t h i n k yo u n g | p l ay h a r d

US OPEN
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‘OWN
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YOUR BY JORDAN SPIETH

HOW TO
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THAT
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TO SAVE
YOUR
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BY CURE
MICHAEL YOUR
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BREED WITH A
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how to play. what to play. where to play.
Contents 06/18
Features
cover story
50 Own Your Short Game
The skills you need
to develop consistency
and touch.
BY MICHAEL BREED
56 How To Make the Ones
That Matter
Become a great putter
in the clutch.
BY PAULA CREAMER
64 Jordan Spieth’s
Straight Distance
Keys for hitting every
fairway—again and again
78 Big Hoss
Beau Hossler on tour life,
the Beau Hossler Rule
and why watching the
Dodgers in the World
Series is more stressful
than playing the U.S. Open.
WITH RYAN HERRINGTON
86 This Is Gonna Hurt
Sit down before you
read about the golfer
who suffered a . . .
fractured testicle.
BY MICHAEL J. YOUNG, M.D.
8 Editor’s Letter
A New Way to Improve.
BY JERRY TARDE
6 golfdigest.com | june 2018
u.s. open preview
90 Don’t Mess This Up
It’s crucial that the USGA
gets it right at Shinnecock.
BY GUY YOCOM
104 Why New York Loves Phil
Big Apple fans love
Phil Mickelson. You got
a problem with that?
BY STEVE RUSHIN
108 Rewriting History
Now that the USGA has
gone from 18 holes to two
for U.S. Open playoffs,
we look back on what
might have been.
BY DAN JENKINS
112 Sotening the Stare
Raymond Floyd on
winning at Shinnecock,
the art of tipping, and
dealing with a cheater
on the golf course
(plus Bernie Madoff).
WITH GUY YOCOM
▶ One of Shinnecock’s fabulous par 3s—the dangerous but beautiful 11th.
Play Your Best The Golf Life
10 3 Shots to Save Your Score 30 The Hamptons: An
Hit recoveries that look Embarrassment of Riches
like tricks. Sure, Shinnecock is
BY WESLEY BRYAN wonderful, but it has
plenty of company.
14 Can’t Chip? Look Here BY JOHN PAUL NEWPORT
My simple setup tips will
eliminate chunks or skulls. 34 The Digest
BY BUTCH HARMON We’re here to help:
15 excuses for not
18 How Tiger Cured the Yips having a good round.
Top teachers explain BY SAM WEINMAN
how Tiger got his short AND ALEX MYERS
game back
37 Git Guide: 14 Presents
swing sequence Dad Actually Wants
20 Jon Rahm Light up Father’s Day
with these better ideas.
22 Golf Made Easy BY BRITTANY ROMANO
Use your hips to power up.
BY DAVID LEADBETTER 42 Game Changers
What golf’s new rules
24 Tour Technique will mean for you.
Flush iron shots from BY RYAN HERRINGTON
a downhill lie.
BY SHANSHAN FENG, 44 Style
ROLEX WORLD NO. 1 Three looks that are
perfect for summer.
25 Lob Shots Made Easy BY ASHLEY MAYO
BY MARIO GUERRA
48 Ask Golf Digest
26 Cure Your Slice Is there scientific evidence
With a Draw Driver that putts actually break
Our testing shows toward water?
these clubs really work.
dom furore
BY MIKE STACHURA 120 Undercover Tour Pro
The battle of dumb
28 What’s In My Bag versus smart.
Austin Cook WITH MAX ADLER
Cover photograph by Walter Iooss Jr.
 AIR
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MANUFACTURE CALIBER B01 BREITLING BOUTIQUE
CHRONOMETER-CERTIFIED NEW YORK • MIAMI • ORLANDO
SAN ANTONIO • LOS ANGELES
LAS VEGAS • WASHINGTON DC
DENVER
Editor’s Letter

Photographer Walter Iooss Jr. and

Chief Digital Instructor Michael
Breed work together on our cover
story. Breed starts a new lesson
series answering your questions
twice a week on Golf Digest Live!

“Personalities count. It’s why you had fa-

vorite teachers in school and others who put

A New Way you to sleep. All Access exposes you to great

instruction, and you get to pick what works

to Improve for you.”

So how’s this different from the free tips
on YouTube?
BY JERRY TARDE First, we present only the best PGA pro-
Chairman and Editor-in-Chief fessionals in the game. Golf Digest draws
our content from America’s 50 Best Teach-
ers, America’s Best Young Teachers, and
grew up on a public course in Philadelphia and took lessons
I from a Cadillac-driving PGA pro named Joe Hunsberger. He
the Best Teachers in Every State, ranked by
their peers.
was a good teacher and got me started with solid fundamentals. I was The video is shot with the highest quality
lucky that we clicked. Most golfers go to only two or three pros in their production values—led by Executive Pro-
ducer Christian Iooss and Senior Photogra-
lifetime. ▶ The first season I got a job at this magazine, I went to a Golf pher/Videographer Dom Furore, edited by
Digest School in Boca Raton, Fla. Jim Flick fixed my grip. Bob Toski Ben Walton and Mason Leverington. Once
got me out of the sand. Davis Love Jr. tried to teach me good posture. you see it, you’ll know the difference.
Peter Kostis showed me how to make a descending blow. Chuck Cook Conceiving the ideas, curating the con-
tent is all done by the same editors who have
kept me laughing. They were the best teachers in the game. brought you 68 years of Golf Digest—plus
Then I started working on stories with Paul Now, for the first time through streaming a new team of strategists, engineers, data
Runyan, who gave me a one-lever chipping technology and the guidance of our edito- experts and consumer marketers who con-
stroke. Sam Snead taught me how to throw a rial team, the same up-close, in-motion and stantly improve the user experience.
putter. I learned spot-aiming from Jack Nick- personal instruction is as far away as your Says Executive Editor Peter Morrice, who
laus. Tom Watson gave me forearm rotation. mobile phone. is in charge of content development: “We
Then I took one-on-one lessons with “We’re giving you dozens of teachers— wanted to create an instruction experience.
Shelby Futch, who found my backswing. I think of the Peloton model meets Netflix,” Not just quick tips or tons of videos, but
spent three days with Jimmy Ballard. Butch says Chris Reynolds, General Manager of curriculums, deep learning. It’s developing
Harmon got my belt buckle pointing to the Golf Digest. “Our new program allows you skills, but in the right order and with real ex-
target. At a staff clinic, I learned ball posi- to come back to the pros you like, try new pertise. That starts with great teachers, who
tion from Judy Rankin. Over breakfast one ones, all with no intimidation, and on your can explain, simplify, demonstrate, enter-
morning, David Leadbetter demonstrated schedule.” tain. A lesson with a great teacher is special,
The A Swing. Hank Haney cured my yips on Golf Digest Schools opens this month at and this mirrors the depth and lasting value
the practice tee. Dr. Bob Rotella played as my golfdigest.com/schools. With an All Access of that experience.”
photograph by kyle may • illustration by tim l ahan

partner in a four-ball tournament.
I’ve Stacked-&-Tilted, Swung-the-Handle-
Not-the-Clubhead, and Squared-to-Square
with Golf Digest for four decades. Heck, I’m
the one who named Tiger Woods’ low-slung
tee ball The Stinger, and now he thinks he did.
Forgive all the name-dropping, but the
greatest benefit of being an editor of Golf
Digest, hanging around our hallways, is that
you get to take private lessons from the best
of the best teachers in the world.
subscription, you receive more than 200
original video lessons and classics that you
can view anywhere, anytime on your phone,
laptop or TV screen. More content will be
added every week.
Plus you get live, interactive clinics twice
weekly with our Chief Digital Instructor,
Michael Breed. You get to ask questions and
have your swing analyzed through an on-
line partnership with CoachNow. And you
receive print and digital subscriptions to
Golf Digest magazine for an All Access price
of $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year.
“It’s not always what’s being taught, it’s
how it’s being taught,” says Ron Kaspriske,
Senior Editor of Instruction and Fitness.
Great teachers have a presence. Maybe
it’s the poise of self-assurance; it’s definite-
ly salesmanship. Spend 30 minutes with
Butch, and you start thinking, I’d be an idiot
not to do everything this guy is saying. Great
teachers inspire and make you excited to try
new things.
I’ve rarely used this space to pitch you on
something, but this is the future, ours and
yours: a new way to improve—Golf Digest
All Access.

8 golfdigest.com | june 2018

 āĪĝĜġĬęĨĨĪħĮęĤĪĝĩĭġĪĝĜčljĝĪĝĜĚıāęĨġĬęĤčĦĝĀęĦģÕēđÿÖČÿƣ! &āęĨġĬęĤčĦĝ
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10 golfdigest.com | june 2018 Photograph by Dom Furore
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It’s always about

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“A tight-lie flop requires commitment,
swing speed—and stones.”

’m guessing you’ve hit a miracle shot once or twice. Maybe you threaded it through the trees, or nipped

I a wedge off a cartpath. Before I joined the PGA Tour, I had a lot of fun making trick-shot videos with my
brother, George. I’d hit golf balls in midair with a driver, skip them across ponds to a target on the other
side, bank them off trampolines—you get the idea. Miracle shots are really hard to pull off, but when you’re playing
for a score, you need to improve your odds. I’ll show you three stroke-saving trick shots that will look miraculous
to your playing partners and opponents, but if you follow my advice, you’ll feel comfortable hitting anytime.
—W E S L E Y B R YA N , W I N N E R O F T H E 2 0 1 7 R B C H E R I TA G E AT H A R B O U R T O W N

12 golfdigest.com | june 2018

 Stroke Savers Play Your Best

THE TIGHT FLOP

When there’s no choice but

to hit one high from a very
tight lie, even a tour player like
me sweats a little. This shot can
lead to thoughts of blading it over
the green and into the subdivi-
sion behind it. But by keeping in
mind a couple of simple factors,
you can dramatically increase
your chance of success.
When you blade a pitch, most
of the time it’s because you
changed the distance between
your body and the ball during the
downswing. To prevent that from
happening, keep your lower body
very quiet and use an upright,
arm-dominated swing. Open the
face slightly at address, and then
let the clubhead release through
impact with some speed (let).
You want to feel the sole of the
club, not the leading edge,
sliding along the turf.

THE EMERGENCY HYBRID THE RESCUE PITCH

Hybrids are awesome for You have a pitch shot that

making longer shots easier
to hit than if you used a 3-iron or
4-iron. But you can run into
problems using a hybrid when
the ball is sitting down in the
rough. Unlike irons, the bigger
head and wider sole can get
caught up in the grass, and the
ball goes nowhere.
The way I use a hybrid from
deep grass is to set up and play
for a fade. To copy me, open your
stance and the hybrid’s clubface
(let). Also, adjust your aim for
the fade and play the ball slightly
back of center in your stance to
encourage a steeper downswing.
You’re trying to make contact
with as little grass as possible
before your club strikes the ball.
Keep in mind that it’s natural
to think you’ll need more help
than these adjustments to get the
ball to the green. But resist the
urge to overswing or try to help
the ball in the air with a wristy,
back-foot swipe.
Depending on the depth of
the rough, you can hit it close to
normal fairway distance. You’ll
launch a flier that rolls and rolls.
doesn’t need to travel very
far, but the ball is way down in
the grass. This shot can really
lock up a weekend player. How
do you swing with enough speed
to get the ball out of the rough,
but send it only 20 to 30 yards?
Here’s how: Set up like you
would for a normal pitch shot,
but open the face of your wedge
as if you were about to play a
bunker shot from the same dis-
tance. And just like a sand shot,
you’re going to want to blast the
club through the grass, keeping
the clubface pointing skyward
throughout. Feel like your hands
are swinging around your body
and moving toward your let
pocket through impact (above).
The speed created by making a
bunker-type swing will help the
club easily cut through the high
grass, and you’ll hit a shot where
the ball pops up and comes down
sot without much spin. When it
lands and stops by the flag, your
friends will say you couldn’t do
that again if you hit a bucket of
balls. You’ll just smirk and say,
“Yup, it’s a miracle.”
Play Your Best Tee to Green by Butch Harmon
Can’t Chip?
Look Here
Forget the
swing. It’s
all about
the setup
y
hen I get students who
W complain about poor
chipping, here’s where
I go first: How far are they stand-
ing from the ball? If you’re more
than a foot away, you’re adding
variables that just aren’t neces-
sary. The biggest issue is, the
club will tend to swing around
your body, with the face fanning
open (top photo). It’s hard to hit
a good chip from that position.
Here’s a simpler way to go.
Start with your back foot across
14 golfdigest.com | june 2018
from the ball, and get very close
to it. That sets the ball position
back in your stance. Then, sole
the clubhead behind the ball,
and aim the face on the line you
want the shot to start. Raise the
grip, so the shaft is more upright.
Finally, put your front foot in po-
sition—keeping the stance nar-
row—and lean your weight and
the grip a touch toward the tar-
get. Now you’re ready to make a
simple back-and-through stroke,
hitting slightly down on the ball.
The key is getting the shaft
more vertical at address. That
keeps the clubface looking at
the target as you swing back and
through (above) and prevents the
club from veering to the inside.
From this setup, it’s tough to hit
the ball off line, or chunk or skull
it. Why not keep it simple?
—WITH PETER MORRICE
join me in all access
▶ In my 20-plus years
working with Golf Digest,
I’ve written enough
articles to fill a bookcase.
But that’s old school.
Today, everybody wants
golf instruction on their
computers or their phones.
Golf Digest is making that
happen. With the launch
of a new digital-instruction
platform, Golf Digest All
Access, you can get the
best coaching in the game,
all in video form. My first
two video series—one on
the full swing, one on the
short game—are available
now. Check them out, and
see all the benefits of this
great new program at
golfdigest.com/allaccess.
butch harmon is a Golf Digest
Teaching Professional.
Photographs by Dom Furore
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 © 2018 TAYLOR MADE GOLF COMPANY, INC.
THEY DON’T
PLAY THE #1
BALL IN GOLF.
THEY PLAY THE ONE THAT BEATS IT.
THE BEST IN THE WORLD PLAY TP5/TP5x INNOVATIVE 5-LAYER CONSTRUCTION TO
BEAT THE COMPETITION. DISTANCE FROM EVERYWHERE, PERFORMANCE IN THE WIND,
AND FEEL THAT’S EXACTLY LIKE NOTHING ELSE. THEY’VE MADE THE SWITCH -
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

Did a mechanical tweak help resuscitate
the tour’s best short game?
Tiger: Cured!
Top teachers weigh in on how he
overcame the chipping yips
INTERVIEWED BY MATTHEW RUDY
stan utley
▶ “When Tiger got in trouble with
his chipping, he tended to let
the handle move too wide in the
backswing. When that happens,
the head isn’t really swinging;
you’re moving the whole stick
together. Then if you accelerate
the grip to start the downswing,
you bring the grip through impact
first, which ruins the engineering
of the club. In the swings I see
now, the club is setting earlier
and releasing earlier, and he’s
using the bounce. When you use
the bounce, the lies don’t become
scary. You’re hitting the turf with
the back of the wedge and skid-
ding. You want to land the plane
shallow and on the back wheels.”
randy smith
▶ “It’s absolutely amazing to me
what he’s done to recover—a total
transformation. You can call it
release point, rust or whatever,
but there was something yippy
going on. He was literally playing
away from his wedges. But as the
greatest player in the world might
do, he figured out something
different—a different feel, a dif-
ferent way to approach it, a slight
grip change. Anything to feel
less action in his hands. That’s
fine in practice, but he’s now
doing great on the real stage. His
short game is back. He still has
the yips. In the back of his head,
they’re still there. But for now, the
sam greenwood/getty images
change is a warm blanket.”
Tour Technique
hank haney
▶ “Everybody wanted to see what
kind of swing speed Tiger was
going to have when he came back
from the spinal-fusion surgery,
but I really believed the obvious
short-game issues he had would
prevent him from coming back
in any real way if he couldn’t
figure them out. He’s obviously
found something in a technique
change that’s been working—to a
degree—and that’s great. You still
see some of those strange shots
every once in a while. That’s his
reality now. You can have some
good stretches, but when you
have the yips, they’re in there. It’s
just a matter of how you try to
manage them.”
david leadbetter
▶ “Tiger didn’t have the chipping
yips because of a mental issue.
It was physical. He had the shaft
leaning too far forward, and the
leading edge was digging. You
can get away with that on certain
types of grass, but many times
the grass would grab the club-
head and cause it to stub. If you
don’t correct that, you could end
up with a full-blown case of the
mental chipping yips, but he cor-
rected the issue. His right hand is
much more involved in the shot.
The club releases and glides
along the grass. It’s a much more
effective way to chip. And with his
hand-eye coordination, he can be
as great as ever that way.”
mike adams
▶ “Tiger had bad chipping funda-
mentals that exposed the leading
edge instead of the bounce—not
the yips. He took it back too
wide, which shut the face, and he
june 2018 | golfdigest.com
Play Your Best
dragged the handle through the
shot. That created too much shaft
lean—something he had been
trying to do in his full swing—and
it leaked into his short game. I
can’t think of another player who
had that happen like that, but who
else has been as willing to change
swings? Now he’s setting the club
sooner, letting his right arm fold,
releasing it better and using the
bounce. Right-hand-only drills
helped him a lot. He once again is
an awesome wedge player.”
dave stockton
▶ “Tiger has always used his right
hand a lot more on those shots
than I do, as opposed to letting
the left hand control the action.
He uses his hands as a unit, but
when that right hand takes over,
that’s when the club starts dig-
ging. I was surprised to see that
become his problem because
he was always so great at those
shots. When you struggle, it can
get difficult fast because you
start trying too hard to fix the
problem and then you lose your
feel. But now, he seems to be
swinging much more free. He’s
got it back in the groove. Maybe
what he needed was some time to
work on his game.”
james sieckmann
▶ “Imagine if you’ve been amaz-
ing at something your whole
life, and you never had to think
about how to do it. Then all of a
sudden, when you tried to do it,
it didn’t work. Tiger was thinking
the same things he always had,
but he didn’t get the same result.
He was confused. His setup had
gotten so different, with his head
behind the ball and his shoulders
closed. He was in a position
where he couldn’t hit the ball
first. A lot of people think he had
the yips. He didn’t. Tiger had a
bad motor pattern. And when he
found the right pattern again, it
came back quickly—and so did
his confidence.”
19
Play Your Best Swing Sequence
xamine the swings of
E the game’s biggest hit-
ters and you’ll see the
vast majority have two similar-
ities: (1) a big backswing with
the left arm bending at the top;
(2) the club travelling a long
way back to the ball to gather
more clubhead speed.
But that’s not how Jon Rahm
cranks drives more than 320
yards. And he does that a lot.
“He’s a big, strong man with
incredible athletic power,” says
Golf Digest 50 Best Teacher
Randy Smith. “He keeps that
left arm straight and smashes
the ball with swing width, not
length. Not many can do that.”
Rahm’s clubhead speed (119
miles per hour) is a big reason
he’s ranked in the top five of the
tour’s Strokes Gained/Off-the-
Tee statistic. It’s also probably
no coincidence that he’s No. 3
in the World Golf Ranking.
“The positions you see here
are so good, they look posed,”
Smith says. “He uses his phy-
sique and strength to make a
simple swing. It’s like a bigger,
harder version of Henrik Sten-
son’s swing. Jon hits it so simple
and so square, it’s easy to see
why his career is on the rise.”
— MATTHEW RUDY

POISED AT THE START SUPER SEQUENCING MAKING WAY

Jon Rahm
Jon’s swing is generic Jon’s chest and arms are Look at the distance
A driver swing so good, starting out, says moving together—a must between his hands and
Golf Digest 50 Best for a stronger player. “If sternum when his let
these photos look posed Teacher Randy Smith. his arms went quicker arm is parallel to the
(they’re not) “At address, the let
shoulder and hip are
around him, his chest
would have to sync up
ground in the backswing.
“Jon’s hands have moved
higher than the right later. That’s a recipe a little, but the shat
side, so he can hit it for a huge miss,” Smith has moved a lot,” Smith
high and hard,” Smith says. Instead, his chest says. The club will feel
says. “And for a big guy, supports the arms. Also, super light like this. If
he looks balanced and his lower body is quiet. the arms are too close to
comfortable, not feeling He’s winding against it, the body, it feels much
any stress.” Smith says. heavier.”

