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By Renée Trudeau O’Higgins
I’m going to assume you don’t need my advice to hit a putt solidly. That’s pretty easy to do. But what about the rest of your game? If you’re honestly assessing it, are you making great contact most of the time on your drives, irons, pitches, chips and bunker shots? Yep, you can hit bunker shots solidly—you’re just hitting the sand, not the ball. And the same logic applies: Better contact means better results. So instead of worrying about whether your left arm is straight during the backswing or some other swing thought, let’s get your focus back to where it should be during a swing—hitting the ball with the center of the clubface. Here I’ll give you advice on how to do that, and how to play better from the sand.
IMPROVE YOUR SEQUENCING
Golf is a lot more fun when you’re hitting your driver solidly. Players who struggle with this club typically have sequencing issues—the upper body is too involved at the start of the downswing. That forces the club into a steep, out-to-in path, and the ball is struck with a glancing blow.
I advise you to routinely check your driver’s face to see where your impact was. If it’s “toey” a lot, try to make sure your chest stays in the top-of-backswing position a beat or two longer. To get a feel for that, make swings with your driver on an upslope; no ball needed. The goal is to brush the ground then clip the tee. If your club crashes into the ground behind the tee, or the tee flies to the left, you’re upper body is still leading the downswing. Instead, hold it off for a count, and feel your lower body shift up the slope first.
STAY CONNECTED
An arms-only swing leads to fat and thin chips. You’ve got to get your body moving to chip effectively.
To train the body pivot, place a tee in your armpit closest to the target. Swing back and through trying to keep it there. You will if your arms and body move as one.
“Skilled iron play is about hitting it flush from all sorts of lies.”
RANDOMIZE PRACTICE
How often do you hit the same iron from the same lie in the same round? There’s always some variance once you’re off the tee. That’s why hitting it flush from the fairway or rough is all about adaptability.
Try this drill to assess how well you adjust. Drop three balls that come to rest in your hitting area. Now try to strike each one as solidly as you can without changing anything but the club’s position at address. You’ll soon find you have better awareness of how to swing to get the club to bottom out in front of each ball. This drill prepares you for how to adapt to get solid contact every time you swing.
CONTROL THE FACE
Many greenside sand shots get thinned into the bunker’s face. The problem often stems from trying to maintain a wide-open clubface throughout the swing. I know, I know; you were told to do that. But the thing is, if you leave the face wide open, you’ve got to make a pretty aggressive swing to get the ball out. And for many golfers, a big swing leads to inconsistency.
Instead, try hitting bunker shots with a closed clubface at address. If you keep your grip pressure medium to light, the club will open as it moves through the sand, and you’ll hit a solid shot with far less effort.
Originally published on GolfDigest golfdigest.com/story/solid-through-the-bag
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Sample Local Breweries:
Chas. Herdrich
Crystal Lake Brewery
Two Brothers
Goose Island
Crispy Schnitzel w/ Noodles
Toasted Caraway Crusted Salmon w/ Braised Cabbage
Sauerbraten Marinated in Red Wine with Whipped Potatoes
Roasted Pork Loin w/ Sauerkraut
Braised Boneless Chicken Breast w/ Sauerkraut & Swiss Cheese
Seared Bratwurst w/ Braised Cabbage
Kassler Rippchen w/ Sauerkraut
Apple Strudel
all entres include choice of soup or salad
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by Austin Cook
On the way to my most successful season in professional golf, including a win at the PGA Tour’s RSM Classic, I avoided bogey 62 percent of the time when I missed a green in regulation. Without those saves, the 2017-’18 season might have been my first and last on tour. So if I can give you one piece of advice about your game, it’s to start looking at your wedges as the tools for survival—and success. First, learn everything you can about the ones you use (loft, bounce, grind, etc.) and if they’re right for your game (go see a clubfitter). Once you’re happy with your clubs, use them—and use them a lot. If you don’t practice, you’ll never understand how each wedge and swing technique affects ball flight and spin. And if you don’t have an understanding of those two things, you’re not going to get up and down very often. Here I’ll explain how I decide what club and shot to play and teach you my favorite drill for chipping it to tap-in range. Hopefully you’ll follow my lead and become more confident with your wedges. —with Keely Levins
HIT THE TOWEL FOR MORE CONTROL
We did this drill in college, and I still use it. Grab a towel, get it wet to keep it from blowing away, and lay it on a green between you and the hole. Now chip balls from off the green on that line trying to land them on the towel. Experiment with different wedges, and hit from different spots paying attention to how the ball reacts to each shot.
You’ll soon discover how to produce the trajectory and rollout you want. When you play, imagine the towel is still on the green, and hit the shot best for that situation. “Whenever you can, go with a lower chip than runs out.”
