Tabla de contenidos para Issue 1, 2022 en Golf Digest

FOR NEARLY TWO DECADES, CC Sabathia was one of the most imposing players in Major League Baseball, a 6-foot-6, 300-plus-pound southpaw who looked more like an NFL offensive lineman on the mound. But opposing batters would have undoubtedly felt more at ease if they only knew what was going through the burly hurler’s mind when he had the ball. “You ever seen ‘Finding Nemo’ where Dory is saying ‘Just keep swimming, just keep swimming’?” Sabathia asks. “I’d always tell myself, ‘Just keep pitching, just keep pitching.’ A lot of times I’d be singing that song in my head.” Sabathia’s golf mantra might as well be, “Just keep swinging, just keep swinging.” The former pitcher is spending more time than ever on the course—he just doesn’t spend much time when it’s…

SOME RECENT maneuvers on the PGA Tour bring to mind the time Howard Hughes, the richest man in America, tried to buy pro golf. He wanted Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus to play in Las Vegas at his Desert Inn but was turned down. “They didn’t need gambling on the landscape of the careers they were then painting,” explained the writer Charles Price. Later when Hughes was building his casino empire in an industry largely controlled by the Mob, he proposed to “establish Las Vegas as the Golf Capital of the World.” In a memo that became public, he wrote: “I am prepared to put up purses that will far exceed anything yet—$500,000 and even $1 million tournaments!” This was circa 1970, when total prize money for the U.S. Open…

Try my go-to for reliability Iron play is all about controlling ball flight. For me, that means playing a mid-trajectory shot that peels off to the right just a bit. I set up a little left of my target and swing to the top with my left wrist bowed to put the clubface in the position I want it to stay in through impact. Then, for consistency, I rely on body rotation in the downswing—not my hands—to control the face, so it’s a hair open to my swing path at impact. Another key: I make sure I finish tall like I am here (above). Shape it with your arms I don’t do it often, but I won’t hesitate to draw the ball when it’s the right play. I address it…

DRIVERS CALLAWAY Rogue ST Max/ST Max LS/ST Max D/ST ◊◊◊LS CLEVELAND Launcher XL/XL Lite/XL Lite Draw COBRA LTDx/LTDx Max/LTDx LS MIZUNO ST-G 220/ST-X 220/ST-Z 220 PING G425 Max/G425 SFT/G425 LST PXG PXG 0811 X/0811 XF/0811 XT (GEN4) SRIXON ZX5/ZX7 TAYLORMADE Stealth Plus/Stealth/Stealth HD TITLEIST TSi1/TSi2/TSi3/TSi4 COBRA Air-X TOUR EDGE Exotics C722/E722 XXIO XXIO 12/XXIO X FAIRWAY WOODS CALLAWAY Rogue ST Max/ST Max D/ST LS COBRA LTDx/LTDx LS/LTDx Max PING G425 Max/G425 SFT/G425 LST PXG 0341 X/0341 XF TAYLORMADE Stealth TAYLORMADE Stealth Plus TITLEIST TSi1/TSi2/TSi3 CLEVELAND Launcher XL Halo miZuno ST-X 220 MIZUNO ST-Z SRIXON ZX TOUR EDGE Exotics E722 TOUR EDGE Hot Launch C522/E522 HYBRIDS CALLAWAY Apex/Apex Pro CALLAWAY Rogue ST Max/ST Max OS/ST Max OS Lite/ST Pro COBRA Air-X COBRA LTDx/One Length MIZUNO CLK PING G425 PXG 0317 X/0317…

“YOU READ MARKET PROJECTIONS WORSE THAN YOU READ PUTTS.” “Cool standing desk—it matches your iron covers perfectly.” “YOU CAN’T EVEN BREAK 80 IN YOUR INBOX.” “Your swing has more hitches than a bad Zoom connection.” “You fudge your handicap so often you should work in accounting.” “YOUR STOCK OPTIONS ARE THE ONLY THING SEEING RED NUMBERS TODAY.” “Your pre-shot routine is slower than the Wi-Fi.” “EVEN THE INTERN IS TOO OLD FOR THOSE JOGGERS.”…

