Golfing News & Blog Articles

I have seen and reported on many techniques to escape sand traps, but I really believe that this approach is the best of them all. If you are in a sand trap next to the green, you want to get your ball over the lip and to settle on the green. This blog gives you the easy way to avoid 2 or 3 extra strokes wasted in the bunker.

I have shared some recommendations by Danny Maude in the past but this time he has come up with a very SIMPLE solution. The closer your get down to your ball the easier it is to make a consistent swing to lift it out of the sand. The closer your hands are to the ball the easier it is to guide your club through the sand at the right spot and to swing on a level plane through the ball.

This method is for sand shots out of soft sand
1/ Slide your hands down to the bottom of your grip and take a wider stance with bent knees so that your hands are much closer to the ball than your normal bunker stance.
2/ Use your normal grip with the ball forward of center in your stance and the club face wide open to use the bounce on the leading edge of your sand wedge.
3/ Take a 3/4 swing on a more horizontal than vertical swing with a good club speed so that your club will enter the sand 2-3 inches before the ball and exit 2-3 inches after the ball position and lift you ball on a carpet of sand.
4/ Finish your swing by swinging freely and throwing your ball and a spray of sand on the green.

For hard packed bunkers
1/ Select a club with less bounce than a sand wedge and grip down on your club (similar to the soft sand setup above). Practice with different clubs to understand the impact and rollout on the ball.
2/ Stand with the ball slightly behind the center of your stance and your weight forward on you leading leg.
3/ Take a full pitch swing. Practice with GOLFSTR+ on your trailing wrist to limit wrist lag and take less sand than you would in a soft sand trap.

In both cases you are playing with a shorter club grip for better control to take sand with your shot and avoid fat or thin shots to at least get your ball up and on the green. These are not flop shots so you should be practicing with GOLFSTR+ on your trailing wrist to minimize your trailing wrist bend. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

XXIO Rebound Drive golf Balls – Key Takeaways

Soft, three-layer ball for XXIO target golfersRebound Drive alternates soft and firm layersUnique “pearlescent” finish, three color options plus a four-color combo pack$49.99 a dozen, available Feb. 11

Pretty much everything we’re going to share with you today about the new XXIO Rebound Drive golf balls needs to be viewed through a specific lens. If you’re not in XXIO’s target demographic, there’s no reason to consider the XXIO Rebound Drive.

If you plan on aging, however, you’ll eventually get there. Father Time will see to that. But not now.

If you are in the 75- to maybe 95-mph swing speed range, well, XXIO designed this ball for you. How its performance stacks up against the usual suspects is still an open question. But the least we can do is give you enough information today so you can determine if Rebound Drive goes on your shortlist.

XXIO Rebound Drive: What Is It?

Have you ever played a XXIO golf ball? Like the rest of the XXIO lineup, prices have been eye-opening with some models going for as much as $80 a dozen. The last few iterations, however, have been in the Pro V1 price neighborhood.

The new XXIO Rebound Drive golf balls follow the same principle as XXIO clubs: they’re designed for a specific golfer with a moderate swing speed.

XXIO Metalwoods – Key Takeaways

Second-generation XXIO X, designed for aging better playersMetalwoods feature ActivWing and Rebound Frame technologyDriver $699.99, fairways $399.99, hybrids $299.99Available Feb. 11

The new XXIO X metalwoods are designed for golfers on life’s back nine who still have some game left. The lightweight XXIO 12, which debuted last week, and the ultra-lightweight XXIO Prime are for low to moderate swing-speed golfers. However, if you’re in your early 50s to early 60s and don’t consider yourself low to moderate, you might find a friend in XXIO X.

And, not for nothing, that demographic is very, very large.

XXIO X debuted two years ago. It was XXIO’s first effort to carve out a niche with those of us approaching life’s Red Zone. And, as always, the new generation promises to be longer, straighter and more forgiving.

XXIO X: Changes and Upgrades

Aging players losing the war against Father Time have very specific needs, especially if we still have some game. We may not swing it quite like we used to but we’re not ready to go all lightweight super game improvement. We still want to hit stiff shafts but a little voice keeps telling us this piece of rebar isn’t working for us anymore.

We want help without it looking like we want help.

XXIO X Irons – Key Takeaways

Second-generation XXIO X ironsDesigned for better players looking for lightweight help$199.99 per club in steel, $249.99 per club in graphiteAvailable at retail Feb. 11

The new XXIO X irons are completely, totally and utterly different from the rest of the XXIO line. The recently announced XXIO 12 is a super-lightweight iron set designed for the moderate swing-speed, or aging, golfer. The XXIO Prime line is a super-duper lightweight iron set designed for the slow-swing speed—or really aging—golfer. If you have the cabbage to pay the freight.

The second generation of the XXIO X, however, is merely a lightweight iron set designed for the on-the-verge-of-aging golfer who has some game and swing speed left.

And the cabbage. Never forget the cabbage.

OK, so maybe XXIO X isn’t that different. But it’s different enough. Today, XXIO is giving us an X refresh of its on-the-verge-of-aging-player lineup. How does it stack up? Let’s take a look.

XXIO X Irons: A Touch of Grey

Any self-respecting Dead Head can tell you aging is one of the ABCs we all must face. XXIO X is different from its stablemates in that it’s specifically designed for golfers who still have some swing speed. The target golfer isn’t over the hill yet or even near the crest of it. But he can see it coming.

PGA Tour action continues on ESPN+ this week with the Sony Open in Hawaii at Waialae Country Club. Here's how to watch.

Is Bryson DeChambeau headed for a fall? Can Jon Rahm rattle off multiple majors? We gather our experts to break it down.

