MAY 2026
south africa
PUTTING WHAT
Ben Griffin BIRDIE MACHINE Simple Tips to Go Low
PHIL KENYON TEACHES ALL THE PROS
DRIVING GET LONGER & STRONGER
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4 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
MAY 2026
Features 48 Scoring Made Simple Ben Griffin is a birdie machine with advice on how to go low. BY RON KASPRISKE 56 South Africa’s Top 100 Courses BY STUART MCLEAN 88 What Does the World’s Leading Putting Coach Know? Phil Kenyon has taught Scheffler, McIlroy, Koepka, Fitzpatrick, Bradley, Rose, Fleetwood and many more. BY LUKE KERR-DINEEN 110 Swing Faster Than Ever Simple exercises to pick up 10 metres. BY CHRIS FINN 120 Welcome Aboard the Most Exclusive Trip in Golf Bringing your clubs on a private jet around the world goes like this. BY MAX ADLER Where to Play 96 PGA Preview Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner’s restoration of Aronimink is on display. BY DEREK DUNCAN 102 Formby Golf Club Unique links south of Royal Birkdale. 106 Silloth on Solway A remote Lake District links. What to Play 76 How far would Tiger at his peak drive it with today’s equipment? What our robot test reveals (page 78). Players- distance irons might provide the best of all worlds. Our Hot List testers share their favourites (page 82). Everything in Neal Shipley’s bag (page 84). How to identify the proper grip size for you (page 86).
6 Editor’s Letter BY STUART MCLEAN Voices 8 The Undercover Pro WITH STEPHEN HENNESSEY
THROWBACK Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner’s restored Aronimink will test players at the PGA Championship (page 96).
10 The New Boss BY JERRY TARDE
14 What Rory learned BY JAIME DIAZ
19 Masters Debate BY E MICHAEL JOHNSON
20 Ball in Pocket RULES BY RON KASPRISKE
22 Journeys Ben Griffin WITH KEELY LEVIN 24 Why so many new courses look the same BY DEREK DUNCAN 26 The Core To bow or not to bow. BY RON KASPRISKE
29 The LIV Crisis WITH THOMAS FRIEDMAN How to Play 32 Hook it out of trouble BY TIGER WOODS 35 From the Archives Rory’s swing, pre-PGA Tour
38 Zero Three-Putts BY JACKSON KOERT
40 Two-Minute Clinic Master the half-wedge. BY MAUREEN FARRELL
42 Flight it like a pro BY MARK BLACKBURN
44 Check your grip BY TRAVIS FULTON
46 Swing Analysis LPGA star Jeeno Thitikul. BY DAVE ALLEN
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 5
MAY 2026
EDITOR’S LETTER E LIV Golf had its merits
T he news that LIV Golf is on life support and may not continue in 2027 – at least not with its full complement of stars – will have been received very differently in South Africa and Australia, or South Korea, compared to how it has gone down in the United States, where they are celebrating. Our country is one of the losers if this proves to be the demise of LIV, because many golf fans here were looking forward to LIV’s return to Steyn City in April next year. Those who have bought tickets will be devastated. And if this is the end for LIV, there also goes our Southern Guards team which has created a strong fanbase locally. The Americans, on the other hand, are extremely pleased. They weren’t ex- pecting LIV to fold this soon. Less than four years since their first event in July 2022. For American traditionalists, this has always been about a battle between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour, rather than another sporting outlet taking the pro- fessional game globally to a new audi- ence. It stung many Americans to see their tour’s biggest assets lured away to a rival organisation. What they have never considered is LIV’s popularity in the many countries which the PGA Tour fails to visit. LIV was filling a void. South Africa came late to the LIV schedule, and fortunately we did get to host a tournament before the news broke of Saudi Arabia’s Public Invest- ment Fund ending its financial back- ing. One of the best golf events we’ve experienced. Now we might have nothing going forward other than the co-sanctioned status quo with the DP World Tour. Although I guess the
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Americans won’t sympathise. Perhaps we might be given a consolatory Presi- dents Cup match in 20 years’ time. It’s instructive to read some of the comment pieces by American writers, who have been scathing about LIV’s impact on the game. Joel Beall wrote on the Golf Digest.Com website that “LIV Golf was not, at its core, a golf league. It was a geopolitical instrument. The LIV product was mediocre, and existential- ly dangerous due to its bottomlessness, and the greed that bottomlessness un- leashed. There is no conventional com- petitive response to an opponent who has decided that losses are acceptable. The PGA Tour spent a century building a system of merit. LIV walked in and wrote cheques that made that system feel like a prank.” Ask the fans who were at Steyn City if they thought the product mediocre, and they are unlikely to concur. LIV also engaged a new demographic. You cannot dispute that the prize- money for LIV events has been absurd, and to further increase it this year seemed egregious, especially consider- ing the financial losses LIV were incur- ring and chose to ignore. The biggest beneficiaries of all this largesse have not just been the players – they were mostly wealthy to begin with – but the caddies. Summed up by Jon Rahm’s caddie Adam Hayes recently listing his North Carolina mansion and estate for sale at $14 million. LIV has been hugely rewarding for the four South African members who make up the Southern Guards team. Three of them were among the first to sign up. Each loved the format and
One shot at a time The Game Plan
Truth about Nerves Explaining the Claw Undercover Lessons: Ben Griffin Ben Hogan’s swing secret
the 14-event schedule, as it suited their middle-age lifestyles. Where they go from here if LIV ceases to exist is some- thing that must be worrying them. Not so much the loss of income, but the comfortable setup and competitive rounds they had become used to. Will Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel, both in their 40s, retire prematurely from tour life? They are unlikely to return to the PGA Tour, as they have relinquished their cards there, while the grind of the DP World Tour might not appeal to them. Bran- den Grace has rejuvenated his career at LIV and looks as if he still has good years ahead of him. He and Dean Bur- mester would most likely continue their careers on the DP World Tour stage where they began. Middle East expert and Golf Digest contributing editor Thomas Friedman breaks down the LIV situation in a Q&A beginning on Page 29. Stuart McLean stuartm@morecorp.co.za
