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Y O U R L I F E , W E L L P L AY E D

JUNE 2021

TORREY 2021 À La West Coast

OPEN SEASON JON RAHM’S

GOT THE WORLD ON A STRING. IS MAJOR HARDWARE NEXT?

Locals Rule!

30 Best Muni Courses In America

ENJOY RESPONSIBLY ©2021. DEWAR’S BLENDED SCOTCH WHISKY, 40% ALC. BY VOL. IMPORTED BY JOHN DEWAR & SONS COMPANY, CORAL GABLES, FL.

CONTENTS G O L F. C O M JUNE 2021 / VOLUME 63, ISSUE 5

19

47

105

CLUBHOUSE

GEAR

LESSONS

50 Open Season Try on for size Puma’s new line of U.S. Open– themed golf shoes. It’s all the Ignite Pwradapt Caged tech with a decidedly American flair.

26 A Bit Gusty There are some things you should know about tending a pin in the wind.

Rules Guy is just the man to tell you about them.

110

116

Fearless

Last Off

28

Tour rookie Will Zalatoris has a gunslinger’s attitude and a driver speed hovering around 120 mph!

Free-spirited golf nut Matthew McConaughey is just trying not to make the straight line crooked.

Master Craftsmen The microbrew scene in San Diego County— site of June’s U.S. Open— is second to none.

112 Best Bunker Blast

111

Good sand play requires you to open your stance and your clubface if you want to save more pars.

Line It Up Cure your chipping woes with this simply effective tip: Color in the bottom groove of your wedge then slide it right under the middle of the ball.

56 Best of Everything Headcovers aren’t just for protecting your PINGs. They’re an opportunity to express your unique style and personality. Here are five of the best.

Spotlight: “Subpar” Merch Is Here

16

How It Works: Callaway’s Ball Consistency

24

Eats: Torrey Pines Avo Toast

36

Watch & Learn: Collin Morikawa

42

Data Driven: Distance Tweaks

44

COVER: JASON GUERRERO/CALLAWAY GOLF. CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: STAN BADZ/PGA TOUR; JEFFREY WESTBROOK; KEVIN C. COX/ GETTY IMAGES; MILLER MOBLEY/AUGUST; BEN MOUNSEY-WOOD; MICHAEL J. LE BRECHT; JEFFREY WESTBROOK; JOHN LEDESMA

6 GOLF.COM / J u n e 2 0 2 1

120

98

CONTENTS G O L F. C O M

20

21

U.S. OPEN PREVIEW

JUNE 2021 / VOLUME 63, ISSUE 5

58

64

Jon Rahm

Quick Study

In golf and in life, the fiery Spaniard has always been passionate, yet grounded— two qualities that will serve him well in his new role as dad (and U.S. Open favorite).

Paris Hilinski qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open two years after she took up the game.

Top 100 Teacher Claude Harmon III shows you how she did it—and how you can benefit.

68 It’s On at Torrey Pines Your 30-page, must-read U.S. Open preview, including what makes West Coast majors so special. Everything you need to get amped for our national championship.

98 Go Public!

Revealed: The Top 30 Munis in America. Discover the most affordable, accessible and flatout fun to play tracks across this great nation.

Ross, Tillinghast, Nicklaus... they’re all here.

This Golfing Life / Michael Bamberger

20

Rounds / Michael Corcoran

28

Every Shot Counts / Mark Broadie

30

Money Game / Paul Sullivan

32

Bryson Explains... / Bryson DeChambeau

38

TIGER REJOICES AFTER FORCING A PLAYOFF AT THE ’08 U.S. OPEN. TORREY SHOOK AS THE GOLF WORLD SCRAMBLED FOR SUPERLATIVES (P. 84).

4 GOLF.COM / J u n e 2 0 2 1

Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

COLUMNISTS

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From the Editor

THE U.S. OPEN IS RETURNING TO TORREY PINES after 13 years. I’m psyched about that.

Matthew Salacuse

In this fan’s opinion, it was the last Open to deliver the thrills and chills you’d expect from our national championship. Don’t get me wrong—there’ve been some great Opens since Tiger out-willed Rocco Mediate on the cliffs above the Pacific, just north of La Jolla. But none have matched the theatrics and heroics of those five mid-June days in 2008 (p. 84). I can still feel the roars, and I wasn’t even there.

I was there in 1986. That year, the captain of my high school golf team (of which I didn’t make the cut) qualified for the Shearson Lehman Brothers Andy Williams Open at Torrey. Instantly, it became a must-attend event for me and a small group of friends who, even as 18-year-olds, were bona-fide golf nuts. I remember six of us piling into a refurbished, brilliant yellow, late-’60s VW Fastback for the 80-mile drive south from our base in Orange County. No seatbelts, fistfuls of Sun-In hair product, maybe a few open containers and KROQ blaring whatever was new from The Smiths or Siouxsie and the Banshees. It was the epitome of carefree. We followed our buddy from No. 1 to 18 that day, and I was dumbstruck. Here was a guy I sat next to in Spanish class at Esperanza High going swing for swing against the logoed visors and pleated pants of the PGA Tour. Though I’d played Torrey plenty of times myself as a teenager with a headful of golf dreams, walking it and seeing it set up to challenge elite players was an awakening.

I can’t recall how our man fared. Almost certainly it was MC. But for my pals, the day solidified our love of the game—and, eternally for me, a love for Torrey.

The ride to the course that morning was freedom at its most unforgettable. Same for the jaunt home. We bolted from the Torrey Pines grade to I-5, cruising first through Oceanside, where, from the highway, you could catch a glimpse of Oceanside Muni, now Goat Hill Park, the current home of SoCal golf cool (p. 76). Then, through the lonely stretch near Camp Pendleton, where my father served two years in the early 1960s. Then past the towers of the San Onofre nuclear power plant and hallowed surf spots like Trestles, just south of San Clemente. And, finally, home.

Yeah, here’s to memories, the wonders of the open road and a great U.S. Open.

David DeNunzio Editor-In-Chief

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Letters

Glade Tidings

From left: Andrew Redington/Getty Images; Belle Glade Municipal Golf Club

Paging Dr. Phil...

The story “View from the Top” (April) was incredibly enjoyable and revealing, with perspectives from 18 different past Masters champions on what to expect from each hole at Augusta National. There was a gaping hole in its scope, however: Where was Phil Mickelson, a three-time Masters winner and easily one of the most popular golfers in Masters history? The omission of Lefty from this story, which was not even explained by an editor’s note (which, with the circumstances, would have been demanded, given the impact Mickelson had on the 21st-century history of the Masters), effectively had me yearning for more.

—Kurt Nielsen, Closter, N.J.

Kurt—We tried.… —Ed. I Like Mike

I read the interview with actor Michael Douglas in the May issue (Last Off ).

Loved it. I’ve caddied at the Northern Trust at Riviera since 1993, and back in the day I got the call to look after Michael and his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, at the celebrity event held the Saturday before the official Wednesday pro-am.

Obviously, I was thrilled.

On the 2nd hole, Michael, for some reason, teed off from the blues instead of the whites. His drive hit the white marker in front of us and rebounded

toward the group. Thinking he was in danger, he bailed out only to step on NBC golf announcer Dan Hicks’ freshly made sandwich. I tried not to chuckle too hard.

It was a wonderful day. I called my daughter and Catherine chatted with her. Ms. Zeta-Jones and I even shared a chardonnay on the veranda after the round. Michael and Dan were great, leaving after 17 holes to film an interview.

Needless to say, my friends and the other caddies were a tad bit jealous. Thanks for rekindling the memory.

—Jeffrey Cushanick, Quartz Hill, Calif.

David DeNunzio’s From the Editor letter in the May issue brought back memories of growing up in Belle Glade, Fla., and playing golf at Belle Glade GC. My second-oldest sister introduced me to the game when I was nine. She lived in Clewiston, another town on the southern tip of Lake Okeechobee, and my first rounds of golf were played with her, using a set of mismatched clubs her husband gave me. During that time Belle Glade had but nine holes and two sets of tees—play both for a full 18. As a preteen and teenager, my friends and I would play from dawn to well after dusk in the summer, often finishing in total darkness and aiming our final approach shots at the lights on the clubhouse. We’d hunt for lost balls in the muddy ponds and canals along the Hoover Dike that bordered what used to be the 2nd hole. What a magical time of learning and growing!

I’m well retired now, and I play two to three times a week. Over the years, whenever I visited Belle Glade, I always made a point to ride by the course.

I’d look out at the old 9-holer where I learned the game and recall all of the special times, much like I did when I read Mr. DeNunzio’s letter. I appreciate it.

What a joy this game is.

—Bill Norris, via e-mail

DROP US A LINE SOMETIME! Please send us your comments, opinions, thoughts and suggestions. Letters may be edited for clarity and brevity if published.

E-mail the editors at golfletters@golf.com.

15

Subpar Gear

Your favorite golf podcast now has merchandise! GOLF’s “Subpar” has launched a brand-new line of T-shirts, hoodies, hats and visors for its loyal listeners to wear proudly. Hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz have captivated audiences with their freewheeling conversations and must-listen interviews with golf’s biggest names, including Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler and more. Their reach goes beyond the golf world with celebs like Charles Barkley and Tony Romo stopping by the studio for candid banter you won’t find anywhere else. Pour out some birdie juice and get amongst it with the boys in your one-of-a-kind “Subpar” swag. ($30 to $50) —Tim Reilly

16 GOLF.COM / J u n e 2 0 2 1

Take a photo of this code to shop all of the new “Subpar” merch in the Golf.com Pro Shop

Jeffrey Westbrook; Styling: Julie Flynn for Halley Resources

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Inspire Greatness

Clubhouse Top: Mark Degnan/Torrey Pines Golf Course; Bottom: Courtesy TaylorMade

G O L F. C O M / S M A R T G O L F S TA R T S H E R E / J U N E 2 0 2 1

High Times IS THE WEST COAST the best coast for majors?

Until we spot paragliders over Oakmont, let’s at least agree that it’s the breeziest place to watch the best compete. California’s beachside Torrey Pines gets a serious flyby in our 2021 U.S. Open Preview (p. 68).

$43

The cost of playing the 10th-ranked track on GOLF’s debut list of the Top 30 Muni Courses in America.

So if you’re anywhere near El Paso... p. 98

“This is one of those days where you clear your head in the ocean, then go and make some birdies.” p. 76

IT’S PERSONAL PICKING A NEW DRIVER IS NOT A ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL PROPOSITION. AND THAT’S REALLY GREAT NEWS. p. 52

19

Clubhouse In 2004, the First Tee Open at Pebble featured Ferris, Palmer and perfectly practical bucket hats.

This Golfing Life with Michael Bamberger Friends of the Game There are people deep in the background who impact our sport profoundly.

Dick Ferris—pal of Arnie, force in West Coast golf—is one of them.

Single Digits This month, Torrey will hosts its second U.S. Open, and the 14th for Cali. Alas, there’s no such reboot for some one-and-doners.

20 GOLF.COM / J u n e 2 0 2 1

Lonely Star State Only three Texas courses have hosted a men’s U.S. Open, all one-and-out: Fort Worth’s Colonial (1941), Dallas’ Northwood Club (1952) and Houston’s Champions GC (1969).

your life more than you might know. One Dick Ferris innovation: Call United for a flight, connect with Hertz and Hilton on the same call. He knew our needs. A flight, a ride, a bed. A tee time.

That last item is the biggest thing Dick Ferris did for us. He helped Pebble Beach reclaim its place as the ultimate American bucket-list golf resort. In 2027, the U.S. Open will return to Pebble, as it must. Talk about prime-time and center stage.

The Open at Pebble.

For 20 years, starting in 1979, Pebble Beach had a series of owners. From what I could tell, they were milking it dry. You could pay an outrageous green fee and have no chance of finishing. Then Ferris came in—with Palmer, Clint Eastwood and Peter Ueberroth—and bought the club from Japanese ownership. The two luminaries in the middle were the ultimate closers.

(Who’s going to say no to Arnold? To Dirty Harry?) Ueberroth, the former baseball commissioner, was the group’s big-picture man. Ferris’ job was to get the trains to run on time again, in the bag room, on the course, in the kitchens and bars. Ferris came of age in the prosperity of America in the ’50s. Made in America is stamped on his life and, once again, on Pebble.

He’s funny because he’s direct. Ten years ago, when the Presidents Cup was at Royal Melbourne, Tim Finchem, as Tour commissioner, asked Ferris who he wanted to follow.

Tiger? Phil? Adam Scott? Arrangements would be made.

“Roger Maltbie,” Ferris said.

Illinoised The Prairie State has the distinction of a record five one-time-only hosts: Glen View Club (1904), Onwentsia (1906), Minikahda (1916), Skokie (1922) and North Shore (1933).

California Schemin’ Los Angeles CC has gotten the nod (its first) for the U.S. Open, in 2023, but don’t bemoan nearby rival and one-and-doner Riviera CC (1948)—it will host golf for the 2028 Olympic Games.

Stan Badz/PGA Tour

a U.S. Open on a public course, on the Pacific, in California. Prime-time golf for millions of us, straight outta Torrey. Check out this Sunday. Morning brunch with the fam. Afternoon golf with your regulars. Pizza for supper. Afterward: Find the clicker and settle in for showtime. Your HD TV, our national championship. DJ driving on the cliffside 4th. JT putting on the windswept 11th. Jay at large, taking the whole thing in.

No, you don’t know Jay. (Unless you do.) Jay Rains, San Diego lawyer. The man who had the idea, 20 or so years ago, that Torrey Pines South could be a U.S. Open course in the first place.

No Jay Rains, no Tiger–Rocco playoff in 2008. No Bryson on the driving range this year, working up a sweat in the sweet dusk air.

Every course with ambition has a Jay Rains, a person who dreams in green and knows how to get things done. The late Sandy Tatum, for instance, at Harding Park, where the PGA Championship was played memorably last year. What Tatum knew was the promise of a run-down city course. What he figured out was Willie Brown, legendary San Francisco mayor.

Come together.

Which gets us to Dick Ferris of Chicago, Orlando—and the Pebble Beach Golf Links (to complete this visit to a trio of anybody-can-play-’em major venues in the Golden State). Ferris is a former CEO of United and a former chairman of the PGA Tour board. He was close to Arnold Palmer. He has impacted THIS IS GONNA BE GOOD:

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Clubhouse

ON THE NUMBER U.S. OPEN EDITION +7

–1

Tiger Woods’ cumulative opening hole score in the ’08 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, including bogey on the par-4 10th and three doubles on the par-4 1st.

The cumulative 72-hole score for both Woods and Rocco Mediate, who became the first players to finish a U.S. Open under par in three years.

12

The approximate distance in feet of Woods’ playoff-forcing birdie on the 72nd hole at Torrey Pines. Rocco did not expect anything different.

(See pg. 84)

The Pebble Beach rebirth posse (clockwise from top right): Palmer, Ferris, Ueberroth, Eastwood and former PBGL CEO Bill Perocchi.

“Roger?” Maltbie was there as a TV commentator. “Why Roger?”

“He’s got a cart.” Dick needed to get off his feet. He and his buddies had been playing daybreak golf at nearby courses. Of course! Dick liked to play.

And now, at 84, Dick Ferris is showing more game than ever. He has advanced ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease. No matter: In late April, Ferris and an old friend, Sam Reeves, played in a three-day, greater Pebble team event called The Swallows.

The Ferris–Reeves team, 170 years between them, received 38 combined shots. That is, their regular handicaps. There were 42 teams. The old men beat 41 of them. In a normal year, the winners are booed. This year, everybody stood and clapped and many cried. Dick Ferris, tough old bastard, can’t swallow food any more. He can’t talk. He struggles to breathe. But he can play and when he can’t he can try.

“In my 78 years, I have never been more inspired by anyone more than you,” an admirer, Bob Kavner, wrote to Ferris after the hardware was handed out. “Without words, you taught all of us to make the best of what we have. You gave a master class in dignity these past few days.”

Dick Ferris helped get Pebble ready for her close-up. As for Dick Ferris, he’s ready, period.

22 GOLF.COM / J u n e 2 0 2 1

Bryson DeChambeau’s strokes-better-than-thefield average in the final round at the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot. It’s the best performance relative to field average since Johnny Miller’s 63 at Oakmont in 1973.

7.9 1,595

156

Hopeful qualifiers for this year’s U.S. Women’s Open at The Olympic Club, the largest field since 2017.

Number of players who will eventually tee it up in the event in San Francisco, the first week in June.

SOURCE: USGA

SOURCE: USGA

FLIRTING WITH PAR: WINNING SCORE AT THE U.S. OPEN, PAST 10 YEARS

–16*

–16*

2011

2017

–13 2019

–9 2014

+1

+1

–5 –4 2015

2016

2012 2013 Rory McIlroy

*U.S. Open record

–6 2020

+1 2018

Brooks Koepka

Research by James Colgan

Top left: Pebblebeach.com; Right, from top: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images; Gregory Shamus/Getty Images; Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images; Andrew Redington/Getty Images

There’s data behind every swing. We crunch it so you don’t have to.

RICKIE FOWLER PGA TOUR PLAYER

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.

Clubhouse

1

How It Works

Dishing Out Consistency

3

Why the restaurant industry can teach us something about what lies at the center of Callaway’s golf ball production 4

GOLF BALLS AND LINE COOKS.

5

1. CONVEYOR After making their way through Callaway’s manufacturing line, Chrome Soft cores are funneled onto a conveyor and brought down into the X-ray machine.

2. X-RAY From here, the cores are fed underneath

a black box that houses Callaway’s proprietary X-ray technology. X-ray images are taken of each core with the goal of measuring concentricity, or the centeredness of the components inside the core. In order for each ball to perform consistently when

24 GOLF.COM / J u n e 2 0 2 1

it is used by the consumer, it is critical to have as little variance as possible between the cores.

3. FANUC ROBOT ARM Once the cores are scanned, they are sorted by an electronic arm created

by Fanuc Robotics.

Wildly different, you say? Not quite, at least according to the late chef and writer Anthony Bourdain.

“Line cooking—the real business of preparing the food you eat—is more about consistency,” Bourdain wrote. “Mindless, unvarying repetition, the same series of tasks performed over and over and over again in exactly the same way.”

In that sense, the process of creating a golf ball is no different from a line cook whipping up a risotto. If it is to be done right, it must be done consistently.

Even the slightest shift in ingredients or placement can cost dearly.

Consistency is king for golf ball producers like Callaway, who have built out multimillion-dollar facilities and staked their reputation on dependability. It’s a good thing, then, that Callaway’s line cook is a high-tech robot.

Callaway’s X-ray machine has a simple and crucial job: uniformity. This piece of equipment is responsible for ensuring every Chrome Soft ball performs the same, and a high-speed vision system ensures every ball looks the same.

Here’s a look at how the sausage is made. —James Colgan

Cores that pass inspection are moved on to the next step in the production line while those that fail are sorted out.

can quickly measure the concentricity and ensure each core is being properly measured and sorted.

4. LED SCREEN

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Images from each core are projected onto a monitor, where a highpowered computer

After concentricity testing, a mantle and polyurethane cover are applied

over the outer core layer. The balls are then sent through a “high-speed vision section,” in which every ball is inspected for cosmetic defects. The ones that pass are sent off to painting, where they undergo one final quality check before they’re shipped.

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Ask The Rules Guy

Now that the flagstick may be left in while putting, can it be tended and not removed?

Specifically, on a day windy enough to bend the pin toward you, is it permitted to have someone hold the stick to keep it centered in the cup?

—Dave Boyna, Little Elm, Texas

Q: Playing with my friend in a stroke-play event, he came to the 17th hole four shots ahead of the field but with only one ball left.

Not knowing if the rules allowed for borrowing a ball from another player and facing a long par 3 over water, he asked whether he could bypass hitting his tee shot and head directly to the drop zone across the water, lying 3, to prevent the possibility of losing

26 GOLF.COM / J u n e 2 0 2 1

zone requires a ball to come to rest in the affiliated penalty area. The “1-ball rule,” Model Local Rule G-4, is rarely in effect other than for elite professional and amateur competitions. Assuming it wasn’t, your friend could indeed have borrowed a ball from another player if he ran out.

Q: You find your ball in long rough within three minutes. You walk to your bag, select a club... but then you can’t find your ball when you return to play your shot.

Do you have another three minutes to search, or do you have to include the time already spent looking?

—Paul Murray, Sydney, Australia

Our advice if you’re bent on bending the rules? Don’t.

his last ball. He would still have a two-shot lead, with a much safer shot to the green.

Legal? Creative thinking in any case, no?

—Dave Trent, Wilmington, N.C.

A: Creative, yes; legal, no. Think of the drop zone as an exclusive nightclub called, well, “The Drop Zone,” where you can’t just talk your way in—you must be on the guest list. (Yes, Rules Guy knows what a nightclub is, even if he prefers libraries.) Under Rule 17.1b, access to the drop

A: Paul, this is yet another reason, on top of sun safety, for golfers to wear a hat—it’s something to place next to one’s ball when it nestles down in Gnarlytown. Thumbing through my worn copy of Decisions of the Rules of Golf (full disclosure: it’s online nowadays), Rules Guy came across Interpretation 18.2(a)1/1, covering this exact question. (File under: “There’s nothing new under the sun.”) In essence, you get three minutes per stroke made, not per search, meaning that if it took you two minutes to find your ball before losing it again, you have only 60 seconds left to rediscover it.

Fail to do so before the clock expires and your ball is now considered lost, and you have to return to the spot of your previous shot, add one penalty stroke and play on... no doubt feeling a bit lost yourself.

GOT A QUESTION ABOUT THE RULES?

ASK THE RULES GUY! SEND YOUR QUERIES, CONFUSIONS AND COMMENTS TO RULESGUY@GOLF.COM. WE PROMISE HE WON’T THROW THE BOOK AT YOU.

Stan Badz/PGA Tour/Getty Images

A: Having someone attend the flagstick isn’t just a job, it’s an agreement. Its purpose is to allow the player to see the flagstick (and thus the position of the hole below) but not have it influence the motion of the ball after the stroke. Thus, under Rule 13.2b(2), you can’t have someone attend the flagstick and deliberately leave it there to affect that moving ball. Were this to happen, the player not only gets the general penalty of two strokes (or loss of hole in match play) but also must replay the stroke from the original spot—a case of the rules sticking it to the uninformed player….