GO WITH THE PERCENTAGES
This is a really tricky lie—downhill in light rough with a bunker between me and the hole. I can hit a variety of shots from here, but there’s always one that stands out a little more than the others. The smart play is the shot that will leave you with a decent chance to save par (or carding no worse than a bogey) even when you don’t quite execute it.
Here I can either land it in the fringe and let it roll out to the hole or fly it most of the way and let it land soft by the hole. Generally speaking, the easier of the two shots is usually taking a lower-lofted wedge and hitting the runner. But sometimes the lie, or the location of the pin, dictates that flying it with a higher-lofted club is smarter. For example, if I were hitting into the grain of the grass between me and the hole, getting the ball to release when it lands might be tough. In that case, I’d want to fly it high and let it trickle out.
LET IT GLIDE TO STOP IT QUICKLY
As I said, you need to get to know your wedges, including the bounce for each club. Without getting too technical, it’s how much bulge is on the back side of the club, the spot I’m pointing to here. This design feature helps you slide the club under the ball and pop it up, which is why I want to use a high-loft, high-bounce club for chips that need to be in the air longer than they roll.
I get in a narrow stance with my feet open. Then I open the face a little before taking my grip. This exposes more of the bounce, making it easier to slide the club along the ground. If you swing with a shallow, sweeping motion along the turf, the ball should pop right up.
FIND YOUR COMFORT ZONE
Some things about chipping technique are fairly standard. For example, the farther forward you play the ball in your stance, the higher it will tend to fly. So keep that in mind if you like to play the ball back in your stance and hit down on it. It’s probably not going to get too far off the ground. But there are other things about chipping you can personalize.
Two of my preferences are to leave my glove on and to make a swing on a path that’s a little in to out in relation to the target. My path helps shallow the club and keeps me from chunking it. The glove? Not sure why I leave it on, it just feels comfortable. The point is, I own it. If you do what makes you comfortable, you’ll be more confident on the course.
Originally published on GolfDigest golfdigest.com/story/wedge-wise
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By Keely Levins
Amongst your group, you’ve probably determined an acceptable distance at which putts are gimmes at least most of the time—you don’t even wait for someone to say, That’s good. Even when you’re playing alone, you probably give yourself any putts within four feet of the cup. That’s great—many of us do. It’s helpful for pace of play, and nobody wants to lose a little match over an even smaller putt.
Where it becomes an issue is when you’re suddenly in a position where you have to putt everything out.
Maybe it’s a club championship or a qualifier, but all of a sudden those unmissable short putts you haven’t attempted all season start to become missable. The scariest part: once you see one miss, there’s a tendency to start missing more of them. To help you avoid this disastrous fate, we talked to one of our Best Young Teachers, Tasha Browner of El Caballero Country Club in Tarzania, Calif.
“When finishing out those crucial putts, we want to address a common problem that begins as a mental mistake and leads to a physical one,” says Browner. “When we have those short putts, the desire to make the putt outweighs the process of making a good stroke. Golfers tend to stop rocking their shoulders, and they steer the ball in the hole with just hands. This directly leads to problems with clubface direction and speed.”
To remedy these issues, Browner has three drills and tips that will help.
1. The Push Drill
This drill is exactly what it sounds like. Set up to the ball with your putter, and your thought should be to just push the ball toward the hole. Don’t take any backswing. “This drill forces the golfer to move their body as a unit to finish the stroke and not just with your hands,” says Browner.
2. Tip: Use Visual Aids
Set up in front of a mirror (you can do this in your house). Or set up on the putting green in a spot where you can see your shadow, and start making strokes. Browner says to focus on making sure they’re complete strokes. “Watch how your shoulders and arms move together into the finish,” says Browner. “Sense what body parts are engaged, and tap into that when you play. This rehearsal can help eradicate that handsy stroke.”
3. Tip: Practice Pressure
Aimlessly putting around the practice green isn’t going to help you when you’re in a match, grinding over a four-footer for bogey to halve the hole. Instead, Browner says to simulate pressure-filled scenarios when you practice. “For example, don’t let yourself leave the green until you’ve made five consecutive four-footers in a row,” says Browner. “Any form of pressure that you can add will help you feel more at ease in those situations on the course.”
Originally Published on GolfDigest golfdigest.com/story/how-to-make-the-putts-youve-been-giving-yourself-all-season
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By Ron Kaspriske
For some, golf is stress relief—a pastoral stroll interspersed by 70 or 80 golf swings and maybe a stop for a hot dog at the turn. For others, it’s a fist-clenching, nerve-racking, nearly out-of-body experience where success is often defined by getting through 18 holes without feeling like you need to see a therapist afterward. We’ve been there, too. For the latter, the adventure is only exacerbated when playing for money, or in a tournament, or with strangers, or in front of a crowd—or all of the above.