GOLF DIGEST USA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF JERRY TARDE EDITORIAL DIRECTOR MAX ADLER EXECUTIVE EDITOR PETER MORRICE INTERNATIONAL EDITOR JU KUANG TAN
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6 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
MAY 2026
THE UNDERCOVER PRO
How I Pick Winners I’m on the range at dozens of tour events per year working with my clients. I’m
a limb, but I also hit Ben Griffin and Aldrich Potgieter raising trophies. In 2025, Scheffler and McIlroy had stretches of golf that were as good as we’ve seen since Tiger Woods. Also, their competition was lacking. I was more confident picking the big guns when the likes of Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas and Patrick Cantlay were having off years. LIV players like Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau
I cashed seven winners last year. I pre- dicted McIlroy winning the Players at 12-to-1 odds (meaning if you put $100 on it, you won $1 200) and the Masters (+650 odds). I also hit three of Schef- fler’s wins. Scheffler was usually a heavy favourite, so that wasn’t going on
also the anonymous tour coach in the experts picks column on GolfDigest. com. For that gambling column, we make two outright picks per week, and
ILLUSTRATION BY EVANGELINE GALLAGHER
8 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
MAY 2026
Who will win majors this year? McIlroy seems freed up, so I’d ex- pect him to pick off another, possibly Aronimink for the PGA or Royal Birk- dale for the Open. Scheffler will want revenge at Augusta after struggling last year. Otherwise, two players who got the monkey off their backs in 2025 are Cameron Young and Tommy Fleet- wood. Young will use his first tour vic- tory at the Wyndham to propel him to big things. The way he drives the ball is such an asset in major champion- ships. He also played well at the Ryder Cup, so he’ll have a ton of confidence in 2026. Aronimink could set up well for him, too, as he is a North-east guy. Capturing the FedEx Cup was a state- ment win for Fleetwood, whose game has no flaws. He played well at Shin- necock in 2018. If he can bring that same confidence to 2026 that he had in 2025, perhaps the US Open will be his time. Always study the headspaces. —WITH STEPHEN HENNESSEY “Yes, I’m coaching my players when I’m on the range, but I’m also paying attention to other interactions.” and practice rounds, and everything seems stress-free, it’s probably be- cause it is. If somebody is changing his schedule all week, that means he’s struggling to adjust to something. You’ll see young players have difficulty with scheduling after wins when more responsibilities come their way. Mat- thew Wolff comes to mind. I think that’s a big reason he jumped at LIV and the freedom he’d have. Consider 2024. McIlroy wasn’t quite himself after his temporary separation from his wife became news. We faded him every chance we got. If a player is distracted, most can’t overcome it. Tiger, it seemed, thrived on chaos. Once Rory figured out his family situa- tion and recused himself from the PGA Tour battle against LIV, he focused on golf. That led to me betting on him for two of his first three victories in 2025.
paradise. After seeing him contend in Mexico, play well at Torrey Pines and then watching his work with swing instructor Justin Parsons on social media go so well, I had a feeling the strong South African rookie was due. You can also glean a lot from watch- ing coverage and reading a player’s reaction to shots. If a golfer is hitting approaches pin high but just not get- ting putts to drop, and he doesn’t look super pissed off, you might bet on him the next few weeks. Field strength mat- ters, too. Ben Griffin at 14-1 was my pick in Mexico. He had played well the month prior at the Ryder Cup and had been a top-10 player all year. He was the best player in the field, and the odds should have been shorter. Yes, I’m coaching my players when I’m on the range, but I’m also paying attention to other interactions. When another coach and a pro aren’t mesh- ing, it’s tough not to notice. Tensions get high because the stakes are high. I remember watching Collin Morikawa and Rick Sessinghaus go at it before a few big events last year. Unsurprisingly, Morikawa wasn’t himself. I faded him in matchups in the GolfDigest.com column, which means picking another top player to beat him in a 72-hole bet. You can do this, too. Especially during majors, TV broadcasts often show hours of content from the range. Watch carefully if a player seems frus- trated. It’s how I often find my edge. Big changes are often a major tell. If someone makes a caddie or coaching change, even if it’s a good long-term decision, most times panic is power- ing the decision, so the player will have at least a month of adjustment. Max Homa rifled through swing coaches and caddies last year. He was search- ing. We faded him successfully in the betting column. Juicy stuff like divorces are huge things to utilise, although it’s rare to get that info before it’s already very public. Most of these young kids are pretty boring these days. Being on tour often helps me to evaluate a player’s headspace. These guys are creatures of habit. If a player is early or on-time for his workouts, he’s smiling during range sessions
also weren’t there to challenge Scheffler and McIlroy on a weekly basis. With few- er players in these signature events, elite players can separate themselves, and it’s been easier than ever to pick winners. If you’re a casual PGA Tour fan, you know certain courses favour certain statistical profiles. Harbour Town re- wards driving accuracy. I picked Potgi- eter at 125-1 odds at the Rocket Classic because Detroit Golf Club is a bomber’s
PATIENCE PAYS Wait a month to bet on golfers who’ve changed caddies.
