Golf Digest Middle East - May 2023

4 Editor’s Letter Rahm living up to the hype ahead of PGA Championship.

BY MATT SMITH

The Starter

6 New Horizons Asian Tour’s International Series on its way to Scotland at Fairmont St Andrews.

BY MATT SMITH

Mind / Body

8 Journeys Ben Griffin’s path from mortgage loan officer to the PGA Tour.

WITH KEELY LEVINS

10 Undercover Caddie Coping with the verbal abuse.

WITH JOEL BEALL

12 My Golf Lesson With ChatGPT

How does the AI chat bot stack up against golf’s teaching greats?

BY JERRY TARDE

16 How We Got Here

Debate about how far the ball travels is not new.

BY E MICHAEL JOHNSON

44 Swing Sequence Sungjae Im’s backswing is his key move.

BY DAVE ALLEN

46 What’s in My Bag World No. 1 Lydia Ko

WITH KEELY LEVINS

66 The Loop

The Haig played in colour. BY DREW POWELL

Features

18 Masterful Maya Abu Dhabi-based youngster’s amazing journey to Augusta.

BY MATT SMITH

22 Play & Stay

Join up with Golf Digest Middle East for a staycation to remember on Yas Island.

BY MATT SMITH

COVER STORY

26 Your Longest Year Ever

Cam Young shares his prime moves to help you blister the ball.

BY RON KASPRISKE

34 Oak Hill’s Makeover

The 2023 PGA Championship site will display the work of golf’s hottest new architect Andrew Green.

BY DEREK DUNCAN

48 Putting Things Right

Bob Bettinardi speaks about how his creations revolutionised golf on the greens.

BY MATT SMITH

Hot List 2023

PART 4

55 Mallet Putters

With better alignment and tighter distance control on mis-hits, these putters will have you hearing “That’s good” all day.

BY MIKE STACHURA

61 Blade Putters

You might think they all look alike, but this year’s top blade putters have distinct differences.

BY MIKE STACHURA

IT’S UP TO YOU Oak Hill has a new look ahead of the 2023 PGA

Is Rahm the next Tiger-in-waiting?

Spaniard showing all the signs of a prolonged period of dominance

By Matt Smith

SO THE MASTERS has come and gone for yet another year, but it will not be easily forgotten (are any?) for a multitude of reasons.

• We had the threat of a Monday finish as tempest-like weather lashed Augusta National, toppling trees along the way (thankfully no one was hurt).

• We had the threat of a Monday finish as Patrick Cantlay snailed his way around Amen Corner ahead of the final group, with even the American’s playing partner Viktor Hovland losing patience at times and just playing ahead as Cantlay dawdled.

• We had the sad scenes of a heavily limping Tiger Woods ahead of his withdrawal, meaning even the most in-denial of the die-hard fans are realising the end is nigh on a GOAT career.

• We had the warmly welcomed return of the LIV Golf gang (apparently more so than some sections of the media hoped).

• We had the not-so-warmly welcomed return of LIV’s Brooks Koepka to the top of the Masters leaderboard for three ironic days (at least for some members of the PGA Tour board, who must have been praying for one of their own to emerge victorious).

• We had the crowds roaring on a fantastic and nostalgic Phil Mickelson Masters Sunday charge to finish T-2 alongside his fellow LIV-er Koepka.

• And, of course, we had our eventual champion — the now two-time major champ Jon Rahm — and the manner of his victory (a nerveless, flawless, comfortable four strokes in the end, to the relief of Jay Monahan … probably).

All of which has teed us up nicely for the year’s second major — the PGA Championship at Oak Hill from May 18-21.

Such has been the return to form for Rahm over the past 12 months that

we have that ‘Next Tiger’ chatter we haven’t heard since the emergence of Jordan Spieth.

Sure, there must have been a dozen ‘Next Tiger Woodses' over the past decade-and-a-half, but there is a certain amount of justification for the hype over Rahm.

Since the start of last May, the Spanish 2021 US Open champion went on a hot streak that is hard to believe. It includes, of course, a Masters victory in April, but he racked up seven total wins in 24 events, had 15 top-10s and missed zero cuts (he withdrew from the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass earlier this year though illness while being well within the cutline).

The stats back it up, too. From teeto-green in 2023, Rahm is as strong as the best around him (Xander Shauffele, Scottie Scheffler, Tony Finau, Justin Thomas and McIlroy), and stronger than all where it counts — in putting.

When you add to the numbers the steely resolve that has seen him close out so many tournaments while under immense pressure, you have — in theory — a ready-made Tiger Mk. II.

Should he win at Oak Hill, the Rahm-as-next-Tiger chatter will move into megaphones-on-the-rooftops overdrive.

Should he win ...

Unsurprisingly, the Spaniard heads to Rochester, New York, as the favourite as he hunts the third piece in a career grand slam jigsaw puzzle, but his best performance in the event is a T-4 at Bellerive Country Club, Missouri, in 2018,as Koepka triumphed.

Just as at The Masters, the eligible LIV Golfers will be coming into Oak Hill fresh from a tournament of their own — and it certainly did many of them no harm at Augusta, with Koepka, Mickelson and Patrick Reed inside the top five and 12 of the 18 ‘rebels’ making a cut that saw the likes of Thomas and McIlroy shown the door early.

With the expanded 2023 LIV season gathering pace, it will be an intriguing watch to see how they fare at Oak Hill against their old PGA Tour and DP World Tour stablemates.

Koepka is one of four golfers in the field who are hunting a hat-trick of PGA Championship successes along with Mickelson, McIlroy and Justin Thomas. As the Masters showed, anything can happen at a major.

This month we also see the Ladies European Tour’s Aramco Team Series return after France’s Pauline Roussin was the runaway winner last time out in Singapore.

The series continues its mission to bring its innovative team-and-individual-competitions format to new audiences and its American stop has switched from New York to Florida this year.

Lexi Thompson has already confirmed her participation and the Coral Springs native should swell the crowds as it will be a ‘home’ event at Trump International, West Palm Beach.

The 28-year-old is no stranger to the Aramco Team Series, having competed in the inaugural event in London at Centurion Club and will be going for a US ‘double’ having won at Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point last October.

As we swing into the summer heat here in the Middle East, things are certainly hotting up abroad, too.

matthew.smith@motivate.ae @mattjosmith / @golfdigestme

sky high Jon Rahm celebrates on the 18th green after his Masters success last month

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The Scottish play

The Asian Tour is heading to the home of golf for the first time as its extended 2023 International Series visits Fairmont St Andrews

The home of golf is about to write another chapter in its looooong history as the Asian Tour is coming to Scotland for the first-ever time in August. The expanded 2023 International Series will host its sixth stage of the year at Fairmont St Andrews on August 24-27 in the shape on the inaugural St Andrews Bay Championship.

A field of 156 of the game’s finest golfers will compete for $1.5 million over the Fairmont’s Torrance Course — a 7,320-yard layout set among 520 acres of stunning Scottish coastline with views of St Andrews Bay.

Designed by former Ryder Cup and golfing legend Sam Torrance, the course is marked by its deep bunkers, large greens and links design. The club has a rich pedigree and has previously staged many notable international events including on the DP World Tour, the European Seniors Tour, on six occasions between 2009 and 2014, as well as Open Qualifying.

The St Andrews Bay Championship will follow immediately a er International Series England at Close House, Newcastle, to make an ‘International Series UK Swing’ —matt smith

‘I Got a Job as a Mortgage Loan Officer’

I hadn’t touched a club in a month when I agreed to play in a member-guest. The events that followed changed my life

By Ben Griffin with Keely Levins

In 2021 i was burned out on mini-tours and couldn’t see myself making it to the PGA Tour. I’d lost my motivation and love for golf. The stress of playing with $15,000 of credit-card debt was agony, so I quit. I got a job as a mortgage loan officer and hadn’t touched a club in a month when I accepted an invitation to a member-guest tournament that changed my life.

My dad — who can still shoot under par on a good day — put a club in my hands when I started walking. My grandfather taught me you can try as hard as you can to beat the other guys but still be respectful. We belonged to Chapel Hill Country Club, a private course in North Carolina until I was 12. Then the financial crisis of 2008 hit. My dad is in real estate and my mother is a loan officer, so it hit us hard. We went from having a nice house to renting. We got rid of our golf membership. University of North Carolina Finley Golf Course, which is public, had a great junior golf rate, and I had friends there, so that’s where I started playing. ● ● ●

BEN GRIFFIN PGA TOUR AGE

Canada, but traveling on my own was like a punch in the face: I was staying in not-so-nice hotels, and I didn’t have the same resources I had had in college. Instead of playing for championships, guys are playing like they’re fighting for their lives.

● ● ●

The pressure turned me into a fearful golfer. If there was water to the right, my brain would say not to hit it right. The anxiety kept building, and I started playing bad golf. I obsessed over my equipment and swing. I became a perfectionist. You should focus on hitting shots, not hitting the right positions in your swing.

● ● ●

That’s also where the University of North Carolina golf team plays. Once I started going to college there, my teammates would jokingly complain that qualifying wasn’t fair: I knew every break on those greens. I won two tournaments my freshman year. I thought I couldn’t be stopped: I would turn pro, play the Korn Ferry Tour, then make the PGA Tour right away. But that’s not what ended up happening — not even close.

I graduated and turned pro in 2018. I won almost immediately on PGA Tour

I played the Korn Ferry Tour in 2019, didn’t play well and played smaller tours until 2021. Without belief, I had nothing, so I quit, put my clubs away and became a mortgage loan officer. I said yes to that member-guest with my friend Mike Swann at Highland Springs in Missouri thinking it would just be fun. I shot 63 on my own ball. The course hosts a Korn Ferry event. Mike told me to fly back and play in the Monday qualifier. He’d pay for everything.

● ● ●

I wasn’t sure, but at home one morning I accidentally drove to the golf

course instead of the office. It felt like a sign. A few days before the qualifier, my grandfather died. My parents said to play. I’d be home in time for the funeral on Wednesday. That tells you how we thought the qualifier would go.

● ● ●

I shot 65 to qualify for the Korn Ferry event but missed the cut. My grandfather always said: “Hit ’em long, hit ’em straight,” and when I saw that in his obituary, I knew I had to play professionally again. Mike and another friend, Jesse Ahearn, said they’d cover me through Q-School. Highland members pooled together cash, and another good friend, Doug Sieg, said he’d pay all my expenses for two years. I wouldn’t have to worry about credit-card debt. I quit my job, overwhelmed by everyone’s support.

