Golfing News & Blog Articles

The limited-run PING PLD Prime Tyne 4 is the first PLD putter PING has released since 2018.The PLD Prime Tyne 4 is a compact version of the Sigma 2 Tyne 4.The production run of the PLD Prime Tyne 4 is very limited.

With stealthy panache, PING recently released the limited-edition PLD Prime Tyne 4 putter, a cloaked-in-shadows version of their Tyne 4 putter.

Everything about this putter is shrouded in mystery. So much so that you can’t even find it on PING’s own website. The PLD Prime Tyne 4 putter launch may be the most covert release I have observed in my tenure as a putter collector.

Now that you know it exists, you probably have some questions about the Prime Tyne 4. What does PLD stand for? How does it compare to a normal Tyne 4? Where can I get one? Don’t worry. I’ve got the answers you need to bring this dark beauty into the light.

PING PLD: Putting Lab Design

PLD stands for Putting Lab Design. PLD putter lines are characterized by limited production runs and unique design ideas the PING engineers are experimenting with. The first time PING released a putter under the PLD moniker was back in 2017. The PLD1 program allowed golfers to design a custom Anser 2 using an online interface. That program was available for a very short time and has yet to be repeated. Again, PLD putters are essentially prototypes that release to the public.

It's a new, made-for-television golf match featuring some big names, with Steph Curry, Peyton Manning and Phil Mickelson. But all eyes will be on one man: Charles Barkley.

The Saudi International in its third year is shaping up as one of the strongest fields on the European Tour with commitments from Masters champion Dustin Johnson, U.S. Open winner Bryson DeChambeau and a curious one from Paul Casey.

Yocha Dehe GC
November 13, 2020

Results

 

The second annual NCGA Senior Series Championship took place Friday at Yocha Dehe GC and crowned two Players of the Year for the Senior and Super Senior divisions.

 

How are event organizers able to pull off LPGA Tour stops and MMA fights during the pandemic? It's an incredibly complex dance.

 

 

There’s a new golf book recently out and it has received great acclaim. “One for the Memory Banks” by Luke Reese explores the people, the courses, and the stories of the game we love from across the pond. Read our interview with the author and buy the book for yourself or as a gift! NCGA Travel Insiders receive $10 off the cover price.

To purchase, use code ‘NCGA’ at www.thememorybanks.com for $10 off the cover price. Enjoy!

 

I write these blogs based on interesting golf insights that may affect your game as well as mine. This week I watched a training clip by Quintin on Top Speed Golf that reminded me of a match that I played where all of my iron shots were in perfect control for direction and distance. Why did this happen? I took a divot after impact with the ball on most of my shots.

Like most recreational golfers, I typically make a perfect practice swing for my iron, pitch or chip shots. Then I proceed to put a little more oomph and power into my actual shot before my hips start to rotate. Yes, I rush my shot from the top of my swing without giving enough time for my weight transfer to my leading foot. I often that I rush my swing with my arms while my weight is still on my tailing foot.

I found this image in Golf Digest with a perfect position in the transition. Unfortunately many of us execute the downswing without transferring weigh to our leading foot.

The lesson that I watched focused on “Why we Chunk Chips“. It’s also the same reason why we mishit our iron shots.
1/ It’s easy to make a practice swing for a Chip Shot. You don’t need a lot of power so we easily swing to bottom out our swing exactly where the ball is resting or beyond that location.
2/ Then we move up our ball, take a look at our target and start to think about the last chucked chip shot that we made. The body tightens and we turn into a robot.
3/ In our backswing, we limit our hip and spine rotation as we tend to shift the trunk of our body about 2 or 3 inches sideways to create a little more power with a slightly faster backswing and downswing.
4/ Unfortunately we never recover from the side-sway in our backswing. We then bottom out the swing 3 inches before the ball or we blade it like a bullet across the green.

Solution: DON’T SHIFT YOUR BODY SIDEWAYS IN YOUR BACKSWING.
–Keep your head directly over your ball as your shoulders and hips ROTATE [Not Shift].

Your leading knee doesn’t straighten, it turns with your body rotation and points more to your trailing knee.
Stand up right now in a golfer’s stance and cross your arms over your chest and rotate (or coil) WITHOUT SHIFTING SIDEWAYS.
Do this about 20 times and then complete the same rotation while swinging your wedge. Your club face will ground-out at or just after the ball. No more chunking.

Now practice the same swing with all of your irons using your GOLFSTR+ AND A STRAIGHT LEADING ARM. Make sure that you take a slight divot after your ball. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

MyGolfSpy Ball Lab is where we quantify the quality and consistency of the golf balls on the market to help you find the best ball for your money. Today, we’re taking a look at the Wilson DUO Soft+. An overview of the equipment we use can be found here. To learn more about our test process, how we define “bad” balls and our True Price metric, check out our About MyGolfSpy Ball Lab page.

