Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 473 i Today's Golfer

I count myself very, very fortunate to have seen Tiger Woods competing in his absolute prime, circa 2000-2008, when he held all four Major titles simultaneously and topped the World Ranking for a total of 683 weeks. The first time I saw him was at the 1998 World Match Play Championship at Wentworth, when Mark O’Meara defeated him in the 36-hole final. Two years later, I was at St Andrews to see him win his first Open by eight shots. That was to complete his (first) career Grand Slam. In 2005, I was back to watch him win his second Claret Jug and almost collided with him as he emerged from a Portaloo, which felt surreal in its own way. I followed him for all four rounds when he defended…

Victor Perez wants to apologise for taking our video call in his home gym. His 10-month-old daughter is asleep in the next room, and the treadmill and free weights behind him are the last remaining remnants of his former life. “I’ve basically been kicked out of my own house,” he laughs. It looks like the lair of a man grinding through the off-season, but the coffee he’s tucked just out of frame tells a different story. Perez is enjoying a breather this afternoon and as well he might given all the noise surrounding him. We’re speaking barely a week since his move to Cleeks Golf Club on LIV was made official. He retreated to Edinburgh in the aftermath of resigning his PGA Tour membership and plans to spend a couple…

7-UP Mallet-using 15-handicappers enjoy a 7% hole-out advantage over blade users from 6ft and in. It’s the fundamental putter choice – a sleeker, cleaner blade, as represented by the Ping Anser or Scotty Cameron Newport, or a bulkier, busier mallet putter, such as the Odyssey 2-ball or TaylorMade Spider X? Looks are one thing, but what about performance? As many of you will be aware, tour pros are trending away from blades and towards mallets – including one S. Scheffler, Esq, whose switch into a TaylorMade mallet coincided with his recent dominance of the game. Current estimates suggest 70% of PGA Tour pros now use a mallet. But are the pros right? And does their experience translate across to the amateur game? Let’s check out the data from performance-tracking specialists…

Now here is a situation that is just crying out for some sensible course management and execution. This is the short par-4 9th at the lovely Stoneham GC, Hants, and after a good drive I’m just 50 yards from the hole. But the greenkeeper has defended the hole well, placing the pin on the far left and dangerously close to a deep drop that offers precisely zero chance of an up-and-down. Any golfer in this situation is faced with a dilemma: we can spot a sucker pin when we see one, but at the same time we don’t want to abandon all hope of getting down in two more by playing ultra-safe. So here is a plan for the shot that offers some cautious aggression. Keep it in mind for…

Every club tested and rated at todays-golfer.com HERE TO HELP YOU BUY BETTER PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT Our favourite training aids to get your game in shape for the 2026 season. NEW GEAR PXG unveil their Lightning family of drivers and woods. NEW GEAR First look at Srixon’s stealthy game-improver irons. NEW GEAR And Srixon’s popular AD333 ball gets an update. BAG A BARGAIN You’ll find big discounts on our top woods of 2025.…

Me and My Golf True Grip Training Glove £19.99 The guys at Me and My Golf have designed this revolutionary golf glove with a unique grip alignment design featuring silicone areas for optimal hand positioning and non-slip performance. Those strategically placed blue indicators and arrow tip markers help reinforce proper grip and alignment. The glove stands up well in all weather conditions, delivering exceptional grip and flexibility, and it’s lightweight, breathable and comfortable. It’s also suitable for washing by hand or machine. SuperSpeed Sticks Pro £229.99 If you’re serious about increasing your clubhead speed, this is a very effective way to do it. The new version of the SuperSpeed Golf Training System is designed to help players optimise their speed-training gains. They have improved aerodynamics, shaft load and release characteristics,…

Expectations have evolved since I first started out with Cabot. The core of what golfers value hasn’t changed; they still want great courses on inspiring land, with thoughtful service and memorable moments with friends and family. What has changed is the breadth and depth of what they now expect around that core. Previously, a ‘golf trip’ was often centred purely on the courses. If the golf was good, everything else was secondary. Today, guests are looking for a much more holistic experience. They still want world-class golf, but they also want exceptional accommodation, thoughtful design, great food and beverage, and off-course activities. The bar across all touchpoints has risen. The modern golf traveller is also more adventurous. They’re willing to go farther afield if the destination is compelling. Cabot Cape…

Golf travel combines two of my favourite things in life. As a family, we have been lucky enough to sample some of Europe’s finest resorts, where down the years we’ve successfully found entertainment for all ages – including, in particular, repeat visits to two of our favourites: Verdura in Sicily and Costa Navarino in Greece. You get a real feel for what works and what doesn’t, especially set against the standards of the aforementioned pair, so I’ve been delighted to contribute to the World Resorts Top 100. And this has been a busy year away from the day job, embracing any gaps afforded by the hectic Premier League schedule to pack the clubs and head for the airport. My first foray of 2025 was to Egypt and the breezy Red…