20 golfdigest.com | june 2018

 “For a guy swinging that fast, there’s no tension
in his body whatsoever.” —Randy Smith

DOUBLE WIDE TOTAL TRANSFER KEEPING IT REAL AMAZING GRACE PRO-FILE

“The let hip and knee As he swings into the Most players fake “I love the sot, folded jon rahm
are moving at the target ball, his let shoulder extension. They’re trying arms and supportive 23 / 6-2 / 220 pounds
Scottsdale
as his upper body is moves almost straight so hard to extend the feet as he finishes,”
finishing the backswing,” up, his let leg is pushing club toward the target in Smith says. “But what
driver
Smith says. “And his hard, and his hips the through-swing, they stands out is that Jon’s TaylorMade M4
head has moved off the are returning in sync forget to put a hit on the chest has turned at least (9.5 degrees)
ball minimally—which with the arms. “It’s a ball, Smith says. Jon 90 degrees relative to
is unbelievable, and total power release,” extended the club as a the target line. There ball
great for control. He’s so Smith says. “His head result of momentum doesn’t appear to be any TaylorMade TP5X
strong, he doesn’t need is actually moving from his fast swing. tension. And he finishes
a long backswing. It’s backward. It isn’t locked “This is a totally relaxed in balance despite
wide, and I’ll take wide or swaying forward. Both effort,” Smith says. “He’s swinging extremely fast.
over long any day.” can drain power.” not gripping tight at all.” That’s hard to do.”

Photographs by J.D. Cuban

Play Your Best Golf Made Easy by David Leadbetter

“Constantly borrowing tees?

You need a new downswing.”
Stand and
Deliver
Thrust with
your hips
to launch
the ball
f you’re regularly pop-
I ping up tee shots or the
ball isn’t rolling very far
once it lands in the fairway,
you’re hitting down on the ball
too much. That’s OK for an iron
shot off the turf, but not if
you’re swinging a driver. A tell-
tale sign your downswing is too
steep is if you’re constantly
breaking tees in half like you’re
splitting firewood.
If you want to maximize dis-
tance with your driver, you’ve
got to hit up on the ball, and a
simple fix is to literally stand
up during the downswing. Let’s
practice this move.
As your start the club down,
I want you to thrust your hips
forward like I’m doing here. I
recommend doing this without
a ball at first to get comfort-
able with this move, because
it will feel quite different than
your usually steep downswing.
But once you get the hang of it,
you can start hitting tee shots
this way. And I’m sure you’ll be
pleased with the results.
What this stand-up/hip-
thrust move does is shallow the
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club’s path into the ball and gets

it moving upward just before
impact. That, in turn, launches
the ball high—but not pop-up
high—and with far less back-
spin than if you hit down on it.
That’s really important to in- you’re one click away from great golf instruction
crease your carry distance and
get the ball to roll more. ▶ I’m excited to be a part of Golf Digest All Access, on All Access, it’s the type of comprehensive
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live to see another swing. through the most important aspects of swinging david leadbetter, a Golf Digest Teaching
—WITH RON KASPRISKE a golf club effectively. Like the other series found Professional, runs 32 academies worldwide.

22 golfdigest.com | june 2018 Photographs by J.D. Cuban at the Concession Golf Club
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Play Your Best Tour Technique
Chase Ater It
It’s how to flush iron shots
from a downhill lie
BY SHANSHAN FENG
e all practice on ranges
W where our feet and ball
are on flat lies. But on
the course, things aren’t always
so friendly. A lot of times you’ll
find your ball in a spot where
you can’t stand and swing like
you do on the practice tee. A
common lie I see amateurs really
struggle with is when the ball is
below your feet like I’m dealing
with here. This shot is unnerving
for amateurs, because they play
it like it’s on a flat lie. The result
is typically hitting it fat or thin.
Ideally, you should spend some
time practicing shots from dif-
ferent lies, but until that hap-
24 golfdigest.com | june 2018
“The most important thing
is to keep your balance.”
pens, here’s some advice to help
you make better contact.
When I’m on any uneven lie,
I usually select one club longer
than normal. It’s so easy to lose
your balance when the ground
beneath your feet isn’t flat,
so the extra club allows me to
make an easier, more controlled
swing, increasing the chance I
hit it solid and get the ball to the
green. Next, I adjust my spine
angle to the slope. That means
tilting my shoulders to match
the slant of the lie. Once I do
that, I take some practice swings
feeling like my club is moving
along the slope—not against it.
I suggest you do the same. On
this shot, my left shoulder at
address was a little lower than
my right to match the angle of
the hill. If my left shoulder was
level with my right, I’d probably
hit the ground behind the ball
and chunk the shot. Even with
my shoulders and spine angled
to match the slope, I know my
swing is going to bottom out a
little earlier than it would from
a flat lie. So when I set up, I play
the ball slightly farther back
in my stance than I normally
would. Also, to help make solid
contact, I favor my front foot a
little more. That last adjustment
steepens the angle of attack,
which helps ensure I hit the ball
before the ground.
Remember those practice
swings I recommended, feel-
ing like you’re swinging along
the slope? Now’s the time to put
that feel into action. When you
swing, make sure your club-
head traces the ground. It’s like
the club is chasing after the ball
down the hill. You can see that’s
what I did, because my right
shoulder is way lower than my
left in the through-swing.
One way to get better from
these lies is with a drill that helps
improve contact. Next time
you’re at the range, hit a shot
and then step toward the target
with your trail foot (right for
right-handers). This will get you
to shift your weight into your
lead foot in the downswing, a
necessary element of hitting the
ball solidly. It also will make you
more comfortable hitting shots
while not being completely in
hunter martin/getty images
balance, and that’s a big part of
success on any golf course.
—WITH KEELY LEVINS
feng is No. 1 in the Rolex Women’s
World Golf Ranking.
 Gimme One Thing Play Your Best

Escaping from
the Short Side
Lob shots look hard,
but they’re really
easy to execute
BY MARIO GUERRA

ou fired at the flag but missed. Now

Y your ball is in the rough, and you’ve
got about five feet of green between
you and the hole. Your best—and probably
only—option for getting up and down is a lob
shot. You need to hoist the ball way up in the
air, and drop it close to the hole like it has a
parachute strapped to it. How do you do it?
First, know that you should only attempt
a lob if you’ve got some cushion under the
ball. If it’s on hardpan or sitting down in the
rough, simply pitch onto the green and hope
you can two-putt to get out of there with min-
imal damage to your scorecard. But if your
ball is sitting up, you can easily execute a lob
shot if you do this.
Grab your club with the most loft, open
the face before you take your grip, and then
get into a significantly wider stance than
normal. Last setup adjustment: Lower the
handle. All of this gets you in position to
make a very shallow through-swing, letting
the wedge glide through the turf under the
ball and hit it with a lot of loft.
Now that you’re in the right setup, here’s
one thing to execute this shot. Create the let-
ter L with your clubshaft and lead arm (left
arm for righties) as you take the club back
(above). Then create a backward L with the
clubshaft and trail arm as the club passes
under the ball. Think L to L as you swing,
and this hinging and rehinging will speed
the club through the grass and pop the ball
up. Commit to it, and you just might save par.

mario guerra, a Golf Digest Best Young

gluekit

Teacher, is the head professional at Quaker Ridge

Golf Club in Scarsdale, N.Y.
Play Your Best Equipment

A Quick Way to Cure Your Slice

Draw drivers really work, our testing shows
BY MIKE STACHURA

clockwise from top:

ust about everybody hates a slice. This isn’t an opinion. It’s fact.
J Golftec, the instruction company that has given more than sev-
en million lessons at its nearly 200 locations, revealed two de-
1 p i n g g4 0 0 sf t
▶ Heel-side weight
gives your shots
tails about its customers: 96 percent want to hit anything but a slice, and more draw spin. A
only 8 percent come to Golftec hitting a draw. The slice, friends, is still lighter swingweight
makes the club
golf’s most confounding swing fault, or as Nick Clearwater, Golftec’s vice easier to square.
president of instruction calls it, “an epidemic.” The good news is that it’s $400

a very fixable problem. Yes, by all means, see a quality instructor. A slice
is caused by the most common of swing flaws: swinging the club down
steeply on an out-to-in path with an open face to that path at impact.
This creates sidespin that sends the ball curving weakly to the right.
“It’s really just a misunder- Drivers that are designed to
standing of how to make the ball fight a slice have been around
curve,” Clearwater says. “People for decades. Traditionally, they
keep swinging farther to the left had severely closed faces, but
hoping the ball will go the way the new models we tested look
they want it to. It doesn’t work.” very much like a typical driver.
The latest draw-bias drivers The technology might be nicely
cannot correct your out-to-in hidden, but the results are very
swing path, but they can help apparent. The key to these new
negate the slice spin imparted drivers is internal weighting
at impact. How can we say this that shifts the center of gravity
with such certainty? Well, we (CG) toward the heel. There are
put the new draw-bias drivers adjustable drivers on the mar-
to the test and found they re- ket that allow golfers to load
ally do what they’re designed to the club’s movable weights to-
do. For our test, we had average ward the heel, but those tend
golfers hit the latest draw driv- to be less effective than the
ers without telling them what fixed internal weighting on the
they were testing, and we mea- newest draw drivers. In some
sured the results against their models, the amount of weight
own drivers using a Foresight is more than double what you
Sports GCQuad launch monitor. would typically find for an
Seventy percent of the golfers adjustable driver in its most
hit the draw drivers more to the extreme draw setting.
left (13.3 yards farther on aver- The benefit of concentrat-
age compared to their regular ing so much weight in the heel
drivers). Interestingly, they also is that it creates a larger area
hit the draw drivers farther—5.7 of the face that launches shots
yards on average. It’s worth not- with draw spin. “This player has
ing that these results were im- the face open at impact, and ev-
mediate—less than five swings erything we do with this club in
for each player. terms of CG bias is helping to
solve that problem,” says Todd
Beach, chief technical officer
of R&D for TaylorMade. “When
you move the CG to the heel, no
2 ca l l away
ro gu e d r aw
▶ Internal and
external heel
weighting, combined
with a slightly
matter where you hit it, it pro- upright lie angle,
duces more draw.” yield more draw
Draw-bias designs also en- to your flight. $500
courage a straighter ball flight
by featuring higher lofts, lighter 3 taylor m a d e
shafts and more upright lie an- m 4 d - t yp e
gles. There’s even evidence that ▶ With 41 grams of
with the CG closer to the heel, weight in the heel,
draw drivers help average golf- this driver puts
ers return the face to square at almost twice as
impact because the CG is closer much mass toward
to the shaft. the draw side than
The driver slice might be the the company’s
most discouraging shot in golf. movable weight M3.
Among other things, it leaves you $430
with a longer second shot, and it
deals a blow to your confidence. 4 to u r e d g e
In the absence of fundamentally h l 3 os
changing your golf swing, draw ▶ The large cupface
drivers can be a way to improve provides more hitting
your scores and attitude. area, and the offset
“It’s the simplest fix for so shape and upright
many people,” says Paul Wood, lie angle help fight
vice president of engineering at those right misses.
Ping, who estimates that at least $190
half the players could benefit
from a draw driver. “It’s joyous 5 cob r a fm a x
to watch when you put a draw- ▶ A deep, heel-
bias driver in someone’s hands, bias center of
and the ball is going farther and gravity, plus offset
straighter. Honestly, I think it’s and a lighter swing-
the best-kept secret in golf.” weight, fight a slice
and launch shots
high. Larger grips
provide more swing
control. $300

26 golfdigest.com | june 2018 Photograph by Ivory Serra

Play Your Best What’s In My Bag
feel-good music travel buddies
I keep practice rounds My wife, Crys, travels
light. I just want to see with me. We enjoy
the course. I’ll listen to hanging with other
chill tunes like Chris tour couples. She’s
Stapleton (shown) on friends with wives of
my Bluetooth speaker. pros who came from
the Web.com Tour.

AUSTIN COOK

age 27 DRIVER me to shoot red numbers. My

alignment-rod cover is a nod
lives Jonesboro, specs Ping G400 LST, 8.5˚(adjusted to 9.2˚),
Ark. 45.25 inches, Fujikura Speeder Evolution 661
Tour shat, X-flex, tipped half an inch, D-3
story Won the swingweight
2017 RSM Classic
in his fourth start My ball flight is higher than others. The
as a rookie. G400 LST reduces spin for more carry. FAIRWAY WOOD

monday magic specs Ping G400 Stretch,

Ater I graduated 13˚, 43 inches, tipped one inch,

bag photos: shane mccauley • cook: robert l aberge/getty images • stapleton: chris polk/acma2017/getty images for acm •the cooks: courtesy of austin cook
HYBRIDS
from Arkansas, Fujikura Motore VC 7.0 shat
I wasn’t sure
specs Ping G400, 19˚and 22˚,
whether to pursue I hit it high to begin with,
Matrix Ozik Altus Tour, X-flex
medical school or so I don’t need help launch-
golf. I tried Monday- ing it. My 3-wood goes
Halfway through last
qualifying, and I plenty far, but it’s still easy
season, I realized I needed
had six top-25s in to stop on the green.
a better solution from
10 starts as a non-
200 to 220 yards. This
member. That told
22-degree hybrid lets me
me I could do it.
hit it higher and softer
than I could with a 4-iron.
family ties IRONS
My grandpa, John
Cook, was a club specs Ping S55 (5-iron through pitching
pro and played in wedge), KBS Tour 100 shats, S-flex, Golf
nearly 100 PGA Tour Pride Tour Velvet 58 round grips
events. He played
WEDGES
the final round of Iron play has always been one of my
the 1965 Memphis strengths. When I won at Sea Island, specs Ping Glide
Open with Jack I missed only 12 greens all week. 2.0 Stealth wedges
Nicklaus. I know
(50˚, 56˚ and
he’d be proud of me
60˚), Dynamic
making it on tour.
Gold Tour Issue
—with stephen
S400 shats
hennessey
The extra groove
club yards* lower on the
face helps create
driver 285 spin, even if you
hit it thin.
3-wood 250

19 o hybrid 235

22 o hybrid 210

5-iron 195

6-iron 185

7-iron 175 PUTTER

8-iron 165 specs Ping Sigma

G Tyne, 33 inches,
9-iron 150 bent 2 degrees
upright, SuperStroke
pw 135 2.0 red grip

50˚ 125 I’ve always pre-

ferred the heavier, special marker
56˚ 110 solid feel of a I got this the week
mallet. It helps I won. It says:
60˚ 90 me on longer “gratitude” on one
putts especially. side, “dependence”
* Carry distance on the other.

28 golfdigest.com | june 2018

1963.
The first Nelson Fine Autos.
Today, there are 13 more.
Across 3 states. Divided by
4 Nelson children. Good
thing we started doing
the math long before
2018.

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©2018 Raymond James & Associates, Inc., member New York Stock Exchange/SIPC. | Raymond James Financial Services, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. Raymond James Bank, member FDIC.
Raymond James ® and LIFE WELL PLANNED ® are registered trademarks of Raymond James Financial, Inc. Investment products are: not deposits, not FDIC/NCUA insured, not insured by
any government agency, not bank guaranteed, subject to risk and may lose value.
edited by peter finch

An Embarrassment of Riches
Sure, Shinnecock is wonderful,
but it has plenty of company
BY JOHN PAUL NEWPORT

lc l ambrecht

genuine links: Maidstone’s 13th green hugs the Atlantic Ocean.

 For those with access, golf is the antidote,
not the apotheosis, of the fevered Hamptons vibe.

ith the possible exception of Califor-

W nia’s Monterey Peninsula, home to
Pebble Beach, Cypress Point, Spy-
glass and others, there isn’t a denser concen-
tration of great golf in the world than on the
eastern end of New York’s Long Island.
Shinnecock Hills, host of this summer’s
U.S. Open, is fourth on Golf Digest’s rank-
ing of America’s 100 Greatest Courses. Four
other top 100 courses lie within 20 miles:
National Golf Links (No. 8) and Sebonack
(No. 41), which are right next door to Shin-
necock, plus Friar’s Head (No. 19) and Maid-
stone (No. 72). Add in Southampton, a fine
1925 Seth Raynor design that also borders
Shinnecock, and a handful of superb more
recent arrivals, and you’ve got a lifetime’s
worth of fabulous courses to play.
Except, of course, that you probably can’t,
because you’ll almost certainly never get on.
Most golf in the Hamptons, as the tiny,
oceanfront tip of Long Island is known, is
private. Not just ordinary private, but Big
Time, Blue Blood, Big Money private. Ex-
travagant wealth, fame and power are such
distorting factors in the Hamptons—where
renting a house for the summer can cost
$1 million and Kardashians hobnob with
senators and tycoons—that it requires
extreme effort to wall off golf from the glitz.
The ideal of golf in the Hamptons is not
Trumpian excess (no fountains, please), but
the Shinnecock model of rugged, understat-
ed perfection. For those with access, golf
is the antidote, not the apotheosis, of the
fevered Hamptons vibe.
This takes money. There’s no way around it
in the Hamptons. But that money, for the most
part, doesn’t buy stuffiness or pretension;
it buys ease, seclusion and majestic views.
The Bridge, which opened in 2002 and
is one of the newest clubs in the Hamptons,
has an initiation fee of about $1 million. Yet
it is anything but a hidebound, traditional
club. Wearing jeans, cargo shorts or a cap
turned backward is not only OK, it’s en-
couraged, if that’s how you want to express
yourself. The glass-walled, modernistic club-
house looks like a turbine engine spun out of
control. The most spectacular views of the
Rees Jones course and Peconic Bay are not
from the dining room but from the expansive
locker rooms, because that’s where members
hang out most.

