Golfing News & Blog Articles

Your setup for every shot on a fairway may need adjustments. Every course is rated with a SLOPE. It is drastically affected by the rolling terrain of the fairways. Every time that you find your ball on side sloping ground or a forward or backward sloping surface, you need to make adjustments or your will lose control of your shot.

Find a FLAT Surface for Your Tee Shot
The simplest mistake that I notice is when recreational players don’t check out the slope on the tee. Premium courses ensure that the tee is flat but many club and public courses don’t pay enough attention to the flat surface on every tee. A side slope to the left will automatically force your ball to pull to the left and a slope to the right is just as dangerous. Find a flat surface to setup your tee shot to avoid pulls or pushes or slices.

Setup for any Shot
Clay at Top Speed Golf recently pointed out the importance of your body position for your setup:
1/ Ball position (forward or back in your stance) affects your angle of attack and shot shape. Practice and know what to expect from your swing.
2/ Let your arms hang to avoid stretching to reach your ball.
3/ Your stance width relates to your stability and power, You need a shoulder width stance for driver power, a narrower stance for irons and even narrower stance for gentle chip shots.
4/ Bend your back forward (don’t hunch forward) at your hips (and stick your butt out) for more power using any club.
5/ Shoulder tilt is so critical to ensure that your club path will add launch angle to your drives.

Adjust for Slope (side, up or down)
A. Your mind expects to make every swing on a flat surface. It is difficult for you mind to adjust for your swing on sloped surfaces. Adjusting for the 5 points listed above will all be affected. To help your mind adjust, make a full speed practice swing on the same slope where your ball is resting. You need to “customize and sensitize” your body and mind for the swing that you need to make. Then duplicate that exact swing without changing your swing speed.
B. You swing a golf club in an arc. Expect that a side slope to the left will pull your shot to the left. If the slope is to the right and you are standing above the ball, you are faced with more problems. You may have to bend your knees a little more (or widen your stance) to reach the ball and to keep your balance. Your club will not lie flat on a down side slope. A severe side slope can catch your hosel and twist your club before impact. Don’t expect a miracle shot. Prepare for the worst and take your medicine to reach a safe location for your next shot.
C. When you hit from any up or down slope, adjust your stance to ensure that you swing on the plane of your slope and your club will bottom out just after your ball. Use a higher lofted club for a down slope and a lower lofted club for an up slope to compensate for added or reduced angles.

Your clubs are designed to hit from flat surfaces. If you don’t adjust for sloped surfaces you can expect direction and distance control problems. GOLFSTR+ is a great training aid to help you learn the correct swing for every club in your bag. Golfing on sloped surfaces needs your special attention. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

It doesn’t take the eye of a predatory bird to spot the Orlando World Center Marriott resort, a 2,000-plus-room hotel and conference center near Walt Disney World. When this marvel opened in 1986 it was the largest hotel in the state of Florida. And accompanying it from the very start was an 18-hole golf course, […]

The post Hawk’s Landing Golf Club in Orlando Reveals New Island Green appeared first on Golf Blog, Golf Articles | GolfNow Blog.

October 14. 2020

Course Rating—Under the Hood of Your Handicap

One of the benefits of NCGA membership is a core foundation of the game of golf – your unique official USGA handicap index. You use this GHIN number to enter your 9 or 18-hole scores into the my NCGA mobile app, a golf course kiosk or online website – all connected to the World Handicap System.

Starting this year, with the WHS, your index is re-calculated every day with a set of algorithms. This all sounds like a simple database automation, but it is just the tip of the iceberg. What goes into making it all happen is much more impressive.

Just think about it – when you enter your score, you are indicating which course you played and from which set of tees. Part of the handicap calculation is course rating and slope. No doubt you see these numbers on the course scorecard. Who figured them out? NCGA Course Raters! A best-in-class team–which includes volunteers–visits every course in Northern California to rate the relative difficulty of scoring a par on that course for a typical scratch golfer and a typical bogey golfer.

These course ratings take a full day and follow a comprehensive process that includes (1) identifying course obstacles such as topography, bunkers, fairways, rough, green surface, water and trees (2) playing the course and (3) recording and analyzing all the detailed data to produce the course rating and slope – for each tee.