● ● ●

I vowed to myself to do it differently this time. I needed to stop drinking during the season. I didn’t have a drinking problem, but I was drinking like I was still in college. When you drink consistently, you think you feel good, but you don’t. Now I feel incredible.

● ● ●

My girlfriend introduced me to the vegan lifestyle, which also helped. Some people treat food like entertainment, but food is fuel. I eat for energy. Research says veganism helps with inflammation. I’ve never felt better. I used to be fatigued down the stretch, but now I feel fresh enough for another 18 after the tournament is over.

● ● ●

By September 2021 I was at Korn Ferry Q-School. I made it through, had three runner-up finishes in 2022 and got my PGA Tour card for 2023. Then a month into the season, I had a shot at winning in Bermuda. It didn’t go my way, but that was my first time holding a lead going to the back nine of a tournament in a very long time.

● ● ●

I want to keep doing what I’m doing to feel fresh each week and soak in every experience because the PGA Tour is a pretty great place to play. It isn’t as bad as a lot of guys have made it out to be recently. I’ve seen what life outside of professional golf is. Being on the PGA Tour? Trust me, it’s pretty damn awesome.

27

LIVES ST. SIMONS ISLAND, GA.

Undercover Caddie

Coping with verbal abuse is part of the job of looping on tour

Wo rking in sports is different from most jobs, but it’s still a job.

I’m sure some of you get chewed out by your bosses, but I doubt they talk to you the way some players talk to us. If you have played sports, you know heated exchanges among teammates and competitors are fairly common. I’m not condoning the language, but how many people really think twice about it?

That doesn’t make what gets said easier to hear.

Curse words, putdowns and questions that are not so much questions as they are criticisms come with the job. Golf is an emotional game, and the lines between great and good and between good and losing your card are so thin that every shot feels like it has greater meaning than it should. Living on that type of edge tends to expose nerves, and sometimes that turns into negative energy directed at us.

If something is our fault, we know it, and we’ll own it, but we can also get derided despite being right. Five years

ago, near the end of the West Coast Swing, my player and I were doing well, but it was getting late, and we needed another birdie to make a playoff. We had an approach that I said required a good 9-iron. He wanted a soft 8. He got the last call, and the shot was way off to the right. I got an earful from my player, not because either of us was necessarily wrong but because I brought in doubt to the shot. Yes, it’s his job to commit, but you can’t be 100 per cent committed on the 280-something shots you take per tournament. Doubt is always

there, and although I’ve done my job, I still take the brunt of my guy’s failure.

You would think that would make it more palatable. It doesn’t. No one likes to be treated that way, especially if it’s not justified. It’s not just the tone. Words really can hurt. One player who I like used to call me “dumb” after every bad shot anytime we were in disagreement. He said it in jest but also as a way of deflection to preserve his self-confidence. If you keep hearing you’re dumb, you begin to think, Well, maybe I am dumb.

This might sound a little funny, but I ended up seeing a therapist to talk about how to come to terms with it and how to stop it. I worried about how to bring this up with my player because if he didn’t react well, word would get out. Then I would be seen as weak, and my reputation on tour would have been done. I never had to make that call. Right around the time I started talking to the therapist, my player got hurt. I jumped on a new bag with a guy who is a bit boring but polite and have stayed there since.

back this player bought his caddie a car to say thanks. Looking like a jerk doesn’t mean you are a jerk, if you know what I mean.

Conversely, there is a guy who everyone considers a nice dude except for the caddies. He rides his caddie hard: Nothing is ever his fault, and when things are going bad, boy, is he in a bad mood. The worst is that he talks massive shade behind his caddie’s back. He criticises the decisions, prep and strategy after the fact, but then goes a level deeper, ripping his caddie’s appearance, behaviour, even his drawl. The last part is especially offensive; yeah, his caddie talks a little slow, but when the player does his impression, he makes his caddie sound like a stereotypical hillbilly. It comes off mean-spirited, done only to put his caddie down for a cheap laugh.

There’s a reason the guys you see on TV every week aren’t the ones who are guilty of berating their loops. If a player is routinely going at a caddie — at least being caught on camera going at a caddie — the tour will take the player aside and say: “Hey, tone it down.” It’s not because the tour cares about us,; it has an image to uphold, and a superstar chewing out his bagman after a bad shot doesn’t help the brand. For some of the habitual linecrossers, the networks know enough to cut away before showcasing anything too nasty. Let’s just say there’s a reason you never see the reaction from one under-30 superstar. The networks know if they stay on him for too long, there’s a F-bomb being shot at his loop.

Everyone knows this one player who is a notorious hothead. He’ll pop off on his caddie three to four times a round. That’s a hell of a lot. The thing is, this player gets annoyed at everything and everyone, including himself, when he’s playing, which makes it easier for his caddie to take. They have a great relationship, and after a win a few years

Why does the caddie stay? There’s a lot of money to be made out here working in the game, and for most of us, caddieing professionally is something we love.

I was lucky because I had insight from my dad. He wasn’t a pro caddie. He worked at a bunch of clubs growing up, even as a side gig when he got married to help support the family. When I started caddieing, he instilled this lesson in me early: Take it or take off. That’s always in the back of my head because if I don’t want to do this anymore, I know there are hundreds that would jump at the chance to take my place.

To be completely fair, we’re not choir boys, either. We vent about our players to our fellow caddies. The next time you watch a tour event in person, if you see a caddie laughing with a radio or TV oncourse reporter, we likely took a friendly dig at our player’s expense. Hey, we have to cope somehow.

WITH JOEL BEALL

Undercover Caddie says the oddest thing a player has called him is a “booger digger.”

‘I ended up seeing a therapist to talk about how to come to terms with it and how to stop it.’

My Golf Lesson with ChatGPT

How does the AI chatbot stack up against the game’s all-time teaching greats?

By Jerry Tarde

I’ve tried everything to hit the ball farther. I’ve taken lessons from Butch Harmon, David Leadbetter, Hank Haney, Bob Toski, Jim Flick, Sam Snead, Paul Runyan, Shelby Futch — well, it would be easier to list the pros I haven’t taken a lesson from. Harvey Penick showed me his little red book. I spent a week with Jimmy Ballard. Ben Hogan offered to give me his secret (then didn’t). I’ve tried the pink shaft in my driver. I subscribe to Golf Digest Schools. I’ve

gone to clubfitters, nutritionists and personal trainers and joined a couple of those upscale Manhattan gyms. I’ve done Pilates and yoga. I got tips from Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Arnold Palmer and Annika Sorenstam. I’ve even played in a member-guest with the renowned sport psychologist Dr Bob Rotella — suffice it to say, I didn’t learn to be my own best friend.

The search for distance finally led me to ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot that everyone’s talking about.

I signed up and took my first lesson. I went for the premium edition: Twenty bucks a month and I could ask as many questions as I wanted, no waiting. The mission was simple: How can I increase my swing speed? The answer came back literally in a second:

(1) A good warm-up routine can help increase flexibility and range of motion, which in turn can lead to a faster swing. A dynamic stretching routine can help loosen up your muscles and joints and get your body ready for the swing.

(2) Building strength in your core, back and legs can help generate more power. Exercises like squats, dead-lifts and lunges can help improve your overall strength.

(3) Plyometrics, such as jumping and bounding exercises, can help improve your explosiveness and speed.

(4) Working with a golf coach to improve your swing technique can help you generate more power.

This sounds like a lot of work, and I don’t have patience, so I asked: “How can I hit the ball farther without exercise, in 25 words or less?”

“Focus on good ball contact and tempo, use a longer club, tee the ball higher, and adjust your ball position forward.”

That’s too many moving parts, I said. Just give me one swing thought.

“Maintain a smooth and balanced tempo throughout the swing, rather than trying to swing too hard or too fast.”

Simpler still, give me one word to think about.

“Tempo. This word encompasses rhythm, timing and pacing and can help you maintain a smooth and controlled motion throughout your swing.”

I’ve tried that. It doesn’t work. What should I do?

“When all else fails, you may try increasing the loft on your club, using a lighter shaft, teeing the ball higher or experimenting with a more aggressive swing tempo.”

Maybe I should just go forward a set of tees?

“Moving forward to a set of tees that better matches your skill level and driving distance might be a good strategy to improve your golf game. Playing from tees that are too long or too difficult can lead to frustration, slow play and a less enjoyable experience on the golf course.”

It won’t be long before I’ll be able to input a video of my swing and artificial intelligence will offer diagnostics, but for now I’m engaged in a dialogue on my iPad. In some back and forth, ChatGPT suggested I stay hydrated to prevent fatigue. I asked if alcohol would help, and it emphatically said no. What

about smoking weed? It wouldn’t even discuss “illegal substances”.

We then considered what different pros would tell me to do. It said Hogan might strengthen my grip, Harmon might widen my backswing, Leadbetter might stabilise my lower body “while allowing my upper body to rotate fully.” Tiger Woods would say to “practise with a purpose.” John Daly would tell me to “grip it and rip it.”

I had another thought: I asked it to give me a distance tip from Donald Trump.

“I’m sorry, but as an AI language model, I cannot provide political content. Additionally, I am programmed to remain neutral and unbiased on all topics.” Some golfers I know should take that advice.

I asked what Bill Murray would tell me. It replied too fast: “He might encourage you to ‘be the ball,’ a famous line from his character in the movie “Caddyshack”. While this may sound silly or unconventional, by visualising your shot and embodying the ball’s trajectory you can gain greater clarity and confidence in your swing, which can translate in greater distance.” (Our fact-checker notes that it was Chevy Chase’s character, not Murray’s, who said the line, proving that even ChatGPT isn’t infallible.)

I then asked it to give me a tip in which each word began with a successive letter of the alphabet. This is a party trick I knew ChatGPT likes to play. It answered instantly: “Always balance core drives each follow-through, grip hands inside joints. Keep loose muscles. Now, practice quick rotations, square target under. Visualise win, x-pect yardage zestfully.”

My wife was an English major, so I asked for a tip in iambic pentameter: Swing through the ball with rhythm and grace,

With every motion in its proper place. Keep your tempo smooth, your balance true,

And watch the distance of your ball accrue.

Trying to get more cerebral, I asked what Stephen Hawking would advise.