june 2018 | golfdigest.com 31

The Golf Life The Hamptons
Even at Shinnecock, the oldest (1891)
and most alpha of the Hamptons golf clubs,
the atmosphere is laid back and modest.
The Stanford White-designed clubhouse,
perched above the ninth green with pan-
oramic views of the course, Peconic Bay and
the Atlantic, is beautifully maintained, but
first-time visitors are often surprised that it’s
not more . . . fancy. The wood floors, small-
ish club rooms and wraparound porches are
remnants of another era that no one at the
club has any desire to gussy up.
Women’s golf is very active at Shin-
necock, and in recent years the club has in-
vited more locals to join. The main criterion?
A love of golf. Members include Raymond
Floyd, who won the 1986 U.S. Open there
and recently put his Southampton house on
the market for $17.5 million, and Pink Floyd
co-founder Roger Waters, who is said to play
twice weekly.
If Shinnecock, by dint of its course and
championship history, is the alpha Hamp-
tons club, National and Maidstone are close
betas. “The National,” as members call it,
opened for play in 1911 with holes designed
by Charles B. Macdonald in homage to the
most distinctive holes in Great Britain.
Many if not most of the copies now surpass
the originals in playability and strategic nu-
ance; the delight of a round at National is the
never-ending variety of challenge. Member-
ship at National, which now includes (a few)
women, is a bit more nationally oriented
than Shinnecock’s. The course is seldom
crowded, but play by unaccompanied guests
is allowed and financial firms with member-
ship ties to the club sometimes bring out
groups of four or five foursomes.
Maidstone as a golf course doesn’t get
the respect that Shinnecock and National
do, but a 2012 renovation by Bill Coore and
32 golfdigest.com | june 2018
Golf in the Hamptons isn’t
just private. It’s Big Time,
Blue Blood, Big Money private.
Ben Crenshaw masterfully restored the shot
values and rugged aesthetics of the original
1924 design by Willie Park Jr. and his brother
Jack. Located 17 miles from Shinnecock and
directly on the beach, Maidstone has some of
the few genuine links holes in North Ameri-
ca. “If I had to choose one course to play and
walk every day for the rest of my life, it would
be either National or Maidstone,” says Rod
Aboff, a single-digit handicapper who grew
up and still lives on Long Island and has
played courses around the world, “but I’d
probably go with Maidstone. The holes along
the ocean are amazing, but so are the other
holes that run along the inland waterways.”
Maidstone is known as the most blueblood
of the Hamptons courses, but that blueness is
judged primarily on the long-standing-ness
of connection to the East Hampton commu-
nity rather than on strict, social-register pedi-
gree. (Chevy Chase is a member, so go figure.)
Unlike Shinnecock and National, Maidstone
is a full-service family club, with a grand
swimming pool and dozens of private ca-
banas on the beach that, like memberships
in the club, pass down like heirlooms from
generation to generation.
After super Big Money hit the Hamp-
tons in the 1980s, newcomers started build-
ing expensive, top-shelf clubs of their own:
Atlantic (1992, course by Rees Jones), East
Hampton (2000, Coore and Crenshaw),
and Sebonack (2006, Tom Doak and Jack
Nicklaus). The sublime Friar’s Head (2002,
Coore and Crenshaw), with holes extend-
ing out to the bluff overlooking Long Island
Sound, isn’t technically in the Hamptons,
but it’s nearby. Its old-school ethos—range
finders forbidden, hole yardages not print-
ed on the scorecard—carries the purist
Hamptons golf worldview to its extreme.
Sebonack is another $1-million club to
join, but the multitude of on-site, four-bed-
room cottages help out-of-town members
defray costs; they don’t absolutely have
to have a $30 million Hamptons home of
their own.
It should be noted that the older clubs,
with land and clubhouses mostly paid off,
have only recently approached or breached
the six-figure milestone for initiation fees;
getting in is the hard part, not coming up
with the cash.
For those still waiting to join a Hamp-
tons golf club, or just passing through,
there’s Poxabogue, the always-busy prac-
tice range on the main spinal highway
with a nine-hole par-30 course tucked be-
hind. Summer traffic in the Hamptons is
so congested that you can sometimes find
members of the heralded private clubs
hitting balls here, to avoid the intermina-
ble drive to their clubs.
By far the best public option is Montauk
Downs at the far tip of the South Fork. Re-
designed in 1968 by Robert Trent Jones
Sr., with help and subsequent updates
from son Rees, the windswept course is a
worthy challenge with splendid bunker-
ing. Plus, if you’re a member of New York
State (that is, a resident), you qualify for
half-price green fees and other advantages
when booking. Who said you don’t belong
in the Hamptons?
Illustration by Harry Malt
 H O W D I S TA N C E

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The Golf Life The Digest

“
YOU DON’T HAVE THE GAME
YOU PLAYED LAST YEAR OR LAST
WEEK. YOU ONLY HAVE TODAY’S
GAME. . . . HARDEN YOUR HEART the grass is
AND MAKE THE BEST OF IT. always greener
—walter hagen ▶ FIVE BLENDS of weed

”
that certain staff members
would like to sample.

kikuyu kush
this thick-rooted cross-
strain keeps you moti-
vated during mundane
tasks, like practicing
bump-and-run chips.

myrtle haze
a member of the sativa
family, it opens a balloon
of creativity inside your
head. rescue shots once

hagen: augusta national/getty images • mickelson: michael cohen/getty images • marijuana: roxana gonzalez/eyeem/getty images
15 excuses for regarded as impossible
will feel destined.

not having royal stinger

a good round the genomes of this
purple-haired prince can
not playing well. be traced to merry eng-
land. great relief for
playing too well; seizures, muscle spasms
it’s bound to end. and swing changes.
hungry. had too
much fiber for stimpanzee
breakfast. course brimming with thc, this
hybrid offers blissful
doesn’t fit your and uplifting effects.
eye. shoes don’t fit it’s known to compro-
your feet. new set mise coordination, so
don’t be shocked when
of irons. need new you putt like a monkey.
set of irons. didn’t
sleep well. had a
vivid dream about
cypress joint
this highly palatable
developing the yips. indica is famous for
don’t play well buds that resemble the
namesake tree. reduces
when there’s no
acing the family greenside celebration money on the line.
anxiety in unfamiliar
foursomes.

▶ You’re about to win the men’s club championship. But can you don’t play well
pull off a tour-pro-quality hugfest? Follow this checklist. when there’s
money on the line.
▶ kids: In matching she’ll still love you if then head pro,
clothes (or at least you three-putt and guys in the shop,
problems at home.
clothes); hopefully lose; candy for bartender from night problems at work.
not staring at their bribing kids not to before, Uber driver playing partner is
phones or causing make a scene. from the night before, having problems at
a scene. locker-room guy who
▶ you: Remembering gave you Tylenol to
home and/or work,
▶ wife: Wearing hug order—caddie, take the edge off the and he’s dominating
expression that says then wife and kids, night before. the conversation.
34 golfdigest.com | june 2018
 by sam weinman + alex myers

the 7 types of golf dad

the enabler dad
▶ Guy who lets his kid run
wild without any discipline.

the ‘don’t do that’ dad

▶ He barks out every breach
of etiquette, ends up yelling
the whole time.

the delusional dad

▶ RIDE, DON’T WALK: when you’re going to play all day ▶ He thinks his son is
destined for the PGA Tour
swimmer: westend61/getty image • sleeper: allsport concepts/getty images • dad: paul windle • woods and father: robert beck/icon sportswire/getty images

Hoof it only if golf is because he can occasionally

▶ Take it from someone who has played 108 holes of golf in a make contact.
your only form of single day: Golf and marathon golf might as well be two different
sports. Keep these guidelines in mind if you’re thinking about the tiger dad
exercise. ▶ SHORTS trying any more than 36 holes in one day this summer. ▶ The guy who yells at his kid
ONLY: Lugging extra when he misses a green or
makes bogey.
weight has made your wasting time on those pesky

calves into rock-hard

1 after every 18 holes,
rotate pairs of shoes,
and pull on a fresh pair
grapefruits. Flaunt of socks. You want to trick
your feet into thinking it’s
’em even in cold the first round of the day.
temps. ▶ GO HAWAIIAN: Also, based on what my guy
friends say, Gold Bond
An untucked shirt powder is essential for
leaves just the surviving a long day of golf.
right amount to play fast. Getting in as
“tweener” shots. If you play
more than two rounds and
the philosopher dad
▶ He tries to turn every golf
carry your bag, try just five moment into an opportunity for
clubs—driver, hybrid, 7 iron, dispensing spiritual advice.
sand wedge, putter.
the old dad
▶ He plays with his grown-up
4 think about nutrition.
You want water nearby, kid, and now he’s the one
being watched over.
along with snacks that offer
quick energy (bananas and
all-natural bars) and foods
the miserable dad

the imagination. 2 many holes as possible

before sunset means there’s no
▶ NO H20: Sugary
time to fuss over shots. Walk
sports drinks are quickly, play ready golf and
eliminate practice swings.
good, beer is better.
▶ GERONIMO! Show
off your golf tan with
3 use an abbreviated set.
Taking out every other iron
in your bag will make it lighter,
a post-round swim. and it’ll also help you avoid
that offer long-lasting
endurance (PB&Js and trail
▶ He desperately needs a break
from his kids, but no. He’s stuck
with them for the day.
mix). Eat and drink every three
holes so you never feel hungry
or thirsty.
5 cancel your plans
if it rains. Seriously.
A rainy golf marathon sounds
miserable. —A S H L E Y M AYO

great moments in fatherly advice “why don’t

you try it
left-handed?”
—phil mickelson sr.
“i’d go with
the red shirt.”
—earl woods

“i wouldn’t
change
a thing.”
—mike furyk

“turn off the tv

and go hit some

“what you need

is a nickname.”
—frank zoeller

june 2018 | golfdigest.com 35

 14 Presents Dad Actually Wants
Light up Father’s Day with these better git ideas
BY BRITTANY ROMANO

j.lindeberg jimmy jacket

▶ Highlight Dad’s game in any weather with this
ultra-lightweight jacket. $209

june 2018 | golfdigest.com 37

 The Golf Life Git Guide

your range time by setting your brain into a state of hyperlearning.

This supposedly creates a stronger connection with your muscles
lacoste “the first all over print polo” ▶ This cotton jersey
to enhance strength, explosiveness and muscle memory. $749
golf shirt is a nod to the colorful, offbeat 1990s style—part
of the company’s 85th anniversary throwback collection in which
an iconic shirt has been reissued for each decade. $145

stance kauri crew socks and puma suede g golf shoes

▶ Keep Dad’s feet comfortable and on-trend with ventilated socks and
classic suede shoes made for the course. Socks, $16. Shoes, $120

eir pitted deodorant ▶ This hip brand’s natural products actually crab & cleek shoe bag ▶ Made from actual golf flags,
work, like this arrowroot- and coconut-oil-based deodorant. $22 this unique shoe bag is lightweight and durable. $50

38 golfdigest.com | june 2018

 “World’s Best Dad” mug.

▶ Easy to apply, all-natural cologne that

has a great smell in a dynamite package.
Available at kinnucans.com. $32

persol special edition steve mcqueen sunglasses ▶ Inspired by the King of Cool,
these glasses will up Dad’s style while keeping his vision clear and protected. $400

bushnell phantom gps range finder malbon golf ribbon dopp kit ▶ Lift
▶ Simple and portable yardages. $100 Dad’s cool-factor with this hip catchall. $55

jones utility weekender ▶ It opens like david norma n

a suitcase, but nifty hideaway straps allow it design go lf b e d
to be carried as a backpack, too. $130 ▶ Rest easy on this
mahogany bed made
with real persimmon
woods and hickory shafts.
$15,000-$30,000

vineyard vines jim nantz forget-me-

knot-tie ▶ Silk smoother than Nantz’s voice,
and a portion of proceeds go to charity. $85

40 golfdigest.com | june 2018

 Rules The Golf Life

moving forward on a final

Game Changers version. Golfers obliged, pro-
viding 30,000-plus responses
worldwide. Many comments
What golf’s new rules will mean for you affirmed the direction they
were going, but others got
them to rethink their positions,
here was no puff of white smoke billowing from the United States Pagel says.
T Golf Association or Royal & Ancient headquarters, but for some golf
For instance, the USGA and
R&A had proposed letting play-
officials, the announcement might have been as momentous as the selec- ers drop a ball for relief from as
little as two inches above the
tion of a new pope. ▶ Six-plus years in the making and 12 months after ground. Some argued that this
circulating a first draft for public comment, in March, golf’s rules-makers was too low, and they reached
a compromise. Under the new
arrived at a final, modernized version of The Rules of Golf. ▶ The new rules rules, you can release the ball
go into effect Jan. 1, 2019, though some—including Seminole Golf Club from knee height.
president Jimmy Dunne—have said they’ll start using them this season. The 2017 proposal also
called for replacing the one-
It’s not hard to see why casual fans with a negative mend players take no more than and two-club-length measure-
people would want to get a view of the sport. 40 seconds to play a stroke. ments used when taking drops.
head start. The new rules are These included Tiger Woods Stuck in a bunker you know Instead, you’d be allowed 20
easier to understand and apply, at the 2013 Masters (an illegal you’ll never escape? You’ll be inches when dropping a ball
and they include changes that drop that was spotted by a able to take a drop outside the in all cases except when tak-
stand to make the game faster viewer), Dustin Johnson at the bunker (in line with the hole) ing relief from penalty areas or
and more fair. You can read the 2016 U.S. Open (a video review for a two-stroke penalty. You’ll unplayable lies; in those cases
new rules at usga.org/rules. showed his ball moved by a also be able to putt without you’d get 80 inches. Reason
Here are some of the most im- couple of dimples on the green), having the flagstick attended prevailed, however, and the fa-
portant differences: and Lexi Thompson at the 2017 or removed. miliar one- and two-club-length
ANA Inspiration (a viewer no- One notable change is a local measurements will remain.
common-sense stuff ticed she had marked her ball rule that permits an alterna- Golfers’ comments even got
incorrectly). tive to the stroke-and-distance rules-makers to get rid of a pen-
Your ball accidentally moved Not coincidentally, the gov- penalty for balls that are lost or alty for a double hit, a change
on the putting green? That used erning bodies said last year hit out-of-bounds. Instead of they hadn’t initially proposed.
to be a one-stroke penalty. Last that tournament officials on hitting a provisional ball—or Some were disappointed
year, the USGA and R&A elimi- the leading golf tours would marching back to the tee to hit the proposed rules didn’t in-
nated the penalty with a new stop taking calls from television another once you’ve realized clude relief when a ball comes
local rule, and with the new viewers. Soon after the Thomp- the first is lost or O.B.—the local to rest in a fairway divot hole.
rules, they’ll expand that to son rules flap, the governing rule will let you take a drop in But the USGA or R&A wouldn’t
include a ball that moves when bodies made some changes to the fairway with a two-stroke budge here. “One of the pri-
you’re searching for it. protect players who used their penalty. You simply estimate mary objectives for the overall
Players will also be able to “reasonable judgment” to mark where it’s out-of-bounds, or initiative is to make the rules
ground their clubs in penalty balls or measure an area where where your ball is likely to be easier to understand and ap-
areas and remove loose im- they were taking a drop, even if lost. Then you may go two ply, but to also make sure we
pediments such as rocks and video evidence later showed it club-lengths into the fairway maintained the traditions and
debris from penalty areas and to be wrong. These carry over and drop anywhere behind that principles behind the game,”
bunkers. They’ll be allowed into the new Rules of Golf. spot. “The primary objective is Pagel says. “And the principles
to repair spike marks or other Still, the rules rely on golfers to keep the player moving for- are to play the ball as it lies and
damage on the green at any to be honest and willing to call ward,” Pagel says, “and we think the course as you find it. So to
time, and they can touch the infractions on themselves when that’s the real benefit.” write a rule that allows a player
line of their putt as long as appropriate, says Thomas Pa- This isn’t meant for pro or to sort of deviate from that was
they don’t improve it. No longer gel, the USGA’s senior director elite-level competition, but not something we were want-
will they have to worry about of Rules & Amateur Status. tournament committees will be ing to do.”
a ball mistakenly hitting them able to apply it to most events The USGA and R&A will wait
(or their caddie) and costing pick up the pace enjoyed by everyday golfers. till this fall to make a big edu-
them a stroke. cational push on the new rules.
The USGA and R&A made Because slow play continues to player feedback Meanwhile, they’re producing
a conscious effort to make be a problem, the new rules will supporting materials, including
the rules feel more like com- cut the time allowed looking After unveiling their proposed an abridged “Player’s Edition,”
tim l ahan

mon sense. This was partly in for a lost ball to three minutes, changes in March 2017, the a digital version and an easy-to-
response to a series of recent from five. The rules also encour- governing bodies made a point search app.
rules controversies that left age “ready golf” and recom- of asking for feedback before — RYA N H E R R I N GT O N

Photograph by Mark Hooper june 2018 | golfdigest.com 43

The Golf Life Style

Three looks based on one pair

of out-there shorts.
Busy Summer!
The easy way to blend
prints, solids
BUSY PRINTS CAN SEEM intimidating,
but they ’re actually versatile and
surprisingly malleable. If you choose
a piece with an all-over pattern, keep
everything else solid. It’s a foolproof way
to build a perfect outfit. Colors can range
from mild to bright. To prove it, here are
three entirely different summertime looks
featuring one pair of out-there shorts.
—A S H L E Y M AYO

1 shorts Bonobos, $98 sweater Peter Millar,

$135 button-down Rag & Bone, $225 shoes
Peter Millar, $225 sunglasses Oakley, $153.
2 hat G/FORE, $45 polo Under Armour, $70
belt Beltology, $65 shoes Puma, $120.
3 hat G/FORE, $50 hoodie Dunning, $65
shoes Adidas, $120.

44 golfdigest.com | Photographs by James Stone

The Golf Life Ask Golf Digest
I’ve oten heard that putts will break toward
Q
any body of water near the green. Is there any
scientific evidence to support this?
BRENT LEDFOR D, BOISE, IDA HO
Putts often do break toward the
A water, but it’s not the H²0 they’re
reacting to. As short-game guru
Stan Utley explains, “Putts break because of
gravity.” If there’s a mountain to your right
and a lake to your left, the land will typically
slope from right to left—and that’s the way a
putt will tend to break. The era of the golf
course you’re playing has a lot to do with this
general rule. Older courses were primarily
built along existing terrain, making it easier
to spot these breaks. Modern architects can
move more dirt, tricking players with coun-
terintuitive topography. Your best move:
Look for the drainage area on each green
Putts will tend to break in that direction un-
less there’s some obvious contour interrupt-
ing the path.
▶▶▶
My ball landed right next to a dug-up
sprinkler head, which was being
repaired. Because there was a large
hole, the maintenance crew couldn’t
mow the grass around the hole, so my
ball was in four-inch rough. Could I
have taken a free drop?
JAMISON RILEY, CHICO, CALIF.
48 golfdigest.com | june 2018
Bad luck. The hole, even if it’s unmarked,
counts as ground under repair. But because
your ball was not in or touching the hole—
it sounds as if the area around the hole
was not marked as ground under repair—
you have to play this one as it lies. You
would get free relief if the hole affected your
normal stance or swing.
▶▶▶
Why doesn’t the Ryder Cup use a
shotgun start for singles? This would
put everyone in play versus having the
last matches rendered meaningless if
the winner has already been decided.
PHIL HILL, PHILADELPHIA
This is lively thinking, but it wouldn’t really
solve the lame-duck matches issue. Once
the deciding match concluded—possibly
on a remote part of the course—the other
matches would still need to be played out.
It would spell the end of strategic match-
ordering and tactics such as “front-loading.”
No more gladiator-like entrances on the
first tee, Bruce Buffer-like introductions,
and pressure-induced duck-hooks. For now,
we favor the status quo.
▶▶▶
Cleaning out my golf bag to get ready for
the upcoming season, I came across a
liquor flask that had some bourbon left
over (for a snakebite or to celebrate
small victories on the course). How
often does the flask need to be cleaned,
and what is the best way to do it?
JOHN LAPSLEY, SALINE, MICH.
You’re sharing a flask among a group, and
you found leftover bourbon? That hurts.
But we’ll set aside your wasting of perfectly
good whiskey and answer your question.
We clean our flasks once a month, to keep
residue from building up. Here’s how to do
it: First, fill the flask about two-thirds with
white vinegar. Then you want to add some
kind of abrasive—rice, baking soda, Au-
gusta sand, etc. Close the lid, shake the
flask vigorously for about 30 seconds,
empty the contents, and rinse with hot
water. You’re good to go. Just remember,
bourbon has feelings, too.
▶▶▶
I love the standard metal ball markers
that clip to one’s hat. One of my friends
insists it is unprofessional to use
anything but the plastic markers with
the spike in the bottom. The other
day, my ball was outside of his line by
at least two feet. He walked up, threw
my favorite marker aside with a curse,
and replaced it with his plastic marker.
Who’s in the wrong here?
JOHN KAMIN, ENCINO, CALIF.
Your friend is so very wrong. Those hat-clip
ball markers are a little goofy, and it’s true
that pros don’t use them much, but they’re
certainly convenient. And they’re allowed
under the Rules of Golf, which call for using
“a ball marker, a small coin or other similar
object” when picking up a ball on the green.
As for his replacement of your marker,
that’s rude—and might incur him a penalty
stroke. Only you or an authorized person
(e.g., a caddie) can mark your ball,
according to the rules. There’s a one-stroke
penalty for moving another player’s ball
or mark in match play. In stroke play, there
is no penalty.
submit your burning questions here:
ask@golfdigest.com or on Twitter @GolfDigest
Illustration by Chris Gash
 ©2018 Taylor Made Golf Company, Inc.

