JUNE 2024
south africa
2024 U.S. OPEN PINEHURST NO. 2 PREVIEW
REVENGE OF THE BUNKERS BAD GOLF BEHAVIOUR
BE A BOSS Wyndham Clark
OFF THE TEE
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TEE SHEET how to play . what to play . where to play . JUNE 2024
STAIRWAY TO HELL Ominous bunkers, like The Mine Shaft at Scottsdale National, are making a comeback.
Body
6 Editor’s Letter Shock for The Links at Fancourt. BY STUART MCLEAN Mind 8 Journeys Min Woo Lee. WITH KEELY LEVINS 10 Undercover Pro Is golf vulnerable to a gambling scandal? WITH JOEL BEALL
12 Fields of Dreams How Mike Keiser invented the Remote Architecture Movement. BY JERRY TARDE 16 Undercover Caddie How do you deal with a player who is having an affair? WITH JOEL BEALL 18 Members’ tee The easiest way to feel like a tour pro. BY DREW POWELL
20 Cathedral of SA golf Is this South Africa’s most scenic course? BY STUART MCLEAN 22 Eagle Canyon 12-year-old wins women’s club championship. 24 The Loop When to play through and when to hang back. BY COLEMAN BENTLEY
27 Kill your chips softly Release the clubhead with your hands to deaden the ball. BY JASON BIRNBAUM 31 Claw Back In a slump on the greens? It might be time to use this grip. BY STEVE BUZZA 82 Ratchet up your tempo Learn Tony Finau’s shorter, faster move to better accuracy. BY DAVE ALLEN 99 Dial in your ball-striking Try my two backswing keys. BY JENNIFER KUPCHO 102 What’s In My Bag Patty Tavatanakit. WITH TOD LEONARD Features 36 Become a Boss Off the Tee There’s more to it than smashing the ball. BY WYNDHAM CLARK 42 My Favourite Pinehurst Courses A guide to some of America’s best golf in a US Open year. BY DEREK DUNCAN 48 Go Low on a Fast Track How to adjust your game to a firm golf course. BY ERIC ALPENFELS AND KELLY MITCHUM 56 Revenge of the bunkers Why today’s architects are back to being so wicked. BY DEREK DUNCAN 66 Launch it high, land it soft The shot every golfer needs for scoring. BY XANDER SCHAUFFELE 72 D!#k Moves A compendium of self-absorbed behaviour. BY THE EDITORS 84 Get your game back Lucas Glover wants to share his revelations to help you. BY DAVE ALLEN 92 Saints & Sugar mills KZN Midlands trio of 9-hole courses is off the beaten track. BY STUART MCLEAN
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EDITOR’S LETTER E Outrageous treatment of The Links at Fancourt
E very second year Golf Digest announces a ranking of the World’s Greatest 100 Courses outside the United States – an interesting lineup of historic and modern courses from 23 different countries on every continent other than South America. It emphasises the game’s global reach. If you had the inclination and wherewithal to try and play all 100, a good place to start would be Scotland. It has the most representatives, 19, including five in the top 10 – Royal Dornoch, The Old Course, Muirfield, Turnberry and North Berwick. In England you will find 14, Ireland (North and South) has the same number, while Wales has two. After that you will need to fly around the world to fulfil the task. Down Under, Australia and New Zealand have 17 between them, and Canada 10. Seven countries have a single course – Norway (Lofoten Links is the furthest north), France, Portugal, UAE, Thailand, Vietnam and Bermuda. Sadly missing from this ranking are green fees. I would estimate the cost of this venture in green fees alone, assuming you had to pay full visitor rate, as between R750 000 and a million. Turnberry and Kingsbarns are among the most expensive in Scotland at just under R10 000 apiece. But that pales in comparison to playing at No 7-ranked Tara Iti in New Zealand, where golfers have to book overnight
changes made by Golf Data, even though few raters can have played it in the short time since it reopened in March. At R1 800 for a visitor, it’s likely the best value green fee in the Top 100. The Golf Digest World 100 feature will be published in our July issue. Stuart McLean stuart@morecorp.co.za
accommodation costing in the region of R40 000. South Africa has regularly had three courses in the list over the past decade, but this year a shock omission is The Links at Fancourt. Its absence is bewildering because two years ago it was ranked No 28, the highest position any SA course has achieved. Granted, this World 100 can be erratic for modern courses because there are so many magnificent courses in contention, yet this demotion is breathtakingly inconsiderate. Whether The Links deserved as high a rating as 28 in 2022, it is bad manners to toss aside such a great course two years later, particularly due to the reference in Golf Digest that the latest rankings “reflect a reappraisal of the virtues of links golf.” Nine links are in the top 10, and 54 in total of the 100. Was The Links discarded because it doesn’t conform to being a natural links on a sand-based site, but is rather an artificial links creation by Gary Player Design on what used to be a wartime airfield in George? Leopard Creek retains its place in the World 100, although falling to No 65 from its previous best of No 47. And, surprisingly, Durban Country Club jumped up the rankings from No 97 to 80 despite having been closed for most of the past year for renovation work. DCC is a great favourite of international raters, and this was clearly a leap of faith based on the
VIDEOS
FIVE VIDEOS IN THIS ISSUE Page 36 US Open Preview
Defending champion Wyndham Clark recreates final-hole drive which clinched victory in Los Angeles. Plus, Michael Campbell reflects on 2005 US Open triumph at Pinehurst, and 10 Things you might have forgotten about 2014 US Open. Page 42 US Open Preview Every hole at Pinehurst No 2. Derek Duncan narrates a
hole-by-hole flyover. Page 48 Game Plan The hidden strategy tour pros use to make putts.
