As a footnote, we searched youtube for videos of Sawgrass' 17th hole (you know, the island green). There are three pages worth of personal experiences (including one poor guy playing through a monsoon). And while most of the swings are better left unseen, we did find one moment that's worth showing again and again. Expect someone else?
We don't usually link our blog to other magazine blogs, but once in a while we think there's something worth checking out. Also, we're not snooty like that and we appreciate good reporting when we see it.
Golf Magazine's Dave Dusek recently reported on how Adam Scott asked Scotty Cameron to make him a mallet putter like the one he used to use as a kid.
So, what did S.C. do? Looks to us like he whipped up a putter that looks eerily like the Ram Zebra putter than was quite popular 10-15 years ago. (Yeah, you know the one.) It's a prototype model for now, but if he decides to mass produce it---hmmm. Curious to see how that would play out.
Check out the above photo of the Zebra, then follow the link below to see what Cameron made. Is he running out of ideas? You be the judge.
While most of the golfing world has it's eyes fixated on Tiger playing in Arizona this week, do yourself a favor and check out what's going on south of the border at the spectacular Fairmont Mayakoba Resort in Playa Del Carmen (a 30-minute drive south of Cancun.) In case you didn't know, there's a PGA Tour event going on down there this week.
How do I know it's such a spectacular place? I was just there and few weeks ago, and had the privilege to test my golf skill (or lack thereof) on the challenging, yet fair, El Camaleon golf course. Needless to say, the course is a lot of fun to play but it's the scenery that will have you coming back for more. Great views from everywhere, a few holes along the ocean and some of the best manicured fairways and greens in all of Mexico. How can you beat that?
I know how. Add a 650+ acre, 400-room Fairmont resort to the mix, with all the trimmings you'd expect from a top-rated resort company. Great food, great amenities and most of all, great people to make your visit even more special.
Check it out HERE and start planning your vacation now.
News today that Morgan Stanley will stay on as the sponsor of Jack Nicklaus' Memorial Tournament, but that they will not be sending clients or executives because of the "environment." By this we assume they mean the economic climate and not climate change.
Late last month the Ginn Company, who at their peak, sponsored tournaments on all three tours, abruptly pulled the plug on all sponsorships. Their withdraw was so swift that PGA Tour spokesman Ty Votaw learned about the decision through a press release.
The "jokes" flying around our office today are about how Tour events should be sponsored by TARP. One thing is certain, every Tour will feel the effect of the downturn, especially once sponsorship contracts expire.
Will winners still pocket $1 million plus checks? Which tournaments won't, um, make the cut? What are your thoughts?
Wells Fargo & Co., recipient of $25 billion in government aid, is cutting spending on the Wachovia Championship golf tournament that starts in April amid criticism from U.S. lawmakers about banks' corporate expenses.
Wells Fargo, which acquired Wachovia Corp. in December, has a sponsorship contract with the PGA Tour through 2014, spokeswoman Mary Beth Navarro said in an e-mailed statement. The company is reducing costs, including some related to client entertainment, and hasn't determined the specifics, she said.
"This event helps us drive significant revenue for our businesses by building client relationships, but we are carefully evaluating all of our expenses given the economic environment," Navarro said. "We plan to reduce expenses as much as possible, while meeting our contract obligations."
Northern Trust, which received $1.6 billion in funding through the U.S. Troubled Asset Relief Program, was criticized by lawmakers yesterday for spending on clients and employees at a company-sponsored golf tournament this month.
U.S. Bancorp spokesman Steve Dale said that the Minneapolis-based bank is not renewing its sponsorship of a PGA tournament after this year. The final U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee will be held from July 13 through July 19, and the company will reduce "hospitality and entertainment aspects of the event," Dale said today in an interview.
I admit, I peruse blogs rather often and I do so to catch up on what's going on at PGA Tour events. We GT editors don't get out more than a few times a year to catch an event, so it's nice to catch a little "Johnny-on-the-spot" reporting that you can find on some blogs.
