Golfing News & Blog Articles

Mike Thomas, father of PGA golfer Justin Thomas, marveled Thursday at just "how good" Tiger Woods is hitting the ball ahead of Saturday's PNC Championship.

There is a lot of cool gear in the golf equipment world that doesn’t always fit neatly into Most Wanted Tests or Buyer’s Guides. You still want to know how it performs. In our We Tried It series, we put gear to the test and let you know if it works as advertised.

What We Tried

Titleist Performance Institute

Product Expert

Hi, I’m Chris and I’m a golf-obsessed member of the MyGolfSpy team. As the Director of Business Development, I generally work as a conduit between our staff and other golf companies. I also spend a fair bit of time in my hot tub collecting thoughts into ramblings on equipment or other golf topics.

And, like many of you, I can’t wait for the next brown box to show up on my doorstep.

What Is TPI?

TPI stands for Titleist Performance Institute.

If you struggle with heel strikes or worse yet the shanks, then this drill is for you. Swing too far from in to out? Too far from out to in? This drill is for you. It is, quite simply, the kind of drill that so many golfers should utilize as their staple practice drill whether they are warming up or just getting some solid practice in.

A few points to note:

You can use a club box, a 2x4 (be careful!) or a partially empty plastic water bottle laying on it’s side

Align the box at the target

Tee the ball up approximately 2” inside the box

Golf is the most frustrating game on earth and that’s exactly why we play this crazy game. We all have our good and bad days in golf. Unfortunately, we have more poor than amazing results. We constantly read golf blogs and articles searching for that magic bullet that will turn our games into excellence. Finding golf’s Holy Grail must be the reason why we play this crazy game.

Will there every be an End to our Search?
We have all heard about golfers who break their clubs or throw their bag of clubs in the pond and walk away in discussed. Very few of us get to that point. We are drawn back to our weekly rounds with friends and their constant abuse. We beat up on ourselves when we miss a shot or fire one into the trees (never to be seen again). Fortunately, we see a glimmer of light when we hit that amazing shot that ends up close to the hole and we may make or miss the putt but we all marvel at our potential for success.

What do Non-Golfers think of this Game?
They see this game for what it really is. A bunch of crazy men and women chasing a ball around a beautiful field of dreams and trying to get that ball out of sand traps or out of the rough in total frustration. Only to finally sink a putt and move on to the next fairway of misery or ecstasy. I’m one of the lucky ones because my wife has also caught this disease. I can’t imagine the abuse that golfers must take from a spouse who is a non-golfer.

Does this Search Ever End?
I was inspired to summarize my thoughts when I saw a blog which highlighted a “Eureka” moment by Bryson DeChambeau. Yes, even the pros who seem to have the perfect game are constantly searching for improvement. Bryson was working out at a driving range with World Long Driver Martin Borgmeier.

Bryson was working on his right miss (which you can’t afford to have on any fairway – especially if you are hitting 350 yards to the right): [“Yup, was it. Oh my god,” he says. “I just figured something out in my golf swing.” As Bryson explains, the shift has to do with his wrist position at impact. During the downswing, the force his trail arm generated, forced his club face open, leading to that right miss.] He carried on about a feeling that he needed to create during his downswing to close the face of his club. Even Bryson is never happy with his complete game.

Srixon Q-STAR Golf Balls – Key Takeaways

If all you take is a quick glance, the new, sixth edition of the Srixon Q-STAR golf ball isn’t all that different from the fifth edition. If you take a deeper dive, you’ll find your first glance is pretty much correct.

We’re talking about your basic two-piece ionomer-covered golf ball here. To its credit, Srixon packs an acceptable amount of technology into those two pieces. But realistically, the Q-STAR is what it is: a firmer, higher-spinning alternative to the decidedly softer $20 to $25 per dozen ionomer balls.

That makes it a “premium” two-piece ionomer-covered golf ball. That also makes it an oxymoron but we’ll tackle that later.

Srixon Q-STAR Golf Balls

Don’t mistake the Q-STAR for its three-piece, urethane-covered cousin, the Q-STAR TOUR. That’s the urethane ball that’s been getting the two-toned DIVIDE treatment. This new edition of the Q-STAR has two key changes—Srixon calls them upgrades—from its predecessor.

First off, Srixon decided to make the Q-STAR softer, with compression dropping from 77 to 72. To get there, Srixon is using its latest FastLayer Core technology. To risk oversimplification, the FastLayer Core is kind of like a Tootsie Pop. Firmer on the outside and softer on the inside.

Tiger Woods and his son, Charlie, have some of the same mannerisms. But you have to watch Tiger Woods watch for himself to truly understand.

Pairings/Results 

December 14, 2021

The post California Amateur Cup Matches appeared first on Northern California Golf Association.

When the weather outside is frightful, there’s only one thing that can make the fire even more delightful: a home golf simulator.

I’m almost certain that’s what most of you were thinking.

Nearly every red-blooded golfer has at one time or another eyeballed his or her garage, family room or basement and thought, “I bet I could fit a golf simulator in here.”

Three key challenges most likely held you back:

What you’d need, how to do it and, of course, the money.