Add flow to your longer strokes Putting doesn’t come as naturally to me as the full swing, but I’ve managed to roll it great in each of my tournament wins. I use a conventional grip (opposite page) for longer putts. It helps put some flow into the stroke and get the ball to the hole. Interestingly, I don’t have a set distance where it’s time to switch to my other grip (left). It’s a feel thing. Steady the face to hole more I first tried this grip last February after a conversation with Mark O’Meara. My right hand was too active on short putts, making it hard to control the face. Mark suggested this style, which essentially takes the right hand out of the stroke. I’ve noticed significant improvement in…

WE DID THIS INTERVIEW AT THE CLUBHOUSE OF TEHÁMA Golf Club in Carmel, Calif., a 2,000-acre golf course and gated community that is Clint Eastwood’s vision of sustainability. While the 91-year-old actor-director hit balls on the range, wild turkeys and blacktail deer moved majestically across the club property. No wonder he fell in love with the Monterey Peninsula while doing Army basic training at Fort Ord, had his first legal beer there at the Mission Ranch Hotel, which he now owns, served as mayor of Carmel, where he has often said he wants to live forever, and has come to be synonymous with the area like John Steinbeck and the Salinas Valley. Along the way, Eastwood became golf’s No. 1 celebrity, perched in the tower at the AT&T Pebble Beach…

I was raised on No. 12 at Eagle Trace Golf Course in Coral Springs, Fla., with my brother, Nick, and sister, Lexi. We could play as much golf as we wanted, and we did. Lexi has always done her thing—that’s probably why she’s so good—but we’d pull her into sibling competitions. We’re a family back at the house, but when it comes to competition, there wasn’t much fun. It’s intense. Nick’s 10 years older, so I grew up seeing him play on the PGA Tour, and Lexi, two years younger, is obviously incredible. It got hard when people asked, “When is it going to be you out there?” Sometimes I wish people would talk about it less, but it doesn’t bother me anymore. I’m so proud of what they’ve done.…

Get it in the short grass When it’s crucial to hit the fairway, I go with a little cut shape off the tee. My typical miss is to over-cut the ball. It happens when my arms get disconnected from my body on the backswing. To make sure a cut doesn’t become a slice, I treat my arms and torso as one unit as I start back. Try it. You’ll feel like your backswing is abbreviated, yet fully wound (opposite page). Air one out When I want to reach back for a few extra yards, I tee the ball higher and make a bigger turn, which makes my swing longer (left). I’ll sometimes put my right hand on my right hip and mimic a backswing to rehearse this longer drive. I…

Simplify your swing to repeat it For consistency, I keep things pretty straightforward when I chip. If the lie isn’t awful or I’m not trying to get some extra height on the shot, I always use my stock chip. I have my weight on the front foot, play the ball slightly back of center and keep my lower body really quiet through the strike. Notice how straight my left arm is in the backswing (near right). That’s a key to solid contact. I often see amateurs trying to chip with both arms bent, and it hardly ever goes well. Get aggressive on special occasions You need some speed to hit a flop or to slide the club through the thick grass. To get it, I widen my stance, move my…

After our extensive review process, including player evaluations at the CasaBlanca Resort in Mesquite, Nev., there are more clubs on the Hot List this year than ever. One (true) answer is that they’re better than ever. Another explanation is more complex. The best golf clubs we have identified—138 Gold and Silver medalists out of 289 considered—matter because they resonate, adapt or discover ways to optimize each golfer’s potential, not just via more shafts or adjustability or even the strongly encouraged benefits of custom-fitting. No, designers know the number of golfer types goes beyond the two categories of tour pro and working stiff. What’s ahead is not just the best clubs in the history of golf, but the best clubs in the history of you. So stop sitting on the sidelines…

