Golfing News & Blog Articles

Q: What are the three most important things in your golf bag?  

Other than clubs and balls … 

Rain gear – I have a Kjus rain jacket and pants and they’re worth every penny. I played in constant rain last weekend. Everything underneath stayed dry. The guys I was playing with spent less on their rainwear and all they got for their savings was wet. 

I also have a 35-year-old Outdoor Research Seattle Sombrero that’s still the best rain hat I’ve ever used. 
A small first aid kit – A simple kit with Band-Aids, blister bandages, Advil and tweezers that I’ve had to use more than once. What can I say? I spend a lot of time in waste areas and woods. 
Ball Marker – It used to be my Bad Mother F*cker ball marker from Seamus. I lost it and now I’m sad. 

Q: Do you think golf ball quality has improved since you started testing? 

I think there have been improvements in some places. Callaway has certainly invested in getting better (though I think they planned to, regardless). TaylorMade bought a factory and Titleist just keeps being Titleist. 

COVID’s inventory demands put a strain on a lot of factories so, in some cases, we’ve seen a dip. 

We’ve also seen overseas factories taking measures to obfuscate a bit of what they’re doing. For example, some factories change core colors for different brands even though the balls are the same.  

We’ve also seen less specificity in cargo/shipping information as some brands try to hide where their product is being sourced. 

The Augusta National Golf Course, located in Augusta, Georgia, is a famous golf course that hosts the annual Masters Tournament, one of the four major championships in professional golf. Here is a brief description of each hole on the course:

1. Hole 1 - Tea Olive: A relatively short par 4 with a slight dogleg to the right. The green is heavily guarded by bunkers on both sides.

2. Hole 2 - Pink Dogwood: A longer par 5 with a slight dogleg to the left. The green is relatively large and guarded by a pond on the left.

3. Hole 3 - Flowering Peach: A mid-length par 4 with a slight dogleg to the right. The green is protected by a large bunker on the left and a smaller one on the right.

4. Hole 4 - Flowering Crab Apple: A shorter par 3 with a small green that is surrounded by bunkers.

J.B. Holmes withdrew from the Wells Fargo Championship prior to the start of the first round on Thursday with a back injury.

When the two-time MVP needs time away from superstardom and the game, he disappears, escaping for hours at a time. Here's the story of his refuge -- and how it has sparked some of the best performances of his career.

We’ve been waiting for this one. For more than a decade, in fact. The new SkyTrak+ launch monitor is quite possibly the best solution on the market for less than $3,000. And one could be so bold as to suggest it stacks up favorably against competitors that are much more expensive.

In fact, SkyTrak+ claims that by “applying proprietary machine learning algorithms” to data received from a new dual Doppler radar system, it can generate “precision at a level matched only by the highest-end launch monitors on the market.” Are they saying what I think they’re saying?

What’s the phrase? Huge if true?

Do You Remember?

The original SkyTrak was definitely badass. For the better part of 12 years, it was the best solution for golfers who wanted indoor simulator golf but without the enterprise launch monitor budget. SkyTrak sold 70,000 units of the original model making it the top-selling consumer launch monitor.

Think about that for a second. What other piece of technology is still popular (or even viable) a decade-plus after launch?

Only two weeks until the PGA but why doesn't it feel like it?

Plus, the end of Garcia, Westwood and Poulter in the Ryder Cup, a bunch of USGA news and much more.

Pennsylvania club pro Braden Shattuck capped his PGA Professional Championship debut by making a 12-foot par putt on the final hole for a 2-under 70 and a one-shot victory that sends him and 19 others to the PGA Championship in two weeks.

The Golfshot Golf GPS app is really no different from pretty much any other golf GPS app you can download for free.

Except when it isn’t.

Like every other golf GPS app, Golfshot gives you a map of each hole. It also gives you targets, distances, manual shot tracking and a scorecard. So, yeah, it’s like every other golf GPS app out there.

Except when it isn’t.

As we’ve mentioned in previous articles, when it comes to the basics, nearly all of the jillion free golf GPS apps on the Apple or Android app stores do the same job and do it very well. Individual apps will include unique features in their free versions, which is nice. But it’s the paid-for upgrade packages where apps differentiate themselves. And while some of the upgrades are hokey, some are incredibly helpful. Others are simply wicked cool.

Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Sergio Garcia were among four players with Saudi-backed LIV Golf who resigned from the European tour instead of facing fines of 100,000 pounds ($125,000) for playing LIV events without permission.

Do you freeze-up over your ball for 5 or 10 seconds before you execute your putt or drive? A recent golf tip said that the best putters keep moving their feet and hands before they putt. Patrick Cantlay is one of those movers and shakers. In the past, golfers all used some sort of waggle before they hit their drives, but we don’t see so much of that typical waggle like Jason Dufner. Mike Weir used a takeaway waggle and now I see that Justin Thomas is using a similar pre-shot motion. Is there a benefit adding motion to your arms and legs before you putt or hit any shot?