With Tiger Woods and his son, Charlie, set to play in the PNC Championship this week, it’s not particularly surprising to see TaylorMade Stealth and Stealth Plus drivers on the USGA conforming clubs list.

As per usual, the USGA pics don’t tell the entire story. But, they do provide plenty of potential talking points.

Most of what the purposely generic USGA photos reveal is expected – Speed Pockets, adjustable hosels, and a relatively familiar sole design. Business as usual sort of stuff.

CARBONWOOD?

That said, my hunch is many of you will focus on two elements. The  CARBONWOOD label on the sole and “Face: 60X Carbon” note in the section on identification markings. What this perhaps suggests is that Stealth will utilize carbon differently than in previous TaylorMade drivers. Given the potential deviation, it’s unlikely that TaylorMade would go down such a road without plenty of reason to believe that success is all but guaranteed. With that, too many of us probably remember previous carbon-face failures such as the 2001 Callaway C4. The primary foible with past attempts is that while much lighter than titanium, carbon is quite a bit more expensive. And a driver with more expensive materials without quantifiable better performance is well, likely why we haven’t seen any recent carbon-face drivers in the market.

NCGA Opposes Assembly Bill 672

December 13, 2021

The NCGA is aligned with other opponents of AB 672 [Conversion of Publicly Owned Golf Courses to Affordable Housing].

For background, AB 672 (Public Golf Endangerment Act) provides $50 million in developer subsidies to redevelop California’s municipal golf courses into housing complexes.

This bill singles out golf and only golf for residential redevelopment among the state’s abundance of park, recreation, and open space activities. This bill  proposes to only affect golf rather than putting ALL park, recreation and open space activities in play for redevelopment.

Municipal golf courses are part of the same park systems that provide soccer, baseball, swimming, picnicking, biking, pickleball, tennis, walking/riding trails and numerous other recreational amenities, the one difference being golf is generally more utilized than the rest. The one commonality being their indispensability in making possible high school and junior golf programs.

Golf courses preserve open space, sequester carbon, provide habitat, promote biodiversity and allow rainwater to get into groundwater basins. And in times of global warming and record high temperatures, golf courses reduce temperatures in their surrounding areas. Municipal golf courses provide these benefits almost entirely in densely packed urban environments where they are most needed, and in communities disproportionately identified as “park poor.” Converting them to hardscape exacerbates both problems.

When I give a playing lesson to a new student and ask them where their focus of attention was before and during a shot, I rarely find that it was on the same things. Apparently, golfers are very good at training their swings, but not as good at training their attention. The mind can become distracted, unfocused, and more concerned about the movement of the swing than the intention for the shot. Most golfers “go through the motions” during their Pre Shot Routine and convince themselves that they are focused, but really they are unaware of where they are directing their attention. 

External Focus For Golf

The swing and stroke needs to be trusted, and guided not by conscious thought about it, but by a sensory connection with the target and intention for the shot. When we are able to place our attention on what we are trying to do with the golf ball or the effect of our movement (impact) rather than the movement itself, it’s called External Focus for golf. Studies by the likes of Professor Gabriel Wulf show that generally speaking (and even more so for the short game and putting) having an external focus is the most effective way to play. When we become too focused on what we need to with the body (called “Internal focus”), energy is directed away from the intention for the shot and towards thinking about the swing. By doing this, the intuitive “athletic” mind, which is needed to play the shot, is pushed out of the process. 

As Bobby Jones once said: “the golf swing is too complex a movement to be consciously controlled”. 

A Holistic Approach Is Needed

One of the problems is that golf coaching and information to help golfers lower scores is, generally speaking, very technical. Few coaches teach players how to access the athlete within, and instead they have them trying to achieve a multitude of “correct” positions in their swing. I’m by no means undervaluing the importance of the technical aspects of the game (nor am I saying that you shouldn’t play with a “swing thought”), but my view is that it needs to be taught using a more “holistic” approach. 

As a golfer hits more poor shots during a round, it can cause them to become increasingly focused on the mechanics of the swing which further distances them from their intention for the shot, creating tension and a loss of rhythm and tempo. 

There is a lot of cool gear in the golf equipment world that doesn’t always fit neatly into Most Wanted Tests or Buyer’s Guides. You still want to know how it performs. In our We Tried It series, we put gear to the test and let you know if it works as advertised.

What We Tried: The Whoop 4.0 Fitness Tracker

Dave Wolfe – MyGolfSpy writer and putter fanatic. I am always looking for ways to improve my game and fight off the impact of aging.

What’s a Whoop?

When I first heard the name “Whoop”, my brain naturally responded with the phrase “there it is.” My brain is a little off (duh) since that song actually says “Whoomp! There it is.” But, hey, thank you, Tag Team, for conditioning my response regardless. If you are in your 40s or 50s, I bet Whoomp! caused you to burn some calories in the ’90s. The minus-the-m Whoop 4.0 works in the other direction. Rather than driving your fitness, it measures it. From my experience, it actually does drive it a bit as well.

Maybe the Whoop 4.0 fitness tracker will not inspire a Geico commercial but it could inspire you to make some serious changes—and gains—in your overall fitness.