Golfing News & Blog Articles

Sky Trak is the defending champ in MyGolfSpy’s Personal Launch Monitor Buyer’s GuideBall data is on par with Trackman, Foresight and Flightscope, but cost is only $1,995Growing in popularity as an integral part of DIY home golf simulators

If you were a naval enthusiast, you’d be hard pressed to categorize the SkyTrak launch monitor. Trackman, Foresight and FlightScope are the aircraft carriers of the fleet. And small driving-range aids such as MEVO, Rapsodo or Voice Caddie are more like frigates or destroyers.

SkyTrak carries way more firepower than a frigate or destroyer and it’s a lot closer to an aircraft carrier than its price would indicate. So where does it belong? Channeling our inner Admiral Chester Nimitz, we’d have to say SkyTrak is a heavy cruiser: armed to the teeth and, after the carrier, the most badass surface combatant on the high seas.

Over the next week or so, we’re going to take a closer look at the two top units from MyGolfSpy’s 2019 Personal Launch Monitor Buyer’s Guide (the 2020 edition comes out this fall). Our goal is to cover the performance and features to help you decide if a personal launch monitor is for you. And, if so, which one?

SkyTrak Launch Monitor: Best In Show

The SkyTrak launch monitor took top honors in last year’s Buyer’s Guide. Specifically, it impressed with its advanced graphics and its feature set. Additionally, its accuracy with ball data matched the big boys RPM for RPM.

“All our parameters on ball speed, launch angle, spin – all are basically right on,” says Sky Caddie National Sales Manager Paul Calabrese. “Say you’re looking at backspin with a 6-iron. If Trackman shows 5,900 RPM, we might show 5,910 or 5,920.”

Srixon releases 12th-generation SOFT FEEL and SOFT FEEL LADY low-compression golf ballsSrixon announces 30-percent market share growth for the first half of 2020Parent company Dunlop Sports – a division of Sumitomo Rubber Industries – posts $27M net loss for the first half of 2020

Srixon is doing a bit a chest-thumping this week. Not only is the company releasing its updated SOFT FEEL golf ball but it’s also celebrating a couple of milestones and achievements.

The Srixon SOFT FEEL golf ball and its companion, the SOFT FEEL LADY, are the company’s two-piece, low-compression offerings. SOFT FEEL is now in its 12th generation and, as you’d expect, Srixon says it’s the longest SOFT FEEL yet.

We’ll get to the SOFT FEEL in just a moment because we don’t want to bury the two-pronged lede.

COVID? What COVID?

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the golf industry’s demise appear to be greatly exaggerated. Golf Datatech says golf equipment sales in the U.S. hit a record-shattering $388.6 million in July. That’s the single biggest month since Golf Datatech started keeping track in 1997.

The previous high was $368 million in June of 2007. And if you’re scoring at home, the U.K. also set a new monthly sales record in July.

After posting a BMW opening 77, Cameron Champ still spoke to press about his show of support for protestors and other professional athletes choosing to not contest official games and matches. From Adam Schupak’s report in Chicago:

The PGA Tour posted a video on social media on Wednesday that Champ re-tweeted, in which he wore a Nike golf shoe that is black on his left foot and white on his right foot, the latter with the words “Jacob Blake” and “BLM” in blue marker. During Thursday’s round he shook up his message.

“I have Papa Champ on my sneakers, Black Lives Matter and Breonna Taylor,” he said. “Obviously there are some very important reasons why that’s on my shoes. For my grandfather, if anyone knows my story, he grew up in the South, Jim Crow, all those eras through the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s and obviously Breonna Taylor, which is another ongoing issue. For me again that’s kind of where I stand with this. I just want to show my love and support and obviously with my hat, as well.”

Champ’s full remarks here were also of note:

Q. Just to build on that, with the NBA it looks a lot different than the PGA TOUR. I just wonder, there's probably a number of players, certainly fans who have a different idea of what Black Lives Matter means. I just wonder if you feel in any way like an outlier when you support this or you wear the shoes and you're the only one here, right? Just how you kind of square that and how you feel about that.

CAMERON CHAMP: Yeah, I mean, it's -- again, I mean, I do to a sense. Like I said, it's a situation where, again, that video I did yesterday, and I've been told what some people have said. I'm like, that's just -- if you don't understand the full view of everything and realize what's going on and realize the statistics with massive incarceration to law and order to war on drugs to statistically speaking there's, what, I think 12 percent of the U.S.'s population is African-American which makes up 33 percent of the incarcerations versus 62 or 63 percent Caucasian and it makes up 30 percent. So how do those numbers add up?