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 9
MAY 2026
THE NEXT ONE’S GOOD
The Messy Truths Brian Rolapp Will Learn About Pro Golf BY JERRY TARDE
the role of the scrappy Everyman who will outwork you to the end zone. That was his reputation at the NFL, where he was known for his intelligence, strate- gic vision and relentless pursuit of ever higher media rights fees (topping $10 billion annually). He is analytical, pa- tient and unemotional at the negotiat- ing table, better at Q&As than prepared remarks – as opposed to Commissioner Jay Monahan, who always looked like he was wearing the wrong-size sports coat and sitting in an exceptionally un- comfortable chair. Jay is well liked up and down the org chart and across the aisle, but I have the sense that he never enjoyed his job. In truth, it had become a miserable assignment dealing with Greg Norman and LIV and defecting players, not to mention the Patrick Cantlays left behind. The months since Rolapp has become the boss show Jay to be, as one TV executive put it, an extremely effec- tive consigliere. He’s slid to the side and graciously allowed Rolapp to assume Tour leadership, all while relishing the
THE 30-FOOT BIRDIE PUTT that Rory McIlroy made on the last hole at the Genesis Invitational
role of second banana so much that some wonder if he ever re- ally wanted the top job. While a gargan- tuan parachute awaits his retirement, Jay might stick around a little longer than people think. I always believed that his predeces- sor Tim Finchem’s superpower was his thick skin. He played the long game. Bad news and grudges would be forgotten in 48 hours, so it was all about the busi- ness. There’s no question he got lucky when, two years into his commission- ership, that kid in the Nike commercial came along and said, “Hello, world: I’ve heard I’m not ready for you. Are you ready for me?” Tiger has been the front man for Ro- lapp’s reshaping of professional golf. His latest legal troubles jeopardise his position as vice chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises and chairman of the Future Competition Committee, but Woods has been effective at tilting the power LONG VIEW PGA Tour CEO Rolapp is looking to 2028 for the big changes.
this year sums up the state of profes- sional golf. In a playful exchange with reporters, Rory was asked if he knew how much it was worth, lifting him from a tie for third to a tie for second. He said, “Probably earned me another 400 or 500 grand, so it’s fine.” It actually meant another $600 000. To quote the old tour pro Chip Beck, “Some people have to work all year to make that kind of money.” Pro golf has some problems, but mon- ey isn’t one of them. The man in charge is the PGA Tour’s new CEO Brian Ro- lapp, who I witnessed speak to intimate groups at length four times and sat next to at dinner once in the span of a win- ter month. His message was consistent and strong, and I’m rooting for him, but I wish he played golf. My first impression was that he should dress better, Armani-up a little bit, although I think he likes playing
10 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
MAY 2026
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THE NEXT ONE’S GOOD
when he tried to usurp the USGA’s rules- making authority over square grooves, so it’s another word of cau- tion for the CEO who gets too involved in the
PARTNER IN TROUBLE Woods’ future roles for the PGA Tour are uncertain.
ball rollback controversy.) The other thing Rolapp needs to worry about is the DP World Tour. It comes at a great cost to continue to subsidise, but the risk in walking away is that LIV will swoop in – just as it might do in those US middle markets he departs. I played in a pro-am recently with a top young player who told me Rolapp’s lack of golf knowledge is an advantage because the tour has traditionally been too beholden to golf’s old power structure, meaning the majors and the governing bodies. When Rolapp came in and cleared out the gray golf heads, replacing them with non-golf-types, the players cheered. Ig- norance gives you freedom, but it’s risk in disguise. The Tour seems to offer a lot of mutu- ally exclusive alternatives. The players like being independent contractors, but they want guaranteed income. The Tour needs to coddle its stars past their sell-by date but still offer a runway for up-and- coming young players. The pros claim a world tour, but they don’t want the hassle of traveling overseas. The US tour thinks its needs all the top players competing against each other every week for validation, but interna- tional tournaments need only five or six top players to satisfy sponsors and fans. This is why LIV is a roaring success in Australia and South Africa but fails in America. Rolapp is looking at the post- season – October through January – as a time for global golf. He’ll require all Beman’s marketing muscle, Finchem’s thick skin and Monahan’s good counsel to make that field goal. There’s no doubt Rolapp will bring new ideas and more money to the pro game, but he needs to keep in mind the words of the late USGA iconoclast Frank Hannigan, who once told me, “If you don’t have at least three conflicts of interest, you’re not in the golf business.” It’s the messiness of golf that holds the game together. You just need to be a golfer to understand that.
