Golfing News & Blog Articles

OK, no Tiger. No Koepka or Phil or Jordan, either. But the top three players in the world enter at the top of the list. At stake is $15 million, the No. 1 ranking in the world and more momentum heading into the U.S. Open in two weeks.

True inspiration can come any time, anywhere. Sometimes the innovation is purely accidental, like vulcanized rubber, the microwave oven or Viagra. Other times, as with Batu Okur and the Rapsodo MLM launch monitor, the innovation is purpose-driven to solve a specific problem.

The Rapsodo Mobile Launch Monitor (MLM for short) was Best Outdoor Launch Monitor in 2019. And as we prepare for the 2020 Personal Launch Monitor Buyer’s Guide, we’d like to give you a deep dive into last year’s top performers. Last week, we looked at the Sky Caddie SkyTrak, and this week it’s the Rapsodo MLM.

And, as we’ll learn, you won’t need Ancestry.com to find their shared DNA. So, without further ado and with apologies to Messrs Mercury and May, let’s get this Rapsodo Rhapsody on the road.

 

The Rapsodo MLM: Is This The Real Life?

According to Merriam-Webster, a rhapsody can be “an effusively rapturous or extravagant discourse or musical composition of irregular form with an improvisatory character.”

I know the bubble’s thick down there in PVB—is it Norman Foster designed?—but this quote still gave me a hearty chuckle.

From Commissioner Jay Monahan’s state of the Tour press conference at East Lake:

Given that golf lends itself naturally to social distancing, recreational play has seen a surge in recent months. As one of the few professional sports competing earlier this summer, I'm certain our tournaments and our players played a role in inspiring participation during the last few months, and we look forward to building on all this momentum as we head into the end of the year and into 2021.

Recreational play was strong during the COVID-19 quarantine(ish) before the Tour restarted in June and was robust from the outset thanks to golf’s outdoor setting, safety and most of all, a huge increase in free time for active participants or wannabe players. Only in Cult Ponte Vedra could they believe they inspired the robust increase in play.

The shortest par-4 at Winged Foot West is a dandy and often listed with the best short four’s in the land.

Long known as the place Ben Hogan used 5-iron off the tee for the best approach distance, the sixth had seen a left greenside bunker added to guard the creek (oy!) and huge build-up on the rightside bunker. That’s been taken down and the green shape fully recaptured.

On this flyover the 321-yarder doesn’t not look particularly appetizing to drive with rough and water looming left of the green, but with such a narrow fairway and today’s players traveling with flexibility-inducing foam rollers, they may just bomb and gouge their way to the hole despite the baggage coming with such an approach. The rough may render the creek’s role fairly meaningless, so we’ll just have to wait for tournament week to see what today’s Hogan’s are thinking.

No. 6 is Winged Foot's shortest par 4 at just 321 yards, but it also has the narrowest fairway. Aggressive players might attempt to reach the green from the tee.

In collaboration with @DeloitteUS. pic.twitter.com/Ov124AQdMe

— U.S. Open (USGA) (@usopengolf) September 1, 2020

Other than the forthcoming Asia swing moving to the western United States, there are not many major changes to the PGA Tour schedule in the name of minimizing travel. The various “swings” remain in tact, with some maneuvering in Florida that will not help the Honda Classic much.

There are just 10 days between the end of The Open and the rescheduled Tokyo Olympic Games, should they go forward.

As for other changes and venues to look forward to, Brian Wacker at GolfDigest.com notes:

Other notable changes include the Bermuda Championship, scheduled for Nov. 26-29 in the week after the Zozo, being elevated to full FedEx Cup point status after the WGC-HSBC Champions in China, originally slated for the same week, was officially canceled earlier this week. Likewise, the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship also will be played with full points available.

Meanwhile, as previously reported, the tour’s Florida swing has been reconfigured with the Honda Classic moving to the week after the Players Championship, March 18-21, while the Valspar Championship moves to the first week of May, after the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

Five new venues will also be featured in the 2020-21 season: Shadow Creek and Sherwood; Memorial Park (Houston Open); TPC Craig Ranch (AT&T Byron Nelson) and Caves Valley Golf Club, outside Baltimore (BMW Championship).