Oh, and the player attending the flag gets the general penalty too. Here, ignorance isn’t bliss, it’s accomplice.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye! Browse our library of rulings and outof-this-world decisions at golf.com/rules

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Every day feels like a weekend when you live in the microbrew capital of the world.

Rounds with Michael Corcoran

Masters of The Craft The beer scene in San Diego, America’s biggest military town, has no equal

28 GOLF.COM / J u n e 2 0 2 1

and comfortable barstool is the precise recipe for professionals of a certain age to remember the 5¢ and 10¢ lagers they enjoyed around the time of their first shave. Beer was simple then, even if my own engagements with dearly departed mugs o’ fun began in the 35¢ era. Still, at that steep price, mi amigo Caveman and I had plenty enough dosh from his job at a drive-in movie theater and mine looping at the Road to slurp Pabst and play shuffleboard until last call at 02:00.

None of us perceived beer as boring in the day, but we erred in thinking that just because it was cold and cheap it had reached perfection. Yuengling Lager was brewed less than 50 miles from where I grew up, but it was served in few bars in Philly at the time, and my father pronounced it tasted like yak urine. Today, of course, Yuengling is enjoyed by tipplers across our 50 states united, and in his later years even me da would happily slake with one. In the staid yesteryear of beer, Yuengling was different to Philly taste buds in an age when different was bad (in more ways than one) and change was unwelcome. Even rebels like Caveman and I thought we were living life on the edge by crushing Moosehead. It’s from Canada! That’s like 300 miles away!

At the time of said recollection, I was catching up with Captain Ron, another first mate and professional who moved to San Diego—America’s biggest navy town—from New York a few years back.

“Ahoy, Cap,” said I. “Did you know the U.S. Open is going to be in your neck of the woods this summer?”

Not a golfer, Captain Ron was unaware but could scarcely hide his delight at the prospect of visiting golf fans encountering the craft beer scene in his new hometown. California has arguably contributed more to the microbrewery phenomenon than any other state, starting in 1965 when a fellow called Fritz

Left: Shana Novak; Prop styling: Summer Moore for Honey Artists; Right: John Ledesma (2)

A WELL-POURED DRAFT

MICHAEL CORCORAN ONCE TRIED TO CRAFT HIS OWN BEER. IT WAS SO AWFUL, NO ONE EXCEPT HIS LOYAL DOG CHURCHILL WOULD DRINK THE STUFF.

That Dog’ll Hunt The partnership that is Dogleg Brewing began on a golf course. That’s where Christina and Nick Lumsden met their co-owners, Jim McCaskey and Corey Gustafson.

It was Nick who realized there were no golf-themed breweries among the many in San Diego, and Dogleg was born. Head brewer McCaskey was a Navy aviator for more than two decades and no little legend in home-brewing circles. The gang opened the brewery in November 2019, timed perfectly for a pandemic disruption. What they learned from that unfortunate alignment, however, was that the San Diego brewing community is clutch. Christina, who stuck it in the ground as a collegian at Kent State, and Nick, who has played in a few U.S. mid-ams, discov-

ered they loved the people who underpin America’s craft beer capital.

“You never know what peers and colleagues will be like when you start out in an industry,” Christina said over the wireless as she and Nick were driving to Bandon Dunes for some R&R. “The welcoming and supportive nature of San Diego’s craft beer community is unparalleled in the U.S. regardless of business sector.

The camaraderie is unbelievable. We’ve only been able to make it as far as we have in a short period of time because of the way brewers help each other out. When we were short of cans during the pandemic, we’d ask someone if we could borrow some of their cans, and there was no hesitation. In turn, we would do the same when we had extra cans. Everyone pays it forward, and it’s overwhelmingly fulfilling to be part of it all.”

Maytag purchased Anchor Brewing in San Francisco. The microbrewery scene went mainstream in the 1980s and ’90s, and San Diego County can confidently lay claim to being its modern-day epicenter. There are more than 150 craft breweries in and around the region, and nearly 60 craft beer tasting rooms.

Throw in another nearly 50 breweries or tasting rooms in the works and you wonder why they don’t just change the name to Beer Diego. A study conducted

by Cal State San Marcos in 2018 cited more than 1.1 million barrels of craft beer output from San Diego County in 2017.

All those suds had an economic impact of $1.1 billion in the county, and the $802 million in revenue the brewers generated was more than the Padres hauled in that same year. You have your legends like Karl Strauss Brewing, which began doing its thing in 1986, and your comically named, like Belching Beaver. From Ballast Point and Coronado to Stone and Alpine, you’ll have a hard time finding a bad beer while you’re in town.

If you’re visiting San Diego for the national championship, swing by Dogleg Brewing in Vista for a round on the golf simulator and several rounds of head brewer Jim McCaskey’s finest. Dogleg is what happens when four thirsty people become friends on the golf course (see sidebar). There are sure to be some special brews flowing during U.S. Open week. Co-owner Christina Lumsden says her go-to is the Scotch Ale while her husband, Nick, says you should try the Range Session IPA while it lasts.

Right about now a Scotch Ale sounds the very thing to celebrate new friends and old and the way the ancient game brings us all together. It reminds me of that day in 1759 when I was hanging with Arthur Guinness as he simultaneously invented pint glasses, pubs, shillelaghs and Ireland. Said one old-timer refusing to drink the strange black porter with a mile-deep head, “I don’t go for all this new stuff, Mr. Guinnefs. I prefer the old ways. Now, another manure-infused mead, and be quick about it.”

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Clubhouse

Every Shot Counts with GOLF Analytics Editor Mark Broadie

Many Happy Returns

Spieth’s winless streak ended after three years and nearly nine months.

He blasted his way out of it at the Valero Texas Open.

30 GOLF.COM / J u n e 2 0 2 1

Steve Dykes/Getty Images

Jordan Spieth’s win in San Antonio ended a long dry spell. It also made him a member of the “great” comeback club.

THE PGA TOUR no longer hands

out an award for Comeback Player of the Year, but we all still love return-to-greatness stories. And in 2021, there hasn’t been a bigger one than Jordan Spieth, who, in early April, captured the Valero Texas Open to end a nearly fouryear victory drought.

Spieth is a fan favorite, and his win was wildly popular. But how did his return to the mountaintop measure up statistically? I thought it would be fun to turn an analytical lens on the subject to arrive at a ranking of players who had the longest time between two great stretches of golf.

To start, some parameters were in order.

Looking solely at the time between wins wasn’t going to cut it in my view, because one win isn’t enough to qualify as a sustained stretch of greatness. What about the Official World Golf Rankings? After winning the British Open in 2017, Spieth was the No. 2 ranked player in the world.

He fell to 92nd at the beginning of 2021 and has now climbed back to 29th. If we defined “greatness” as cracking the top 10, then Spieth’s current comeback would fall short. For our purposes, though, one of the problems with world rankings is that they are based on points average FOLLOW BROADIE ON TWITTER @MARKBROADIE

over a two-year period, longer than what I think of as a “stretch.” I wanted a measure with greater specificity and quantitative depth.

So I turned to the same point system I relied on to identify the hottest fiveevent streaks in golf (September-October 2020), which awards 100 points for a major win, 60 for a second-place showing and so on. Using that scale, a stretch of golf qualifies as “great” if a player’s average points for 10 consecutive events is 10 or higher. With those guidelines, I went back to 1983 to find players who had the longest interval of events between two great stretches of golf.

The winner is a Hal of a player. That’s right. The longest return-to-greatness stretch belongs to Hal Sutton, at 345 events spanning the years 1986 to 1998.

Over three consecutive events in 1986, Sutton won the Memorial, finished 4th in the U.S. Open and 2nd in the Atlanta Golf Classic, amassing 119 points. After a missed cut at the Southwest Golf Classic later that year, Sutton’s 10-event points average dropped below 10, ending his stretch of greatness. It wasn’t until his win at the Tour Championship in 1998 that his 10-event points average again exceeded 10. That stretch included another win at the Buick Challenge and

a 4th-place finish at the Canadian Open.

When it comes to Spieth’s performance, this same methodology identifies a great stretch in 2017 that included finishes of 2nd, 2nd, 7th and 7th in the four FedEx Cup playoff events. That great run lasted until a missed cut at the 2018 Valspar Championship. Spieth’s return to greatness took 69 events and coincided with his 2021 Valero win, a 10-event stretch that included a T-3 at the Masters and three other top-10 finishes. (So far this season, Spieth has gained one stroke per round on the competition, with a 0.5-strokes-gained improvement in both approach shots and putting.) His fallow period was prolonged, no doubt, but it ranks 4th on the all-time list.

Which current players have been waiting the longest for their return to greatness? You’ll note in the chart below that Stewart Cink ranks 4th on that list, which you might find surprising. Given his fine play of late, hasn’t he already returned to greatness? Not statistically.

Leading the waiting-for-greatness list is Charles Howell III, at 387 events and counting. His last great 10-event stretch featured a win at the 2007 Nissan Open and three other top 10s.

If he can ever return to glory, what a comeback story that will be.

Return to Greatness A notable number of Texans—Spieth, Kite, Crenshaw—have rebounded from extended droughts.

Rank

Player

Events between greatness

1

Hal Sutton

2

END OF FIRST GREAT STRETCH

START OF NEXT GREAT STRETCH

Year

Tournament

Year

Tournament

345

1986

Southwest Golf Classic

1998

The Tour Championship

Ben Crenshaw

148

1988

NEC World Series of Golf

1995

Masters Tournament

3

Tom Kite

94

1993

U.S. Open Championship

1997

PGA Championship

4

Jordan Spieth

69

2018

Valspar Championship

2021

Valero Texas Open

5

Gil Morgan

65

1984

PGA Championship

1988

MCI Heritage Golf Classic

Waiting to Return to Greatness Sustained “great” play—at least by our statistical measure—is still eluding these troupers.

Rank

Player

Events since last great stretch

1

Charles Howell III

2

END OF FIRST GREAT STRETCH Year

Tournament

383

2007

The Players Championship

Rory Sabbatini

330

2008

WGC-CA Championship

3

Lucas Glover

271

2009

BMW Championship

4

Stewart Cink

248

2010

WGC-Accenture Match Play

5

Sean O’Hair

246

2009

WGC-Bridgestone Invitational

31

Clubhouse Big-time branding in a very small package.

Money Game with Paul Sullivan CHARITY GOLF TOURNAMENTS are a fixture of the golf

season, but as worthy as a charity’s purpose might be, what’s going to get you to pony up for a high-dollar foursome?

If we’re being really honest, sometimes it’s the swag as much as the mission. Tee gifts, prizes, auction items, the caliber of the course and celebrity guests—how they’re combined is what helps a charity event stand out in a crowded field. And the lure of swag isn’t lost on savvy organizers.

Last fall, in Connecticut, at Stamford Hospital’s 26th annual charity outing, each golfer walked a Covid-safe swag line at the turn. They were there to raise money for cancer research, and for their generosity they took home a Dunning golf shirt and pullover, Peter Millar shoes, a pair of FootJoy rain gloves, a dozen Titleist ProV1s, a Yeti cooler, a belt and shoe bag with the event’s logo—all stuffed into a luxe tote bag.

In years past, giveaways for the event—which pulls in $10,000 per foursome—have included Garmin rangefinders, Titleist wedges and custom putters.

“There’s a balance between being too flashy and leaving the golfer feeling like, ‘That’s great, I’m coming back next year,’ ” says Chris Riendeau, senior vice president of the hospital’s foundation.

Riendeau’s commitment to seductive swag is such that the head pro at Wee Burn Country Club, a Devereux Emmet design near the hospital in southern Connecticut, brings him to the PGA Merchandise Show each year.

“All golf outings are equal in that you play golf and raise WANT PAUL SULLIVAN’S ADVICE ON ALL THINGS GOLF-RELATED IN PERSONAL FINANCE? SEND YOUR QUESTIONS TO MONEYMAILBAG@GOLF.COM.

32 GOLF.COM / J u n e 2 0 2 1

money for a worthy cause, but it ends there,” Riendeau says.

“I try to make our swag buffet very experiential. When we gifted a watch, the Garmin guy was there to help people set it up. When we did wedges, the Titleist rep had fitters in the bunkers, working with people to decide which wedge best suited them. What I’m looking for is to create a complete day.”

There’s a distinct gap between that kind of bespoke swag and a sleeve of Pinnacles. But with Covid shutting down that other charity staple—galas—golf fundraisers may feel the need to up their game to keep the donations flowing.

“Going forward, I don’t see people having a big appetite for those dinners,” says Ed Brockner, executive director of First Tee of New York and New Jersey. He thinks high-end golf outings are about to boom. “They’re something people feel a lot more comfortable with.” Especially when the swag is above par.

“There’s so much money spent on stuff that people don’t want,” says Brockner, whose buying philosophy for golf attire is pretty simple. “You have to think about what you’d want to wear yourself. Some of those big, tacky logos may never make it out of the closet.”

Brockner admits that the First Tee has a leg up. Brands are eager to reach their golf-savvy donor base, so they shower them with swag at the organization’s annual outings.

(In September, the First Tee is celebrating its 20th anniversary by taking over the Lower and Upper courses at Baltusrol—No. 69 and 99 on GOLF’s Top 100 in the U.S.—with 250 guests over three rounds. Brockner won’t reveal the giveaways but says that guests will meet eight-time major winner Tom Watson.)

Golf balls: Jeffrey Westbrook; Styling: Julie Flynn for Halley Resources

Eyes on the Prize As giveaways have become a bigger and bigger draw at charity golf events, the key is keeping perspective—and the core mission in focus

T H AT ' S B E T T E R F O R A L L © 2021 TAYLOR MADE GOLF COMPANY, INC.

At this year’s Jake, Rickie and JT shared bear hugs with Barbara Nicklaus.

Take a photo of this code to snap up an Nicklaus belt in the GOLF. com Pro Shop.

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Function Meets Fashion DRESSED UP OR DOWN, THESE STRETCHY BELTS ARE A STYLISH SLAM DUNK When Jack Nicklaus was tearing it up in the ’70s, he and his fellow touring pros were rocking rad polyester golf trousers requiring no belt: the nowiconic Sansabelt slacks. My, how times have changed!

Today, Nicklaus has teamed up with NYC craftsman FH Wadsworth to create a modern collection of belts ($99 each) that not only hold up your pants but add a serious dash of style in their own right. Constructed with premium Italian materials and featuring the Golden Bear logo stamped into each full-grain leather tip, these limited-edition belts are the perfect fit for a Father’s Day gift, even if your pop is stuck in the swingin’ ’70s. —Jessica Marksbury

34 GOLF.COM / J u n e 2 0 2 1

Top: Jim Mandeville/The Nicklaus Companies; Bottom: Christian Hafer

Tony Guernsey, a retired private banker who’s been a member of National Golf Links of America for six decades, has a long list of swag he dislikes from a lifetime of attending and hosting charity outings. There’s the vase he took home for winning a best-ball event and, worse, a plate for longdrive honors at another outing. Don’t get him started on the wine-bottle openers in canvas totes.

Guernsey likes his events lean. “I’d have hors d’oeuvres and some drinks,” he says. “For a gift, maybe a bag tag that said you played there.”

The prizes at an event Guernsey helps run for The Edgartown Reading Room, on Martha’s Vineyard, are cash money— which most every winner on the tony island donates back to the charity. But pay attention, Guernsey says, to the auction items. A threesome at National, No. 4 in GOLF’s Top 100 U.S. ranking? That has brought big bucks over the decades. “I’ve had people fly in from California for it,” he says.

A few charitable events don’t need big-ticket giveaways to

draw a full field. Take The Jake, Jack and Barbara Nicklaus’ annual outing at The Bear’s Club in Jupiter, Fla. It honors their grandson, Jake Walter Nicklaus, who died in a drowning accident in 2005. Each year, the event raises several million dollars for the Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation. This year, the tee gift was a leather duffel embossed with the Golden Bear logo. It contained signature glassware, golf shirts, a face mask, golf balls and an umbrella. Arguably, the ultimate swag is your pro playing partner, with the likes of Rickie Fowler, Ernie Els and Jason Day teeing it up. In an auction the night before this year’s event, one group paid $100,000 to play 18 with Justin Thomas, who’d won The Players Championship hours earlier. Winners at The Jake take home a crystal bowl— handed to them by the Bear himself.

Regardless of the charity, these events often take a ton of work to pull off. But there may be an easier way—with the accent emphatically on do-gooding. Mary Kerrigan Ward, a member at Arcola Country Club in Paramus, N.J., is the chairwoman of her club’s annual Play for P.I.N.K. outing, which is part of a network of tournaments that raise money for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The gifts are supplied to all the events by Estée Lauder. At the last Play for P.I.N.K., it was a small compact of Tom Ford eye shadows—worth $85.

(Men had to settle for a golf towel.)

“Prizes are always just something simple,” Ward says.

“It’s a day of supporting breast cancer research.” And one memorable gift can help remind players of the cause throughout the year.

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Eats

The Toast of Torrey Pines The Grill at this year’s iconic U.S. Open venue serves up this ubiquitous brunch entrée with a delicious California twist

36 GOLF.COM / J u n e 2 0 2 1

IF THERE WAS EVER an award for entrée of the millennium, you would be

hard-pressed to find a more worthy candidate than avocado toast. Yes, it’s pricey (have you seen the cost of avocados?)—and a little bougie—but its abundance of delicious healthy fat and Instagram-worthy presentation have made it a brunch staple on many a menu over the last two decades.

The Grill at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California—where a patio table affords you a fabulous fairway view—is no exception. The avocado toast is actually the featured photo on the restaurant’s website, and for good reason.

Chef Kaitlyn Weber elevates the dish by smashing the ripest avocados and mixing them with fennel pollen, fresh lemon juice and zest, olive oil and a dash of salt and pepper. A generous schmear is placed on a slab of lightly grilled charcoal bread (sourced from Bread and Cie, a San Diego–based café and bakery) and then topped with a lush and colorful cascade of sliced cherry tomatoes, Persian cucumbers, pickled onions, fresh dill and everything-bagel seasoning. Diners also have the option to add smoked salmon or a fried egg. With or without the extra protein, the toast is an artfully assembled contrast of flavor and acidity for which you’ll happily shell out $15—millennial or not. —Jessica Marksbury

Jeffrey Westbrook; Prop styling: Sophia Pappas; Food Styling: Drew Aichele for Pat Bates

Chef Weber’s tart, pickled onion provides a sharp, tangy surprise to a dish so enduringly trendy it’s almost traditional.

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From Our Playing Editor

Bryson Explains...

The defending U.S. Open champ looks back on a historic week at Winged Foot and shares his best anti-hook tip

Take a photo of this code to hear more from Bryson about his game and how you can score better

What went right at Winged Foot Winning the U.S. Open at Winged Foot was such a special week, something I’m not going to forget for a long time.

During quarantine last year, I worked harder than I ever had in my life. I was doing two- and three-a-day speed-training sessions. If one of my muscles was sore, I would immediately work through it in the gym. I wanted to train my body to push its threshold and not let little tweaks linger. When the Tour started back up again, I felt like a different golfer. Winged Foot was the reward of all that work, and I hope it inspires people so they know that with hard work, they can accomplish anything they want to in life.

A lot of people talked about how I drove the ball that week, but I think they forget my whole game was firing that week. I was in the top three in SG: Approach and SG: Around the Green, I putted great and mentally I was in a good place. You can’t win the U.S. Open doing just one thing well. It tests every part of your game.

38 GOLF.COM / J u n e 2 0 2 1

Left: Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images; Gregory Shamus/Getty Images; Right: Christian Hafer (2); Andrew Redington/Getty Images; Stan Badz/PGA Tour; Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images; Courtesy Bentley

How to stop hitting round-wrecking hooks When I studied Jordan Spieth’s swing after his amazing 2015 season, I realized that his left elbow stayed facing the target for a long time after impact. Some people call it a “chicken wing.” I call it reaching the max end range of upper and external rotation in the lead arm. If you struggle with hooks, all you need to know is to keep your left elbow pointing at the target through the ball. When you let your lead arm fold in, and the elbow points behind you, the clubhead passes your hands and closes. When you keep your lead elbow pointing at the target, the clubface can’t close. When I started doing this, I realized quickly that I couldn’t ever hit it left. I went from being a top100 player in the world to a top-10 player in the world.

Force (N) = mass (kg) × acceleration (m/s2)

“The force you impart on the golf ball stems from your ability to move the mass of your body and the club.”

2015

2017

2020

My putting transformation The biggest thing in my life has been trying to figure out how to reduce variables. That was the approach I took to improving my putting when I got on Tour. I had struggled with my putting my whole life—in college and junior golf. I had some good memories, like winning the U.S. Amateur and NCAAs, but I was never as consistent as I liked.

My first experiment with the arm-lock method came in 2017 when I tried a side-saddle technique. Just because the technique didn’t stick, that experiment wasn’t a failure. Going through that process allowed me to learn from it and develop the technique with my partners at SIK putters and LAGP golf shafts that I use today. The biggest change from college to now has been my setup. That’s something that would improve a lot of average golfers’ strokes: Standing a little closer to the ball, with the putter shaft more upright, will reduce the arc the putterhead traces. It’ll swing more straight back and straight through.

Why I love my car When I’m not studying the biomechanics of the golf swing, I’m probably geeking out over cars. I’m so blessed to be part of the Bentley family and to have worked with their Dallas office to custom-design a 2021 Bentayga model, which I’ll be using when I’m home during the off weeks.

39

Clubhouse

At the 1980 U.S. Open, Jack was a winner, times two.

The Fine Print

Calling From Baltusrol In an excerpt from Best Seat in the House, Jack Nicklaus II looks back on a U.S. Open, and a Father’s Day lesson, to remember in 1980, Jack Nicklaus was doing what he loved most—being a dad.

And I—18 years old at the time—was being selfish. I had just completed my second round in a Palm Beach County Junior Golf Association tournament. I was at the scorer’s table that late-Sunday afternoon signing my scorecard when somebody yelled over to me that my dad was on the telephone.

