Sommaire pour Issue 5, 2022 de Golf Digest

LANDO NORRIS is a young man always on the move—usually at speeds that would cause my Subaru to spontaneously combust. So it’s only fitting that I caught up with the Formula 1 star while he was in a moving vehicle—though not behind the wheel—on his way to the airport. Because when the British-born Norris isn’t driving, he’s often flying around the world. Racing has taken the 22-year-old to some cool places, and now it’s taking him to some cool golf courses. Norris made a May trip to the United States for a big race, but the highlights of the journey were away from the track, including a more leisurely drive than he is used to down Magnolia Lane. In addition to playing Augusta National (Norris beamed as he showed off…

If you’re on a bad run of holes, it’s tempting to try something different off the tee or swing at 140 percent—because, hey, what you’re doing isn’t working. Instead, you should be tightening your choices under stress, not multiplying them. In those times, I get the physics of the clubs to work for me instead of trying to fight them. My advice is, return to your most reliable option off the tee, even if it’s not the best shot for the hole or you’re giving up distance. Just get it in play. Normally with my driver, I try to air it out with a cut. But when I’m not hitting it great or accuracy is a must, I’ll go with two other options When I need to hit a draw,…

On days when you’re off with your driving or ball-striking, you can make things right with your short game. I use this “cut spinner” so much around the greens, it’s almost a default shot now. What is it? It’s a low-trajectory pitch with a high-lofted wedge and an open clubface. When it lands, it hops, then checks up. When you need to get the ball close to the hole on fast greens, it’s a get-out-of-jail-free card—but it does take more practice than the standard technique. First, set up closer to the ball with the handle vertical and the face slightly open (left). Most of your weight is going to stay on your lead side, and your head should drift slightly toward the target during the backswing. Then, as you swing…

1993 BRITISH OPEN ROYAL ST. GEORGE’S GREG NORMAN 66-68-69-64 (-13) NICK FALDO 69-63-70-67 (-11) BERNHARD LANGER 67-66-70-67 (-10) COREY PAVIN 68-66-68-70 (-8) PETER SENIOR 66-69-70-67 (-8) Greg was the best driver I’ve ever seen with a wooden club. He could hit it 300 yards in the air and place it wherever he wanted in the fairway. But he did have one recurring swing fault: He’d release the club out too much, instead of letting it arc around his body in the follow-through. That could produce an untimely hook. Early in the week of the 1993 Open Championship at Royal St. George’s, I could see Greg’s release was getting too outward. He needed to finish more around to the left. The best way to feel a more rounded follow-through is to…

2009 BRITISH OPEN TURNBERRY STEWART CINK 66-72-71-69 (-2) TOM WATSON 65-70-71-72 (-2) LEE WESTWOOD 68-70-70-71 (-1) CHRIS WOOD 70-70-72-67 (-1) LUKE DONALD 71-72-70-67 (E) MATHEW GOGGIN 66-72-69-73 (E) RETIEF GOOSEN 67-70-71-72 (E) Stewart has one of the longest, widest swing arcs on the PGA Tour. He does a great job extending his arms on the backswing and making a full turn to the top, which equates to big distance. (Last year, at 48, he averaged 307 yards off the tee to rank in the top 30 on tour.) In the days preceding the 2009 Open Championship at Turnberry, Stewart was not turning his shoulders like normal. He was extending his arms, but because his turn was reduced, the backswing was too upright—and he was getting narrow on the downswing. As…

Growing up in a household in which both parents were sergeants in the Air Force, Trey Valentine could predict a couple of things about his upbringing: He would understand owning a sense of discipline, and he probably was going to see plenty of moving trucks parked at his curb. From toddlerhood through high school, he and his family lived in Mississippi, Guam, South Dakota, Colorado, Virginia, South Carolina and Florida. Through those transitions, Trey used sports to make connections to new friends, and when golf became his focus after his dad, Fletcher, introduced him to the game, military courses served as his training ground. “Golf was the one thing I was most competitive in,” Valentine says. “I was obsessed with the skill it takes and chasing that feeling of being…

Kamaiu Johnson was homeless a few years ago. Now he’s running with corporate leaders on the course and in board rooms. Johnson grew up without much parental support, in Florida next to a municipal golf course. When facility manager Jan Auger saw him swinging a stick in his backyard, she invited him to hit golf balls. Johnson became obsessed with the game and turned pro but had no cash backing and sometimes lived in his car. Playing on the APGA led to a sponsorship deal with Farmers Insurance and an exemption into his first PGA Tour event—the 2021 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. But Johnson tested positive for COVID that week. It was devastating, but other tournaments were moved by his circumstances, and Johnson got exemptions into the AT&T…

AGE 31 LIVES Jupiter, Fla. STORY Two-time SEC golfer of the year at Vanderbilt with one Solheim Cup appearance and two LPGA Tour wins, most recently the Palos Verdes Championship. BACK ON COURSE I got that first win in 2018 and played in a Solheim Cup, but from that point on my career went in the wrong direction. To get to a place where I can win again is really cool. I’m now at peace with whatever happens with golf moving forward. club yards* driver 230 3-wood 210 5-wood 195 4-hybrid 180 5-iron 165 6-iron 155 7-iron 145 8-iron 135 9-iron 125 pw 115 49°wedge 105 53°wedge 90 58°wedge 75 * carry distance DRIVER SPECS Titleist TSi3, 9.5° (B-1 setting), Mitsubishi Tensei AV Raw Blue 65S shaft. The adjustable hosel…