Forget ‘ordinary’ golf bags. The Uforia E-Drive Suite by AVGAR is a rolling luxury suite for your clubs – and for you. Fully water-resistant and equipped with a revolutionary anti-tangle, anti-rattle system, it treats your golf clubs better than most people treat themselves. The bag itself has been designed inside out, so your clubs slide in and out sideways. But the real showstopper? A fold-out wardrobe with a shoe and cooler bag, four shelves, eight door pockets and a drawer for your Rolex (obviously). With retractable wheels and a remote-controlled trolley that diligently follows you around, it’s the ultimate fairway flex. The only snag is its price tag – £2,484 -which is probably worth as much as the golf clubs it’s trusted with carrying. But compared to a Louis Vuitton…

Get the Christmas hangover out of the way and Scottie comes alive. Excels between March and June, which means the career Grand Slam should be a formality. JT probably wishes there was a fifth Major championship in January or August. Maybe don’t bet on him to win the US Open or Open Championship. Never used to be a big fan of April. Loves a top 10 in September and nearly always gets hot once the play-offs hit on the DP World and PGA Tours. Nicknamed Mr Consistent, but Mr July would work just as well for Schauffele. Other than The Sentry, he can’t buy a victory in the winter or spring. The king of the fast starts, Rahm very rarely misses a weekend during the first four months of the…

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 LEAVE THE OLD LADY BE LETTER OF THE MONTH Scotland’s environmental forces aided rabbits to sculpt the most iconic and revered course on the planet. Now, diggers orchestrated by architects’ computers are poised to disfigure The Old Lady. This is the equivalent of putting a flat-roofed extension onto St Paul’s Cathedral. The elite golfers, armed with scientifically-designed equipment and attire, are merely reducing the course scores. So what? Top distance runners can now run sub-four-minute miles, but there has been no plan to lengthen the mile or make the track uneven. The Old Lady is still a challenge for…

Now Tiger is finally eligible for the Seniors Tour, we thought it was the perfect time to revisit his most memorable triumphs and ask the question that still sparks debate among golf fans: Which one was his greatest Major victory? It’s been 25 years since Tiger broke all kinds of records at the US Open, finishing 12-under-par while second place lagged an incredible 15 shots behind. But how does that demolition job at Pebble Beach compare to his play-off victory on one leg at Torrey Pines in 2008? Was his emotional 2019 Masters comeback even more remarkable? Or should we give more credit to the time he won The Open Championship while using his driver only once across 72 holes? To settle the debate, we broke down all 15 of…

Watch hundreds of video tips at todays-golfer.com HERE TO HELP YOU SAVE SHOTS QUICK TIP TRAIL-HAND CHIPPING When it comes to chipping, one of the biggest dangers the club golfer faces is becoming too top-hand dominant. The upper, gloved hand tends to want to drag the handle forward, increasing lean in the shaft. Steepening the attack angle can feel like a smart anti-duff move. In fact, it encourages the leading edge of the sole to dig while delofting the clubface, compromising flight control. To address this, practise chip shots using your trail hand only. The lower hand is more of a clubhead releaser, naturally shallowing the attack and presenting the club’s true loft to the ball. Train yourself to strike the ball well with the trail hand only and you can…

Winter is a great time to start forging some new, more productive habits – and here is one of the best. Taking hold of the club is something we have to do before every shot, but few club golfers give much thought to how they go about it. That’s a great shame because the process can make or break the effectiveness of the hold – and, by extension, the shot. Here is a simple thing you can do to get the club running through the correct parts of the hands every time. FIND YOUR DIAGONAL Hold the club in your trail hand only, and at the bottom of the rubber. Now centre your gloved hand against the handle, comfortably horizontal and with the fingers pointing away from you. Make sure…

From 50-75 yards, a 15-handicapper hits the green 54% of the time and averages a 42ft proximity. From 75-100 yards, this figure plummets to 45% and 53ft. These figures should tell you all you need to know about the supposed wisdom of laying up to a preferred yardage. While you may fancy yourself from 90 or 100 yards, the data continually proves that getting closer to the green delivers better results. This is a pattern seen across all skill levels, though the scratch golfer comes closest to evening the score with 75-100-yard approaches only averaging 3ft further away than 50-75-yarders, and GIR just 4% worse at 73% vs 77%. TRY THIS Take a divot with your hybrid Many club players fail to get maximum power out of their hybrid because…

Azero-torque Scotty Cameron putter was first spotted in June, and after waiting in anticipation for the past five months, we finally have an official release – though it’s not entirely what we expected. Other brands would be inclined to call these putters zero-torque, but Cameron believes no putter can truly be zero-torque because “the act of putting introduces torque, no matter the design.” Hence, these are ‘low-torque’. The Phantom 11R OC is a stable, high-MOI multi-material mallet design. Its tour-inspired shape features softer, more rounded edges than the Phantom 11 head, and the new model features a full chain-link milled face. The 11R OC has a single alignment line, which extends from the leading edge to the shaft placement. The Studio Style Fastback OC shares the footprint of the 2025…