“One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose, and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there, and don’t throw it away. While this [Hawking] quote may not seem directly related to golf, it highlights the importance of perseverance and finding purpose in life. These values can be applied to your golf game as well. Keep practicing and working on your skills, and don’t give up if you’re not hitting the ball as far as you’d like.”

Kind of like placing a mirror in front of a mirror, I asked what Jerry Tarde would tell me. It replied: “Jerry Tarde, the editor-in-chief of Golf Digest, emphasises the importance of proper clubface alignment at address to achieve a solid and accurate shot. One of his tips is to align the clubface with the intended target line, while also aligning your feet, hips, and shoulders parallel to that target line.”

Hmmm . I don’t disagree with this, but I don’t remember ever saying it, either. I also wouldn’t take a lesson from myself.

Then it hit me. For the lesson to end all lessons, I should go to the Bard of Hibbing, the Voice of a Generation. Can you give me a tip in the form of Bob Dylan lyrics, I asked. The cursor paused for only a second, and then came this reply:

When it comes to hitting far down the fairway,

There ain’t no shortcut, ain’t no easy way.

But you gotta try hard, swing with all your might,

And focus on that ball, keep it in your sight.

You gotta loosen up, don’t be too stiff, And don’t forget to breathe, don’t hold your breath.

Keep your head down, and your eyes on the prize,

And when you make contact, it’ll be a surprise.

So don’t think too much, don’t get in your head, Let your instincts take over instead. And with practice and patience you’ll see it’s true,

That hitting it farther is within reach for you.

Jerry Tarde treats the subject playfully here, but the opportunity and threat posed by this AI technology cannot be overstated.

Golf Digest Middle East’s Play & Stay is coming to Abu Dhabi Yas Island

FRIDAY, JUNE 9

Overnight stay for two at Crowne Plaza

Abu Dhabi - Yas Island

One spot in nine-hole tournament (individual stableford format) at Yas Acres

Golf & Country Club with 5pm shotgun

Welcome drink

Evening brunch for two with house beverages at Stills

Terms & conditions apply

SATURDAY, JUNE 10

Breakfast for two at Jing Asia - Crowne Plaza

Abu Dhabi - Yas Island

One spot in 18-hole tournament (individual stableford format) at Yas Links Abu Dhabi with 1pm shotgun

Welcome drink and prize presentation

Late-check-out and facilities use at Crowne Plaza Abu Dhabi - Yas Island for non-playing guests

For full itinerary and to book: GolfDigestME.com/PlayAndStay

A PROPOSAL TO ROLL BACK THE GOLF BALL AT THE ELITE LEVEL HAS BEEN A

BY E. MICHAEL JOHNSON

1972

Spalding introduces the two-piece Top-Flite distance ball.

1976

The USGA’s ‘Iron Byron’ robot measures golf balls’ initial velocities and distances. Struck at 109 miles per hour, balls must travel no farther than 296 yards.

1979

TaylorMade introduces the first commercially viable metalwoods.

1984

The USGA adds ‘springlike effect’ language to the Rules of Golf.

2004

The USGA implements rules restricting clubhead size to 460 cubic centimetres and COR (a measure of face springiness) to .822 with a test tolerance of .008.

2003

TrackMan — a Doppler-radarbased launch monitor, helps optimise the launch conditions of professional golfers.

Average driving distance on the PGA Tour surges to 285.9 yards. Hank Kuehne leads at 321.4. Nine players average 300 or more, and 55 others top 290 yards.

2005

The USGA sends an email to ball manufacturers soliciting prototype balls that fly 15 to 25 yards shorter than current USGA limits.

2006

The Ohio Golf Association conducts a tournament that requires participants to use a ball made to carry 10 to 15 yards shorter to highlight the burden on facilities to lengthen their courses.

2002

Augusta National adds more than 285 yards by extending half the holes in what is dubbed ‘Tigerproofing’ the golf course.

The USGA and R&A release a joint-statement of principles that puts distance firmly in the crosshairs of future regulation: “Any further significant increases in hitting distance at the highest level are undesirable.”

Twenty-one players break the 400-yard barrier, including David Duval, with a 454-yarder.

2011

Average distance on the PGA Tour eclipses 290 yards for the first time. Five players top 310 yards, and 21 players average over 300 yards. More than 100 players have an average of more than 290 yards.

2018

After a period of slow to flat distance increases, the PGA Tour average leaps from 290.0 in 2016 to 296.1 in 2018. Sixty golfers top the 300-yard mark.

LONG TIME IN THE MAKING

Golf’s distance debate is not new. In fact, pros and everyday golfers have been questioning the length the golf ball goes for more than half a century. The recent proposal by the USGA and R&A to roll back the distance the golf ball goes for players at the elite-competition level was not spurred by one moment in time but rather by the cumulative effect increased distance has had on the game. Here’s a look at some of the more seminal moments that have led to this tipping point.

1988

For the first time, metal drivers outnumber persimmon drivers on the PGA Tour.

1990

The Open Championship is played at the Old Course at St Andrews at a length of 6,933 yards.

1992

The longest recorded drive on the PGA Tour is 372 yards by Mark Calcavecchia in the first round of the NEC World Series of Golf in Akron, Ohio.

1997

Tiger Woods wins the Masters by overpowering Augusta National. He hits pitching wedge into the par-5 15th for his second shot during the final round and requires only a 9-iron to reach the par-5 second green during the third round.

2000

Tiger Woods changes to the Nike Tour Accuracy, a multilayer, solid-core ball with a urethane cover, and wins seven of his next nine events.

Titleist introduces the Pro V1 — its first multilayer, solid-core ball with a urethane cover. Within two weeks more than 100 tour pros are playing multilayer, solidcore balls with urethane covers.

The average driving distance on the PGA Tour is 272.7 yards. John Daly is the leader at 301.4 yards.

1999

Chris Smith hits the first recorded 400-yard drive on the PGA Tour: a 427-yard bomb at the Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

1998

New USGA president Buzz Taylor says the skill of pros combined with high-tech equipment “threaten obsolescence of many of golf’s historic venues”. At the US Open, the USGA says it is developing a test for “trampoline effect”.

2022

Bryson DeChambeau attempts to clear a lake to drive the 555yard par-5 sixth at Bay Hill during the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He had the distance (370 yards) on one drive but was wide of the target.

The Old Course at St Andrews measures 7,313 yards for the Open, nearly 400 yards more than in 1990. Seventy-seven players hit drives of 400 yards or more on the PGA Tour, and 723 tee shots travel 375 yards or more. Average driving distance hits an all-time high of 299.8 yards. Drives of more than 320 yards — the USGA test limit — account for nearly 20 per cent of all measured tee shots.

2023

The USGA and R&A announce a proposal for a Model Local Rule that can be applied in elite competitions starting in 2026. The proposal effectively would roll back the distance the golf ball travels by 15 to 20 yards. The proposal would not impact everyday golfers.

MIRACLE MAYA

MASTERS NEW HEIGHTS

Abu Dhabi-based youngster realises a dream at Augusta

BY MATT SMITH

MAYA PALANZA GAUDIN

is seriously well travelled and has made a serious mark on the game of golf, with victories in Abu Dhabi, India, Scotland, Boston and at the famous Augusta National in Georgia to name a few.

Oh, and she’s 13.

In a tale that reads like a fanciful work of fiction from the mind of a Hollywood feelgood scriptwriter, Maya’s journey already has more twists and turns than a drive up Jebel Hafeet, and — even with victory at the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals at Augusta during Masters week in April — this is a trip that still has miles to go.

While Abu Dhabi-based Maya is one of the latest products to come off the conveyor belt of young UAE-based golfing talent, it is amazing that she even made it this far at all.

Maya was in serious danger when her biological mother died shortly after childbirth in her South Ethiopian village near the Kenyan border. With no one to breastfeed the baby, her father and uncles carried Maya the 55 miles to the nearest hospital. Once Maya was safe, her father gave her one more gift for the best shot at a good life by putting her up for adoption.

Maya was taken in by a Bostonian couple based in Abu Dhabi — Stephen Gaudin, a former overseas FBI agent, and his wife Cassandra, who works in the American embassy in the UAE capital. The golf-loving pair introduced Maya to the game at the age of five and enrolled her in the Emirates Golf Federation’s Future Falcons National Junior Development Programme.

“The way I see it, Maya’s birth mother gave her life and her birth father saved her life, and our job since has been to love, nurture and provide every opportunity to Maya to embrace her life including this wonderful gift for the game of golf,” Cassandra explained on the Masters website.

Under Stephen’s guidance, a young Maya became an EGF Future Falcon and was already showing talent well beyond her years with a victory in India before she won the 2021 Ladies Championship in the Yas Links Abu Dhabi sunshine. That was followed up in somewhat different conditions at the US Kids European Championship (12yo Category) at The Glen Golf Club, North Berwick, in the permanently wet, cold and breezy Scottish weather, to win by four strokes.

“I got to play at St Andrews afterwards,” a smiling Maya said. “We drove up there. It’s my close-second favourite now I have seen Augusta.”

Boston was next on the calendar and Maya was just getting warmed up. “The golf ball doesn’t care who you are, or where you were born,” the wisebeyond-her-years youngster said after

The golf ball doesn’t care who you are or where you were born. It only cares about one thing: how you swing the club

FULLY FOCUSED

While still only 13, Maya has been playing golf for eight years

her victory booked her spot in the Augusta field. “The golf ball doesn’t care how much money you may have or about what your father and grandfather did for a job. The golf ball doesn’t care about the colour of your skin, or how tall, skinny, heavy or popular you are. The golf ball doesn’t care about what school you go to. The golf ball only cares about one thing and only one thing: how you swing the club. That’s what I love about golf — it’s just about you and the golf ball.”

Through the connection with Yas Links, Maya has some head-turning friends, too. She has teed it up with Rory McIlroy in DP World Tour pro-

ams, as well as Thomas Pieters, Tommy Fleetwood and Robert MacIntyre.

The pros know Maya so well by now that, when her parents were searching for her at Yas Links this January during the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, McIlroy told Stephen and Cassandra: “I just saw her. She’s inside.’”

“He’s so nice to me,” Maya said of four-time major winner McIlroy. “He’s very kind. I get to see him almost every time when he comes to Abu Dhabi tournaments.”

Maya’s appearance at the National Finals was no easy feat and it was something she had been trying to achieve for half of her short lifetime.