If you’re faced with needing to execute in one of these competitive moments, but your central nervous system is failing like the Manhattan power grid on a 95-degree day, you need a go-to shot you can rely on. What’s a go-to shot? It’s one that might not make the highlight reel on a newscast or go viral on YouTube, but it’s so reliable and easy to execute that you can use it even when flop sweat is blurring your vision. Here are seven shots that will become second-nature once you’ve worked on them:
OFF THE TEE
Let’s start with a little honesty. Most golfers lean on their driver when they need a great tee shot. You know it, we know it. We’ve got a clutch drive when getting it in play is paramount. This shot will come out low, probably move a little left to right (for right-handers), and chase down the fairway when it lands.
1 . Tee the ball down about half as high as normal.
2 . Grip down an inch on your driver.
3 . Play the ball halfway between center in your stance and your lead heel.
4 . Make a slow, steady backswing.
5 . When you swing down into the ball, feel like your chest is on top of it.
6 . Swing through impact, finishing when your right shoulder is pointing at the target.
APPROACH FROM THE DEEP STUFF
Unless the ball is sitting up in the grass, flying it all the way to the hole might be too much to ask for in pressure situations. You need a shot that advances the ball, so it lands back in the fairway or possibly chases up near the green leaving you with an easy chip or putt. If there’s a window, you might roll it on.This is the play.
1 . Take a high-lofted club.
2 . Grip down an inch.
3 . Take a stance that gives you the best chance at minimizing contact with the rough, bush, fescue, etc.
4 . Make a steep backswing, feeling like you’re lifting the club nearly straight up.
5 . Swing down directly at the ball, but with less-than-full effort, so you maintain your address posture.
6 . Follow through as best you can, an expect the ball to come out hot and roll once it lands.
APPROACHES FROM THE FAIRWAY (OR FIRST CUT)
Hitting a green when you’re nervous is a lot simpler if your go-to shot is a shortened one that you’ve practiced. If you go with a full swing, you’ll have too much time for your brain to short-circuit and produce a wonky move. A cut-off iron shot will give you your best chance at solid contact. It also flies lower and is more accurate. The three-quarter iron shot might soon be your best friend.
1 . Use a club one longer than normal.
2 . Play the ball roughly center in your stance.
3 . Make an unhurried swing back and through, focusing on solid contact.
4 . Think: shoulder height to shoulder height. Your swing ends going back when your hands are shoulder high and ends going through when they reach the opposite shoulder.
IN THE ROUGH AROUND THE GREEN
There are a number of pressure situations when just getting the ball on the green is enough to make you breathe easier. You need a pitch that delivers every time. So forget about the low-percentage lob shot. And we’re certainly not talking about taking it in low and hoping there’s enough spin on the ball for it to check up. You need a technique that’s simple to repeat and is forgiving enough to still work even if you hit it a little fat.
1 . Grab your highest-lofted wedge.
2 . Take a slightly wider-than-normal stance, and open your body in relation to the target.
3 . Play the ball roughly in line with your front foot’s heel.
4 . Take the club back until the butt end of the shaft is pointing downward at the ball.
5 . While rotating your entire body toward the target, pull the butt end of the club toward the ball, keeping your left hand palm down and your trail hand palm up.
6 . Don’t stop the swing or your body rotation until your hands are at least shoulder height in the follow-through.
GREENSIDE BUNKERS
Sand shots should be easy because you can strike an area anywhere from right behind the ball to four inches behind it and still get the ball on the green. But when something is on the line, the fear of catching too much ball can creep into your mind and you end up making a short, choppy swing that leaves it in the sand. Don’t let that happen again by using this reliable bunker shot.
1 . Grab your highest-lofted wedge.
2 . Address the ball off your front foot.
3 . Take a wider stance, put all your weight on your front foot, and open your body in a little in relation to the target.
4 . Pick a spot two inches behind the ball and stare at that spot intently, erasing the ball from your mind.
5 . Hinge the club up quickly in the backswing.
6 . Splash the back of the club down on the spot you were staring at.
7 . Finish with the club over your lead shoulder. (Don’t stop short of that.)
JUST OFF THE GREEN
Chipping it close when a match or round is on the line is a skill that doesn’t have to be reserved for better players only. There’s a technique you can employ that makes it fairly easy to get the ball on the green quickly and rolling like a putt. Try this.
1 . Use a gap wedge or a 9-iron.
2 . Play the ball center in your stance.
3 . Pick a spot that’s a third of the way to the hole on the line you think it would roll along to the hole if it were a putt.
4 . Take your putting grip and set the clubshaft nearly vertical.
5 . Mimic a putting stroke at the same fluid pace (and length) as if you were putting from that distance.
6 . Keep the clubface low and moving toward your target after impact.
MAKABLE PUTTS
When it comes to putting, the bad news is that you can do everything right and still miss. Imperfections in the green, cleat marks, a gust of wind—it doesn’t take much for a putt to rim out. That being said, you can give your makable putts a real chance of going in if you focus on one thing—face control.
