winning 19 times with all the fuss and temperament of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator. He was so good and so consistent between 2001 and 2007 that Tiger Woods once disputed the notion of golf’s ‘Big Four’ because it didn’t feature the two-time US Open champion. The South African is typically self-effacing during our chat, and no less matter of fact in discussing the moment that almost ended his hopes and dreams with a pretty large bang. He was aged just 15 when a bolt of lightning struck him…

PRESENTED BY Shot Scope Watch hundreds of video tips at www.todays-golfer.com QUICK TIP ADD WIDTH, ADD POWER Many club golfers lose power through a cramped, narrow action. It’s typically the result of driving the swing with the hands, arms and wrists, with limited engagement from the core and shoulders. For an easy, effective way to work on this, form your address position without a club. Let your arms hang down comfortably. Now grip your lead wrist with your trail hand. From this start position, use your trail arm to pull your lead arm back. Keep pushing outward through the trail arm as you do this… and keep going until your lead arm is level with the ground. Forcing your shoulders and torso to engage right from the start of the…

In this month’s Challenge, we are going to learn how to drive the ball straight by hitting it deliberately offline. Before you turn the page, let me explain. Square alignment, a neutral swing path and a straight shot become easier to find when we can ‘frame’ them by executing the shots either side – sending the ball intentionally right and left of the target. In this tough three-ball challenge, we’re going to do just that. Follow this routine… YOUR COACH CHRIS RYAN Founder of the HIT Golf Academy, based at Forest of Arden, Warwicks www.chrisryangolf.com Drive 1: Hit it left Put down an alignment stick or clubshaft to mark your ideal, straight target line. Your sole mission for your first ball is to hit it left of this line, so…

It’s no surprise that trying to help the ball up into the air is one of golf ’s most common crimes. Even when we understand our clubfaces are designed with loft to achieve that very job, it still feels so logical that to send the ball skyward, we have to create launch through the release of the club. However, every accomplished golfer has learned to overcome this instinct; as we will see, it leads only to poor striking and frustration, while the opposite attack – slightly downward, ‘squeezing’ the ball – delivers far superior results. Let’s take a closer look… A representation of the classic assisted-launch impact, this image shows why trying to help the ball up doesn’t work: ■ Weight hangs back as we try to get ‘under’ the…

GOLF WORLD TOP 100 LONDON COURSES CAPITAL GAINS The first ever ranking of London’s courses – anything within the M25 was eligible and the quality is exceptionally high THE MOST AUTHORITATIVE RANKINGS IN THE GAME I was doubting the wisdom of dreaming up this ranking, the deeper I got into it – but that served only to emphasise its worth. Outside of the top 10 or 15 courses in this list, the remainder will be a mystery to most of you. That’s why it is such a worthwhile list and why it was so difficult to do. My ambition is always to try to provide some insight on courses you may not know too much about, and I think this ranking does that – indeed, those unfamiliar with Hertfordshire courses…

GOLF WORLD TOP 100 I first swung a club at the age of about 10. My sister and I were staying with my godfather while my parents were travelling in the US. David was a mad keen golfer and took me out for nine holes at Oakhampton. It was fun, but I didn’t look at golf again until I was 14 when a pal asked if I would caddie for him in a junior competition. After that, I asked for some clubs for my birthday and got a secondhand half set of Lee Trevinos. I was then obsessed. Up to that point I had played football at every opportunity; two matches on a Saturday, one on Sunday as well as midweek for various clubs and for school. I was just…

No part of the game of golf encapsulates its challenge like an approach shot. Demanding power, accuracy, precision and creativity, it really does sum up what makes golf so great… and so difficult! It’s so tough, in fact, that unless you are an elite golfer, hitting all those bases is a thankless task. Our first job, then, is to pick the weapons that give us the help where we need it most. Consider these five performance priorities, before turning the page to see how the models that make up a modern iron range cover all bases. Find out about PING's iron family www.ping.com SO YOU WANT MORE… POWER? Though iron play is based more around controlling power than creating it, equipment companies understand that many golfers would benefit from getting…