U.S. Open title, at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J. And I was a little frustrated about the timing of the call because he was on the telephone, some 1,200 miles away, asking me the tourney was still being played. At that moment for me, this how my round went at a junior golf tournament. junior golf tournament was the most important thing going on I didn’t realize it at the time, but Dad taught me a valuain the world. I had just graduated from high school and signed ble lesson that Father’s Day. It’s a lesson that I have grown a golf scholarship to play at the University of North Carolina. to understand and tried to incorporate into my daily life as a I picked up the telephone receiver. Dad asked me how husband and a father to five children. That junior golf tournaI played. ment has no meaning for me to this day, but Dad’s telephone Well, I hadn’t scored very well, but I proceeded to describe call still resonates deeply. A good parent always makes time my entire round, hole by hole, shot by shot, whether I lifted to listen to his or her children. my head during a swing, misread a putt—whether It’s not as easy as it sounds. Dad could have it went left instead of straight—or if the ball slowed quickly changed the direction of our conversaagainst the grain. Literally, I went on and on for tion that Sunday afternoon 40 years ago. That was 20 straight minutes. a big, big day for him, having not won a tournaDad patiently and intently listened. He responded ment the year before, in 1979, the first year in 17 with questions about why I thought I might have he had gone winless as a professional. The experts made certain mistakes as I rehashed my 18 holes. and pundits believed that, at age 40, he was past When I told him I was having problems with my his prime. But minutes after making history with chipping, he promised we’d work on it when we both a new U.S. Open scoring record of 272, he telegot home. He was so interested, generous and genphoned me to see how I had played. uinely wanted to hear about it. All of it. As I finally That is just one of many examples throughout finished, there was a short silence. I was about to my life when Dad made me his top priority. He thank Dad for calling me and say goodbye. always made a point to arrange his schedule to Then Dad said, “Jackie, would you like to know meet mine. Just as important, Dad was always how your dad did today?” there to listen.

A little embarrassed, I quickly said, “Well, yes, Adapted from Best Seat in the House: 18 Golden how did you do today?”

Take a photo of “Well, I just won the U.S. Open.”

Lessons from a Father to His Son, by Jack Nicklaus this code to order your copy of Best That was Dad. The Golden Bear had just set a II and Don Yaeger. Copyright 2021. Reprinted with Seat in the House new tournament scoring record to win his fourth permission of Thomas Nelson Publishing. from Amazon.com

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Top: Brian Morgan/Popperfoto via Getty Images

ON FATHER’S DAY

“A legacy is not what you do on the field or inside the ropes; a legacy is what you leave behind for others and how you are remembered.” – Jack Nicklaus To learn more about how Jack and Barbara Nicklaus have dedicated themselves to helping children through the work of the Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation, please visit nchcf.org. facebook.com/nchcf

instagram.com/nchcf

twitter.com/nchcf

Clubhouse

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Takeaway

Address

The deliberateness of Collin’s takeaway started about five years ago, when we worked on rotating to the top of the swing, rather than lifting the club. The triangle formed by the club and his arms and shoulders work together. The club is slightly outside his hands—perfect for his little fade.

If Collin doesn’t check his posture, he can get a little rounded, which causes some rotational issues on the way back and through. There’s a lot of science that shows that rotation in the spine is going to occur better when it’s straighter.

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Top Position

Just like on the takeaway, Collin’s arms and body work together as one unit. We talk a lot about connection. His tendency is to move his left arm off his chest. When that happens, the quality of his strike suffers.

Collin Morikawa Just a few months past his 24th birthday, the 2020 PGA Championship winner is one of the best ball strikers in golf.

His longtime coach Rick Sessinghaus explains his secrets.

I’VE BEEN LUCKY ENOUGH to work with Collin since he was eight years old,

so I’ve spent a lot of years watching his swing develop.

Even from a young age he’s had a balanced, athletic motion. He’s never swung the club out of control. As Collin got a little bigger, from ages 13 to 16, he developed a little draw, like a lot of good juniors do. He’d slide his hips a little bit more

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Above: Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images; Left: Ben Jared/PGA Tour via Getty Images

Watch & Learn

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Release 4

Delivery

When Collin does get too steep, it’s because he rushes his transition and pulls down too hard with his left arm. That said, I don’t believe in teaching golfers a big “shallow move.” Make it easy on yourself: Check that the shaft lines up with your trail forearm as it is about to do here.

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Impact

Collin’s lower body has cleared out of the way, his lead wrist is flexed and his sternum is tilted back toward his trail leg. Tilting away from the target like this is especially important for weekend players. Pros are such good athletes they often have too much of it.

toward the target, moving the club slightly under plane—he’d have to manipulate the clubface in order to square it up. Once he got a little stronger, we started to work on neutralizing his clubface. We hit a lot of chips and punch shots from 40 yards, keeping the hands passive, the body active and the clubface square. He came out of that process with very good “face awareness,” because he was getting that instant feedback from the ballflight which, after all, is the most important thing in golf.

Notice Collin has a slightly weak lead-hand grip, and he bows his left wrist slightly at the top. It’s not something I’d recommend amateurs copy. But Collin found he was still able to maintain clubface control. That’s the real lesson for all players: Find a matchup that you can sustain. Along the way Collin started hitting a fade. He liked the look of it, we saw the repeatability of it and now he’s known for it. Sure, he’d find a little more distance by switching back to a draw, but why mess with what has made you great? And he can still hit it closer to the pin than you.

Collin’s exit position is a fraction lower than some other guys, which is normal because he prefers to hit a fade. We work a lot on footwork from impact into release. I’m more on the conservative end of that spectrum: I’d rather players stay grounded, balanced and focused on impact quality.

MORIKAWA STATS 2021 PGA TOUR (14 EVENTS)

DRIVING DISTANCE DRIVING ACCURACY

293.9 yds (128th) 70.03% (9th)

GREENS IN REGULATION 71.98% (5th) SCORING AVERAGE

70.653 (47th)

SG TEE-TO-GREEN

1.556 (3rd)

OFFICIAL WORLD GOLF RANK

6th

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Clubhouse

Data Driven with GOLFTEC

Dollars and Sense

I’M NOT SURE I HAVE an opinion

on the “chicken or egg” argument, but I am sure I’ve thought about it plenty.

At GOLFTEC, I see golf ’s version of the paradox all the time: Should I buy new clubs or invest in swing instruction? And, if I’m being honest, I’m not sure there’s a right answer to that question, either.

At the highest levels of golf, game improvement is a sliding scale between equipment and instruction. For the pros, some fixes require a swing adjustment, some dictate a gear shift and some require a little of both. Most average golfers think they need to invest their time and money into working only on their swing, without considering their equipment could be holding back gains in their technique. GOLFTEC coaches, myself included, know that game improvement lives in understanding where our students fall in the gray area between these two elements.

Take the example below, where Dan, a GOLFTEC student, saw a radical improvement in his performance after going through a fitting.

Xander Schauffele added a low-spin driver—Callaway’s Epic Max LS—to maximize his distance.

Real Results CURRENT CLUB Swing average BACKSPIN 914

1914

2914

Ball speed

Backspin

147 MPH

LAUNCH ANGLE 6

16

DESCENT ANGLE 29

32

35

38

41

44

Launch

Offline

Descent

Distance

3091

15.00

25.5

44.50

260.5

RPM

DEGREES

YARDS

DEGREES

YARDS

NEW CLUB Swing average BACKSPIN 884

1884

2884

LAUNCH ANGLE 5

15

Ball speed

Backspin

Launch

155

1907

MPH

RPM

+8 MPH

+8 MPH

+8 MPH

DESCENT ANGLE 29

32

35

38

41

44

Offline

Descent

Distance

15.75

4.3

40.00

311.5

DEGREES

YARDS

DEGREES

YARDS

+8 MPH

+8 MPH

+8 MPH

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We used stock options to find a driver that boosted Dan’s game at no additional cost to the club’s price.

The tweaks paid major dividends with 8 mph added to ball speed, 1,000 fewer rpm of backspin and a 5-degree improvement in descent angle— oh, and 51 more yards! Take a photo of the code below to set your own path to improvement.

Check out the colored launch bars from Dan’s gamer. Tour players typically look for 2,000 to 2,500 rpm of spin off the tee—Dan’s normal driver had more than 3,000. His launch angle was usable, but his spin greatly affected his descent angle. His drives struck the ground like a 9-iron, not a driver.

Dan’s gamer had 10.5 degrees of loft and a stock stiff shaft. Based on his launch monitor numbers and ball speed, both the loft and shaft were holding back his driving performance. Using Dan’s data, GOLFTEC coach Clint Lackey got to work putting together three custom drivers. Lackey shifted the loft to 9 degrees, tried an extra stiff shaft and used a Callaway Epic Max LS head to

Left: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images; Right: Courtesy GOLFTEC (2); Far right: Shana Novak; Prop styling: Layla Kenney (2)

Adding pop to your tee shots isn’t a zero-sum game, so don’t treat it that way, says GOLFTEC’s VP of Instruction Nick Clearwater

It’s Official

Fine Pairing DEWAR’S PARTNERSHIP WITH THE U.S. OPEN WILL BENEFIT THE USGA FOUNDATION

A GOLFTEC fitting could be all you need to put your game back on the right track.

help cut down on spin.

The changes resulted in an 8 mph increase in ball speed, 1,000 fewer rpm of backspin and a 5-degree improvement in descent angle. In Dan’s game, that shift equated to 51 (!) yards of additional distance and an average ballflight that traveled close to 20 yards straighter than his previous gamer. And, since Lackey used stock components in building Dan’s new club, the setup came at no additional cost to the manufacturer’s sticker price.

Dan’s improvements, while eyepopping, are far from extraordinary. On average, players gain 18 yards over their old clubs in GOLFTEC driver fittings— to say nothing of overall performance improvements.

Perhaps it’s better to view a fitting as more of a checkup for your golf game than a sick visit. Remember, the point isn’t to get fit for the perfect club every time, it’s to make sure your current equipment isn’t holding you back. As for which part of the gear or instruction argument is going to improve your game? Stop by your nearest GOLFTEC to find out.

NICK CLEARWATER IS BASED AT GOLFTEC’S HEADQUARTERS IN DENVER, COLO.

There are not many 19th holes more inviting than the bar at Torrey Pines Lodge. If you’re lucky enough to be there during this year’s national championship, get into the spirit (literally) with a wee dram of Dewar’s, the official blended Scotch whisky of the U.S. Open.

Dewar’s and the USGA have entered into a multiyear arrangement in which the 175-year-old brand will produce a special, limited-edition blend and bottle each summer to commemorate the event.

“There’s without doubt a link between Scotch whisky and golf that goes beyond the provenance from the same great country,” says Brian Cox, vice president of Dewar’s North America. “Our whisky is really ‘from the land,’ crafted often in remote distilleries by passionate people dedicated to the craft.

The parallels to golf are obvious, sharing that same spirit.”

If you happen not to be one of the chosen few heading to San Diego, pick up a bottle ($80) for your dad (or yourself!) on Father’s Day to enjoy during the final round and beyond.

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GEAR G O L F.C O M / T H E B E S T S T U F F I N T H E G A M E

THE SOUNDS OF SCIENCE The reigning U.S. Open champ, Bryson DeChambeau, and his club design team at Cobra Golf aren’t satisfied with breaking performance barriers. They want to shatter them.

That’s good news for all players.

Courtesy Cobra Golf

BY ANDREW TURSKY

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Wedge that delivers the weightadjustment benefits in irons to your short game

Items, approximately, we found in Lee Westwood’s bag, including a full set of PINGs

Drivers that max out performance for high handicappers and scratch players alike

As in 11-wood— the hot new 5-iron replacement that’s gaining traction on Tour

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COMPLACENCY IS THE BANE of innova-

tion. To truly break ground, limits need to be pushed, and Bryson DeChambeau is wired to push them.

Nicknamed “The Scientist” (but more specifically, he’s a physicist) for his science-based approach to the game of golf, DeChambeau combines unceasing curiosity with a relentless pursuit of improvement and willingness to try anything. And after spending a day at Cobra Golf ’s headquarters in Southern California, it seems that he’s literally tried everything when it comes to wild golf club designs.

While not a club builder himself (although he’s dabbled on the grinding machine), DeChambeau has access to all of the resources he needs to push the envelope of club design. He works closely and constantly with Cobra’s team of equipment experts—the pit crew to DeChambeau’s race car—to develop and design prototypes that he can test for functionality. His crew includes Ben Schomin, Cobra’s Tour operations manager; Tom Olsavsky,

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vice president of R&D; and a bevy of engineers, designers and fitters.

As proof of DeChambeau’s bullish approach to experimentation, a stack of 15 cardboard boxes and three jampacked golf bags, each of which holds DeChambeau’s previous Frankenstein-like concoctions, sit inside an area at Cobra HQ known as “The Tour Cage.” The cage is a fenced-in area within Cobra’s production facility that houses all of the machinery and tools necessary to build ultra-custom equipment for Tour pros.

Schomin, when he’s not building clubs on the Cobra Tour Truck at PGA Tour events, spends long days and nights working in the cage. It’s his workshop. It’s also where DeChambeau spends hours on end when he’s in town, crafting prototype clubs with Schomin to find the answers.

“It’s been a totally different challenge,” Schomin says of working with DeChambeau. “It’s so far outside the norm. It’s made me so much better at what I do, because it’s forced

me to become so involved with Tom [Olsavsky] and his group and learn so much more about the science and the physics and how everything is put together and how everything works. He is changing golf. He’s changing the way I do things.”

Schomin keeps their previous club experiments around for future reference. They also act as science trophies that highlight their unhindered pursuit of improvement.

Most of the clubs have been previously unseen by the public, aside from those in the stash that DeChambeau

From left: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images; Andrew Tursky (4)

GEAR

actually uses in competition. Recently, however, during a GOLF Magazine– exclusive visit to Cobra headquarters, Schomin opened up the boxes to unveil their contents.

For me, it was a bit of sensory overload: What the heck is this thing? Why is there an entire section missing from the heel of this wedge? Is that for powering up the club in an electrical outlet?

Yes, some of the clubs look a bit ridiculous, but each has a purpose. DeChambeau has a unique swing and setup, and he isn’t satisfied with leaving stones unturned. If there’s a design, or weight placement, that can provide him better performance—whether it’s launch, spin, overall consistency or speed—he wants to try it.

“He’s really about the process of trying things, and he’s tried everything that we can think of so far,” Olsavsky says. “And that means we’re going to try some more ideas that he’s going to think of later and that we’re going to think of with him.”

Are the prototypes effective? Sometimes, but not always.

It takes Schomin about three hours— and sometimes up to a full 24 hours— to build an individual prototype club.

When the design doesn’t end up working, the time invested on a club that DeChambeau will never use again can be seen as frustrating. But, hey, it’s all in the name of science.

Olsavsky says there are two outcomes when building a DeChambeau proto-

“He’s really about the process of trying things, and he’s tried everything that we can think of so far.”

type: 1) “Okay, we’ve done all the study and it doesn’t work,” or 2) “Yeah, there’s something here.”

Either way, DeChambeau and Cobra collectively learn something, and they travel further down the road to innovation and improvement.

It’s this ecosystem that has helped immensely during DeChambeau’s recent push for greater speed as well. At his newly developed, eye-popping ball speeds of 200-plus mph, DeChambeau is helping Cobra unlock driver designs that not only remain durable, but also provide maximum speed and accuracy. His latest venture is experimenting with different face curvatures and thicknesses on his 4.5-degree driver, hoping to gain control. At his speed, control is imperative.

“He’s got to be almost 20 percent straighter than some of the average Tour players to keep it in the fairway,” Olsavsky says.

Ah, the price of hitting a golf ball a country mile.

As the modern game continues to prioritize speed, Cobra stays ahead of the design curve with an experimenter who’s endlessly willing to test equipment that could provide better performance. And if it doesn’t work, then it’s onto the next idea.

There’s no time for complacency, only for finding answers.

“As much as he’s done to this point, he knows he has to do even more as he goes down this road,” Schomin says.

Maybe the club that Schomin and team are working on right now won’t work and it will end up in another box in The Cage. Or maybe they’ll unlock a new face technology that we’ll see on a future Cobra driver release. One thing is certain, though: If there’s something to be tried and potentially gained, DeChambeau and his Cobra club doctors are ready and willing to test it.

Clockwise from left: DeChambeau has tested some outrageous club creations over the years. Several of them have led to designs he’s eventually put in play.

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Style

PATRIOTIC PUMAS always feels distinctly American, probably because so many of our traditions and holidays are rooted around this time. Memorial Day, barbecues, July 4th, fireworks, Labor Day… oh, and, of course, the U.S. Open.

To celebrate—as we’ve seen with most major championships over the last few years—many brands are creating limited-edition gear. These Puma Ignite Pwradapt Caged kicks ($170) are about as American as it gets. The cage and sole feature all-over stars and stripes graphics in red, white and blue—they’re definitely statement makers. After all, it is summertime in America. These shoes will be relevant and stylish even after the U.S. Open comes to a close as we celebrate the land of the free all season long.

Gary Woodland and Bryson DeChambeau will debut these at Torrey Pines. You better go get your own before they’re gone. —Emily Haas THE START OF SUMMER

Take a photo of this code to score Puma kicks and more at the GOLF.com Pro Shop

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C l u b Te s t 2 0 2 1

11-WOOD OR 5-IRON? Should you replace your 5-iron with an 11-wood? There could be a spot in your bag for the high-lofted fairway wood.

Shoes, clubs: Jeffrey Westbrook; Styling: Julie Flynn for Halley Resources; Homa: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

MOST GOLFERS HAVE never even considered playing without a 5-iron in their bag. Michelle Wie West, however, recently replaced her 5-iron with a Callaway Rogue 11-wood at the 2021 Kia Classic.

I know what you’re thinking: An 11-wood?! Yes, an 11-wood.

Traditionally, high-lofted fairway woods were thought of as great options for slower-speed golfers who needed help getting the ball airborne. But with high-lofted fairway usage increasing on Tour, the stigma is slowly being lifted.

In the name of experimentation, I recently put my 5-iron (Mizuno JPX 919 Tour) to the test against an 11-wood (Callaway Epic Max model) on a Foresight Sports GC Quad launch monitor at True Spec Golf headquarters in Scottsdale, Ariz., to figure out the differences.

Testing revealed the 11-wood produced 10.4 mph more ball speed, 0.18 degrees higher launch and 2,545 rpm more spin. It also landed closer to the target with a similar carry yardage.

For golfers who are looking to hit it straighter with more height, spin and stopping power on the green, I suggest giving an 11-wood a serious try. (Start here: truespecgolf.com.) It could just be the game changer you never thought you needed. —A.T.

Fu l l y E q u i p p e d

GO WITH THE FLOW winner Max Homa recently joined GOLF’s “Fully Equipped” podcast to discuss a myriad of topics, including his Titleist gear setup, new mindset and a whole lot more. Below are a few highlights.

On embracing a positive mindset: “It’s all based off being in the flow state and trying to get your brain in the best possible setting to succeed. It’s about being positive and happy and in a good spot— just trying to be a little bit more conscious of expanding that part of not just my golf game but my everyday life.”

On the driver setup change more golfers should embrace: “If you change your setup a shade, you get more tilted to hit up on it more than you would an iron.

That helps get the ball up in the air.

I feel like there’s a lack of understanding there.” —Jonathan Wall TWO-TIME PGA TOUR

Jonathan Wall, Andrew Tursky and True Spec’s Kris McCormack talk club news and conduct in-depth interviews with everyone important in the gear world. Follow @fullyequippedgolf on Instagram.

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Take a photo of the code above to shop all the 2021 drivers at the Golf.com Pro Shop

1. Low spin

3. Draw bias

PING G425 LST

Callaway Epic Max

PING’s G425 “LST” model, which stands for Low Spin Technology, has a compact 445cc clubhead and interior weighting that’s built to reduce backspin for penetrating drives.

Due to the new weighting structure of Callaway’s Epic Max, our testers found this driver helped reduce a pesky slice with ease.

2. Lightweight

Titleist TSi1 Weighing in at 40 grams lighter than Titleist’s standard TSi2 or TSi3 drivers, the TSi1 helped our slower-speed testers find more distance and height.

Courtesy PING, Titleist, Callaway Golf, Srixon, TaylorMade

GEAR

Now Playing

POWER BROKERS EVERY YEAR, GOLF EQUIPMENT compa-

5. Fade bias

TaylorMade SIM2

4. High launch

Srixon ZX5 Srixon’s Rebound Frame Technology and triangular rear weight helps deliver higher and straighter drives for golfers who need more carry and forgiveness.

Not every golfer wants to draw the ball. For those who need help controlling a hook, testers found the TaylorMade SIM2 to induce the most fade spin during flight.

nies release their latest and greatest in the driver category, each packed with an abundance of speed and performance.

In a market that’s jam-packed with an ever-revolving door of new options, it’s natural for consumers to want to reduce the noise and simply test the “best” driver out there. The problem is there’s no one-size-fits-all driver that’s ideal for every individual golfer. Instead, the more useful question to ask is “What’s the best new driver for my game?”

Each manufacturer has different design philosophies, materials and technologies. Most companies also release more than one model to help golfers with differing needs.

Simply put, a holy grail of drivers does not exist to suit the gamut of players whose swing speeds vary from modest to super-fast. Moreover, one particular driver model from a certain company can’t be the highest spinning and lowest spinning at the same time, nor the most draw-biased and the most fadebiased or the highest launching and lowest launching—all things you should take into consideration.

Therefore, the first step to finding your perfect driver is to figure out what problems you need to address. Are you a fast-speed player who hits the ball too high? A slow-speed player who slices the ball? Self-awareness is key when buying a new driver. To help in your search for the best big stick, consider these five top performers from our 2021 ClubTest. Here’s to longer and straighter drives. —A.T.