PLAYER COMMENT “Beautiful, understated head. Love the proportions. Annunciates impact. Even mis-hits were straight down range with a perfect combo of height and distance.” CALLAWAY ROGUE ST MAX/MAX LS/MAX D/◊◊◊LS $550 WHAT IT DOES: The biggest driver family in Callaway’s history expands the company’s use of artificial intelligence to produce four distinct faces that don’t merely enhance power but control spin. That’s important because large clubheads can boost ball speed but often fight excessive spin. A large central weight cartridge low in the back provides extreme off-center-hit stability. Callaway has also refined its “jailbreak” structure, an internal bracket that joins the crown and sole to stiffen the body and direct energy into the flexing face. WHY WE LIKE IT: Callaway found that adjustable weights aren’t enough to optimize performance, so…

After winning the 2012 FedEx Cup and its $10 million payday, Brandt Snedeker sat down with his wife, Mandy, to discuss starting a foundation. Both had gone to Vanderbilt and settled their family in Nashville, so they knew they wanted to support their local community. “We wanted to impact kids in middle Tennessee in a positive way, enrich their lives, give them opportunities they perhaps wouldn’t normally have, and give them the resources they need to be successful,” Brandt says. Although Brandt and Mandy donate to several charitable organizations in Tennessee, they focus most of their energy and funding on two groups. In 2015, the Snedekers had the opportunity to sponsor the junior golf tour in Tennessee. They went in with a plan: “We wanted to make sure the events…

WITH GOLF SEASON on the horizon, it’s not a bad idea to start prepping your body for better performance, says Kevin Duffy, one of Golf Digest’s 50 Best Golf-Fitness Trainers in America. “Not only will it make it easier to get your body used to making golf swings again, you’ll greatly reduce your chance of getting hurt,” says Duffy, who helps golfers at his gym, Rotational Power Strength in Acton, Mass. Here Duffy offers five exercises to get you started on your quest for a healthier body and better golf performance. Do this workout three to five times a week for three to four weeks before you get out on the course again, he says. “We’re talking basic stuff that wakes your body up, but I think you’ll feel the…

AT LAST NOVEMBER’S CME GROUP Tour Championship, I had no idea I set the record for consecutive greens hit in regulation on any major U.S. pro tour. All I was trying to do was avoid having to chip a lot from the difficult Bermuda grass around the greens at Tiburón Golf Club in Naples. But after missing my approach shot on the ninth hole in the first round on Thursday, I didn’t miss another green the rest of the week. I hit 63 in a row. It’s not unusual for me to hit 14 or 15 greens a round, and I think it’s because I don’t pay much attention to the hole’s location. On long approach shots, I aim for the largest area of the green. For shorter approaches, I…

LIKE MOST Pete Dye courses, TPC Sawgrass has a lot of closely mowed areas and contours around the greens. Miss your approach shot in the wrong spot, and the ball might funnel into the inside edge of a bunker leaving you with a very awkward sand shot like I have here. How do you deal with this lie? First, adjust your stance to make sure you can enter the sand behind the ball just like a typical bunker shot. To do that, open your clubface slightly before taking your grip, and aim left of where you want the shot to go (above, left) because the ball will tend to shoot out to the right. Now this is important: Add some extra flex to your knees and bend forward from the…

your driver should strike the ball on the upswing to produce maximum distance, but how do you know if you’re doing it? The good news is, you don’t need a launch monitor to find out. Instead, try this low-tech drill: Put a pair of small towels on the ground in front of and behind a teed-up ball, and then make a swing (right). Ideally, you want to hit the ball and not the towels, but striking either towel will tell you a lot about your swing. Move the front towel and you’re hitting down on the ball, which robs you of distance off the tee. The most common cause is that the upper body is swaying toward the target on the downswing. To improve, focus on staying back through impact…