However.
I'll protect the blog of note since it's not the writer's fault, but I've seen my fare share of distracting ads on websites, none of which are so foul and grossly distracting as the image you see here. I mean, come on? Do you really expect me to click it and learn more? I don't know what the ad is advertising and I don't care. Oh, and I've seen this unsightly ad more than once. More than twice. Heck, I stopped counting at 7.
So do me a favor everybody, and let's keep these kinds of ads off our blogs. It's just plain gross. And hey, good thing our blog is ad free for the most part. And if you see an ad, I promise it'll be a golf ad, pertinent to the discussion.
Thanks. Now I'm going to go skip lunch and work out.
With Tiger on the sidelines for the past eight months, the PGA Tour, while still filled with watchable moments (Greg Norman's close call in the Open, Padraig Harrington's two major wins and The Ryder Cup to name a few) has functioned more like a 10-watt bulb hanging in an airplane hangar. There just hasn't been enough electricity to light up the joint.
If you've forgotten what it's like to have Tiger around, this video should jog your memory. Click to witness the mind-blowing putting clinic he put on at last year's Accenture Match Play when he came from 3 down with five to play to beat J.B. Holmes.
Remember GT readers, no matter how far you hit your driver, no matter how crisply your irons are struck, if you can't putt you're never going to score.
Tiger returns tomorrow with a first round match against Brendan Jones at the Accenture Match Play Championship at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Dove Mountain, Arizona. The 33-year-old Aussie said he was "overjoyed" when he heard he'd play Woods.
Click here to watch an interview with Jones and see clips of his swing.
During our research we scoured youtube looking for videos of Jones' swing, but all we could find was this...
...and something tells us it's not the same Brendan Jones. If it was a drum off, the 15-year-old Brendan Jones would take Tiger 9 & 8.
In our final batch of tips from this year's Northern Trust Open we take a look at one of the most mechanically sound players on Tour, a leftie who likes to dress loud and the Tour's most unorthodox swing.
First up, the mechanically sound 2008 Masters champion Trevor Immelman. There aren't many moving parts in his swing. It's compact, athletic and he finishes in balance.
Behind those elevee slacks (below) is the 2006 Valero Texas Open champ, Eric Axley.
We confess, it's not an angle used in golf magazines or websites to show proper positions, but there's still something to learn. Take a look at his right leg. See how "firm" it is on his follow-through and that it's basically in the same position in his backswing? If you sway off the ball, do what Axley's does. Keep your forward leg "solid" through impact and you'll impart proper rotation and prevent swaying.
And now for what golf.com's Alan Shipnuck calls one of "the most unorthodox swings in pro golf." We'll go one step further and say it's THE MOST UNORTHODOX SWING IN PRO GOLF. And to emphasize we'll put it in caps and bold it too.
As Shipnuck notes Singh's club is "laid off at the top...
... and [his] downswing [has] a pronounced outside-in swipe."
Yikes.
Look how little (if any) hip rotation there is. It's a total arm swing. Not surprisingly Singh doesn't hit the ball very far.
We're struggling to pull a lesson from these shots, so we'll just say sometimes no matter how fundamentally "bad" your swing is, with lots of practice and crazy good hand/eye coordination you can make it as a Tour pro.
He seriously guards against hitting the ball to the left.
Contrary to popular opinion, however, his driver is NOT six degrees open. More like one or two, which isn't uncommon on Tour. Where this six degree open thing came from, we don't know.
Vijay's swing is old school. It's long and fluid, which suits his 6' 2" frame. This helps him swing like water and extend:
Check out the following two photos:
The key lesson here is how Singh's follow-through mirrors his downswing (you'll also see his follow-through match his backswing when it's halfway back). His wrists are hinged in the first photo and a millisecond from doing that in the second photo.