“Six times [I tried to qualify], but it would’ve been seven with the COVID year,” Maya said after her famous win that received a congratulatory tweet from McIlroy.

At the Drive, Chip and Putt, participants compete in three skills (unsurprisingly driving distance, and chipping and putting accuracy), with three shots per skill going towards a final score. With 26 points, Maya won the Girls 12-13 years category by four points from joint runners-up Narah Hope Kim, from Georgia, and Ruihan Kendria Wang, from Washington.

“It probably wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did and it’s surreal,” an

Rory is so nice to me. He’s very kind. I get to see him almost every time when he comes to Abu Dhabi tournaments

FRIENDS REUNITED Maya and family with her best pal Rory McIlroy in Dubai at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic

emotional Maya said reflecting on her journey. “I don’t really have any words for it. Very surreal. I can’t believe it. Just coming here was surreal and then winning is on a whole other level.”

Maya’s next mission? More US junior golf tournaments. Each summer, Maya and her parents travel to the US from Abu Dhabi and she tees up in New England PGA junior tournaments. She has tried to qualify for the US Girls’ Junior three times.

In golf timing is everything, and Maya’s jaunt to the Augusta Masters this year linked in nicely with Ramadan, allowing her to take a little time off school. She dreams of competing in the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and was watching on this year ahead of the Masters as Rose Zhang triumphed.

“It was very exciting. Congratulations to Rose,” Maya said. “The last two holes were nail-biting for me. I can’t imagine how it was for Rose. I

would love to play in that tournament.” With her tenacious perseverance, there is no reason why she herself cannot be teeing it up in Georgia once again.

Following her own success, Maya and her family stayed on to witness Jon Rahm’s famous victory at a stormy Augusta before enjoying some wellearned time with her extended family in Boston, while her friends and mentors looked on from the UAE.

“It is a great accomplishment for Maya and UAE golf to compete and win the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals at Augusta on the Sunday before The Masters,” Abdullah Alhashmi, ViceChariman of the Emirates Golf Club, told Golf Digest Middle East. “Maya is a graduate of the Future Falcons Programme where her golf journey started, and is another great example of talent that we have here in the UAE.

“Congratulations to Maya and her family. All of their hard work is paying off.”

Already an inspiration for others, Maya has some sage advice for those looking to follow in her footsteps: “Never stop trying. You can do it!”

While normal life may return with a bump with the school bell beckoning back in Abu Dhabi, Maya knows there will be plenty more tournaments and twists on this amazing trip.

Who knows where the journey will end up…

I don’t really have any words for it. Just coming here was surreal and then winning is on a whole other level

PROUD MOMENT Maya celebrates with her father Stephen after her victory at Augusta National

A CAPITAL STAYCATION WITH STYLE

Golf Digest Middle East’s Play & Stay returns — this time at the top venues on Abu Dhabi’s Yas Island

By Matt Smith

fancy a luxury overnight stay for two in the UAE with access to two of the country’s finest golf courses? Look no further!

Golf Digest Middle East’s Play & Stay competition is back — and this time we are heading to Yas Island in Abu Dhabi to offer one of the finest golfing experiences the capital has to offer.

Following the successful inaugural edition in Dubai, GDME Play & Stay — in association with Viya Golf — returns bigger and better.

For just AED 1,295, you and a friend (twin share or double) can enjoy a two-day staycation on Yas Island with one playing spot in each round at Yas Links Abu Dhabi and Yas Acres Golf & Country Club, either side of a luxury pampering at Crowne Plaza Abu Dhabi – Yas Island on June 9 and 10. Non-golfers can chill at Crowne Plaza's Cyan Beach or pool and enjoy discounted offers at the Crowne Fitness spa and sauna.

It’s no problem if you’re a couple that golf together or a pair of golfing pals looking for an epic weekend away either. A second spot in either tournament can be booked for AED 150 (Yas Acres) and AED 290 (Yas Links).

Registered players will arrive at the hotel on Yas Island on Friday for a reception, followed a short jaunt for an early evening nine-hole showdown over Yas Acres’ stunning course.

Following a luxurious night at Crowne Plaza, including a Friday night brunch with house beverages at Stills, and Saturday breakfast at Jing Asia, guests will head to the famous Yas Links to blow away the cobwebs in an 18-hole shotgun competition on the coast of the windswept Arabian Gulf.

The Play

YAS ACRES GOLF & COUNTRY CLUB

First up on early Friday evening is the UAE’s newest arrival on the golfing scene. Yas Acres Golf & Country Club opened last year to a great reception from local golfers and visitors from abroad, and it continues to grow in popularity, having been added to Viya Golf’s growing portfolio of clubs across the UAE.

The nine/18-hole set-up is perfect for experienced golfers, budding youngsters, weekend warriors and those who just like to relax and let the others do the hard work.

The par-36 track will test golfers with long holes, spanning 130 acres, across challenging contours and a low ridgeline that runs through the centre of the course. Some massive bunkers add to the experience and, while the fairways are generous, water is in play on four of the holes to keep you on your toes.

On top on the fully floodlit Fry/Straka-designed nine-hole course — stretching from 2,554 yards to a challenging 3,700 yards from five different tee boxes — Yas Acres has a lot more to offer in the heart of Yas Island.

Away from the course, golfers of all levels can work on their game at the world-class floodlit practice facilities, including two chipping greens, with practice bunkers, USGA-approved putting greens — and the longest driving range in the UAE.

The club also offers a gymnasium, padel tennis, swimming pool, plus three restaurants with views over the course.

YAS LINKS ABU DHABI

Saturday’s tournament will be a day to remember regardless of your score as competitiors will follow in the footsteps of some of the world’s greatest golfers at the famous Yas Links. This is a true links golf course, located on the western shores of Yas Island with views of the Arabian Gulf and is home to the DP World Tour Rolex Series Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.

Designed by American Kyle Phillips of Kingsbarns, Scotland, fame, Yas Links forms the heart of the island’s massive entertainment complex.

As the name suggestions, Phillips fashioned this as a warm-weather links, using two million cubic yards of sand dredged from an adjacent marina to create the shape and contours of the masterpiece, before covering everything with salttolerant Paspalum turf.

Amateurs lucky enough to call the UAE home and international visitors in the know have been smitten for years with one of the region’s most popular tracks, which has been home to the HSBC Championship since 2022, when it switched from Abu Dhabi Golf Club after 16 editions. Being a links set-up, the course offers new challenges with the famous Arabian Gulf breezes wafting in over the mangroves and the undulating layout.

Beware the stunningly difficult three-hole closing stretch which has been the scene of many amateur-hour meltdowns.

The Stay

CROWNE PLAZA

Friday night will be spent in style at one of Abu Dhabi’s most stylish hotels — the What’s On award-winning Crowne Plaza on Yas Island. Located in the heart of Abu Dhabi’s top destination island, the hotel resort overlooks Yas Links and has its own private Cyan Beach on the shores of the Arabian Gulf — perfect for sundowners and beautiful sunsets.

As well as all the entertainment venues on the hotel’s doorstep — including F1 racetrack, Ferrari World, Warner Bros and Yas Waterworld, Yas Mall is also only a stone’s throw away for those in need of retail therapy. For Golf Digest Middle East Play & Stay non-golfers who fancy the luxury life without straying too far, the hotel offers an outdoor pool, fitness centre, kids club, dining outlets and a shisha garden. Non-golfing guests can continue to use facilities on Saturday, with late-check-out available.

DIVISIONS AND ELIGIBILITY

The winners of each division (Div. A 0-14 HCP, Div. B 15-24 HCP and Best Gross) will claim the prizes and bragging rights, plus additional prizes on offer from our sponsors.

To be eligible for any of the prizes, an official EGF handicap/recognised handicap is required, and players under 21 years old must be accompanied by an adult.

The Pricing

The Golf Digest Middle East Play & Stay in partnership with Crowne Plaza Abu Dhabi – Yas Island is priced at AED 1,295 for two people and includes one spot in each round. The second guest can also tee it up for an additional AED 150 (Yas Acres) and AED 290 (Yas Links). Spots in this staycation, unlike any other, are expected to sell fast, so jump online to secure your room now.

Itinerary

FRIDAY JUNE 9

2.00pm Check-in at Crowne Plaza Abu Dhabi – Yas Island

3.45pm Transportation to Yas Acres

4.00pm Welcome drink, practice and player briefing

5.00pm Nine-hole shotgun start (individual stableford format)

7.15pm Transportation back to Crowne Plaza Abu Dhabi - Yas Island

8.30pm Evening brunch at Stills

11.30pm Close

SATURDAY JUNE 10

From 6.00am Breakfast at Jing Asia — Crowne Plaza Abu Dhabi – Yas Island

11.15am Transportation to Yas Links

11.30am Welcome drink, practice and player briefing

1.00pm 18-hole shotgun start (individual stableford format)

6.00pm Prize-giving

8.00pm Close

YOUR LONGEST

PGA TOUR ROOKIE OF THE YEAR CAM YOUNG

SHARES HIS PRIME MOVES TO HELP YOU BLISTER THE BALL

BY RON KASPRISKE • PHOTOGRAPHS BY JESSE RIESER

LONGEST YEAR EVER

E

Every bomber seems to have a signature move. For Rory, it’s fast hips. For DJ, it’s the bowed left wrist. For Rahm, it’s the short backswing. What’s Cam Young’s thing? You might say it's the pause before he starts his downswing. That’s tough to ignore. However, the more you see his swing, the more your attention goes to its explosiveness. Young swings like he’s trying to turn the ball into dust.

“He did everything hard growing up — threw hard, hit baseballs hard, his slapshot was hard, and so is his golf swing,” says Cam’s father, David, the recently retired head golf professional at Sleepy Hollow Country Club in Briarcliff Manor, New York David also is Cam's coach. “It wasn’t something we worked on. He just naturally knew how to use his body to crank it.”

That raw power has been refined to find more fairways, but Young still cranks it, averaging 316 yards off the tee on the PGA Tour this year. Here father and son will reveal the components that create this power — and what you can take away for your game.

Young’s setup and backswing are fairly standard among power players, and there’s a lot you can copy. His wide, stable stance is neutral in relation to the target (above, left), which leads to more consistency.