The reversal of golf’s fortune is put into context in the latest National Golf Foundation update. News of big June and July’s in the U.S. came from GolfDatatech, as did word of an increase in 9-hole and evening play, prompted this analysis:

This two-month rebound has allowed us to climb from a 16% YTD deficit on April 30 to now a 3% lead over 2019. Seems almost inconceivable given the loss of 20 million spring rounds from course shutdowns and virus-related anxieties. And the good news is likely to keep coming. Several golf course management companies have told us that August has been almost as good.
 
We did a little digging for perspective. Only three times in at least the past 151 months has the industry seen a monthly rounds increase of 20% or more. All three were during a heatwave in late 2011/early 2012, yielding surges in play at courses in the north that were typically closed and at a time of year when percentage increases can be misleading. To have a jump this significant during a high-volume summer month is unprecedented and reflects approximately 10 million more July rounds versus a year ago.
 
Our latest year-end forecast has us up 2% to 6% year-over-year. Consider this  – we haven’t seen more than a 5% Y.O.Y. increase since 2012 (during that surreal winter heatwave).

Buckling under playoff pressure like he hasn’t faced since last year, Tiger bogeyed his last three holes and was not necessarily channeling his inner Norman Vincent Peale.

He made clear there was no discussion of playing as several other athletes protested or elaborated on the times.

Q. Just general thoughts on -- it was a rough finish, but how the course was playing and what was the strongest part of the challenge?

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, the course was fine. The course is in perfect shape. Not the way I wanted to finish, but the golf course is playing difficult for sure.

Q. Was it a challenge dealing with the heat? Did that wear you out at all?

Branson’s big moment this week could be upstaged in September when Tiger debuts his first “public” course design, Payne’s Valley. The Golf Channel/NBC/Excel production features Woods and Justin Thomas vs. Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose. I sense some contractually-obligated “days” are getting checked off.

Anyway, for Immediate Release:

ORLANDO, Fla. – NBC Sports and Excel Sports Management announced today the Payne’s Valley Cup, a special 18-hole charity team exhibition match headlined by four of the world’s top golfers to commemorate the grand opening of Payne’s Valley Golf Course at Big Cedar Lodge in Ridgedale, Mo. Payne’s Valley represents the first public golf course design for 82-time PGA TOUR winner Tiger Woods, who will team up with World No. 3 Justin Thomas (Team United States) to take on major champions Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose (Team Europe) in the Payne’s Valley Cup.

Airing live on GOLF Channel on Tuesday, Sept. 22 (3-7 p.m. ET), the Payne’s Valley Cup will feature an entertaining mix of some of the best competition formats seen during Ryder Cups and Presidents Cups: Fourball, Foursomes and Singles matches. NBC will televise a special encore as two separate telecasts on Dec. 26 and 27 from 4-6 pm ET. The four players competing in the Payne’s Valley Cup have an eclectic resume: all four have been World No. 1; are major champions, all have won the FedExCup and have been part of victorious Ryder Cup teams.

The made-for-television exhibition match will be produced by NBC Sports, featuring all four players mic’d up during competition while showcasing Woods’ new golf course that pays tribute to Ozarks-native and World Golf Hall-of-Famer, Payne Stewart. 

Hideki Matsuyama used a 65-foot birdie putt on his final hole to take the lead at the BMW Championship. Tiger Woods went the other way late in his round, finishing with three straight bogeys to finish with a 73 and is 6 shots back of the lead.

Cameron Champ had the word "equality" written on the right side on his Nike hat and wore a black Nike shoe on his left foot and a white Nike one on his right with the words "Papa Champ, Black Lives Matter and Breonna Taylor."

While states like California, Arizona, and Florida may first come to mind when thinking of golf destinations, there are some spectacular courses spread across just about every state in the union – including Iowa. When it comes to carving beautiful and challenging tracks out of the prairie, golf courses in Iowa may have perfected the […]

The post Golf Courses in Iowa appeared first on Golf Blog, Golf Articles | GolfNow Blog.

Are you looking to take on real golf courses – even when you’re at home? GolfNow is teaming up with Ultimate Golf, the incredible mobile golf game, to give you a chance at playing in virtual tournaments and winning great golf prizes. Ultimate Golf lets you tee off on your mobile phone, playing head-to-head against […]

The post GolfNow Takeover on Ultimate Golf appeared first on Golf Blog, Golf Articles | GolfNow Blog.

The PGA Tour issued this statement in response to yesterday’s social justice protests in other sports, leading to the postponement of several games, including the NBA playoffs.