The full schedule can be viewed here:

Reading Jay Monahan’s State of the PGA Tour press conference, it’s tempting to pull out a calculator to comprehend some of the dollar figures bandied about. Particularly given recent news of the PGA Tour letting go or retiring 50 lower-pay staffers not on the executive, Dr.-Conformity-in-Atlanta track to a Ponte Vedra Boulevard (ocean side) residency.

Virtually all of the money mentioned by the Commissioner will be on tournaments to raise, an interesting task with so much uncertainty about pro-ams and spectators. Monahan sounded a very cautious note on that front, which was a refreshing take given some other major sports pushing to get people in seats despite being way less conducive to a safe situation than golf spectating.

When we feel like it's safe to return fans out here, that's when fans will return. We owe that to them, to make sure that we feel like -- and we're supported locally in every market we play in, that that is supported by the local government authorities.

Now to the money.

Monahan said in the press session today at East Lake that the Tour has raised $35 million this summer for COVID-19 related charities.

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said Wednesday that he anticipates no reduction in purses going forward as the golf circuit navigates the coronavirus pandemic without spectators for the foreseeable future.

I now realize that when we change to a slower swing speeds for any club, it tends to change our release rhythm. That results in poor directional control for our shots. By this I mean that our muscles fire at different rates during the swing and cause us to push or pull shots. The result can be a DISASTER!

Bryson DeChambeau may be on to something good with his uniquely designed identical iron shaft length for all of his irons. He sets up with the same athletic stance and tilt at his waist so that he can feel the same motion with every iron shot.

Consistent swing speeds are critical for consistent muscle firing. This is why we need to setup squarely along the target line for our maximum swing speed with our DRIVER and possibly with a more open stance for slower controlled swings with our IRONS and especially with our WEDGES. If you know that you have too much club for the distance of your shot, choke down on the club and take a practice swing to feel the different depth of your swing at your NORMAL SWING SPEED. (NOT FASTER AND NOT SLOWER).

Clay Ballard who creates the TopSpeedGolf blog is a real promoter to generate longer drives with faster Swing speeds. [It’s a fact that an extra 1 MPH impact speed increases your driver distance by about 2.5 yards.] In the past I have provided blogs from others who promote “controlled” swing speed or “limited” back swing for recreational golfers to land more drives in the fairway and to hit more Greens in Regulation. Now I personally find that inconsistent swing speeds result in inconsistent direction control.

Muscle Memory
Clay is now promoting a cutting-edge technology called Neural Adaptation Practice. I Googled this process and found the following: ‘Muscle memory‘ also known as neuromuscular facilitation, is the process by which muscles become familiar with certain motor skills. Furthermore, when signals from the brain are sent to the muscle, a pathway becomes established and this process becomes semi-automatic.”

September 2, 2020

Patriot Golf Day Celebrated This Labor Day Weekend

Benefitting Folds of Honor, PGA HOPE and Military Families

The 13th Annual Patriot Golf Day will honor the sacrifice of our nation’s military heroes across America this Labor Day Weekend (Fri.-Mon., Sept. 4-7), by raising awareness and scholarship funds for the families of fallen and wounded Veterans.

Serving as “the most heroic round of golf you will ever play,” Patriot Golf Day began as a grassroots fundraising initiative over Labor Day Weekend in 2007, with golfers nationwide encouraged to add an extra dollar to their green fees to fund Folds of Honor scholarships. Over the last 13 years, the effort has grown to encompass onsite donation boxes, a variety of fundraising events, tournaments and golf marathons led by PGA Professionals and golfers nationwide.