EDITOR STUART MCLEAN DESIGN ELINORE DE LISLE MEDIA SALES RICHARD ROWE
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
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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‘It Took Me a While to Love Golf’ My sister is a major champion, but my path to
the following week. I missed the cut but got some more starts on the PGA Tour. Travelling all the time and being away from friends gets hard, but I’m a gamer; I like Call of Duty. I travel with my gam- ing laptop so that I can play wherever I am. It’s a way to keep in touch with my friends from around the world. ● ● ● Seeing Minjee succeed helped me transition to pro golf, even though we go about the game complete- ly differently. She plays in a straight line, but I play in a crooked line and am always scrambling. I’m trying to be more like her in my practice, spending long, focused hours on the range. In 2023, I earned special temporary PGA Tour status, finished T-5 at the US Open and officially got my card for 2024. ● ● ● I’m a rookie, but I’ve already picked up a following on social media. I like to make golf fun and am trying to give it a better image on Instagram and TikTok. Not everyone thinks highly of social media, but I grew up with it, so it feels natural to me. I work with a team that films my life inside the ropes and edits videos of me doing everything from messing around in pro-ams to signing autographs. The response has been great. ● ● ● There is this phrase, Let him cook, which basically means, “Let him do his thing,” that people started posting about me after I finished T-6 at the 2023 Players. It took off, and the next thing I knew, there were huge groups in the galleries wearing chef hats and cheering for me. I get en- ergy from that stuff, so I embrace it. I like being in the spotlight and trying to make things go viral. The fans love it, too. ● ● ● I’ve known since I was a teenager that I was going to be pretty good at golf – I just didn’t know when I would get there. I feel like I’m very close. When players get really good, they stop trying to make huge changes to get better. They know their swings, and they are working on the same things over and over. Once you get to that place, you start to get great results. My first few years as a pro were about getting to this level of comfort. Now I’m really going to start cooking out there.
the tour wasn’t always as clear By Min Woo Lee with Keely Levins
M y mom was a golf professional and started teaching at the local range when my older sister, Minjee, was born. Minjee and I grew up following Mom around at the range. My dad started playing golf when he met my mom and became a plus-handicap. I didn’t love golf as a kid, but since we’re a golfing family, it’s always been a part of my life. Minjee has won mul- tiple major championships, and it was always clear growing up that she was going to be great. It took me longer to fall in love with golf.
I was a bit of a rascal as a kid. I had a lot of energy, and it was hard to focus on golf. I gravitated towards sports with more action. I liked playing basketball, and I was a competitive swimmer, too. I don’t remember any specific golf les- sons my parents taught me. It’s hard to listen to your parents when you’re young, but they did keep me around golf enough to help me get pretty good – in spite of myself. ● ● ●
do putting drills for hours; I would get bored and start messing around, putting balls in impossible places, trying to get up and down, and seeing if I could get a reaction from other people. ● ● ● When I was 17, I won the US Junior Amateur. My sister and I are the only sibling duo to have both won it. When I was 19, I wanted to turn pro, but my parents, coach and agent convinced me
to stay an amateur. They told me I wasn’t emotion- ally mature enough. They were right. I spent another year playing in Australia, where I matured by watch- ing the older pros. When
Looking back, I’m glad golf didn’t click for me right away. I credit my strong chipping and putting to having good hand-eye coordination,
MIN WOO LEE PGA TOUR AGE 25 LIVES PERTH, AUSTRALIA
you’re young, a bogey feels like the end of the world. The pros aren’t like that. I played alongside guys who made mis- takes and then kept bouncing back. I tried to copy those composed demean- ours I saw around me, and I got better. ● ● ● I turned pro when I was 20 and played events on the DP World Tour and the Korean Tour, as well as in Australia. In 2021, I broke through and won the Scottish Open, one of the bigger events on the DP World Tour. Suddenly I knew for certain that I could play against the best players in the world. That win got me into the Open Championship
which I was able to develop by playing other sports. As I got older, I realised I could hit it further than just about any- body, and that was fun. When I was 15, I was selected to represent my state in a junior tournament in Australia. I loved the social aspect of it; that’s what really made me start to enjoy golf. ● ● ● I started playing and practising more, even though I still hate all the boring stuff! My sister, who is now a US Women’s Open champion, has always been good about hitting hun- dreds of balls at the range. I would hit like 30 and get tired of it. She would
PHOTOGRAPH BY DOM FURORE
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Undercover Pro Is golf vulnerable to a gambling scandal?
