THE OPEN AT PORTRUSH
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XANDER What I did to win my first two majors + HOW YOU CAN BREAK THROUGH
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Emerald Detour The Open Championship returns from July 17-20 to Royal Portrush on Northern Ireland’s North Atlantic coast for just the third time in its history – the only Opens not played in England or Scotland. Read why Royal Portrush is unlike any other course in the Open rota on page 56.
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6 Editor’s Letter BY STUART MCLEAN Mind 8 Tiger’s Next Job BY JERRY TARDE 10 Journeys: Robert MacIntyre WITH JOHN HUGGAN
44 Swing Analysis Joaquin Niemann’s unicorn swing. BY LUKE KERR-DINEEN
46 Beat First-tee jitters BY MICHAEL BREED
86 Get Your Swing Back BY ERIKA LARKIN Features 48 Get More Game What I did to win my first two majors and how you can go on your own run. BY XANDER SCHAUFFELE 56 Getting To Know Royal Portrush BY DEREK DUNCAN 60 The Skills You Need To Win the Open BY EDOARDO MOLINARI
12 The Undercover Pro WITH JOEL BEALL
14 Golf & Alcohol BY MAX ADLER
16 OK to adjust? RULES BY RON KASPRISKE
18 Low-Ball, High-Ball BY CHRISTOPHER POWERS 20 ‘The Best I Ever Did’: Brad Faxon by JAIME DIAZ
62 Open imposter BY JERRY TARDE
24 Golf cart etiquette BY DREW POWELL
64 How To Not Become a Crazy Golf Parent BY THE EDITORS 106 This Is Your Captain Speaking LIV case for pro team golf. BY MAX ADLER Where to Play 74 Soweto Country Club Gauteng’s best-kept secret BY STUART MCLEAN 80 South Africa’s 10 Finest 18th Holes What to Play 96 The 2025 Golf Ball Hot List has options for every player and budget. Every club in Nick Taylor’s bag (Page 104).
26 Making the Shot BY IAN PATTINSON
28 The 19th Hole debate When can you cancel golf? How to Play 32 Unlock your putting BY DENNY MCCARTHY
34 Stop skulling irons BY BUTCH HARMON
36 Smooth your Swing BY PATRICK CANTLAY
38 Chipping tips BY DAVID LEADBETTER
40 Fuzzy Zoeller Archives BY RON KASPRISKE
42 Check Your Setup BY JORDAN DEMPSEY
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EDITOR’S LETTER E ALDRICH IS OUR GOLFING ROCKET
I t’s exciting to have another excep- tional young SA prospect on the PGA Tour. We now have five ex- tremely capable players on the tour, who have each made an impact over the past 18 months and are keeping us up late on Sunday nights. The latest, Aldrich Potgieter, became a winner in just his 20th start on the PGA Tour, con- firming our high expectations of him. He’s only been a pro for two years, and unusually hasn’t bothered to use the Sunshine Tour as a steppingstone to his career. As an indication of just how young (20) and raw he is, if he tees up in the Open at Royal Portrush it will be his first appearance in a major as a profes- sional. His previous three were as an amateur, courtesy of his 2022 British Amateur triumph. Potgieter could already have won in February, having lost a playoff in the Mexico Open where his opponent Brian Campbell received an incredible stroke of good fortune. And last December he came within a whisker of winning the Nedbank Challenge at Sun City. The
Bryson DeChambeau technique Titleist Driver Robot Tests Golfer everyone loves to hate Callaway 3-wood hits bombs 3 simple wedge strategies inside 100 yards Testing 3 Srixon Drivers CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW TO VIEW OUR TOP SIX VIDEOS following Trevor Immelman’s Masters triumph in 2008. Higgo won in just his second PGA Tour start and reached a high of No 38 in the World Ranking in 2021, only to plummet to 339 over the next few years. Looking back at where South Afri- cans have had their first wins on the PGA Tour, it’s a remarkable but lesser- known fact that Ernie Els, Retief Goos- en, Oosthuizen and Schwartzel all did so in major championships. And Clark’s first was in The Players Championship. It’s still to be seen whether Potgieter has the allround game to perform well on the more demanding courses which host the majors. The first examina- tion will come in the 2026 Masters, for which he has qualified with his Rocket Classic triumph. Stuart McLean stuartm@morecorp.co.za
Rocket Classic in Detroit was third time lucky, and he showed his mettle by calmly delivering the title in a pres- surised five-hole sudden-death playoff. What’s intriguing about Potgieter, and makes him a potential superstar for the future, is that he’s still learning the ropes. In his rookie season on the PGA Tour, he’s playing at courses he’s never seen before – which explains nine missed cuts in 14 tournaments – but when he finds a course to his lik- ing, fitting his power game, he has the confidence to put himself into conten- tion. He’s already shot a 61 and a 62 this year, evidence that he loves going on a charge. Last year he had a 59 on the Korn Ferry Tour. Furthermore, Potgieter doesn’t appear burdened by any weight of expectation as a prodigy from a coun- try where many top golfers have felt the heavy yoke of that responsibility. Gary Player was for more than 50 years the youngest South African to win on the PGA Tour, at 22 in 1958. Then, in 2021, left-hander Garrick Higgo took that record away from him, only to now lose it four years later to Potgieter.