Who is worth investing in, and whom should you fade? Our experts offer their best bets for the CJ Cup at Shadow Creek.

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 Maxfli Tour from DICK’S Sporting Goods.  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.

I’m not sure if it qualifies as common knowledge but Maxfli now is a house brand of sporting goods giant DICK’S Sporting Goods. Sorry, folks. DICK’S doesn’t own the rights to the Noodle franchise.

DICK’S Maxfli Tour lineup consists of two models; the three-piece Maxfli Tour and the four-piece Maxfli Tour X. One of the differentiators, if not the selling-point, for the Maxfli Tour family is that the balls are CG (center of gravity) balanced at the factory. DICK’S has invested heavily in what is essentially an industrial-strength Check-Go-Pro device.  The process aligns the sidestamp with the golf balls’ center of gravity. While DICK’S stands behind the quality of its product, CG balancing is an extra strep that it believes makes its balls just a bit better than those of its competitors who compete at lower price points than the Titleists and Callaways of the world.

In this report, we take a closer look at the Maxfli Tour golf ball and let you know how it stacks up against other golf balls on the market. Finally, we’ll give you the True Price – how much it costs to get a dozen “good” golf balls.

The world No. 3 revealed pre-CJ Cup in Vegas that he, too, is looking to find more clubhead speed despite already having plenty in his tank. (Thomas has perennially averaged between 116-117 mph.)

Adam Schupak at Golfweek.com on Justin Thomas seeing what Bryson DeChambeau has done with modern technology and dieting.

“I’m not far off. It’s really about messing with some different stuff and different training and explosiveness to be able to pick up something,” he said. “There’s different ways to do it. I mean, the absolute No. 1 thing is I’m continuing to stay injury free and I’m continuing to progress in a good direction in terms of staying healthy and staying fit. But if I can do that while incorporating some more speed, then that’s big.”

Thomas has recovered from a 2019 wrist injury to be one of the game’s elite. While it’s great to read his strength work is centered around injury prevention, it’s hard not to wonder about the injury implications in pursuit of speed.

However it is quite easy to wonder if anyone in St Andrews or Far Hills is concerned by what they are reading.

I’m not sure there is much to analyze in the dreadful golf ratings last weekend given the confluence of MLB playoffs, NBA finals, college football and NFL.

Showbuzzdaily.com has the 2020 Shriner’s and KPMG LPGA numbers, with golf easily the lowest on their list of weekly sports ratings.

Dustin Johnson becomes the highest-profile golfer to test positive for COVID-19 after reportedly asking for a follow-up test at the CJ Cup upon feeling virus symptoms.

The world No. 1’s WD from the event at Shadow Creek was announced by the PGA Tour.

From Joel Beall’s GolfDigest.com report:

“Obviously, I am very disappointed,” Johnson said in a statement. “I was really looking forward to competing this week, but will do everything I can to return as quickly as possible. I have already had a few calls with the TOUR’s medical team and appreciate all the support and guidance they have given me.”

Tony Finau, who tested positive for the virus had intimated he was hopeful of a return this week at Shadow Creek, but the world No. 17 withdrew from the event late Tuesday afternoon.

Content with his game, Bryson DeChambeau is taking a month off from tournament play leading into the Masters. DeChambeau said he will focus on increasing his swing speed, at least with the 48-inch driver he plans to use, to 200 mph.

Dustin Johnson becomes the 15th player on the PGA Tour to announce they tested positive for COVID-19.

While cargo shorts are no longer the scourge they once were in the eyes of stylistas, they are a staple of certain rallies where cut-off sleeve shirts and bald eagle-adorned golf shirts dominate.

I’ve never fully grasped the offense taken by golf clubs toward cargos. Maybe it’s the overall “working class” vibe that makes Thurston uncomfortable. Perhaps those extra pockets are just too convenient of a place to hide stolen silverware or, gasp, a mobile phone!

The offensiveness of hoodies also confounds as much as the perceived functional benefit of golfing in one. They are the millennial’s quarter-zip. If wearing one makes them more comfortable playing golf, then have at them. Or, apparently not.

After Tyrrell Hatton’s BMW PGA win in an Adidas hoodie, we have evidence of clubs taking a cargo-like stance against this sinister fashion trend. From The Club:

Sunday : One of the world's best golfers won a big tournament wearing a hoodie. Maybe golf will progress and trust people to dress themselves?