THIS BEAUTY IS A BEAST

A FORGED IRON IN MEETS BREAKTHROUGH

A P L A Y E R S’ S H A P E DISTANCE WITH
GAME!
Photographs by Walter Iooss Jr.
4 steps to developing consistency
and touch around the greens
BY M IC H A E L BR E E D
with peter morrice

M Y FIRST YEAR AS A HEAD PRO,

I gave a clinic one afternoon
on chipping. After we finished,
a student came up to me and
said, “I didn’t like that. You
never told us what club to hit
on those shots.” Even though
I was a novice teacher, I got it right that day. I could’ve told her
what I would do in those spots, but she would’ve tried to memorize
that and not discover it for herself. The right way depends on
the golfer—the shots you like, your comfort level in different
situations, the clubs you have confidence in. It’s not one-size-
fits-all. ▶ In this article, I’m going to give you a few mechanical
keys for playing around the greens, but then encourage you to try
different variables that affect the shots you hit—variables that alter
trajectory, distance, spin and roll. So it’s part mechanics and part
feel. If I gave you only mechanics, you’d be a robot and not very
good at reacting to situations on the course. If I said it’s all feel,
you’d have no starting point—no structure. My goal is to get you
started, then set you on a path to self-discovery. A great short game
is not given; it’s learned. Learned by practicing a few musts, yes,
but mostly through experimentation. ▶ Let me put a bow on my
story. Months later, the woman came back and said she understood
what I was doing. She had developed a system for picking clubs
and playing shots. She owned her short game—and so will you.
june 2018 | golfdigest.com 51
 i call this move
“holstering the handle.”
l e a r n t o d o i t, a n d
yo u ’ v e g ot t h e f i r st
pa rt o f t h e s h o rt g a m e .

‘SWING THE GRIP AROUND

TO YOUR FRONT HIP. DON’T PUSH IT
TOWARD THE TARGET.’

A HUGE IMPACT ON THE SHOT YOU HIT: MOVE IN CLOSE FOR
1
swing the handle
to the hip
the first skill to learn in
the short game is swinging the
grip end of the club to the left
through impact. This might
seem oddly simple, but it’s
absolutely critical. Swinging
directly toward the target,
which so many amateurs do,
causes poor contact because the
low point of the swing comes
behind the ball. It also causes
deceleration, because the club
runs out of room going straight.
Poor contact and deceleration
are killers around the green.
Swinging the handle to the
left moves the low point of the
swing forward, so you hit the
ball and then the ground. It
also helps you make contact
with the center of the face. And
then there’s acceleration. You’re
creating more space for the club
to travel. Swinging left is the
master move of the short game.
‘HOW CLOSE YOU STAND TO THE BALL HAS
A LOW SHOT; STAND BACK FOR A HIGH ONE.’
So how do you do it? Get in
your normal chipping setup,
and practice swinging the
handle through so it finishes
very close to your front hip.
I call this “holstering the
handle,” as if you were sticking
the grip in a holster on your
front hip (opposite page).
Another way to think about it
is that the heel pad of your right
hand leads the knuckles at the
top of the hand as you swing
through. (You can focus on the
left hand the same way—heel
leads knuckles.) If swinging
through this way feels strange,
it’s because you’re used to
pushing the handle toward the
target, which seems logical for
a lot of golfers. But you have to
get the handle going left.
2
pre-set tra jectory
in the setup
the next piece of the short
game is how high you set the
handle at address. This allows
you to vary trajectory. Put
simply, when the handle is
high, you hit a lower shot; when
the handle is low, you hit
a higher shot. Let’s discuss.
Wherever you set the handle,
the clubface will find its natural
loft. Unless you manipulate it,
the face will open or close so
the sole of the club sits flush
to the ground. If you raise the
handle, the heel comes up so
you have to close the face to get
the sole to sit flush. If you lower
the handle, the toe comes up so
you have to open the face to get
the sole flush. Closing the face
produces a low shot; opening
it produces a high shot. That’s
how handle height affects loft.
These variations cause
changes to the stance as well.
june 2018 | golfdigest.com
set the handle high
( l e f t ) f o r a l o w e r s h o t,
s ta n d a r d ( c e n t e r ) f o r
a medium-tra jectory
s h o t, a n d l o w ( r i g h t )
f o r a h i g h e r s h o t.
The more you raise the handle,
the closer you have to get to
the ball and the more you grip
down. The more you lower the
handle, the farther you stand
back and the longer you hold
the club. I teach three positions:
standard (above, center),
handle high (left) and handle
low (right). Try them—they
produce very different shots.
Final point: Handle position
also helps you from different
lies. If the ball is down in the
grass, you need more dig. You
get that from a closed face
or a high handle. If the ball
is sitting well, you can drop
back and use more loft with an
open face or a low handle. Now
you’re building sophistication
into your short game.
53
3
have a pl an before
yo u pick a club
now we need to add the
most obvious variable for
hitting different shots: club
selection. Why didn’t we start
with this? Because to be a good
short-game player, you first
have to understand how to
hit the ball solid—that’s the
‘DIFFERENT CLUBS CAN PRODUCE DIFFERENT
SHOTS—OR THE SAME SHOTS. YOU DECIDE BY HOW
YOU SET UP AND SWING.’
54 golfdigest.com | june 2018
handle going left. Then you
have to know how the setup
affects the shot—that’s handle
height and the angle of the
face. The next step is picking
the right club for the job.
When I miss a green, I take
four or five clubs to my ball.
I then look at the lie, how far
I need to fly the ball and the
ideal rollout. Different clubs
give me different flights and
rolls. But that’s not where it
ends. I can use any of my clubs
in any of the three setups we
discussed—standard, handle
high, handle low—to hit at least
three different shots per club.
There’s another piece that
alters trajectory, and for
that we go back to Lesson 1:
swinging the handle left. You
always want to swing it left,
but how sharply you go left
affects how high the ball flies.
Think of a highway with three
consecutive left-hand exits.
If you swing the handle down
the first exit, it moves quickly
to the left and gets very close
to your left hip. That produces
a higher shot. If you take the
second exit, that’s the standard
shot. If you take the third—still
going left the same amount,
just on a longer arc—that
produces a lower shot. Put
these exits into the mix, and
the number of shots you can
hit multiplies. The fun part is
playing around with them.
gutter credit tk
4
cre ate a frame work
u sing flight-to -roll
on the course, you want
to play with clarity. Develop
a club-selection system with
the standard positions. For
example, with your sand wedge
at the middle handle height and
taking the middle left exit, how
far does the ball fly and roll?
f l i g h t - t o - r o l l r at i o
is a good basis for
club selection, but
w h at y o u d o w i t h t h e
c l u b m at t e r s m o r e .
For me, that’s my 50-50 shot
(see my ratios, right). Now here’s
the question: To hit a higher
shot, do you grab the lob wedge flight roll
or do you lower the handle or go
left faster? It’s self-discovery.
For consistency, use one type
58 -degree 60% 40%
of ball—the ball you play
with—when experimenting.
54 -degree 50% 50%
And after you have flight-to-roll
ratios, be willing to adjust them
46 -degree 40% 60%
for course conditions, like fast
greens, or the situation, like an
9 -iron 30% 70%
uphill lie. You’ll get there, and
remember, there’s no substitute 8 -iron 20% 80%
for doing it yourself.
michael breed,
golf digest’s
c h i e f d i g i ta l
instructor,
i s b a s e d at t r u m p
g o l f l i n k s at
f e r r y p o i n t,
n e w yo r k c i t y.
a golf school without the box lunch
somebody asked recently if I can teach people to play golf without having them in
front of me. My answer: absolutely. I did an instruction show on TV for nine years, and
I know people were learning to play by watching that show. Now we’re doing something
at Golf Digest to take that concept a step further. It’s called the Golf Digest Schools,
a collection of how-to-play curriculums in video form. The idea is to learn remotely but
to simulate being on the lesson tee with your favorite instructor. It’s learning the skills
you need, in the order you need them, without the commitment of going for lessons
(or the constraints of TV time). It’s part of the new Golf Digest All Access program. I just
did my first curriculum, called “The Facts of Impact,” and I know these long-form videos
will help you understand how to hit better shots with every club in the bag. Check out the
new Golf Digest Schools—better yet, learn about All Access at golfdigest.com/allaccess.
june 2018 | golfdigest.com 55
MAKE
THE ONES
THAT
MATTER
Draining the big putt is
one part attitude, one part routine
BY PAU L A CR E A M E R
w i t h k e e ly l e v i n s

A
LOT OF AMATEURS, and even some pros, treat must-
make putts like they’re standing over a six-footer to win
the U.S. Open. You can see the anxiety building in their
pre-putt routine. The feeling can be so overwhelming
that by the time they address the ball, it turns into an
out-of-body experience. Not me. I won a U.S. Open, and it wasn’t because I
let the gravity of the week override what I normally do. When I walk up to a
putt I have to make, I’m taking even breaths and staying calm. I stick with
the routine I have for every other putt, because focusing on that actually
reduces stress. That’s why you have a routine—so that no matter the situa-
tion, every putt feels the same. That’s the basis of my first piece of advice to
help you make the ones that matter: Do your best to treat them no different-
ly than any other putts. Here are some other tips to help you on the green. ▶

56 golfdigest.com | june 2018

 ‘ i f yo u l e t t h e p r e ss u r e
o f t h e s i t u at i o n a lt e r yo u r r o u t i n e ,
y o u ’ r e p r o b a b ly t o a s t. ’

Photographs by Dom Furore at The Golden Bear Club at Keene’s Pointe


make your routine anything but
there’s no prototype for a pre-putt
routine. Just make sure you get the most
out of whatever you’re doing. For me, it
starts with being confident with my read.
I quickly walk around my ball and the
hole looking at the line from every angle.
Notice I said quickly. A lot of amateurs
spend too much time looking at the line.
If you overanalyze how the putt will break,
you might second-guess yourself and lose
confidence. Remember, your first look is
usually the right one.
The next thing I do is get behind the ball
and visualize the speed I need to get it to
c h o o s e w h at e v e r g r i p a l l o w s y o u t o h o l d t h e c l u b l i g h t ly, s o i t c a n r e l e a s e t h r o u g h t h e b a l l .
the hole. I’ve seen golfers get so wrapped
up in reading the break, they forget that
the read doesn’t matter if the ball is
moving too fast or too slow. When we play
in pro-ams, I always tell my partners to
switch to speed after they get the line. One
drill I do every day to improve my feel is
picking spots on the fringe and hitting
putts that die right at the edge of the green.
Back to my pre-putt routine: Once I’ve
got the speed, I set the ball down with my
Pink Panther logo pointing down the line
I’ve chosen. Having something familiar
to look at can calm your nerves and
remind you that it’s just another putt. I
then take two practice strokes behind the
ball and look at the line I’ve chosen one
last time. You might notice that my grip
is conventional (below). I’ve tried others,
and you should, too. Find the grip where
you feel like you’re not going to hold on
too tight and make a handsy stroke (more
on that in a minute).
The last thing I do before I take the club
back is make sure I’m not pushing down
on the putterhead. It’s a bad tendency
that can make the clubhead twist open
or closed when I take it back. To avoid
that, I think about having soft hands and
keeping the pressure of the putterhead
light against the ground. This also is a
great feeling to have, because it relieves
tension that might be building as a result
of the magnitude of the putt you’re facing.
 LEADERBOARD
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 ‘DON’T BE TOO ANXIOUS
TO SEE THE OUTCOME OR
YOU’LL MISS. HIT THE PUTT,
WAIT A BEAT, THEN IT’S OK
TO LOOK AT THE BALL.’
to have when hitting these putts is one
I use myself: Keep the putterhead low
throughout the stroke (below). This helps
keep your mind on the process of making
a good, controlled stroke and prevents you
from trying to steer the putt or looking up
too soon to see if it’s going in. No matter
how important the putt is, this swing
thought makes you feel like you’re just
rolling the ball on the practice green. And
when the ball rattles around the bottom
of the cup, it makes one of the sweetest
sounds a golfer can ever hear.

about

paula creamer has 10 wins on the LPGA

Tour, including the 2010 U.S. Open.

t h e m o s t i m p o r ta n t t h i n g
t o m a k i n g a p u t t i s h av i n g
t h e fac e s q ua r e to t h e
l i n e at i m p a c t. m y g at e d r i l l
h e l p s t r a i n t h at ( a b o v e ) .
a g r e at s w i n g t h o u g h t
t o s tay c o m m i t t e d i s k e e p
the putterhead low (right).

control the stroke

i mentioned avoiding a handsy stroke.

Trust me, it isn’t reliable. You should be
using the bigger muscles in the shoulders
to move the putter back and forth. Those
muscles are going to hold you steady on
those must-make putts. My putting style is
straight back and straight through. It’s the
easiest way for me to keep the face square
at impact, which will get the ball rolling on
the line I chose. I like to do a drill where I
put one tee on either side of the putterhead
at address—like a gate—and hit putts
trying to get the club to pass through the
gate. If I strike a tee, I know the clubface
wasn’t square at impact.
I began this article by telling you how
important it is to treat these crucial putts
like they were no different than any
other. This last piece of advice brings us
full circle. The final thought I want you

62 golfdigest.com | june 2018

 ADVER TI SEMENT

SUMMER
GOLF

Golf season is here, and in 2018 there's not a better place to visit for
world-class courses and adventure than The American Northwest.
ADV E R T I S E M E N T
BANDON DUNES
“The Bandon Dunes Experience” begins at the moment
golfers immerse themselves in the timeless game’s traditions.
Here, perched on the Southern Oregon Coast’s rugged
cliffs, five distinct links courses meld with the landscape as
if created by nature herself. The rolling dunes and dramatic
features reveal new experiences at every turn.
Bandon Dunes’ allure is also in the unmistakable sense
of pilgrimage. Golfers are bound by the voyage, brought
together by a shared passion, and always met with warm and
gracious hospitality. As the sun fades over the Pacific Ocean,
memories of the day are shared among friends, both old
and new. This is when it becomes clear. Bandon Dunes is no
ordinary golf experience. This is golf as it was meant to be.
When shared with loved ones, and in just the right
environment, golf transforms into a spiritual experience
that leaves an indelible mark on our memories. Since
Bandon Dunes' inception, the resort has aspired to foster
these experiences by reconnecting golfers with the game’s
roots. This is especially valuable for junior golfers and
their families.
Bandon Dunes is excited to share the Bandon experience with
junior golfers, or Junior Bandonistas as the resort likes to call
them. From Father's Day Weekend through July 31, parents can
treat their young golfer, 22 years of age and younger, to a free
round on any of Bandon Dunes’ golf courses after 10 a.m., so
long as that parent plays with the Junior Bandonista.
Golfers are bound by the voyage,
brought together by a shared
passion, and always met with
warm and gracious hospitality.
United Airlines has made the journey to Bandon Dunes
easier by providing seasonal nonstop service between
Denver International Airport (DEN) and Southwest Oregon
Regional Airport (OTH) in North Bend, just a 30-minute
shuttle ride from the resort.
For 2018, direct service includes twice-weekly roundtrip
flights (Sunday and Wednesday) from June 10 through Oct. 3,
on United’s Embraer ERJ-175 jet aircraft. The plane includes
a full-service cabin and seating for up to 76 passengers,
including 12 first-class cabin seats. Flights are scheduled to
arrive in North Bend at 1:38 pm PST and depart for Denver
at 2:10 pm PST.
The United Airlines service will continue to ease travel time
to Bandon Dunes and enables convenient connections to
cities across the U.S. and throughout the world.
For more information or to make reservations for your next
Bandon Dunes trip www.bandondunesgolf.com or call the
resort at 855-529-8799.
 G O L F A S I T WA S M E A N T T O B E
For reservations, please call (844) 529-8799 or visit BandonDunesGolf.com

Follow us
Bandon Dunes No. 16
Par 4, 363 yards
ADV E R T I S E M E N T

CHAMBERS BAY Never before had an Open venue presented Chambers

Bay’s topography and elevation changes. Massive dunes
allowed grandstands that offered sightlines of multiple holes
With tawny fescue grasses, towering sand dunes, massive from a single vantage point, along with the gorgeous setting
fairways, and breathtaking views of Puget Sound and the of the waters and islands of Puget Sound, the iconic Mt.
snow-capped Olympic Mountains, Chambers Bay Golf Course Rainier looming to the east, and the snow-tipped Olympic
brings Scottish linksland traditions to the Pacific Northwest. Mountains to the west. Chambers Bay’s enormous potential
In University Place, Wash., just an hour south of Seattle, overcame its lack of history and tradition, and the USGA
players of every ability literally follow in the world’s best succeeded in taking the national championship where it had
golfers’ footsteps on this walking-only, 18-hole championship never been before.
course that provides an authentic links experience. As the proven host of champions, Pierce County will once
Just eight months after Chambers Bay opened, the United again welcome some of golf’s top players to Chambers Bay
States Golf Association did the unthinkable by selecting a Golf Course for the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship
municipal course tucked away in the country’s Northwest in 2021. Established in 2015, the “Four-Ball,” as it is known,
corner to host the 2010 U.S. Amateur and 2015 U.S. Open is the newest USGA championship and replaces the now-
Championships. No course built in the previous 45 years retired U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship, which was
had ever been deemed worthy of holding our national established in 1922. Not only does Chambers Bay have the
championship, let alone a brand-new one. privilege of being the first municipal course to host this
event, it joins an elite list of historic courses that have hosted
Players of every ability literally a U.S. Amateur, U.S. Open and U.S. Four-Ball Championship.
follow in the world’s best golfers’
footsteps on this walking-only,
18-hole championship course.
The 2015 U.S. Open Championship was marked by its
many firsts. It was the first U.S. Open in the championship’s
115-year history to be played in the Pacific Northwest,
and the first U.S. Open played on fine fescue putting
surfaces. Chambers Bay was the first Open since 1970 to be
contested on a new course. And because Chambers Bay’s
diverse tee placements could extend a hole’s length by
100 yards or greater, the 2015 Open saw for the first time in
tournament history a hole played as a par 4 one day, and a
par 5 the next.
 Pierce County, Washington not only
features Chambers Bay, site of the 2015
U.S. Open, but also a rich culture with
exciting attractions. Experience the Northwest
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#24 America’s 100 Greatest Public Courses, 2017

Jordan Spieth
2015 U.S. Open
Photo Martin Miller Champion

COEUR D'ALENE
Dubbed the “Lakeside Playground,” Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
sits beside arguably one of the most alluring lakes in the
0QTVJYGUVYKVJVJGYQTNFoUQPN[ƃQCVKPIOQXGCDNGIQNHITGGP
at The Coeur d’Alene Resort Golf Course. High speed lake
shuttle boats take hotel resort guests to and from the golf
course, a beautifully maintained, 6,803-yard layout designed
by Scott Miller.
Coeur d’Alene and the surrounding area is a golfer’s play-
ground, with more than a dozen other area courses, including
%KTENKPI4CXGP)QNH%NWD0QKP)QNH&KIGUVoURTGUVKIKQWU
100 Greatest Public 2015/2016 ranking and another golf pub-
ADVER TI S E ME N T
lication’s “Top 100 Courses You Can Play.” Another must-play
KUVQJGCFVQ5VQPG4KFIGCUWRGTDRCT[CTFNC[QWV
UWTTQWPFGFD[0QTVJ+FCJQoUEQPKHGTƂNNGFHQTGUVUCPFET[UVCN
blue lakes.
From restaurants and shops to spas and beyond, Coeur
d’Alene is a town that gets hospitality right. The lakefront
downtown has more than 100 shops and restaurants and
there is a choice of accommodations in town, including the
ƂXGUVCTNCMGHTQPV%QGWTFo#NGPG4GUQTV6JGTGCTGGXGPVU
and attractions happening all year long in Coeur d’Alene and
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Airport (GEG) is just 30 minutes away. Call 208-664-3194 or
XKUKVcdagolf.org.
ADV E R T I S E M E N T