base towards player-directors on the Tour Policy Board, pushing purses, lim- ited fields and equity participation for the stars, pacing the schedule to avoid player fatigue and discouraging further defections. Rolapp has been smart in speaking about the direction he wants to take the Tour rather than specific outcomes because, as one former tour official told me, “The more he talks to people, the more he realises just how restricted his next steps are.” That’s the messy nature of golf with its checks and balances shared by all the organisations that run the majors. That’s why he’s now point- ing to 2028 for changes in the schedule. His big concept is creating scarcity by reducing the number of tournaments to about 21-26 (from 45), having full fields of 120-ish players with a Friday cut, opening the tour after the Super Bowl on the West Coast so that it finishes in prime time on the East Coast, playing in big markets (hasn’t anybody told him pro golf goes to die in metropolitan New York?) and building to a more impactful playoff season. A reduction in the number of tourna- ments will risk abandoning middle-size markets that have been loyal to the tour for decades. The Tour’s new mantra is “The best players compete against each other more often,” but that takes away a lot of hours from network TV coverage. I remember Woody Allen once saying it’s the ordinary movies that keep theatres open between the big hits. We need week-to-week tournaments to keep pro golf going between the majors. An underlying challenge will be how Korn
Ferry and other young players can fight their way up the ladder. Tour partners I talk to – both media and tournament sponsors – are all sceptical that he can pull it off. The real test will be when the NFL renegotiates its TV and streaming contracts (it was Rolapp himself who gave them the early opt-out flexibility), and whatever’s left will be the scraps that all other sports will duke it out over. In every appearance Rolapp makes, even in his prepared remarks, he ne- glects to mention the two C’s that have been the foundation of pro golf since the First World War – that is, commu- nity and charity. Oh, yeah, he says when asked, “No one should expect us to take a backward step in charitable causes.” But his heart is not in it when he says that, and it’s clearly not a priority in the new for-profit venture of the private-equity invested PGA Tour. Thousands of volun- teers show up for their communities and charities, and it’s the protective cover for America’s CEOs and publicly traded corporations to support a minor sport like golf. Sponsoring tournaments has always been justified not by how many watch but by who plays. Unlike the NFL, pro golf isn’t audience driven; it’s B-to-B marketing. Pro golf does more than sell balls and shoes. It achieves business ob- jectives through brand exposure, client engagement and measurable return on investment. The Tour’s first commis- sioner Deane Beman understood this better than anyone. He invented golf’s non-profit status – “501(c) (6)” was his middle name – and coined the slogan, “Charity is the leading money-winner on tour.” (Beman’s end was hastened
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 13
MAY 2026
MASTERS 2026
How Rory Learned How to Turn Regretful Misses into Major Triumphs BY JAIME DIAZ
I WAS SLOW TO WARM to Rory McIlroy the player. He was 20 when I first followed him for a
full round, on the Sunday of the 2009 PGA Championship at Hazeltine. Mop-headed, skinny fat and loose limbed, he smashed his drive on the 490-yard par-4 first hole with a sublime blend of rhythm, speed and balance. Then, after a slightly pushed approach that left him in a very manageable place close to the green, he rushed through four more shots before holing out for a dumb double bogey. Rory bounced towards the next tee
PHOTOGRAPH BY ADAM GLANZMAN
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MAY 2026
The Masters is Appealing to a Broader Audience Is it losing its identity in the process? BY JOEL BEALL
gan an increased dedication to the little things that in major championships invariably make a huge difference. It was a process. Missed short putts might have sunk him at Pinehurst in 2024, but other improvements were noted. The mistakes could still be out- sized, as when, while holding the lead in the 2025 Masters, he pitched his short third shot into Rae’s Creek on the par-5 13th and made a double. After his birdie on the 15th helped calm that error, he came to the 72nd needing a par to win his first major in 11 years and complete the career Grand Slam. He then pushed a straightforward pitching wedge into a bunker and made bogey. At that moment, it might have seemed McIlroy was a hopeless case. But it turned out that McIlroy had also strengthened his competitive psyche, because rather than crumble, he came through in sudden death with a win- ning birdie. This year a similar pattern occurred with an even more robust crisis re- sponse. McIlroy came into Sunday having lost the six-stroke lead that he’d begun the third round with, and he looked all the more shaky when on the par-3 fourth, he three-putted from five feet for a double bogey to fall two behind Cameron Young. But McIlroy retained his poise and confidence, and in the bounce-back that ensued, it was key short game shots that saved him, like the fraught short chip from the right side of the 17th green that he calmly finessed to save a vital par. Not to ignore the beautifully flighted and bold three-quarter 9-iron on the par-3 12th that was the fruit of the principles he has been applying to his vastly improved wedge game. In truth, McIlroy didn’t hit the ball particularly well at this Masters. Prob- ably not nearly as well as he struck it at Congressional in 2011. But he gave him- self an A+ for his wedges, short game and putting, a complete flip of the for- mula that gave him so much early suc- cess, but which proved unsustainable. And that’s why he’s now, at 37, a better and more complete player. Not in the way that will win majors by eight strokes. In the way that will win them more often.