Higgo is another bright talent – a two-time PGA Tour winner – who we hope can gain some con- sistency, and feed off Potgieter’s momentum, as others like Tim Clark, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel did in the years immediately
YOUNGEST SA TO WIN ON PGA TOUR Player Tournament Age Alrich Potgieter 2025 Rocket Classic 20 & 9½ Garrick Higgo 2021 Palmetto Classic 22 & 1 Gary Player 1958 Kentucky Open 22 & 6 Rory Sabbatini 2000 Air Canada Champs 24 & 5 Ernie Els 1994 US Open 24 & 8
EDITOR STUART MCLEAN DESIGN ELINORE DE LISLE MEDIA SALES DANIEL EGDES (daniele@morecorp.co.za) GOLF DIGEST USA
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF JERRY TARDE, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR MAX ADLER, EXECUTIVE EDITOR PETER MORRICE, INTERNATIONAL EDITOR JU KUANG TAN TEACHING PROFESSIONALS: TODD ANDERSON, MARK BLACKBURN, CHUCK COOK, HANK HANEY, BUTCH HARMON, ERIKA LARKIN, DAVID LEADBETTER, CAMERON MCCORMICK, JIM MCLEAN, RENEE POWELL, RANDY SMITH, RICK SMITH, DAVE STOCKTON, JOSH ZANDER PROFESSIONAL ADVISORS: AMY ALCOTT, RANDY MYERS, NICK PRICE, JUDY RANKIN, LUCIUS RICCIO, BOB ROTELLA, BEN SHEAR, RALPH SIMPSON, DR ARA SUPPIAH PLAYING EDITORS: COLLIN MORIKAWA, JORDAN SPIETH, BUBBA WATSON A LICENSING AGREEMENT BETWEEN WARNER BROTHERS DISCOVERY AND MORECORP, OWNERS OF THE PRO SHOP AND WORLD OF GOLF. WARNER BROTHERS DISCOVERY IS A GLOBAL LEADER IN REAL-LIFE ENTERTAINMENT, SERVING A PASSIONATE AUDIENCE OF SUPERFANS AROUND THE WORLD WITH CONTENT THAT INSPIRES, INFORMS AND ENTERTAINS.
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M MIND / THE NEXT ONE’S GOOD
‘Hey, Tiger, I Got an Idea That’ll Make You Rich and Famous’
PRO GOLF IS A BIG, UNWIELDY, inefficient business. The rules are set by amateurs based in
New Jersey and Scotland. The mega events are operated by three organisa- tions that are not the PGA Tour, plus an independent golf club in Georgia. The tournaments are owned by unconnect- ed nonprofits and local charities, and the workforce is largely volunteer. None of the contestants are under contract to show up. The winner puts the lowest score on the board, not the highest. As Toots Shor used to say, if you swing left, the ball goes right; if you hit down, the
BY JERRY TARDE
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star players in one block (Tiger, Rory, Jordan); then the rank-and-file pros in another (fill in the names of three guys who haven’t
He was followed by two lions of institu- tional muscle, Deane Beman and Tim Finchem. Despite their diminutive size, you wouldn’t want to meet either in a dark alley. Beman won the US and British Amateurs with only a drop- kick tee ball and a pair of beady eyes. Finchem masterfully manoeuvred the tour through recessions and scandals while growing pro golf year after year. I worked with all three, and they were impressive. Jay Monahan was supposed to be the natural heir, except “better with people.” Then all hell broke loose as LIV
ball goes up; the higher the number on the club, the shorter your distance, and the winner, not the loser, pays for drinks. No wonder the Saudis can’t figure it out. Pro golf works because of all these contradictions and complications – not despite them. If you start removing one or more, you risk toppling the delicate scales that hold the game together. Evi- dence is in the last couple of years of dis- ruption, when the four majors have only got stronger, which is a good thing. Thirty years ago, Frank Hannigan wrote in Golf Digest: “As sports – in- cluding golf – become more crass and greed-driven, the anomaly of the Mas- ters grows more appealing and compel- ling.” A series badge for all four rounds is $450, and it’s arguably the toughest ticket in sports. An egg salad sandwich is $1.50, an imported beer $6. You only get four minutes of commercials in an hour telecast. It’s the most valuable sporting event in the world because it forgoes money in exchange for control, which every other entity has the option to do, but none does. The other advantage of Augusta National is it’s run by one very sensible, benevolent dictator who can do whatever the hell he wants, but does what’s best for golf first. Nobody at LIV/PIF or SSG or on the PGA Tour policy board has a green coat. I’m not saying you must be an Augusta National member to understand golf – Lordy, plenty don’t – but the two who are members, Jimmy Dunne and Ed Herli- hy, departed from the tour negotiations because the players think the system is the problem. The system is the solution. The changing of the guard at golf’s other organisations over the last year – Guy Kinnings at the DP World Tour, Mark Darbon at the R&A, Derek Sprague at the PGA of America, Scott O’Neil at LIV Golf, Liz Moore (interim) at the LPGA – puts all new people in key in- dustry positions. The PGA Tour has a history of strong commissioners dating back to Joseph C Dey Jr., who possessed the moral for- titude of Sir Thomas More. I once read in Golf Digest that you could reach into the left breast pocket of his blue blazer and find two slim volumes – the Rules of Golf and the New Testament. “He helped write one of them,” they said.