A S LEGALISED SPORTS gambling became preva- lent, my former instructor asked me if I was worried it was going to affect me. I laughed. There are people at my own club who don’t know my PGA Tour status, so there is no chance the common fan knows me, let alone cares enough to bet on me. Golf gambling would be focused solely on the superstars, I thought. I had no idea how wrong I was. I watch other sports. It feels as if every other commercial is an ad for a new sportsbook or online betting app. Of course, sports gambling has been in the news recently for the wrong reasons. The translator for baseball’s Shohei Ohtani got popped for illegal gaming in California, and NBA player Jontay Porter has been banned from the league for his participation in a prop-bet scheme. These are serious stories that threaten to undermine the integrity of the games. You might be wondering the same thing as my former instructor: Is golf vulnerable to a similar controversy? Golf is different from most sports in that we don’t have a winner and a loser; We have one winner and many people who are not. To even be in a situation to win is hard, let alone to close the deal. I can’t imagine a pro golfer purpose- fully throwing a tournament if he or she had a chance to win. Now that only the top 70 players earn their cards for next season, every shot matters more than ever, even for top-30 finishes. I can’t see anyone “throwing” an event. However, golf could be vulnerable to prop bets, such as, “Player A will beat Player B,” or “Player A’s over/under is 70.5.” If it’s a Sunday and a golfer is out of contention and already has his status secured for next year, I could see that person being in on a fix. I think it’s highly unlikely, but many of the guys out here don’t have the financial security you would assume they do. I’m not going to act like everyone out here
an SEC player’s football team has a big game on Saturday, the odds aren’t great that he will go low. To me, the bigger issue when it comes to golf and gambling is what we’re deal- ing with on the course. I know golfers have it easy when it comes to dealing with crowds. We’re not trying to hit a fastball or evade a 350-pound line- man before a stadium rooting for our demise, but all it takes is one idiot to yell something to make things awk- ward. No matter where you are on the money list, you hear something at least once a week out here, sometimes once a day. The comments are mostly innocu- ous things like, “Hey, I have money on you today, let’s go!” or “Going to need some more birdies from ya!” but occa- sionally it goes real south. I had a fan earlier this year tell me I was “costing him money” after I mucked up a par 5, and a few years ago someone cheered when I missed a putt on a Saturday (clearly, he had the over). One of my friends had a guy jeer him in Detroit last year: “Don’t worry, I bet on Wynd- ham (Clark), not you.” As mad as that makes us, it’s worse when we have family and friends in the crowd who must listen to it. That’s the part I wish the tour would police more. However, you can’t say anything about this unless (or until) something major happens; otherwise you’re made to feel like a fuddy-duddy. I realise sports gambling isn’t going anywhere. Just about every sports league sees the industry as a revenue driver. It has been three years since the tour started build- ing sports books on its properties. I’m fine with that, but the next time you come to the course, please, keep your bets to yourself. – WITH JOEL BEALL
is a choir boy. The PGA Tour knows this, too. The tour got a lot of heat last year when they suspended two Korn Ferry Tour players, Vince India and Jake Staiano, for betting on PGA Tour competitions in which they were not playing. From what I have heard, a big part of those punishments was to appease govern- ment regulators, but that’s above my pay grade. Personally, I think those suspensions were a message to the rest of us: Don’t screw around with sports gambling. A fan told me I was ‘costing him money’ after I mucked up a par 5. One gray area is insider tips. As you can imagine, a lot of people we meet want to know what it’s like on tour. Most of that comes from a place of curiosity, but I’ve noticed gambling starting to sneak through. It will sound innocuous: “Who do you like this week?” or “Hey, any idea what’s going on with (fill in a player’s name)?” A lot of times, I’ll give my thoughts, because (1) I don’t want to go through the whole song-and-dance of saying I won’t because of compli- ance concerns or (2) I know the person in question isn’t betting large sums of money. Plus, it’s ridiculously hard to predict a golf tournament’s outcome. A few tidbits could be helpful, mostly when it comes to distractions. A num- ber of players play worse when they have their wives and kids in town for the week. Their focus isn’t 100 percent on golf. If we’re in a big town, be leery of superstars. It has nothing to do with drinking or partying; they’re more likely to get pulled into extra curricu- lars or sponsor obligations, and we’re already strapped for energy when we’re on the course. Later in the year, if
Undercover Pro once paid a bet with a Scotty Cameron putter in college.
ILLUSTRATION BY DOMINIC BUGATTO
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DIAMOND IN THE DUNES Mike Keiser, in 2007, surveying what would become Cabot Cliffs in Nova Scotia.
Fields of Dreams How Mike Keiser invented the Remote Architecture Movement By Jerry Tarde
PHOTOGRAPHS BY TOM FOWLKES
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Y ou might say it started when WP Kinsella wrote a baseball novel in 1982 called “Shoeless Joe” that used the haunting refrain, “If you build it, he will come.” The extraterrestrials of Stone- henge may have had the notion origi- nally, but Kinsella’s mantra expressed perfectly that if you create something worthwhile, people will beat a path to your door. The book became a movie in 1989, and a solitary baseball diamond in an Iowa cornfield romanced a gen- eration. Within a decade two visionary golfers built their “Field of Dreams,” and the Remote Architecture Move- ment was born. The first was in 1995 when Dick Youngscap hired Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore to design Sand Hills Golf Club on what was once the ocean floor in Ne- braska, now ranked No 8 on America’s 100 Greatest. The second was in 1999 when Mike Keiser opened the David McLay Kidd course at Bandon Dunes
on coastal Oregon (No 40). “There was something in the air that led us to links golf,” Keiser said recently. Coore draws a stronger connection. He says if Youngscap hadn’t played Prai- rie Dunes, the Perry Maxwell links-style masterpiece in Kansas, 1100 kilometres from the sea, he would never have built Sand Hills, and if Keiser hadn’t seen Sand Hills (he’s a founding member), we likely wouldn’t have Bandon Dunes, which begat Pacific Dunes (No 21), Ban- don Trails (No 65), Old Macdonald (No 72) and Sheep Ranch (No 115) in Oregon. The sun now doesn’t set on Keiser’s properties from Nova Scotia, Canada, to Tasmania, Australia, to Saint Lucia in the Caribbean to Golf Digest’s Best New Public Course of the Year in the middle of Wisconsin, The Lido. A land rush of imitators have fol- lowed. Keiser stands alone as the single most important positive force in golf during the past quarter century. When he started Recycled Paper Greetings in
1971, he was a pioneer of environmen- tally friendly products and later brought his passion for sustainability to golf. More than anyone, he has had a knack for doing well and doing good at the same time, which his two sons, Michael and Christopher, now propagate. Can you name another amateur who made a billion dollars in the golf business? I first crossed paths with Mike in 1986, although we didn’t really know each other until years later. At the time Golf Digest’s Armchair Architect contest challenged readers to create the best golf hole based on a topographic map, and 22 000 filed intricate designs. Look- ing back now, two entrants stand out: a 10-year-old kid with a Black father and a Thai mother whose name was Tiger and THE LIDO AT SAND VALLEY (BELOW) Opened in Wisconsin in 2023 this is a down-to- the-metre recreation by Tom Doak of The Lido that CB Macdonald built on Long Island from 1914 to 1917. Holes like the “Home” 18th were resurrected from historical documentation.