PGA TOUR Statement - August 27, 2020 

The MLB, MLS, NBA, WNBA and WTA protests are player-led, peaceful, powerful ways to use their respective platforms to bring about the urgent need for change in our country. There have been a number of efforts in the past to send a message that the current climate is unacceptable, and these teams, leagues and players now taking this step will help draw further attention to the issues that really matter. The PGA TOUR supports them – and any of our own members – standing up for issues they believe in.

The PGA TOUR made a pledge over the summer to be part of the solution, and we have been actively working to make deeper and more specific commitments to racial equity and inclusion in the communities where we play, as well as supporting national organizations within this movement that we had not previously engaged with.  However, we understand that now is not the appropriate time to highlight our programs and policies, but rather to express our outrage at the injustice that remains prevalent in our country. 

Sports have always had the power to inspire and unify, and we remain hopeful that together, we will achieve change.

The Bettinardi Hexperimental is a new prototype putter debuting at this week’s BMW Championship at Olympia Fields CC.This new high MOI mallet is an evolution of the Baby Ben that Jim Furyk used to win the 2003 U.S. Open at Olympia Fields CC.This new mallet features Bettinardi’s current iNOVAi design scheme.

I’ve got something special for you to check out today: a Bettinardi Hexperimental prototype putter making its debut this week at the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields CC.

Typically, a prototype putter release might slip through without much fanfare. Putter freaks will always gush over prototypes, but everyday golfers may not even realize what they are looking at.

This Bettinardi Hexperimental High MOI mallet is a little different because it likely looks familiar to many of you. In fact, I bet some of you have already identified its major-winning ancestor.

When Jim and Baby Ben Won the U.S. Open

During a media call to promote the upcoming playoffs, Paul Azinger and Brandel Chamblee swooned over Phil Mickelson’s brief CBS/PGA Championship stint.

From Alan Bastable at Golf.com:

“I listen to every word that’s said on air and check it and cross-check it, and I find myself pulling for the commentators as much as I do the players,” Chamblee said. “I want them to tell me something I don’t know. I want them to tell me something nobody else has thought of, and it’s hard to do that because the whole world is kicking and scratching for the same information and they all have the same information, and I thought Phil did that.”

And while Phil has no plans to retire to the booth anytime soon, the two NBC stars are anxious to see where his TV career goes.

“I thought it was hilarious; some of the most compelling golf I watched was watching Mickelson in the booth,” Azinger said. “I loved it. “

THIS..IS..RIGHT..ON! We are playing the same great courses that @jacknicklaus @ArnoldPalmer & Peter Thomson won on. I’m excited for our future because technology has ruined these great course for the elite men. All the best for us girls! https://t.co/jELjCz94JR

Andy Johnson wins the analogy award for summing the contrast between last weekend’s AIG Women’s Open at Troon and the slugfest at TPC Boston, aka the Northern Trust won by eleven by Dustin Johnson.

During the 2020 Women’s Open, played at a windy, 6,632-yard Royal Troon, we saw just that. Cunning and shotmaking came to the forefront. The competitors’ typical trajectories and spin rates brought slopes on and around the greens into play. Fronting bunkers were intimidating, often prompting players to aim away from a pin if they had a poor angle.

As a diehard golf fan, I felt how a diehard baseball fan must feel during the postseason. In playoff baseball games, the margins are slim, and the most successful teams manufacture runs in nuanced ways: hit and runs, safety squeezes, pitch-outs. Similarly, the Women’s Open highlighted precise driving, well-struck long irons, varied short-game play, and patience. This is the kind of stuff that tragics love and obsess over. And in golf, despite advances in equipment, the intricacies we crave can still be found in women’s tournaments because the scale of the players’ games fits the scale of the venues.

At the PGA Tour’s Northern Trust, on the other hand, those scales were completely mismatched.

The news isn’t too encouraging these days but for golf the signs are positive. And while we’re all sleeping better knowing the never-happy manufacturers are selling clubs and balls, it’s the course operators and lower-level clubs that form the backbone of golf. It seems, based on National Golf Foundation data, that the pandemic has freed people up for more afternoon and evening golf, a surefire way to hook and retain participants.

From the NGF report:

Golf course operators report that afternoon and evening tee times have been popular, which seems right given that Covid-19 has changed the contours of the work day for many. Sorting through recent NGF golf participation and engagement research, the number of short loops (as a percentage of total loops) is up over 15% in 2020.

Core golfers report that 33% of their rounds this year have been of the nine-hole variety, while occasional golfers tell us that nearly half (48%) of the rounds they’re playing are nine holes. This will be seen as good news by many, especially the USGA given their PLAY9 initiative, and would indicate that the “time barrier” to golf is being overcome by more golfers.