Folds of Honor, a nonprofit that has provided more than 28,000 educational scholarships to spouses and children of fallen and disabled Veterans, and PGA HOPE (Helping Our Patriots Everywhere) are the hosts of Patriot Golf Day. Beginning this year, the two organizations have joined together to expand and grow annual fundraising efforts for both Folds of Honor and PGA HOPE to better serve the needs of Veterans and their families through the game of golf. PGA HOPE is the flagship military program of the PGA of America’s 501(c)(3) foundation, PGA Foundation, Inc. d/b/a PGA REACH.

After a wild finish at Olympia Fields, a field of 30 players will head to East Lake for the Tour Championship. Here are our experts' best bets.

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.  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.

Callaway calls Chrome Soft “the ball that changed the ball.” Given what we witnessed during last season’s robot ball test and what we found subsequently, it’s fair to say that Chrome Soft is the ball that changed the way we think about golf balls. It’s a large part of why we decided to build the MyGolfSpy Ball Lab. So it only makes sense to kick off Ball Lab with the 2020 Chrome Soft.

In this report, we’ll give you the rundown on what we found in the lab and let you know how it stacks up against other golf balls on the market. Finally, we’ll give you the True Price – how much it costs to get a dozen good golf balls.

About the 2020 Callaway Chrome Soft

We learned at least two very key things when Francesco Molinari took to Twitter confirming he’s still alive and well during this pandemic.

A) The 2018 Open Champion is fine, not changing equipment and is just moving to California and reorganizing his life.

B) Twitter has a handy translate function if you wait long enough.

Joel Beall at GolfDigest.com with the full translation and interpretation from someone who was arguably one of the world’s three best players just 18 months ago, the man who played a flawless Open final round in front of Tiger Woods, and who was a 2018 Ryder Cup star. He recently WD’d from the rescheduled U.S. Open at Winged Foot.

“It will be hard to get back to the levels of 2018 no doubt, you don’t think it was easy the first time. I am the only one who has not returned. I am well aware of it, but it is not the first time that I have made different or unpopular choices (see Rio 2016).”

Molinari, who is exempt into the Masters in November thanks to his claret jug victory at Carnoustie, thanked fans who have patiently awaited his return. Though he hasn’t decided when, Molinari promised he will eventually be playing competitively again.

“I’ll be back in a while, I won’t tell you the exact time because I simply haven’t decided it yet and it will depend on the schedule/preparation,” Molinari wrote.

Having had wedges and short irons into the first few par-4’s, 2020 U.S. Open invitees now confront a dilemma at the fifth: bomb it over the trees and try to carry is 320, or hit a right-to-left tee shot to a semi-blind fairway skirting Tillinghast bunkers?

Yes, we know how that movie turns out.

Another simple and beautiful holes with the cross bunker short of the Hanse Design-restored green providing just another example of Winged Foot’s artistry and distinctiveness. The USGA’s flyover for this year’s tournament, brought to us by Deloitte:

No. 5 at Winged Foot is a 502-yard par 4 that played as a par 5 in 2006. The drive zone is not entirely visible from the tee and recovery shots from the greenside bunkers are particularly challenging.

In collaboration with @DeloitteUS. pic.twitter.com/WRQszv9Vef

— U.S. Open (USGA) (@usopengolf) August 31, 2020

Golf Architecture’s Adam Lawrence confirms what his Instagram followers have known for some time: Zac Blair’s Buck Club dream will be realized near Aiken, South Carolina.

The PGA Tour member and well known architecture aficionado had dreamed of his native Utah but the collaboration with King-Collins Design will be in on a sandy 407 acres currently occupied by a tree farm.

The site has around 60-70 feet of elevation change, and Collins said the Coore & Crenshaw restoration of Pinehurst No. 2 had provided a lot of inspiration for the design thinking on the Buck Club.

Blair’s original plan, to build the course in his home state of Utah had to be abandoned, as land and construction costs made it impractical to complete the project. The player-developer is currently raising funds to support the development, and Collins confirmed there is no rush to break ground.

“We will leave the construction schedule to Zac – it will go ahead when he is ready,” he concluded.

The International Federation of PGA Tours on Wednesday canceled the HSBC Champions World Golf Championships event in China.

Francesco Molinari took to Twitter on Tuesday to explain that a family move to California is responsible for keeping him away from competitive golf.