seemingly unbothered, as if certain he would erase such a big mistake with inevitable brilliance. And sure enough, McIlroy quickly whipped off three birdies in a row. He would shoot a two- under 70 to finish an impressive T-3, five strokes behind Y E Yang, up to then his best finish in a major. By the time he’d won the 2011 US Open and 2012 PGA by identical eight- shot margins, it seemed a foregone conclusion that golf would soon be entering the Rory Era. But even though he won two more majors in 2014, that didn’t come to pass. And what the subsequent misfortunes over the next decade, like failures to close out the 2022 Open or the 2024 US Open, would not let me forget was the casualness of that double bogey at Hazeltine. McIlroy simply had not become a complete enough golfer. He wasn’t Woods, he wasn’t Nicklaus, and he wasn’t Scheffler. He simply made too many mistakes, and without the so- phistication in the game’s more subtle arts to survive them when the margins for error were slimmest. Part of why this state of affairs was frustrating is that McIlroy is a student of the game. In conversation and inter- views, he has always been precocious, astute, wise. He had studied the greats, especially Woods, sought Nicklaus’ counsel. In early 2024, he said, “I’d love to be a little more like Scottie Scheffler … just limit the mistakes.” Indeed, af- ter that round at Hazeltine in 2009 he had told me, “It’s just about making the most of playing badly,” a variation on Jack’s emphasis on the importance of being able to “play badly well.” But it was the seductive ease that McIlroy’s gift for playing unencum- bered golf defied following that wis- dom. The freewheeling style from those early runaway major victories likely kept him from fully committing to the parts of the game that didn’t seem im- portant in full flight: controlled wedge play, versatile short game, reliable short putting – the mistake minimisers. Instead, McIlroy had to learn the hard way that without more profi- ciency, would-be victories turned into regretful runner-ups. The pain from his 2022 loss at St Andrews in particular be-
On Tuesday of Masters week a crowd of patrons stopped what they were doing to point
and surreptitiously photograph former NFL lineman-turned-media personali- ty Jason Kelce hauling away a gnome. We must repeat, because it was so ridiculous – Augusta National took a backseat to a large bearded man carry- ing a smaller, ceramic bearded man. None of that is Kelce's fault. He seems like genuinely good company, and he didn't ask to become a symbol of any- thing. But these things have a way of finding their moment, and this one arrived with uncomfortable clarity. Because what happened wasn't really about a gnome or a celebrity or a crowd, but a quiet summary of what the Masters has been negotiating for years: How much of its past is it willing to barter for its future? The men who built this tournament understood something the rest of the world never quite grasped, that specta- tors are not consumers to be extracted from but guests to be honoured. They kept the gates mostly closed. They priced the pimento cheese sandwich like it was still 1989 and apparently saw no reason to change that. They designed a week around the experience rather than the revenue, and in doing so created the one sporting event in America that felt genuinely immune to the forces that had degraded every- thing else. The course and its beauty brought people in. The drama kept them watching. But what brought them back was the feeling that the mo- ment you walked through the gates, the institution had thought about you. Other majors happened every year. The Masters is forever.
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MAY 2026
MASTERS 2026
There is still nothing like it. But there is also less of it every year, in the way you notice a room has changed before you can identify what moved. The critique demands precision, and before it lands, something belongs in the ledger. For years, golf wanted Augusta National to be more in- clusive, and the club listened. The Augusta National Women's Amateur, the Asia-Pacific Amateur, Drive, Chip and Putt – real programmes, not win- dow dressing, that expanded who the game could belong to. It remains one of the best well-run experiences in sports, and the traditions have held.
Menu prices unmoved. No corporate signage. No naming rights. No phones on property. You go to Augusta and the course feels, physically, like itself. The club has protected the things that are easy to protect. The harder ones it holds more loosely. The golf world changed around the tournament. The money got bigger, the access got democratised, the social platforms arrived, and suddenly the whole point of being somewhere was to prove you were somewhere. Walk the grounds and the crowd reflects it. People are there to experience it, to be seen at it, to document that they were there – chasing garden gnomes, jock- eying for position at the 16th to watch balls skip across the pond. The bros in ALL-CAPS hats are outnumbering the fathers with sons. The corporate hospitality footprint keeps expanding, bringing with it a portion of the crowd whose primary relationship to the golf is ambient. A pilgrimage and a destination are
not the same thing. One of those groups cares about what the 12th hole means. The other cares about getting a clean photo of it. The evidence is not hard to find. Kelce was not a spectator. He was working for ESPN during the Par-3 Contest. Then there is the onslaught of social content, engineered for people who need to be told the Masters matters rather than people who already know. A documen- tary built around Ken Griffey’s media credential. Golf-adjacent influencers given spotlights alongside players who spent careers earning one. Dude Per- fect playing frisbee at Amen Corner in 2022. The Par-3 Contest repackaged as televised family entertainment. Celebrity interviews from people with no tangible relationship to golf. Taken individually, each is defensible. Taken together, they describe an institution that is maintaining the mythology while quietly renegotiating what it's for. Like a museum that added a gift shop, then a café, then began to wonder if the exhibits were still the point. The Masters isn't any other tourna- ment. There are perhaps two events left in golf that carry the full weight of true institutional gravity: this, and the Open Championship. Not because of their popularity or the money around them, but because of what they cost to build. They are stewards of something larger than a weekly event. That isn't manufactured. It's accumulated. And like most accumulated things, it can be spent far faster than it was earned. Lovers of the Masters can be accused of romanticising what once was. But sometimes the things we defend were exactly as good as we believed, and we are right to say so. Augusta should not be oblivious to commerce. Entertainment proper- ties that stop growing eventually stop mattering. But the Masters was never constructed for a crowd that needed convincing. It was built for those who arrived already knowing, or came ready to learn. There is a difference between those two things. One is cultivation. The other is conversion. The Masters has always been the former. The moment it tries to be everything for everyone, it becomes everything else.