Note how in the second photo his right arm is starting to rotate over his left? His right hand is, as Harvey Penick would say, "shaking hands with the target." If you have trouble squaring the clubface, you need to shake hands with the target.
Above we see Singh not only taking perfect divots on Riviera's driving range, but also in a perfect position halfway back. How do we know it's perfect? His clubshaft is bisecting his bicept. Now, run to a mirror and do this so you can set your club on plane.
What can you learn from a PGA Tour player's golf swing? A lot.
The Golf Tips staff was at the Northern Trust Open yesterday scouring Riviera Country Club's two driving ranges for great tips. We found them.
Here's 3-time winner Kirk Triplett just after impact. Note how his weight has shifted into his left side? His hips have cleared out of the way and his right heel is slightly off the ground. Many amateurs don't do this (they do what's called a "reverse pivot" where their weight falls back onto their right side and, as a result, swing mostly with their arms and slice across the ball).
Another good example of someone who clears their hips is Lucas Glover, although the more flexible 29 year old can keep his right foot planted at impact. Don't try this if you work a desk job.
Here's a down the line shot of Triplett. Take a look at how his club's shaft matches his right arm. Again, a lot of amateurs fail to stay "on plane" like Kirk. His extension here shows that he's kept the club going around his body on the follow-through. Try this at home in a mirror to ensure you're rotating the club properly.
Take a look at Stephen Ames, post-impact. Note how his hips have cleared out of the way and the club remains in front of his chest as he turns. Some people may look at this swing and say "see, you've got to keep your head down," we don't believe that's the best advice to pass onto golfers. All too often "keeping your head down" leads to poor weight shift. In fact better players like Annika Sorenstam and David Duval actually rotate their head toward the target as they approach impact. The key is to keep rotating to the left.
2002 PGA Champ Rich Beem isn't too proud to use a training aid on the range. Here he's trying to keep his legs together so he remains stable and doesn't move off the ball during his swing. Does anybody know the name of this training aid? We don't. Help!
This isn't breaking news, but we still thought it'd be of interest.
A team of engineers at Arizona State University and the University of Maryland have been studying how air flow affects a golf ball's speed and trajectory.
...cannot weigh more than 1.620 ounces. It must fall, under its own weight, through a 1.680 ring gauge in fewer than 25 of 100 randomly selected positions at a room temperature from 71.6 to 75.2 degrees. It must be spherically symmetrical. Its initial velocity and its combined carry and roll must not exceed precise limits, and the ball must be tested using equipment specified by the U.S.G.A.
But, he continues, what the U.S.G.A. doesn't specify is
the size or number of dimples. (emphasis added)
This completely opens up the door for improving a golf ball's aerodynamics and, hence, how far it flies. Up until now a golf ball's size, number and dimple arrangement has been, according to an article published on Science Daily, more
art than...science. For many years, sporting goods companies would design their dimple patterns by simple trial and error, testing prototype after prototype against one another.
The engineers' goal was
to make a better golf ball by optimizing the size and pattern of [the] dimples and lowering the drag golf balls encounter as they fly through the air.
According to the Times
a team of mechanical engineers has constructed a computer model of a golf ball's surface. The model simulates a golf ball moving through air [see video below], and allows the engineers to solve equations that describe air flow at more than a billion points across the ball's surface.
Which is no small feat
Running a typical simulation requires a supercomputer — the equivalent of more than 500 networked desktop computers running in parallel for more than 300 hours. The result is a vast amount of data about the local speed and pressure of the air around each dimple and around the ball.
What's this mean for the average golfer? Well, not much...yet. As Science Daily notes, "new designs are still years away," but with any luck the advances will add some extra yards to your drive or, more optimistically, according to ASU professor of mechanical engineering, Kyle Squires.
It's conceivable that we could design dimples that would lower the risk of a hook or a slice.