CIRCLING RAVEN
Circling Raven Golf Club continues to deliver a great
experience, unmatched service, superb conditioning and an
unbelievable value to golfers who expect nothing less from
the brawny, par-72, 7,200-yard Worley, Idaho course.
Revered course architect Gene Bates designed the layout
over 620 meandering acres of wetlands, woodlands and
Palouse grasses through the rolling hills of northern Idaho.
Circling Raven has earned praise since its opening in 2003.
During the 2015/16 season Circling Raven ranked No. 97 on
Golf Digest’s “100 Greatest Public Courses” and is currently
No. 100 in Golf Magazine’s “Top 100 Courses You Can Play.”
Golfers are likely to see moose, elk and bald eagles
throughout the expansive landscape. Grab a post-round bite
and cocktail at the clubhouse’s Twisted Earth Grill, shop in
the award-winning Circling Raven Pro Shop and end the day
with a soak, massage and more at the luxurious Spa
Ssakwa’q’n located just steps away from the course.
Circling Raven’s 2018 stay-and-play value packages start
at $219 for two people at the adjacent Coeur d’Alene
Casino Resort Hotel, which offers guests entertainment,
gaming and six restaurants. The Coeur d’Alene Tribe warmly
welcomes visitors, sharing their culture and native
hospitality. For more information, call 1-800-523-2464 or
visit cdacasino.com.
ADV E R T I S E M E N T

WILDHORSE
The bright lights of Wildhorse Resort & Casino shine like a
beacon in the wide-open plains of Eastern Oregon. Centrally
located between Boise, Spokane and Portland, the spectacular
resort offers visitors an exciting blend of top-notch golf, gaming,
entertainment, dining and relaxing hotel accommodations.
There’s plenty of action to be had at Wildhorse, and it runs
24/7, year-round. The resort’s 40,000-square-foot gaming
complex with 1,200 slot machines and gaming tables, five
restaurants, a 3D Cineplex, video arcade, and cultural center are
certain to keep everyone happily occupied.
Golfers won’t be able to resist the allure of playing the
resort’s award-winning, challenging Wildhorse Golf Course—
offering an extended season thanks to its high-desert plateau
location in the mountain foothills. The beautifully manicured
course features four sets of tees that extend its length to 7,112
yards, five clear lakes and 66 bunkers.
If you’re in a competitive mood and are available to visit
July 14-15, sign up for the Wildhorse Amateur Golf Tournament,
Eastern Oregon’s premier 36-hole stroke-play tournament.
It’s open to all golfers with a current USGA handicap.
Enjoy a one-night stay, round of golf and carts for two,
starting at $185 on weekdays. For more information,
call 800-654-9453 or visit wildhorseresort.com.
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STRAIGHT
SHOOTER
How to drive it in the fairway again and again
BY JOR DA N SPI ET H
with ma x adler

Y OU’RE DRIVING IT GREAT, scoring well,

then somewhere in the middle of the back
nine you spray a couple tee shots. That’s
all it takes to ruin a round. Were they men-
tal errors from getting tight or nervous?
Only you know the answer. More likely
your body just got a little tired. That’s
when every golfer’s undesirable tendencies come out, mine included.
Knowing this, I perform nearly all of my physical-training exercises
from a golf stance. Having the strength in your legs and core to main-
tain posture throughout the swing is important with every club, but
absolutely critical with the driver. It has the longest shaft, and you
swing it the fastest, so even small misses can travel 30 yards off
line. ▶ In this article, I’ll explain my bad tendencies and the swing
thoughts I use to avoid them. Additionally, to be a great driver, it’s
important to swing within yourself. It’s easy for players on tour to
know when they’re getting jumpy, because there are more and more
launch monitors on tournament tee boxes nowadays—and you can’t
help but look. My driver swing speed is 115 miles per hour, which gets
me 293 yards of carry. I can swing harder, but then I can lose control.
Carrying the ball 300, but into trouble, isn’t worth much. I don’t of-
fer this to brag—there are plenty of guys on tour who bomb it way
past me—but I think all golfers, especially amateurs, suffer now and
then from chasing those extra couple miles per hour of swing speed.
▶ And, as any success I’ve had has demonstrated, consistently driv-
ing the ball in play is a weapon all it’s own. Here’s how to do it. ▶

64 golfdigest.com | june 2018

Photographs by Walter Iooss Jr.
 ‘HOW DO YOU KNOW
I MADE A FULL TURN?
YOU CAN’T SEE
MY RIGHT ARM
IN THIS PHOTO.’
lead with the hip
if i get a little tired, my right
hip slides away from the target on the
takeaway, then buckles. The ideal position
is above. My right hip is pivoting—not
swaying—so my backswing feels like my
upper body turns over my lower body. You
can tell I’ve made a deep shoulder turn,
because you can’t see my right arm. That’s
the directive from my coach, Cameron
McCormick: “Hide the right arm, Jordan.”
But I don’t think about that arm or my
upper body during the backswing. Instead,
if I can feel my right hip and glutes
activated (you’ve probably heard Tiger
talk about this; it’s truly a useful concept),
I know my upper body will follow and find
the right position at the top of the swing.
66 golfdigest.com | june 2018
tilt the shoulders
from this perspective (left), you can
see how my right hip really turns behind
and away. As I emphasized, this move
with the lower body is the trigger to my
backswing. But another point worth
mentioning is that you can see my left
shoulder is lower than my right. An image
that sometimes pops into my head for the
top of the swing is, if my shoulders were
the wings of an airplane, the left wing
would be angled down and the right wing
up. And with my chest turned completely
away from the target, I’ve created a lot of
space to swing down and attack the ball
from inside the target line and hit up on it.
This path will produce the high, drawing
ball flight I prefer.
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wing down
if you’re watching a tournament
and see me miss a tee shot way right,
it’s likely my right shoulder lifted in the
downswing. When that happens, the club
comes down steep and to the left, which is
the classic over-the-top move that makes
the ball peel off to the right. Returning to
the airplane-wing metaphor I used for the
top of the backswing, a great thought for
the transition is an early change in wing
positions. To start the downswing, let that
right airplane wing (your back shoulder)
angle down toward the ball as the left
shoulder moves up. As you see (right), my
right shoulder is way lower than my left,
which promotes the clubhead to travel on
a shallow, inside path. Again, that’s the
recipe for a draw.
‘HOLD YOUR FINISH UNTIL
THE BALL LANDS. IF IT’S
DIFFICULT TO KEEP YOUR
BALANCE FOR THESE FEW
SECONDS, YOU SWUNG
TOO HARD OR GOT LAZY.’
68 golfdigest.com | june 2018
follow the flight
remember when i said it’s all about
keeping your posture? The finish position
is the big reveal. If I don’t hold my finish—
poised and still like a figurine atop a
trophy—I know it was a sloppy swing.
The slightest wobble means I got lazy or
swung too hard. I love the image below.
My right shoulder and belt buckle are
pointing at the target, which indicates
a full and committed follow-through.
And you can tell from my eyes that I’m
following the shot. A great habit is to
hold your finish until the ball lands. If it’s
difficult to stay in balance for these few
seconds, you’ve got work to do on your
core strength. But if your ball is tracking
center cut, admire it for a moment. OK,
that’s long enough. Now pick up your tee.
ONLY ONE WILL STAND
WITH MR. NICKLAUS

WHO WILL BE NEXT?

MAY 31  JUN 3
MUIRFIELD VILLAGE GOLF CLUB | DUBLIN, OH

theMemorialTournament.com

© 2018 PGA TOUR, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PLAYER APPEARANCE SUBJECT TO CHANGE.
beau hossler
ON TOUR LIFE, THE BEAU HOSSLER RULE & WHY WATCHING THE DODGERS IN THE WORLD SERIES IS
Photographs by Keena june 2018 | golfdigest.com 79

BEAU HOSSLER knows the
drill. When he was a junior
golfer growing up in South-
ern California, he had
talent, but it took some
time for him to find his
way. Eventually, he put in
the work to become a Rolex
Junior All-American.
A little later, he went off
to the University of Texas,
where he struggled as a
freshman. But he adapted
to campus life and went on
to earn national player-
of-the-year honors.
Hossler prepared to be
humbled once more after
settling in Dallas (where he
plays out of Trinity Forest)
and embarking on his pro
career in February 2017,
seven months later than he
expected because of a freak
injury. Only this time, the
learning curve has turned
out to be even shorter.
In just 11 Web.com Tour
starts, Hossler earned
enough money to secure
his PGA Tour card for 2018.
And since then, he has
made a habit of finding his
name on leader boards,
contending in Las Vegas,
Phoenix and Pebble Beach
in the early days of his
rookie season on tour.
A playoff loss to Ian
Poulter at the Houston
Open cost him a spot in
the Masters but was the
latest sign that the 23-year-
old is posed to join fellow
Longhorn Jordan Spieth
and contemporaries Justin
Thomas, Daniel Berger,
Bryson DeChambeau and
Xander Schauffele in be-
coming a mainstay on tour.
80 golfdigest.com | june 2018
most golf fans first heard
of you at the 2012 u.s. open,
when you were 17, still in
high school, and made the
leader board at the olym-
pic club. how often do
people bring that up?
There are plenty of people who
still recognize my name from
that. I’m very fortunate to have
had that experience, and it’s
helped me with exposure for
sure. But the biggest challenge
has been to make sure that
doesn’t become the defining
moment of my golf career.
●●●
you needed one year after
turning pro to earn a pga
tour card and join a lot of
other twentysomethings
in making the quick jump
from college. why has
this become so common?
We’re all friends and have had
success at the amateur and
college level, so once you see
one of them break through in
the pros, it becomes something
we all feel like we can do. Jor-
dan Spieth kind of opened the
floodgates for our generation.
The guy won his Masters when
he was 21 and has three majors
at 24. Well, we all played against
him as juniors and amateurs,
and we all held our own.
●●●
is there something,
though, about your devel-
opment that explains your
collective success?
In my generation, there are
more amateurs who played in
professional tournaments be-
fore they turned pro. When you
have experience at that level—
when you’re not playing for any
money but you’re learning and
you’re seeing how the courses
are—that’s invaluable. I played
in three U.S. Opens by the time
I was 21. I knew exactly what
I was getting into when I got
out here. Now, did I learn things
since I’ve gotten out here?
Of course, but the reality is,
I wasn’t shell-shocked when
I showed up as a pro.
●●●
what has been the biggest
surprise playing on tour
‘IF YOU’RE
NOT CONFIDENT
[ON TOUR],
YOU’VE GOT
NO CHANCE.’
full time? Just how much
each week takes out of you,
not physically but mentally.
There’s a lot going on at the
tournament outside of the golf.
It’s kind of a traveling circus
that keeps you busy all the
time. I played six weeks in a
row earlier this year, and that
was a lot. That last week, it was
Riviera, my favorite course,
and the tournament I was most
looking forward to. Well, I was
exhausted and played terrible.
From that point on, I vowed
I was going to do my best not to
play more than three in a row.
●●●
do you have to be a little
cocky to be a pro golfer?
Inwardly, yes. Obviously you
don’t want to act that way
on the outside, but if you’re
not confident, you’ve got no
chance.
●●●
so are you a little cocky?
Certainly at times when I’m
playing well. At all times you’re
trying to play your best golf.
And when you’re in that killer
mind-set to win a tournament,
that’s where you want to get to
when you tee off on Thursday.
●●●
what was the toughest
part of the transition
to the pros? It’s going to
sound strange, because you
don’t have classes to deal with
anymore, but finding time to
practice. You turn pro, and you
go from being an All-American
basically back to ground zero.
You’re starting at nothing. You
have your résumé, but that’s
it. So then you run around try-
ing to play wherever you can
to earn status. I played nine
straight weeks on the Web.com
Tour last year. The challenge
then is time management and
how you prioritize things when
you’re home. You’re there really
for very short periods of time,
so you don’t have enough time
to accomplish what you need
to. There’s a fine line between
being home and getting away
from golf, and being home and
accomplishing things to be
ready for the next tournament.
●●●
you decided to have a
childhood friend, jordan
guilford, be your full-time
caddie rather than hire
a veteran. why? It’s about
being comfortable out there,
and I think having someone
you have a really good relation-
ship with is very important.
Particularly when you’re
playing and it’s new, you want
to be able to look and see a
familiar face on your bag. He’s
gone from a very good friend
and a good caddie to obviously
still a very good friend and
an extraordinary caddie.
●●●
at the 2016 ncaa champion-
ship, you tore the labrum
in your left shoulder in
the middle of the semifinal
match. you’re one day away
from the finals, two days
away from turning pro.
how difficult was that?
Yeah, I had everything pretty
planned out in terms of that
summer with tournaments
and sponsors. It was a very
emotional high just getting to
that point, and then when I got
hurt it was a bummer. I tried to
keep a good attitude, but I had
never had a major injury before.
Fortunately, everything worked
out. But when you have your
career really in jeopardy over
something like that, because
you don’t know how bad it is
until [the doctors] get in there,
and it was bad. But you have to
keep a long-term approach and
realize the No. 1 priority is just
getting healthy.
●●●
you had surgery and a
layoff before you finally
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started your pro career.
you had no web.com status,
but you had sponsors’ ex-
emptions lined up. was your
game ready? Not really. I was
basically in a spot where I had
six months to get healthy, but
there’s a difference in getting
healthy and getting tourna-
ment ready. Healthy means
I go play golf and my shoulder
doesn’t hurt. Tournament ready
is, I’m going to play golf, and I’m
totally dialed in. And I was not
near that. I was literally, Let’s
just physically get ready to go
play 72 holes. I was just a shell
of myself for most of the year.
I didn’t have the ball speed
I normally have. But once I got
some status, I wasn’t going to
stop playing. I wanted to do
whatever I could to earn a PGA
Tour card.
●●●
when did you feel like
ok, i’m back? It’s going to
sound crazy, but not until the
Sony in January. Even though
I missed the cut that week,
I was absolutely bombing it
off the tee. And I was like,
This is where I should be. And
that whole stretch on the West
Coast swing, I played some re-
ally, really good rounds, and
I played some poor ones, too,
but for the most part I felt
I had my game back.
●●●
in hindsight, was there a
benefit at all to the delay
rather than jumping into a
pro career right away?
No doubt about it. I’m a bet-
ter person because of it. I have
more realistic expectations. I
certainly appreciated golf a lot
more than I ever had in my life
when I came back.
●●●
there is now a rule in col-
lege golf, dubbed the beau
hossler rule, that allows
teams to substitute for
an injured player in match
play at the ncaa champion-
ship. do you get a kick out
of having a connection to
that? Honestly, I’m not really
a big advocate for the rule,
and I’ll tell you why. I think
a substitution makes sense,
but there’s a slippery slope
with how it’s set up. A coach
82 golfdigest.com | june 2018
can basically claim anything
to be an injury and swap out a
player who’s not playing well.
I think that’s crap. It needs to
be a situation where we can
all agree that this guy is actu-
ally hurt. If they can make it
work where it’s really used for
the right reasons, I think it’s a
great rule. But I’m just saying
it’s kind of hard to monitor
that, isn’t it?
●●●
what would you say is
your perfect nongolf day?
Going to Game 7 and watch-
ing the Dodgers win the World
Series.
●●●
what was it like to watch
the world series last year?
(the dodgers lost to the
astros in game 7.)
It was one of the most frustrat-
ing experiences of my life. You
know how difficult it was to get
to that point. It’s one of those
things, you’re rooting so hard
that you don’t even really enjoy
watching the games. You just
want it to be over, and you want
them to win, because it’s so
stressful to watch. I was so fo-
cused on the result, I didn’t even
get to really appreciate them
playing in the World Series.
●●●
more stressful to watch
them in the world series
‘YOU’RE
ROOTING SO
HARD THAT
YOU DON’T
EVEN REALLY
ENJOY
WATCHING
THE GAMES.’
than play in a u.s. open?
Oh, for sure. Way more. Put it
this way: I was playing in the
final group in Las Vegas that
same week, tied for the lead in
my third PGA Tour start as a
member, and I was way more
nervous watching them play
in Game 7 than I was playing.
●●●
if you could have a
mulligan for anything in
your career so far, what
would it be? That’s tough.
You change one shot and you
totally change the experience
from what you learned, and
I’m not sure I’d want to do that.
I guess it would be getting in-
jured in the final of the NCAA
Championship rather than the
day before [in the semifinal],
so I could have played in the
championship and we maybe
could have won. I wouldn’t
even need to avoid the injury—
just wait one day.
●●●
is there a hobby you’d like
to try? I don’t think there’s
anything I’d do all that seri-
ously until I was actually done
playing golf. If I’m going to do
something, I want to be all in
on it. But I think it would be
really cool to take a golf course
that’s struggling and create
your own golf club. Where all
you have is the locker room and
a lounge area; you don’t have
a pool or tennis courts or any-
thing like that. And you have
a limited membership where
you don’t make tee times. They
keep the golf course in a play-
ers’ condition with a little bit of
rough and the greens are firm.
Where you can have really good
players look forward to going
out there and being challenged
on a daily basis.
●●●
is there a place you’re
thinking you’d model it
after? There’s a club near
Palm Springs called Planta-
tion Golf Club. They just have
a small, regular clubhouse and
keep the course in exquisite
condition. And they have cool
practice areas and a really good
playing membership. I think
stuff like that is pretty cool,
where you can go out and have
a game with anybody.
what’s the first website
you check out each morn-
ing? I go on Twitter for pretty
much all of my news.
●●●
facebook, twitter or
instagram: what’s your
favorite? I definitely post
the most stuff on Instagram,
whether it’s photos or videos.
And then I would say I consume
Twitter the most. It’s where
you can learn more, whether
it’s links to articles or direct
feedback from people.
●●●
other apps to kill time?
I use the realtor.com app a lot.
I like to keep up with stuff.
I’ve always been very entrepre-
neurial and business-minded.
With my sponsors, I’ll do photo
shoots with them and try to
dive into the business model
of what they do and try to see
what makes them click. I think
it’s fun. The thing we’re really
lucky about in golf, whether it’s
pro-ams or sponsors with tour-
naments or your own sponsors,
we really have access to a re-
ally wide variety of industries,
which is cool.
●●●
who has been your
most interesting pro-am
partner? Man, I play a lot and
probably will forget some really
big ones. I played with this guy
Jesse Biter in Hawaii. He lives
in Sarasota. He got started in
tech. He’s a pretty young guy,
and now he’s investing in that
whole Sarasota area in different
things, real estate and whatnot.
He’s done some really good
things for the community. And
he tries to give back a lot.
●●●
what aspect of your game
still needs the most work?
My patience level, for sure.
I’m not trying to be perfect,
but it’s tough to swallow some-
times the fact that you’re play-
ing 30 weeks and you want to
see the results right now. The
reality is, sometimes it’s just
not always going to be there.
But you’ve got to put the work
in, and if you stick to a quality
process, it will happen.
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 book excerpt

THIS

sit down before you read about the golfer who suffered a . . . fractured testicle

june 2018 86 golf digest

by michael j. young, m.d. the victim had
been hitting
golf balls at

I
EDITOR’S NOTE: Excerpted with permission
from The Illness of Medicine: Experiences of
Clinical Practice, copyright © 2018 by Michael
the range when
J. Young, M.D., GM Books, 263 pages, $30. he was hurt.
then he finished
’VE BEEN A PHYSICIAN for three decades, and the bucket.
handling Friday-night call duty was always a slice gone horribly bad
particularly stressful for me. Often it followed ’m an avid golfer. I love the game—the
a busy week and involved trying to avoid
problems over the ensuing 72 hours while covering my
practice and my partners.’ If Friday night was bad, the
I history, the architecture of courses,
the physics of how a ball flies. I often
find myself daydreaming about play-
ing a good round and how satisfying it feels
to hit a golf ball solidly. So how on earth did
weekend would almost certainly be difficult. Problems this golfer, hitting balls at a range, get here?
I knew the range quite well; I’d hit balls
came in multiples—and tended to go from bad to worse. there hundreds of times. It was double-
One such weekend began on a beautiful ably significant, causes one to bend over tiered, curved to allow balls to be aimed
Chicago summer night. As usual for a call and drop to one’s knees, barely able to utter toward the middle. There were numerous
night, I went to bed around 10 p.m., hoping a sound through the suffering. Embryologi- light poles, for those of us who just can’t get
to get a reasonably good night’s sleep. Often, cally, the testicle takes its origin in the vicin- in enough practice during daylight. Appar-
that was difficult, not because of any specific ity of the kidneys, and throughout gestation ently, the man practicing next to the patient
call but because of the anticipation of the (pregnancy) it gradually moves into the hit a nasty slice with his driver. The man
call. This particular weekend, my practice scrotum during normal fetal development. hit his ball so badly, with such force, that it
group was on emergency-room call, which The nerves and blood supply to the testicle ricocheted off a light pole and hit my patient
meant that we were responsible for any have their origin up high in the posterior smack in the scrotum.
“unassigned” patients, meaning those who aspect of the abdomen. An injury to the tes- The thought of the event—the sound of
presented to the ER without any previous ticle, from a sudden kick or blow, can conse- the impact, the pain involved—was dizzy-
patient-doctor relationship with a physician quently cause the pain to be experienced by ing. As I interviewed the patient before sur-
on staff. Many such patients had no insur- the poor victim where the nerves originate. gery, my heart sank that a fellow golf addict
ance and limited if any previous medical So with this type of injury, not only is there had suffered such injury while attempting to
care, and could therefore be the most chal- the local pain from the scrotum and testicle improve his swing.
lenging. There was no reference point for being struck but also the excruciating ab- But wait. According to my patient’s story
the treating physician, and the patients were dominal pain. of woe, he’d been injured in the middle of the
often suspicious of us and of “the system.” I walked into the ER around midnight day, and it was now nearly midnight. I asked
Usually they were brought in by ambulance and discovered, among other things, that why it had taken him so long to go to the ER.
to the closest emergency room. the patient with the testicular fracture, who “I had to finish my bucket of balls,” he
On this night, I was awakened around was lying on a gurney, was also articulate, replied.
11:30 p.m. for a consultation. I could predict educated and insured. I had reviewed his I was unclear if I’d heard him properly.
a long night ahead of me, along with a stress- scrotal ultrasound before examining him. Had he really just said he pulled himself off
ful remaining weekend, within 10 seconds of The blow to the testicle had been so severe the ground after suffering a testicular frac-
hearing the reason for the interruption of my and sudden that the actual covering—the ture and continued to hit balls? If so, I had
REM sleep: A 43-year-old man had suffered fibrous shell around the testicular compo- a new hero!
a fracture of the testicle. nents (responsible for sperm production He informed me that he’d limped back
nutcracker courtesy of eureka golf products inc.