"People are at Augusta to be seen at it, and document that they were there."
PHOTOGRAPH BY J D CUBAN
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MAY 2026
19TH-HOLE DEBATE
The Most Popular
Masters Wins I’ve spent 40 years covering professional golf. These were the most well-received victories BY E MICHAEL JOHNSON
Rory McIlroy’s win at the Masters was a lot of things: His first green jacket. His first
major in more than a decade. The com- pletion of the career Grand Slam. One of the most popular wins in the history of the tournament. But was it the most popular? As you read, remember, we’re talking about the popularity of the win, not the enormity of the achievement. 5. JACK NICKLAUS, 1986 It was my first year in golf publishing, and I wasn’t there, but it was no doubt a very popular win. A 46-year-old in too- tight slacks shooting 30 on the final nine for an all-time sixth jacket is the stuff of legend. Yet Nicklaus wasn’t always the most warm and fuzzy of players, and much like the New York Yankees, his consistent greatness almost worked against the likability factor. 4. TIGER WOODS, 1997 Say what, No. 4? I know, you’d like to have a word. Hear me out. The Tiger of 1997 was a young phenom who we were interested in, in awe of and fascinated by, but we did not yet have the personal connection with him as golf fans that we did later in his career. Not even close. The 1997 Masters was a master class in dismantling a championship golf course and field and ushered in a new era of golf, but all the feels were be- tween Tiger and Earl, not Tiger and us. 3. TIGER WOODS, 2019 OK, I’m about to duck . . . and I agree this is where it gets razor close. I was at this Masters, and the energy from the 12th hole on was off the charts. The come- back of a lifetime, check; a feel-good sto- ry for the ages, check; a redemption of
massive proportions, check. But it was missing one thing for me: If Tiger had lost, I don’t think golf fans as a whole would have been crushed –
back to salvage everything. Golf fans are invested in McIlroy at the Masters in a way that resonates very personally. Add in the fact it looked like he lost the tournament a couple of times late only to come up big in the playoff – and oh, that reaction – made it all the better. 1. PHIL MICKELSON, 2004 Much like McIlroy, pre-LIV Philly Mick was a fan favourite. Unlike Rory, Lefty had yet to win a major and had endured some crushing losses, the kind that both sting and make for a sympathetic figure who is easy to root for. Plus, his style of play was riveting. Being on the grounds for the final round was unlike anything I had ever seen. It wasn’t just the back- nine play and the winning birdie and mini-jump, but the pure joy that ensued. Long after the ceremony folks were wandering around, not wanting to leave.
REJOICE Mickelson’s maiden win was deeply personal for patrons at Augusta.
disappointed severely but not crushed. He had four Masters and 14 majors, and let’s face it, some people simply don’t like Tiger. Not many, but some. 2. RORY MCILROY, 2025 I was really, really, REALLY tempted to place this in the top spot, but that might be recency bias speaking. How- ever, there is no doubt the win, while sloppy beyond belief, was and is huge- ly popular for many reasons: the angst every golfer can relate to, the filling in of an important last line on the résumé, the coughing up of leads but coming
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RULES
Ball in Pocket? Here’s how to score it for handicap purposes BY RON KASPRISKE
Y OU MIGHT KNOW SOME golfers at your club or course who have a habit of raking putts that are not “gimmes.” They might even pick up their ball after a hole has been decided in match play, even though they still have some work to do to earn that bogey. Can you pencil in whatever number you want on a scorecard when your ball is in your pocket? If you’re playing by the official Rules of Handicapping , the answer is an emphatic NO. Rule 3.3 covers what to do when a hole is started but you don’t hole out. Subject to other provisions in the handicapping rules, you must record
the format of play.” What determines your most likely score? You have to follow guidelines set by the R&A and USGA. That score should be: • The number of strokes already taken to reach a position on a hole. • The number of strokes you would most likely require to complete the hole from that position. • Any penalty strokes incurred during play of the hole. You might have thought you have to take net double bogey when you pick up for handicap purposes. That’s not always true. In the case of a player who knocks it stiff on a par 3 and picks the ball up a foot or so from the cup, one stroke should be added to the score (so it’s a birdie). Any putt on the green from five feet or closer is considered made. If a ball is five to 20 metres from the
hole and you pick it up, you would add either two or three strokes to your score. It’s at your discretion but you should factor the difficulty of the hole and your skill level. Finally, if you were outside of 20 metres, add three or four strokes (again, it’s at your discretion). In most cases, you would likely be at a maximum of net double bogey – but not always. For example, a 25-handicap golfer gets two shots on the seven hardest holes, so a net double bogey on a par 4 could be an 8 and as high as a 9 on a par 5. Two other things to consider: (1) There is no limit to pick-up holes for handicap purposes provided you had a valid reason. Maybe some of the greens had damage, rendering them unputt-able. (2) If you pick up while using a format where holing out is man- datory ( “rattle-bottom”), you would be disqualified for doing so.
your most likely score or net double bogey, whichever is lower, “as appropri- ate for the situation and depending on
SELF EVALUATION Be honest with yourself when putting down a score for that pick-up hole.
