Golfing News & Blog Articles

Pre-pandemic the explosion of interest and respect for the role of par-3 courses was incredible and there is little reason to think that’ll be changing. Designed properly, pitch and putts are fun for all, a great option for kids or older golfers no longer up for a full round and essential to the facilities that have done it right.

While not the first, Pinehurst’s The Cradle was arguably the most ambitious given the prime real estate devoted to the Hanse Design creation. The numbers are in after three years and they are staggering.

Check out this post for all of them, but from a pure news and business perspective the primary number is the rounds played total: over 115,000 rounds in three years means over 100 players a day, depending on whether replays are counted. That’s with a $50 green fee—kids under 17 are free with a paying adult—and many other golf options in the region. Incredibly eye-opening, one would hope, particularly given how little acreage and cost such a course requires compared to a full course.

Hitting greens in regulation is the number 1 objective in golf if you want to lower your scores. Unfortunately we normally end up with a lot more chip shots than hitting GIRs. So chipping close to the hole for a one putt is really the most important shot for recreational golfers. Patrick Reed took an early lead in the US Open by chipping it close and then making a lot of 1 putt greens. Stabbing your wedge at the ball is NOT a good solution. You need to finish with hip rotation.

Clay Ballard at Top Speed Golf highlighted the setup and swing needed to avoid fat chips or worm burner bladed chips in a recent blog. NOTHING can mess-up a hole worse than a simple short chip. When the pressure is on you may go into a yip mode. With the proper setup and rotating finish you can break out of your missed chips.

1) Narrow Your Foot Separation and Open Your Stance: Keep your feet about 8 inches apart. When your feet are too far apart, it can cause you to be too rigid during the swing, and if they’re too close it can create issues with your balance. A chip is a simple rocking back and through (like a putt), but you want to be loose. Having your feet closer together also allows for a better ball position at the bottom of your swing arc.

2) Ball Position: You want the ball to be “directly under your lead ear”. That’s the natural low point of your swing (where your club grounds out). By having the ball under your lead ear, you’ll naturally be hitting the ball just before the club hits the ground. It helps you hit your ball first. NOTE: Other pros recommend more weight on your leading foot and lining the ball up with your trailing ear. Why not try both and sort out what’s best for you?

3) Shaft Lean: Setup with your shaft pointing up to your leading shoulder. This will also force you to keep more pressure on your leading foot during setup and throughout your chip. You want to impact the ball before you skim the turf.

Who is worth investing in, and whom should you fade? Our experts offer their best bets for the Sanderson Farms Championship.

What happens when you get golf ball experts from competing manufactures in the same room?

Plenty of spirited conversation.

Dean Snell (Snell Golf), Adam Rehberg (Bridgestone), and Alan Hocknell (Callaway) sat down (virtually) with MyGolfSpy staff to discuss a variety of pertinent golf ball topics.

So, what do the top names in golf ball manufacturing have to say about rolling back the golf ball?

Watch Now

The post [VIDEO] Rolling Back the Ball – Golf Ball Roundtable appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

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 Snell MTB-X.  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.

Among an ever-increasing number of direct-to-consumer brands, Snell Golf has the best pedigree. In his years at Titleist and TaylorMade, company founder Dean Snell had a role in some of the most popular designs of their time. Nobody else in the DTC space can match Dean’s resume. Still, without the size of those companies backing him, can Snell match the quality of the leading brands?

In this report, we share what we learned about the 2019 Snell MTB-X 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.

About the Snell MTB-X

 

I get that they’re excited down in greater Frisco about the forthcoming PGA of America golf complex, but I’m not sure we needed an early look at the 2041 Ryder Cup possibilities given that we’d like to just get 2020’s Ryder Cup under our belt in…2021.

Anyway, Gil Hanse’s design at the PGA complex in Frisco is starting to look like a golf course, and while I wouldn’t let anyone see it looking like this, Art Stricklin gives a Golf.com update on a course slated to host 20 professional and amateur events over the next two decades.