The testicle is surprisingly resistant to
injury, despite its exposed location, front
and center, and despite being shielded by
very little. (Scrotal skin is quite thin, and
there’s no significant layer of muscle or fat
for protection.) With a predilection for just
hanging, the testicle would appear ripe for
injury. But it is the very lack of resistance,
the ability to be pushed aside in a compliant
scrotal sac, that allows the testicle to avoid a
significant injury when struck.
Most males who have gone through pu-
berty have at one time or another felt the
nauseating ache that comes with being hit
firmly in the testicle. The pain, indescrib-
and testosterone)—was split open, causing
the contents to be expelled from inside the
shell. It was sort of like a cracked-open egg.
You can only imagine the type of discomfort
this would have caused at impact.
I examined the patient, confirming the
diagnosis, and discussed with him the need
for surgical exploration to salvage the testi-
cle, if possible. In some cases, the damage to
a ruptured testicle is so severe that, without
viable tissue to repair, the testicle needs to
be removed.
Our conversation led to the man reveal-
ing how the injury had occurred: He was hit-
ting golf balls at a local driving range.
to his car after finishing his bucket, driven
home, and stretched out on the couch. Not
until later, after doing a Google search, had
he learned that a “significant injury” might
have occurred. He figured this must have ex-
plained the swelling and pain.
After hearing this, I wasn’t so sure he was
my hero anymore. If I had a scrotum that was
starting to look like a pomegranate, and get-
ting larger, I don’t think I’d be at home decid-
ing whether to seek treatment.
I took him to surgery and was able to sal-
vage the majority of the testicle. He did well,
and went home the next day. My weekend
was still in its infancy. Another day on call.

88 golfdigest.com | june 2018

 ++ +

DON’T MESS THIS UP

B Y G U Y YO C O M
US
OP
EN
u.s. open 2018 | golf digest 91
R
RAYMOND FLOYD, who won the
U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills in
1986 and is a longtime member
there, placed a phone call to
Mike Davis, the USGA’s executive
director, shortly after last year’s
Open at Erin Hills. Facing Erin’s
7,800-plus yards but massively
wide fairways—60 yards in some
cases—players whaled away with
impunity when typical winds failed
to blow. In the final round, winner
Brooks Koepka hit his tee shot on
the 18th hole 379 yards—with a
3-wood. Floyd, a close observer of
a Shinnecock Hills that in recent
years had become considerably
wider than in Opens played in ’86,
’95 and 2004—and planned that
way for 2018—was aghast. ▶ “I said,
‘Mike, we need to have a chat,’ ”
recalls Floyd, at age 75 retired but
still an influential voice.“I asked
him, ‘Were you happy with the
[fairway widths] at Erin Hills?
I don’t think you were.’ Mike told
me he absolutely was not. I said,
‘Well, it’s going to be on steroids
at Shinnecock, because it doesn’t
move and flow as much. You’ve ++ +
got it dead wide, and we’ve had t h e p a r - 4 1 0 t h , n o w s l i g h t ly l o n g e r
at 4 1 5 ya r d s , w a s t h e h a r d e s t h o l e i n
three really good U.S. Opens here the final round of the 2004 open,
with it tight and narrow.’ ” ▶ ▶ ▶ w h e n t h e f i e l d av e r a g e d 5 . 0 3 s t r o k e s .

Photographs by Dom Furore

 The alert from Floyd, combined with
conversations Davis had with smart people
in golf, must have set off internal alarms.
His reaction, expressed in action more than
words, was almost immediate. Within weeks,
the USGA undertook dramatic alterations to
Shinnecock Hills. It was highly unusual, be-
cause the changes were performed so close
to the championship and not long after a
three-year Bill Coore-Ben Crenshaw restora-
tion had concluded with the USGA and Shin-
necock feeling more than satisfied.
The tale of what happened, and why, is
illustrative of the USGA’s willingness to act
in response to the changing character of the
modern game. It also points up the need for
the USGA to get this U.S. Open right. Stung
by a long roll call of controversies and mis-
steps in U.S. Opens, its leadership on the
equipment front constantly under fire, and
with critical eyes riveted on a modernized
Rules of Golf rolling out in 2019, it’s impera-
tive that USGA officials deliver a national
championship we’ll remember for the right
reasons. To put it bluntly, it’s important that
they not mess this up.
The return to Shinnecock Hills intensi-
fies the urgency. This U.S. Open is no bold,
happy experiment, as was the case when the
U.S. Open went to Bethpage, a public course,
in 2002. It’s not an effort to prove that a his-
toric but short course could hold a U.S. Open,
a key subtext when it was played at Merion
in 2013. Nor is it a populist effort to take a
U.S. Open to newish courses and locales, as
was the case with Chambers Bay in 2015 and
Erin Hills last year. Shinnecock Hills is the
real deal, hallowed ground not only to the
USGA but students of the game and entities
the USGA needs to have in its corner. Not
unimportant are the commercial interests,
including Fox Sports, now in its fourth year
of televising the U.S. Open. The events of a
mini-disaster at Shinnecock during its last
hosting in 2004 notwithstanding, this is the
last place where a serious misstep should
elicit from the USGA the light-sounding
phrase, “We deserve a bogey on that one.”

a gloried past, but a stumble in 2004

nsurpassed as a U.S. Open

U test, Shinnecock is one of

five founding-member clubs
of the USGA. It opened in
1891, and in 1896, the sec-
ond U.S. Open ever was played there. Its
early design iterations were completely re-
done by William Flynn in 1931. After many
carefree decades as a hidden but respected
gem—the club is seasonal, teeming with
wealth and not particularly ambitious
about being in the spotlight—Shinnecock
burst to prominence in the 1986 U.S. Open,
when Floyd triumphed before a thrilled lo-
cal and national audience. The champion-

94 golf digest | u.s. open 2018

 ++ +
t h e g r e e n at t h e 1 5 9 -ya r d
1 1 t h h o l e , w i t h t h e t e e s t o t h e 4 6 9 -ya r d
1 2 t h h o l e t o t h e l e f t.

++ +
t h e pa r - 5 1 6 t h wa s t h e e a s i e st h o l e i n t h e
f i n a l r o u n d o f t h e 2 0 0 4 u . s . o p e n ( 4 . 8 0 3 s t r o k e av e r a g e ) ,
b u t i t ’ s 6 1 6 ya r d s t o d ay v e r s u s 5 4 0 ya r d s t h e n .
‘DID ERIN HILLS
INFLUENCE US?
ABSOLUTELY. . . .
THERE WASN’T
ENOUGH OF
A PREMIUM
ON ACCURACY.’
ship returned in 1995 with Corey Pavin the
winner, then again in 2004 when Retief
Goosen prevailed over Phil Mickelson. The
2004 tournament was tainted because of
dreadful, rock-hard conditions in the final
round, a USGA-perpetrated error that Pavin
calls “a mini-disaster, maybe a major one.”
But Shinnecock emerged intact. The 2017-’18
edition of Golf Digest’s 100 Greatest Courses
in America ranking has it behind only Pine
Valley, Augusta National and Cypress Point.
Shinnecock is unique. Playing to a par
of 70, the course at its best is stark, mostly
exposed and a bit wild, in mid-summer a
gold and pale-green throwback to seaside
golf at its most original. Its fairways, no two
of which run parallel, are a mix of flattish,
bending runs and subtle roller coasters. Its
many bunkers, some there for beauty but
most strategically positioned, are a little
evil. The course is sand-based and bouncy,
naturally fast and firm, and almost always
wind-swept. Its four par 3s are staggeringly
diverse. As a U.S. Open test it is insanely hard
but fair. Looking down from the incredible
Stanford White clubhouse, which summons
images from a P.G. Wodehouse golf story, you
see a course that is rough around the edges
but pure within. Everything about it con-
veys a sort of frugal opulence, much like the
old-world legacy individuals you might en-
counter on New York’s eastern Long Island.
The design, timeless and fiendishly creative,
defies attempts by the player to overwhelm
it. Get out of line, and Shinnecock, like an
1890s parochial-school headmaster, will take
a ruler to your knuckles.
Pavin, his language as inventive as his
shot-making, calls the look, “Shinnecockian.
. . . It’s distinctive in the way it looks and
plays. In 1995, there was just enough mois-
ture to hold a slightly green color. I’d played
a lot of courses by that point and had seen
courses that were somewhat Shinnecockian,
but there was nothing like Shinnecock.” ▶
u.s. open 2018 | golf digest 97
‘THE NEW TEES ARE
SO FAR BACK, I DIDN’T
KNOW IMMEDIATELY
WHICH HOLES THEY
WERE INTENDED FOR.’
changes add 449 yards
ike all courses its age, Shin-

L necock has required upkeep

and some updating. The most
dramatic work occurred be-
ginning in 2012, when Coore
and Crenshaw were called in to perform a
restoration the club felt was necessary to
keep the course faithful to Flynn’s design.
With the USGA and board members at Shin-
necock monitoring closely, Coore restored
lines and angles to the fairways from 10
new tees, chosen by Mike Davis. Bunkers
and other Flynn features that had become
obsolete in the face of driving-distance in-
creases were back in play. The tees, on holes
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 14, 16 and 18, stretched the
championship yardage to 7,445 yards, well
up from 6,996 yards in 2004. Trees and un-
derbrush were removed, making the open
terrain even airier. Every green was expand-
ed, the original contours left intact, but the
shapes more closely duplicating Flynn’s
greens as seen in aerial photos from 1938.
“I wouldn’t call it a restoration,” Coore
says. “We made very minor alterations,
not nearly on the order as what we did at
Pinehurst, Maidstone and Old Town. We
mainly polished, tried to ensure that align-
ments worked well from the tees. We did
do significant work on the right side of the
[par-4] sixth hole. It’s at a low point, and
the vegetation there had become prohibi-
tively thick. We restored it to a more sandy
character. But to be honest, I don’t think
we’re even a footnote to the story there.”
Coore’s low-key summation is under-
standable, in view of what came next. After
Davis spoke with Floyd and other golf-savvy
individuals he chooses not to name, a sub-
stantial narrowing of the fairways occurred,
in golf terms, almost overnight. Under the
supervision of Shinnecock’s superintendent,
Jon Jennings, a crew of 75 workers, toiling
15 hours per day from Sept. 17-25, removed
an estimated 200,000 square feet of turf—
almost five acres—from the sides of fairways
and replaced it with strips of fescue sod ++ +
sheared from Shinnecock’s nine-hole par-3 in this view looking north,
course and unused areas on the main course. yo u c a n s e e t h e f r o n t n i n e o n t h e l e f t
It also was seeded with a fescue strain as a n d t h e b a c k n i n e o n t h e r i g h t.

98 golf digest | u.s. open 2018

close to Shinnecock’s as they could find. The
target areas for narrowing primarily were the
anticipated landing areas for pros, 275 to 325
yards from the tees on the longer holes. For
the U.S. Open June 14-17, the fairways transi-
tion to a band of fine fescue, followed by the
wild stuff—the knee-high fescue and blue-
stem grass.
It was quite an adjustment, and Davis
acknowledges that what he’d seen in Wis-
consin last June played no small role in the
decision. “Did Erin Hills influence us? Ab-
solutely,” he says. “We went into Erin Hills
anticipating wind, and with the firmness
there, felt we had to present more width so
players could keep balls in the fairway. Look-
ing back, there wasn’t enough of a premium
on accuracy.”
Davis points out that the narrowing is
not especially draconian. “The average fair-
way width [at Shinnecock] in 2004 was 26.6
yards, the narrowest 25 yards, the widest
30 yards,” he says. “The average now is 41.6
yards. That’s 15 yards wider, a full 50 percent.
On the other hand, it’s substantially narrow-
er than what Bill Coore and the club had. We
100 golf digest | u.s. open 2018
felt if we didn’t narrow it some, the one ele-
ment the course wouldn’t have was accuracy.
I’d just point out that it will be the widest of
the Shinnecock U.S. Opens.”
Coore says Davis’ narrowing wasn’t a re-
buke of his previous work. “I don’t view it in
a negative light at all,” he says. “I don’t think
there’s any question that the last couple of
U.S. Opens showed Mike some things that
made them feel further alterations were
necessary. The game is a learning curve that
never stops.”
The par-4 18th hole, where Pavin
clinched his title in 1995 with a 4-wood shot
to the final green, might be the best example
of how Shinnecock’s width has evolved. In
a walking tour of the course last fall, Jeff
Hall, the USGA’s managing director of rules
and championships, said that the fairway
++ +
s h i n n e c o c k i s 7 , 4 4 5 ya r d s ,
up from 6,996 in 2004,
but after l ast year’s u.s. open,
t h e f a i r w ay s w e r e p i n c h e d
even tighter.
in 2004 was 30 yards wide. After the Coore-
Crenshaw restoration, it ballooned to 52.
Today, it’s 42. Says Davis: “A learned person
could make the argument that there’s still
too much width at Shinnecock. Time will tell
on that, but given what we know about the
weather and our experiences there over the
years, it should be an incredible test of golf.”
The narrowing is only one of several
steps the USGA and the club have taken that
seem to have made Shinnecock immune
from setup errors. The additional 449 yards,
combined with its narrowness, are potent
weapons that will prevent longer hitters
from hammering the course into submis-
sion—Floyd’s fear.
“I played Shinnecock with a member two
years ago, and the new tees are so far back,
I didn’t know immediately which holes they
were intended for,” says David Eger, who
was the USGA’s senior director of rules and
competitions for the 1995 U.S. Open. “Trust
me, the course is plenty long.” The rough,
according to Davis, will be four inches long,
“I have no concern about that,” he says.
Then there are the green complexes, the
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source of the nightmare in 2004. Despite the
course already being on the edge that year,
the greens were rolled on Saturday night, de-
prived of water and, with a dry wind erupting
Sunday from the northwest—the prevailing
winds are off the Atlantic Ocean from the
southeast—several greens went over the
edge. “I remember hitting a short pitch to
the first hole that year,” Pavin says. “I struck
it cleanly, yet the ball took one huge bounce,
then went off the back of the green. It was
shocking.”
The 189-yard seventh green was the most
notorious. Less than one tee shot in five
held the green. The first two players to come
through, J.J. Henry and Kevin Stadler, both
made triple bogeys. Billy Mayfair, in the sec-
ond pairing, putted into a bunker. The USGA
hand-watered greens between groups, the
first time it had ever done so to allow play to
continue. This was viewed as unfair to the
early groups that had suffered the worst of it.
Syringing during play has been done for the
health of the greens (former USGA executive
director David Fay points to Southern Hills in
2001). But to simply allow the competition to
continue, no.
“That was at the height of the USGA’s in-
fatuation with firm and fast,” says Fay, who
in 2004 had the job Davis holds now. “We
learned that there were limits to firm and
fast. We learned the hard way, and it wasn’t
pretty. There was a lot of finger-pointing, our
version of the Grassy Knoll.”
Not that there wasn’t room for some dark
humor. On the seventh tee, Fred Funk and
his caddie, Mark Long, watched Mickelson
deliberately hit into a greenside bunker,
which, incredibly, seemed to provide the
best chance at making par. “I said to Fred,
‘That’s definitely the play,’ ” Long recalls.
Funk nodded, but as he got ready to play,
he walked back to the bag. “Fred whispered,
‘I just can’t make myself aim at sand on a
par 3,’ ” Long says. Funk wound up playing
the hole conventionally and made a double
bogey. Mickelson, after playing the simplest
of bunker shots, made par.
It wasn’t only the greens. Shots that came
up short on the par-4 10th hole rolled ab-
surdly back down the fairway, a bad carica-
ture of the ninth at Augusta. A caddie for one
of the contenders that year recalls the player
trying to tee a ball on the practice range, only
to have the tee snap in half. “He said, ‘You
know you’re in trouble when they lose con-
trol of the range,’ ” the caddie laughs.
It’s all but impossible for a course-setup
disaster like that one to occur today. The sev-
enth green, like all at Shinnecock, is larger
now, allowing for challenging hole loca-
tions but few apocalypse-inducing ones,
such as occurred there 2004, as well as at
the 18th greens at Olympic in 1998 and the
poor choice at No. 18 at Southern Hills in
102 golf digest | u.s. open 2018
2001 (also won by Goosen). “Trouble his-
torically almost always can be traced to hole
locations,” Fay says. “Given a choice, it’s
probably best to go with the location that
is more benign. Nobody will ever go down
in infamy for setting a ho-hum spot. . . . It’s
a strange threshold, but you want to avoid
cutting a hole that can wind up on a video.
Social media is not always kind that way.”
It’s not lost on Eger that some people ac-
tually root for a setup feature to go over the
edge. “Three factions expect mistakes,” he
says. “The players, who aren’t familiar with
the rules officials, volunteers and staff, have
a sensitive eye for things not done just right.
They’ll always be mad about something; it’s
just a matter of the noise level. There’s the
media, which actually roots for something
to go wrong so they have something to write
‘WE LEARNED THE
HARD WAY [2004
AT SHINNECOCK], AND
IT WASN’T PRETTY. . . .
OUR VERSION OF
THE GRASSY KNOLL.’
about. Then there’s the public. They in gen-
eral like to see players struggle, to be kicked
around like they are at their home course.”
But other safeguards already are in place.
Although most of Shinnecock’s greens will
have roll-off areas suggestive of Pinehurst,
the seventh green and three others (3, 8 and
12) will feature collars of moderate length to
prevent balls from rolling into bunkers and
other crazy instances where punishments
outweigh the crime.
Perhaps most important, agronomy and
maintenance practices have advanced expo-
nentially since 2004. The advent of the Tru-
Firm device that measures firmness, another
instrument that measures soil moisture and
yet another that monitors evaporation, are
remarkable tools. These, in combination
with improved weather forecasting, will
allow superintendent Jennings, already re-
garded as a wizard, and Darin Bevard, the
USGA’s director of championship agronomy,
to control conditions with precision.
But Shinnecock is not Augusta National,
which has far more intimate knowledge and
control of its course than the USGA does as a
visitor. Davis at one point in our conversation
noted, “We don’t own the golf course, and
certainly we’re not architects.” But science,
in concert with experience and a solid work-
ing relationship with Shinnecock in place
since the 2018 U.S. Open was announced in
2011, should ensure a safe passage.
Could anything else go wrong? Of course.
Rules administration must be swift and ac-
curate, in the event of a quirky episode such
as Dustin Johnson’s ball moving on the
green as he stood near it preparing to putt
at Oakmont in 2016. Johnson was deemed to
have caused the ball to move and received a
one-stroke penalty that, under rules now in
effect, wouldn’t result in a penalty at all. It
wasn’t just the apparent subjectivity of the
rule that was at issue, but the USGA officials’
uncertainty and delay in enforcing it. Would
they administer more efficiently now? The
USGA and Shinnecock also need to be wary
of areas that could loom as hot spots, such
as an ancient, waste-like bunker short and
to the left of the green at the par-5 fifth hole.
A photo of it indicates it being neither fish
nor fowl, bunker-wise. Dustin Johnson again
comes to mind, with that awful instance on
the final hole at Whistling Straits in the 2010
PGA Championship. How to handle weather
warnings if a nasty summer thunderstorm
rumbles in? Still there as a reminder is the
1991 U.S. Open at Hazeltine, when a specta-
tor was killed by a lightning strike.
All of these issues don’t seem to have got-
ten the better of Davis, who has been with
the USGA in different hands-on capacities
since 1990. He seems exhilarated by the
return to Shinnecock. “I feel no tenseness
about everything coming off perfectly,” he
says. “I’m completely honest on that. These
great golf courses are like children. I love
them all, but I confess to being especially
fond of this one. I love Shinnecock’s history
and architecture, and I’m praying that what-
ever is left over from 2004 can be put to rest.”
When presented with the idea that a lapse
of some kind at Shinnecock could cost the
USGA on the other areas it oversees—rules
and equipment being the most high-profile—
Davis said, “If we perform really well here, it
can have a positive effect on how well we do
in other areas. Conversely, if we err in an area
of governance, it detracts from what we do at
our championships. Our mission—our North
Star—is to make the game better.”
In a perfect world, we see an unforgetta-
ble conclusion to the U.S. Open at grand old
Shinnecock Hills, capped perhaps by Davis
putting in a call to Raymond Floyd on Sun-
day evening with the greeting, “So how’d we
do?” Knowing in advance that the reply will
be a hearty, “Well done.”
Patience.
Repetition.
Dedication.
Time.
That’s what it
takes to become a
professional golfer.
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++ +