HEIR APPARENT Is Tiger Woods the best candidate to
follow Jay Monahan as commish?
shaved in three days); then SSG/Ar- thur Blank/Steve Cohen, the money boys who bought into the tour; and Joe Gorder and Joe Ogilvie, representing the policy board. Don’t forget Patrick Cantlay. Monahan’s contract is up next year, and there are already whispers of who might replace him. (He needs to smile more if he wants people to think he likes his job.) If Jay decides to retire, I have a candidate for commissioner – Tiger Woods. He could return a positive forcefulness and rise to the occasion of acting longterm and not out of self- interest. Then, a strong CEO would be named under him to run the business. Tiger’s game is discipline despite a personal life that didn’t always show it. He’s not reluctant to make tough decisions or fire people, and the other players are afraid of him. He has a pas- sion for golf and will to win that’s un- matched. His foundation shows an enduring commitment to give back. He has a fascination with military strategy this could satisfy. He’d be the morning commissioner, and the CEO would han- dle the PM. Any business inexperience can be resolved by surrounding him with international talent – unleash the DP World Tour as a true world tour, and you’d be competing with LIV the way Rory kicked Bryson’s butt. Tiger will be 50 in December. He’s had more than a dozen surgeries, in- cluding the recent one on a ruptured Achilles. He’s got nothing left to prove on the competitive field, his play in TGL has been a joke, and legacy-wise there’s little upside for him in joining the Champions Tour. His late mom and pops would have approved. He still loves the spotlight, although his hesita- tion might be having to face the media more often, but that’s what a CEO is for. He has all the fame and money he’d ever want – this would be for golf. Commissioner Woods, your destiny awaits you.
The trouble with the current structure of the tour is that it’s governed by negative vetoes rather than positive momentum. Golf entered the picture on his watch, and there were no right answers. The intrinsic order of corporate life dic- tates that you throw out the CEO and a new guy starts fresh. Against the odds, Jay hung on and gallantly tried to sort the mess, but the players stripped him of his power in rejiggering the policy board and stacked the vote with their brethren, none of whom, shall we say, attended the Harvard Business School. The trouble with the current power structure of the tour is that it’s gov- erned by negative vetoes rather than positive momentum. We have the
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MIND / JOURNEYS M
“I played Dustin Johnson next... I knew I had him worried.” Robert MacIntyre The Scot who fears no one. With John Huggan
I ’ve heard golfers say they “lived” on their local course when they were kids. Well, I literally did. My childhood home is next to Glen- cruitten Golf Club in Oban, Scotland. My dad is the greenkeeper and played off a plus-1 handicap at his best. From my bedroom to the 12th tee is 18 yards. It was easy for me to play a few holes late in the evening when I was growing up.
dart: “We’ve all got to start somewhere. That message is still in his phone. The next day I shot two or three under, then I broke the course record in the third round. I ended up missing a playoff by a shot. Then I won the next week. ● ● ● At European Tour Q school, I couldn’t keep my driver on the planet. I was slicing everything, so I went with it. The ball was travelling 340 but going only 280. It was the only way I could keep drives in play. I made the cut, which got me status on the Challenge Tour. The next year I finished 12th on the money list to get my European Tour card. ● ● ● For a practice round at the 2019 Open at Portrush, I put my name on the starting sheet. When I looked at it again, Ian Poulter had signed up next to me. Playing with someone of Ian’s stat- ure would have placed me outside my comfort zone. It’s fine not being com- fortable in the heat of battle, but when it’s something I can control, I want to be comfortable. If I’m not, I’m not going to prepare well. So I pulled out. It was me taking a step back to take two forward. I ended up finishing sixth. One of my best weeks on a golf course. ● ● ● When I beat Kevin Na at the 2021 World Match Play, I felt I had arrived. I played Dustin Johnson next. I was up early, but I knew he wasn’t going to go away. It actually gave me a boost when he holed a putt for birdie to win the 17th hole and made a fist-pump. I knew I had him worried. We ended all square. ● ● ● Before the 2021 Masters, everyone was telling me how much I would love Augusta National. They were right. It’s a course where you have to “see” shots. I grew up doing that. I wasn’t surprised I finished T-12 on my debut. I could have done better. It’s a place you have to know. Now I do.
I was 16, I played in the Dunhill Links Championship as an amateur. That gave me a taste of what tour golf was like, and I realised I wasn’t far short. I knew then I wanted to be a pro golfer. ● ● ● I went to college at McNeese State University in Louisiana. I wasn’t keen at first. Going to America was too big a step for a wee boy from Oban. But coach Austin Burk had watched me play for Scotland in the European Team Cham- pionship and liked what he saw. I told him I’d need a full scholarship, which he offered. That made it real. My mum told me to go for it. She said I’d regret it if I didn’t give it a shot. She was right. It was a brilliant experience. ● ● ● I was homesick, but my golf was im- proving. I made friends. I learned how to survive by myself. But after three semesters I felt like I had hit a wall. I wasn’t getting to play in big enough tournaments. It was nothing personal, but I was chasing something more. I told the coach I wouldn’t be back after Christmas at home in Scotland. ● ● ● The 2017 Walker Cup at Los Angeles Country Club was my last event as an amateur. I played Cameron Champ and couldn’t believe how far he hit it. One drive must have been 100 yards ahead of me. But he lost the hole when I stiffed my approach. I won 6 and 4. We played again a day later and halved our match. ● ● ● I shot 79 in my first event as a pro- fessional, in a mini-tour event. That night I texted my manager, Iain Stod-
Glencruitten is 4 471 yards, par 62. But it’s a course you need to know. There are blind shots up, over and around hills. It’s the reason iron play is my strength. You can be 160 yards out and hitting a 6-iron that has to be high, low, hooked or sliced. You need a great imagination to do well there. ● ● ● My parents have fostered young kids for a long time, a home life that has given me perspective. I remember the first time we fostered, a wee boy and girl. When my mother went to give the boy a hug, he backed off, which shocked me. He had obviously been abused. At first, he and his sister would “steal” food from the fridge and store it in their rooms. They clearly hadn’t been fed properly. That opened my eyes. Before that, I used to be stroppy on the course – not much anymore. ● ● ● Shinty is a cross between field hock- ey and legalised violence. It’s a stick- and-ball game played mainly on the ground. You can take full swings and use both sides of the stick. It’s a High- land sport played first by the clans. My papa played until he was in his 50s. I stopped at 17 only because I was wor- ried about my hands. If I could earn a living playing shinty, I’m not sure I’d be a golfer. ● ● ● From an early age I was good at golf. In 2013, I won the Scottish Boys Stroke Play Championship and the Scottish Youths Championship. Two years later I won the Scottish Amateur. In 2016, I lost in the final of the British Amateur. When
PHOTOGRAPH BY JENSEN LARSON
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ROBERT MACINTYRE AGE 28 WINS PGA TOUR 2 DP WORLD TOUR 2 WORLD RANKING 12 LIVES OBAN, SCOTLAND
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M
MIND / THE UNDERCOVER PRO
thousand or a few hundred bucks on the line, they are go- ing to treat it like a tournament. The games we play are like the
WHEN TUESDAY IS PAYDAY Nine-hole
bets early in the week are common.