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ON THE ROCKS AT CABOT SAINT LUCIA Point Hardy Golf Club’s 16th and 17th holes seem destined to become two of golf’s most recognisable par 3s.
one thought made any sense whatsoever back when we contemplated it.” In listening to him over the years, I realised he had another principle of success: Never lose sight of the Retail Golfer. I’d not heard of the term before and asked Mike what it meant. He said: “I don’t want to say lousy golfers so I call them Retail Golfers.” His priority is the customers who pay for their green fees, dinner tabs and hotel rooms – not low-handicaps or pros who usually are freeloaders. After World War Two, when Golf Di- gest produced its first ranking called “America’s 200 Toughest Golf Courses,” the emphasis was on monster courses that challenged tournament players. Keiser took the game in a different di- rection. Tom Doak told me Keiser used to post the best-selling greeting cards
a Chicago businessman who called our architecture editor Ron Whitten when the results were announced and politely demanded to know why he hadn’t won. Undeterred, Keiser bought 24 hectares in Michigan, built the nine-hole Dunes Club and launched his new career as a golf-course developer. Starting with two stated principles he applied them over and over with increasing success. The first is: “Dunes plus ocean equals great golf.” The other is what he calls “one plus one equals three.” One course at Bandon Dunes was a curiosity; a second made it a destina- tion. “By the time we added the Coore- Crenshaw third course we proved that one plus one plus one equals seven,” he says. “In my lifetime, and I hope to live a little bit longer, I think there will be 10 courses at Bandon Dunes, a site that no
in his office as a reminder of what was working. On any given day you can ask which of his courses are playing the most rounds, and he’ll know. The fre- quent answer is Bandon Dunes or Mam- moth Dunes – both with oversize greens and wide-open fairways. “Lousy golfers like hitting greens in regulation even if they three-putt,” he says, “and finishing with the same ball you start with is fun. The only thing worse than looking for your ball is look- ing for your partner’s ball.” Keiser’s fourth principle I’ve come to appreciate is his commitment to walk- ing and caddieing. His properties pro- mote if not require walking and taking a caddie, which runs counter to most resort businesses dominated by cart revenue. Five hundred caddies work at Bandon Dunes; 85 percent of the rounds are played with caddies. His philanthro- py for caddie scholarships is world re- nowned. The Evans Caddie Scholarship Foundation honoured him and his wife, Lindy, with its highest award last year, and his friends raised $7.3 million for a special Keiser caddie fund at the dinner. The final element of his secret sauce I discovered in a talk he gave at the University of Chicago. He got into the recycled business because he thought customers would want to support ecol- ogy but found they cared only about price and quality. In fact, it was employ- ees who cared about the environment, and his higher purpose allowed him to attract and retain a better workforce. The same has applied in golf – Keiser’s staff is known as the best for customer service, and his businesses are dedicat- ed to supporting local communities. He would cringe at the metaphor, but Keiser is a walking Hallmark Christmas movie. A few years ago, Mike invited me to a reunion with Dick Youngscap at Sand Valley. A foursome of old friends sat around a table and listened while they swapped stories and heaped praise on each other. These two pioneers had changed golf. They built it, and we all came. Youngscap, now 85, found perfec- tion in one course and stayed. Keiser, 78, keeps going with no end in sight.
Jerry Tarde prefers Cabot Cliffs over The Lido but hasn’t yet played Saint Lucia.
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Undercover Caddie How do you deal with a player who is having an affair?