“I use the term ‘benchmarks’ for things in his stance and swing that are easy to copy. We want as many of those as he can create,” David says. “Think about it, if you're not square, how do you know from swing to swing if you’re starting from the same position?”

The main thing to pay attention to in this phase of Cam’s

swing is the width of his swing arc. While amateurs tend to have a narrow arc, taking the club back mostly with their arms, Cam stays very wide by moving his arms and torso together (left). The wider the arc, the more time the club has to pick up speed in the downswing.

Also, note how his upper body remains centered over his lower body (above). In the past, a tendency to move more laterally led to inconsistencies in his ball-striking. Amateurs frequently make the same mistake. Now Young coils with his “legs under him. That's a good swing thought,” he says.

START WIDE AND STAY WIDE — BUT REMAIN CENTERED

TURN

BACK UNTIL YOUR BODY TELLS YOU TO STOP

Cam says he has “no idea” where his backswing ends and downswing begins, but David says it’s the “easiest place to find” if you're looking to improve your consistency: “When your body is fully wound, you'll know it.” From that moment, Cam pauses for a fraction of a second, then starts down with everything he’s got. “We never trained that pause, but it does help with timing and sequencing,”

David says. “For amateurs, I recommend trying it when you practice, even doing slow-motion drills where you feel very calm at the top of your swing.”

Another goal should be getting the club in position to swing down from inside the target line, not outside the line where the usual result is a weak, glancing hit. Note the space inside that Cam has created as he reaches the top (above).

The most dynamic moves in Young’s swing come from his lower body, and if you can copy them even just a bit, you’ll pick up a lot more speed. First, as his upper body is completing the backswing, note how his right foot “pushes off the blocks like a sprinter’s”, David says. That trail-leg push (above) can provide a real boost to how fast you can move the club back down into the ball.

The second move is one that can help golfers who start down to the ball with their arms first, a common mistake. Cam says he sometimes works on getting his left hip quickly moving at the target. The effect is that his left knee goes from pointing inside the ball at the top of the swing to pointing a foot or more in front of it halfway down. Copying this knee action helps prevent an arm-dominant swing.

PUT A FIRM GRIP ON YOUR CLUB

If you think Young is gripping his driver as if he’s holding a baby bird, feel sorry for the bird. You might start from a tensionfree address position with your arms and hands feeling relaxed, but to generate real speed on the way back down to the ball, you can't hold onto the club like you're afraid to break it, Cam says.

Because Cam’s body is largely supplying the energy of the strike, he needs a tight hold on the club to control it (left). Amateurs are often given the “light grip” advice to help release the club through the impact zone, but there’s no need for that hand action if you control your swing mostly with body rotation.

KEEP TURNING, BUT STAY BEHIND THE BALL TO LAUNCH IT

Young prefers a draw for extra yards and gets it by making sure his clubface is slightly closed (pointing left) of his inside-out swing path at impact. That closure comes from body rotation, not supination of the left forearm. “It's much easier to repeat. It doesn’t require the split-second timing you need if you're trying to close the clubface with your arms,” he says.

If you return to the photo that opened this article, you can see that Young, who is only 5ft 11ins, 185lbs, is delivering the full mass of his body into the strike. Here, his right shoulder is key, as it moves downward (above) while his torso falls away from the target. This allows the club to launch the ball high with less backspin — two things you'll need to do to make this your longest year ever!

THE LONG VIEW Sightlines across holes two (foreground), three and beyond were unimaginable before the East Course’s 2019 remodel.

pga championship will be played at oak hill in Rochester, New York, in May for the fourth time, placing it second only to last year’s host, Southern Hills. This might be misleading because no PGA Championship or any other major championship has been contested on the course the players will see this year. That course is gone. In 2019, the club orchestrated a near total remodel of the East Course by architect Andrew Green, 45, who in a short period has become one of the most consequential designers in the business. Through seven decades hosting various national championships, the Donald Ross-designed East Course has been an archetype of American parkland golf, a showcase of fairways threaded through robust corridors of hardwoods and deep rough, with sloping greens rising from nests of bright white bunkers. Though few individual holes stood out, Oak Hill’s cumulative orchestration of trees, lush grass, shadows and perched putting surfaces provided a constant, green-noise backdrop for moments like Curtis Strange winning his second consecutive US Open in 1989, the famous victorty for Europe over the 1995 US Ryder Cup team, and Shaun Micheel’s stiffed 7-iron to two inches at 18 to clinch the 2003 PGA Championship.

Yes, Green’s work at Oak Hill changed its complexion entirely. He remodelled every green complex, fairway and landing zone to resurrect the original Ross character and spaciousness of the East Course that had been intentionally and unintentionally eradicated by 70 years of growth and architectural alteration. When Ross constructed the course in 1924 on mostly bare farmland (the property was already called Oak Hill, even though it had few trees), the holes were expansive with segmented, broad-shouldered greens and deep, scruffy bunkers. Green’s renovation moved Oak Hill back toward this complexion by reclaiming fairway widths and, through the removal of thousands of oaks, elms, maples and other varietals, opening up sightlines across the property unimaginable a decade ago when Jason Dufner held off Jim Furyk during the last PGA Championship played here. Three new holes were also built, and Green found more than 200 yards of additional teeing space, bringing the championship distance to just shy of 7,400 yards.

Oak Hill hasn’t been remodelled as much as it was reverse engineered to a state viewers and most players won’t rec-

ognise. The driving accuracy and shaping of shots around the boughs of trees so requisite to previous scoring will not be critical this time, though avoiding fairway bunkers and their tall vertical edges will be. High-trajectory approaches over bunkers and water blocking the fronts of greens were de rigueur, but most entrances now have been lowered and the hazards spaced to the flanks. Even more dramatic are the course’s new aesthetics that are based on historic photographs, with aggressive, steep-faced bunkering casting stark chiaroscuro shades against more exposed putting surfaces and horizon lines.

“There’s a certain rugged kind of boldness to what we’ve done that’s meant to provide a little more intimidation and to place some demanding circumstances on the world’s best players,” Green says. “The bunkers are certainly deep and steep, and there will be some fairway bunkers where, if golfers end up in them, they won’t be able to advance the ball all the way to the target. That may cause some of the professionals to have some questions.”

Why did Oak Hill embark on such a radical journey away from a presentation that epitomised for many what a majorchampionship venue should be? Why change a course that has consistently ranked among the best in the US?

The answer begins in 1968. That’s the year Lee Trevino tied the US Open scoring record of 275 at Oak Hill. In an era that valued strenuous golf above all else, having a course that was perceived as too easy is what kept prominent clubs up at night. Not only had Trevino, just a second-year tour player, matched the Open’s lowest score, but he shot four rounds in the 60s, a feat never before accomplished. Fearing the governing bodies would overlook a presumably lax East Course for future majors, Oak Hill hired player-turned-architect George Fazio and his partner-nephew Tom Fazio in 1976 to toughen up the East Course. “One thing that Oak Hill never presented to the great players was a really intimidating hole where you could make a big score,” a club official said at the time. “You can bogey any hole, but we never had a hole that was a double-bogey or triple-bogey threat.”

To get those triple-bogey threats on the card, the Fazios shuffled Oak Hill’s layout and created several new holes. Before the 1968 Open, Ross’ sixth hole, a quaint par 3 encircled by six bunkers, was taken out of play for congestion reasons and replaced by a longer but blander par 3 on the property’s previously unused north-east corner, beyond the fourth green (this became the fifth hole). The Fazios, in turn, abandoned that 10-year-old replacement par 3, then broke Ross’ long par-4 sixth (as it was numbered at the time) into two holes: the mid-length par-4 fifth with a small, elevated green nestled over a crook in Allen Creek; and the sixth, a mid-length par 3 with another small, elevated green that dropped off left and long into the same creek. They also built

Andrew Green is known as a hands-on designer and researcher.

a new par-3 15th, shifting the green well to the right and adding a pond, and moved the 18th green forward away from the clubhouse.

The additions helped Oak Hill land the 1980 PGA Championship and, as requested, made the East Course more severe — at least to everyone but Jack Nicklaus, who won by seven strokes and was the only player under par. However, the new holes were out of place with the rest of the design. Most of the membership thought they debased the course.

Nevertheless, Oak Hill continued with this permutation until after the 2013 PGA when deteriorating green conditions prompted exploration into another renovation. This time the remediation of the Fazio holes was also on the docket, and the club asked Jeff Sluman, the 1988 PGA Championship winner and Rochester native who was intimately familiar with the East Course, to weigh in on their reconstruction. The architecture committee then sought proposals from top architects and renovation specialists, and at the urging of superintendent Jeff Corcoran they also interviewed Green, a relatively unknown designer who had just left McDonald & Sons, a golf-construction company, to go out on his own. The Oak Hill job represented a rare opportunity for the young architect, and Green dug in.

“The selling point for Andrew versus all those other individuals was the presentation he gave for the architecture review committee,” says Dr James Mason, a member since the early 1980s. Green’s proposal went beyond improvements and reviving lost holes. Using vintage imagery and Ross’ diagrams and field notes, he demonstrated, hole by hole, how far off the intended programme the East Course had strayed. Oak Hill had been one of Ross’ most ambitious designs, 36 holes (with the adjacent West Course) that he envisioned would be played in a variety of loops and configurations. Building it was an industrial feat requiring, according to newspaper reports, 165 labourers, dozens of teams of horses, six tractors and a couple of steam shovels to cut hills and mould the land. Green demonstrated how that ingenuity and expressiveness — and even some of the hazards — had been covered up in foliage, and how the greens and bunkers had regressed to a repetitive succession of saucers and ovals. The result was a course that encouraged a plodding and patient mode of golf that had grown increasingly linear in proportion to the course’s age. Green’s road map for restoring the Ross fundamentals opened eyes. “Within a very short window of time everyone looked around the room and said: This is our guy,” Dr Mason says.

The Oak Hill project didn’t begin until 2019. In the intervening time, Inverness, another Ross-designed majorchampionship course in Toledo, Ohio, also hired Green. Like Oak Hill, Inverness had suffered a similarly panned renovation by George and Tom Fazio in the late 1970s that interjected several modernised holes into the classic layout. What began there as a basic bunker renovation became

REUNITED The long par-4 sixth has been restored to Donald Ross’ original conception.

a full-scale remodel when Green asked the club officials if they would consider reworking the misfit Fazio holes with the rest of the course back into a style sympathetic to Ross. Green’s work at Inverness was widely lauded, and the renovations there and at Oak Hill helped inspire other past major-championship clubs like Congressional, Scioto and Wannamoisett to hire him to undertake their own transformative, historic-based remodels.