Never before has a U.S. course had more than 20 professional and amateur golf events — including two PGA Championships (the first in 2027) and two Senior PGA Championships (the first in 2023) — destined for its fairways while it’s still under construction. All course work will be done later this fall, giving the site a year and a half to grow in and mature.

The property also will feature a second course, the West Course, designed by Beau Welling; a practice area and a 10-hole short course; an Omni resort; and PGA headquarters buildings.

One event presumed to be headed to PGA Frisco but which has not yet been officially announced is the most anticipated: a future Ryder Cup. It would represent the first-ever Ryder Cup in North Texas and only the second in the Lone Star State. The next available date is 2041, but that hasn’t stopped the planning or dreaming.

Yes 2041, when Rory McIlroy will be too old and out of touch to Captain a second time and Larry Nelson will still be wondering why he was passed over.

Again, let’s just get 2020’s under our belt and talk later but in the meantime, at least see how the Hanse team is turning a cow pasture into something.

In his weekly notes column, AP’s Doug Ferguson features this quote from Rory McIlroy without attribution to the context or location:

“I think we're too far down the road to do anything drastic. It went on too long and too far to bring the game to where it was in the mid-90s.” — Rory McIlroy on what golf should do about distance.

It’s an odd one since (A) no one I’m aware of has mentioned going back to mid-90s distances, (B) it’s a contradiction of his wildly inconsistent array of past comments that have covered the gamut from pro-rollback to you-can’t-stop-the-athletes (here, here, and here for starters), (C) it’s oddly short-sighted for a player of McIlroy’s depth and past statements to say the problem is so far gone that inaction is the remedy.

Anyway, anyone know where this was said and what the context was?

September 29, 2020

Former WNBA All-Star, Sheri Sam, Named Managing Director of the Northern California PGA Foundation

Move over M’s!

The Z’s are here and if the last decade’s millennial pandering is any indication, Generation Z is the sports industry’s new focus.

At least, given the numbers presented by The Morning Consult’s Alex Silverman showing less Gen Z enthusiasm for sports than millennials.

Simply put, those born from 1996 and on do not appear to be serious sports viewing fans.

Gen Z’s relative disinterest in sports is reflected in its viewing habits: While 42 percent of all adults, and 50 percent of millennials, said they watch live sports at least once a week, only 1 in 4 individuals ages 13-23 said the same. In addition, Gen Zers were twice as likely as millennials to say they “never” watch live sports.

We’ve all been there - a constant battle between fats and thins, blocks and sweeping hooks! This malady is something I experience all too often on my lesson tee and I have an idea that I know will help many of you. Once you work your way through this article your approach to ball striking, your concept of how it should work, will never be the same again. Take a look…

I have come to believe that the primary culprit in tipping the upper body back is the quest to work the clubhead back to the inside or shallow the club on the downswing. I’ve written that “It’s All About Impact”, but you can only arrive at an appropriate impact when certain elements are in place going back and on the way down. The better the clubhead is positioned in the early downswing the less likely golfers are to tip their shoulders and spine away from the target too early.

Here’s a face on shot of Tiger Woods from the PGA Championship in San Francisco. I like this example as the bottom of his sleeves seem to correlate to shoulder tilt in these frames.

Tiger Woods

Frame 1: Far too many golfers have significantly more shoulder tilt than this at address. The lead shoulder should always be higher, but only marginally.

What happens when you get golf ball experts from competing manufactures in the same room?

Plenty of spirited conversation.

Dean Snell (Snell Golf), Adam Rehberg (Bridgestone), and Alan Hocknell (Callaway) sat down (virtually) with MyGolfSpy staff to discuss a variety of pertinent golf ball topics.

Titleist is the undisputed industry leader. But, it also means there’s a Texas-sized target on its back. So, what’s the game plan for Callaway and Bridgestone?