P ROFESSIONAL ATHLETES are inundated with “roman- tic overtures,” and tour play- ers are no different. Most of these guys are young and in shape, and having a level of fame and fortune doesn’t hurt. If a guy is single, great for him. I once caddied for a player who was such a homebody that I encour- aged him to get “in the mix” with the ladies so that he could live a little and free himself up on the golf course. However, a lot of tour players aren’t single, and this is where problems can arise. To be blunt, sometimes golfers cheat off the course. Ever since Tiger Woods’ sex scandal in 2009, one of the questions I get asked the most by fans is, “How often on tour does this go on?” As much as we romanticise the team aspect of player-caddie relation- ships, most are strictly business. If we become friends, great, but that isn’t necessarily the standard. You see them at the course, you get your work in and then you go your separate ways. That’s important to understand because when we hear about or witness any type of shenanigans going on, well, it’s none of our business. I remember telling this to a buddy (and a fellow Christian) who told me I was failing
friends, and one of them became entangled in a situation like this. He wasn’t married, but he had a girl- friend who he had been dating for about six years. In the middle of the season, it became apparent he was starting to sleep around with other women. I say “apparent” because I heard his college buddies bust- ing his chops about one encounter when we were out for dinner. I didn’t know what to do. I respected him and believed he was a good person, but I felt what he was doing wasn’t right. I also had got to know his girlfriend, and it broke my heart to know he was doing that to her. If I’m completely honest, I was also worried about my job. For the previous two years my player and I were doing extremely well, and the money was good. If I told my player what I really thought, and he didn’t take it well, I could have been out of work. I’m not proud of this, but I kept quiet. Less than a year later, I was fired – excuse me, “amicably parted ways” is what was publicly said – because the player was in a perceived slump and wanted a change. I wish I could say it was a relief, but I actually felt worse. In the long run I could have lived with standing up for
in my duties, to which I replied, “If you found out your boss was messing around, would you tell him to knock it off ?” That ended the conversation. However, sometimes you’re lucky enough to have a personal relationship with your player, and if he becomes involved in an affair, there’s not exactly a blueprint to follow. I’ve worked for four different players who I can call true
what I believed was right and dealing with the fallout. Instead, I stayed silent and still met the same fate. When I hear other caddies discussing similar gossip, I mostly stay silent. It’s one thing for me to live with the financial consequences, but it’s different if I’m talking about someone else’s wallet. Only four to five caddies, max, can quit one job and know another will be wait- ing for them. A lot of caddies
Undercover Caddie says his only dating advice is never get with some- one who knows who you are.
have families to support, and because infidelity is fairly prevalent, there’s a decent chance your new job will have the same problem. It’s a tough spot to be in but being jobless is worse. Obviously, an unwritten rule on tour is that players are never to go after another player’s spouse. Once that line is crossed, sometimes it spills into the public domain. There were issues regarding one player’s behaviour towards another player’s
ILLUSTRATION BY MADISON KETCHAM
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cident that somehow almost everyone outside the caddie ranks has missed. The caddie in question is no longer on the same bag, and although I don’t know if his dalliances were the reason for leaving one player, I can’t imagine they helped, either. As for me, I try to stay above it: “For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” – WITH JOEL BEALL
weird thing is, you can’t try to distance yourself from the situation because then you’re perceived as disloyal, so you try to just keep your head down, mouth shut and wait for the storm to pass. Of course, caddies are guilty of straying as well. I even know one cad- die who hooked up with a player’s spouse. When it does happen, you can imagine the gossip that follows. In fact, there was a fairly high-profile in-
date at a wedding and another involv- ing an inappropriate text between a player and a player’s wife (though accounts vary as to who was at fault). When that happens, caddies can become entangled. It doesn’t matter if we have a strictly business or per- sonal relationship with the player. To many in the tour’s ecosystem, we are seen as an extension of our player. When that player is in trouble, well, it can feel like we’re in trouble, too. The
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tance was about 275 metres. Rory Mc- Ilroy led the tour in distance, averaging 326 yards (298m) per drive. Most of us will never be able to hit it 300 metres, but we can play an appropriate tee box that would make a course feel as it does for McIlroy. In a poll of Golf Digest members, we found they average about 204 metres off the tee, which is around the average for all male 15-handicap golfers. About 62 percent of these members play from tees longer than 5 500 metres, with 54 percent playing a course distance of 5 500 to 6 050 metres. How does that compare to McIlroy and the rest of the tour? If we take McIlroy’s driving distance as a percentage of a tour course’s distance (4.47 percent), then the average Golf Digest member would need to play from 4 560 metres to feel like McIlroy. However, our members are often playing from about 5 760, which is the equivalent of McIlroy playing an 8 400-metre course. To be fair, as one of the longest players on tour, McIlroy is a bit of an anomaly. How far do we need to play from to feel like an average tour player? Using the same maths, the typical Golf Digest member who hits it 204m would need to play a 4 950-metre course. The issue is, we’re not doing that. Of our members polled, just 12 percent play from under 5 250 metres. This disparity raises a few questions: Are we playing courses that are too long, or are tour pros playing courses that are too short? Perhaps the answer is somewhere in the middle, but some of our members have written to us and reject the premise altogether: “Distance is a distinct advantage, so we shouldn’t feel entitled to play from the same effective distance as pros,” their argu- ment goes. I sympathise with
The Easiest Way to Feel Like a Tour Pro These numbers suggest we all should move up a tee box By Drew Powell
A T THE INTERSECTION of the argument about the golf-ball rollback and the game’s slow-play epidemic is the debate over what course distance we should play. Move up a set of tees and we might play faster and shoot lower scores, but at what point do we sacrifice the integrity and challenge of the game? To better understand what tee boxes we should play from, we have contex- tualised just how short courses play for pros and how long they play for
handicap club golfers. The results are astounding and can be taken
two ways: Either tour pros need to play much longer courses, or we need to move up a set of tees – or three. Last year on the PGA Tour, the aver- age course was a shade under 6 700 metres (the Sunshine Tour is a similar figure), and the average driving dis-
THE DISTANCE YOU’D NEED TO PLAY TO FEEL LIKE RORY
this opinion, but con- sidering five- and six-hour rounds are common at many public courses, I say we look at the num- bers and reconsider our tee-box selections. Your handicap and sanity might thank me.