PHOTOGRAPH BY STEPHEN DENTON
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I hadn’t touched a club in a month when I agreed to play in a member-guest. The events that followed changed my life By Ben Griffin with Keely Levin ‘I Got a Job as a Mortgage Loan Officer’ I N 2021 I WAS BURNED OUT on mini-tours and couldn’t see myself making it to the PGA Tour. I’d lost my motivation and love for golf. The stress of playing with $15 000 of credit-card debt was agony, so I quit. I got a job as a mortgage loan officer and hadn’t touched a club in a month when I accepted an invita- tion to a member-guest tournament that changed my life.
said to play. I’d be home in time for the funeral on Wednesday. That tells you how we thought the qualifier would go. ● ● ● I shot 65 to qualify for the Korn Ferry event but missed the cut. My grandpa always said, “Hit ’em long, hit ’em straight,” and when I saw that in his obituary, I knew I had to play profession- ally again. Mike and another friend, Jesse Ahearn, said they’d cover me through Q school. Highland members pooled to- gether cash, and another good friend, Doug Sieg, said he’d pay all my expenses for two years. I wouldn’t have to worry about credit-card debt. I quit my job, over- whelmed by everyone’s support. ● ● ● I vowed to myself to do it differently this time. I needed to stop drinking dur- ing the season. I didn’t have a drinking problem, but I was drinking like I was still in college. When you drink consistently, you think you feel good, but you don’t. Now I feel incredible. ● ● ● My girlfriend Dana introduced me to a vegan lifestyle, which helped. Some people treat food like entertainment, but food is fuel. I eat for energy. Research says veganism helps with inflammation. I’ve never felt better. I used to be fatigued down the stretch, but now I feel fresh enough for another 18 after the tourna- ment is over. ● ● ● By September 2021 I was at Korn Ferry Q school. I made it through, had three runner-up finishes in 2022 and got my PGA Tour card for 2023. Then a month into the season, I had a shot at winning in Bermuda. It didn’t go my way, but that was my first time holding a lead going to the back nine of a tournament in a very long time. ● ● ● I soaked in every experience on the PGA Tour, and 2025 was quite a year for me. In April, Andrew Novak and I won the Zurich Classic. A month later I won at Colonial in the Charles Schwab Challenge. Then I was one of Keagan Bradley’s captain’s picks for the Ryder Cup at Bethpage. I played once the first two days but was proud to win my singles on Sunday. Finally, in December, Dana and I got married.
in not-so-nice hotels, and I didn’t have the same resources I had had in college. Instead of playing for championships, guys are playing like they’re fighting for their lives. ● ● ● The pressure turned me into a fear- ful golfer. If there was water to the right, my brain would say not to hit it right. The anxiety kept building, and I started playing bad golf. I obsessed over my equipment and swing. I became a perfectionist. You should focus on hitting shots, not hitting the right positions in your swing. ● ● ● I played the Korn Ferry Tour in 2019, didn’t play well and played smaller tours until 2021. Without belief, I had nothing, so I quit, put my clubs away and became a mortgage loan officer. I said yes to that member-guest with my friend Mike Swann at Highland Springs in Missouri thinking it would just be fun. I shot 63 on my own ball. The course hosts a Korn Ferry event. Mike told me to fly back and play in the Mon- day qualifier. He’d pay for everything. ● ● ● I wasn’t sure, but at home one morn- ing I accidentally drove to the golf course instead of the office. It felt like a sign. A few days before the quali- fier, my grandfather died. My parents
My dad – who can still shoot under par on a good day – put a club in my hands when I started walking. My grandpa taught me you can try as hard as you can to beat the other guys but still be respectful. We belonged to Chapel Hill Country Club, a private course in North Carolina, until I was 12. Then the financial crisis of 2008 hit. My dad is in real estate, and my mom is a mortgage loan officer, so it hit us hard. We went from having a nice house to renting. We got rid of our golf member- ship. University of North Carolina Fin- ley Golf Course, which is public, had a great junior golf rate, and I had friends there, so that’s where I started playing. ● ● ● That’s also where the University of North Carolina golf team plays. Once I started going to college there, my teammates would jokingly complain that qualifying wasn’t fair: I knew every break on those greens. I won two tour- naments my freshman year. I thought I couldn’t be stopped: I would turn pro, play the Korn Ferry Tour, then make the PGA Tour right away. But that’s not what ended up happening – not even close. ● ● ● I graduated and turned pro in 2018. I won almost immediately on PGA Tour Canada, but travelling on my own was like a punch in the face: I was staying
PHOTOGRAPH BY JOSH LETCHWORTH
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BEN GRIFFIN PGA TOUR 3 WINS AGE 30 LIVES JUPITER, FLORIDA
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BLANK CANVAS
at the expense of style, and contempo- rary golf architecture, by and large, has gone lacking in style. Fashion, by definition, is popular, repeatable and consumable. Whether in the form of a bomber jacket, synthesiser pop or period-piece streaming televi- sion, it’s a formula designed to hit the sweet spot of where the market is mov- ing. In golf, architects and developers know that wide-open spaces and the appearance of rugged naturalism sell. Style, by contrast, is individual, idiosyncratic and risky. It takes inspira- tion and transforms it into something original: reference without replication. Golf’s best design stylists – Pete Dye, Mike Strantz, Jim Engh, Alister Mac- Kenzie and William Langford – syn- thesised diverse inspirations (British links, art, technology, even each other) into architectural expressions that were distinct and unmistakably their own. The sources were traceable, but their command and ownership of the mate- rial set them apart stylistically. To some degree, contemporary architects fortunate enough to work in sublime sandy environments are con- strained by those advantages – who, in their right mind, would attempt to dig lakes, construct artificial mounds or impose an invasive design perspective? Their job is, and should be, to honour the integrity of the land by coaxing out its assets. Yet from a purely creative perspective, there can also be advan- tages to working on blanker canvases of swamps, deserts and cornfields. It’s hard to be too critical of an era that has produced so many beautiful and beloved courses. Architects will coun- ter that their new designs are not the same – that there are meaningful differ- ences from course to course. But those differences have been in degree, not category. The reverence paid to making every hole appear naturally conceived has left room for fresh points of view. Designers of the 1910s and ’20s pushed against established modes to create the courses we now widely revere, and Pete Dye similarly reacted against the status quo 50 years later. Perhaps it’s time for architects and developers to do the same. They might consider whether golf architecture could use a little more style – and a little less fashion.