Tuesday : pic.twitter.com/5xpMX2qOtE

South African golfer Jbe Kruger has withdrawn from the field in this week's Scottish Championship on the European Tour after testing positive for the coronavirus.

Spain will stage the Solheim Cup for the first time in 2023 and it will be played at the Finca Cortesin course in Andalucia.

2021 Callaway X Forged – Key Takeaways

At the most basic level, Callaway’s objective for the new X Forged CB iron (and X Forged UT utility) was to bring a little bit of innovation to a category where we typically don’t find it. To do it without sacrificing consistency, control or feel … all the better, I suppose.

That’s not to say Callaway is alone in this endeavor. The case can easily be made that options like the Mizuno MP20 HMB and the TaylorMade P770 represent the same sort of irons.

Callaway puts the X Forged CB in the (better) player’s iron category and, by any reasonable measure, it’s a legitimate TOUR iron.  It doesn’t get much better player’s than that but there’s enough technology to suggest the design straddles the player’s side of the player’s distance category.

Callaway Apex MB – Key Takeaways

You don’t usually associate Callaway with three-year product cycles, do you?  Well, today’s updated Callaway Apex MB is an on-schedule third-year refresh of the previous Apex MB, introduced in October of 2017.

And that, friends, was an on-schedule third-year refresh of the original Callaway Apex MB, which debuted in August of 2014.

Does that make you happy? It should make you happy. But then again, the muscle back blade technology parade marches to its own very slow tune. Yeah, blades are blades, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing new to check out. Specifically, the updates to the new Callaway Apex MB are primarily aimed at simplifying Tour-level fitting.

So, even if you can’t stomach the Apex name on anything other than a Hogan, let’s take a peek under the hood.

Callaway Apex MB – Do No Harm

To paraphrase the old proverb: blades maketh the OEM. That applies less to Callaway (and the rest of the Big Five, for that matter), but a nice set of sex-on-a-stick blades is an iron maker’s bona fides.

Apparently this whole athlete thing also entails weight, diet and equipment work leading into a major, not exactly a boost to the PGA Tour that loves the jock narrative and who pulled off a miraculous salvation of the lucrative CJ Cup and ZOZO Championships. Irony can be inconvenient.

From Steve DiMeglio’s post-Shriner’s wrap of U.S. Open winner Bryson DeChambeau’s pre-November Masters plans.

“I’m going to be working out like crazy. The first week back home, I’m not really going to touch a club too much and going to be training pretty hard and getting myself up to hopefully around 245, something like that, in weight. Be the first time I’ve ever done that, so I’m going to be consuming a lot and see and working out a lot and see what we can do from there.”

Gotta be ready to go twelve rounds.

Now, as for the whole skill vs. equipment debate, DeChambeau eed up the governing bodies to take action. At least, in a world of governing bodies that like to govern. That’s because the other focus of DeChambeau’s preparation involves equipment testing.

This week's broadcast from the CJ Cup will feature live betting odds for the first time, the PGA Tour announced.

South Korea's Sei Young Kim won her first major at the KPMG Women's PGA Championship on Sunday, becoming the ninth first-time major winner from the last 10 majors. First-time champions are no surprise, but rather a signifier of talent on the LPGA.

Whether you are pro-betting or not, the prospect of live odds integration into telecasts should provide stellar entertainment. After all, announcers today are dancing around criticism of much of anything, so it should make for spectacular listening as they dance around the live odds.

“Rossi, did you see Collin Morikawa just move to 10-1 on that birdie? Mighty attractive price with just 31 holes to go and only six players in front of him, all imminently beatable, right?”

“Yes Jim, I’m opening up my BETMGM app as we speak to put down a hundon, AND jump on his head-to-head with Pat Reed who had a terribly long call with his wife on the range. That’s value you just can’t get at the dog track. At least, so I hear.”

Should be fun. And better than hearing about FedExCup projections.

For Immediate Release:

October 12, 2020

NCGA Mourns the Loss of Past President Gordon Scott

The post NCGA Mourns the Loss of Past President Gordon Scott appeared first on Northern California Golf Association.