Welshpool

Rankings have become redundant, or worse, the last profit centers for some publications. The sheen is all but gone from most listings, though Golf is sticking to a small panel of experts and now, three lists that will only hopefully inspire more non-18-hole, non-elitist recognition of what matters: fun places to play.

Ran Morrissett sets up this new “top 100” this way:

The earliest tracks were 5-, 6-, 7-, 9- and 12-hole affairs. The locals looked for land that drained well, with interesting natural obstacles. If the property only supported six holes, so be it. The sport wasn’t meant to soak up half the day. Work beckoned. The Industrial Age eventually created the chance for more of the population to pursue leisure activities, and golf expanded. Move the clock forward 150-odd years and courses of all shapes and sizes now exist.

The top 50 nine-hole courses features so many nifty places you’d love to play, leading off with Tom Dunn’s Royal Worlington and Newmarket, dating to 1895. While I love everything about the Winter Park 9, seeing it next to Musselburgh was a bit strange. The Cradle of Golf it is not. But we’ll let that slide for the overall grandeur of this stellar list.

West Virginia offers a lot of scenic beauty to anyone visiting or passing through. And the natural surroundings have offered golf course architects some terrific opportunities to create stunning layouts that test golfers of every handicap. While the best golf courses in West Virginia may not have the same name recognition as other states, the […]

The post Best Golf Courses in West Virginia appeared first on Golf Blog, Golf Articles | GolfNow Blog.

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Buoyed by a strong finish spilling into the prime time window, the 2020 BMW championship was up 10% from 2019’s playing, drawing a 2.3 and 3.4 million average viewers on NBC. Jon Rahm defeated Dustin Johnson after both made unbelievable 18th green putts, one in regulation (Johnson) and the latter in the sudden death (Rahm).

The 2020 BMW was played a week later than last year and without NFL preseason competition.

The 2.23 final round rating almost won the sports weekend, falling just short of NASCAR’s Saturday race but easily outdrawing several NBA playoff games on cable.

The 2020 BMW weekend lead-in coverage on Golf Channel was essentially flat from last year (.54/.73 in 2019 vs. .64/.68 in 2020).

adidas is launching limited-edition ZX 8000 GolfAvailable for purchase September 4th

If you’ve been paying attention to the MGS Buyers Guide Shoe Testing as of late, you know that adidas has stomped on the competition. The CodeChaos might be one of the best shoes golf has ever seen. Recently consumers were able to purchase a golf version of the classic SuperStar. On September 4th, adidas is releasing another limited edition, this time bringing the ZX 8000 out of the vault and modifying it for golf.

Where The adidas ZX 8000 Golf Begun

The ZX series was developed in 1984 as a solution to the idea that runners need variety in footwear depending the type of run or surface they were taking on. The ZX 8000 is the first ZX model ever specified for golf. Adidas is adapting the classic silhouette to provide golfers with a stylish performance based shoe.

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How has the ZX evolved

Today’s technology advances allow golfers to have it all at their fingertips (or on their feet). Many of the innovations and characteristics that set the ZX apart more than 35 years ago have been modernized for this limited-edition model made for golf. adidas inserted their patented Torsion System for added stability as well as the responsive BOOST midsole. The unmistakable vibrant colorways (clear aqua/shock yellow with pops of purple) are modern, but still an ode to the original design. The ZX 8000 Golf is also water resistant on the upper portion.

adidas is also conscious of the growing trend of spikeless golf footwear. The ZX 8000 began as a running shoe, so it’s only appropriate that the golf version is spikeless. The ZX 8000 Golf is built upon their original grip pattern with longer, golf-specific secondary lugs, and a more aggressive tread pattern to ensure grip and stability in every swing.

adidas made sure the golf rendition of the ZX would standout from the original version by including subtle tweaks. For example, adidas added a lace jewel with the words “ZX GOLF” at the bottom of the eyestay and a leather toecap. There’s also a unique adidas Golf logo added to the heel and sockliner.