Get the most from a new driver by making sure it’s fit for you and your swing: truespecgolf.com

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What’s In My Bag

LEE WESTWOOD With an all-PING gear setup by his side, the 48-year-old is playing some of the best golf of his illustrious career 1. PING G425 LST DRIVER, 10.5 degrees, Mitsubishi Tensei CK Pro Orange shaft, 290 yards (carry); $500 2. PING G425 MAX FW, 14.5 degrees, Aldila 2018 NV Green 75X shaft, 265 yards; $300 3. PING G425 HYBRID, 19 degrees, Aldila ATX Tour Green 85X shaft, 230 yards; $270 4. TITLEIST PRO V1X BALLS; $52 per dozen 5. PING i210 IRONS, 4-9, PING JZ Stiff shafts; 4-iron 215 yards, 5-iron 205 yards, 6-iron 191 yards, 7-iron 177 yards, 8-iron 164 yards, 9-iron 151 yards; $125 each 6. AUDEMARS PIGUET ROYAL OAK CONCEPT WATCH; $198,000

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7. ALIGNMENT STICK WITH PING TOUR DANCING COVER; $35 8. PING KNIT FAIRWAY WOOD HEADCOVER; $30 9. PING CORE DRIVER AND HYBRID HEADCOVERS; $35 (driver), $33 (hybrid) 10. PING TOUR MELON HEADCOVER 11. PING SIGMA 2 FETCH PUTTER; $220 12. BUSHNELL PRO XE RANGEFINDER; $550 13. GOLF TEES, DIVOT TOOL, AUGUSTA NATIONAL BALL MARKERS 14. TITLEIST PLAYERS GLOVE; $27

15. PING i210 WEDGES, 45, 49.5 and 53 degrees, PING JZ Stiff shaft, 140, 125 and 109 yards; PING GLIDE FORGED WEDGE, 60 degrees, PING JZ Stiff shaft, 91 yards; $125 each (i210) and $200 each (Glide Forged) 16. GARDENIA STERILALL SANITIZER SPRAY AND EUROPEAN TOUR FACE MASK; $3 per bottle 17. COPPERTONE SPORT SPF 50 SUNSCREEN AND CARMEX LIP BALM; $8 per bottle 18. CUSTOM NOTTINGHAM FOREST FOOTBALL CLUB YARDAGE BOOK COVER, SHARPIE MARKER AND PENCILS; $1.50 per Sharpie

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DID YOU KNOW? WESTWOOD HAS BEEN A PART OF SEVEN VICTORIOUS RYDER CUP TEAMS—A EUROPEAN TEAM RECORD FOR THE BIENNIAL MATCH.

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Photographs by Michael Schwartz

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We got you covered for these great gifts and a lot more at proshop.golf.com 2

B e s t o f Ev e r y t h i n g

TAKE COVER A COOL HEADCOVER is one of the easiest

1. Seamus U.S. Open–themed, $105. 2. Fore Ewe Custom, $55+. 3. Stitch Golf Bonesman leather, $98. 4. Stitch Golf Lifesaver knit, $78.

5. Dormie Workshop The Dazzle Texture, $155+.

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Jeffrey Westbrook; Styling: Julie Flynn for Halley Resources

ways for golfers to express themselves, and because of their unique, customizable nature, they make for thoughtful and expressive gifts. (Hi, Dad!) If you’re more traditional, maybe opt for matching leather covers that prove you appreciate style and quality craftsmanship. A knit cover feels both fun and vintage—particularly with a pompom attached.

Did you get that coveted tee time at a famous course? Let it be known and rock the logo on your putter.

With the U.S. Open around the corner, a lot of our favorite brands are celebrating the heritage of that event with limited-edition covers. Perfect!

Your headcovers should be representative of your personal style and personality. Now you just have to be able to back it up on course. —E.H.

This Just In

WORTH ITS WEIGHT WELCOME TO A NEW FRONTIER in wedge design.

When it comes to drivers, and even putters, the gear market has seen weightadjustable technologies work wonders for golfers looking to fine-tune performance. That’s because small adjustments in weight can help a club match up to a particular golfer’s swing dynamics and feels.

Edel, a golf company that specializes in making irons, wedges and putters, has found weight-adjustable technology to be effective in wedge design too.

The company’s Swing Matching System wedges ($199) are designed with three interchangeable weight ports that house a combination of light and heavy weights. The stock wedges come with two 2-gram weights and one 8-gram weight.

Through Edel’s player testing, it was found that spin increased, on average, by 10.4 percent when the weight was in its highest spinning location for each golfer compared to the lowest spinning location. Additionally, the company reports that 80 percent of testers found their best spin numbers from having the heaviest weight in a location other than center.

If you want to find your best wedge performance, as it turns out, weight could be your answer. —J.W.

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Take a photo of this code to watch Rahm test new gear at Callaway HQ

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R A H

R E A DY TO M A K E N I C E PG.

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A fire burns in Jon Rahm and, now, so does the pull of fatherhood. Looks like it’s growin’ up time.

BY S E A N Z A K

the interviews are finished, the cameras stop clicking and the thrum of victory just goes quiet.

Now, what?

Some pros splurge until the sun rises, either on booze or the luxury items in their Amazon cart. An emergency trip to Vegas might be in order. But for Jon Rahm, after his improbable win at the BMW Championship last August, the post-tourney celebration at Olympia Fields Country Club came with a simple, surprising request: Can we set up a private dinner for me and the missus in the locker room?

For all his talent and the tens of millions of dollars he’s banked, a few things are certain about the 26-year-old Spaniard. He’s as grounded as superstars come. And he likes things his way.

That win in Chicago—perhaps the most exciting finish we saw in all of 2020—was equal parts flamboyant and redemptive. He stole it with a 64 on Sunday, punctuated by a curling, 66-foot putt that dropped on the first playoff hole to beat Dustin Johnson. OFCC members have since dubbed it the “Rahm Bomb.”

But only those closest to Rahm understood the significance of the win taking place at Olympia Fields. Things didn’t end so amicably the last time he made a run at that track. At the 2015 U.S. Amateur, Rahm, just 20 at the time and the best amateur player on the planet, blew a 1-up lead in a quarterfinals match with three holes to play. Then he blew up in the locker room.

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“He kinda had a fight with his locker,” remembers one OFCC member who’d followed Rahm that day. “And the locker lost.”

Fast-forward five years and Rahm is seated in the center of that same cavernous locker room, his pregnant wife, Kelley, by his side and a buttery, 22-oz bone-in rib eye plated in front of him. The enormous chop—smothered in sautéed mushrooms and balanced on 460 cc’s of whipped potatoes—is now a staple of Olympia Fields’ clubhouse menu. The “Jon Rahm BMW Victory Dinner” will set you back $55.

It goes without saying that this version of Rahm—in familial bliss and feasting on success—is significantly different from the kid who came to blows with an inanimate, metal locker.

“It’s crazy looking back on these past few years and really seeing how much has changed for me,” Rahm says.

For those who aren’t quite ready to believe it, he’s eager to prove it. Rahm was one of the betting favorites at the Masters

Previous page: Cliff Endsley/Callaway Golf; This page: Stephen Denton; Illustrations by Ben Mounsey-Wood

AFTER EVERY PRO GOLF EVENT IS WON, THERE COMES A TIME WHEN

GET JR’S “PATH-SET” ADDRESS Jon sets up in a “dead-lift” position that allows his arms to hang down with his hands close to his body. If you overreach or stand too far from the ball, it will affect your balance and create a slate of issues on the backswing. You’ve got it right when you feel tension in your thighs and more pressure toward the balls of your feet. —Dave Phillips

in April, despite being the last player to arrive on-site. Kelley had just given birth to their first child, a beautiful boy named Kepa, and Dad was beaming as he told the press all about it.

Rahm waxed on like a seasoned midwife about the delivery process (“When does labor start, really?”), his newfound respect for mothers and paternal instincts he didn’t know he had. The way he was received you’d have thought that he won in San Antonio the week before, not Jordan Spieth. For perhaps the first time ever, baby gifts were exchanged on the Augusta National driving range. And yet, after an opening-round 72 some 30 hours later, there he was in Rahmbo mode, bickering with a writer about just how animated—or not—he seemed during his first nine holes as a dad. Old habits die hard.

“When people look at Jon’s temperament, they make it sound like he’s got this chip on his shoulder,” says Dave Phillips, Rahm’s coach of nearly a decade. “He doesn’t. He’s just

deeply passionate about the game and wanting to perform. Any [frustration] that comes out is really directed at himself.”

From a front-row seat, Phillips has witnessed Rahm’s progress, since the days when his star player was the best 17-yearold stick in Spain. He’s seen the blowups of the old Rahm and the maturation of the new Rahm—and knows there’s something still undetermined but definitely expected of Dad Rahm, because there’s always need for a narrative. Golf writers certainly play a role in that. As soon as he reached the pro ranks, Rahm was hyped as heir to his boyhood idols, Seve Ballesteros and José María Olazábal. But so does the rest of the Tour. After a rookie season in which he played 15 rounds alongside Rickie Fowler, Rahm and his talent were framed this way by Fowler’s caddie Joe Skovron: “If Rory McIlroy and Sergio Garcia had a baby, that’s who Jon Rahm is as a golfer.” No pressure there.

Rahm has followed through with four straight winning seasons on Tour, bagging 13 titles here and on the European Tour along the way. He’s missed two cuts worldwide in the past two years and been ranked in the top 12 every week of the past four years. His next milestone, says Phillips, is obvious: major championships.

There’s a nattering, ever-present crowd that pro players are asked to appease: those who measure career success exclusively on the majors metric. To date, Rahm’s total number of major wins is zero, a stat that only gets weightier with time.

But growth doesn’t always happen at a Spieth-, Morikawa- or Ko-like pace. Rahm’s pace has been exactly that—his own.

This is the guy who, in a distinctly un-American way, spurned the pro ranks for a four-year stint at Arizona State. Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas left college without their degrees. Rahm

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...the TravisMathew threads on his back...

Callaway Epic Speed “T” Triple Diamond 3-wood: 14.2 degrees, Aldila Tour Green 75TX shaft, 270 yards; $300 Callaway Epic Speed “T” Triple Diamond 5-wood: 18.1 degrees, Graphite Design Tour AD-DI Black 8X shaft, 250 yards; $300

...and new kicks for his feet from shoe newcomer Cuater.

promised his family he’d graduate. So he trounced collegiate golfers by day and crushed his studies (and Netflix) by night.

“I feel like he’s known it his whole life, that in his own time he’d take the next step,” says Alberto Sanchez, one of Rahm’s college teammates. “He hasn’t really changed. It’s just his stature in the game that has changed.”

When Rahm, then a 17-year-old freshman with a heavy accent and not much English, met Sanchez, he clung to him.

(Sanchez spoke Spanish too.) The two of them roomed for three years, and Sanchez, now competing on the Canadian Tour, remains part of an unsurprisingly tight circle. The group chat they share, named “Jon’s BP” (as in, Jon’s Bachelor Party), has become an essential means of communication and support these days. And a little humility.

“It’s so important to have friends like Alberto, ones that

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STEAL JR’S LEG ACTION On the downswing, Jon makes sure to turn his lower body as effectively as possible. When his front hip gets tight, he tends to hang back. To improve your hip mobility, hit a ball as hard as you can with hip-high backswing.

This will force you to engage your legs and strike the ball with power you didn’t know you had in you. —D.P.

will not let me forget the embarrassing moments,” Rahm says. “They’re Callaway X21 Proto Raw utility: always there for me, and it’s big to have 21 degrees, that balance of when you’re playing verProject X 6.5 shaft, 225 sus when you’re not.” yards; $300 Gratitude aside, Sanchez says Rahm Callaway Apex does his share of ribbing in the chats.

TCB irons: 4-PW, Project X shafts, After all, only one of these guys is a 9-iron 155 yards Mercedes-Benz ambassador. Only Callaway Jaws one of them flies private. Only one of Forged wedges: 52, 56 and 60 them is a guest of honor at his favorite degrees, Spanish soccer club’s games (¡Vamos, Project X 6.5 shafts, 125, 115, Athletic Bilbao!).

100 yards; $160 And only one of them got the fullOdyssey 2-Ball court press from Callaway when he Ten proto putter: 37-inch doublebecame an equipment free agent last bend shaft; $300 year. When the pandemic shut down Callaway Chrome the Tour in March 2020, the gear manuSoft X 20 balls: facturer wooed Rahm like never before. (black box); $48 per dozen He’d played some Callaway clubs in college, and his close relationship with Phil Mickelson helped get Callaway a seat at the table. But at the highest level of the game, equipment changes rarely go smoothly.

The world’s best love maintaining the status quo.

In the way that big-time colleges recruit talent to their programs, Callaway assembled an exhaustive presentation for Rahm at its Carlsbad headquarters. Here’s where you’re great.

(Off the tee.) Here’s where we think we can make you better. (Short game.) Here’s where we can benefit your brand, your coach, your foundation, your agent. The list goes on. Their vision was to have Rahm be the face of Callaway for decades to come.

“I think it showed him that we’re not just handing him a golf club and saying, ‘Try this,’ ” says Jacob Davidson, a Tour manager at Callaway. “We wanted to go through the process; show him that we’d done our homework. We probably knew more about Jon than he knew about himself.”

“What really stood out to me,” Rahm says, “is how com-

From left: Cliff Endsley/Callaway Golf; Efe/Lacoste Promesas; Courtesy Jon Rahm (2); Keyur Khamar/PGA Tour/Getty Images

Callaway Epic Speed Triple Diamond LS driver: 10.2 degrees, Aldila Tour Green 75TX shaft, 295 yards; $530

Rahm’s new Callaway partnership includes everything in his bag (right)...

COPY JR’S RIGHT HIP POWER MOVE Great players create space to help control the club. Jon does this by turning deeply into his right hip on the backswing, which allows him to shift with tremendous force on the downswing. To do this yourself, place your back right pocket one inch away from a wall and turn into your right hip so that at the top of your backswing, your right pocket is against the wall. —D.P.

mitted they were to working with me; to letting me, at my own pace, figure out what I was looking for. I was out there for four days, working hard to get everything—the clubs, the ball, the putter—in a place I really liked.”

The effort paid off in the form of a multiyear agreement.

Rahm inked the contract, then, famously, shot 59 during his first practice round with the new gear. It sounds straight out of a marketing department, but it’s true. A few weeks in and both sides of the relationship were delivering. Rahm now plays a full bag of Callaways and—in a corollary deal—rocks TravisMathew threads on the course.

Unlike plenty of pros whose results tumble after a major equipment change, there has been no drop-off in Rahm’s game.

At press time, he had seven top 10s in his last nine starts and two more than any other Tour player this season. One of them came at Augusta National, where his final-round 66 was the best of the day by two strokes and his 15th straight Masters round at par or better.

“Just going about it, doing his thing and making it look not very difficult,” as Sanchez likes to say. He’s watched this show for about a decade now.

In contemplating Rahm’s future, Coach Phillips looks back to 2020, when his star pupil won on two of the toughest Tour setups the players saw all season. To that point, Rahm had proven he could win all over the world, on birdie-fest tracks in a breezy race to 18, 20 or 22 under. But he won in dominating fashion at the 2020 Memorial (by three strokes, with a score of nine under), then, in his win at Olympia Fields, summoned more grit than Phillips had ever seen in him. Rahm trailed by one with four to play and had just fanned his drive on the par-5 15th, banking it off the trees and narrowly missing the hazard. A break, to be sure, but his position on the hole (in the thick stuff ) and in the tournament (trailing by one) fooled Paul Azinger, who, from NBC’s tower, thought Rahm’s next shot called for a slicing long-iron. Hero ball. Not for Rahm,

who chose, instead, to ease an 8-iron back into the fairway.

“That, to me, was maturity,” Phillips says. “All I have to do is put this in the middle of the fairway. I’m swinging really well.

I can still make birdie with a 6-iron. That’s what a guy does who’s using his mind and knows his talent.”

For the immensely gifted, it’s sometimes as simple as that.

Rahm made birdie with his 6-iron and took the lead. Two hours later he was cradling a trophy and, undoubtedly, thinking about the ride.

“Five years ago, I was at Arizona State just trying to win tournaments,” he says. “Now here I am competing on Tour, and I’m a husband and a dad.” And, it’s pretty clear, insatiably hungry. Around 10 o’clock the night of the BMW win, as darkness enveloped a nearly empty Olympia Fields, Rahm and his wife bid the waitstaff goodnight and strolled hand in hand to their cottage on the South Course. A group of OFCC members had gathered to toast their own volunteering efforts that week, and Rahm called out to them. “I just had the best meal I could possibly think of,” he shouted. “You should have joined us!”

His next initiative for professional growth? Send early invites.

Top, from left: Rahm as a teen, with idol Olazábal, and in fine form on the range; wife Kelley and baby Kepa. Right: Clinching the 2020 BMW.

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GET GOOD FAST!

BY TOP 100 TEACHER CLAUDE HARMON III PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTIAN HAFER

For most golfers, game improvement is a journey that takes place over a lifetime. For 17-year-old Paris Hilinski, it happened in a flash. She took up golf when she was 12, had her first lesson at 13 and qualified for the U.S. Women’s Open when she was 14.

Her coach, GOLF Top 100 Teacher Claude Harmon III, has been with her every step of the way. Now, he’s here to share their secrets about how Paris got so good so quickly—and how you can apply those lessons to improve your game in a hurry.

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1

Putting: Keep Your Head Still This time-tested tip remains the secret to making the short ones Learning this game requires working from the hole backward, even when putting. Paris started by learning how to perfect her short-range putting first, and then gradually moved farther away from the cup.

It builds a good foundation for the rest of your game.

No movement Putting requires precision, and if your head and body sway, it’s going to be hard to control the putterface.

Have a friend or your coach grab the bill of your hat, like I’m doing here, and hit a few putts. Internalize that feeling of a stable head that never looks at the hole too soon.

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2

Short Game: Spin Your Chips Good chipping improves your full swing too Paris’ stellar full swing is based in some of the great things she does in her short game. Good players know that chipping it well demands an awareness of how to control the clubface to create spin and hit different kinds of shots.

Compress the ball

Take a photo of this code to watch Paris and Claude at work on the range

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Start by hitting low spinners (photos, above). Place the ball slightly back in your stance, with the handle forward, and keep it there on the downswing. That feeling of a “compression” shot with a stable clubface is one you can apply throughout your bag.

3

Full Swing: Wide & Stable The best backswings are wide with a full turn—and zero sway Paris gets the club a little long at the top, which compromises the timing and sequencing on her downswing. It’s a common issue among juniors and golfers with lots of upper body flexibility. Not every swing has to go completely to parallel.

Stabilize your turn Hold an alignment stick under your right arm and hit three-quarter shots. This will help you get the club into a wider, more stable position without reducing your upper body turn. For Paris, it puts her in a position to better control the club both at the top (right) and at impact.

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Shallow It Out For consistent strikes, favor a flat approach over a steep one Paris has a very athletic swing and she hits the ball a long way. But in order to take advantage of her athleticism, she needs to contact the ball without imparting too much spin and from a fairly neutral path—good advice for most players.

Tee up an iron Try one of Paris’ favorite drills. With an iron, tee up the ball as you would with driver (left). This forces you3to nix a too-steep downswing for one that’s more shallow and keep the spin under control.

It also gives you better 4 control of the clubface and “neutralizes” your path.

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Oceans Away Last year’s U.S. Open was an emphatically East Coast affair, when Bryson wowed Winged Foot’s bluebloods. Barefooted is more like it this year at Torrey Pines, the SoCal host (for the second time) of our national championship, a place so steeped in electrifying history (Tiger!) and chill pleasures (links and longboards) you’re guaranteed to be stoked.

BY JOSH SENS PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDY JOHNSON

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U.S. OPEN PREVIEW

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When the U.S. Open returns to San Diego, the West Coast will shine—and the world’s best players will be asked to solve the riddle of Torrey Pines. Some burning questions can be answered in advance.

Here are five of them.

What’s been done to its two courses?

Hole No. 4

Like a lot of Southern Californians of a certain age, Torrey Pines has had a bunch of work done over the years. While many of the jobs have been modest nips and tucks, others qualify as major procedures, as in 2001, when Rees Jones, the Open Doctor, stitched more than 500 yards onto the South Course while shifting targets to bring bluffs and ravines more boldly into play. In 2016, the North Course took its turn under the knife. This time the surgeon was Tom Weiskopf, who overhauled the greens, eliminated more than a dozen bunkers and flipped the nines so that the routing finishes on a coastal high. Weiskopf also stretched the North to 7,258 yards, a sizable length that still leaves it shorter than the South, which now tips out at close to 7,800 yards, thanks to yet another makeover two years ago.

Torrey tidbit: San Diego native Phil Mickelson, who has won three times on Tour at Torrey, lost an opportunity to renovate the North Course in 2016 when his bid was blocked by a legal technicality.

Why is the South so much tougher than the North?

Hole No. 7

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At the Farmers Insurance Open, which is played on both Torrey courses, the scoring average on the South is always higher than it is on the North, sometimes by as many as three or four strokes. What accounts for that whopping gap? Size matters, of course; the South is longer. But it also has been stiffened

Hole No. 3

Hole No. 14

into a major venue (the North isn’t used for competition in the U.S. Open), with bunkers repositioned to tighten landing areas and greens and tees moved closer to all kinds of peril. Renovations to the North came with a different mandate: toughen it enough to stand up as a Tour stop without bringing ordinary golfers to their knees. The North has fewer bunkers and more open-fronted greens that allow for run-ups. The putting surfaces have also been expanded to create a wide variety of pin positions, the most demanding of which are used in the Farmers but rarely employed for everyday play.

Torrey tidbit: It’s a 431-mile drive from Torrey Pines (South) to Pebble Beach, or a roughly seven-hour trip between the longest and the shortest courses on the PGA Tour, at 7,765 yards and 6,816, respectively.

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What is kikuyu grass and why is it so challenging?

Kikuyu is the Patrick Reed of sod: aggressive, polarizing and known to thrive in tough conditions. Indigenous to Kenya, it was introduced to California in the early 1900s and can be found on many courses in the Golden State. But Torrey Pines, which features kikuyu in its fairways and rough, is one of only two modern major championship venues (Riviera is the other) where the resilient variety comes into play. Kikuyu loves the heat, but golfers have a hot-and-cold relationship to it. Tightly mown, the grass provides a near-perfect lie; its stiff blades practically hold the ball up. But let them grow and those same blades get grabby. Chipping becomes tricky. Clubfaces

GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS A tale of the tape between California’s two U.S. Open host heavyweights: Torrey Pines (South) vs. Pebble Beach Golf Links

By Evan Rothman

TORREY PINES

VS.