And I loved this perfect summation from the NGF:

We’ve talked about the increase in beginners and youth golfers, so clearly the late-day tee times aren’t just for the work-at-home crowd.

With late summer days, those nine-hole twilight rounds present the perfect opportunity for families to get to the course after an early dinner, or newcomers to get more comfortable with the game.

We all love watching Phil Mickelson Bomb It! He loves to do it too, especially when he wants an extra 25 yards. Phil normally plays conservatively with a soft fade to ensure that he can hit the fairway. But when he knows that he needs some extra distance he plans for a lower spin rate and a nice looping draw. Should we be trying to copy Phil?

It was interesting to follow Phil’s drives on his bogey holes in the first 2 days of the WGC FedEx St Jude Invitational. He had 6 bogeys. 4 out of those 6 drives were in the left rough but all 6 were short drives of about 270 yards. His most amazing shot was a bomb where he hit a perfect draw around a dog-leg 338 yards to the right. Yes that was his perfect BOMB!

Narrow, tree lined fairways don’t always give you the chance to create BOMBS but judging by the success that Bryson DeChambeau is having we should all put more effort into creating long bombs that land in the fairway. Bryson gained 40 pounds to put more muscle (or weight) behind his drives. On the other hand Phil has lost weight and worked on building up his strength.
Phil’s Fade is his Go-to-Shot
He sets up for a fade when he needs to land it in the fairway (even though it knocked him out of contention at the FedEx St Jude Invitational). He tees his ball lower to cut his ball to create a higher spin rate for more control and a soft landing.

Phil’s BOMB is a Draw
He tees it up higher and a little further forward in his stance so that he can hit up on the ball at about a 5.5 degree angle. He even uses his taller black tees to commit to this shot. His spin rate drops from his fade shots but he picks up well over 25 yards.

If it is difficult for a seasoned pro like Phil to hit every drive the way it was planned, how can we expect the same out of our games? As a recreational players you need to work on a consistent draw or fade so that you know where to aim for each drive. Consistency is so much more important than powering it into Never Never Land.

Phil Mickelson’s eye-opening—if you could see behind the aviators—22-under-par PGA Tour Champions debut outside Branson was impressive. That’s even if the competitive setting more closely resembled afternoon cart games at The Bridges than big boy golf, but Mickelson proved he’s still got something special during a four-stroke win over Tim Petrovic.

Jay Busbee with this on the win and Tiger’s assessment…or was it a dig?

Look, it’s easy to laugh off Mickelson’s achievement as an unfair matchup, the golf equivalent of LeBron James rolling over a neighborhood pickup basketball game. Mickelson’s odds to win the tournament were as low as +220 (bet $100 to win $220); that’s getting in the neighborhood of prime Tiger right there.

Woods himself knows just how much of an advantage Mickelson currently owns. “He was already one of the longest hitters out here [on the PGA Tour],” Woods said Wednesday at the BMW Championship, “and now he goes to where he’s going to pick up a huge advantage off the tee ... There’s no reason why he can’t win every event he plays out there. He’s got such a big advantage over the rest of the field just with sheer length.”

That’s right, he could win every week “out there”!

More importantly, buried lede here: Phil is putting with a blade and making putts. I feel the Golf Gods at work here. The entire bag of Callaways for Mickelson including a nice shot of his old school putter.

An unbylined AP story sent to me by reader Steve details legendary broadcaster Vin Scully’s plans to sell off much of his memorabilia, including golf items right down to his clubs.

Vin Scully sat outside watching two sets of his golf clubs being loaded into a truck. He thought of afternoons teeing off at Bel-Air Country Club or with President George H.W. Bush.

Those left-handed clubs had produced a lot of shots over many rounds, some good, some bad. Traipsing the fairways was a way to relax and swap stories away from the ballpark through the years. Seeing them go stirred emotion that surprised the 92-year-old Hall of Fame announcer.

"Wow, there is a chapter of my life that really hurts," Scully told The Associated Press, "but at my age and after some physical problems, I knew I'd never be able to hold them again. I heard a door close in my life."
Scully took a bad fall in April at the end of his driveway while retrieving the mail, breaking his nose and ribs and suffering a concussion.

"It was a learning experience," he said. "I hold on to my walker."

Scully is spreading the proceeds between family members to pay for home schooling and to UCLA for neuromuscular research.

Jason Day has been talking with Tiger Woods for help on ways to deal with the back issues both players face.

Phil Mickelson closed the Charles Schwab Series at Ozarks National with a 66 to win his PGA Tour Champions debut by four strokes and tie the tour's record for lowest 54-hole score.