Watch Now

The post [VIDEO] Taking on Titleist – Golf Ball Roundtable appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

2020 Top Flite Gamer – Key Takeaways

DICK’s returns the Top Flite Gamer returns to its roots as “the original multi-layer distance ball”Measured compression is similar to Titleist Velocity and Tour SpeedAt $22.99/dozen it cost significantly less than other “premium ionomer” golf balls

With the 2020 Top Flite Gamer on shelves at DICK’S Sporting Goods and Golf Galaxy, I suppose we could say a classic fan favorite is back. The thing is, though, that many of you may not have noticed it was gone.

The original Top Flite Gamer developed a bit of a cult following among golfers. In 2017, however, DICK’S scrapped the Surlyn side of the Gamer’s family tree and decided to focus on the three-piece, urethane-covered Gamer Tour. While you may have lamented the loss of the original, at $25 a dozen the Gamer Tour was a solid bargain in the “kinda like a Pro V1” category that golfers on a budget find so attractive.

Unfortunately, DICK’S had some issues with its TPU cover process. The durability wasn’t what it should have been – and certainly not what golfers expected coming from the original Gamer. With the Maxfli Tour series more than meeting expectations, DICK’S decided to scrap the Top Flite Gamer Tour and return the Gamer to its roots.

The New Top Flite Gamer

To that end, the 2020 Top Flite gamer is a three-piece ionomer ball designed to compete for your attention in the emerging “Premium Ionomer” category. I’ll spare you a rehashing of my rant on why that term is an oxymoron and instead focus on what DICK’S hopes to achieve with the new ball.

I’ll leave it up your judgement to decide how you feel about Bryson DeChambeau’s process to outsmart the Winged Foot rough, as outlined by Jonathan Wall at Golf.com. But you have to admire the dedication of both DeChambeau to give himself added confidence, and of the Bridgestone R&D to spend the last Friday night before Labor Day on a Zoom call talking shot pattern standard deviations.

Nice work by Wall and the folks at Bridgestone to piece together this U.S. Open aftermath piece on DeChambeau’s quest to prepare for the high rough and how his 8, 9 and PW would react.

With one of the fastest club-head speeds on Tour, DeChambeau figured he could generate sufficient spin, and a playable ball flight, from the rough to score around the course — even if he wasn’t finding the fairway with a nuked drive.

“If he normally generates 10,000 RPMs with a pitching wedge from a clean lie and knows a flier will knock the spin down to 7,000 RPMs, he’s able to calculate how much longer he’ll hit it in that situation. A lot of players are just guessing when they get a flier. The testing we conducted was all about helping him build those numbers for the clubs he figured he’d use often on approach shots — 8-iron, 9-iron, pitching wedge.

Again, tip your cap to him. But is this where we begin asking if things are maybe not headed in the right direction?

The Scotsman’s Moira Kerr had the backstory on the Australian millionaire Greg Coffey buying the Ardfin Estate ten years ago on the remote Hebridean Island famous as George Orwell’s happy place to write 1984.

And now the £50m renovating later, the Jura House and farm buildings is an upscale “accommodation” with another £20m spent on Bob Harrison’s 18-hole golf course that opened to just a few people in 2015.

The UK Golf Guy’s full review can be read here, but a snippet:

However, in early 2020 it was announced that the course would be open to visitors – but only for those willing to pay stay on the property. I cover the logistics, accommodation and overall package in the Tour Tips section below.

But if you strip away the myths, strip away the cost and strip away the exclusivity, what is the course itself actually like?

Oh why give a more, check out the link and here’s the hole-by-hole flyover.

Jim Walsh in the Cherry Hill Courier-Post paints quite the bizarre picture of a ballot initiative facing the eleven constituents of the borough of Pine Valley. Yes, that Pine Valley.

The club’s George Crump and H.S. Colt course is typically ranked first in most rankings of top American courses despite losing some aesthetic and architectural edge in recent years. The “borough” of Pine Valley now appears to be adhering to Governor Phil Murphy’s push for shared services between boroughs with lower property taxes as the end goal.