AVG DRIVING DISTANCE (IN METRES)
COURSE DISTANCE (IN METRES)
5 550 5 150 4 700 4 400 4 100
250 230 210 195 180
ILLUSTRATION BY KRISTIAN HAMMERSTAD
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M MIND / DESTINATIONS
Cathedral of SA golf Drakensberg 9-holer has breathtaking views. W here Aesthetics is con- cerned in the Top 100 rankings, the three most scenic courses in South with breathtaking views of mountain peaks in every direction. On the tee of the par-4 fourth hole you stand on the edge of a high ridge and aim your drive directly at the 3000-metre-high Cathedral Peak in the distance.
ing in equal proportions. It is ranked No 7 among SA’s Best Nine-Hole Courses. It’s a tiring walk on lush kikuyu fair- ways – golf carts are available – and thus we never played more than 9 holes on any one day, yet this is a place where many guests of the Cathedral Peak Hotel do come to stretch their legs. Some hike a full day to the top of the famous peak and back. Others enjoy the varied gentler walks in the area, bask in the sun around the swimming pool (the days were still warm in May),
Africa to play are Leopard Creek, East London and The Links at Fancourt. But there’s a strong case for the 9-holer at Cathedral Peak providing an even great- er wow experience than any of them. Deep in the Central Drakensberg range, unlike Champagne Sports Resort further to the south, the course sits in a picturesque valley alongside a river
It’s one of several memorable holes on an undulating and interesting course designed by the late former SA Open champion Reg Taylor in the mid-1990s. He used the difficult terrain remarkably effectively to create a par-70 layout both fun and challeng-
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ers on the fingers of one hand. There’s a fine clubhouse, yet it stands empty other than during special events. Perched high above the river and the course is the 85-year-old Cathedral Peak Hotel – an extremely comfortable and homely establishment still serving guests three meals a day and tea/coffee in mid-morning and afternoon. It was full of guests in midweek, no surprise for a destination which offers a fabu- lously remote and relaxing retreat from city life. – STUART MCLEAN
the lower slopes of a hill, and the other par 3 plummets more than 50 metres downhill. One of the hotel walks is to the pre- cipitous Baboon Rock, and baboons are daily visitors to the course, gener- ally around midday, living as they do on the craggy hillside, and appeared startled by the presence of golfers in their playground. That’s likely because the course must be one of the quietest in the country. During my few days there I could count the number of other golf-
or take in the gorgeous scenery. My two favourite holes are the par-4 third, with a blind tee shot played from an elevated tee over a rise, downhill to a green fronted by a pond; while the par-4 eighth is a brilliant short 4 which any course in the country would love to have as their own. From a high tee the perfect tee shot is a fade off the side of a ridge over a stream into the fairway to reveal the green hidden on the other side of the stream. The green of a short par 3 is set on
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MIND / LOCAL ACHIEVEMENTS M
Eagle Canyon Club Champion at 12 Amy Stanton benefits from membership of Hendrik Buhrmann’s academy
Amy Stanton on the range at Eagle Canyon.
devoting themselves to practice,” says Buhrmann. “I’ve had kids with low handicaps coming to the academy after matriculating from school, and expressing a desire to become a pro. Unfortunately I have to tell them it’s too late. You really have to be under 18 to start this process.” Amy is small of stature, and uses light graphite-shafted clubs with short shafts. “It’s important for kids to be fit properly for the clubs they use,” says Buhrmann. “The length of a club is key to their development, and that’s why US Kids Golf supplies clubs with specific measurements. Amy now has a set of Ping junior irons. She pays for them once, and as she grows taller and needs longer clubs, Ping replaces them at no extra cost.” Amy has a Callaway Paradym driver, a newish acquisition, and the big clubhead and short shaft look distinctly odd. But she is soon striping her drives over the 150-metre marker on the range. Buhrmann points out two poles on either side of the marker, the furthest ones about 10-15 metres apart. “This is a random task for Amy, to keep
became interested in golf at the age of eight, and she is focused. Hitting balls is clearly fun and fulfilling, and at week- ends she’s eager to tee up in junior tour- naments. She’s played in US Kids events in America, the UK, and Italy, winning her age group in London. Buhrmann works mainly with juniors who have a desire to play competitively and explains to me the three different types of motivation for kids as young as Amy in embracing the discipline of hitting balls and improving their skills. “Some do it through incentives, oth- ers through fear, and Amy has what I call internal-drive motivation, which offers the best chance of success. She practices with a purpose and is building a routine and experience that will serve her well in the future. “Pro golfers are criticised for play- ing too slowly, yet they cannot play quickly due to the routines they have absorbed in their youth in master- ing how to use all 14 clubs in the bag. I always say that club golfers practice until they get something right, while pros practice until they cannot get it wrong. To become the golfing equiva- lent of a Formula One driver, you need to have the best technique possible.” Amy might be South Africa’s young- est female club champion, yet she isn’t an outlier. Last year at Pecanwood the winner of the men’s club champion- ship was 14-year-old Jayden Jacobs, and 13-year-old Megan Marais the women’s champion. Eagle Canyon has already produced an outstand- ing female teenage champion in Kera Healey, 14 when she first won the club championship in 2017. She retained the title for another five years, and is currently a college golfer in the United States. “To be a professional golfer today your child needs to be working hard on their swing and discipline from a young age, forming good habits and
A my Stanton graduated from playing US Kids golf last year to winning the women’s club championship at Eagle Canyon at the age of 12. What made her victory extra impres- sive though was scoring a one-under- par 71 in the final round, from the blue tees, making three birdies in the last five holes for a one-shot triumph over 16-year-old Casey Twidale, the defend- ing champion. I met Amy, a slight dark-haired girl, on the range at Eagle Canyon where she is part of teaching professional Hendrik Buhrmann’s BDGA academy. She’s there Monday to Thursday every week, hitting between 200 and 300 balls a session – Buhrmann is a believer in the effectiveness of daily practice – and later on perhaps nine holes. It helps that her family has a home within the Eagle Canyon estate. For the next couple of hours Amy goes through a repetitive routine of hitting balls with four different clubs, working on her address, posture, swing path and clubface angle – an alignment stick always in place by her feet. Buhrmann refers to this as “block practice.” Her 9-iron shots are precise and fly 100 metres. She is certainly no novice. Amy
Hendrik Buhrmann and Amy illustrate with their hands how to judge the length of club to use.
