GD ARCHIVES
ARROW STRAIGHT Calvin Peete hit nearly 82 percent of fairways in a nine-year span.
Advice from the most accurate Driver in PGA Tour history BY LUKE KERR-DINEEN Find the Fairway all day long
Tour in driving accuracy from 1981 to 1990 and was among the annual leaders in greens in regulation. He won 12 times, including the 1985 Players Championship. He died 10 years ago, aged 71. What was the key to his accuracy? Some say it was because of the way he was forced to swing the club to ac- commodate a left-elbow fracture from his childhood that never completely healed. That explanation, however, di- minishes his athletic skill. Golf Digest periodically checked in with Peete to talk about his precision. A common theme to his tips was to “stay balanced throughout the swing.” One time, however, he expanded on what that meant. “Under pressure, my thoughts are
tempo and balance,” Peete said in Golf Digest’s September 1983 issue. “You can’t have either if your weight isn’t evenly distributed in both feet, nor to- wards your toes or heels. “I think of my left foot as rolling left on the backswing. On the forward swing the left foot serves as an anchor, and my right foot rolls towards the tar- get as my weight shifts back to the left. I never consciously lift either heel off the ground. I think of my feet as being similar to a governor on an engine. If I have good, light footwork, I can’t swing too fast. And if I swing too fast, I can’t have good footwork.” Another of Peete’s tips over the years was one where he cocked his head at address to help produce a draw (left head cock) or fade ( right ).
THE LATE CALVIN PEETE was an amazing golfer with an amazing story, and it’s hard to
overstate just how straight he hit the ball. Peete didn’t take up the game until he was in his 20s, yet he led the PGA
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40 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
MAY 2025
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