Will it be must-see TV, or a bit "uneven?" Despite its compelling subject matter, early reviews are mixed for tonight's Golf Channel documentary, Uneven Fairways.
Inspired by Pete McDaniel's book, Uneven Lies, "Fairways" tells the stories of golf's Negro League, the United Golfers Association (UGA), where African-American's played while the PGA Tour was still segregated.
The documentary is another good reminder of how blacks struggled in this country for decades to achieve equality and how we sometimes take that struggle for granted.
But, unfortunately
it doesn't present much in the way of actual competition that took place on the UGA Tour.
Over at Golfweek, Marty Kaufmann addresses that very issue, noting that it
has an understandable dearth of archival footage.
(Suffice to say, the UGA wasn't on TV Saturday and Sunday afternoons.) Kaufmann also notes that
ironically, the documentary's momentum stalls on the few occasions when Tiger Woods comes on screen.
His presence, while perhaps obligatory, feels forced, interrupting the compelling memories of the men who actually were there.
The recently renovated Papago Golf Course (5th hole, above) in Phoenix reopened a couple months ago and has never looked better according to (Travelin') Joe Passov over at golf.com.
The tired turf has been replaced, 30 bunkers have been added, the green sizes and contours have been restored, and the trees that obscured the views of Camelback Mountain and Piestewa Peak have been removed. With the addition of 300 yards to the tips, Papago now clocks in at an impressive 7,333 yards.
While it may never host a U.S. Open or Presidents Cup, there's already talk about other events. But all of that isn't really relevant, because Papago wasn't rescued for the pros, but for the people. The top rate here is $109 for visitors ($84 walking on weekdays and just $44 for locals). That's not a deal — it's a steal.
Here are a couple pictures of the 9th hole:
The 11th:
And 18: All photos: Tony Roberts/Communication Links
Over the years the AT&T has grown from a modest clambake in Rancho Sante Fe to its current format on the Monterey Peninsula, where 180 Tour pros are held at gunpoint and forced to endure six hour rounds of bad golf before one lucky player walks away with a check for $1,080,000 (and a much needed break from their amateur playing partners).
Many pros skip the AT&T because of the lengthy rounds, but this year the field is surprisingly strong with four of the world's top ten golfers (Padraig Harrington, Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson and Kenny Perry) teeing it up. Also on hand are Jim Furyk, Davis Love III, Fred Couples and '09 winners, Nick Watney, Kenny Perry and Pat Perez.
Of course the AT&T is really all about the celebrities, and CBS' Saturday telecast is sure to keep the cameras trained on (Kenny G aside) their lackluster golf swings and the crowd-pleasing shenanigans of Bill Murray, Kevin James and George Lopez, etc.
The real golf comes on Sunday.
One notably absent celeb this year is Las Vegas impersonator Danny Gans, who, for the past two years, monopolized much of the Saturday telecasts with recycled SNL impersonations. We're not sure why CBS devoted so much airtime to Gans, possibly they're sadists, maybe they just really dug his imitation of Dana Carvey imitations. Whatever their motivation, watching Gans' ham it up taught us how to use our TiVo and guaranteed that the next time we're in Vegas we'll take in the American Superstars show before we'd see Gans.
Then again, we're not the high-rolling, Picasso-poking Steve Wynn, who, according to the Las Vegas Sun, lured Gans to his newest Vegas property, Encore, when his contract at the Mirage expired last April.
...Wynn has seen Gans' show 20 times.
Wynn drew up a list of favorite bits he wanted to see in the new show, but told Gans: "You can do new stuff too, whatever you want to do, but make sure you do this." Gans looked at the list and realized there wasn't any room for new material. "Steve, this is like an hour and a half of material. I can't do it."
So...expect to see more of the same if you see Gans' "new" show. Look on the bright side, at least it'll be in Las Vegas and not at this year's AT&T.