1 . Once you’re confident in your read, set up to the ball so you’re eye closest to the target is directly over the ball or just inside of it.
2 . Hold the putter in whatever way minimizes control of the handle with your dominant hand. You just want that hand to lightly hold on. (The claw-style grip can help.)
3 . When you make the stroke, keep your lower body as still as possible.
4 . Trace the putterhead down the line of putt after it strikes the ball.
5 . Hold your finish position, including posture, until the ball falls in the cup.
Originally published on GolfDigest
golfdigest.com/story/the-seven-shots-you-can-rely-on-under-pressure
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Sunday, June 16th
12pm – 4pm
Adults $18.95
+ tax & gratuity
Menu
BURGERS
BRATS
HOT DOGS
CHICKEN
NY STRIP
COLD SALADS
SEARED SALMON
ASSORTED DESSERTS
RSVP Preferred
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Golf Digest
Escape Any Bunker: How To Get Over A High Lip
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Golf.com
Rules Guy: What happens if I lose the ball I just marked?
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Celebrate Mother’s Day at The Griffin Room this year!
Sunday, May 12th
10am & 1:30pm
Adults $32.95 & Children (6-12) $14.95 + tax & gratuity
*Reservation Required: griffinroom.com/
Menu:
Assorted Breakfast Pastries, Shrimp Cocktail, Smoked Salmon, Bagels and Cream Cheese, Fresh Fruits in Season, Assorted Cold Salads
Scrambled Eggs, Crispy Smoked Bacon, Savory Breakfast Sausage, Country Style Potatoes, Waffles and Maple Syrup
Create an Omelette Station
Carving Station w/ Roast Beef & Turkey Breast
Entrees:
Alaskan Halibut with Basil and Tomato
Sauteed Boneless Chicken Breast with Madera Cream
Peking Duck Egg Rolls, Swedish Meatballs, Spring Vegetables
Desserts:
Assorted Cakes, Pies, Cookies, and Brownies
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Golf Digest
5 approach shots every golfer needs to master
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Golf Week
Golf Life: Your favorite golf memory? This one’s a Sandy to remember
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Come to The Griffin Room at Turnberry for brunch this Easter!
Sunday, April 21st
10 a.m. & 1 p.m.
Adults $32.95 & Children (12 & under) $14.95 + tax & gratuity
*Reservation Required: griffinroom.com/reservation/
Menu
Cold Display
Assorted Breakfast Pastries, Fresh Fruit Display, Smoked Salmon & Smoked Salmon with Bagels and Cream Cheese and Assorted Cold Salads.
*Complimentary Glass of Champagne for Adults*
Entrees
Scrambled Eggs, Crispy Smoked Bacon, Savory Sausage, Country Style Potatoes, Vanilla French Toast with Vermont Maple Syrup
Create an Omelette Station
Carved Prime Rib & Ham Station
Herb Crusted Atlantic Salmon, Boneless Free Range Chicken Breast with Leeks and Mushrooms, Chinese Pot Stickers with Soy and Sweet and Sour Dipping Sauces, Savory Boneless Pork Loin Roasted with Garlic and Rosemary, an Array of Spring Vegetables Seasoned with Fresh Herbs.
Children
Crispy Chicken Tenders and Cheesy Macaroni with French Fries
Dessert Buffet
Assorted Pastries, Cakes, Torts, Pies, Cookies and Brownies
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Much like he did last summer, Francesco Molinari snuck up on everybody on Sunday at Bay Hill. Trailing by five strokes entering the final round, the reigning Open Champion shot an eight-under 64 to capture the Arnold Palmer Invitational, his third career PGA Tour title, all of which have come in his last 12 starts.
Molinari, who teed off 10 groups ahead of the leaders, got off to a hot start, making three birdies and no bogeys on his first seven holes. Just as it looked like he’d cool off at the par-4 eighth, where he badly missed the green with his approach, Molinari played a deft chip that found the bottom of the cup for another birdie. He made four more on the back nine, including a 43-foot bomb at the 72nd hole that wound up ultimately giving him a two-stroke win over Matthew Fitzpatrick, who shot a final-round 71.
“I don’t know, I’m just super glad,” said a shocked Molinari, who just put new clubs in the bag this week. “First week as a Callaway player, so happy to see that the switch I made wasn’t as crazy as some people thought. The clubs are good for me and I showed it this week.
“It’s great, to do it here, to get it done here at this place knowing that my wife and the kids were watching back home, it’s just a special, special one.”
By far the best club in the bag was Molinari’s putter, which he used to hole 146 feet of putts on Sunday, the most in his career. The 36-year-old from Italy called it his “best putting round ever,” a bold statement with the way putted on Sunday at Carnoustie to win his first major. While Arnie’s event isn’t a major, it felt just as good as one for Molinari.