It’s reasonable to suggest that Wilson’s DUO line represents the original modern take on the ultra-soft golf ball. Sure, Wilson made soft golf balls before DUO but DUO ultimately defined the standard for the category.

Several years after the original DUO, (super) soft challengers abound but DUO is still the ball many golfers associate with the ultimate in soft feel. It remains immensely popular among preference-driven golfers, which is exactly why we’ve put it to the test inside the MyGolfSpy Ball Lab.

About the Wilson DUO Soft+

The Wilson DUO Soft+ is an inexpensive two-piece golf ball with an ionomer cover. Current retail price is just $19.99 a dozen.

Thanks to reader T for The Economist’s look at launch angle golf as carried out by Bryson DeChambeau to impressive effect.

There is this explanation of how he’s defying trends by launching.

The model’s lessons are intuitive. To thump the ball as far as possible, maximise clubhead speed and launch angle while minimising spin (which causes the ball to soar higher, rather than racing forward). However, most players face a trade-off between these goals, explains Paul Wood of Ping, a club manufacturer. Harder impacts usually mean flatter trajectories. Although the average male player swings faster and produces less spin than in 2007, launch angles have declined since then.

One golfer, however, has escaped this constraint. Bryson DeChambeau, a physics graduate with oddly designed clubs and a voracious appetite for data, is nicknamed the “Mad Scientist”. While the PGA Tour was suspended because of covid-19, he added 18kg (40lbs) of bulk. This has allowed him to swing faster than anyone else. But he has also managed to smash the ball with a high launch angle, rather than a low one—an unprecedented combination that might owe something to his unusually stiff wrists and robotic technique.

Putting Shotlink data to good use, The Economist put together a stunning chart showing DeChambeau’s outlier (for now) status in the launch/speed world:

Cookie Jar Golf did a fine job highlighting the charm of endangered Cleeve Hill and they’ve posted another important short film on Brora Golf Club. Earlier in this grand year you may recall there were concerns about Brora’s future and the positive response to helping one of the world’s oldest and most important courses survive.

It’s all covered in this enjoyable four minutes:

Despite a very solid field and compelling finish, Golf Channel’s four-round broadcast of the 2020 RSM Classic failed to garner more than a few cataract-free eyeballs.

ShowBuzzDaily with the gruesome ratings showing an average of 346,000 watched the final round, with only 31,000 of those not Villages-eligible.

The post-fall Masters slot and wealth of viewing options made this a no-win situation even with all of the long-bombing athletes today.

 

The post PWGA Legacy Spring Partners Tournament appeared first on Northern California Golf Association.

There is a lot of cool gear in the golf equipment world that doesn’t always fit neatly into Most Wanted Tests or Buyer’s Guides. You still want to know how it performs. In our We Tried It series, we put gear to the test and let you know if it works as advertised.

What is Boot Buddy?

OK … This is not the typical type of content we produce at MyGolfSpy but this came across my Instagram feed and I imagined parents everywhere screaming, “YESSSSS. I NEED THIS!” So I’m reviewing a powered shoe cleaner to see if it’s the answer to every active household’s prayers or if it’s just a load of BS.

Boot Buddy was born in England out of the desire of two sons to avoid a lecture from their moms for bringing mud into the house. But mud isn’t just a U.K. problem. It’s a worldwide enemy of moms everywhere. And now that I think about it, I’ll add wives to the list of mud’s natural predators. So Boot Buddy made a product to clean all sport cleats to help prolong their life and keep you out of trouble.

Does it work or is it a gimmick?

A variation of that question gets asked pretty frequently of most anyone who calls themselves a golf writer and there are no easy answers. Derek Lawrenson highlights the recent struggles of Rickie Fowler’s efforts to retool his swing in his weekly Daily Mail column and writes:

The Californian has played in 18 consecutive tournaments without so much as a top-10 finish and is now on the brink of falling outside the world’s top 50 for the first time in a decade.

That’s quite some fall for a man who won six times between 2015 and 2017 after finishing in the top five in all four majors in 2014.

It’s another illustration that while golf might be the slowest of games, it has a fast-changing landscape. Who could have imagined just five years ago that Jordan Spieth and Fowler, back then the two golden boys of American golf, would both be ranked outside the top 50 and all but forgotten heading into 2021?

At 27 and 31 respectively, it’s too glib and easy to say they will be back. It’s certainly the hope given they’re two of the game’s nice guys.

Sir Nick Faldo joins us as a special guest in this week’s No Putts Given. Tune in to hear our chins wag about The Masters, the distance problem, and more.