PEBBLE BEACH

YEAR OPENED 1957

1919

DESIGNER William F. Bell

Jack Neville & Douglas Grant

MAIN REDESIGNER Rees Jones

H. Chandler Egan

U.S. OPEN YARDAGE 7,652 (2021)

7,075 (2019)

All Torrey Pines photos: Andy Johnson/The Fried Egg; This page, Pebble Beach: Channing Benjamin; Next page, Woods: Stan Badz/PGA Tour

OWNERS City of San Diego

Hole No. 13

The Pebble Beach Company (Clint Eastwood, et al.)

GREEN FEES $252

$575

COURSE SIBLINGS Torrey Pines (North)

Spyglass Hill, The Links at Spanish Bay, The Hay, Del Monte GC

ICONIC TIGER U.S. OPEN MOMENT

stick or turn over in the tangle. Where the bomb-and-gouge worked for some at last year’s U.S. Open at Winged Foot, Torrey promises to be a different story. A shot from thick kikuyu is like playing from a spiderweb of steel wool.

Torrey tidbit: Often referred to as “bermuda grass on steroids” for its sturdy build and invasive ways, kikuyu is thought to have been introduced to Torrey on the shoes of golfers coming from other courses, including Riviera.

72nd-hole putt to force playoff in 2008

ANNUAL JUNIOR EVENT Junior World Golf Championship

Because the past is often prologue, pay close attention to the 7th, the dogleg-right par 4 where the 2008 U.S. Open came to its Monday-playoff close. At 462 yards, with a tilted fairway that spills down and around to a canted green, the hole has a penchant for producing awkward lies. “Everything about it is designed to make you feel uncomfortable,” says NBC Sports analyst Mark Rolfing. As for the par-4 12th hole, it can make you feel resigned. Playing 505 yards into a prevailing wind, it had the highest scoring average of any hole in the ’08 U.S. Open, and it hasn’t gotten any easier since. On the risk-reward front, the par-5 13th is worth watching too, Rolfing says. Reachable in two, it can bring disaster if you miss the fairway, which dips into a valley, then rises to the green. On Saturday in ’08, Phil Mickelson made a nine without losing a ball.

Torrey tidbit: Just beyond the 12th green, separated by a chainlink fence, is the Torrey Pines Gliderport, where hang gliders take off on soaring flights, a fitting complement to a hole that has the third-highest scoring average of any on Tour.

PURE Insurance Championship First Tee Open

ICONIC TREE Torrey pine

Monterey pine

PREFERRED BEACH ACTIVITY Sunbathing

Dog walking

LOOK! UP IN THE SKY! Hang gliders

Where will this U.S. Open be won (or lost)?

15-stroke triumph in 2000

Seagulls

AQUATIC STARS Green sea turtles

Sea lions

ICONIC COCKTAIL The Balboa, served at the Balboa Bar & Grill

The Pebble Beach manhattan, served at The Tap Room

FAMOUS LOCAL ROADWAY 59-Mile Scenic Drive

17-Mile Drive

MILITARY HISTORY Built on the site of Camp Callan, a World War II U.S. Army installation

After World War II, the U.S. Navy acquired Pebble Beach’s original Hotel del Monte and accompanying grounds for its Naval Postgraduate School

Pebble Beach

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WHERE THEY’LL PLAY THE NEXT U.S. OPENS 2022: THE COUNTRY CLUB—BROOKLINE, MASS. (JUNE 16 to 19) 2023: THE LOS ANGELES COUNTRY CLUB (NORTH COURSE)—LOS ANGELES, CALIF. (JUNE 15 to 18) 2024: PINEHURST RESORT & COUNTRY CLUB (COURSE NO. 2)—VILLAGE OF PINEHURST, N.C. (JUNE 13 to 16) 2025: OAKMONT COUNTRY CLUB—OAKMONT, PA. (JUNE 12 to 15) 2026: SHINNECOCK HILLS GOLF CLUB—SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. (JUNE 18 to 21) 2027: PEBBLE BEACH GOLF LINKS—PEBBLE BEACH, CALIF. (JUNE 17 to 20)

How does the 18th hole rate as a U.S. Open finisher?

If you think of golf as theater, then you have to ask which matters more: the stage or the drama that unfolds on it? On looks alone, many critics see Torrey South’s closer as a middling set design, a Plain Jane par 5 with a gently bending fairway and an artificial water hazard fronting the green that has no place on a seaside layout. But when it comes to the spectacle it produces, the hole gets rave reviews. A lot of it revolves around that polarizing pond, which irks the purists but also creates edge-of-the-seat uncertainty. You might see eagle (recall Jon

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Rahm at the 2017 Farmers), an ugly “other” (as in, the triplebogey eight Kyle Stanley made to give away the Farmers in 2012) or something even more compelling in between. Let’s not forget—as if we ever could—the birdie Tiger drained (see pg. 84) to force a playoff in the 2008 U.S. Open, a moment that endures as the most riveting finish in the modern history of the event.

Torrey tidbit: The pond on 18 is nicknamed Devlin’s Billabong, a cheeky reference to the Aussie pro Bruce Devlin, who, in the final round of the 1975 Andy Williams San Diego Open, played seven shots from the shallow water fronting the green, en route to a one-putt 10.

Woods at Torrey in ’13.

HORSES FOR COURSES Certain tracks just set up better for some players.

Whether it’s the look of the fairways or something in the tap water, select pros absolutely own a course—like Tiger does Torrey Pines.

Here are the players who love to light it up and where.

By Zephyr Melton

Who has eight wins on the same course?

Five wins

Ben Hogan Tiger Woods

Colonial CC

Torrey Pines

Hogan is a legendary figure in golf, and his stature in Texas is only amplified.

With five wins at Colonial, the classic Fort Worth course has been dubbed “Hogan’s Alley.”

Tiger’s win at the ’08 U.S. Open gets most of the press, but it’s only one of eight times he’s left Torrey Pines with hardware.

Bay Hill Club & Lodge Only two players have won in back-to-back years at Bay Hill: Matt Every and Tiger.

The Big Cat has done it four times, including a four-peat from 2000 to 2003.

Firestone CC (South) From the first time Firestone hosted an event, Tiger was dominant. He won the first three WGCs in Ohio and added five more wins by 2013.

Six wins

Jack Nicklaus Augusta National GC No one has owned the Masters like the Golden Bear. With six green jackets in his closet, Jack knows Augusta National better than anyone else.

Alex Ross Pinehurst No. 2

Muirfield Village GC Tiger’s career has largely been judged with the Golden Bear as a measuring stick, and superb performances at Jack’s place over the years have bolstered his résumé.

Four wins

Hale Irwin

Harbour Town GL

Palmer Course at Turtle Bay (Champions Tour)

Masters week is when lots of players aim to peak, but Love has been a week late most of his career with five tartan jackets to his credit.

No one has won more on the senior circuit than Irwin, and his dominance at the Palmer Course has helped pad that total.

Phil Mickelson

Jack Nicklaus

Pebble Beach GL

Cochise Course (Champions Tour)

Davis Love III

It feels appropriate that the charismatic lefty has racked up wins in bunches in his home state. The Pebble Pro-Am also allows him to flash perhaps his greatest asset—his personality.

Jack didn’t limit his searing play to the PGA Tour. He’s one of just two senior golfers to have won on the same course four times.

Arnold Palmer

Mark O’Meara

Augusta National GC

Pebble Beach GL

The King won seven majors in his career and did the bulk of his damage at the National.

Along with Mickelson, O’Meara owns the most wins at the Pebble Pro-Am.

Sam Snead Starmount Forest CC

Tamarisk CC No one had more success at the Bob Hope Classic than Palmer. Of his five Hope wins, four of them came at Tamarisk.

Alex Ross’ career highlight is surely his 1907 U.S. Open win, but six wins at the home of American golf is nothing to scoff at.

The Greater Greensboro Open was another favorite of Snead’s. He won the event eight times, five of them coming at Starmount Forest.

Sam Snead

Tiger Woods

Bayshore CC

Augusta National GC

The Slammer claimed 82 PGA Tour victories during his decorated career, and six of them came courtesy of the Miami Open.

Tiger owns 15 major titles, and a third of them have come at Augusta National.

Tom Watson

Cog Hill GC

A gift for battling high winds helped earn Watson five Open Championships, but it also earned him four wins in Dallas.

Woods won the Western Open three times at Cog Hill, and he’s added two more trophies since its rebranding as the BMW Championship.

Sam Snead Sedgefield CC Snead’s dominance in Greensboro extended to Sedgefield as well.

Preston Trails GC

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Stoke Gained There’s an unexpected overlap of passions between golfers and surfers, and nowhere does their Zen meet more blissfully than in the beach towns and breaks beyond (and below) Torrey

BY JOSH SENS PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEPHEN DENTON

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21

U.S. OPEN PREVIEW

The Culture

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Paul Loegering leans on “The Board Room,” his shed of surf and sand(trap) playthings just behind his office/ home in Carlsbad.

O On a hazy morning just north of San Diego, hours before his regularly scheduled tee time, Paul Loegering is reading breaks. He’s looking at three-footers, and there’s not much in them—modest waves frothing a couple hundred yards offshore.

“It’s pretty choppy out there,” Loegering says. “Better conditions for golf than surfing.”

Not that he’s deterred. As he does most days when he isn’t traveling with the PGA Tour, Loegering plans to partake in both. He’ll hit the waves, then he’ll hit the links.

Per usual, he won’t be alone.

At 55, a brown-haired, slight-framed former collegiate surfer who earns his keep in the golf equipment industry, Loegering (pronounced leggo-ring) is the ringleader of a crew that swaps wet suits in the morning for collared shirts in the afternoon. As he puts it, “Our motto is ‘Surf AM, golf PM.’ ”

Given those twin passions, they’d be hard-pressed to find a better place to live. This morning’s subpar surf is a consequence of unfavorable onshore winds. But a big swell is coming, according to the forecasts, along with offshore breezes that help hold waves in a sweet, feathery shape. That’s more like it for San Diego, where nearly year-round surf and sunshine provide an ideal backdrop for Loegering’s amphibious lifestyle.

“I’m not sure what more you could want,” he says.

Looking at this happy union of golf and surfing, it’s easy to forget that the two sports used to get on poorly. Barely more than a generation back, golfers and surfers occupied opposing camps, eyeing one another from a wary distance through the lens of caricature. Where surfers scoffed at the stiff-lipped snobs on land, golfers shunned the bleach-brained slackers in the water. Little did they realize how many traits they shared: Golfers, like surfers, were drawn to a sense of harmony with nature; surfers, like golfers, spoke of their pursuit as a spiritual quest. In mindset and motivation, to say nothing of motor skills, the commonalities were plain. You just had to look.

As this recognition grew, it led to something more than peaceful coexistence. It encouraged intermingling.

Famous golfers started surfing and the other way around. Fashions shifted.

Dress codes loosened. Influences washed back and forth. Surfers embraced “etiquette.” Golfers began speaking of courses with good “vibes.”

In recent years, the crosscurrents have been felt in many places. But nowhere on the U.S. mainland are they stronger than in San Diego, where the U.S. Open will be held this month.

Start at the host course, Torrey Pines, its fairways running atop oceanside bluffs. Below it is Black’s Beach, Left: The pro shop at Goat Hill, where Cali golfers are reminded of more tubular coastal pleasures. Opposite: Ashworth, the scene’s hirsute style guru, and AM/PMers Ted Robinson and (top) Loegering.

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The Culture

POSTCARD FROM THE EDGE BLACK’S BEACH Just below Torrey, swells rising from deep offshore canyons produce some of the most powerful waves on the West Coast.

TERRA MAR POINT A sweet, consistent surf spot in the heart of Carlsbad, popular with short and longboarders.

SWAMI’S An internationally known surf mecca with a primo reef break, named for the ashram that overlooks it.

Illustration by Derik Hobbs

GOAT HILL PARK Beach culture is alive and well at this par-65 short course, where surf wax can be bought in the pro shop.

famous as a nudists’ hangout but also as the site of one of the West Coast’s finest beach breaks. Follow the shoreline in either direction and you come upon a string of other pearly surf spots—La Jolla Shores, Swami’s, Terra Mar and more. Just inland, the commercial landscape also reflects the region’s hybrid interests. In Encinitas, a few clicks up the coast from Torrey, the design studio of noted putter-maker Scotty Cameron stands almost cheek-to-jowl with Hansen’s, a landmark local surf shop.

In nearby Carlsbad, FireWire, the largest surfboard-maker in the world, sits in the same industrial district as the likes of Callaway and TaylorMade.

One of FireWire’s cofounders is Chuy Reyna, an ex-pro surfer and a fixture in Loegering’s AM/PM group. Now 52, Reyna came to golf in adulthood and can’t get enough. He plays a couple times a week and counts himself a “member” at Goat Hill Park, in Oceanside, though

FIREWIRE This Carlsbad-based surfboard company is known for its innovative use of materials and design.

HANSEN’S One of San Diego’s original surf shops, it remains family-owned after nearly 60 years.

SCOTTY CAMERON GOLF GALLERY A retail shop and fitting center, its offerings include surf-inspired putterheads.

THE CARLSBAD GOLF NEXUS The epicenter of the golf equipment industry is also home to the country’s largest surfboard manufacturer.

membership seems almost too formal a term for a kickback, low-cost public course that has a surfboard hanging from the rafters of its pro shop.

“I love the mental and physical challenge,” Reyna says of golf. “You know there’s always an opportunity for improvement but also that you’ll never

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master it. It’s like surfing in that way.”

If there’s a Kevin Bacon of these overlapping worlds, it’s Loegering, who lives in Carlsbad and works as Tour manager for True Temper Sports, the leading golf-shaft-maker in the industry. Name an athlete in either sport—odds are Loegering has them on speed dial. He plays golf with surf god Kelly Slater. He surfs with Adam Scott and Rafa CabreraBello, among other big-name golfers who have caught the bug. Last winter, in advance of the Farmers Insurance Open, the Tour pro Tyler McCumber rang up Loegering, whom most everyone knows by his nickname: Lego. He wasn’t looking for a caddie.

“I love the waves in San Diego,” McCumber says. “And Lego is about as good a local guide as you can get.”

THE WAVES IN San Diego were not the first ones Loegering learned to ride. He grew up in Manhattan Beach, close to L.A., in a middle-class neighborhood blocks from the water, and started surfing when he was seven. Though he knew some golfers, he viewed them as most grommets did. “I thought they were all squares,” he says.

A come-to-the-mountain moment occurred in high school, when a buddy

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took him to Riviera to watch the L.A. Open. Loegering was stunned by the beauty of the setting. Back home, he picked up clubs and—spoiler alert!—got hooked. In college at Long Beach State, Loegering surfed competitively, but golf became his north star. After graduation, he moved to San Diego, bent on getting certified as a PGA professional. A life in the golf shop didn’t seem so bad.

In those days, Loegering would get up before sunrise to squeeze in surf sessions at Black’s, then scramble up the bluffs to make an early-morning Torrey tee time. Too bad he also needed to pay rent. While filling out forms for his PGA training program, Loegering saw a listing for an entry-level job at Callaway. It was 1994. He never looked back. From newbie clubfitter, he rose to become the company’s Tour rep, and then went on

From left, Rafa Cabrera-Bello, Greg Norman and Adam Scott, golfers whose hang-loose personas are in perfect sync with surf culture.

to do the same for TaylorMade, helping customize equipment for some of the game’s best players. None of them surfed, not as far as Loegering knew.

Nor did he raise the subject.

“I was worried that if I told them I was a surfer, they wouldn’t trust me with the fitting,” he says.

Greg Norman would have had faith.

Before he was the Shark, Norman was a surfer, riding waves along the Great Barrier Reef, a part of his past that he never discussed with his peers.

“I was competing against guys like Ballesteros and Faldo,” Norman says.

“If I’d brought up surfing, the conversations would have been very short.”

When Norman talks surfing today, he

The Culture

From left: Courtesy Cabrera-Bello; Lindsey Potter Photography; Robert Beck/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images

“I DON’T THINK IT’S AN ACCIDENT THAT THOSE FIRST YEARS I REALLY GOT INTO GOLF WERE PROBABLY MY BEST YEARS IN SURFING,” SAYS KELLY SLATER. stresses its reliance on “balance, flexibility and proprioception.”

“You’ve got to plant your feet, you want your upper body relaxed, you’ve got to be attuned to the speed of the waves and everything around you, just as you’re attuned to the wind and other elements on the course,” he says. “Very different sports but a lot of similarities.”

This was the same discovery Kelly Slater made when he took up golf in earnest in the mid-1990s. Though he’d had prior brushes with the game, this deeper dive showed him how much golf helped with body awareness.

“I don’t think it’s an accident that those first years I really got into golf, in ’96 and ’97, were probably my best years in surfing,” Slater says. Coming from a surfer who has won 11 world titles, that’s saying a lot. In 2015, Slater launched the eco-conscious clothing line Outerknown, which includes polos and other golf wear. In that crossover, he was not a pioneer. In recent decades, the golf fashion industry has burst with brands that touch upon the surf-meets-turf connection, among them Johnnie-O and Linksoul, whose cofounder, John Ashworth, was one of the OGs in the space.

A Southern California native, Ashworth surfed and played golf as a kid but kept his golf side closeted when he was in the waves. He recognized the game had an image problem. In time, he sought to change that image through apparel.

“I knew how soulful golf was,” Ashworth says. “But for people outside to see that, you had to get rid of the silly rules.”

Another expression of that ethos is Goat Hill Park. Six years ago, Ashworth led a group that assumed its lease, rescuing the city-owned course from oblivion. Among the first things he did was scrap the dress code. You have to wear a shirt, but that’s about it. Though it’s not hard on the water, Goat Hill has ocean views, and its “vibe” is so beachy you can almost taste the salt spray. Ashworth says he didn’t set out to create that atmosphere. It happened organically, an outgrowth of the natural ties between golf and surfing.

“I think of them as practices, more than anything,” Ashworth says. “There’s something spiritual in both.”

If that sounds to you like New Age claptrap, then you’ve never flushed an iron shot at twilight or risen with the sun to get barreled by a wave.

PAUL LOEGERING is conversant in the lingo. Golf and surfing are “part of my soul,” he says. His job with True Temper, which he’s held since 2015, keeps him on the road 35 weeks a year, but he stays centered by stashing surfboards at friends’ houses for use in Florida, Hawaii and other coastal stops. Once his hidden passion, surfing has become a source of bonding. He and Adam Scott have chased waves in Mexico, Australia, Indonesia, Nicaragua. Three years ago, Cabrera-Bello joined them at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch in the Central Valley, an artificial wave pool that is something like the surf world’s Augusta National Golf Club.

In Carlsbad, Loegering shares a seaside duplex with his fiancée, Julie Chandler. (He has three grown children from a previous marriage.) His upstairs office, adorned with photos from his surf adventures, overlooks the ocean. The ground floor backs up to a converted shed that Loegering calls the Board Room, and not because it’s where he makes executive decisions.

It’s a half-block to the water, but on this windy morning, Loegering has a couple boards and a bunch of gear to carry, so he borrows a neighbor’s buggy—a souped-up golf cart with a surf rack on top—and buzzes to the water.

Reyna is there, along with two other AM/PM buddies: Chris Nagle, an Aussie transplant who works in finance but lives for the outdoors, and Ted Robinson, a childhood friend and one of the finest longboarders of his generation.

Robinson already has his wet suit on.

Loegering dons his and marches toward the waves.

It will take some skill to find lively rides in these slothful conditions, but some surf is always better than no surf.

“This is one of those days where you clear your head in the ocean and go make some birdies,” Loegering says.

He stands there for a moment, one foot on the sand, the other in the shallows. Then he plunges in.

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U.S. OPEN PREVIEW

The Defender

A. BDC C. D.

How well do you know defending U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau?