“Incredible, it’s high up there with the best wins I’ve had. He [Arnold Palmer] was a special player but most of all a special person and a global icon for the game. For someone like me coming from Italy, he and Jack [Nicklaus] were up there as gods, so to win here is truly special.”
Fitzpatrick wasn’t able to close out his first PGA Tour victory, but he did finish alone in second. Sungjae Im, Tommy Fleetwood and Rafa Cabrera Bello tied for third. As for Rory McIlroy, it was another final-round dud. The Northern Irishman shot an even-par 72 to finish in a tied for sixth.
Source: golfdigest.com
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Golf fans and media alike had a lot to say about the early leader board this week at the Honda Classic. Most of the complaints were because of the lack of star power, which was to be expected with Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and others skipping the event with Bay Hill and the Players lurking on the schedule. Naturally, the final round of the Honda proved to be the most exciting Sunday of the year.
Most of the excitement was due to Rickie Fowler and Brooks Koepka getting into a tie at eight under in the clubhouse, with Vijay Singh and Wyndham Clark still in reach out on the course. But it was Keith Mitchell, a 27-year-old playing in just his second full season on the PGA Tour, who wound up claiming his first career victory. The University of Georgia alum carded a three-under 67 that featured birdies on four of his final seven holes, including a 15-foot conversion at the 72nd hole, yielding a fiery fist pump.
“Everybody dreams about having that putt on the 18th hole to win a tournament,” Mitchell said afterwards, adding, “and I had it today, and fortunately I was able to capitalize, and it feels awesome.”
Had Mitchell’s putt not dropped, he would have been in a three-way playoff with Koepka and Fowler, two players with their fair share of victories. But Mitchell spoiled the party, impressively bouncing back after a poor drive at the par-5 18th that found a fairway bunker. He was forced to lay up, and then hit a 129-yard wedge shot 15 feet below the hole and buried the putt.
“It was awesome. I wish I could come up with a better word than that,” said Mitchell. “But just having a chance to play — coming down the stretch against Rickie Fowler and Brooks, those guys are the best in the world, and they’ve been out here proving themselves. I’m just pleased that I could prove myself against guys like that in such a great field and a great tournament, the Honda Classic.”
Prior to this week Mitchell had four career top 10s (all coming last year), including a solo second at the 2018 Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship. He showed plenty of potential as a rookie, reaching the third leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, but has struggled a bit in his sophomore season. Safe to say he’s had a successful year now, as this victory will give him nearly $1.5 million in total earnings in just 10 starts, almost eclipsing his total earnings all of last season.
Singh’s effort in pulling off the unthinkable was a valiant one, and on the 17th tee he still had a legitimate chance to win the golf tournament. But the 56-year-old badly hit his tee shot left and short of the green, and it bounced back into the water. He finished with an even-par 70, which earned him a solo sixth finish. Ryan Palmer and Lucas Glover finished one stroke ahead of Singh, tying for fourth.
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As expected, Tiger Woods will not play in all of the PGA Tour’s upcoming Florida Swing events. Shortly before his opening round on Thursday at the WGC-Mexico Championship, Woods announced he would be skipping next week’s Honda Classic, while officially adding the following two weeks’ events, the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Players, to his schedule.
The decision to not play the Honda Classic is a bit of a surprise when you factor in the proximity of PGA National to Woods’ home in Jupiter, Fla. However, having already played at last week’s Genesis Open, an event that benefits Woods’ foundation, adding Honda to these other events would have meant Woods playing at least five consecutive weeks. Also, Woods’ record at Bay Hill, where he’s won eight times, was certainly a factor. Tiger has never won in four starts as a pro at the Honda.
Following his comeback campaign in 2018, an “exhausted” Woods said he planned on playing a more limited schedule. Not too surprising considering he’s a 43-year-old golfer with a fused back.
Woods didn’t specify if he would play in the Valspar Championship, which is the week following the Players. However, it seems unlikely he would play at Innisbrook despite nearly winning in his debut there last year because with the WGC-Match Play the following week, that would likely mean four consecutive starts.
Woods isn’t the first high-profile player to struggle with making his schedule under the new, more compact slate that features the Players back in March from May and the PGA Championship moved up to May from August. Phil Mickelson didn’t play in his hometown event at Torrey Pines for the first time in 29 years and recently hinted he might not tee it up at the Players, the PGA Tour’s flagship event.
Woods, who is coming off a T-15 at Riviera in his second start of 2019, is playing alongside Bryson DeChambeau and Abraham Ancer in the first two rounds of the WGC-Mexico Championship beginning Thursday. Although, technically, he’s a seven-time winner of the event, it’s the first time he’s playing competitively in Mexico.
Source: www.golfdigest.com
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By Brian Wacker
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — Two days after playing 30 holes, Tiger Woods went another 28 on Sunday at Riviera Country Club. It proved a cold reminder that he is, after all, a fused-together 43 years old.