Green’s rise to the top of the profession has been both long and meteoric, and perhaps surprising. Most designers, if they aren’t playing professionals or staked with a prominent family name, take a decade or more working small jobs before they are established. This was true for Bill Coore, Tom Doak, and Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner, who are Green’s chief rivals for the most prestigious renovation jobs. Green seemed to arrive on the scene having bypassed the hardscrabble, hand-

to-mouth phase, but that obscures the reality that he spent 14 years honing all aspects of the craft for McDonald & Sons, who hired him out of Virginia Tech.

“It was evident back then that Andrew was one of the smarter guys we had been around,” says McDonald & Sons president and CEO John McDonald II. “He can see in his mind’s eye the design he wants, the shape and the philosophy, and he can put it into a plan. The other part that not many have is the ability to get on a machine and put that idea in the ground.”

Green belongs to the family of architects who not only design holes but operate equipment — excavators, bulldozers and sand pros. Those who have worked with him commend his efficiency, organization and technical expertise, but seeing the architect shape his creations gives added confidence to the clubs that hire him. Though he has yet to design and build a new course, he’s an exhaustive researcher who can expose clubs, even in interviews, to particulars of their history they didn’t know or had forgotten. His skill in presenting a comprehensive vision of how great their courses can be, often in ways they haven’t conceived, has been critical to his success in landing such prominent renovations. His greatest skill may be inspiring clubs through his passion to appreciate their courses more deeply than before.

“He was one of the most humble people we interviewed, and he said to us: You have a national treasure here. It’s in the

STEEP AND DEEP

The rolling par-4 12th showcases Oak Hill’s pernicious bunkering.

ground, and I’m just here to help you uncover it,” says Chris Brooks, a member who was instrumental in hiring him at Scioto where Green’s work has been as staggering in scope as it was at Oak Hill. “It was almost like an archeological dig for him. He went about it in such a different way than others we talked to. He was more interested in our history and uncovering what Ross intended here than anybody else.”

“You could sense his love of golfcourse architecture, his love of the final product,” McDonald says. “He’s a very compelling orator when he’s talking about the golf course, and there’s a confidence level to what he does without projecting an air of cockiness.”

Proposing to clubs as established as Scioto, Inverness or Congressional that they consider moving off their current iterations and essentially rebuild something new demands extreme confidence but also intuition.

“Every inch of dirt mattered to him,” says a source close to the remodel of Congressional, where Green turned the club’s heavily wooded Blue Course, host of three previous US Opens, into a proto1920s landscape of rolling meadows and fescue transitions with 18 reimagined holes. “Nobody else saw moving the 10th hole to where it is now. Nobody else had the connection pieces.”

What Green saw at Oak Hill was a design that looked like an avatar of what happens to courses as they age, especially courses that revise themselves under the auspice of remaining relevant to the modern professional and elite amateur game.

“My initial thought was that the property was an all-star and that the original Ross routing was spectacular,” Green says. “He had done a phenomenal job of creating interesting golf shots and utilising fairly simple but inspired topography. The opportunity to restore most of the routing was there.”

That began with recreating the holes that had been altered in the 60s and 70s. The area where Ross’ short par-3 sixth was located could not be used because of through-traffic limitations and proximity to other holes (the green was located where the seventh-hole tee complex is). Green took Ross’ drawings and rebuilt a replica of the par 3 in the location of the defunct par 3 that had been built for the 1968 Open (the club was using that corner of the East Course for short-game practice). The 180-yard hole plays as the fifth and sits prominently with a multi-level plateau green circled with four bunkers.

Adding the new fifth meant that Ross’ old fifth, once con-

sidered one of the country’s great par 4s before the Fazios cut it up into two holes, could be rebuilt. Green extended the putting surface of the Fazio fifth to its former location where the par-3 sixth green had been and reshaped it to Ross’ specs. The new sixth hole, a stout 500-yard par 4, now resembles the hole that Ross initially built with Allen Creek splitting the fairway 75 yards short of the green (instead of directly in front of it) and continuing up the left. Though he wasn’t able to move the par-3 15th green back to its 1925 home, 25 yards left of where it currently is, Green did rebuild it in the likeness of the Ross green, with two bunkers protecting the front and one running the length of the putting surface on the left. He also filled in the pond — that area is now a recessed chipping area sitting well below the tabletop green.

STAR TURN Green has become one of golf’s most consequential designers in a short time. matt hawthorne

Oak Hill’s par-70 East Course will still be defined by its stellar par 4s, including the restored sixth and the long closing trio of 16, 17 and 18. The course has some intriguing short par 4s, too, including the stylish uphill second with a blind, narrow green set above deep trench bunkers, the 12th that plays through a gauntlet of bunkers to a putting surface benched into a sharp hillside, and the dramatic 320yard, uphill 14th that will entice players to attempt to drive the green, though misses short will leave them in bunkers well below the putting surface, and shots that go over the green are likely to roll off the property.

All the remodelling work makes Oak Hill a more diverse and interesting course than it was, one that allows players to be more aggressive off the tee than in the past but requires careful calculation hitting shots into the greens.

“I think Oak Hill is an all-time driver’s golf course, where the fairways are typically 26 to 28 yards wide, and you’re seriously out of position if you’re in the rough,” says Sluman, who played in the final group with winner Jay Haas in the 2008 Senior PGA Championship on the East Course. The winning score that year was seven over par. “You really have to drive the ball straight,” he says, “even though off the tee there’s more room now to swing a ball left to right or right to left.”

Green preserved the interior contours of most of the putting surfaces but recaptured green space around the perimeters, squaring off many of the edges the way Ross had. Greens like one, three, eight and 11 have tantalising corners, lobes and appendages, meaning that flags can be moved to a greater range of locations than they had previously (some greens had so much build-up around the bunkers that they were down to just two or three hole locations). If he chooses — and depending on course conditions that can be cold and blustery in Rochester in May — PGA of America chief championships officer Kerry Haigh can stick holes in little nooks and near bunker faces, daring players to take on the shot. “The front left pin on nine is going to be amazingly difficult to go at because you’re shooting uphill, and looking into the horizon it doesn’t even look like it’s on the green,” Sluman says. “It’s going to lead to a lot of bogeys if guys start going for it.”

The new dynamics give Oak Hill’s membership more freedom to play, to hit a variety of shots and recover. It should also prove an entertaining test for the professionals, who will be tempted to flex their muscles. If the remodel helps the East Course get back to crowning champions like Nicklaus, Trevino and Cary Middlecoff (winner of the 1956 Open) and their 27 combined major titles like it used to, the club won’t have to do anything more to entice the USGA or PGA of America to come back.

THE LAST STEP Oak Hill’s difficult, fatemaking 18th hole.

STEADYAS HEGOES

Sungjae Im’s backswing is a big key to his consistency

By Dave Allen

there are a number of players with unorthodox backswings — Jim Furyk, Matthew Wolff, John Daly, just to name a few — but certainly no one has a slower backswing than Sungjae Im. The first half of Im’s backswing is so deliberate, it almost looks like it’s in slow motion.

Unhappy with his ball-striking while on the Japan Tour in 2016, Im decided one day in practice to slow down his takeaway. What started as a drill has now evolved into the South Korean’s signature move.

“I started to see more consistency in my tempo and ball flight when I took it away slower,” says the 25-year-old Im, the PGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year in 2018-19. “So I just continued to do it.”

One of the more accurate drivers on the PGA Tour — he ranked 25th in driving accuracy (64 per cent) and 13th in total driving through this year’s Valspar Championship — Im has the length to reach most par 5s in two, as well. The two-time PGA Tour winner has been carving up the par 5s this season with a scoring average of 4.39 strokes, third

best on tour. Im credits much of his power to his workout regimen and the extension he’s able to create on the takeaway and just after impact, when the shaft is parallel to the ground, two positions that nearly mirror themselves.

“I feel like this is the way to generate the most power — extend my arms as far as possible,” Im says. “Although my takeaway might look slow and awkward, I do generate a lot of power and accuracy by extending my arms.”

Another key to Im’s power and consistency is a change he has made to his

lead-wrist position at the top of the backswing. In his first few years on tour, Im had a tendency to cup his left wrist at the top, which opened the clubface. Now he’s trying to consciously keep that wrist flatter while lowering the shaft on the backswing, two moves that make it easier to swing the club down from the inside and hit the draw he favours off the tee.

Im is also constantly working on finding the proper balance between his hand and body movements, especially on the backswing. The more in sync

they are, the farther he’s able to turn his chest and shoulders, generating more speed and power on the downswing.

“I’m trying to keep them all aligned together,” Im says. “I have a tendency to swing my hands first, so they get out of alignment with my body. If I can find the right balance where I’m using both my hands and body together, and turning my chest with my hands, my swing is very strong.”

Interviewed with help from Sungjae Im’s translator and agent, Danny Oh.

AGE 25 LIVES

Orlando

STORY

Has won 26 tournaments worldwide, two of them majors.

KEEP AN OPEN MIND

As a free agent, testing clubs for the 2022 season, I was ready to try anything. Having an open mind led to some surprising changes: You may not have heard of Proto Concept, the Japanese irons I play, or my IOMIC grips, which I’ve used for a long time. Test without expectations; what’s best for you could be something you would never consider.

WITH KEELY LEVINS

WHAT'SINMYBAG : LYDIAKO

DRIVER

SPECS Titleist TSR3, 9°, Mitsubishi Kurokage XD50 S shaft.

The most important piece of information for me when testing drivers is accuracy. I’m not one of the longest hitters on the LPGA Tour, and I don’t feel pressure to change that. My goal is to increase my fairways-hit percentage [66.4 in 2022], and this driver is accurate.

FAIRWAY WOODS/HYBRID

Titleist TSR2+, 13°, Mitsubishi Kurokage XD60 S shaft; Titleist TSR2, 18.0 fairway, Mitsubishi Diamana PD60 S shaft; Ping G425, 22°, Graphite Design Tour AD IZ 65 R1 shaft.

I find hybrids easier to hit than long irons. In fact, I’ve never even carried a 4-iron.

Titleist T200 (5-iron), Proto Concept CO7 (6-iron), Proto Concept CO5 (7-9); all Aerotech SteelFiber FC 70 shafts, IOMIC 1.8 grips.

