Golfing News & Blog Articles

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The Best Cart Bags of 2021

It’s hard to reinvent the wheel. Right?

Yes, you can tweak something here and there but you don’t mess with the basic concept. A car still needs wheels and a chassis, a house still needs walls and a roof and a golf club still needs a shaft, a head and a grip.

Just like the basic golf bag. While the concept remains the same—you have to put your clubs somewhere, right?—it is being continually refined and improved.

As a result, more and more bags are contending for this year’s No. 1 spot in our Best Cart Bags 2021 competition. Yes, there are some that are crap but there’s less mediocrity. There’s little in-between. It’s either good or it’s not. We’ve looked at the “good” and now we are telling you what we consider the “best.”

Whether you’re looking to buy the best cart bag today, seeking some buying advice or just want a closer look at what’s on the market right now, we’re here to help.

The Waste Management Phoenix Open is known for its raucous, boozy atmosphere. Not this year. Instead of people everywhere and noise all the time, the volume will be turned down.

 

The post NCGA Women’s Events appeared first on Northern California Golf Association.

In our last blog we recommended slowing down your backswing to allow more time for the weight shift during your transition. We are actually trying to achieve a number of movements during our back swing but you may not realize this. All of the movements seem to melt into one consistent motion. If you miss one key element in your backswing you will destroy the downswing and your perfect impact.

I noticed that the top golfer in the world, Dustin Johnson, starts his takeaway by bending his trailing wrist back to flatten his leading wrist. Bryson DeChambeau sets up with a very rigid straight leading arm and flat leading wrist which points down along the shaft of his club directly out from his leading foot. No other professional golfer setup with this rigid leading arm setup. It actually makes him look like a stiff robot but the power he generates is even greater than Dustin’s so it must be helping.

Dustin ends up bowing his leading wrist at the top of his backswing and adding more angles that need to be adjusted in his downswing. An even worse situation is that many recreational golfers cup their wrists.
Bryson keeps his leading wrist flat at the top of his swing and just unloads his straight arm down and through his ball whipping the head of his club through the ball with the explosive force of a catapult. We all need to learn from his powerful swing.

Opportunity
1/ FLAT LEADING WRIST: Setting up with a rigid straight leading arm and wrist (like Bryson) is obviously not anyone’s preference (as no one else is doing it on the pro circuit). Why not setup with a straight leading arm, then flatten your leading wrist as the first move in your takeaway, the way Dustin does it.
2/ ADD RHYTHM TO YOUR SWING: Slow down you take-away to give yourself time to flatten your leading wrist and then cock that wrist to create lag at the top of you swing. That slower take-away also give you time to put some rhythm in your backswing as you transfer your weight to your leading foot. To slow down my takeaway I often mentally say: “1 aaand 2” with the rhythm of a 2-Step.
–“1” to start my take-away as I flatten my leading wrist
–“aaand” as I load up my back-swing with lag and start to shift my weight to my leading leg
–“2” to start my downswing. I shallow my downswing from the inside and up my target line to a balanced pose.

Now that I have slowed down my backswing I have added about 10 yards for every club. I love the extra distance but it requires some adjustment to drop down a club for each distance. Practice with GOLFSTR+ to keep your leading arm straight and also to keep your leading wrist flat. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Rory McIlroy, speaking Wednesday about his embedded ball situation at Torrey Pines over the weekend, said a volunteer emailed the PGA Tour on Monday, alerting the tour to the fact that they had stepped on McIlroy's ball while searching for it.

Augusta National and the Masters Tournament are providing property and donating $1 million to help with COVID-19 vaccinations in the area.

R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers is optimistic some number of fans will be permitted at Royal St. George's for The Open in July but said that the major championship will be played regardless.

Patrick Reed and Xander Schauffele have cleared the air after Schauffele was unhappy about Reed's rules controversy.

Getting the Hole-In-One Grand Slam

February 3, 2021

Rocklin resident and NCGA member Ben Menold has the ultimate score on each of his home course’s par-3s.

Back in November, Menold, 73, aced the par-4th hole at Whitney Oaks GC using a No.4 hybrid.

The hole-in-one was significant, as it marked the completion of a ‘Grand Slam Hole-In-One’ cycle on each of Whitney Oaks’ four par-3s—Nos. 4, 8, 12 and 16. It all started with an ace on No.16 in April 2012. In July 2013, he got his second ace, that coming on the 164-yard par-3 12th. Another year later in 2014 he had his third ace, getting on the 160-yard 8th using a 6-iron.

Al that had been left was an ace on No.4. Menold estimates he played the hole over 400 times in the last six years. He wouldn’t get the final elusive ace until he again struck gold last November.

The PGA Tour heads to Scottsdale this week for the Waste Management Open. Our experts offer their best bets for the event.

Bryson DeChambeau said it's "really cool" to see conversation about potential changes to regulations to control distance off the tee.