“Yeah, I got tired,” Woods said following a final-round one-over 72 to end his week at the Genesis Open at six under and tied for 15th. “I don’t know if I’m the only one, but I definitely felt it.”
He wasn’t. But Tiger was the only one playing to have undergone four back surgeries. Still, for a while he put on a show.
Woods’ day began at 6:45 a.m.—or at 1:30 a.m., the time he said he woke up to get ready for the resumption of the third round. And after getting up and down from just short of the green to save par at the 17th when play resumed, he added an eagle at the par-5 first for his second eagle of the round.
It brought him within five of the lead with a lot of golf still to be played as he closed out a third-round 65.
Teeing off in the final round 40 minutes later, he kept the momentum going with three birdies in his first seven holes on Riviera’s back nine to climb into a tie for fifth.
The bad news was that he was still eight strokes off the lead. The worse news was that he followed with four bogeys in a six-hole span to quickly fade.
It didn’t help any that the temperature dipped and the wind picked up throughout the afternoon, making the course as difficult as it had played the entire week.
Neither did some of the places Woods hit it. Or how he putted it.
On the par-4 second, Woods badly pulled his second shot from the right rough, going long and left of the green and leaving an awkward shot from a downhill lie that he wasn’t able to get up and down from.
Then came a long three-putt from 60 feet on the third and another from 30 feet on the fifth. Sayonara.
Woods called this one of the worst putting weeks he has had, which was true given he had round that included four three-putts (his opening round), and just 50 feet, 6 inches of putts made in the final round.
“I’m looking forward to tomorrow,” Woods said. “Those clubs aren’t coming out of the travel case.”
It won’t be long, though. Woods will head to Mexico City on Monday for next week’s WGC-Mexico Championship and his third start of the year.
Source: golfdigest.com
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By Josh Dawsey
West Palm Beach, Fla. — President Trump golfed with professionals Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus on Saturday, ending the longest stretch of his presidency without a round at one of his courses.
The White House is usually reluctant to confirm the president is golfing. But on Saturday, aides alerted reporters that Trump was at his course in Jupiter, Fla., with Nicklaus and Woods. They even ushered journalists inside the club for a peek.
The president later shared a photo of the trio on social media, and a Trump Organization official bragged about the matchup, noting that Woods and Nicklaus design courses for the company.
Trump has spent more than 150 days at his golf courses since becoming president, playing significantly more than his predecessors, whom he had mocked for golfing too much. Aides used to worry about how much time Trump spent playing but have largely accepted it. They say the president is calmest when he’s on the greens.
He is a talented player by many accounts, usually breaking 80, though he sometimes takes mulligans. Par for most courses is 70 or 72 shots.
“The first nine holes I played with him, he shot even par,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said in a 2018 interview. “He beat me like a drum.”
Taylor Funk, son of golfer Fred Funk, said the president shot in the upper 70s when he played with him. “He hit a lot of great shots,” Funk said. “Flop shots and putts, up and downs. He kept up with me and my dad.”
Trump is speedy too, often finishing 18 holes in three hours by playing through other groups and driving on the edge of the green — a no-no, except perhaps when one owns the course. He is surrounded by a Secret Service detail, which expedites his movement. (A round takes between four and five hours for most golfers.)
The Washington Post reported in 2015 that playing partners said Trump often cheats. “When it comes to cheating, he’s an 11 on a scale of one to 10,” sportswriter Rick Reilly said in that story.
The president has denied this.
He usually wears a “USA” hat and often orders two chili dogs after nine holes, playing partners say. He likes to quiz fellow golfers about current events. He’s complained about the Mueller probe and regaled partners with stories of his life as a single man in New York.
He swears when he makes a bad shot or splashes in the water and complains about his chipping game, players say.
He talks nearly nonstop.
“We talked about the tax bill and how it got done, about North Korea, we talked about anything he wanted to talk about, what his fights were, what he liked least and most about his day,” Sharon Funk, Fred Funk’s wife, said in a 2018 interview. “We talked about his tweeting. He said, that’s his way of getting to the people. Every person he plays golf with, I think they talk to him about his tweeting.”
“He would talk about anything,” Taylor Funk added. “He’d say, ‘Do you think I’m doing a good job on that?’ ”
Trump also loves to quiz famous golfers about their travails, their favorite shots and how they learned the game. “Most of the questions he had were about golf. What made Tiger so good? What made Jack so good? Who was better?” Taylor Funk said.
He regularly goes off on asides about golf in Oval Office meetings. A former aide to Paul D. Ryan said the former speaker of the House would have had a better relationship with Trump if he understood golf and had been able to talk about it. One of the president’s most trusted aides, Dan Scavino, was his former caddie. He often watches golf at the White House, in a dining room off the Oval, and asks professionals such as Funk or Woods how he could improve his game.
How he finds his playing partners is shrouded in mystery — but is a combination of various methods, from people his organization sponsors to elected officials. He rarely plays with White House aides other than Andrew Giuliani, the son of Rudolph W. Giuliani, his lawyer.