Proto Concept irons are so consistent yet forgiving. I don’t tend to launch the ball high, so I like that the higher ball flight with my Titleist T200 5-iron helps stop longer shots on the greens.

WEDGES

SPECS Titleist Vokey SM9 (46°, 48°, 54°, 59°); Aerotech SteelFiber FC 80 shafts.

If you look at the stamp on my 58, you’ll see a 59. It’s bent to 59 degrees. I’ve tried both 58- and 60-degree wedges, but I found the 59 is best because of its versatility. It has enough loft to do what you need to around the greens but not so much loft that you can’t hit pitch shots with it, too.

PUTTER

SPECS Scotty Cameron P5 GSS tour prototype; 34 inches, 3.5°.

This is my favorite club, and it helped me finish the year ranked No. 1 in strokes gained/putting. I used a few putters throughout the season, but I always lean toward a mallet. The centre shaft fits my eye and helps my set-up.

ALL-AROUND BALL

Titleist Pro V1 and the Pro V1x, I found the V1x

gave me the spin I wanted around the greens and provided the distance I needed in my long game.

SNACK PACK

I like to snack on seasonal fruit with almond butter while I play. I always pack a big container of it. I also like to make sandwiches out of rice cakes and bananas.

LUGGAGE LOCATOR

I’ve heard lots of horror stories about lost luggage this season. Some players used Apple AirTags to find their clubs. Luckily, I haven’t had to use mine, but it’s good to have just in case.

PUTTING THINGS RIGHT

GOLF DIGEST MIDDLE EAST SPEAKS TO BOB BETTINARDI AFTER HE PICKED UP FIVE GOLD AWARDS IN THE 2023 HOT LIST

BY MATT SMITH

Robert ‘Bob’ Bettinardi has always chosen the path less travelled — especially when it comes to creating golf clubs.

His Bettinardi Golf company is now known across the globe as the world leader in creating unique pieces of equipment, tailored to each individual golfer — specialising in bespoke and ‘One-Piece Technology’ putters.

But it has been a journey of more than 25 years — and a lot of hard work — to reach the pinnacle in golf equipment design and production

In 1991, Bob turned the putter industry upside down by crafting a tool from a solid block of metal — what he phrases as ‘one-piece technology’ — rather than follow the herd and opt for castings, forgings and weldings to create putters. He soon had all the top golf industry original equipment manufacturers lining up at his door when word got out about the advantages his distinctive products could offer the top professional players on the greens.

A talent for design and state-of-the-art machining methods has seen Bettinardi Golf add some of the top manufacturers and golfers to its portfolio.

And once more, that determination and talent has has been rewarded as Bettinardi Golf claimed an unprecedented five golds in the Golf Digest Hot List 2023 Awards.

Golf Digest Middle East recently caught up with Bob and Dean Cheesley of eGolf Megastores — the region’s leading golf equipment supplier and fitter — to talk about the Bettinardi journey and plans for the future.

“I started dealing with Golf Digest 20-something years ago, and I was always begging to get into their gold or silver list [on the Hot List], but it seemed they always went with the Scotty Camerons and the Pings and so on,” Bob tells us with his dry humour always lurking during a recent visit to Jeddah. “So around 15 years or go I said to myself: ‘I’m done trying. I will never get on that list.’ As soon as I did that — boom — it all started to happen. It’s like when you give up chasing that girl you were after for years, then she starts calling you.

“That’s when I brought in my son.”

In 2012, said son, Sam, joined the company’s ranks as head of marketing and sales, helping the company embrace the ever-evolving e-commerce market. Today, Sam serves as Bettinardi Golf President, clearly inheriting his father’s eye for putter designs, as well as player development alongside Bob.

“He’s 33 and he’s fantastic,” Bob continues with fatherly pride. “He’s grown the business about 1,500 per cent in the past 10 years. I was always trying to keep things small, but Sam said: ‘No, I need graphic designers, marketing people, this and that,’ and now he has grown the business very nicely into what it is today. But this year was the icing on the cake! On the Hot List we have five Gold putters and a Silver wedge.”

Then the humour creeps in again: “The greatest thing about the Hot List is it is listed alphabetically so we are listed first ahead of the Pings and TaylorMades, so it looks like we are on top — double gold!”

But as we rewind back to the conception of the solid putter and how it was received, Bob takes on a more serious tone.

“So it’s really a simple,” he explains. “When I first got into the business in 1991, everybody was casting their putters out of a mould and then pouring molten metal into the mould, let it cool and there you have your putter.

“I ended up doing some milled putters for Ken Giannini, and they were all welded. The body of the putter and the little hosel were welded together to make a milled putter.

“I started questioning why and how they were doing things. And one of the things that I questioned was, why would you weld that little hosel on to the body of the putter, because when you weld you add heat to the metal, and me being a metallurgist and engineer, I knew that when you add heat to metal, you distort the metal.

“When you’re trying to put the ball into a four-and-a-quarterinch cup from 20 or 30 yards away, you need all the precision you can get, and distorted metal will take away from that and hurt you.

“You want that putter without any spot or wrinkle basically. That’s what you want the putter to be.

“So I said to a couple of people I was doing business with — TP Mills and Scotty Cameron — ‘Why don’t we make the putter from one piece?’ And they go: ‘What do you mean?’

“I explained, we get a big block of metal and carve everything off that until we get to that putter inside.

“At first they were worried it would cost too much. But I knew if you want a precision instrument, instead of welding, you need to carve the entire thing out of one piece.”

And so Bob went off to prove it was worth it and the One-Piece Technology (trademark Bettinardi Golf!) putter was born.

“The first putter I made was very similar to the Ping Anser,” Bob continues. “I made it for Scotty and he gave it to a guy called Bernhard Langer, who in 1993 won The Masters with it. That was ‘Big’ for Scotty and me as Scotty’s name was on the putter and I was manufacturing them.

“Roll on to 1997 and Tiger Woods, you know him? He, at 21 wins The Masters. His big ‘Hello World!’ moment. He did not three-putt for four rounds with a putter that was made in my shop — a onepiece putter.

“In 1998, I decided to go out on my own, and Jesper Parnevik picked up my putter for the 1999 Greater Greensboro Open. My first tournament on my own and he wins with 27-under with 99 putts. Then my name was getting out there and my name was on the putters and that’s how we got started.”

“After a short time with Ben Hogan, I decided to set up my own company. So from 2008 Bettinardi has been on its own and we have grown into what we are today. Francesco Molinari wins the Open with our putter in 2018, Matt Fitzpatrick wins the 2022 US Open with our putter.

“I read comments about my product like: ‘I can’t describe this feeling ... This putter feels like butter ... It putts itself.’

“That is the culmination of doing things the right way, mak-

ARE MADE TO ORDER FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL

ing it the right way. If there’s another way in the future that’s going to be better than milling, I would like to know what that is. I would want to do that. I want to make sure I’m always on the cutting edge of making the best. That’s what Bettinardi is.”

Bettinardi golfers have claimed nearly 100 elite tour titles since 1998, with players still knocking on Bob’s door for the latest blades and mallets to give them that extra edge.

Just last month up-and-coming LIV Golfer James Piot joined the likes of Matt Fitzpatrick and Georgia Hall, who carry a Bettinardi putter in their bags.

“Jason Kokrak, who won three times in one year about two years ago, uses a production Bettinardi putter that is actually off-the-rack,” Bob says. “Georgia is using a putter that is off the rack — but she wanted her name stamped on it and made a couple of custom things done to it, so we tailored it to her requirements.

“Shergo Al Kurdi is an example of one player who uses a custom putter, not a production, called our BB0, which is really meant for people

SHERGO AL KURDI IS AN EXAMPLE OF ONE PLAYER WHO USES A CUSTOM PUTTER, NOT A PRODUCTION, CALLED OUR BB0, WHICH IS REALLY MEANT FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT SOMETHING SPECIAL. THEY

who want something special. We don’t sell these production, they are made to order for each individual. Some like the Toyota, Shergo has the Ferrari.”

One of the most popular of the Bettinardi putter ranges is the ‘Hive’ — high-end luxury and Tour putters with one-of-a-kind designs and made-to-order diverse looks and appearances with highquality finishes. “These are very limited-edition and constructed one-to-one,” Bob explains. “It took us nearly a year-and-a-half to persuade Matt Fitzpatrick to find one of our putters that was perfect for him. I’m talking probably eight to 10 times of trial and error. So he was a very difficult person to deal with — in a good way! He would be like: ‘No, it doesn’t feel right. No, the weight is wrong. No, the loft is wrong. No, the lie is wrong. I don’t like that shaft.’

“So you were talking about days, weeks, months of working on a putter specifically for Matthew.

“But now Matt is very happy because he has the right putter for him.

“This just illustrates that the Hive and customs are really all about taking the time and the extra effort to make this special product that a golfer would like. If there is a customer that wants his initials, or a logo, or his son’s name on the putter, we will take that extra time to make the putter just the way they want it.

“We will add a special head cover, a special grip, a special shaft.

“The client is shown renderings, and they may want a few changes — so really the client is being treated like a professional golfer.

“Once we get the green light, we make the putter and 10-15 weeks later, the client has their unique product.”

Just something to ponder — imagine seeing your playing partners’ faces when you whip out that majestic, personalised mallet on the green for the first time …

Visit any eGolf Megastore outlet to work with their team to curate your very own one-of-a-kind putter. Stay tuned for our June edition of Golf Digest Middle East for an exclusive reveal from Bettinardi and eGolf Megastores

IF THERE IS A CUSTOMER THAT WANTS HIS INITIALS, OR A LOGO, OR HIS SON’S NAME ON THE PUTTER, WE WILL TAKE THAT EXTRA TIME TO MAKE THE PUTTER JUST THE WAY THEY WANT IT. WE WILL ADD A SPECIAL HEAD COVER, A SPECIAL GRIP, A SPECIAL SHAFT

EVERYTHING IN LIFE IS A LITTLE BETTER WHEN YOU’RE MAKING PUTTS

PERFORMANCE ★★★★★

INNOVATION

★★★★

LOOK • SOUND • FEEL ★★★★★

PLAYER COMMENT

“The

BETTINARDI

QUEEN B RRP AED 2,295

WHAT IT DOES: The two traditional half-mallets in this line are milled from a block of 303 stainless steel without any weights, face inserts or other affectations. The belief is that anything not pure steel disturbs the direct benefits of a pure milled product. Instead, Bettinardi focuses on a slightly heavier head weight to provide more stability. Also, the two models have different neck styles to appeal to players who have different degrees of arc in their strokes.