B Y E VA N ROTHMAN

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1. Derived from the Old French, “DeChambeau” means a. “the raven” b. “of the fields” c. “wearing a hat” d. “with a cherry”

From left: Christian Hafer; Southern Methodist University; Richard Heathcote/Getty Images; Ben Jared/PGA Tour via Getty Images; muscleactivation.com

2. Bryson’s nickname is a. The Scientist b. The Hulk c. The Professor d. Gilligan 3. Which instruction book had the most impact on Bryson growing up? a. The Golfing Machine,

by Homer Kelley b. Swing Easy, Hit Hard,

by Julius Boros c. Swing Hard, Hit Hard,

by Guy Boros d. Who Moved My Cheese?

by Spencer Johnson 4. What has Bryson been known to do left-handed to develop fine-motor skills? a. Peel bananas b. Write cursive c. Brush his teeth d. Zip zippers

7. Bryson is known to consider which of the following before hitting a shot? a. Barometric pressure b. Fermat’s theorem c. The law of quadratic reciprocity d. All of the above 8. On GOLF’s “Subpar” podcast, fellow PGA Tour pro Adam Long said Bryson is… a. “an inspiration” b. “the future of golf” c. “probably the most dedicated athlete in any sport” d. “intimidating” 9. ...while fellow Tour pro Eddie Pepperell has called Bryson a… a. “singleminded twit” b. “slow-playing tosser” c. “burly bore” d. “professorial poseur” 10. Which player has not won the U.S. Open, the U.S. Amateur and the NCAA championship? a. Bryson DeChambeau b. Tiger Woods c. Jack Nicklaus d. Eddie Pepperell

5. What was Bryson’s major at Southern Methodist University? a. Biochemistry b. Mechanical engineering c. Physics d. Beer pong

11. Bryson’s irons and wedges are famously all the same length, which is a. 35.5 inches b. 36.5 inches c. 37.5 inches d. The square root of pi times pi minus the Earth’s circumference

6. Who was the last player before Bryson to win the NCAA individual championship and U.S. Amateur in the same year? a. Ryan Armour b. Ryan Palmer c. Ryan Moore d. Ryan Seacrest

12. At the 2020 WGCFedEx St. Jude Invitational, Bryson was involved in a rules kerfuffle that centered on a. Murder hornets b. Rattlesnakes c. Alligators d. Fire ants

13. In his 2020 U.S. Open victory at Winged Foot, Bryson was a. The only player to finish the championship under par b. The only player to shoot under par in the final round c. The only player not to shoot an over-par round d. All of the above 14. “Bryson DeChambeau” was the correct answer— or would have been, had any of the contestants known it—to a question on which TV quiz show? a. Jeopardy! b. To Tell the Truth c. Celebrity Family Feud d. Match Game 15. Bryson was present and filming, but not swinging, when which bomber hit a 302-yard 8-iron on an indoor simulator? a. Jamie Sadlowski b. Kyle Berkshire c. Phil Mickelson d. Applied physics says it is not humanly possible to hit a 302-yard 8-iron 16. Which is not a designated beneficiary of the Bryson DeChambeau Foundation? a. St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital b. National Kidney Foundation c. The Pythagorean Theorem Club d. Northern California Golf Association

17. Bryson has an endorsement deal with which automotive company? a. Land Rover b. Jeep c. Bentley d. Mini Cooper 18. Bryson’s social-media feud with Brooks Koepka last year involved a discussion of which muscles? a. Lats b. Abs c. Traps d. Glutes 19. Greg Roskopf is Bryson’s a. Agent b. Social-media director c. Muscle activation specialist d. Analytics consultant 20. In a GOLF.com interview, Bryson said that his decisions on when to leave the flagstick in while putting would pertain to… a. Whether the putt was uphill, downhill or sidehill b. The flagstick’s coefficient of restitution c. Air temperature and humidity d. Just, you know, his general vibe in the moment, dude

ANSWER KEY 1. b; 2. a; 3. a; 4. b; 5. c; 6. c; 7. a (Those versed in numbers theory, and probably Bryson, know that Fermat’s theorem gives a necessary but not sufficient test for primality, while the law of quadratic reciprocity is a theorem about modular arithmetic related to the solvability of quadratic equations); 8. c; 9. a; 10. d (but he’s still a great follow on Twitter); 11. c (the length of his standard 7-iron); 12. d; 13. d; 14. a (In Jeopardy!’s backward logic, “Who is Bryson DeChambeau?” was the question to this answer: “The unconventional methods of this long-hitting U.S. Open champ include using a protractor on the putting green”); 15. b (though golfers can be forgiven for thinking d); 16. c; 17. c; 18. b (Google it—it’s too silly to get into here); 19. c; 20. b.

IF YOU GOT 1–6 CORRECT: What are you, a hater?

7–12 CORRECT: Time to hit the Bryson books a bit harder 13–18 CORRECT: Good, but not 200 mph ball speed good 19–20 CORRECT: Welcome to The Pythagorean Theorem Club!

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U.S. OPEN PREVIEW

The Moment

The Putt Sunday. The 72nd hole. 2008. The U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. To understand the power and pandemonium of the moment, you had to be there.

B Y R YA N A S S E LTA

E

ach and every one of Tiger Woods’ 15 major

championships has had its own identity. The 1997 Masters? Historic. The 2000 U.S. Open? Dominant. The 2019 Masters? Iconic.

The 2008 U.S. Open? Excruciating.

Arguably one of Tiger’s greatest triumphs, that 2008 Open at Torrey Pines was also his most heroic. Just two months after undergoing his fourth knee surgery, Woods arrived in La Jolla, California, with the state of his game an enormous unknown. Would his knee hold up in grueling U.S. Open conditions? And where was he mentally? Legit questions, even for—at that time— the top-ranked player in the world.

Despite limping his way around what was then the longest course in U.S. Open history (7,643 yards), Woods found himself in the mix after the first two days of the tournament. Rounds of 72 and 68, including a second-nine 30 on Friday, put him one shot behind 36-hole leader Stuart Appleby.

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The agony and the ecstasy—inseparable for this guy on June 16, 2008.

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I’d witnessed the parade of people coming in and out who were treating his leg. I knew what was going on with him.

Steve Williams, Woods’ caddie: Tiger was in such

poor physical shape. He was getting so much treatment, just to enable him to compete.

Most tournaments, we’d have dinner or do something each night, but that week he never left his hotel room.

Dan Hicks, NBC Golf’s play-by-play announcer:

Saturday brought more fireworks from Woods, as he continued to play through debilitating pain. Two eagles over his final six holes left Torrey on the verge of eruption—and Woods the 54-hole leader.

With 18 to play, the stage was set for one of the most unique and memorable Open finales of all time. Just ask those on the grounds that day. In the broadcast tower. And in the scoring room a mere lob wedge away from the 72nd green.

THE SCENE: After a back-nine 33 on

Saturday, Woods entered Sunday with a one-stroke lead over Lee Westwood and two shots clear of lovable, 45-yearold journeyman Rocco Mediate. Tiger, 32, had never relinquished a 54-hole lead in a major championship, but his health led many to question whether his badly damaged left knee and leg would endure a fourth round.

Mark Rolfing, NBC Golf reporter:

I was staying on the fifth floor of the Lodge at Torrey that week, which is the same floor where Tiger was staying, and

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There was a tremendous amount of anticipation on Sunday, especially after what had transpired the day before.

Tiger had made those two eagles on the back nine, and it propelled us into wondering if Sunday would be the final act. Was his leg going to break down? Or was Tiger going to do something special?

Williams: It was a tournament he had set his mind on from the moment the USGA announced, I think in 2004, that the 2008 Open would be held at Torrey Pines. He won four straight Buick Invitationals there, from 2005 to 2008. It was just incredible how a lightbulb seemingly went off in his mind. In the entire time I caddied for him, he was more intent on winning that U.S. Open than any other championship. His fascination bordered on obsession. But at the start of the second round I said to him, “Tiger, you are going to have a lot more U.S. Opens to play in. You’re probably damaging your leg even more here. We’re close to the clubhouse. Maybe it’s time to call it quits.”

He told me in no uncertain terms he was going to win the tournament.

Mediate, in Sunday’s second-to-last group, was already on the course when Woods, paired with Westwood, stepped to the 1st tee. The anticipation was intense.

Rolfing: I remember there was this

overriding buzz that you get only in a few places in golf. You don’t get it at the Masters, because the patrons are quiet.

This was like 20,000 people all talking at the same time about what was going to happen. I was surprised at how evenly split the crowd was. There were a lot of people rooting for Rocco.

Donn Van Winkle, a spectator in the gallery: I’d been to a lot of tour-

naments at Torrey and Riviera, but this was my first major. Plus, Sunday at the U.S. Open is always Father’s Day, so it was teeming with dads and their kids.

Let’s just say it was not anything like the old Andy Williams Open. It was electric.

Hicks: Tiger got off to a crazy start, double-bogeying his first hole for the third time in four days. It was nuts, but it didn’t faze us because we had seen it all week.

Van Winkle: My wife and I got a spot along the ropes of the No. 2 tee when Tiger arrived. He teed off with a 3-metal and winced a little after the shot. Walking off the tee box, he used his club as a cane, and after a few steps he bent over, in visible pain, his hands dropping to his knees.

He stood there for a moment, gathered himself and set off down the fairway. We were shocked. There was a lot of chatter.

How was he going to make it through four holes, let alone an entire round?

Hicks: The word that kept running throughout my brain was expecting.

Despite his physical pain, we expect greatness from Tiger. I remember looking around Torrey Pines. I could see and sense the feeling of the moment. It was the same feeling everybody had during the Tiger Era. There was a level of expectancy, and that’s the sense I got from the crowd.

The lead seesawed throughout the day. After three holes, Mediate edged Woods by two. When Tiger finished the 4th, the lead was one. On the 5th and 7th tee shots, Woods’ pain was conspicuous again—but his game was steady.

The Moment

Johnny Miller, from NBC’s live broadcast, surveying the shot:

Previous page: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images; This page, from left: Donald Miralle/Getty Images; Jeff Gross/Getty Images; Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images

“He’s been hitting it nine miles with the bad knee, folks, just so you know.

The second-longest hitter this week.”

Following a final-round 71, Mediate walked off the 18th green leading the U.S. Open at one under par.

Rocco Mediate: It had been really loud all day. Underdogs are popular, and when the underdog is competing like I did, they become real popular. When I tapped in, I looked at my caddie Matthew and said, “I don’t know. I don’t know.” I just didn’t think it was over with Tiger and Lee Westwood coming in behind me.

Woods and Westwood arrived at the 575-yard, par-5 72nd hole one stroke behind Rocco and needing birdies to enter a playoff. Both of them missed the fairway off the tee and were forced to lay up. Westwood reached the green in three. For his third, Woods had a 105-yard approach out of thick rough.

Miller: “It will kick left and spin left, so he’s gotta keep it about 10 feet right of the hole if he wants to get it close.”

Hicks: Johnny Miller and Roger Maltbie did such a great job setting up just how tricky that shot was, especially when you

don’t have control of it from the rough.

Roger described it as a nasty lie that can take you out of your comfort zone when you’re trying to win. That shot could have left Tiger with 30 or 40 feet to tie.

Instead, he stuck it inside 15 feet. The shot has probably never been given its due because of what he did next.

Mediate was, at this point, watching from the scoring area, and Johnny Miller had a message for him.

Miller: “Don’t check out of your hotel, Rocco.”

Mediate: Once Lee and Tiger were both on the green, I was ready for Monday already. There was no way they’re both missing. Everybody was saying that the greens were bouncing, but we’d played them all day and made putts. I figured it was going to happen.

Rolfing: I was in the scoring area with Rocco, watching on a monitor as Tiger played the 72nd hole. Rocco was his typical nervous self, pacing around. But he kept saying to me, “I want him tomorrow. I want Tiger for 18 holes.” I remember saying to him, “Wouldn’t you rather just win the thing?” And his answer was unequivocally no. He wanted a playoff against Tiger Woods.

Mediate: Of course I would love to have

Opposite: Woods in full grimace after his fiercely painful tee shot on No. 2 in the final round at Torrey.

Below: Mediate was a menace all day and the leader in the clubhouse when Westwood came up short.

“AT THE START OF THE SECOND ROUND, I SAID TO HIM, ‘TIGER, MAYBE IT’S TIME TO CALL IT QUITS.’ HE TOLD ME IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS HE WAS GOING TO WIN THE TOURNAMENT.”

won it right there, but it wasn’t going to happen. I wanted to have Tiger one more time, to try to beat him when it mattered.

Van Winkle: We tried to get close to the 18th green, but there were so many people we got stuck between the green and the Lodge. We were only about 30 yards away, but we were sardined in and couldn’t see a thing.

Lee Westwood: The crowd around the green was 10 rows deep, plus people leaning out of their hotel rooms and standing on tree limbs. It was intense.

Xander Schauffele, a 14-year-old golf fan at the time: I was at the 18th,

hanging by a tree that had recently fallen due to storms. I was up on the tree stump to try and get above the crowd.

Westwood had a 15-footer and would putt first, attempting to tie Mediate.

Hicks: There was tenseness to the whole situation. I don’t know that it’s ever been duplicated in any kind of golf event that I’ve been a part of. It was all because of Tiger. We knew Tiger was gonna go last. This is no slight at Lee Westwood, but there wasn’t the expectancy of him making that putt. It was almost like he cleared the stage. Had Lee made it, it would have been unbelievable, forcing

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The Moment

Tiger to make his to get into a three-man playoff. But it wasn’t meant to be.

Westwood: I hit a good putt that didn’t drop.

The Englishman tapped in for par, finishing one stroke out of the playoff.

Rolfing: At this point, Rocco had kind of latched on to me, and he was so nervous. He wanted somebody to talk to, and it turned out to be me. In fact, he said, “If you end up covering a playoff tomorrow, don’t leave me. I’m going to need somebody to talk to.”

Williams: When you’re on the 72nd hole and you’re caddying for Tiger Woods, the upcoming putt is a foregone conclusion. I was already focusing on the playoff, thinking about where the pins would be for the next day. I had no doubt he was going to hole it.

As Woods scrutinized every angle of his birdie putt, a full 60 seconds of

silence elapsed on the NBC broadcast.

Hicks: Tiger was going to own the stage by himself. There was no one he was going to share it with in that moment.

We had spent the week talking incessantly about Tiger’s injury, and the pictures basically told the story of how much pain he was in. As Tiger stalked his putt, there was nothing more for us to say. It was almost like he was in some sort of trance, hypnotizing himself to say, “Alright, we’ve done this before.”

The whole thing was coming to a crescendo in Tiger’s head as well.

Williams: I didn’t actually have anything to do with the read. He just said it looked pretty bumpy, which it was. But I’d been caddying for him since 1999.

You think about the amount of times on a 72nd hole that he had to hole a putt to win or force a playoff. He never missed. He had trained me to believe he’d make it.

Rolfing: While we were watching Tiger read his putt, Rocco turns to me and says,

“You know how to tell whether I’m nervous or not? If you see me pacing back and forth, I’m fine. But if you see me walking in a circle, that means I’m really nervous.”

Van Winkle: As Tiger got over his putt, everyone stopped jostling for a spot. It got eerily quiet.

Hicks: I don’t like to think about anything before it happens, but the expectancy of the moment kept coming back to me. I kind of envisioned the people at home watching around the country and around the world, and in my mind everybody expects him to make this putt.

Twelve feet remained for Woods, a putt that Miller and Maltbie described as breaking an inch or two to the left and fast. Tiger jars it and crouches into a double fist pump that is, now, among the most unforgettable images in golf history.

Hicks, from NBC’s live broadcast:

“Expect anything different?!”

Below: It’s hard to say who unleashed the more delirious reaction when Woods’ putt dropped on 18—the gallery of thousands or the Big Cat himself.

Opposite: Mediate swears he wasn’t trying to rattle Tiger when he wore red and black for the playoff. The golf gods would have advised against it.

Take a photo of this code to watch Tiger make history at Torrey Pines

From left: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images; Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images; Leonard Kamsler/Popperfoto via Getty Images

Hicks: I took a moment to let the crowd

noise swell, because they were like a volcano ready to erupt. Once they hit their crescendo, the words just came out.

Mediate: It was so loud that the scorer’s room shook.

Van Winkle: We were near the grandstands, and they were shaking! We knew we were witnessing greatness.

Miller: “That ball went in by a hundredth of an inch. That ball could have easily lipped out just as easy as it went in.”

Mediate: I expected it to happen. If I had been in shock, Monday was going to be a nightmare for me.

Williams: For two reasons, I’d say it could be Tiger’s finest moment. The first being the physical condition he was in; second, because it was a tournament he’d so obsessively set his mind on.

Mediate: It will go down as one of the greatest putts in the history of our sport.

Van Winkle: After jumping up and down and high-fiving every stranger around us, I hugged my wife and explained to her that a U.S. Open playoff is 18 holes the next day. I told her, “I need to call in sick to work tomorrow!”

The following day, Woods and Mediate traded punches in a playoff that would require an extra hole—19 in all—for Tiger to win his 14th major.

HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN? Jump in the U.S. Open time machine to revisit a few of the championship’s most memorable milestones ALMOST A YEAR Lest we forget, it was only nine months ago that Bryson DeChambeau steamrolled his way to a six-stroke victory at Winged Foot. His bombing and gouging still have ripple effects, with many golfers attempting to follow in his powerhungry footsteps.

10 YEARS It’s been a decade since Rory McIlroy dominated the U.S. Open field at Congressional (–16). It was also the year he collapsed at the Masters with a final-round 80. Rory missed the cut at Augusta this year. Maybe a good omen for Torrey?

15 YEARS Hard to believe, but it’s been that long since Phil Mickelson uttered, “I’m such an idiot,” in reference to blowing what coulda shoulda been his first U.S. Open victory. Lefty hit driver on the 72nd hole at Winged Foot into a merch tent en route to a double bogey. Had he simply parred the hole, he would’ve beaten Geoff Ogilvy by a stroke.

22 YEARS Payne Stewart drained a 15foot par putt to win the 1999 U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 in epic fashion. His emphatic punch pose is now memorialized

Woods, naturally, showed up in red and black. And Mediate did too.

Williams: That certainly got Tiger’s attention.

Mediate: I had no intention of getting Tiger’s attention. It was my last clean shirt. And, besides, he wears red on Sundays. This was Monday! Truthfully, it never crossed my mind.

Williams: Rocco was a knockabout bloke and a fantastic personality. Tiger had to dig incredibly deep to win, and Rocco did not back down. I take my hat off to him. It was absolutely an astounding performance.

The same, of course, could be said of Woods, who, two days later, announced that he’d miss the rest of the season. What he knew and most of the golf world didn’t was that he’d entered the event with a torn ACL and a double stress-fractured tibia. He played the tournament on a broken leg. But that takes nothing away from Mediate’s bittersweet career moment.

in statue form near the 18th hole. It was a mere four months before a plane crash took his life at age 42.

48 YEARS ...since perfection in Pennsylvania. Johnny Miller won the 1973 U.S. Open at Oakmont from six strokes back by shooting a final-round 63—he hit all 18 greens and took only 29 putts. Had he not lipped out on the last hole, it could have been a 62.

59 YEARS Jack Nicklaus’ first professional victory was a huge one—the 1962 Open at Oakmont. Nicklaus held off local favorite

and ever-popular Arnold Palmer by three shots in an 18hole playoff. To many (maybe not Arnie’s Army), it signaled a new era and a passing of the torch from The King to The Golden Bear.

71 YEARS ...since the most iconic fairway shot ever hit. A year and a half after suffering multiple injuries sustained in a car crash, Ben Hogan hit a 1-iron approach on the final hole at Merion that wasn’t just a tremendous shot—it marked a triumphant comeback for arguably one of the most fascinating golfers of all time. —Ryan Noll

Mediate: Everybody and their mother

thought that I was going to get killed that day, except for me. I remember saying in the pressroom the night before the playoff, “Look, you guys think I’m going to get my butt handed to me, and I totally understand that. But we’re going to give you a show tomorrow.”

Hicks: Rocco played his own supporting role in the whole thing. I don’t think it is as good unless it’s Rocco as the other guy, because people absolutely fell in love with him. He’s just this bohemian kind of golfer who was the opposite of the thoroughbred killer that Tiger was.

Mediate: To Tiger, that tournament was just another notch in the belt, but for me it was the most fun day I’ve ever had playing golf against anybody. Against the best player who has ever lived, in our national open—I mean, how do you draw that up? You can’t. And the way I lost? It’s okay with me.

Additional reporting by Evin Priest and Sean Zak.

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Lloyd Mangrum, a World War II combat vet and Hall of Fame inductee (1998), is practically unknown to modern golf fans.

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21

20

U.S. OPEN PREVIEW

The History

The Forgotten Soldier The return of the U.S. Open to Torrey Pines and America’s biggest military town also marks 75 years since two-time Purple Heart recipient Lloyd Mangrum won the first national championship played after World War II

BY MICHAEL CORCORAN

A

fter four years of imposed rationing on meat and

coffee, milk and sugar, gasoline, nylons, coal and shoes, and four years of death tapping on the front door with a Western Union telegram and blue and gold stars displayed in windows by hopeful and mourning mothers, and four years of herculean industrial effort to arm the nation and its allies, Americans on the home front longed for a return to normal and maybe even hoped to have a little fun. World War II was over.

A collective exhale of joy and relief swept the nation. Jitterbuggers jittered like there would be nothing but tomorrows, kids played with new toys called Slinkys and Silly Putty and on Saturday, June 15, 1946, on the outskirts of Cleveland, Americans showed up in unprecedented numbers to watch a golf tournament. Unrestrained by ropes, it was, wrote Grantland Rice, “the greatest gallery in the history of American golf, estimated at 20,000

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In 1946, “20,000 scurrying souls” turned out at Canterbury Golf Club (near Cleveland) to watch the U.S. Open. Note the scarcity of gallery ropes.

scurrying souls,” and it witnessed “one of the most spectacular finishes of all time in the U.S. Open. It was an incredible story of brilliant charging to the wire and then cracking under pressure.”

Rice was the godfather of American golf writing, and what he described as a “storming mob of humanity” would have both a direct and indirect effect on the outcome of the first U.S. Open played after the war.

O

ne year earlier, in April 1945, as the Soviets

encircled Berlin from the east and U.S. and British forces poured it on from the west, Fred Corcoran received a letter from the frontlines. Corcoran was essentially the commissioner of the PGA Tour before that position and the Tour officially existed. The letter was from Lloyd Mangrum, who was back in action after being wounded during the Battle of the Bulge earlier in the year. Prior to the war, Mangrum had won five times on Tour.

“Hi Fred,” wrote Mangrum. “Guess I have written to everyone when I write to you. I am getting a lot of practice with rifle, machine gun, etc., where I am, but not golf.… Right now, the sun is shining for a change and we just finished breakfast. As soon as we get gas we will take off again. From the reports that came in this morning we are about 10 miles in front of the frontlines.

“Fred, we have them on the run now.... Guess I have witnessed many things the other boys haven’t had the displeasure of being in ... and I hope they never do. It isn’t fun at all.... I never knew a grown man could get so scared. Sometimes we cuss and

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then we pray ... and, in fact, I have cried at anything if I thought it would do any good. If you have time to think when shells are breaking all around you, you wonder if the next one will land where you are. I have cheated death many times and am quite lucky. All of us here think the same thing, however—we are coming home if God will permit. After seeing France, Holland, Luxembourg and now Germany, we wonder what these people are fighting for, but guess they like their homes, too.…

“I got to play four times when I was in a hospital in England ... but other than that you might say I haven’t played for a year. I would need two a side from you these days.... Good luck to everyone back there. Maybe it won’t be long before all of us can make the tour again....

“So long for now, “Lloyd the Hacker” For the entirety of U.S. participation in World War II, Mangrum was the only American professional golfer of any prewar prominence who served in a combat zone. Other players managed to stay comfortably in the U.S., and Mangrum had a chance to do the same. After being drafted into the Army, Mangrum was offered the club-pro job at the Fort Meade golf course in Maryland. He declined to take the easy way out and soon found himself at the tip of the Allied advance into Hitler’s Fortress Europe as a corporal in a recon unit of Gen. George Patton’s Third Army.