Why So Many New Courses Look the Same BY DEREK DUNCAN
generally means sandy soils, prompt- ing a “sand rush” that has taken devel- opment to all corners of the country – to dunes along oceans, prairies of the Plains and Midwest, off-the-beaten-path locations in the South. These wild, windy sites have pro- duced some instant classics, but they have also fostered a kind of sameness in their designs. Most follow a pattern of enormously wide fairways that rumble into contorted greens surrounded by short grass. The bunkers tend to have chewed, knobby edges to suggest the look of natural erosion and collapse, and the scenery is framed by backdrops of native grasses with veins of exposed sand. This instinct to make golf holes indistinguishable from nature, using primary techniques of blending and mimicry, has become the dominant fashion in architecture, applied across a variety of landscapes, sandy or not. The residual effect is that new courses often look like variations of each other rather than unique entities. Fashionable trends can be tricky. If they weren’t compelling, they wouldn’t catch on. However, fashion often comes
FOR GOLF COURSE DESIGN and development, the past 15 years have been better than good. It’s
not unreasonable to suggest the quality of new courses being built is as high as it has been since the 1920s. In fact, 25 courses that opened in the United States since 2010 now reside among the top 200 on our America’s 100 and Second 100 Greatest rankings – a remarkable num- ber (one-eighth) considering how few were constructed during that time. The quality can largely be attributed to better land. Developers and architects understand their chances for critical and popular success increase in proportion to how naturally suited their properties are to golf, regardless of location. This
ILLUSTRATION BY GONÇALO VIANA
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THE CORE
DUMBBELL EXTENSIONS (3 sets, 15 reps, brace the arm)
DUMBBELL FLEXIONS (3 sets, 15 reps, brace the arm)
To Bow or Not To Bow This wrist position at the top is more popular than ever. Should you be doing it, too? BY RON KASPRISKE
injuries to various parts of the arm. Elbow tendinitis, fractures to wrist bones like the hook of hamate, and tendon ruptures are among the cause- and-effect issues, he says. In fact, Spieth had to have surgery for a ruptured tendon in his left wrist suffered at the 2024 Open. Was it be- cause he bows his left wrist as he takes the club back? Or perhaps because of his idiosyncratic follow-through where he lets his lead elbow jut towards the target, which hinders the lead wrist from fully releasing its flexed position? Maybe, maybe not. One thing is for sure, Hellman says, the human body was not designed to “repeat a position of strain over and over again.” Bowing your lead wrist is definitely a position of strain. Older golfers should be particularly careful because the risk of cartilage loss in the wrists increases with age, he says. According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, articular-carti- lage injuries can result from a number of causes, including repetitive smaller impacts to the joint. “If you want to try bowing, I strongly suggest you perform exercises to main- tain the strength, stability and mobility of the wrist and elbow joints as well as the soft tissue around them,” Hellman says (he offers four here, right ). “Your wrist and elbow will thank you, and you will be less likely to miss weeks of golf waiting for your injuries to heal.”
SUPINATIONS (3 sets, 15 reps, light weight, brace the arm)
THE LIST OF MAJOR cham- pions who swing a golf club with their lead wrist in flexion
(bowed, bent towards the palm) at the top of the swing is pretty impressive: Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm, Jordan Spieth, Xander Schauffele, Collin Mor- ikawa – even Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino did it. If you wonder why so many golfers bow the lead wrist, it’s because it does a lot to square and deloft the clubface at impact without any split-second hand manipulations. It can cure a slice, boost smash factor or help breed consistency in ball-striking, says Golf Digest Teach- ing Professional Josh Zander. However, wrist flexion would likely be poison to golfers with a strong lead- hand grip, Zander says. Those golfers already have the bias of a shut, delofted clubface, so bowing would likely pro- duce smothered, pulled hooks. Dan Hellman, one of Golf Digest’s Best Fitness Trainers in America, says the move also can result in pain and
PRONATIONS (3 sets, 15 reps, light weight, brace the arm)
PHOTOGRAPH BY J D CUBAN
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