ones you probably play at your home course: Nassaus, closeouts, some side action. At The Players, I played a ran- dom game with Keith Mitchell. I can’t even remember the rules, but it had a lot of automatic presses. When Keith calculated it all at the end of the round, I was like, daaaang, but I was happy to pay him because it got me ready for that week. I made the cut at that very hard golf course for the first time in my ca- reer. Now I need to get Cashmere lined up for another round to get him back. Out here, it’s always cash or Venmo. I don’t like settling up at the end of year, and I don’t think many guys do, either. A lot of players have games with their caddies, too. I know Wyndham Clark and his guy John Ellis get pretty wild with it. From what I understand, Wyn- dham has to shoot three under or bet- ter for nine holes, and in addition, get up and down seven of nine times from spots that Ellis chooses. Wyndham also must make six out of nine putts from 10 feet. Those are three $100 bets between him and Ellis. That’ll get the juices flowing, especially for Ellis, who’s got to just stand there and watch. It’s about motivation. John wants Wyndham to keep that same chip on his shoulder that he had when he was outside the top 100 of the World Ranking. If that means the caddie must fork over some cash for it, so be it. What might really surprise you is how mini-tour guys aren’t afraid to play for a lot. I was like that back then, too. I remember having only a few thousand in the bank, all borrowed from backers and supporters, and I’d play for more money than I do now. Talk about learn- ing to play under pressure. For me now, though, it’s less about the amount and more about giving my buddies a hard time. A dollar might not get me going, but a twenty looks nice. Hundreds are nicer. It being your money in my pocket makes it look re- ally nice. – WITH CHRISTOPHER POWERS
Our Money Games I can no longer have fun playing for nothing
TUESDAYS OUT HERE ON the PGA Tour are typically when guys like to get money games
When I play against someone for mon- ey, even if it’s just for $20, I am reading that putt from both sides like my life depends on it. That’s just the way golf works for me. Are there times where I enjoy going out and playing with the family, like on Thanksgiving? Sure, but only very oc- casionally. Maybe this sounds bad, but if there’s nothing on the line, what’s the point? I’ve played so much tournament golf in my life that I can’t have any fun playing for nothing. Joe Highsmith and Neal Shipley are two guys who have both won for the first time recently and love big money games with each other. Those guys know playing for some scratch keeps them sharp. Whether it’s a few
in. Wednesdays, too. It depends how schedules line up, when guys get in and how they are feeling about their games. There are also guys who stick to them- selves and prefer to prepare alone, but for many of us, the best way to get tour- nament-ready is to put something on the line, even if it’s just for nine holes. I think back to my time on the Korn Ferry Tour. I remember very specifi- cally an event where I played a prac- tice round by myself, and I just putted mindlessly, and then I got on the first hole the next day and realised, I never even read a putt yesterday. I had no idea how the grain was affecting the roll.