Trump shocked Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by having so many impromptu chats with members on the course and driving his cart so quickly and all over, according to people familiar with their round. Then, the protocol-obsessed Japanese were surprised to be served a buffet lunch with hot dogs.
When the president was in Europe last summer, he frustrated aides and lawyers by demanding to visit his Scottish golf course for two days in the middle of the trip, according to current and former administration officials.
Trump often plays with friends or members of his club. Sometimes, the president will call a famous golfer or celebrity and invite them over. A regular partner is Albert Hazzouri, a dentist who did not respond to a request for comment but who stressed his ties with Trump when trying to get a license in Florida.
When Trump plays with private citizens, the White House does not release the names or acknowledge that he is playing at all, though video footage taken through the shrubs has captured him. Aides say on occasion, members at his clubs have given the president bad ideas they’ve had to thwart.
There’s another reason for the caginess. The president “insisted on trying to maintain the public perception that he was always working,” former White House staffer Cliff Sims wrote in his book, “Team of Vipers,” explaining why the White House rarely says he golfs.
Trump is proud of his courses, often describing how he designed the bunkers, turns and the intricate features in detail. “He shows how he took out trees, put in traps. He loves to describe how he developed the courses,” Graham said in a 2018 interview. “He really likes showing them off.”
But they’ve also gotten the president in trouble. The Trump Organization has come under fire for employing undocumented immigrants at his clubs and misappropriating Civil War history at one course, among other things.
Ethics experts have suggested it is unethical for the president to return so often to his greens because doing so promotes his business and allows people to effectively buy access. In a tweet, the good-government organization CREW called Trump’s tweet of himself with Woods and Nicklaus “an ad for his side business.”
“A few years ago, it was impossible to imagine a president using official statements” this way, the organization wrote. “Now it’s just an average Saturday.”
Source: www.washingtonpost.com
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An experiment with three golfers revealed the practice can make a difference. Just not the one you might expect
By Sam Weinman
few months ago Golf Digest set out to answer a question almost as old as the game itself: does alcohol make you play better, or worse? The experiment and resulting video with three too-eager participants, was illuminating, comical, and fairly conclusive: a little bit of “swing oil” has some residual benefits owing to a decrease in tension and inhibition. Too much, however, leads to deteriorating focus and coordination, and then you just stop caring about advancing the ball at all.
A subsequent experiment with marijuana yielded similar results: some weed might take the edge off and loosen up your swing, but anything more than a little becomes counterproductive.
That brings us to our recent experiment exploring the effects of meditation, structured like the first two, but also plenty unique. Here, too, we submitted three golfers of varying playing ability to a series of golf tests while interspersing the influence of an outside element—beers and tokes became 15 minutes of meditation. The difference is that while meditation does induce some immediate physiological effects and boasts several long-term health benefits, we’re still talking about a rather nuanced exercise that is difficult to quantify. And if you really wanted to measure it well, best to do it over a few months instead of a couple of hours.
Still, a few hours is what we started with one day this summer, and I, along with colleagues Keely Levins and Ben Walton, was selected as one of three golfers who would spend the day hitting golf shots and meditating to see what type of difference we’d see. Although Keely and Ben had limited experience with meditation, I’d recently begun dabbling in no small part because mindfulness, as it’s also known, has been hailed as perhaps the best way to temper the freneticism of our modern lives. And no doubt I was a worthy candidate: a digital editor who spends his days tethered to one electronic device or another, a father of two high-energy boys, and someone who can overthink everything from family dynamics to what club to hit off the tee. As I said in the video, I first told my wife that I thought meditation would help because, “I run pretty hot during the day.”
“No,” she corrected me. “You run hot all the time.”
So in terms of how a few minutes of meditation a day can calm the mind and harness focus, I was already sold. What I hadn’t explored, and what we sought to discover that day, was how it might affect one’s performance on the golf course. Plus, we saw it as an opportunity to debunk misconceptions about meditation — what exactly it is, what you do, and why it might mesh well with the mental and emotional demands of golf.
The day was broken into segments of three different golf challenges—driving for distance, approach shot accuracy, and putting—followed by brief sessions with meditation teacher Jonni Pollard. Pollard is the founder of a meditation app, 1 Giant Mind, and a personal mentor to a roster of clients that includes corporate executives and professional golfers. With a clean-shaven head, an Australian accent, and an affable manner, he spent the day convincing us of the ways meditation can not only help us think clearer on the golf course, but at work and home as well.
Among Pollard’s central arguments is that for all our technological progress, the human body has remained virtually unchanged from man’s earliest days fending off regular physical threats, which is why we process stress the same whether it’s an unpleasant email or a bear attack. This disconnect between how we live now, and the biological constraints of our bodies and brains, can explain why we often feel scattered so much of the time, and why even the mundane stresses of everyday life can elicit profound physical reactions.