T

orrey Pines’ return to the U.S. Open spot-

light offers an appropriate moment to reflect on the 75th anniversary of the ’46 tournament and Mangrum’s place in U.S. and golf history.

The courses at Torrey sit on land that was once World War II–era Camp Callan, where trainees learned the finer points of coastal artillery and antiaircraft firepower. The camp was declared surplus a few months after the war’s end, and by 1957 the North and South Courses were open for play. San Diego County, Torrey’s home, has the largest concentration of military personnel and families in the state with the largest concentration of same. Nearly 8 percent of San Diego’s total population consists of active-duty personnel and their

The History

families, and a quarter million veterans live in the county as well—that’s an additional 13 percent of the population. Among businesses in San Diego, 13.5 percent are owned or co-owned by veterans, and military spending accounts for 26 percent of local jobs. The largest employer in the northern part of San Diego is Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, and the county is home to 60 percent of the ships in the U.S. Navy and a third of active-duty Marines. The Marine Memorial Golf Course at Camp Pendleton is one of five golf courses at four military golf clubs in San Diego. About 40 miles north of the northern boundary of San Diego County, Navy Golf Course Destroyer at the Naval Weapons Station in Cypress is where Earl Woods taught his son, Tiger, to play the game.

There are military courses in 40 of the 50 states, and it’s easy to understand the appeal of golf to service members and veterans looking to unwind or void their mind of what’s happening in the world. It’s also an opportunity to stay connected and strengthen or renew bonds of friendship and camaraderie.

On September 21, 1941, when Lloyd Mangrum won by a leisurely six strokes over Ben Hogan and Vic Ghezzi at the Atlantic City Open, there was no urgent training underway at Camp Callan or any other U.S. military base. On a Sunday morning in Hawaii 10 weeks later, Adm. Husband E. Kimmel was preparing to depart for a standing weekly tee time with his Army counterpart Gen. Walter Short. The two were friendly rivals, and their regular game fulfilled orders to pursue “joint coordination” without the interservice tension becoming overheated.

Their foursome that morning of December 7 was to include a Capt. Truman. The players never made it to the course. Japanese naval air forces shattered an otherwise calm morning and U.S. isolationism in one go.

Lloyd Mangrum’s war had begun.

B

THIS IS A STORY THAT SAYS AS MUCH ABOUT THE CHARACTER OF THE GAME AND THE PEOPLE WHO PLAY IT AS IT DOES ANY PARTICULAR MOMENT IN HISTORY.

unlikely ever will again. Already a four-time major championship winner and considered among the very best of his or any time when the year began, Nelson was beyond dominant in 1945. He entered 30 tournaments and won 18, including 11 in a row when he was in the field. Beginning at Greensboro in March, Nelson won by margins of eight, five, nine, 10, two and seven before winning the match-play final of the PGA Championship on July 15. Back at stroke play for the megapurse Tam O’Shanter Open in Chicago, Nelson won by 11 and took home $13,600 (compared to an average winner’s check of $2,000 at the time).

As 1945 wore on, Nelson won tournaments by 10 and eight strokes, and on October 15 he won by 13 at the Seattle Open, posting 259. Earlier that same day, Cpl. Lloyd Mangrum won the Army’s inter-theater tournament in Biarritz, France, solidi-

yron Nelson had himself a year

in 1945. Absolved from military service due to a disorder that caused his blood to clot four times slower than normal, Nelson spent the war years playing tournament golf and giving exhibitions to raise money for the war effort. With the exception of 1943, there was no shortage of tournaments. Contrary to popular belief, by the start of the ’45 golf season most of the big names were back on the circuit, including Sam Snead, whose Navy tenure as an “athletic specialist” in San Diego ended with a medical discharge for a bad back. Hogan, who did his service time in Fort Worth as a flight instructor, began regularly competing again in July as the war neared its conclusion.

It was Nelson, however, who went on a tear the likes of which had never been seen in golf and

The final five playoff holes were played through a raging thunderstorm (above left). The eventual champ was unfazed. Mangrum, with the U.S. Open trophy (above right), won in a 36-hole playoff against Vic Ghezzi (in tie) and Byron Nelson.

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fying his standing as the top soldier golfer in Europe. In August, he’d also won a tournament for all service members in the European Theater contested at St. Andrews. Mangrum was 31, and when he won at the Old Course that August it had been only a year since doctors predicted he would never play golf again.

T

exans predominated the early days of the

PGA Tour, namely Nelson, Hogan and Jimmy Demaret. Despite contemporaneous reporting that Mangrum was from Los Angeles, he and his brother Ray had moved there from Dallas in hopes of securing better club-pro jobs. Born in Trenton, Texas, in August 1914— the same month World War I began—Lloyd began working as an assistant to Ray when he was 15. When Lloyd first played on Tour, he was known as Ray Mangrum’s little brother because Ray had won two tournaments in 1936, the year before Lloyd’s debut. Lloyd quickly emerged as the better player of the two brothers, and, along with his five Tour wins prior to entering the Army, he finished second at the 1940 Masters and was a semifinalist in the 1941 PGA Championship. During his postwar career, hardened by battle, Mangrum was sometimes called Mr. Icicle because nothing that happened on the course seemed to affect his emotions.

Later generations of golf fans admired players like Hogan, Jack Nicklaus and Raymond Floyd for their steely focus, but even they lacked the life experience that made Mangrum perhaps the smoothest customer to ever play professional golf.

Contrary to some lore, Mangrum did not take part in the ini-

tial D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, but he did step foot on Normandy’s shores soon afterward as Third Army entered the fray. For a few months, the Nazis held the Allies at bay in the close quarters of Normandy’s hedgerow country, but in August combined offensive operations of the U.S. and British created an opportunity for Patton, and he took it. Third Army raced across occupied Europe on a beeline for Germany that established Patton’s legend. At some point during the breakout, a jeep Mangrum was riding in flipped over and one of his arms was broken in two places.

Mangrum was sent back to England to heal, and despite the prognosis that he would never swing a club again, he was deemed healthy enough to rejoin Third Army prior to Hitler’s last-ditch effort on the western front—the Battle of the Bulge, which began 10 days prior to Christmas 1944. The German surprise attack and bad weather pushed U.S. troops to the limit and placed increased importance on always dangerous recon missions. In the course of his duty, Mangrum was hit by shrapnel in the knee and chin. An inch in any direction and either wound could have been fatal. Mangrum recouped in a field hospital and was back in action when he wrote the letter to Fred Corcoran—just one month before German forces capitulated after Hitler’s suicide in Berlin.

S

oldiers, sailors and airmen in the Euro-

pean and Pacific theaters were not demobilized the instant the war ended. Mangrum was still in Europe when President Harry Truman—a distant

From left: Ghezzi, radio host Harry Wismer, Mangrum and Corcoran celebrate the title at Toots Shor’s in NY. Mangrum wrote to Corcoran after earning his second Purple Heart.

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Page 90: Courtesy USGA Archives; Previous page: Fred Bottomer/Courtesy USGA Museum; Courtesy USGA Museum (2); This page: Bettmann Archive; Courtesy World Golf Hall of Fame & Museum

The History

THERE’S NO RECORD OF MANGRUM SAYING THAT MAYBE AFTER A YEAR OF HARD COMBAT ... HE’D HARDLY NOTICED THE LIGHTNING, RAIN AND WIND.

relative of the Capt. Truman who was slated to play golf with Adm. Kimmel and Gen. Short the morning of the Pearl Harbor attack—opted to drop two atomic bombs on Japan. However, by March 1946 Mangrum was stateside and competing in the Charlotte Open, where his third-round 64 left him tied for second with Snead and Vic Ghezzi. (Ray Mangrum had won the Pensacola Open five weeks earlier.)

By late May, Mangrum was banking runner-up finishes to Hogan at the Western Open and the Goodall Round Robin at Winged Foot. As the U.S. Open at Canterbury Golf Club approached, Hogan (six wins before Canterbury), Nelson (three wins) and Snead (three wins) were playing at a high level.

Through 1964, the U.S. Open’s third and fourth rounds were played on Saturday—a 36-hole survival of the fittest.

At close of play on the Friday of the 1946 U.S. Open, Ghezzi and Hogan led at –4 (140) by one over Lawson Little and two ahead of Nelson and Porky Oliver. With a 70 in round two, Mangrum—a passable double for Clark Gable and sporting a fedora—had clawed his way back to par and within four of the leaders heading into Saturday.

On the Saturday morning of the 1946 U.S. Open, Lloyd Mangrum fired a four-under 68 and a soldier on leave, Pvt. Eddie Martin, kicked Byron Nelson’s ball. Martin, in full dress uniform, happened to be Nelson’s caddie. After Nelson’s ball hit a tree on the 13th hole and took a member’s bounce back into the fairway, Grant’s “mob of humanity” swarmed around the spot where it came to rest. Nelson and Martin had to force their way through the throng, and when Martin finally busted clear he never saw the ball—he walked right into it. Despite the resulting one-stroke penalty, Nelson posted 69 to lead Ghezzi and Mangrum by a single blow as the afternoon showdown unfolded.

T

his is a story that says as much about the

character of the game and the people who play it as it does any particular moment in history. Mangrum and Nelson were paired in that afternoon round so long ago, and after four years of imposed rationing on meat and coffee, milk and sugar, gasoline, nylons, coal and

shoes, and four years of death tapping on the front door with a Western Union telegram and blue and gold stars displayed in windows by hopeful and mourning mothers, and four years of herculean industrial effort to arm the nation, the 20,000 fans who invaded Canterbury understandably were pulling for Mangrum, the guy who had been awarded two Purple Hearts, two Silver Stars and two Bronze Stars. Byron Nelson was a gentleman of the first order and a villain in the eyes of none, but no man alone can stem the emotions of a nation busting at the seams with pride.

According to Rice and every other writer on the scene, the crowd was unequivocally backing Mangrum. Canterbury was playing classic U.S. Open tough, and the leaders battled par all the way to the house. Nelson led by two with three holes remaining in regulation but bogeyed the final two holes, including a three-putt from 15 feet at the 17th hole. A late charge by Hogan faltered when he too three-jacked at the 17th.

After an exhausting day of play, Nelson was asked whether his caddie had cost him the tournament.

“Eddie’s all right,” said Nelson. “He’ll be with me tomorrow.”

O

n Sunday morning, June 16, 1946, Nelson,

Ghezzi and Mangrum played to a draw over 18 holes, with 72s all around. Out in the afternoon for another 18-hole playoff, Mangrum finally appeared outgunned when he hit one OB at the 9th. Undeterred, he salvaged a bogey six by holing a 45-footer, and the fans roared.

As the threesome reached the 13th tee on that long-forgotten summer afternoon, prolonged thunderstorms ripped across Canterbury. There is no record of Nelson or Ghezzi mentioning that the dangerous conditions made them nervous. There’s no record of Mangrum saying that maybe after a year of hard combat without rain or snow delays and sleeping in ice-coated foxholes he’d hardly noticed the lightning, rain and wind that day in Cleveland. What is known is that trailing with six holes to play for the U.S. Open title, Mangrum proceeded to can birdies at the 13th, 15th and 16th holes. On the 108th hole of the 1946 U.S. Open, Lloyd Mangrum drilled a four-footer to defeat Nelson and Ghezzi by a stroke to win the national championship.

It was two years and several lifetimes since Normandy.

After the 1946 U.S. Open, Mangrum went on to win 30 more PGA Tour events. His 36 career victories place him 13th on the all-time win list, far ahead of Johnny Miller, Lee Trevino, Floyd, Hale Irwin and Dustin Johnson. His runner-up finish in the 1940 Masters included a record-setting 64, which stood as the singleround benchmark at Augusta National until 1986. On the practice range during the 1996 Masters, Byron Nelson asked three young Tour players if they’d ever heard of Lloyd Mangrum.

Each professed no knowledge of Mangrum’s playing record or life. That response prompted Nelson to say, “Lloyd’s the best player who has been forgotten since I’ve been playing golf.”

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1923 Bobby Jones Inwood Country Club Inwood, NY

ESTEEMED COMPANY The venues are legendary, the setups notorious.

The U.S. Open is a four-round test of wills. But for the men who survive and conquer, it is a vastly rewarding experience.

Below we celebrate the champions.

For many players (especially Americans), winning our national cham-

pionship marks the pinnacle of golf greatness. It’s arguably the toughest major of the year, requiring contestants to perform at the highest level off the tee, from the fairway, from the rough and—perhaps most crucially—on the putting greens. But any living player on this list is likely to tell you that it takes much more than superior skill to capture this coveted prize. It takes focus. Desire. Stamina.

Grit. And maybe most of all—fearlessness.

1895 Horace Rawlins Newport Country Club Newport, RI

1902 Laurie Auchterlonie Garden City Golf Club Garden City, NY

1909 George Sargent Englewood Golf Club Englewood, NJ

1896 James Foulis Shinnecock Hills Golf Club Southampton, NY

1903 Willie Anderson Baltusrol Golf Club Springfield, NJ

1910 Alex Smith Philadelphia Cricket Club

1897 Joe Lloyd Chicago Golf Club Wheaton, IL

1904 Willie Anderson Glen View Club Golf, IL

1898 Fred Herd Myopia Hunt Club South Hamilton, MA

1905 Willie Anderson Myopia Hunt Club

1912 John McDermott Country Club of Buffalo Buffalo, NY

1906 Alex Smith Onwentsia Club Lake Forest, IL

1913 Francis Ouimet The Country Club Brookline, MA

1900 Harry Vardon Chicago Golf Club

1907 Alec Ross Philadelphia Cricket Club Philadelphia, PA

1914 Walter Hagen Midlothian Country Club Midlothian, IL

1901 Willie Anderson Myopia Hunt Club

1908 Fred McLeod Myopia Hunt Club

1915 Jerome Travers Baltusrol Golf Club

1899 Willie Smith Baltimore Country Club Lutherville, MD

Rawlins

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Vardon

1911 John McDermott Chicago Golf Club

Anderson

1924 Cyril Walker Oakland Hills Country Club Bloomfield Hills, MI 1925 Willie Macfarlane Worcester Country Club Worcester, MA 1926 Bobby Jones Scioto Country Club Columbus, OH

1934 Olin Dutra Merion Golf Club Ardmore, PA 1935 Sam Parks Jr. Oakmont Country Club 1936 Tony Manero Baltusrol Golf Club 1937 Ralph Guldahl Oakland Hills Country Club

1927 Tommy Armour Oakmont Country Club Oakmont, PA

1938 Ralph Guldahl Cherry Hills Country Club Cherry Hills Village, CO

1928 Johnny Farrell Olympia Fields Country Club Olympia Fields, IL

1939 Byron Nelson Philadelphia Country Club Philadelphia, PA

1929 Bobby Jones Winged Foot Golf Club Mamaroneck, NY

1940 Lawson Little Canterbury Golf Club Beachwood, OH

1930 Bobby Jones Interlachen Country Club Edina, MN

1941 Craig Wood Colonial Country Club Fort Worth, TX

1920 Ted Ray Inverness Club Toledo, OH

1931 Billy Burke Inverness Club

1942 Canceled due to World War II

1921 Jim Barnes Columbia Country Club Chevy Chase, MD

1932 Gene Sarazen Fresh Meadow Country Club Great Neck, NY

1943 Canceled due to World War II

1922 Gene Sarazen Skokie Country Club Glencoe, IL

1933 Johnny Goodman North Shore Country Club Glenview, IL

1916 Chick Evans The Minikahda Club Minneapolis, MN 1917 Canceled due to World War I 1918 Canceled due to World War I 1919 Walter Hagen Brae Burn Country Club West Newton, MA

Sarazen

Armour

1944 Canceled due to World War II 1945 Canceled due to World War II

Jones

The History

Rawlins, Vardon, Sarazen, Jones, Hogan: USGA Archives; Anderson, Armour: USGA Museum; From left: James Drake/Sports Illustrated/ Getty Images; John Kelly/Getty Images; David Cannon/Allsport/Getty Images; David Cannon/Getty Images; Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images

1946 Lloyd Mangrum Canterbury Golf Club 1947 Lew Worsham St. Louis Country Club St. Louis, MO 1948 Ben Hogan Riviera Country Club Pacific Palisades, CA 1949 Cary Middlecoff Medinah Country Club Medinah, IL 1950 Ben Hogan Merion Golf Club 1951 Ben Hogan Oakland Hills Country Club 1952 Julius Boros Northwood Club Dallas, TX 1953 Ben Hogan Oakmont Country Club 1954 Ed Furgol Baltusrol Golf Club 1955 Jack Fleck Olympic Club San Francisco, CA 1956 Cary Middlecoff Oak Hill Country Club Rochester, NY 1957 Dick Mayer Inverness Club

Hogan

1958 Tommy Bolt Southern Hills Country Club Tulsa, OK 1959 Billy Casper Winged Foot Golf Club 1960 Arnold Palmer Cherry Hills Country Club 1961 Gene Littler Oakland Hills Country Club 1962 Jack Nicklaus Oakmont Country Club 1963 Julius Boros The Country Club 1964 Ken Venturi Congressional Country Club Bethesda, MD 1965 Gary Player Bellerive Country Club St. Louis, MO 1966 Billy Casper Olympic Club 1967 Jack Nicklaus Baltusrol Golf Club 1968 Lee Trevino Oak Hill Country Club 1969 Orville Moody Champions Golf Club Houston, TX

Trevino

1970 Tony Jacklin Hazeltine National Golf Club Chaska, MN 1971 Lee Trevino Merion Golf Club 1972 Jack Nicklaus Pebble Beach Golf Links Pebble Beach, CA 1973 Johnny Miller Oakmont Country Club 1974 Hale Irwin Winged Foot Golf Club 1975 Lou Graham Medinah Country Club 1976 Jerry Pate Atlanta Athletic Club Duluth, GA 1977 Hubert Green Southern Hills Country Club 1978 Andy North Cherry Hills Country Club

1983 Larry Nelson Oakmont Country Club

1996 Steve Jones Oakland Hills Country Club

1984 Fuzzy Zoeller Winged Foot Golf Club

1997 Ernie Els Congressional Country Club

1985 Andy North Oakland Hills Country Club

1998 Lee Janzen Olympic Club

1986 Raymond Floyd Shinnecock Hills Golf Club 1987 Scott Simpson Olympic Club 1988 Curtis Strange The Country Club 1989 Curtis Strange Oak Hill Country Club 1990 Hale Irwin Medinah Country Club 1991 Payne Stewart Hazeltine National Golf Club

1999 Payne Stewart Pinehurst No. 2 Pinehurst, NC 2000 Tiger Woods Pebble Beach Golf Links 2001 Retief Goosen Southern Hills Country Club

2013 Justin Rose Merion Golf Club 2014 Martin Kaymer Pinehurst No. 2

2016 Dustin Johnson Oakmont Country Club

2004 Retief Goosen Shinnecock Hills Golf Club

2017 Brooks Koepka Erin Hills Golf Course Erin, WI

2006 Geoff Ogilvy Winged Foot Golf Club

1981 David Graham Merion Golf Club

1994 Ernie Els Oakmont Country Club

2007 Ángel Cabrera Oakmont Country Club

1982 Tom Watson Pebble Beach Golf Links

1995 Corey Pavin Shinnecock Hills Golf Club

2008 Tiger Woods Torrey Pines (South) La Jolla, CA

Stewart

2012 Webb Simpson Olympic Club

2003 Jim Furyk Olympia Fields Country Club

1993 Lee Janzen Baltusrol Golf Club

Nicklaus

2011 Rory McIlroy Congressional Country Club

2015 Jordan Spieth Chambers Bay Golf Course University Place, WA

2005 Michael Campbell Pinehurst No. 2

1980 Jack Nicklaus Baltusrol Golf Club

2010 Graeme McDowell Pebble Beach Golf Links

2002 Tiger Woods Bethpage Black Farmingdale, NY

1992 Tom Kite Pebble Beach Golf Links

1979 Hale Irwin Inverness Club

2009 Lucas Glover Bethpage Black

Johnson

2018 Brooks Koepka Shinnecock Hills Golf Club 2019 Gary Woodland Pebble Beach Golf Links 2020 Bryson DeChambeau Winged Foot Golf Club

Koepka

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THE TOP

30 MUNI COURSES IN AMERICA

MUNICIPAL GOLF NO LONGER MEANS PITTED FAIRWAYS, BUSTED PUSHCARTS AND SLOW PLAY. IN FACT, THIS MIGHT BE THE BEST TIME EVER TO SHOP LOCAL.

BY RAN MORRISSETT / ARCHITECTURE EDITOR + GOLF MAGAZINE’S TOP 100 COURSE PANELISTS

PAGE 98

THOUGH THE GAME itself can never be mastered, one thing is for sure: The most affordable way to pursue our sport is by playing municipal golf courses. For that reason, none of our Top Courses lists is, arguably, more important than this one, the first such compilation of munis ever put together by GOLF. Every player around the globe would be welcome at these 30 courses and could play them without taking out a home equity loan. Like at St. Andrews, the ultimate town-owned course, the heart of the game beats at these bastions of inclusiveness. That’s why we’ve been celebrating them every week in our long-running Muni Mondays series at GOLF.com.

Whether you’re a clerk or a CEO, everyone is treated the same at a muni. Indeed, lost on lots of golfers is this truth: Municipal golf is the form of the game that most closely adheres to the perfectly unfussy UK model—change your shoes in the car park, say a quick hello in the pro shop, pay a reasonable fee and off you go, maybe with a trolley in tow.

Accessibility and affordability do not have to equate to indifferent architecture, though. Design greats like Donald Ross, A.W. Tillinghast and Jack Nicklaus feature prominently on this list, so know you’re in very good hands.

The egalitarian camaraderie that pervades a muni is impossible to beat.

The common denominator (other than, in some cases, the grit to do an all-nighter in your car in order to grab a tee time) is the passion to play. There’s something thrilling about seeing Bethpage Black in our No. 1 spot. The course has brought happiness—and a little heartache—to literally millions of golfers over the decades.