1:39 – Is this the best time to buy clubs?11:44 – Ask Sir Nick Faldo: What’s golf’s most underrated innovation?14:37 – How have changing course conditions affected the game?17:31 – How do you keep golf broadcasting fresh?21:43 – Any juicy Masters secrets?22:45 – What’s really causing the distance problem?30:26 – HOT SEAT:30:41 – Masters vs. The Open32:06 – Jack vs. Tiger32:53 – Rollback the ball or Don’t?33:55 – Who wins the 2021 Ryder Cup?35:08 – The Faldo Formula38:53 – English Phrases of the Week

Watch Now

Also available on:

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and all major podcast apps.

 

The post Sir Nick Faldo Shares His Secrets | NPG 66 appeared first on MyGolfSpy.

The New York Post’s Nicki Gostin handles the big picture, well, better than most details. Also for non-Gram users, their hefty roundup of the best comments is below. Though you can always “view comments” on the post and see the comedic best of humanity in these dark times.

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A post shared by Greg Norman (@shark_gregnorman)

2020 Golf Tee Test

Is there really such thing as a better golf tee?

Tee companies have been telling golfers for years that they can add distance and accuracy to your game. So, to see if there is anything to these bold claims, we put them to the test. We put 4 tees to a head-to-head test. We tested the 4 Yards More, FlightPath, Martini and the standard wooden tee.

For the better part of a century, the fundamental design of the golf tee has remained largely unchanged. A peg, a platform and, well, that’s basically it. A hundred years of history suggests that simple as it may be, it works pretty well.

As with any other piece of golf equipment, however, there are challengers. Wood gave rise to plastic, which spawned eco-friendly alternatives, and other alternative designs with fresh (and sometimes unusual) takes how on to best support a golf ball before you whack it.

Many of these revolutionary designs claim quantifiable performance benefits over their wooden counterparts: Higher launch, lower spin, more distance and straighter drives … if you’re willing to pay a moderate upcharge. But, do they actually work?

CBS Moneywatch’s Megan Cerullo doesn’t tell us much we haven’t already read about golf in the pandemic. Still, after years of stories about the decline of the sport’s participation numbers, it’s worth noting pieces like this one, if nothing else to highlight that a resurgence in the game had nothing to do with the opportunity to spend $600 for ten more yards off the tee.

In August, consumers spent a record $331 million on clubs, balls, gloves and other gear — that was up 32% over the year-ago period and topped the previous sales record for that month in 2006, according to Golf Datatech. 

For the first 10 months of 2020, golf equipment sales were up nearly 30% compared to the same period last year, Matt Powell, an analyst with market research firm NPD Group, told CBS MoneyWatch. Training tools, such as hitting screens, swing aids and putting matts are up 75% as enthusiasts practice their technique away from the golf course.

And this is a nice reminder that all that well-intentioned capital devoted to nine-hole ad campaigns could never be as effective as having more people work from home.

The millions of Americans now working from home because of the virus is also boosting golf, with more people sneaking away from their desks to play a quick nine holes. 

Yahoo’s Shalise Manza Young points out that a 51% decline in Masters ratings was in line with other drops in major sports, placing it as the fourth-worst on the list of significant events after the Stanley Cup, Preakness and the U.S. Open final round 56% drop.

Since almost no golfers partook in social justice causes this year, golf did not suffer a backlash cited as the cause of overall ratings drops:

There have been acknowledgements of the renewed call for racial reckoning that began with George Floyd’s killing in late May, with PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan releasing a statement 10 days after Floyd’s death that followed other corporations who made nebulous commitments to increasing diversity in their ranks, and senior tour player Kirk Triplett played with a BLM sticker on his bag.

But other than a few players participating in the performative #BlackoutTuesday on Instagram in June, there hasn’t exactly been a groundswell of public support for the movement in golf.

So save the “It’s those damn social justice warriors, I just want to watch my sports!” B.S.

I can’t say from the parts I watched that we’ll be talking about 2020’s RSM Classic years or even days from now. But Robert Streb did pull off a couple of minor miracles, starting with an out-of-nowhere week, as documented by Golfweek’s Adam Schupak:

Streb hasn’t finished in the top 125 in the FedEx Cup standings in each of the past three seasons, and his recent form didn’t suggest he’d earn his first title in six years. He had shot in the 60s only three times in his last 12 rounds entering this week, but posted four straight rounds in the 60s, including a 63 on Friday and closed with a 2-under 68 to finish with a 72-hole aggregate of 19-under 263.

“I felt like things were starting to get a little better and I wasn’t quite getting the results, but wasn’t expecting this, either,” he admitted.

Streb’s approach on the second playoff hole was spectacular:

WHAT A SHOT. 😱@therealstrebber nailed his approach on the second playoff hole to win @TheRSMClassic. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/sAmFE6otjR

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) November 22, 2020