“This is the little glitch in our system,” Pollard said. “We are entrenched in a dysfunctional state of defensive living because the way we’re living now is so far removed from how we’ve biologically evolved.”
What does this have to do with our ability to hit a drive in the fairway? Plenty, actually, because the same forces that leave us feeling frequently disjointed also factor into our performance on the course.
Almost every golfer has to negotiate the chasm between the shots he’s capable of producing, and the those he actually hits. We’re too quick, we’re too distracted, we’re worried about the pond on the left—when the result falls short of our potential, it often emanates from somewhere between the ears. By contrast think about the time you mindlessly hit a shot on the range and it soars perfectly off the clubface; or when you rake in a conceded putt from afar without even trying, and it rolls straight into the hole. It’s precisely because you “weren’t thinking” that it worked out so well.
This, Pollard said, this is where meditation can make a difference.
“What it does is it hits factory restart and restores our natural capability,” Pollard said. “Our natural capability is there and we need to allow it to be there, so what is the thing that’s inhibiting it? From my perspective it’s the hyper stimulation of the thinking mind.”
Which is not to say that each meditation session sets you on a path to a truer golf swing. Not exactly at least. As the afternoon unfolded, my driver carry improved, but my approach shots were looser, and my putting stayed about the same. To think of meditation as some type of performance enhancer in deep-breathing form is to misinterpret the underlying machinations at work. As Pollard said, when you meditate for 20 minutes, focusing on your breath or a mantra and allowing outside elements to recede into the background, it’s similar to doing a set of bench presses at the gym. The act itself may make you stronger, but it’s really repetition and time that allows the effects to take hold
“The conversations I like to have when talking about meditation is one, it’s really wonderful to alleviate short term the symptoms of stress,” Pollard says. “But also it creates the internal infrastructure for us to be able to become resilient in this life, rather than feel like life is taxing you.”
Beyond technical improvement, what we really detected was an underlying sense of calm, noteworthy on what could have been a stressful day. Although Keely played college golf, Ben and I were not used to the strain of having every shot measured so precisely. Throw a handful of cameras and a crew of about 10 into the equation, and under normal circumstances I’d question if I could even draw the club back. But after each session with Pollard we began to mind the attention less, and distractions subsided.
“It became easier to be over the shot,” said Keely. “I had this odd sense of detachment to where it was going, like I didn’t want to look at the result. Not every shot was great, but there was some freedom and ease in not feeling painfully invested in how straight my drives were flying.”
This is what Pollard means when he describes the “infrastructure” meditation helps construct. Scientific studies of meditation have shown that the practice strengthens the pre-frontal cortex portion of the brain responsible for concentration, focus and problem solving while shrinking the amygdala section that triggers our panicky “fight or flight” response. So even though I didn’t hit the ball markedly better that day, the ingredients were all there to do so—I was more focused, less fatigued, not nearly as wrapped up in the shot I just hit or the one still to come.
And therein lies the real breakthrough, because golf is nothing if not an opportunity for self-sabotage. You start a round poorly, you stress over wanting to play better. You start out playing well, you wonder how long it will last. Pollard and other meditation experts like to say that the practice improves “present moment awareness,” which is a variation of the old golf cliche of “taking it one shot at a time.” Roll your eyes if you must, but think about how much easier the game would be if your mind were free of competing narratives and you just played.
Our Max Adler played a round of golf last year with Sadghuru Jaggi Vasudev, a spiritual leader with millions of followers and a surprising affection for golf. Adler attended one of the guru’s workshops to better understand how Eastern practices like meditation can translate to athletic performance. Sadghuru, too, emphasized the value of getting out of your head.
“People trip on their own minds,” Sadghuru said. “They need to create a little distance between what they think and what they do.”
So, to get back to the original question: Does meditation help you become a better golfer? The short answer is yes. The longer answer might be encapsulated by an experience from a few weeks after our session with Pollard, when I developed a wicked case of the shanks.
For about 10 days in the heart of the golf season, I had a hard time hitting an iron or wedge without the ball screaming off the hosel right into some unspeakable place. Golfers who’ve experienced the dynamic know no more maddening affliction, and in the grips of it, I couldn’t hit a simple 30-yard pitch without panicking. Then I recalled an exercise we learned with Pollard for right before address. We’d stand behind the ball, place both hands on the grip of the club, and take in a deep breath before proceeding. For an entire round, I did this over every shot —a mini-meditation session that attempted Pollard’s version of “factory restart.” My head clearer, my breath slower, the panic receded, and solid contact soon returned.
So if you’re asking, no, I don’t think you can measure the efficacy of mediation by saying it will drop this number of strokes from your score. But what I have noticed is that it can work to flush out our worst instincts—both on the course and everywhere else. I, for one, need all the help I can get.
Source: golfdigest.com
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