The PGA Tour heads to Honolulu this week for the Sony Open. Here are our best bets for the event.

The DP World Tour -- formerly known as the European Tour -- strengthened its links with the PGA Tour of Australasia by announcing Wednesday an extension of their partnership through 2026.

Tim Rosaforte, whose career as a golf writer and broadcaster spanned more than 40 years, has died at the age of 66 after a battle with Alzheimer's disease. In 2020, he became just the 12th person to be appointed a PGA honorary member.

Former British Open champion Shane Lowry said on Tuesday he has no qualms about playing next month in Saudi Arabia, which has come under international scrutiny for its human rights record, and that he is just trying to make a living.

Tom Watson, who won the Masters in 1977 and 1981 as highlights to his 15 top-10 finishes at Augusta National, will join Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player as honorary starters for this year's event.

The PGA TOUR season is underway and, despite lingering supply chain issues, the golf industry is fully operational—or at least as operational as it can be given the persistent lack of steel shafts, grips and heads.

With that in mind, we asked the MyGolfSpy staff to predict what’s to come this year on Tour and in the golf equipment world.

Starting With Most Wanted …

MyGolfSpy’s resident putter guy, Dave Wolfe, predicts Odyssey will take home Most Wanted honors in at least one of our two putter categories. He’s not exactly backing a long shot: Odyssey has habitually finished near or at top of the podium.Tony Covey predicts a COBRA 3D-printed putter will be a surprise top finisher.On the driver side, it’s fair to say the TaylorMade Stealth is a heavy favorite though we’d never discount the chances of Callaway’s Rogue ST series. The staff is also bullish on the new COBRA line (which technically doesn’t exist yet). That’s what’s called hedging your bets.

On the PGA TOUR …

Rick Young predicts Adam Scott (currently a free agent) will sign a new deal which will have him playing something other than Titleist clubs for basically the first time ever. If you’re willing to buy into that, Covey believes PING is the most likely to add Scott to its roster.Young is confident Tiger will win a PGA TOUR event this season. Chris Nickel says it won’t be The Masters where he thinks Tiger will play but miss the cut.Speaking of Tiger, Nickel believes Tiger will drop his Newport putter in favor of a TaylorMade mallet.John Barba says Xander Schauffele will win the U.S. Open. He also believes Rickie Fowler will win something, though he concedes it might be a Korn Ferry event.Bennett Green predicts John Rahm will fall from the No. 1 spot but doesn’t know who’ll take over.In the Battle of the Bros, Nickel is betting Bryson DeChambeau will finish the year with more wins and a higher FedEx ranking than Brooks Koepka.Covey agrees and thinks Bryson will win The Masters while Koepka will have a down year.Phillip Bishop thinks either Jordan Spieth or Rory McIlroy will complete the career Grand Slam this season. The head is with Jordan; the heart with Rory.Nickel is all but certain that the conflation of “growing my wallet” with “growing the game” will continue as the PGL gains momentum and the PGA TOUR either capitulates or loses in court.As the USGA continues to embrace bifurcation by another name, we expect to see changes that will allow for a local rule to mandate the use of reduced-distance golf balls.Moving into the longshot category, Nickel predicts the PGA TOUR will loosen restrictions and allow players and caddies to wear shorts any time they want.

Moving on to the Equipment Companies …

Covey believes Titleist will eventually bring the Pro V1 Left Dot to retail. Likely limited (like Pro V1x Left Dash was originally) but available, nonetheless. He concedes it may not happen until 2023.Acknowledging the growth of NFTs and crypto-currency, Young predicts golf’s major equipment manufacturers will embrace both—offering up their own NFTs and processing BitCoin payments on their websites.Barba predicts Callaway will hit $3.5 billion in sales and both he and Young believe it will acquire yet another brand. Covey wonders if that will further shift the company’s center of gravity away from the golf equipment space.Young believes Stealth will prove to be a milestone in TaylorMade history. It’s an easy lock for the No. 1 position in the retail market; the only question is by how much.Nickel thinks the company will eclipse a 50-percent share of the metalwood/carbonwood market. Covey believes that may be unrealistic given supply chain issues but the impact of Stealth could force competitors into early discounts—something that seemed unfathomable just a few weeks ago.Young also thinks the Stealth branding will drive new irons sales beyond that of P-790 while Covey believes that, with Callaway Apex in Year Two of its cycle, the 1-2 punch of Stealth and P-Series will carry TaylorMade to No. 1 in the iron market as well.The summary here is that the staff believes the pieces and timing are right for TaylorMade to have an absolute monster of a year.While it won’t challenge for a leadership position in the market, Covey is confident COBRA is going to do something it hasn’t done in recent memory: excite golfers with an iron offering.Young believes 2022 will see a CEO or president of a major OEM step down while Barba thinks a large brick-and-mortar store will close its doors. The latter might be a stretch given how hot golf is at the moment but, then again, they could run out of product to sell.The staff also expects we’ll see a major brand be sold off or merged with another.Dave Wolfe expects more brands will follow the PXG model and offer something akin to loyalty discounts for full-bag purchases.It won’t be until later in the year but Covey is confident that we’ll see the third straight lineup of Titleist drivers that doesn’t suck.The personal launch monitor market will continue to expand.If you’re looking for emerging brands, Canadians support their own so it’s no surprise Young predicts you’ll hear more from Blacksmith Putters this year.As the game moves indoors and to other condensed formats, Young says you should expect to hear more from LinksDAO, Puttery and the Tiger Woods-backed Popstroke.

The early portion of the season continues to be quiet for golfer Bryson DeChambeau, who withdrew from the Sony Open on Monday after competing in just one official event over the past three months.