BIG APPLE FANS LOVE

PHIL MICKELSON.
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT?
BY STEVE RUSHIN

104 golf digest | u.s. open 2018

“T
OUGH CROWD,” Rodney Dangerfield liked to say
of his native New York, where the spectators are
often the spectacle.“New York is the place where
everyone will stop a championship fight to look at an
usher giving a drunk the bum’s rush,” Damon Runyon said
80 years ago, but it’s still true of every New York crowd, in every
era, as when Greg Norman invited a heckler at Shinnecock Hills
during the 1986 U.S. Open to meet him in the parking lot. ▶ Last
summer, a meathead at Citi Field provoked the perma-smiling
mascot of the New York Metropolitans into flipping him the bird,
for even Mr. Met, beneath his thick horsehide, can only take so
much. Rangers fans once serenaded head coach Phil Esposito
by exhorting him—in the familiar cadence of “Here we go,
Rangers, here we go”—to “Kill yourself, Espo, kill yourself.”
And though golf calls its crowds “galleries,” implying culture and
sophistication, it isn’t always the case at New York-area majors. ▶

NY u.s. open 2018 | golf digest 105

 When Sergio Garcia had the temer-
ity to challenge Tiger Woods for the
lead at the 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage
Black, then milked his grip for an eter-
nity before every shot, fans helpfully
shouted at him, “Hit the f------ ball!”
When that didn’t speed the Spaniard
along, fans counted his re-grips out
loud. “I love New York,” Sergio said on
returning to Bethpage Black for the
2009 Open. “I love the people around
here.” But it sounded more like a pre-
emptive plea to the verbally abusive,
the way New Yorkers of the ’80s and
’90s wrote “No Radio—Thank You” on
signs in their windshields, politely ask-
ing thieves not to break into their cars.
Brutalized by stateside galleries,
Colin Montgomerie once announced a
very brief boycott of American tourna-
ments, but he relented before that ’02
Open at Bethpage. Concerned for the
psychological well-being of the zaftig
Scotsman, Golf Digest distributed
buttons to Open attendees that read
Be Nice to Monty. Fans seemed to be
doing just that. “Excuse me, Mr. Mont-
gomerie?” yelled one, as Monty gazed
++ +
p h i l ' s fa n s t e a m u p d u r i n g
the final round of the 2009
u . s . o p e n at b e t h pa g e b l a c k .
into the middle distance. “Monty! I’m
a fan! I’m a fan!” When Montgomerie,
against his better judgment, let down
his guard and turned toward his ad-
mirer, the guy screamed a vulgar fat
joke at him.
And yet there’s one golfer that New
York fans love unconditionally. Phil
Mickelson made his off-Broadway de-
but at the U.S. Open at Shinnecock in
1995. He was practically a kid, having
turned 25 on the second day of that
tournament, but already showing the
fortitude and creativity that crowds
appreciated. He was just one shot off
the lead after 54 holes and earnestly ac-
knowledged that the U.S. Open trophy
was his dream. “It’s still a dream,” he
said after a final-round 74 left him tied
previous pages: philippe lopez/afp/getty images
for fourth, though he signed every au-
tograph, acknowledged every compli-
ment and generally emulated Arnie all
week, endearing himself to the masses.
Twenty-three years later, Mick-
elson has won everything but the
U.S. Open, and that final quest has
deepened New Yorkers’ ardor. They
still love him for his swashbuckling,
sympathize with his six second-place
finishes at the Open, and now pine
for him to complete his career Grand
Slam at Shinnecock Hills, where in
2004 the grandstand gallery on the
 A POLL OF 97 SPORTSWRITERS IN 1980
FOUND NEW YORK TO HAVE THE MOST UNRULY
AND ABUSIVE FANS IN ALL OF SPORTS.
seventh green chanted “Water! Water!
Water!” at the grounds crew when
Mickelson came to the tee, badgering
the guys with the hoses to soften the
green so Phil—and only Phil—might
stick his tee shot.
“I love playing in the New York
andy altenburger/icon smi/corbis via getty images
area,” he told Golf Digest’s Bob Verdi
in 2009, before the Open at Bethpage
Black. “People from around there are
incredible sports fans.”
Of course, these fans—and their
forefathers—haven’t endeared them-
selves to every athlete in quite the
same way. It’s safe to say that Mick-
elson, among left-handed-swinging
San Diego natives, has fared better
among New Yorkers than Ted Wil-
liams ever did. “The New York fans are
the worst,” St. Louis Cardinals catcher
Joe Garagiola said. “It’s a little better
now that they’ve put up awnings over
the bullpen because when they spit
on you it just drips off the awnings.”
And that was 1956, a more genteel era,
when men still wore fedoras to the
Polo Grounds.
A poll of 97 sportswriters in 1980
found New York to have the most
unruly and abusive fans in all sports,
followed closely by Philadelphia.
Naturally, this was offensive to fans—
in Philadelphia, who fancy themselves
second to none. “They say New York
fans are the worst and we’re second-
worst,” one told the Philadelphia
Inquirer in 1989, after a brawl between
Phillie and Met fans at Veterans Stadi-
um. “So when they get together, they
have to fight.”
The only other thing that comes
between New York and Philadelphia
is, of course, New Jersey. Payne Stew-
art, who competed in NFL-licensed
plus fours and golf shirts, wisely re-
frained from wearing Giants or Jets
gear at the U.S. Open at Baltusrol in
1993, so as not to alienate any fans—
and then was heckled for wearing
Bills gear. New Jersey can be confron-
tational. This year, “Saturday Night
Live” suggested it change its license-
plate slogan from “The Garden State”
to “Da Fuh You Lookin’ At?”
All the more remarkable then that
golf fans in New York and New Jersey
put Mickelson in the pantheon of
lefties they love: Babe Ruth, Bobby
De Niro, Willis Reed. Mickelson was
first embraced at the same course—
Shinnecock—where that fan called Nor-
man a choker on the 14th hole of the ’86
Open, after a double bogey in the third
round had dropped The Shark into a tie
for the lead of a tournament that would
slip away from him. “I haven’t experi-
enced this sort of stuff anywhere else
in the world playing golf,” Norman said
at the time. “If this was Augusta, they’d
have handcuffed those people and
thrown them off the course.”
That bum’s rush, as Runyon knew,
would have had its own audience in
New York—jeering, booing, blowing
raspberries, an act so synonymous
with the city that it has its own name:
Bronx cheer.
 ++ +
bobby jones won the 1929 u.s. open
p l ay o f f b y 2 3 s t r o k e s , b u t u n d e r t h e
n e w f o r m at, h e c o u l d h av e l o s t.
REWRITING
HISTORY
NOW THAT THE USGA HAS GONE FROM 18 HOLES TO TWO FOR U.S. OPEN PLAYOFFS,
WE LOOK BACK ON WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. BY DAN JENKINS ▶ On the sixth hole of sudden
death, Harry Vardon beats
▶ When the USGA announced this year that it was going to switch to a two- Francis Ouimet at Brookline
in 1913, killing one of the great
hole playoff and sudden death thereafter to determine future winners of the
golf stories of all time. Ouimet
U.S. Open in case of a tie after 72 holes, those who usually follow the cham- lives the rest of his life as a
pionship on TV had a perfect excuse to go happily singing and dancing into bartender.
the night. No longer would they be forced to call in sick at work to watch the ▶ Instead of Bobby Jones
18-hole playoff on Monday. Unless of course it involved Al Watrous versus beating Al Espinosa by 23
strokes in their 36-hole playoff
Aubrey Boomer. Who would care? ▶ I, however, slumped over in regret when
at Winged Foot in 1929,
the news hit that after 123 years of 18-hole playoffs, five playoffs of 36 holes, Espinosa wins the first two
and one of 72 holes, the winner of the grand old Open title has suddenly been holes to hoist the Open trophy.
reduced to what might as well be a coin flip no matter who’s involved. And A year later, Espinosa wins
obviously for television. ▶ It sent me staggering back into the past to see how the Grand Slam. Jones retires
to practice law. The Masters is
the two-hole playoff and sudden death might have changed history. Imme-
never created.
diate finding: In a shocking 15 of the U.S. Open’s 33 playoffs—hold still—a dif- ▶ The golf world is saved the
ferent winner emerges. ▶ Pardon me for suggesting that these results would agony of enduring its only 72-
have had a profound effect on the game’s illustrious history. But consider: hole playoff when George Von

u.s. open 2018 | golf digest 109

UNDER THIS NEW PLAYOFF FORMAT, SAM SNEAD
WOULD'VE WON A U.S. OPEN AND A CAREER SLAM.
1994
Elm defeats Billy Burke on
the first two holes in 1931
at Inverness. Celebrations
break out all over Toledo.
▶ After so many heartbreaks,
Sam Snead finally wins the
Open in the two-hole playoff
over Lew Worsham at St. Louis
Country Club in 1947. The
world rejoices. The Slammer
is no longer a four-time Open
runner-up.
▶ Lloyd Mangrum becomes
No. 1 on the FBI’s Public Enemy
list when he ruins Ben Hogan’s
comeback at Merion in 1950
by winning after two holes of
the playoff. Hy Peskin’s famous
photo of Hogan’s shot to the
72nd hole never makes print.
Mangrum escapes capture.
Last heard of living somewhere
near Auckland, New Zealand.
▶ After blowing a seven-stroke
lead in the final nine holes
of regulation, Arnold Palmer
outlasts Billy Casper on the
fourth hole of the playoff
at Olympic in 1966 to claim
his second Open. The world
rejoices again. National holiday
declared.
▶ The USGA calls an urgent
meeting to discuss the shocking
new winners of the Open, a
list that now includes Bobby
Cruickshank, Jacky Cupit,
Loren Roberts and Mark
Brooks. Name change of
tournament suggested.
Under further review, Jack
Fleck still beats Hogan
at Olympic in ’55, so that
nightmare continues, largely
at my expense.
110 golf digest | u.s. open 2018
▶ A list of the results of all 33 U.S. Open
playoffs, and how the new two-hole
aggregate-score format could have
affected the outcomes (asterisks show
years where the new format would
have produced a different winner):
2008 Tiger Woods over Rocco Mediate
on the 19th hole ater both shot 71 in
the playoff. New format: Woods wins
in two holes.
2001* Retief Goosen over Mark Brooks, 70-
72. New format: Brooks wins in three holes.
1994* Ernie Els (above) over Loren Roberts
in 20 holes ater both shot 74 (Colin
Montgomerie eliminated ater 78).
New format: Roberts wins in two holes.
1991 Payne Stewart over Scott Simpson, 75-
77. New format: Stewart wins in two holes.
1990 Hale Irwin over Mike Donald in
19 holes ater both shot 74.
New format: Irwin wins in four holes.
1988 Curtis Strange over Nick Faldo, 71-75.
New format: Strange wins in three holes.
1984 Fuzzy Zoeller over Greg Norman, 67-75.
New format: Zoeller wins in two holes.
1975 Lou Graham over John Mahaffey, 71-
73. New format: Graham wins in two holes.
1971 Lee Trevino over Jack Nicklaus, 68-71.
New format: Trevino wins in three holes.
1966* Billy Casper over Arnold Palmer,
69-73. New format: Palmer wins
in four holes.
1965 Gary Player over Kel Nagle, 71-74.
New format: Player wins in two holes.
1963* Julius Boros (70) over Jacky Cupit (73)
and Arnold Palmer (76).
New format: Cupit wins in two holes.
1962 Jack Nicklaus over Arnold Palmer,
71-74. New format: Nicklaus wins
in two holes.
1957 Dick Mayer over Cary Middlecoff,
72-79. New format: Mayer wins in
five holes.
1955 Jack Fleck over Ben Hogan, 69-72.
New format: Fleck wins in five holes.
1950* Ben Hogan (69) over Lloyd Mangrum
(73) and George Fazio (75).
New format: Mangrum wins in two holes.
1947* Lew Worsham over Sam Snead, 69-70.
New format: Snead wins in two holes.
1946* Lloyd Mangrum (72-72) over Vic
Ghezzi (72-73) and Byron Nelson (72-73)
in a 36-hole playoff.
New format: Ghezzi wins in two holes.
1940 Lawson Little over Gene Sarazen,
70-73. New format: Little wins in two holes.
1939* Byron Nelson (68-70) over Craig Wood
(68-73) and Denny Shute (eliminated ater a
76 in the first 18-hole playoff).
New format: Wood wins in five holes.
1931* Billy Burke (77-71) over George Von
Elm (76-73) in a second 36-hole playoff ater
the two had tied in the first 36-hole playoff
(Burke 73-76 to Von Elm’s 75-74).
New format: Von Elm wins in two holes.
1929* Bobby Jones (72-69) over Al Espinosa
(84-80) in a scheduled 36-hole playoff.
New format: Espinosa wins in two holes.
1928* Johnny Farrell (70-73) over Bobby
Jones (73-71) in a scheduled 36-hole playoff.
New format: Jones wins in two holes.
1927 Tommy Armour over Harry Cooper, 76-
79. New format: Armour wins in two holes.
1925* Willie Macfarlane over Bobby Jones
jones (previous pages) george rinhart/corbis via getty images • els: david cannon/getty images
in a second 18-hole playoff, 72-73, ater they
shot 75 in the first 18-hole playoff.
New format: Jones wins in two holes.
1923* Bobby Jones over Bobby Cruickshank,
76-78. New format: Cruickshank wins in
three holes.
1919 Walter Hagen over Mike Brady,
77-78. New format: Hagen wins in
two holes.
1913* Francis Ouimet (72) over Harry Vardon
(77) and Ted Ray (78). New format: Vardon
beats Ouimet on the sixth hole.
1911 John McDermott (80) over Mike
Brady (82) and George Simpson (86).
New format: McDermott beats Brady
on the fith hole.
1910 Alex Smith (71) over John McDermott
(75) and Macdonald Smith (77).
New format: Alex Smith beats Macdonald
Smith on the third hole.
1908 Fred McLeod over Willie Smith, 77-83.
New format: McLeod wins in three holes.
1903 Willie Anderson over David Brown,
82-84. New format: Anderson wins
in three holes.
1901* Willie Anderson over Alex Smith,
85-86. New format: Smith wins in
four holes.
 WHISTLING STRAITS ®
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HOLE 7, SHIPWRECK
PLAY WHERE CHAMPIONS PLAY
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Photograph by Walter Iooss Jr.
m y s h ot • 7 5 • pa l m b e a c h g a r d e n s • f l o r i d a ++ +

W
HAT COMES TO MIND when I think of the 1986 U.S. Open at
Shinnecock? For one thing, the car ride over on the Sunday
before the tournament started. Earlier that day, I’d lost at
Westchester after sharing the 54-hole lead. All my career I was a good
closer, but this time I played lousy and lost. It was a 2½-hour drive
out to the end of Long Island, and it started out quiet. Then my wife,
Maria, who until her passing in 2012 was my partner, my teammate,
the love of my life and my everything, starts asking questions.
“So what happened today?” she said.“It was just one of those
things,” I said. “I blew it. It happens.” “Why did you blow it?”
she said. I said, “Can we just forget about it and move on?” Maria
said, “We’re not going to forget it. We’ve got the U.S. Open this
week. What if you’re leading there? What are you going to do?
I want to know why you just blew that tournament.” I don’t
have a good answer. I’m fuming. It’s silent for a while. But just as
I start to cool off, Maria pours it on. “You never play well in the
U.S. Open. What’s the problem?” That did it. I stopped the car in
the emergency lane of the Long Island Expressway, and we went at it.
As cars screamed past, Maria and I screamed at each other. Our three
children and nanny were in the back seat, crying. It was awful. After
we got underway again, I spent the rest of the drive doing some serious
soul-searching. Which was what Maria had in mind to begin with. ▶ ▶ ▶