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EAGLE’S CLAW AT EAGLE CANYON Play 10-13 in level par and win a medallion.
her tee shots inside the poles. And do that five times in a row, otherwise start again. This teaches them to concentrate on targets and calms down the mind.” When Amy and I talk about her 71 in the club champs, she proudly describes a drive which ran out 235 metres on the ninth, “my longest ever.” And I learn that she and Casey were tied playing the uphill par-5 18th in the last round. “I had an 8-iron for my third, put it six foot from the pin, and holed the putt,” she says with a shy smile. Buhrmann credits Amy’s parents, Neville and Wendy, for her successful development. “Only those parents who commit fully to the process of their children developing as golfers can make it work for kids. Golf is a com- plex individual sport which requires the same commitment from parents as taking their children to school five days a week. The parents must be there for them, yet at the same time leave the kids alone so they can become indepen- dent. When I coach the kids I also teach them to teach themselves so they are not reliant on others.” While we’re talking, Neville is at the practice chipping area with infant son Hunter. Another son, Chad, 13, is play- ing golf, and is equally talented as Amy. He won the boys SA Under-13 title at Maccauvlei in 2022. Chad is a good rugby player and Buhrmann stresses the need for youngsters to play a variety of sports to further their development as athletes while they grow up. “I recommend kids play as many as five different sports to build athleticism, and then when they get to 14 they should concentrate on golf if that’s their passion. “Growing up in Bloemfontein I played every sport other than golf as it wasn’t fashionable and not a school sport. Then, I injured an ankle and joined my friends on the course to see what it was like. I thought it was the easiest game I had ever tried. I loved it. Every day I would cycle eight kilo- metres from our home to Schoeman Park, practice, and cycle back. I was 17 when the bug bit, and my success as a golfer was helped by all the other sport I had played. By the age of 21 I was the No 1 amateur in South Africa.” – STUART MCLE AN
Augusta National has Amen Corner to describe holes 11-13 during the Masters, San Lameer has Crowned Eagle Valley (holes 14-17 at the South Coast estate), and Eagle Canyon in Gauteng the Eagle’s Claw (10-13). Four of the most challenging and spectacular holes at Eagle Canyon, No 68 in the Golf Digest Top 100, form the structure of the Claw. There’s two long 4s, 10 and 12, played from elevated tees with water lurking and high mounds to negotiate, a par 3 (No 11) with water left, again from a high tee, and finally the daunting par-4 13th. This intimidating hole features a narrow fairway running between two large dams.
If you can keep your tee shot dry you’re faced with an approach across the edge of a dam to a sloping green. Playing this quartet in 15 shots, level par, is an achievement, and Eagle Canyon presents a medallion to any golfer who does it. And it’s not just off the tips. The medallion can be won from any of the tee markers.
WATCH EAGLES CLAW VIDEO
View from No 10 of Eagle’s Claw holes.
TOP CLUB AWARD FOR ELEMENTS
Elements Private Reserve, a residential bushveld estate in the Waterberg region
was to illustrate that its stewardship of the land is linked to the World En- vironment Day (June 5) focus areas. The estate has a clear understanding of the issues around climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and waste,” said Alastair Collier. “They have set a standard which other clubs should want to emulate.” Previous Top Club winners have been Blair Atholl (2023), Sabi River Sun (2022, Leopard Creek (2021, 2012, 2010), St Francis Links (2020), Umhlali (2019, 2016), Kingswood (2018), Bryanston (2017), Paarl (2015), Pretoria CC (2014), Metropol- itan (2013), Kyalami (2011), Randpark (2009) and Benoni CC (2008).
with a Peter Matkovich course, ranked No 13 in the Golf Digest Top 100, has become the first Limpopo golf club to receive the 2024 John Collier Top Club Award. Special men- tion was made of Umhlali CC (KZN) and Olivewood (Eastern Cape). The John Collier Top Club, in its 17th year, is awarded for outstand- ing levels of details and standards in terms of good governance, social responsibility and environmental compliance among South African golf clubs. “What Elements did so effectively
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L THE LOOP
The Five Moments When You Need to Play Through . . . and the five when you can afford to hang back By Coleman Bentley
Play through . . .