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Why American Golfers Drink More BY MAX ADLER
golfer on our university team – now a physician practising in Edinburgh, fa- ther and well-travelled mid-amateur – sums it so: “Here, I can count on one hand the number of rounds I’ve played with a drink, and in the United States I can count the rounds I’ve not!” Appropriate that in golf the grass should be greener on the other side. The same way an American tourist grows misty recalling a trip when he went around an ancient links with a co- lourful caddie, my physician friend also gets that faraway gleam in his eye talk- ing about his recent holiday to Grove XXIII in Jupiter, Florida. With drones and servants on motorbikes delivering refreshing cocktails at top speed, he and his mates rarely went longer than three holes without ritual. “It was bril- liant! Though not sure I could do it ev- ery weekend,” he says. When in Rome, they say, especially if your group has hired a driver. For what it’s worth, this man is the only doctor I’ve met who, af- ter seeing him chip, you’d still welcome his operating on you. With golf and drinking, it helps to know the protocol so you can prepare. On a few occasions in Scotland, rather than a tee time I was told when to meet in the bar for a “sharpener.” Once, in a match where the social element out- weighed the competitive, a host club
AS WE READY FOR THE OPEN at Royal Portrush and fall in love with auld links golf all
cially walking on a hot day,” says Tom Ferrell of Dream Golf. Safety and sanc- tity aside, the pace of play across the re- sort is 15 minutes faster (!) since liquor was eradicated from on-course stations. Ferrell is all for free-spirited fun, but de- scribes the playing atmosphere of Sand Valley as “less alcohol-forward.” In this attitude, he says developer Chris Keiser probably feels even more strongly than his pioneering father, Mike, who built Bandon Dunes, an exceptional Ameri- can facility in more ways than one. Far be it from me to assume anything like a lecturing stance on booze. From a young teenager to present, the stream of my life has never run dry, including a real puddle of two years I studied in St Andrews, Scotland. Yet, in all my time there, it was very rare to encounter a golfer playing with a drink in hand. That golfers in the British Isles contain their drinking to the clubhouse and Americans only everywhere they’re permitted is the largest differentiator between the two golf cultures. The best
over again, two hot new destinations in the United States remind us how differ- ently we play the game – when it comes to drinking, that is. At the private and exclusive Fall Line Golf Club in the Georgia sand hills, a dedicated beverage cart can stay with your group the entire round, its opera- tor trained in both mixology and how to linger just so on the periphery. At The Lido at Sand Valley – C B Macdonald’s lost gem of classic templates recreated in Wisconsin – alcohol is not permitted on the course. An advance email ap- prises guests of the policy. Post-round libations are available in the member’s bar, and beer is sold on the resort’s four other courses, but the idea was The Lido warranted a more special experience. You know, like one you’ll remember. “The design is so unique and chal- lenging to navigate, guests really don’t need other variable conditions, espe-
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GOLF AND ALCOHOL / MIND M ers, and it’s not a long line to follow to the current tech race of who can mould the most cupholders in a dash. THE BOTTOM LINE. Economically, the last century has been a birdie binge for the United States. Coinciding with all this plenty, American clubs developed levels of service that far outpaced Brit- ish clubs. Incentivised to bring in more revenue to cover growing food and beverage operations, club managers operated accordingly, introducing con- tactless payment systems and “compli- mentary” kegs, bars and smorgasbords. Never forget, “free” and “included” are not the same. PERFORMANCE. Both real and per- ceived. But for a few sad outliers, we know the best tour pros in the world compete soberly and with full athletic discipline. We also know we are not them. Among us flawed and tortured hacks, many entertain theories that they score their best with just the right amount of swing lubricant adminis- tered at the right intervals. These per- sonal histories tend to be inconclusive, but that’s golf. A top teacher I know thinks his students might be better off showing up to lessons drunk, if that’s the way they’re going to play. I hear that the halfway house at Royal Portrush, in keeping with a trend of overseas destinations that cater to
tricked us into thinking we were play- ing 36 holes, and we arrived early for what was revealed to be an extended sharpening session before just one round. But never did the drinking spill outside. Of course, there are many on both sides of the Atlantic who never mix golf with alcohol. They stopped reading this in disgust on page one. But if you’re still with me, note that for a game exported to America not 150 years ago, it’s re- markable that we now need rules. Be- yond the example set by The Lido, the club where I play keeps going back and forth on “airstrikes,” or golfers phoning drink orders from the course. Currently, I believe they’re outlawed – such is the cyclical nature of politics. The point is, same as most cases of questionable drinking, the issue has reached the level it can no longer go unexamined. So, why is it the golf customs of Amer- ica and the British Isles have diverged so widely, especially given the latter’s fondness for drink is so storied? (Think of your favourite Irish drinking joke be- cause I can’t write mine.) Five reasons: CLIMATE. Weather is an obvious and powerful sociological force. We know the first golf was played in winter when fields were fallow and there was little work to be done. Even in short daylight, the popular goal of the early golfing so- cieties was two quick rounds of alter-
nate shot divided by lunch with wine and kümmel. You might wobble a bit on the first tee but your insides were warm, as were your pocketed hands free of beverage management. The booze was walked off by the time you came up No 18 again. THE GOLDEN AGE OF DESIGN. Many courses built in America in the 1920s and 1930s followed a principle espoused by Alister MacKenzie – that both nines should lead to the club- house. So was set into motion a rhythm of greater convenience and opportunity than the out-and-back layouts of the mother countries. GOLF CARTS. Shortly after fighting alongside our golfing brothers in World War II, some of Uncle Sam’s nephews had the idea to repurpose surplus elec- tric military vehicles as golf carts for the disabled. Two decades later, enter the purpose-built beverage cart with cool- A top teacher I know thinks his students might be better off showing up to lessons drunk, if that’s the way they’re going to play.
American clien- tele, has much improved its sup- ply. Whether our influence should be celebrated, I’m not sure.
AN INSIDE GAME True links golf tends towards drinks in the clubhouse, not on the course.
Allow me a quote from the author Pete Hamill, whose father emigrated to Brooklyn from Ireland the day of the stock market crash in 1929. “The cul- ture of drink endures because it offers so many rewards: confidence for the shy, clarity for the uncertain, solace to the wounded and lonely, and above all, the elusive promises of friendship and love.” He damn well could have been talking about golf, though he wasn’t. On the inward nine of Hamill’s life, af- ter he quit drinking, he remembered more of his friends’ good times than they did.