So this November 3rd, you Pine Valley borougherers—all eleven of the thirteen registered to vote—you must decide whether to form a citizens’ commission to decide shared services in the region!

“This is a preliminary step, but an important one that the borough believes is prudent to consider,” Pine Valley Mayor Mike Kennedy said in a statement provided to the Courier-Post.

The ballot question – to be decided by the borough’s 11 registered voters — is “consistent with these goals,” Kennedy said.

The Camden County borough, which was incorporated in 1929, keeps a low profile in a forested area behind a rail line along East Atlantic Avenue.

There’s an understatement. I wonder if there are lawn signs with the lucky few Pine Valley residents announcing their position?

Dustin Johnson leads the top five players in the world who have committed to play the CJ Cup at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, the start of a two-week stretch of relocated Asia events that includes Tiger Woods returning to California.

What happens when you get golf ball experts from competing manufactures in the same room?

Plenty of spirited conversation.

Dean Snell (Snell Golf), Adam Rehberg (Bridgestone), and Alan Hocknell (Callaway) sat down (virtually) with MyGolfSpy staff to discuss a variety of pertinent golf ball topics.

No company makes a perfect golf ball 100% of the time. But, should golfers get a refund for balls with known defects?

Watch Now

The post [VIDEO] Off Center Cores – Golf Ball Roundtable appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

Titleist’s CNCPT irons are $500 a pop, Personal Launch Monitors are good but not great, and Bryson reignites the distance debate all on today’s episode of No Putts Given.

1:11 – Titleist holds nothing back, including the price tag on their new CNCPT irons.7:12 –  Our Most Wanted buyer’s guide for Personal Launch Monitors is out today15:38 –  Bryson reignites the distance debate, featuring Dr. Brandon Horvath25:47 – Practical solutions to the distance “problem” that don’t require rollbacks

Watch Now

Also available on:

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and all major podcast apps.

 

The post The Distance Debate Reignited | NPG 59 appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

2020 PERSONAL LAUNCH MONITOR BUYER’S GUIDE

Golf launch monitors have become ubiquitous with the pros.  At every PGA TOUR event, you see a variety of launch monitors on the range. Foresight, TrackMan, and FlightScope are the leaders. Bryson DeChambeau, the 2020 U.S. Open champion, uses launch monitors from two brands to dial in his game.

Given that many of the best players in the world use these devices to drive both equipment and on-course decisions, it’s understandable that average golfers would be hungry to do the same.

Personal golf launch monitors are the Holy Grail for the average golfer looking to improve their golf game. Technology is developing rapidly, and personal launch monitors have improved over recent years. These gizmos might still need a few years to become more accurate and provide more data points, but they’re able to offer enough information to help you reasonably dial in your game, with your expectations managed.

The enterprise stuff is expensive … really expensive. But for $500, there are a number of pocket sized devices that offer plenty of data for a reasonable cost.

If you’re considering purchasing a personal launch monitor or want to see how these devices measure up, read on.

In Joe Beditz’s National Golf Foundation analysis of August’s 20.6% year-over-year increase, this was interesting:

But nothing about the past few months seems structurally different for golf, whether with the product itself, the service that supports it, or the overall user experience … unless you count extended tee time intervals, which for a time seemed to produce faster, smoother and more enjoyable rounds. Either way, we weren’t suddenly marketing ourselves differently, onboarding new players differently, or managing customer relationships differently. (In fact, remote check-in procedures may have made it more impersonal.)

Time, time, time, safe, time and safe.

And more on the huge summer for retail, already noted here with regard to evening golf becoming popular. Beditz writes:

Total sales of golf equipment on- and off-course were $331 million in August, extending a record-setting summer for the retail side of the business.

Golf retail sales in August were up 32% over the same period in 2019 ($251 million) and readily surpassed the previous record for the month of $287 million in 2006. Golf Datatech has been tracking golf retail sales since 1997.

Five equipment categories set all-time sales records for August: balls, irons, wedges, bags and gloves. Bags were the best-performing equipment category for the month, up 55% over last year.