I decided to experiment with active hands, feet and legs before putting and hitting my driver. It really makes sense that you should not let your muscles freeze up before your make a controlled swing. Fortunately, I have discovered the reasoning with amazing success without using any of the historic waggles.

Putting Issues
Successful putters need to “feel” the right amount of swing required to pass a hole by up to 2 feet and they also need to choose the right target line to anticipate any break in their putt. Your planning is critical but your swing has to be smooth too. Nervous shaking hands will NOT HELP YOUR PUTTS. That’s why putting needs to be completed by rocking the major muscles in your shoulders and avoiding any small muscle jitters from your wrists or hands.

Putting Solution [Don’t freeze-up over the ball.]
After you line-up your putt and make a practice swing (by rocking your shoulders) with enough force to pass the hole, (1) move up to your ball and lift your putter away from your ball to make one more practice swing (by rocking your shoulders). (2) Look up to your straight-line target point for 2 seconds. (3) Then in 1 continuous motion, visually trace the line directly back to the grass behind your ball as you swing your putter back and up your target line without looking up from your focus point (behind the ball). BINGO, you will sink more putts.

Driver and Iron Solution
A poor first hole drive can destroy the mental outlook for your round. You are nervous so you can’t afford to freeze your body waiting to make your shot. Take your practice swing and then move forward to your ball. DON’T FREEZE-UP OVER YOUR BALL FOR 5 TO 10 SECONDS. Make a slow 2-3 foot backswing (waggle) to activate your spine and hip rotation for the backswing that you plan for your shot and then use the same motion to initiate your drive. BINGO, you will no longer miss your first tee shot (and many other nervous iron shots).

Instead of $12 million, Rory McIlroy will get $9 million of the PGA Tour's Player Impact Program bonus after missing the RBC Heritage last month.

A brief overview of each hole on the TPC Sawgrass course:

1. Par 4, 393 yards - A straightaway hole with a fairway bunker on the right side and trees on the left.

2. Par 5, 532 yards - A dogleg left with water on the left side and a large tree on the right. Approach shots must avoid a large bunker in front of the green.

3. Par 3, 177 yards - A mid-range par 3 with a large bunker guarding the front of the green.

4. Par 4, 384 yards - A narrow fairway with trees on both sides. The green is elevated and protected by a bunker on the front right.

Max Homa looks to defend his Wells Fargo championship, Team USA is loaded at the Hanwha LIFEPLUS event, and Justin Thomas checks in on Tiger Woods.

MyGolfSpy Ball Lab is where we quantify the quality and consistency of golf balls. Today, we’re reviewing the 2023 Titleist Pro V1. To learn more about our test process, click here.

About the Titleist Pro V1

If there’s a ball that needs no introduction, it’s the Titleist Pro V1. It’s been the No. 1 ball on the market since it was introduced.

If there’s a knock on the Pro V1, it’s that Titleist has increased prices for 2023. The whole of the Titleist premium line, which includes Pro V1, Pro V1x, Left Dash and AVX. is now US $54.99.

While it’s not unheard for balls produced at Ball Plant 4 in Thailand to occasionally land on U.S. store shelves, all of the balls in our sample were produced at Ball Plant 3 in New Bedford, Mass.

Titleist Pro V1 Construction

The 2023 version of the Titleist Pro V1 remains a three-piece ball with a 388-dimple urethane cover.

Each year we research, study and test scores of golf bags. Why? 

It’s simple: Your game is our job. You don’t have the bandwidth to test every golf bag on the planet in hopes of finding what’s best. We do.

Call us crazy. Maybe we are. But, we just want to make sure that when you spend your hard-earned cash on a new golf bag you’re getting something that will help, not hurt, your game. 

Need a new golf bag? You’ve come to the right place. We’ve spent years testing and researching what to look for and we want to share that expertise with you. 

Here’s what to look for in a golf bag. 

U.S. Open golfers will face an option-laden long one-shotter followed by a meandering par 5 through a rustic setting. And it may take a while this June.

The Quadrilateral’s deep dive into the seventh and eighth holes at Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course, host of the 2023 national championship.

Two-time Australian Open golf champion Frank Phillips, who also won tournaments in Singapore and Kong Kong, has died, PGA Australia said in a statement Wednesday. He was 90.

Rory McIlroy says he has a fresh mindset entering this week's Wells Fargo Championship after missing the cut at the Masters and skipping the RBC Heritage last month.

The PGA Tour has officially rescheduled the Houston Open for March 28-31 in 2024, tournament organizers announced Tuesday.

Joe LaCava, who has served as Tiger Woods' caddie since 2011, has been hired by Patrick Cantlay for the foreseeable future.