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MIND / RULES M
OK To Adjust? Can you change your driver on the first tee? What if it
adjustments to a club before he or she has teed off for the round, right? Not always. Get- ting back to the rule that allows golfers to fix damaged equip-
We’ll get back to this topic in a minute. There are, however, a variety of things golfers can’t do according to the rules. For instance, golfers are prohib- ited from digging a wrench out of their bag in the middle of the round and modifying their driver’s clubface to a different position depending on how they’re playing that day. If you can’t stop slicing, you can’t change the head on your driver so that it’s more closed at address. Nope, sorry. You also can’t apply lead tape or some other substance to a club mid-round to improve performance. Any legal al- terations to a club that could change its playing characteristics must be done before or after a round. If you do it dur- ing a round, the penalty is severe: You’ll be disqualified if caught. There is one thing to keep in mind if you made a mid-round adjustment. To get DQ’d, you actually have to make a stroke with the club in its new setting. If you make an adjustment and don’t use the club or return it to its original position before hitting the shot, there is no penalty. To be clear, you might have just con- cluded that your opponent can only take out a wrench tool and make some
SET IT AND FORGET IT Most club alterations need to come before you play.
ment during a round, a wrench can be used at any time if it’s for the purpose of fixing something on the club. One thing that often happens to adjustable clubs is that the screw that governs the settings on the hosel or head becomes loose. That rattle can be annoying or even alter the face if the screw becomes too loose, and it’s considered damage that falls under the allowable things you can do to repair a club (see Rule 4.1a(2)/1). Incidentally, if you had lead tape on your club at the start of a round and it came off the head and will no longer ad- here to it, don’t worry. You’re allowed to reach into your golf bag for some fresh strips of tape to replace what was lost. Also, if you’re wondering what hap- pens when a club’s playing character- istics are morphed by “wear and tear,” like dents or groove damage, it’s still considered conforming and OK to use without need for repair.
rattles mid-round? Here’s what to know BY RON KASPRISKE
CUSTOMISATION OF clubs to meet your individual needs is one of the great advances in
golf technology. The ability to adjust ev- erything from loft to face orientation to weight distribution gives you a chance to make clubs perform better with the attributes of your swing. The Rules of Golf addresses club al- terations in a number of ways under Rule 4.1, including when you can repair them or change playing characteristics. Among the most noteworthy allowanc- es is for a club to be repaired during a round or even used in its damaged state (if possible) without being penalised.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY J D CUBAN
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MIND / GAME ON M
Everyone Matters in Low Ball-High Ball
because Player C made a 3, which beats Player A’s 4. But the A-B team would win the “high” point because Player B made a 5, which beats Player D’s score of 7. To sum it up, after one hole of the competition, each team has one point. Determining a winner is easy – the team with the most points accumulated at the end of the round wins. You could pay out by the difference in points be- tween the teams or determine a set amount no matter the spread. VARIATIONS: In the event the low and high scores are the same, you could split the point or call it a wash, or you could carry the point over to the follow- ing hole as you would in skins. OTHER IDEAS: You could make holes won with birdies worth double points, or put a third point up for grabs with one awarded for the low-team total. In the first scenario we mentioned, with A and B making 4 and 5 and C and D going 3 and 7, AB would take the team total point with a score of 9, beating CD’s 10. If you have another game or some on-course wagering you’d recommend, message me on Twitter/X @Cpowers14 .
There’s nowhere to hide in this fourball game BY CHRISTOPHER POWERS
cap strokes are being given (off the best player’s handicap). In this game, the two lowest scores in the match are pit- ted against each other, and the lower of the two receives a point for each hole won. Also, the two highest scores in the match are pitted against each other, and the lower of the two high scores (stay with us) also gets a point. Here’s how it might go down: No one gets a handicap stroke on the first hole, and Players A and B are going against C
IF YOU FANCY YOURSELF a competitor, nothing is more painful than not having your
best stuff during a money match. How- ever, in the game “Low Ball-High Ball,” your score will matter no matter how bad you’re swinging that day. Maybe take some solace in knowing you can still contribute to your side. This game keeps the competitive juices flowing. Here’s how to play: NUMBER OF PLAYERS: Four; it’s a two- on-two game. BEST FOR: Any skill level, grinders, people who never give up. HOW TO PLAY: Select your match-play partner and take note of where handi-
and D. Player A makes a 4, Player B a 5, Play- er C a 3 and Player D a 7. In that scenario, the team of C and D wins the “low” point
BE A BULLDOG, NOT A PURSE PUP A bad day can turn good if you don’t give up.
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THE ALL-NEW
Sweet spot comparison vs. 2023 P•790 irons. Distance claim based on player testing vs. 2023 P•790 irons. © 2025 Taylor Made Golf Company, Inc.
