Whether you’re a fan of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf circuit or not, its arrival sent a clear message to the status quo of professional golf: It’s time to adapt.
We consulted a couple of our resident low handicap editors, former college golfer Drew Powell (plus-2.6-handicap) and senior game improvement editor Luke Kerr-Dineen (1.3-handicap), to hear their best tips to improve quickly.
In a fascinating two-part video series, Dr Sasho Mackenzie uses advanced 3D modelling to explain the effects two different putter styles had on a group of golfers.
When golf fans look backwards, they don’t think in terms of years, or seasons. They think in moments. Remember when Cameron Smith putted around the Road Hole bunker to win the Open at St Andrews? Or Jordan Spieth hitting that shot off a cliff at Pebble Beach?
At the PNC Championship last week, there was a group of some of the most successful players in the game who loved golf themselves and who had fostered a love of the game in their child.
Tiger Woods and son Charlie followed a 13-under 59 on Saturday with a seven-under 65 on Sunday, their 20-under total leaving them six back of eventual winners, Vijay Singh and his son, Qass. For Team Woods, the event became about other things: The bonding experience between father and son, and their family friends on Team Thomas.
The exchange lasted only about two minutes – Player was due on the tee soon – but it was jam-packed with the kind of information that had the assembled crowd leaning in curiously.
For every child whose enjoyment of the sport is enhanced by the spark of competition is one whose passion is crushed by the pressure applied by his or her parents.
As for how we can actually use this information to improve our own games, The Putting Engineer says to aim a little lower than the greatest of all time.
It’s been quite a year in golf. A dramatic one, if nothing else. And like any good drama, the stage was set with different characters, hitting their lines, playing their parts in moving the story along. So, now, with that analogy not tortured enough, let’s dive into to the key plot points of the year, and what they meant at the time.