MyGolfSpy Ball Lab is where we quantify the quality and consistency of the golf balls on the market to help you find the best ball for your money. Today, we’re taking a look at the Pinnacle Practice, which is arguably the most popular range ball on the market right now. An overview of the equipment we use can be found here. To learn more about our test process, how we define “bad” balls and our True Price metric, check out our About MyGolfSpy Ball Lab page.

It’s perhaps a little odd that what may very well be the most frequently struck ball in all of golf is one that almost nobody plays. Folks, we’re talking about a range ball, specifically the Pinnacle Practice ball. And, yeah, while we’ve all come across the occasional guy who not only pilfers them from the range but actually plays them, the three-stripe special is not intended for use on the golf course.

That said, it’s a safe bet that more than a few golfers have been fitted using Pinnacle Practice balls. While we’d strongly advise against that, we were a bit curious to see how the other “No. 1 Ball in Golf” stacks up from a quality perspective. Given the emphasis on durability and the sub-Kirkland pricing, our expectations were low.

About the Pinnacle Practice Range Ball

In 2017, New York-based equity firm KPS Capital Partners purchased TaylorMade from Adidas for $425 million.

Now, according to a report published by the New York Times, it appears that KPS is looking to sell the golf equipment brand. In the same article, it states that KPS hired Morgan Stanley to run the sale of TaylorMade, which could fetch somewhere close to $2 Billion. If it does, that would put TaylorMade in the ballpark of competitors Callaway ($2.71 billion market cap) and Titleist’s parent company, Acushnet ($3.15 billion).

This isn’t much of a surprise as the fundamental premise of equity firms is, like stockholders, to buy low and sell high. Considering that KPS bought TaylorMade for a relative bargain – basically $200 million in cash – any selling price at or near $2 Billion would represent a robust profit. Privately held companies typically don’t discuss the particulars of such situations. Therefore, there isn’t much water cooler talk around potential suitors, though I suspect it won’t be long before we start hearing some names.

The golf industry topped the $1 billion mark for club, bag, ball, and shoes sales in Q3 of 2020. Although it’s likely a pandemic-aided boom, it’s an important number because it’s only the second time that this has happened in any quarter and the first time in Q3. The equipment market appears to be relatively stable, a factor that likely weighed heavily on KPS’s apparent decision to pursue the sale of TaylorMade.

We will update this story as more information becomes available.

Paul Casey, who initially declined to play in the Saudi International, saying he was uncomfortable due to his relationship with UNICEF, has elected to compete in the tournament.

Titlelist has invited Justin Thomas to take part in its diversity and inclusion training of employees.

 

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The Unites States Golf Association and the R&A jointly announced Tuesday that they are proposing equipment standards changes, including a potential local rule for club and ball specifications. It is also proposing changes to club length.

USGA and RandA Release Areas of Interest to Help Mitigate Continuing Distance Increases

February 2, 2021 

The USGA and The R&A are re-engaging with the golf industry on the Distance Insights project, which aims to help achieve a more sustainable long-term future for golf.

The governing bodies are issuing specific Areas of Interest to help mitigate continuing distance increases and three proposed changes to the Equipment Rules to ensure their effectiveness in relation to distance limits.

The delivery of research topics related to hitting distances and golf’s sustainability was delayed in 2020 to allow the golf industry to focus on the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

The Areas of Interest notice, sent on Monday to golf equipment manufacturers, follows the conclusions of the Distance Insights Report delivered last February. It is the first step of the established Equipment Rulemaking Procedures, which give the opportunity for golf’s stakeholders to provide research and perspectives on topics that might lead to equipment Rules changes.

Key Takeaways

Shot Scope adds Strokes Gained data to its shot-tracking/performance package.Phase One introduced this past week includes Strokes Data comparison to Tour.Hole-by-hole analytics and other info will be rolled out in Phase Two this spring.Phase Three allows you to compare with players in your handicap range.

Shot Scope’s new Strokes Gained Data is a big deal for the Edinburgh, Scotland-based golf tech company. Shot Scope took a huge leap forward last summer when it released its V3 GPS watch. But with Arccos adding Strokes Gained to its data package last summer,  Shot Scope had been lagging just a wee bit behind, as the Scots might say.

That wee lag is no more.

Strokes Gained is the Holy Grail for golf analytic nerds. The self-aware golfer finds Strokes Gained to be a data-centric insight into their strengths and weaknesses. You’ll discover where you need work and it helps you track your progress. The self-delusional golfer, however, will find Strokes Gained a cold and harsh but ultimately very useful dose of reality.

Just What Is “Strokes Gained”?

Strokes Gained determines exactly where and how you’re gaining (or losing) strokes. By analyzing millions of shots over years, Strokes Gained determines how many strokes the baseline average golfer takes to hole out from every imaginable spot on a golf course. Strokes Gained uses that information to tell us whether an individual shot is better or worse than the baseline average and by how much.

Simple, right?

PointsBet, an online sportsbook that has a partnership with the PGA Tour, has offered refunds to all of those who did not bet on Patrick Reed at the Farmers Insurance Open.