From the first munis, like Franklin Park in Boston and Van Cortlandt Park in New York, city- and county-owned playing fields have come a long way. We salute those communities that realize the vital role they serve in our quality of life. Do we hope this list (which will be expanded next go-round) will inspire municipalities to reinvest in their courses? You bet we do.

In the meantime, the tee box is yours.

No. 26 / Wailua LIHUE, HI

PHOENIX, AZ

1 Bethpage Black FARMINGDALE, NY $130–$150, nonresidents; $65–$75, NY State residents 7,468 YARDS/PAR 71 A.W. TILLINGHAST, 1936

2 Chambers Bay UNIVERSITY PLACE, WA Varied green fees, with on-demand tee-time pricing 7,165 YARDS/PAR 72 ROBERT TRENT JONES JR., 2007

3 George Wright HYDE PARK, MA $50–$57, nonresidents; $41–$50, Boston residents 6,506 YARDS/PAR 70 DONALD ROSS, 1938

4 Bethpage Red FARMINGDALE, NY $86–$96, nonresidents; $43–$48, NY State residents 7,092 YARDS/PAR 70 A.W. TILLINGHAST, 1935

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5 Torrey Pines (South)

8 Buffalo Dunes

LA JOLLA, CA

$25–$30, all golfers 6,806 YARDS/PAR 72 FRANK HUMMEL, 1976

$202–$252, nonresidents; $63–$78 San Diego City residents 7,802 YARDS/PAR 72 WILLIAM BELL, 1957; REES JONES, 2001/2019

6 Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point BRONX, NY

GARDEN CITY, KS

9 Piñon Hills FARMINGTON, NM $44–$49, nonresidents; $37–$42, San Juan County residents 7,198 YARDS/PAR 72 KEN DYE, 1989

12 South Course at Corica Park

15 Papago

ALAMEDA, CA

$60–$180, nonresidents; $35–$60, Phoenix cardholders 7,333 YARDS/PAR 72 WILLIAM BELL, 1963; WILLIAM FULLER, 2008

$54–$84, nonresidents; $42–$52, Alameda residents 6,874 YARDS/PAR 72 REES JONES, 2018

13 Sleepy Hollow BRECKSVILLE, OH $34–$44, all golfers 6,893 YARDS/PAR 71 STANLEY THOMPSON, 1924

$197–$227, nonresidents; $154–$185, NY City residents 7,407 YARDS/PAR 72 JACK NICKLAUS, 2015

10 Butterfield Trail

14 Keney Park

EL PASO, TX

WINDSOR, CT

7 Memorial Park

$33–$45, all golfers 7,307 YARDS/PAR 72 TOM FAZIO, 2007

$42–$44, nonresidents; $32.50–$34.50, Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor residents 6,449 YARDS/PAR 70 DEVEREUX EMMET, 1927; ROBERT ROSS, 1931; MATT DUSENBERRY, 2016

HOUSTON, TX $120–$140, nonresidents; $30–$38, Houston residents 7,292 YARDS/PAR 72 JOHN BREDEMUS, 1936; TOM DOAK, 2019

11 Gold Mountain (Olympic) BREMERTON, WA Varied green fees, with on-demand tee-time pricing 7,179 YARDS/PAR 72 JOHN HARBOTTLE III, 1996

PHOENIX, AZ

16 Brackenridge Park SAN ANTONIO, TX $52–$62, nonmembers; $31–$41, members 6,243 YARDS/PAR 71 A.W. TILLINGHAST, 1916; JOHN COLLIGAN, 2008

17 Montauk Downs MONTAUK, NY $86–$96, nonresidents; $43–$48, NY State residents 6,976 YARDS/PAR 72 ROBERT TRENT JONES SR., 1968; REES JONES, 2003

Previous page: Brian Oar; This page, clockwise from left: Jim Frenak/FPI Studios; Chad Goetz/Nicklaus Design Group; Trump Organization; Keyur Khamar/PGA Tour/Getty Images; Courtesy Buffalo Dunes

No. 15 / Papago

No. 20 / North Palm Beach CC NORTH PALM BEACH, FL

No. 8 / Buffalo Dunes GARDEN CITY, KS

No. 6 / Trump Ferry Point BRONX, NY

No. 7 / Memorial Park HOUSTON, TX

18 Torrey Pines (North)

26 Wailua

LA JOLLA, CA

$48–$60, nonresidents; $15–$20, Hawaii residents 6,991 YARDS/PAR 72 TOYO SHIRAI, 1961

19 Charleston CHARLESTON, SC $60–$80, nonresidents; $20–$45, Charleston residents 6,565 YARDS/PAR 72 JOHNNY ADAMS, 1929; TROY MILLER, 2020

20 North Palm Beach Country Club NORTH PALM BEACH, FL $60–$140, all golfers 7,071 YARDS/PAR 71 SETH RAYNOR, 1926; JACK NICKLAUS, 2006/2019

21 Wilmington

27 Manakiki WILLOUGHBY, OH $34–$44, all golfers 6,643 YARDS/PAR 72 DONALD ROSS, 1928

28 Harborside International (Port) CHICAGO, IL $65–$115, all golfers 7,123 YARDS/PAR 72 DICK NUGENT, 1995

29 Palatka $22–$34, all golfers 5,862 YARDS/PAR 70 DONALD ROSS, 1925

30 Highland Park BIRMINGHAM, AL

$37–$40, nonresidents; $27–$30, New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender County residents 6,784 YARDS/PAR 71 DONALD ROSS, 1926

$54–$65, all golfers 5,801 YARDS/PAR 70 UNCREDITED, 1903; BOB BARRET & BOB CUPP, 1998

PROVIDENCE, RI $40–$46, nonresidents; $32–$37, Providence residents 6,588 YARDS/PAR 72 DONALD ROSS, 1933

23 Indian Wells Golf Resort (Players) INDIAN WELLS, CA Varied green fees, with on-demand tee-time pricing 7,376 YARDS/PAR 72 JOHN FOUGHT, 2007

24 TPC Harding Park SAN FRANCISCO, CA Varied green fees, with on-demand tee-time pricing 7,169 YARDS/PAR 72 SAM WHITING & WILLIAM WATSON, 1961; CHRIS GRAY, 2003

25 Wintonbury Hills BLOOMFIELD, CT $55–$65, nonresidents; $30–$40, Bloomfield residents 6,711 YARDS/PAR 70 PETE DYE, 2005

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA

PALATKA, FL

WILMINGTON, NC

22 Triggs Memorial

No. 24 / TPC Harding Park

For cool stories about America’s best city- and county-owned courses, check out GOLF.com/ munimondays

No. 1 / Bethpage Black FARMINGDALE, NY

Clockwise from top left: Gary Kellner/PGA of America/Getty Images; Rob Perry/Gold Mountain; Patrick Koenig

$128–$160, nonresidents; $44–$58, San Diego City residents 7,259 YARDS/PAR 72 WILLIAM BELL, 1957; TOM WEISKOPF, 2016

LIHUE, HI

No. 11 / Gold Mountain (Olympic) BREMERTON, WA

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F O R M O R E O N G O L F P O D C A S T S , V I S I T G O L F. C O M / N E W S / P O D C A S T S

Older player: With less upper and lower body flexibility, older golfers need to prioritize more turn.

Christian Hafer

Every golfer can have a great swing...

LOOK FOR THE DOTS: Each tip throughout this section features a corresponding color code to help you understand which part of your game it will improve the most.

...no matter their age.

Shaky putter

Slicer

Low handicapper

Short-game sufferer

Short hitter

Swing student

High handicapper

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TIMELESS TIPS

FIVE WAYS TO SWING YOUR BEST AT ANY AGE

By Top 10 0 Te ach er G ary We ir w ith L u ke K err -D in een ON THE DRIVING RANGE at Westches-

1. Match Your Posture to Your Age

2. Match Your Stance to Your Age

ter CC, where I teach, I help two kinds of students: 1) athletic, young golfers like my junior student Steven Lee, pictured on these pages, and 2) avid, 50 years and older rec golfers (represented in this story by yours truly).

Both of these demographics come with their own advantages and limitations, necessitating different subsets of advice. Depending on which category you fall into, here’s how you can adjust your swing and start playing the best golf of your life.

With more hours working hard behind a desk, older golfers should embrace a more relaxed posture—a “curved” back here is just fine. Just make sure to keep your chin up, which will straighten your thoracic spine without adding tension.

Junior golfers don’t have to worry about this (not yet, anyway). Stick your backside out, keep your back straight, from your belt line to your shoulders, and let your arms hang straight down.

Body rotation is a good thing, but too much of it presents its own set of issues depending on your age. Junior golfers can twist their body more easily, so they should use more of a PGA Tour setup: wider stance with the trail foot more pigeon-toed to prevent overturning on the backswing.

Older golfers need all the turn they can get! Opt for the setup you see on the PGA Tour Champions: narrow stance with both feet flared outward.

Two proven rotation boosters.

1

Older players: It’s okay to let your back “curve.”

Christian Hafer

Younger players: Keep your back straight.

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Short hitter

2

Younger players: Go with a wider stance to max out stability.

Swing student

High handicapper

Older players: Take a narrower stance to encourage more body turn.

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3. Match Your Backswing to Your Age

Younger golfers are flexible, but that extra mobility can often lead to a loss of stability and problems with repeatability. It’s why junior golfers should feel “shorter” going back and focus on staying centered as they twist into the ground.

Older golfers have the opposite problem: They don’t turn enough!

Even with your new setup, try to rotate as much as your upper body can muster as you swing to the top.

Let the weight of the clubhead hinge your wrists as you “set” the club behind you.

Younger players: Stay “centered” and don’t feel like you have to swing past parallel.

Older players: Make rotation the main priority on your backswing.

4. Match Your Downswing to Your Age

Junior golfers’ explosive body motion and rotation often cause their arms to get “stuck” behind them when coming down. That can lead to big blocks and high hooks. To counteract this, young players should feel like their arms “outrace” their body to the ball.

Older golfers: You tend to “throw” the club from the top, another consistency bugaboo. Opposite of the junior player, feel like your hips lead the charge and let your arms lag behind.

No matter your age, the key is to match up your moves, and it starts with your grip. With their ability to rotate their upper and lower bodies faster on the downswing, which can force the clubface to open, juniors should opt for a stronger glovehand grip. Older players should go more neutral with their glove hand, with the thumb placed on top of the handle. This matches up better with a slower body speed and will allow you to fully release the club without fear of hooking the ball.

Gary Weir is the director of instruction at Westchester CC in Rye, N.Y.

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Christian Hafer

5. Match Your Grip to Your Age

Short hitter

Younger players: Let your arms “outrace” your body.

Older players: Let your body “outrace” your arms.

Swing student

High handicapper

4

5

Younger players: Opt for a stronger hold with your glove hand.

Older players: Go neutral with your glovehand grip.

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Snapshot: Will Zalatoris

By Top 100 Teacher Jonathan Yarwood MY NEW FAVORITE PLAYER! A combi-

nation of Clint Eastwood, Cool Hand Luke and a young Johnny Miller, Zalatoris swings without fear and with tons of confidence. He’s a product of the Korn Ferry Tour, confirming that the two-tier tour system works. He’s an instant fan favorite with a no-nonsense approach and a pure love for the game. I was able to watch him recently during the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links on Hilton Head—his demeanor is as cool as his outfits. Could Zalatoris be the nextgen Jordan Spieth? We will see. He has a personalized swing that requires that wiry, fat-free frame to work at breakneck speed. Here are four things you can pick up from one of the game’s most exciting players.

More tips and a chance to book lessons at jonathanyarwood.com.

STATS: 2020–21 PGA TOUR SEASON* Value Driving Distance

Rank

307.6 yds 20th

Greens in Regulation

69.4%

22nd

Scoring Average

69.97

12th

SG: Tee to Green

1.317

8th

*16 events through RBC Heritage

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1. DO A BACK SHIFT I use the Swing Catalyst pressure plate system when I teach. The data shows that most great players, Zalatoris included, shift pressure backward in a “Z” trace through impact with a driver.

The result: an upward angle of attack that helps create optimal launch.

Slicer

Short-game sufferer

Short hitter

Swing student

High handicapper

3. HIT THE CENTER The ball speed players create now is amazing. Will’s driver clubhead speed is 120-plus mph with a ball speed at about 170 mph.

That’s Smash Factor. It’s not often talked about (compared to swing speed), but contact quality is key.

You don’t get max ball speed without catching the sweet spot.

2. MANAGE YOUR SLIDE Zalatoris’ pelvic movement is a true idiosyncrasy. He tends to slide and thrust a little more than most in the transition. That’s okay with a driver, because it helps raise the angle of attack. It’s not okay with an iron.

GOLF HACK

A COOL TRICK TO FIX CHIPS

Left: Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images; Right: Illustrations by Ben Mounsey-Wood

By To p 10 0 Tea c h er Jo e Ha l let t

4. GET ELEVATED Will’s “jump” at impact is another key part to increasing his angle of attack and creating vertical force from the ground up. Instructors used to think it was bad to lift your feet off the ground at impact, but through technology, we now understand that with a driver it’s vital to boost speed. Copy Will here and you’re sure to drum up some extra yards.

1. Mark the bottom groove Using a Sharpie, color in the last groove on the wedge (or wedges) that you use most often around the green.

2. Line up your wedge At address, set the side stamp on your ball so it runs northsouth and parallel to your target line. As you sole the club, align the colored-in groove with the side stamp on the ball.

3. Slide it under the middle Your new chip thought: Slide the colored-in groove under the middle of the ball (indicated by the side stamp). Simple!

And, yes, it’s legal to mark your wedge like this and play with it so long as you do it before you start your round.

Joe Hallett is the director of instruction at Vanderbilt Legends Club in Franklin, Tenn.

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Crisis Mode: Two Moves for Sand Success

By Top 100 Teacher Bernie Najar THE ESSENCE OF A GOOD bunker shot

is the clubface sliding under the ball, creating a cushion of sand to send it high into the air so it can land softly on the green. Doing this requires two “opens:” 1) an open stance and 2) an open clubface.

To help you visualize both of these, get into what you feel is an open stance and ask a friend to lay an alignment stick or club inside your lead foot. If you do it correctly (with your front foot flared out), the stick or club will point between the ball and the hole (below).

When you swing, keep your weight over the stick throughout, which will help you create a descending blow into the sand. The stick also serves as a reminder of the other “open”; as you swing through, make sure the leading edge of your clubhead matches up with the alignment stick in your release (left). This ensures that the face remains open and all but guarantees a high-flying, soft-landing shot from the sand.

Bernie Najar is the director of instruction at Caves Valley in Owings Mills, Md.

Make this line...

match this line...

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Low handicapper

Short-game sufferer

High handicapper

Left: Michael J. Le Brecht (2); Right: Courtesy Atlanta Athletic Club

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Scan the code above to download the app for free.

COURSE LOGIC

HOW TO BOUNCE BACK AFTER A BAD HOLE

By Dyl a n De th i er, GO LF Se n ior W r iter THE CLOSING STRETCH AT Atlanta Athletic Club’s Highlands

2. Regulate your breathing

Course—site of June’s KPMG Women’s PGA Championship—is rife with trouble. At the 2011 PGA Championship, Keegan Bradley found that out the hard way. His chip shot at No. 15 ran into the water, leading to a triple bogey and apparently drowning his chances at the title. But Bradley bounced back with a birdie at 16 and poured in a 50-footer on the par-3 17th (above). An hour later, Bradley was a major champ. Here’s how you bounce back from a crooked number.

It’s good to play excited, but if you’re running hot, your heart rate is likely too elevated. Breathe in for five seconds, hold that breath for five seconds and breathe out for five seconds. Repeat as you walk to the next tee.

1. Take 10 steps

Don’t bottle it up. Instead, follow Tiger Woods’ longtime approach: Let yourself get mad about the shot you’ve just hit for 10 steps. When you take that 11th step, move on.

3. Hit your next shot in a vacuum

It’s easy to roll your eyes when pros talk about taking things “one shot at a time,” but try it out. Keegan Bradley’s poor chip at 15 had nothing to do with his tee shot at 16. Bear down and reset.

4. Stay optimistic

After all, you never know when a 50-foot putt is going to drop.

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SWING THOUGHT

FEEL THE FLICK

By To p 10 0 Te a che r Brian Ma nz el la IT’S TRENDY THESE DAYS to eliminate any excessive wrist

motion during the swing, but it’s important to recognize that your wrists play an integral part in boosting clubhead speed and squaring the clubface at impact. I teach my students to “flick” their wrists through impact—a necessary move found in all good golf swings.

As the clubhead approaches the ball, notice that your right wrist is bent and your left wrist is flexed (top right).

After impact, however, the opposite is true: Your left wrist is bent and your right wrist is flexed (bottom). That means somewhere in between (i.e., through impact) your wrists need to flick.

A great way to develop a feel for this is to practice flicking only your wrists at the bottom of your swing. Start by simulating a slow practice swing, then as you move the club near parallel to the ground on the forward swing, activate only your wrists and flick the club through. It’ll feel incredibly handsy since you’re not moving your body. That’s the point: You want to heighten the sensation here so when it comes time to make a real swing, your wrists will flick with velocity and ease, helping you increase your clubhead speed and hit longer shots. Remember, flick doesn’t mean flip— your hands don’t flip over. They merely flick the handle, much like you do when skipping a rock across a lake.

The Brian Manzella Golf Academy is based at English Turn Golf & Country Club in New Orleans, La.

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Short hitter

Slicer

High handicapper

30-Day Challenge: Scoring-Club Sharpener FORGET QUANTITY. Focus on quality

Left: Christian Hafer; Right: Illustrations by Ben Mounsey-Wood

practice for 30 days and you’ll reap huge rewards this season. This shortgame improvement plan mandates you hit about 150 balls per session; you can do it at the range or from a golf setup in your backyard. Visit GOLF.com for an expanded version of this routine from Top 100 Teacher Debbie Doniger.

BALL-FIRST QUARTER SWINGS Take a pitching wedge, narrow your stance with pressure lightly forward.

Choke down and hit 50 balls with a quarter swing.

Focus on contacting the ball first, ground second.

NET-RATTLING HALF SWINGS Hit 50 balls with your lead arm reaching no more than parallel to the ground on your backswing. Finish your follow-through with your chest pointing at the target, left wrist flat.

BENCHMARK TEST Using a Flightscope MEVO ($500; flightscopemevo. com), hit 10 balls with your quarter, half and full swings with every wedge.

Record the distance and off-line direction for each and calculate the averages.

DAY 1

DAY 2

DAY 3

DAY 4

DAY 5

Benchmark Test

Rest Day

Ball-first quarter swings

Rest Day

Ball-first quarter swings

DAY 6

DAY 7

DAY 8

DAY 9

Rest Day

Ball-first quarter swings

Rest Day

Net-rattling half swings

Rest Day

DAY 11

DAY 12

DAY 13

DAY 14

DAY 15

Net-rattling half swings

Rest Day

Net-rattling half swings

Rest Day

Benchmark Test

DAY 10

DAY 16

DAY 17

DAY 18

DAY 19

DAY 20

Rest Day

Ball-first quarter swings

Net-rattling half swings

Ball-first quarter swings

Net-rattling half swings

DAY 21

DAY 22

DAY 23

DAY 24

DAY 25

Ball-first quarter swings

Net-rattling half swings

Rest Day

Rest Day

Ball-first quarter swings, Net-rattling half swings

DAY 26

DAY 27

DAY 28

DAY 29

DAY 30

Ball-first quarter swings, Net-rattling half swings

Ball-first quarter swings, Net-rattling half swings

Ball-first quarter swings, Net-rattling half swings

Ball-first quarter swings, Net-rattling half swings

Benchmark Test

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Last Off

Matthew McConaughey THE OSCAR WINNER AND BEST-SELLING AUTHOR USED TO PLAY TO A FOUR. NOW IT’S MORE LIKE A 24, BUT THAT’S “ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT!”

G: Your father got drafted by the Green Bay Packers.

Was he disappointed that you chose golf as your sport and not football?

MM: Football was king in Texas. I decided I didn’t want to play and thought, How am I gonna tell Dad? One night he came to my room and I said, “Pop, I think I wanna play golf.”

He said, “Great idea, son.” I went, “What?”

And he goes, “Let me ask you a question. Can you tell it’s me coming to your room before I get there?”

I said, “Yes sir, I can.” He goes, “You can hear me because I got a five-inch plate in my back, four screws in this ankle and two in this knee. Buddy, play golf. You can play it till you go down.”

G: What’s the most memorable round you’ve played?

MM: It was at Lochinvar in Houston. It was a July summer day and me and my brother went out. We walked it. I like walking. I think it sets the pace that golf is meant to be played. Anyway, I had one of those days where I was just Harvey Penick-ing it. Not trying to draw it, not trying to fade it. I was hitting straight at the pin. I shot myself a little 77.

G: You do a lot of commercials for Lincoln. What would it take to get them to make you a custom golf cart?

MM: A phone call.

G: What’s your 19th hole beverage of choice?

MM: I like the cold, cold beer. Two cold beers, actually.

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G: What did you buy after your first big Hollywood payday?

MM: Titleist Balata 100s.

At the time, they were 12 bucks a case, and that was high living. Those damn things were soft, and if you hit them skinny you put a smile on them. Man, nothing felt better than hitting one smooth and just feeling like a marshmallow off the club.

G: I thought you’d say a Ferrari or something.

MM: Look, when I got my first paycheck, there were two things I was dancing around about: buying cases of Titleist Balatas and putting super unleaded in my truck.

G: You’ve played golf with Willie Nelson. Does he spark up before a round?

MM: Before, during and after.

G: Your best-selling book, Greenlights, is full of McConaughey life lessons. What’s the best advice you’ve gotten that applies to golf?

MM: “Don’t make a straight line crooked.” On the green, if you read the putt and it’s going to break two feet to the left, if you get your speed right and you get your line right, it’s a straight putt. Every putt is actually a straight putt.

G: That’s deep. I might use that.

MM: Give me a footnote when you do.

Chris Nashawaty has written for Vanity Fair, Esquire and Sports Illustrated, and is the author of Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story.

Miller Mobley/August

By Chris Nashawaty

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