Hang back . . . WHEN THE IN-LAWS ARE STAYING WITH YOU WHILE THEIR KITCHEN IS BEING RENOVATED
WHEN YOU FINISH THE NOVEL YOU’RE READING BETWEEN SHOTS
WHEN YOUR HOT COFFEE ON THE FIRST TEE BECOMES AN ICED COFFEE BY THE SECOND GREEN
WHEN YOUR SCORECARD LOOKS LIKE A SECOND- GRADE GEOMETRY TEST
WHEN THE GROUP IN FRONT GOES INTO THE TREES LOOKING FOR A BALL AND COMES OUT WITH 10
WHEN YOU CHECK THE SCORE OF THE GAME, AND YOUR TEAM IS DOWN 20 POINTS AT HALFTIME
WHEN YOU COUNT THE 15TH WAGGLE OVER A ROUTINE WEDGE SHOT
WHEN BREEKER DECIDES IT’S A SECOND-SIX-PACK KIND OF DAY
WHEN YOU PROMISED YOUR WIFE YOU WOULDN’T MISS THE BIRTH OF YOUR CHILD – AGAIN
WHEN THE SUN IS SHINING, THE WIND IS NOT BLOWING, AND YOU HAVE NOWHERE TO BE
ILLUSTRATIONS BY KYLE HILTON
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GREG NORMAN COLLECTION
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B
BODY / SHORT GAME
KILL YOUR CHIPS SOFTLY Release the clubhead with your hands to deaden the ball By Jason Birnbaum
the 17th green at Man- hattan Woods Golf Club is a devilish one. There’s water left
Another critical element to this shot is that you must let the clubhead release through the grass. It’s not a normal, tight-lie chip where the handle stays in front of the clubhead through impact. In this instance, the clubhead beats the handle to the ball (above). Loft is your friend. Here’s how to get it. – WITH DAVE ALLEN JASON BIRNBAUM , a Golf Digest Best Teacher in New York, is director of instruction at Manhattan Woods Golf Academy.
and a bunker long, and if you bail out to the right, you might find yourself with a daunting downhill chip, such as the one I have here. In addition to the downhill lie, you must also contend with the rough, and the green slopes hard towards the water on the opposite side. It’s a challenging shot that takes all the nerve and finesse you’ve got but is certainly manageable with the proper setup and swing adjustments.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAMES FARRELL
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BODY / SHORT GAME B
ALIGN TO THE SLOPE
Spread your feet wider apart than you would for a normal chip and distribute more weight left. This makes it easier to align your hips and shoulders parallel to the downhill slope. Make sure to set the handle slightly back, and play the ball forward of centre in your stance ( left ). This will increase the effec- tive loft on the club. It also helps to grip down to the middle of the grip because this shortens the club and promotes a steeper angle of attack into the ball.
KEEP YOUR WEIGHT FORWARD
Maintain the weight on your lead leg as you take the club back, which encourages you to swing down in the direc- tion of the hill. Note the early wrist set and the angle between my lead arm and shaft ( right ). This promotes a steeper angle of descent into the ball with speed, impart- ing more spin so that the ball comes out higher and softer. The steeper the approach, the less grass you catch between the face and ball and the more you can spin it.
SWING WITH THE SLOPE
The purpose of dropping the handle back at address is to help the clubhead release past your hands sooner, adding loft to the clubface and the shot. Your right palm and clubface should point to the sky shortly after impact ( left ). Provided you maintain the loft on the face and the flex in your left knee, and you swing the clubhead along the slope, the ball should come out with enough spin to hold the green and leave you a putt for par.
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B
BODY / PUTTING
CLAW YOUR WAY BACK In a slump on the greens? It might be time to use this grip By Steve Buzza
IT HAS BEEN ABOUT 20 YEARS since Chris DiMarco nearly beat Tiger Woods in a playoff
at the Masters, putting with an unusual grip known as “the claw.” Since then, dozens of players have used a variation of it including Phil Mickelson, Collin Morikawa and Tommy Fleetwood. Unlike a traditional putting grip, in which both palms face each other on the sides of the handle, a claw grip entails holding the club with your right hand’s palm rotated inwards, facing your body. The putter is pinched between the thumb and forefinger, so very few fingers on the right hand make contact with the club. This reduces that hand’s involvement in the stroke, which helps keep the putterhead square at impact. The claw grip isn’t for everyone. In my experience, it tends to best suit golfers with a thick chest and more rounded posture, and most important- ly, those whose palms face their thighs. Most people’s palms naturally hang only slightly inwards, and those golfers are usually better suited to hold a put- ter with a traditional grip. However, if your hands face inwards and you putt with a standard grip, the right hand tends to seek out its most natural posi- tion, which can twist the forearm and putterface closed. This leads to the left miss – a pull – and a lack of smoothness in the stroke. Many golfers mistakenly think it’s a sign of the dreaded yips. In reality, it’s just a setup flaw. If you pull a lot of putts, the claw might help you. Turn the page and read on to find out how. – WITH DAVE ALLEN STEVE BUZZA, a Golf Digest Best Young Teacher, is director of instruction at Brook Hollow Golf Club in Dallas.
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