BRAD FAXON ALWAYS SEEMED to be two different players, each on parallel but dramati-
cramped and disconnected compared to the best ball-strikers. In his more than two decades on the PGA Tour, Fax- on finished inside the top 100 in driving accuracy only once and never in greens in regulation. The dichotomy is one that Faxon has long pondered, his reflections in- forming the wisdom he now imparts as Rory McIlroy’s putting coach and his commentary as an analyst for NBC and Golf Channel. “I like looking back, even the un- solved mysteries,” the 64-year-old says while sharing a couch with his dogs Vita and Flo in the living room of his home in Palm Beach Gardens. “The ups and downs and trying to figure it out, it’s a big part of what I love about golf.” He’s come to realise that his comfort and genius on and around the greens
cally divergent paths that never seemed to intersect. One was easy, capable of wondrous eye-hand artistry. The other had a dogged, fitful struggle whose tri- umphs put him in the conversation for best bad ball striker in golf history. With short shots, and especially with the putter, the lanky New Englander cut a graceful figure whose movements were relaxed and confident. His rhyth- mic stroke made him a perennial PGA Tour statistical leader on the greens and one of the best putters the game has ever seen. With long shots, however, especially the driver, Faxon’s movements took on an artificiality that undermined his athleticism. His swing was somewhat
‘THE BEST I EVER DID’ When Brad Faxon hit it better than he putted BY JAIME DIAZ
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for me to do that. It changed my men- tality about the game. I went down a deep, dark path.” That path started when Faxon be- gan working to fix the consequences of that first tip from his father. “The head-down thing restricted my turn and got me tilting and leaning back from the target on the downswing,” he says. “That opened the face and forced me to have to roll my forearms to square the clubface. I didn’t like the way that looked, not having that good extension so many great players had and for years tried to get that forearm rotation out of my swing.” The effort caused Faxon to lose his clubface awareness, and in his second full season in 1985 he was stricken with the driver yips. “It was a horrible feel- ing,” he says, pantomiming a severe shudder. “I hate even talking about it. I would wake up in the middle of the night from a driver nightmare with my forearms aching from all the tension.” Though the two have remained good friends for more than 40 years, Faxon soon stopped working regularly with Leadbetter and began, in his words, “to take more lessons from more different teachers than any tour pro ever.” Faxon battled tenaciously to stay on the tour, in large part with his short game and putting, and earned his first victory at the 1991 Buick Open, but serious scar tissue remained. In his third win, the 1992 International, Faxon was so fear- ful of spraying his driver that he didn’t use a tee for the entire 72 holes, opting for low bullets with big dog off the deck that cost distance but stayed findable. Faxon reached a career best of 11th in the world ranking in 1997. When he ar- rived at Riviera in 1995, several months of consistent golf had got him to 14th in the Ryder Cup point standings, mean- ing he would need a high finish and some luck to nab the 10th and last au- tomatic qualifying spot. “I knew Lanny (Wadkins) wasn’t going to pick me be- cause I was a rookie and hadn’t won enough,” says Faxon of the US captain that year. “But I badly wanted to make that team and got myself very focused.” That week at Riviera, before a prac- tice round, Faxon happened to get a look from Leadbetter, who suggested
Such duality is not unusual... Many touring pros need to be great at one area of the game to make up for weakness in the other. In the final round, Faxon shot 28-35- 63, tying the major record for nine-hole score as the lowest 18-hole score. That day Faxon missed only two fairways and hit the first 17 greens in regula- tion. By dramatically holing a 12-foot putt before the packed amphitheatre behind Riviera’s 18th green, Faxon clinched the last automatic spot on the US Ryder Cup team in the last qualify- ing tournament. travelling to the UK to try to make it through qualifiers for The Open, but in the 66 majors he played, he posted only four top 10s. The best of those was fifth at the 1995 PGA Championship at Riviera, won by Steve Elkington in a playoff over Colin Montgomerie. There Faxon’s parallel paths finally merged in harmony to the point that his ball striking was actually better than his putting. “It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever ac- complished in golf,” he says. “Every- thing you play the game for, in that one round, I did. The best I ever executed the lessons I’ve learned.” It was a lot, and in some ways, too much. “I was and remain immensely curious,” says Faxon, who transitioned from doer to thinker in his full swing after turning professional in 1983. He began working with David Leadbetter, who the year before had given Faxon a quick and simple lesson at a college tournament, which led to improve- ments that helped the Furman senior win the Haskins Award as the nation’s best collegiate player. “That’s when I started investigating my golf swing,” Faxon says with em- phasis. “I thought the secret back then would have been to learn the mechan- ics of my golf swing, but it wasn’t good
was shaped by the intuitive and joyful approach he brought to all sports as a boy – revel in the fun, closely observe the best players, emulate them in a way that be-
COME TOGETHER On Sunday at the 1995 PGA, Faxon shot a 63 with all elements of his game firing.
comes your own. At 14, after giving up his favourite sport, hockey, to focus more on golf, Faxon took up table tennis as a winter sport. Although he had played only ga- rage ping-pong with his friends, once exposed to advanced play, he excelled with lightning speed. Within a year, right after winning his first of three Rhode Island Junior golf champion- ships, he took the state 17-and-under table tennis title, a combination that got him into Sports Illustrated’s Faces in the Crowd and into the US Open of Table Tennis. Faxon’s full swing had an extra de- velopmental element that disrupted the purity of that process. “My dad was a good player, but he never tried to coach me,” Faxon says. “The one thing he did tell me when I started out was to keep my head down – never look up, never watch the ball, and my head would stay down for an extraordinary amount of time.” The remnants of that exaggerated move would lead to ineffi- cient compensations that with a driver made him close to the opposite of what he was with a putter. Such a duality is not unusual at golf’s top level. Many touring pros need to be great at one area of the game to make up for weakness in the other. The strong part isn’t bothered by a lot of thought while the inferior part is accompanied by a great deal of analysis. Ben Cren- shaw, whose putter was intrepid but whose long game became inconsistent when he began to make swing changes, always contended he played his best golf as a teenager, when, he said, “I didn’t think, I just did.” Not that Faxon didn’t have a distin- guished career. Along with the 1993 Australian Open, he won eight times on the PGA Tour, his last victory com- ing in the 2005 Buick Classic at age 45, where he closed with a 61. He revered the majors, early in his career always