GARRICK HIGGO AGE: 23 FROM: STELLENBOSCH, SOUTH AFRICA MY DAD LOVED THE GAME. He taught me how to play when I was a child growing up in South Africa. When I was 9, my family made the 13-hour drive to Johannesburg to visit our newborn cousin. I can barely talk about what happened. My dad, Guillermo, my mom, Susan, my older brother, Michael, and my younger sister, Calis, and I were all in the car when another vehicle struck us. My father didn’t survive. I got a letter from Gary Player, whom I’d met through my former swing coach and lifelong mentor, Cliff Barnard. Gary’s mother died when he was young, too. We developed a special bond. We call each other and talk about everything. Before the 2016 U.S. Amateur…

It’s natural to feel desperate when you can’t find the center of the face with your irons, or you’re spraying the ball all over the place. I’ve been there, and the way out is to pare down as many things from your swing as you can. That means resisting the temptation to try to make the ball curve or adding speed with extra hand action through impact. Instead, start hitting good shots again by getting the clubface in a stronger position and letting your body’s pivot do the work. Let me explain. If my clubface is skyward at the top of the swing (above, left), it’s in a strong or “closed” position. Then as my arms drop in the downswing, I get the clubface parallel to my spine (above, right).…

Putting slumps get magnified when you don’t understand what’s producing them. I figured out my issues and made my putting dramatically more predictable with the help of Mark and putting coach Phil Kenyon, but I’ll get you back on track. First, my story. I used to have runs where I’d ram putts in from everywhere, but my success obscured the fact that my lines and speed weren’t always great. When I struggled or was under pressure, I couldn’t rely on my judgment. Phil taught me the AimPoint system to read greens accurately, so I could be confident I was starting the ball on the right line. Now, way more of my putts look like they have a chance to go in on cold weeks. When I’m hot, like I was…

Arne Thomas remembers the moment three years ago when he realized he had found a valuable addition to his bag. Playing Oakmont Country Club where he carries a 2.4 Handicap Index, Thomas stood 205 yards out on the slightly uphill par-5 ninth. The hole was playing into a breeze with the pin behind the front-right bunker. Lengthy shots into firm, undulating greens require two things seemingly at odds with each other. They need to be hit long and with sufficient height to stop quickly on the green. The club Thomas pulled from his bag: a 7-wood. “When that ball went up in the air and landed so softly on the green, it amazed me,” says Thomas, who is 56 and lives in Sewickley, Pa. “I had never been able to…

2016 PGA CHAMPIONSHIP BALTUSROL JIMMY WALKER 65-66-68-67 (-14) JASON DAY 68-65-67-67 (-13) DANIEL SUMMERHAYS 70-67-67-66 (-10) BRANDEN GRACE 70-68-66-67 (-9) BROOKS KOEPKA 68-67-66-70 (-9) HIDEKI MATSUYAMA 69-67-67-68 (-9) Jimmy has always had an old-school swing with a lot of knee drive into the ball, which causes him to tilt away from the target through impact and make a more handsy release than you see in most top players today. It’s a powerful move, but he can get into trouble with too much backward tilt, requiring precise timing with his hands to square the clubface. In our practice sessions before the 2016 PGA Championship at Baltusrol, we saw that he needed to reduce the spine tilt and get his body more centered through the strike. A good feel for Jimmy was…

EVER WONDER WHY the majority of your chips never reach the hole? It’s most likely because you’re trying to help the ball in the air instead of hitting slightly down on it. The instinct to lift the ball can cause you to flip your wrists at impact, like a scooping motion. When that happens, the ball rolls up the clubface adding loft to the shot, reducing spin and inevitably keeping the ball from reaching its destination. To improve your distance control and hit solid chips, you need to move the club with your body’s pivot—not your hands. Pivoting allows you to strike down on the ball with a firm lead wrist and the shaft leaning toward the target. When your hips, chest and shoulders stop rotating, your hands take over…

Keeping with the spirit of limiting choices when your game goes crooked, distance wedges are easier to hit under quieter hand-action conditions. The most forgiving wedge shot comes from a swing with a wider arc and minimal hinging and unhinging of the wrists. When you’re struggling with these shots, it’s usually because you’re making a steep swing and hitting the ground in inconsistent places. One shot is heavy and 20 yards short, and the next one is clean and 10 yards over the green. Try a shallower, Steve Stricker method instead. Stay stable and make a backswing with very little wrist set (left). With less set and a wider arc, the attack angle will be much shallower and the ball comes out lower. You don’t need it to drop from…

KEN BENTLEY HAS HEARD THE PRAISE BEFORE. He has been lauded about the wonderful things he is doing for golfers of color by giving them a professional tour on which to hone their skills. But in many instances, the same people who pat him on the back and hand him their business card later forget how to answer their phones. So it was with learned wariness that Bentley listened to a man he had never met, Cisco Systems CEO Chuck Robbins, heap plaudits on the Advocates Professional Golf Association (APGA) Tour during a banquet at TPC Sawgrass in the spring of 2021. The occasion was the inaugural Billy Horschel Invitational by the APGA, the circuit started in 2010 by Bentley and co-founder Adrian Stills with grant money and their own…

In a glimpse of the guts and independence Aaron Beverly has shown throughout his life, he didn’t pick the most popular pastimes growing up. He began ballet at 3 and performed through high school. Though he dabbled in golf, he didn’t get serious about it until in his teens. “I was much better [at ballet] than I was at golf,” he says with a laugh. “My mom wanted me to be a professional dancer.” Beverly faced the tribulations that come with that, of course, and it didn’t get much worse than when he performed a ballet matinee and showed up at school still in his makeup. “Got ridiculed for that one,” he says. It didn’t matter. “My parents instilled that mental strength in me.” The 6-foot-3 Beverly does relish crowds…