SOFTENING
THE STARE
RAYMOND FLOYD ON WINNING THE 1986 OPEN AT SHINNECOCK,
THE ART OF TIPPING, AND DEALING WITH A CHEATER ON THE GOLF COURSE
(PLUS BERNIE MADOFF). WITH GUY YOCOM
u.s. open 2018 | golf digest 113
my u.s. open “problem” was what the
USGA did to the courses. The setups always
seemed to take certain types of players out of
the game. Oakmont in 1973, if you took one
step off the green you were in rough above
your ankles. That took good short-game
players—players like me—out of the game.
Pebble Beach in 1982, same thing and more,
fairways choked off and other nonsense so
it was no longer a links course. Winged Foot
in 1974, forget it—it was impossible every-
where. Every year it was something, the
USGA taking these magnificent courses and
turning them into horrible versions of what
they were meant to be. Going into 1986, my
best in 21 tries was a tie for sixth. Bad setups
and a bad attitude equals bad play.
●●●
nobody seemed to know anything about
Shinnecock. It hadn’t hosted a U.S. Open in
90 years. The morning after our adventure
on the Long Island Expressway, I played a
practice round with our kids tagging along.
When we got back to the rental house, Ma-
ria asked, a little apprehensively, “So how
do you like the course?” I said, “It’s the best
course I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s so good,
they couldn’t mess it up.” It was brutally dif-
ficult—the fairways narrow and the rough
tall. But there wasn’t a single gimmick. It
didn’t favor short hitters or long ones, high-
‘FOR PLACES THAT
HAVE A NO-TIPPING
POLICY, DO YOUR
BEST TO IGNORE IT.’
ball hitters or low, draw-type players or fad-
ers. You could hit any club you wanted off
the tees; an iron wasn’t forced into your
hands. At that U.S. Open, Greg Norman and
Lee Trevino contended, and their playing
styles were completely different. Shinnecock
favors one type of player: a good one who’s
on his game. And I was playing well.
●●●
the first round was the meanest weather
I’d seen at a U.S. Open. When I teed off just
after 8 a.m., it was cold, raining and the wind
was blowing 40 miles per hour. Umbrellas
were turning inside out. I hit five greens
in regulation and shot a 75 that could have
been 85. Bob Tway led with an even-par 70,
which was phenomenal. You know how your
mind wanders to unusual things in your life?
When I look back at that round, I sometimes
think of Dow Finsterwald.
114 golf digest | u.s. open 2018
Here’s why. When I was 14 and growing
up on the Army base at Fort Bragg, N.C., we’d
play every day on the two courses there. My
dad, L.B. Floyd, was head golf pro. Waiting
to tee off, I looked over at the practice green
and saw Dow Finsterwald, a playing pro
who was serving his time in the military.
Dow, who went on to win 11 tournaments,
including the 1958 PGA Championship, was
chipping from a big pile of shiny new Dunlop
balls. When we made the turn, I noticed Dow
was still there practicing his short game.
And when we came off 18, he was still there
chipping. It made a huge impression on me.
From then on, I devoted 50 percent of my
practice time to the short game, and it saved
me countless times, most notably that first
round at Shinnecock.
●●●
i hung around and got closer to the lead. On
Sunday, as I walked to the 10th tee, I looked
in the gallery and saw Maria. She said later
that when she saw the look on my face, she
knew I was going to win. She called it The
Stare, a focused expression that told her
I was in the zone. It was an odd sensation.
Everything was vivid. My step felt lighter.
Watching myself on a USGA film recently,
it looked like I was strutting. Every shot I
faced felt like a foregone conclusion, like it
had already happened and all I had to do was
swing. It’s such a wonderful feeling. When
I birdied the 11th hole, I was briefly in a nine-
way tie for the lead. Anything could have
happened, but I felt like I was in control.
●●●
the fellow from the usga who showed me
that film kept pointing out that I missed a
lot of very makable birdie putts. It’s true. It
reminded me how little stress I felt. When
putts aren’t falling, the tendency is to get a
little exasperated. But it was like someone
was patting me on the shoulder and saying,
“Don’t worry, you’ll make some putts.” And
I did. On the day, I shot 66. I made no bogeys.
That’s hard to do.
●●●
at fort bragg , there weren’t always kids
around to play with, so I’d play with the
enlisted men. There was a Sgt. Smith, a left-
hander everyone called Smitty. As I grew up,
it got to where Smitty couldn’t beat me, so I
started playing him left-handed with a rental
set out of the shop. Pretty soon I was beating
him that way, too. Poor Smitty. I took a lot of
dimes and quarters from him.
●●●
golf wasn’t my only love. I was a baseball
pitcher. My dad had pitched some, and he
brought me along. He’d catch me. I’d hit a
spot low and away, and he’d say, “No good”
and move his glove two inches. When I grad-
uated from high school in 1960, the Cleve-
land Indians offered me a $25,000 signing
bonus, which back then was substantial.
I passed—I was better at golf than baseball—
but I loved keeping my hand in. In 1969,
when I was still single and living in Chicago,
I hung around the Cubs a lot and sometimes
even threw batting practice. Ernie Banks,
Billy Williams, Ron Santo, Fergie Jenkins,
that was a hell of a team. Randy Hundley, the
catcher, asked me to throw to him once so
he could work out an issue with his timing.
My fastball had a lot of movement, which
annoyed Randy. “Throw it straight or I’ll
get somebody else,” he said. “I can’t help it,”
I said. So he got somebody else.
●●●
during a western open one year, a buddy
of mine from Cincinnati showed up. He was
a huge horse bettor and had a lot of con-
nections. “Come to the track with me this
afternoon,” he said. “There’s a race that’s as
good as over. I know who’s going to win.” So
I went with him to Hawthorne Race Course.
He handed me a program and said, “Look for
Tangohoochie. That’s who we’re betting on.”
I looked and told him I didn’t see a horse by
that name. He said, “Tangohoochie isn’t the
name of the horse, it’s the name of the jock-
ey.” We found the horse with Tangohoochie
aboard, waited at the betting window until
the last minute, then put down a bundle at
20-1. Our horse won by eight lengths. The
owners didn’t show up to claim him. When
they did the mandatory urine testing, they
found the horse loaded to the ears with
drugs. As for Tangohoochie, he got sat down
for using an electrical shocking device.
●●●
guys like my cincinnati buddy were hang-
out people more than close friends. In Las
Vegas, I had great relationships with Moe
Dalitz, Lou Rosanova, Ash Resnick and men
like them. They knew what I did for a living,
but I didn’t need or want to know everything
they did. Most of the important people in the
old Las Vegas were reputed to have mob ties.
I knew they weren’t exactly Emily Post. But
one-on-one, they were smart, decent, well-
mannered and fun to be with.
●●●
here’s the lee trevino gambling story
again, with a little more detail. In 1965, I was
coming off a win at the St. Paul Open and
had gone down to Tenison Park in Dallas
for a little action. As I played, I noticed this
old man watching in the background. It was
Titanic Thompson, the legendary gambler.
He introduced himself and said, “You ought
to quit the tour and come with me. You can
make a lot more money in the games I’ll set
up than you’ll ever make in those tourna-
ments.” I told him I was honored but that
playing the PGA Tour was all I’d wanted to do
my whole life. Then he said, “Have you heard
of a guy from around here named Lee Trevi-
no?” I said I hadn’t. Titanic said, “Pretty good
player. He used to work on the driving range
here. He’s over in El Paso now. How would
you like to play him for a lot of money?” I told
him I’d play anybody I’d never heard of for
money, anywhere.
Two days later, I’m in El Paso. The stakes
were arranged. I’d put up $1,000 of my mon-
ey. Titanic and the guy who drove me out
there put up $1,000 apiece, so all together
there’s $3,000 at stake. It would be a single
18-hole bet, medal play walk-in. No presses,
just a straight bet, low score wins. Trevino
didn’t put up anything. He had backers and
would get a percentage if he won.
The first day, I shot 65, and he shot 63.
I was down $1,000. The course, Horizon
Hills, was hard as a rock with a greenside
bunker maybe every other hole and no
fairway bunkers at all. Lee really knew that
course. I wanted to play him again. The next
day I shot 64, and he shot 63. Now I’m down
$2,000. I said, “I want him again.” The guy
who took me out there pleaded, “Let’s go
over to El Paso Country Club. That’s a better
course for you.” I said, “No, I’ve never been
there before. I’m getting to know this course.
I know I can take him.”
The third day, we play for $2,000, double
or nothing. We’re tied coming to 18. I can
see it like it was yesterday. It was a par 5,
and we’re both on in two. He’s 20 feet away,
and I’m 18 feet. When he hit his putt, it’s not
halfway to the hole when I thought, It’s in.
It just had that look. It hits the hole, spins
more than 300 degrees and sits on the edge.
If you know common Bermuda greens, you
know balls never stay on the edge. Invari-
ably they fall in. Trevino went up to the hole
and waited a little longer than the stipulated
time. He put his shadow over the putt to
make the grass lie down so the ball would
drop. The whole time I’m reading my putt,
knowing his ball would fall. But somehow it
stayed on the edge.
Now I’ve got an 18-footer to win. I hit
that putt and drilled it dead center. It would
have gone in a thimble. I was back to even
for the three days. After I picked my ball out
of the hole, I spoke Spanish for the first time.
“Adios,” I said.
With that, when Lee came on tour, I hon-
estly didn’t think he’d make it. He couldn’t
hit the ball high enough to clear a one-story
clubhouse. He could move the ball incred-
ibly well, but I saw problems in store with
elevated greens and deep bunkers. Needless
to say, he adapted. I was wrong.
●●●
when i began investing with Bernie
Madoff, some close friends around Palm
Beach, hedge fund and finance people,
warned me to be careful. “Nobody knows
what this guy does or how he does it,” they
said. “If you decide to go with him, don’t in-
vest a lot.” My son Raymond Jr. is an equities
trader in Connecticut. He told me, “Dad, you
can’t put money with this guy. You never do
that if you don’t even know what he does.”
I invested anyway. Madoff lived seven
or eight houses down from me. The returns
were excellent. Not insane, but steady. More-
over, he was like a bank. You could withdraw
at any time. For six or seven years, I did very
well with him. Eventually I met Bernie.
Had lunch with him on my boat with some
other people. He seemed like a sweetheart,
and his wife was incredible. Then it ended.
Overnight, everything I had with him was
gone. I took a huge hit, but I also was very
fortunate. The returns I made with him over
the years mostly compensated for the one
big loss, so that on balance I wound up close
to even. Many people not only lost what they
had invested but had to provide restitution
for what they’d made in the past. That’s
where the most serious tragedies were. If I
saw Madoff today, I’m not sure what I’d do.
Punch him in the face, maybe. What else
could I do? He was a thief and a criminal.
●●●
take a small-town kid from North Caro-
lina, drop him overnight onto the PGA Tour
and glamorous places like Los Angeles and
Las Vegas, and he’s going to want to live a
little. I was single, moderately successful and
eager to soak it all in. Racetracks, nightclubs,
sporting events—I wanted to experience
it all. I ran with Joe Namath and Paul Hor-
nung. The Rat Pack guys, like Dean Martin,
who was a good friend and great guy. Clint
Eastwood and I ended up playing together in
23 Pebble Beach Pro-Ams. You learn a lot be-
ing around people like that. How to dress, get
a good restaurant table, who to tip, and how
much. How to earn and maintain friend-
ships. And most of all, how to enjoy life.
●●●
here’s what i learned about tipping.
First, there’s no such thing as overtipping.
That’s a myth. Tip at the limit of what you
can afford, keeping in mind that valets and
maître d’ will sense immediately if you’re
sincere about trying to take care of them,
which is the most important thing. Second,
prepare your tips in advance. Fold a few bills
neatly so they can be pressed into a palm on
short notice. Learn to do it during a hand-
shake; it’s not hard. Never show off, and nev-
er put the person on the spot. Next, if you’re
at a golf club, always tip the caddiemaster,
because he’s the one who makes things hap-
pen. Before Augusta National permitted us
to bring our caddies, I made a point of tak-
ing care of the caddiemaster, the late Freddie
Bennett. Magical things happened as a re-
sult. For places that have a no-tipping policy,
do your best to ignore it, though you didn’t
hear it from me. Finally, for the people who
don’t customarily receive tips, drop them a
card at the end of the year with something
inside they’ll appreciate.
i’m at the houston open, early 1960s. On
the first day, first hole, first shot, the guy I
was playing with ricocheted his ball off a
tree and into a swamp. Lost ball. Except that
when we get up there, the guy, who shall re-
main nameless because it was more than 50
years ago and you wouldn’t remember him
anyway, says, “Got it! Here it is!” and points
down to a ball in the rough. I said, “There’s
no way that’s your ball. I watched it go into
the swamp.” Even the marshal standing
there agreed with me, but the guy said, “No,
this is my ball. See the markings?” The ball
in the rough had his unique markings, but I
wasn’t buying it. I then asked him a very sim-
ple question: “If that’s your ball and it’s your
first shot of the day, where are the other two
‘IF I SAW MADOFF
TODAY, I’M NOT
SURE WHAT I’D DO.
PUNCH HIM IN
THE FACE, MAYBE.’
from the sleeve?” The guy turned bright red
and started stammering, guilt everywhere.
He was caught. But he stuck to his story.
When I called in a tour official to try to pro-
tect the rest of the field, the official said, “I’m
sorry, but we have to side with the player.”
●●●
my hero was arnold palmer. When I came
on tour, any question I had on an important
matter, personal or professional, I’d take it
to Arnold, and he’d advise me like an older
brother. At the 1965 Masters, I showed up in
a pair of madras pants. They were the “in”
thing, and I thought they looked sharp as
could be, but Arnold came over to me in the
locker room and said, “That just isn’t the
right look for here.” I thanked him and then
changed. I loved that guy.
●●●
only maria knew this about me, and I’ve
kept it quiet until now, but the truth is, I
never enjoyed the crowds. And I didn’t like
interacting with the media, which I felt were
dishonest. One thing I didn’t mind was pro-
ams. I really liked helping amateurs and
always followed up with letters, because it
was vital to the tour. But the other stuff ir-
ritated me, and after 50 years of doing the
same dance every week, I was glad when it
ended. I like being alone. I’m one of those
people who can be alone but not lonely. To-
u.s. open 2018 | golf digest 115
day I fish, hunt quail and bow-hunt deer
with a very small circle of friends. Every
two weeks, I take my boat down to the
Bahamas, where it’s just me, my girl-
friend, Jennifer, and the fish. The soli-
tude and private life are what I worked
for all those years.
●●●
my first major victory was the 1969
PGA Championship. All week, protesters
had been using Gary Player as a spring-
board to demonstrate against apartheid
in South Africa. On Saturday, as Gary
and Jack Nicklaus were preparing to
putt on the 10th green, a guy burst from
behind the ropes and charged across the
green. Unfortunately for him, Jack was
standing between him and Gary. From
the 10th fairway, I watched Jack raise
his putter with both hands, like he was
ready to cold-cock the guy. The sight
of Jack apparently gave the guy second
thoughts, because he went to the ground
with a second-base slide. Security was
on him within seconds. The amazing
thing was Gary’s play that week. Amid
all the chaos—people had thrown ice
in his face and heckled him unmerci-
fully—he finished one shot behind me.
●●●
i didn’t believe in destiny until Ken
Venturi won the 1964 U.S. Open. I was
paired with him for the final 36 holes,
and how he finished, I’ll never know. It
was the hottest day I’ve ever seen. Even
people sitting down in the gallery were
passing out. By the end of the morning
round, Ken was in bad shape. In the af-
ternoon, toward the end, he didn’t know
where he was. Part of the miracle was
how he kept hitting the ball flush and
pretty long, too. When he holed the fi-
nal putt and I picked the ball out of the
hole for him—he was too dazed and ex-
hausted to do it—I had tears in my eyes.
Some things are just meant to be.
●●●
my second pga championship came at
Southern Hills in 1982. We all have little
personal feats we’re secretly proud of,
trivia we might tell our friends over a
drink. My favorite happened that year
during the first round, when I shot 63.
Starting at the sixth hole, I made nine
consecutive 3s. I don’t think anyone else
has done that in a major. Some of the big
accomplishments, people have to wring
out of me. But that one, I brag about.
●●●
going into the 1976 masters, my re-
cord there was mostly lousy. The prob-
lem was the par 5s. I couldn’t hold the
greens with my 3-wood or 1-iron when
I went for them in two. Not many play-
ers could, because this was before the
distance explosion. The greens were
sand-based Bermuda, harder than your
head, and hard to hold. At the 15th, the
big danger wasn’t the water short, it was
the water long. The ball would hit the
green, take a huge bounce and go into
the pond at 16. I made a ridiculous num-
ber of double bogeys that way. I needed
a club that would hit the ball higher. I
went to a clubmaker named Bert Dargie
and asked if he had any 5-wood club-
heads. “Nobody makes 5-woods for
men,” he said. “I have some we make for
women.” I took five of them back to Flor-
ida and worked on them. Two of them
broke when I hit them. But I finally got
one just right, and it became an amaz-
ing weapon at Augusta. I just tore up the
par 5s, played them in 14 under. I shot 17
under and tied Nicklaus’ record of 271.
●●●
the last round I played was at Shin-
necock Hills last September. I’m a mem-
ber, and we played the member tees. It
was not exactly a replay of 1986, and
there were a lot of reminders that I’m 75
years old. I’d miss a shot short, leaving
myself the easiest pitch-and-run you’ve
ever seen. I’d chunk that one, then giggle
and move along, enjoying the day with
friends. Nothing about my game is the
same. But I did shoot 72 that day. I might
even have won a few bets.

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Undercover Tour Pro
The battle of dumb versus smart
n agent—not mine—once told me
A his secret for success was to recruit
golfers who were “really smart or
really stupid.” Average intelligence, he be-
lieved, had a strong correlation with aver-
age careers. Implicit in his confiding this
was that he held me in the former category.
Sometimes I wish I were in the latter.
I don’t believe there’s a sport where more
information is thrown at the athlete than
golf. To have an unthinking nature can be a
huge blessing. You can just disregard all the
TrackMan and ShotLink data and go play.
Of the top-125 players in the world, maybe
30 operate in this state of blissful igno-
rance, and there are at least four or five
in the current top 20. The following is a tee-
box interaction I overheard between one
such player and his caddie, who’s no Mensa
candidate, either.
120 golfdigest.com | june 2018
player “How far to carry that bunker?”
caddie “310.”
player “But we’re up a tee box from
yesterday.”
caddie “Oh, yeah . . . 340. No way to
carry it.”
Now, my caddie and I make small arith-
metic errors almost every week. It’s a mat-
ter of the sheer volume of calculations we
do. But come on. This duo eventually fig-
ured it out, but for pretty close to a minute
they were 60 yards off.
Some guys don’t understand their nick-
names. One golfer, a really good player,
had a last name that translated simply to
another word in a major world language.
Years transpired before he pulled some-
one aside and asked why people on tour
called him that. I knew another player who
carried two phones. He used one for his
American email address and the other for
his European email because he believed
it was impossible to access both accounts
from one device. Sometimes you wonder
Closeout
how these people make it through the day.
Of course, we all commit the little blun-
ders that come with being road-bleary. I’ve
flown home to the wrong airport and had to
get an Uber to pick up my car. Almost every
week someone forgets their golf shoes. I
know players who’ve shown up at tourna-
ments only to find they forgot to enter.
I think most of the “dumb” players are
smart enough to have linked up with a
caddie who really knows the game. In a way,
they’re brilliant for having turned their
golf into a reactive, instinctual process.
But if they didn’t have someone telling them
where to hit it and how hard, they wouldn’t
survive out here.
Overall, the tour is filled with more
golfers who aced their SATs or came close.
Lots of guys are just as clever as Bryson
DeChambeau, or more so. They know ev-
erything there is to know about golf and
will pore through stats to break down any
course and devise a game plan. As every-
one knows, Phil Mickelson is extremely
bright. He just tends to express his ideas in
unnecessarily complicated ways, so some-
times, it can feel forced. But if you’re not
wired like Mickelson or DeChambeau,
and you try to imitate their cerebral
approach to golf without truly possessing
the bandwidth, it can be disastrous. You
start overthinking every shot, and pretty
soon you’ve lost what got you to the tour.
It’s sad how many guys have calculated
their card away.
The tour isn’t exactly overflowing
with them, but there are players who
are more than happy to get into a deep
conversation—about the stock market,
politics, philosophy—right in the middle
of a tournament. Though when in doubt,
I don’t stray from the classics: football,
photograph by mirrorpix/getty images • illustration by tim l ahan
beer and how many good-looking women
happen to be in the gallery that day.
I think the diverse cross-section of
minds on tour speaks to what a beautiful
game it is.
The agent I mentioned earlier,
who targets only the ends of the intelli-
gence spectrum, has a sound theory.
Most players are wary of not being in the
middle. But if I were an agent, I’d scout
talent differently. I’d go to college or
mini-tour events and watch how players
held up on the last nine holes of a tourna-
ment. That’s what really matters, and
I’ve seen no link between brains and guts.
— WITH MAX ADLER
 Lower carbs. Lower calories.
Higher expectations.

2.6 g C A R B S
90 C A LO R I E S

TM

Drink responsibly. Corona Premier® Beer. Imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, IL. Per 12 fl. oz. serving average analysis: Calories 90, Carbs 2.6 grams,
Protein 0.7 grams, Fat 0.0 grams. Compared to 12 fl. oz. serving Corona Extra Calories: 149, Carbs: 14.0 grams, Protein: 1.2 grams, Fat: 0.0 grams.