Elin and I are thrilled to announce the birth of our son, Charlie Axel Woods, who was born on Sunday February 8, 2009. Both Charlie and Elin are doing great and we want to thank everyone for their sincere best wishes and kind thoughts. Sam is very excited to be a big sister and we feel truly blessed to have such a wonderful family. I also want to thank our doctors, nurses and the hospital staff for their personal and professional care. We look forward to introducing Charlie to you at the appropriate time, and again thanks from all of us for your kindness and support.
From all of us at Golf Tips, congratulations Tiger and Elin.
GT Senior Instruction Editor Jeff Ritter, gold medal Olympic swimmer and Certified Holistic Nutrition Specialist Anita Nall Richesson and International Coaching & Training Institute founder Austin Vickers have joined forces for a one day "physical and mental strategy" workshop at the ASU Karsten Golf Course in Tempe, Arizona.
Taking place on Sunday, March 8th, the workshop, called "Making the Turn" promises to not only pass along physical and mental strategies, but also a personal golf game improvement plan, nutritional plan and a strength, flexibility and injury prevention routine. (A round of golf at ASU Karsten is included in the price as well.)
Cost is $950 per person.
To register, call 480.491.5591. For more info visit Jeff's website or send him an email at jritter5@cox.net.
If you've ever wanted to be the first golfer to tee it up on a new (or in this case renovated) golf course, here's your chance.
Pine Lakes Country Club in Myrtle Beach, S.C. is reopening on Saturday, March 14th after a 20 month, $10 million renovation, and to mark the occasion they're holding a sweepstakes--with a few perks, to say the least.
The prize includes an invitation to attend Pine Lakes grand opening ceremony, the Myrtle Beach Golf Hall of Fame induction ceremony, four nights accommodations at the Marina Inn at Grande Dunes, a round of golf at Myrtlewood Golf Club and video swing analysis from a Grande Dunes Golf Academy instructor. Oh, and of course, the first tee time for you and three friends at Pine Lakes. (If you win, play fast. A lot of people will be on your tail.)
Register here anytime before February 16th. Winner will be announced the next day.
Nope, for the next 18 months the most talked about international golf destination is sure to be Wales.
Wales?
Yes, Wales.
Cymru (its Welsh name) might be small (population 3 million) but it's big when it comes to golf. There are 189 golf courses in an area slightly smaller than New Jersey and 22 of them are the highly desirable links courses, like Royal Porthcawl.
Although not one of those links courses, the "2010" course at Celtic Manor Resort will host next year's Ryder Cup. Nine new holes designed by Ross McMurray join a pre-existing (and heavily renovated) nine designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr. Together the two nines form the first course built specifically to host the Ryder Cup.
At last week's PGA Merchandise Show, the media was treated to a presentation that detailed the extraordinary lengths Celtic Manor went to build the course. (In some cases they had to literally move mountains.) That kind of earth moving makes it sound more like an American venture than one in the British Isles, but we're happy to report that none of the photographs we saw resemble a Pete Dye course on acid.
Suffice to say, the Welsh are excited to play host. How excited? Check out Celtic Manor's website. There's a clock counting down the days. Only 604 to go.
Bad economy = great golf deals. Here are three on Hawaii's Garden Isle, Kauai.
1. "No Airlines Hassle Golf Package." $175 plus tax. 18 hole green fee, rental clubs, shoes and two sleeves of golf balls (no brand given on release). Kaua'i Lagoons Golf Club. (800) 634.6400.
2. Puakea Golf Course. $79 greens fee after 11:00am ($59 after 2:00pm). Call (866) 773.5554.
3. "2009 Tease for Two Package" at Princeville. Call for details (800) 826.1105. (Basically you can play golf and go to the spa for $275.)
As a footnote, we searched youtube for videos of Sawgrass' 17th hole (you know, the island green). There are three pages worth of personal experiences (including one poor guy playing through a monsoon). And while most of the swings are better left unseen, we did find one moment that's worth showing again and again. Expect someone else?
