Golf Digest July 2015

1 HIT YOUR 3-WOOD FOR ACCURACY 2 LAY UP TO YOUR FAVORITE YARDAGE 3 TAKE DEAD AIM AT THE FLAGSTICK 4 CHIP YOUR BALL FROM THE FRINGE Some advice has been around for so long that it has been accepted as automatic, and nobody ever questions it. But massive improvements in equipment and access to statistics for players at every level tell us that you probably need to rethink how you approach some situations on the course. Many players have had it drilled into their heads that they need to be careful, pick the lowest-risk shots and navigate the safest routes they can find. That can be true, especially when hazards and out-of-bounds are threatening, but in many other scenarios, a different approach will increase your odds of making a better score. On the…

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HIDEKI MATSUYAMA AGE 23 BORN Ehime, Japan RESIDES Sendai, Japan STORY The 2010 Asian Amateur champion won for the first time on the PGA Tour at the 2014 Memorial. “The words from Mr. Nicklaus held great weight with me,” said Matsuyama. “It was a special experience.” A TOUGH DECISION Most players want nothing more than an invitation to the Masters. But I was not sure I would play in 2011 after the Tohoku earthquake in Japan a month earlier. The people there pushed me to play, so I felt an honor and obligation to play the very best I could for them. IRONS SPECS Srixon Z U45, 2-iron; Srixon Z 945, 4-PW, True Temper Dynamic Gold S400 shafts, S-flex, IOMIC X-Grips There is lead tape on the back of all my irons. When I hit the ball, I…

“When I’m working on location, I always take my clubs.” KATHRYN NEWTON says it best: “I don’t know whether to call myself a golfer who acts or an actor who plays golf.” It’s a reasonable internal debate. Acting came first. She was 4 when she landed a three-year part on the daytime soap “All My Children” and has since appeared in a number of television shows and movies, including “Bad Teacher” with Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake and “Paranormal Activity 4.” In the latter film, she uses a 5-iron to smash a car window and escape the demon trying to kill her. Now 18, Newton recently graduated from Notre Dame High School in Southern California after helping the school’s golf team win three league championships. She routinely shot in the 70s, and her…

Before you recoil in disgust and declare that bare-chested golf is a game you’ll never play, acknowledge that the rules of decorum are in constant flux. The first Olympians competed in the nude. Male beach-goers in the Victorian era had to wear one-piece bathing suits that rose over the shoulders. As late as 1960, men could be fined for showing torso in Central Park. Today we traipse through airports in pajamas, and top CEOs wear hoodies. The courses that permit unprotected golf are still few, but the battle of shirts versus skins rages on. Basketball, soccer and tennis players in public parks agree: In severe humidity, no microfiber outperforms skin. Some joggers consider their route before going topless, though many appear governed only by vanity. Among all the breeds of weekend…

Finding yourself behind a big ol’ tree is no fun. But slamming your next shot into the trunk is enough to make you want to walk in. Like I tell my students, “When you’re in trouble, get out in one shot.” In recent years we’ve learned from TrackMan and other launch monitors that the angle of the clubface at impact determines a shot’s starting direction much more than the swing path does. So when players swear they swung left or right of a tree but hit it anyway, it means the clubface was pointing at the tree at impact. Here are four simple steps to getting around obstacles: 1 For solid contact, choke down, stand closer to the ball, and swing about 70 percent. 2 The old adage “Aim the clubface where you want…