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Faxon raise his hands higher at address. The change created a wider and more loaded turn on his backswing, which produced a shallower downswing and fuller release without the hand manip- ulation that was often Faxon’s undoing. “It helped me feel that at the top of the swing I had more time,” Faxon says. “I had an incredible week tee to green for me. I was able to curve the ball in all directions at will. I felt free, with little fear off the tee, and I hit a lot of fairways. It was how I wish I could have played all the time.” In such a state, Faxon found Riv- iera’s Golden Age design a source of shot-making inspiration, but Riviera’s greens that year were in poor condi- tion, and too many of his well-struck mid-range putts were frustratingly not falling. Faxon’s first three rounds of 70- 67-71 had him five under par, 11 strokes behind leader Ernie Els and tied for 21st place. However, he was only three strokes out of 10th place. That’s when Faxon’s longtime sports psychologist Bob Rotella weighed in. “The night before the last round, Bob took me by the shoulders and in a tone that really got my attention said that to- morrow would be a meaningful round of golf,” remembers Faxon. “He was looking me in the eye and telling me, ‘Let yourself do this. Don’t stop yourself from doing this.’ When I got up on Sun- day, I could still feel the weight of what he said and how he said it.” On Riviera’s gettable par-5 first hole, Faxon began with a big drive and a 5-iron to 18 feet, which he rolled in for eagle. Splitting fairways and flag- ging his irons, he followed with birdie putts of five, 45, 25 and three feet. On the par-4 eighth hole, he missed a five- footer for another but bounced back with a swinging 25-footer for birdie on the ninth to go out in seven under. Sud- denly, he was within three of the lead. Faxon heard murmurings of 59 and even winning, and he slipped out of the zone at the short 10th hole, failing to stiff an easy-for-him pitch and miss- ing a 12-footer. He birdied the par-5 11th, but on the 12th missed another five-footer for birdie. Then on the 15th, he three-putted from inside 20 feet for his only bogey when his downhill sec-
my putter just of sort of melded to- gether, and I poured it in.” His playing part- ner that day, Jose Maria Olazabal, em- braced Faxon. “He
ond putt was sent off course by a spike mark. “That was discouraging, and I mo- mentarily counted four lost strokes,” says Faxon, “but I remembered every- thing I had made and got back into the moment. Because I wasn’t wor- ried about my swing technique, which would cause me doubt and stress under pressure, that was easier to do. On 16, a par three I love, I flushed a 7-iron right over the flag and made the 18-footer.” After a par on 17, Faxon came to the final hole knowing he would need a par to have a chance to make the Ryder Cup. For the first time all day, he re- verted to his habit of leaning back and hit his only poor drive of the day, a pop up off the toe that expired in the right rough and forced a punch out short of the green. He stuck his 8-iron chip well, but it ran further than he thought it would, leaving a right-to-left 12-footer. “I had to make that putt,” Faxon says. “I embraced the pressure, even though that can put you on a mental tightrope because when you face an ultimate test and pass it, you don’t want that to feel meaningless. “Everything slowed down. The ball and the sweet spot on
OUT OF CHARACTER In his stellar round at Riviera, Faxon missed two five-foot putts.
told me ‘That was the greatest round of golf I’ve ever watched.’ For a guy I’ve always respected so much to say that, it was the coolest thing.” As much as reliving the round brings Faxon joy, it also leaves him slightly wistful. With his short game and put- ting, what heights could he have reached had he been able to produce such high-quality full shots more of- ten? What if he had avoided the deep dark path? Asked if he thinks he might have been a better player with no in- struction, he pauses and says pensively, “Probably.” Then Faxon chuckles at the unsolv- able mystery. “I mean, part of me thinks I was an overachiever, and part of me thinks I was an underachiever.” In the case for the latter, Riviera in 1995 is Exhibit A.
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MIND / ASK A GREENKEEPER M
Are You Committing This Common
Golf Cart Mistake?
Greenkeepers call it their ‘worst nightmare,’ and it’s easily avoidable BY DREW POWELL
Replace your divots, fix your ball marks, rake the sand. Golfers know the basics of course maintenance etiquette yet are still making a common error that one greenkeeper calls his “worst nightmare.” You’ll often see the grass around cart paths is often dead or nonexistent, the result of golfers leaving two wheels on the path and two off. Why is this such a common mistake, what damage does it cause and why should golfers care? Those are the ques- tions we put to two top superintendents: Jason Meersman of the Patterson Club in Connecticut, and Paul Dotti of Arcola Country Club in New Jersey.
Golf Digest: Jason, I’ve seen so much damage around cart paths recently, what’s going on? Meersman: Oh, my God, it drives me up a wall. You could have a hat that has a picture of a golf cart half on and half off a cart path. It’s a superintendent’s worst nightmare. The issue usually happens around turns. The cart path turns at the apex, and that’s where people will cheat. They’re always trying to get from point A to point B to as quickly as possible. We’re like cows, so we’re going to go from point A to point B unless some- thing interferes with us. Golf Digest: Paul, do you notice this issue as well? Dotti: Yeah, absolutely. You’ll often see curbing around the tees and greens to try and prevent that from happen- ing, but especially around those areas, that’s where golfers tend to want to just
If you don’t have those, then golfers will just cut the corner. Dotti: Exactly. You’ve got to put some kind of curbing or stakes. An issue with stakes, though, is that they quickly be- come labour intensive to move when you’re trying to mow. If you don’t move them, they’ll get run over by the mow- ers, so we have to get them out of the way. Some supers will put a layer of brick pavers over the area that’s been dam- aged by the carts. That expands the cart path a little further. But what you’ll notice is that golfers will just go a little further off the brick paver, so you get the same issue.
pull two wheels off the path for some reason. I don’t know why it happens, but it is definitely a concern. The issue with it is that over time on a course that has a lot of carts, you’re going to start to get a dirt strip along the edge. Essentially, the cart path creeps out a metre, and it’s usually just dirt be- cause the ground is so compacted from the carts. Then, that area doesn’t get irrigated properly and since it’s com- pacted, the grass won’t grow back. It’s a baffling thing, I don’t know why people do it. When people go to their houses, they don’t pull two wheels off their driveway, but when they’re in a golf cart, they do it. It’s really bizarre. Golf Digest: What can superinten- dents do to try and get golfers to stay completely on the path? Meersman: Some supers will put stakes at the apex of turns to try and prevent golfers from cutting the corner.
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