I am absolutely thrilled with the number of pages devoted to this World Resorts Top 100 and hope that this meaty section will have you salivating over the prospect of a golf holiday. Over the course of 74 pages, I find it hard to believe there won’t be something for everyone here. That was certainly the idea when I came up with the criteria and weighting. I didn’t want ‘Courses with Rooms’ because in this list I hope to bring resorts to your attention that can satisfy the golfer but also please the non-golfer. Golf provides 40% of the marks, so it is obviously the main driver of the ranking, but the other elements mean that the most rounded resorts tend to do the best and those with very few…

7 The number of new entries within the 100 – from an eclectic mix of countries: Italy, France, Egypt, Morocco, Spain, Portugal and Barbados. 53 The position of the highest new entry, recently-eligible Castiglion del Bosco in Tuscany. Five resorts debut in the list in the 90s, so the average entry position for the seven is No.89. 30 The number of countries represented in the list – including Fiji, Vietnam, Barbados, Sri Lanka and Egypt. 21 The number of entries from the United States, which is comfortably the country with the biggest haul and remarkably has half of the top 10. 31 The highest climber – Te Arai in New Zealand – rises to No.76. Vilamoura Golf jumps a sensational 30 spots and into the top half. 5 The number…

Name: Angel Hidalgo Nationality: Spanish Age: 27 Tour: DP World Pro wins: 4 What was your first car, and what do you drive now? I don’t have one. I will start taking driving lessons, but I failed the [theory] exam a few times. Apart from a house, what’s the most extravagant purchase you’ve made? I bought a car for my dad. A Mercedes. He had been dreaming of that car for a few years, so when I started winning a little bit more money, I bought him the car. What’s the coolest or oldest piece of golfing memorabilia that you own? I had a ball from [LPGA star] Azahara Munoz. She grew up playing at my club and was an idol. We practised a few times together when I was a kid. I also…

Shot on location at stunning LA HACIENDA LINKS GOLF RESORT, Sotogrande, home to two fantastic 18-hole championship courses. Visit lahaciendagolf.com Imagine a day when you went out on to the course with the goal of shooting your worst score possible. Here are some tactics you would almost certainly use… Selecting targets well outside your skillset and comfort zone. Ignoring danger signs. Taking reckless risks. Picking the wrong clubs for the job. Well… I have to inform you that this success-stifling state of affairs is not so very far off what I witness every time I tee it up with club golfers. Their goal might be to score as low as possible, yet they appear to be doing just about everything in their power to sabotage themselves. Indeed, in my experience,…

YOUR COACH As you work through these cures, designed to rid the beginner, improver and more skilled player of golf’s most common bad shot, you’ll see two themes emerge: poor set-up basics and flawed concepts. Over the years, these two elements have remained at the heart of the slice. While the swing itself gets all the attention, the address position that fundamentally creates it gets woefully overlooked; meanwhile, it is perhaps golf’s chief curse that so many of the things we think we should be doing in the golf swing actually cause its biggest problem shot. So wherever you are in your golfing journey, your path to taming your slice has to begin with checking your beliefs, and checking your address position. Improve in these two areas and that infernal…

Impact and throughswing are arguably when our bodies are at their most vulnerable. The club is moving at its fastest here -hopefully! – and physically, we are under the most strain. Unfortunately, because of the speed of movement, this is also when we are least aware of what we are putting our bodies through – and that can lead to problems we are not even aware of. This month’s topic – an inability to clear the hips and a side-on impact position – is a great example, potentially damaging the back and lead hip besides producing a range of unwanted shots. Here’s what to look out for– and what you can do about it. Always consult your GP before adopting any new fitness regimen. We need to rotate through impact…

There is a principle in psychology that whatever you resist, you strengthen. For anyone who’s spent considerable but ultimately fruitless time trying to rid their game of the dreaded yips, this will ring true. The harder you fight them, the worse the problem seems to get. The yips, of course, is not a particularly technical term. It was coined by triple Major winner Tommy Armour to describe the flatstick spasms that put paid to his playing career. But these days we see the word in a wider context, using it to refer to any involuntary movement – or indeed, as we shall see, absence of movement – with any club, at any point. Because of its mystery and horror, this affliction tends to go under the radar somewhat, but latest…

In the next few weeks, you’re going to see a lot of new clubs online, on video and in the pages of TG. This is launch season, and by the middle of January, the embargoes will be lifted on most of the 2026 clubs. We’ve already seen a few on tour and the USGA Conforming List – Rory McIlroy won the Race to Dubai with TaylorMade’s new Qi4D in the bag – but we don’t have much we can officially say about the technical improvements promised by any of them… yet. One thing we know for sure is that they will promise an improvement over this year’s clubs – if fitted properly. How big that improvement really is remains to be seen; we’ll find out when we launch monitor test…

There were seven years between my visits to Belle Mare Plage and that was a great pity! I regretted even more not going back sooner, as soon as I saw the beauty of it again – it reminded me how special it is. Constance Resorts – Belle Mare Plage and also the Prince Maurice – is a wonderful place to spend time. I’ve been very fortunate in my life to have travelled the world and stayed at some beautiful resorts all over the world, but it just might be the best of the lot – it’s quite incredible. Everything regarding the hotels is first class and it was fantastic to finally get back there last year. The resort’s Legends course has improved dramatically over the years. The greens were a…