The statistic we care most about in golf, as fans and writers and players and sponsors and any other role you can imagine, is wins. It’s the broadest statistic of them all, and maybe not the best in determining history’s most talented golfers, but it’s the most important. So let’s start there: Rory McIlroy has Read more…
Every Mother’s Day, Patty Ehrhart’s three daughters would get their golf clothes on and tell their mom they wanted to go to the range with her. It was a fun tradition for Patty, a professional golfer from 1989 to 2006 who played on the LPGA Tour in the 1990s, because her girls had all become Read more…
One can legitimately argue that Rory McIlroy began to fulfill his immense promise with his victory in the 2009 Dubai Desert Classic, where he held off Justin Rose by a shot after nearly surrendering a six-stroke lead over the final six holes. His maiden triumph on the then European Tour at age 19—after two playoff Read more…
The fickle playing partners of Golf and Politics are finding concerning coalescence in one of the nation’s great golf pockets. The Coachella Valley, known to most with the blanketed title of “Palm Springs”—home to 120 courses across a 40-mile spread of SoCal sand and sun and host to annual PGA Tour, PGA Tour Champions and Read more…
At this precise moment 25 years ago—early May 2000—the greatest golf of all time was being primed for liftoff. A then-24-year-old Tiger Woods, who had always played a wound golf ball with a balata cover, was preparing to put a new multilayer, solid-core ball in play. He believed it gave him an edge—less spin and Read more…
You could be forgiven for missing it, since it happened the same weekend Rory McIlroy won the Masters and wrapped up his career Grand Slam chase. In early April, the U.S. National Junior Team defeated Team Canada, 16-8, in a three-day, Ryder Cup-style competition featuring three different match-play formats at Champions Golf Club in Houston. Read more…
Brad Faxon always seemed to be two different players, each on parallel but dramatically divergent paths that never seemed to intersect. One was easy, capable of wondrous eye-hand artistry. The other had a dogged, fitful struggle whose triumphs put him in the conversation for best bad ball-striker in golf history. With short shots, and especially Read more…
It was a week of incredible shots, with more twists and turns than a season of “White Lotus.” So many “Did you see?” moments. But for me, there is one shot that won Rory McIlroy his long-awaited green jacket. In March, immediately after his triumph at TPC Sawgrass, I wrote a piece breaking down the Read more…
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Masters patrons applaud all good shots in relation to their difficulty. Heckles are not tolerated. As far as style, it’s the most homogeneously well-dressed crowd in sports. So how to tell what beats inside the hearts of the thousands following the final pairing on an epic Masters Sunday? You ask them. And Read more…
So you’ve just won the Masters. Now what? After a tearful hug with loved ones behind the final green, and a quick trip to the scoring area to avoid any De Vincenzoesque shenanigans, you are whisked to Butler Cabin for the always awkward green jacket ceremony. The cabin is much bigger than it appears on Read more…
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Masters patrons know golf. At almost any other tournament, maybe only half as many people would be aware of Angel Cabrera’s recent history. That the Argentine was incarcerated for 30 months for domestic violence and just last year got his visa to re-enter the United States. That whether his past champion’s invitation Read more…
When my editors had the idea of writing about the trend of men getting vasectomies around the Masters, there was an initial suggestion—I’m almost positive it was a joke—that it should be a first-person immersive piece. As in, “Hey Shane, go get a vasectomy for the story.” “Ha, ha!” I replied. “What if, instead, I Read more…
Augusta National Golf Club is one the few places in golf where, when you arrive here for the first time, you know you’re standing on historic and hallowed land. It’s in the tall Georgia pines. It’s in the meticulously mowed rolling hills. It’s in the routing that we all know front to back before even Read more…
Australian Golf Digest