WHY WE LIKE IT: Don’t take for granted the manufacturing precision behind these milled putters. The intricate crescent neck on the #11 (left) is a Bettinardi specialty on a toe-hang mallet, and the face pattern isn’t just decorative. Rather, a new tool was developed for the “mini-honeycomb” look to get an even softer feel.

PERFORMANCE

★★★★ ½ INNOVATION

★★★★

LOOK • SOUND • FEEL ★★★★ ½

PLAYER COMMENT

“Gets the ball rolling nicely on short and long putts with more of a blade type of control. Firm, milled feel. Gently quiet off the face.”

PERFORMANCE

★★★★ INNOVATION

★★★★★

LOOK • SOUND • FEEL ★★★★

PLAYER COMMENT

BETTINARDI

STUDIO STOCK

RRP AED 2,295

WHAT IT DOES: The assumption with Bettinardi putters is that they only exude quality and craftsmanship and, well, prettiness. Yes and, um, no. Although the Studio Stock remains a precisely manufactured one-piece milling from 303 stainless steel, these putters feature a face texture designed to improve roll. Developed with tour-player input, the asymmetrical grooved face grabs the ball to accelerate initial forward spin that reduces backspin. Less backspin means that putts get into a true forward roll quicker for more consistent speed.

WHY WE LIKE IT: Bettinardi’s customization regimen offers multiple lengths, five lofts, seven lie-angle options and distinct offsets, toe hangs and hosel configurations on each model. A putter like this only gets better the more you take advantage of a proper fit.

CLEVELAND

FRONTLINE ELITE

RRP AED 1,245

WHAT IT DOES: When Cleveland introduced its Frontline technology, it upended the ideas on where the center of gravity should be on a putter. Rather than continuing to push it back, the CG stayed forward on these putters through front-loaded tungsten weights to reduce the microscopic inconsistency that actually makes even short putts easily missed. Now, Cleveland has gone further by making the entire face out of tungsten, increasing the weight of the face by four times.

WHY WE LIKE IT: Mallets still need to occupy a lot of visual space to accentuate their alignment benefits, but these mallets accomplish that through a skeletal frame that keeps the look without adding weight in the back. The intricate face-milling pattern is also specific for each style of clubhead to optimize roll.

“Comfortable in my hands at address with my eyes drawn to the right spot. Smooth at impact.

Confidence inspiring, especially on short putts.”

feel and roll are outstanding. The look is so elegant, like a fine piece of jewelry. I would love to be the Jay Z to this Queen B.”

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

WHAT IT DOES: The pursuit of moment of inertia (stability on offcenter hits) in mallet putters is a given. Larger putters just naturally are going to be more stable. The problem with making a larger putter is the center of gravity can drift farther back, making it feel like you’re swinging a trash can lid with a brick tied in back. Not so here. These two mallets have gigantic MOI numbers but still manage to keep the CG relatively close to the face. This gives you forgiveness and face-angle control, which basically means distance and direction. We’re not sure better putting requires anything else. WHY WE LIKE IT: Two modern-classic shapes, each with multiple hosel offerings, plus the reliably comfortable White Hot face insert make these an easy transition for the mallet averse.

“The

WHAT IT DOES: When this throwback line was introduced two years ago, it featured the trademark original urethane insert, some familiar heads and some modern tweaks. However, in this newest version, Odyssey has simplified the shaft and head and put all of the attention on the two-decade-old face insert, which redefined how putters should feel with a combination of softness and resiliency.

WHY WE LIKE IT: No one travels back in time in search of greater complexity. The polymers behind the White Hot insert were an idea that never knew how good it was and didn’t much care because being perfect didn’t require an explanation. Same with the three mallet models in this line: Rossie, 2-Ball and No. 7. We need some convincing if any other mallet shapes are required.

PERFORMANCE

★★★★ ½ INNOVATION

★★★★ ½ LOOK • SOUND • FEEL

★★★★

PLAYER COMMENT

“The look is clean with a nice finish and two-tone aesthetic. Putts are quiet, and the heavier feel made it easy to make a tempo stroke.”

PING NEW PING

RRP AED 1,595

WHAT IT DOES: The new “family” of Ping putters might be connected aesthetically, but these putters present different approaches in terms of materials and face technologies to produce the best roll for specific player types. Across mid-mallets and high-stability options, this entails a mix of milled faces, polymer face inserts, stainless steel, aerospace aluminum and tungsten heel and toe weights. Together they tackle the feels, shapes, alignment optics and forgiveness different players require without having to adhere to one technology theme. WHY WE LIKE IT: Ping embraces the idea that there is no one right answer in putters. But one thing Ping’s mallets share is ball-speed consistency. Even better, that consistency comes whether you’ve opted for a polymer face insert or a smoothly milled model.

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

specs 5 models; head weight 365 grams; length 33-35 inches

“Loved the low-profile face on the larger head. Just seems like I can make the same stroke over and over, and isn’t that the idea?”

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

insert has cushion without hanging onto the ball. A pleasing, soft sound at impact. Smaller dimensions are effective.”

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

WHAT IT DOES: The reason to gravitate toward a mallet is stability, so if you’re seeking to make a more stable putter, it helps to use a lot of heavy material at the extremities. The seven mallets in this family feature an average of 125 grams of tungsten positioned in the perimeter to stabilize the head on any kind of mis-hit.

WHY WE LIKE IT: Extreme stability in a mallet putter isn’t just a godsend for poor strikes but poor strokes, too. With weight positioned far back in the head, altering that face angle requires more force during your stroke. These putters, which offer loads of fitting options through four hosels on each model, let golfers basically set it down and go on autopilot. A grooved pattern of micro-pyramids on the face further helps mis-hits roll like center strikes.

frame the ball nicely.”

LOOK • SOUND • FEEL

PLAYER COMMENT

WHAT IT DOES: Ever wonder why there are so many kinds of putters (other than the fact that golfers and putters are like dogs and squirrels)? What companies are learning is that the distance the center of gravity sits behind the face helps a player return the putter back to square more consistently. This distance, however, is not the same for every golfer. The left and right movable weights on this pronged mallet let golfers adjust that CG position by nearly half an inch, resulting in the fullest range of CGs in the history of Spider mallets. WHY WE LIKE IT: Eighty grams of movable weight (more than three times what you would find on a driver) is stupendous. Despite all that shifting of the CG, though, the forgiveness on off-center hits stays high thanks to chunks of tungsten at the outer edges.

LOOK

PLAYER COMMENT

WHAT IT DOES: Watching Scotty Cameron work with multiple materials in mallets is like watching a strikeout artist work his way through a lineup with six different breaking balls. This line of 10 mallets mixes milled 303 stainless steel and aircraft-grade aluminum in arrangements that run from moderate-stability options like the X5 to maximum-stability options like the X12. Aside from the aluminumfaced X12, most have stainless-steel faces, and aluminum in the sole and steel weights in the toe and heel provide even more stability. WHY WE LIKE IT: With more mallets than any manufacturer, this comprehensive lineup includes multiple-hosel options and alignment styles to fit several kinds of strokes.

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

“I love the different shades on the face and flanges. Looks like the Batmobile. The angles really

“The raised alignment aide offers consistently perfect aim. The putter feels like a natural extension of my arms.

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

“The weight settings are intriguing and not too complicated. Oversize, but I still feel I have control to die the ball in the hole.”

feel in perfect balance. I like the contrast of the neon aiming line. Consistent pop. Easy to set down and stroke.”

WHAT IT DOES: These traditional half-mallet shapes enjoyed a resurgence on tour with the success of J.T. Poston and Sungjae Im last year. The shape of these milled 303-stainless-steel heads hasn’t changed, but don’t be fooled by that similar-looking milled face. Upgraded for 2023, it combines the softer feel of previous deep-milled designs with the feedback and roll benefi ts of the “mid-milled” faces seen most recently on the Phantom X putters.

WHY WE LIKE IT: Scotty Cameron’s reputation might be tied to his Newport blades, but his half-mallet shapes are just as timeless (M1X, Caliente, Red-X). This edition is sleeker, has two neck options, and the heel and toe weights add the right amount of forgiveness.

★★★★ ½

LOOK • SOUND • FEEL ★★★★

PLAYER COMMENT

WHAT IT DOES: These mallets have a hefty moment of inertia for consistency on off-center hits, and they roll consistently because of a special face insert. Borrowed from the design made famous by SIK Golf, the aluminum face has a descending loft in four separate planes from top to bottom. The top has the most loft at 4 degrees. The loft then decreases progressively by 1 degree in three segments down to 1 degree at the bottom of the face. The putter’s varying loft counteracts the stroke’s attack angle so that putts launch at the same 1.5 degrees for consistent roll.

WHY WE LIKE IT: The extreme weighting at the corners increases stability, but it’s the use of a weight-saving carbon-fiber sole cover that frees extra mass for the perimeter.

ODYSSEY ELEVEN

RRP AED 1,595

WHAT IT DOES: A mallet that looks like this typically would not be so easy to square at impact because the center of gravity is so far back from the face. But the CG here is actually close to the face because of the combination of eight distinct parts, including a heavy dose of steel on top and in front, aluminum in the back and sides, and a thermoplastic urethane “brick” in the middle. Conveniently, all of these parts make for a design that’s highly forgiving on mis-hits.

WHY WE LIKE IT: That cornucopia of materials and science is certainly crucial to maximizing performance, but we also use mallets because they’re easy to aim. This one achieves that mission with four alignment features and four hosel options to help you and the putter execute the same line you see.

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

specs 2 models; head weight 345-365 grams; length 33-35 inches

“Just the right combination of weight and smoothness. It’s heavy, but not heavy in the hands. Feels firm off the face and has little to no vibration.”

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

“The shape and weight

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

“Slightly more compact than the others. The alignment lines are effective, and the insert provides a soft feel. The ball rolls true every time.”

★★★★

ODYSSEY

WHITE HOT VERSA

RRP AED 1,495

WHAT IT DOES: Introduced in 2013, the contrasting black-and-white scheme grew out of studies of night-vision goggles. Getting a better sense of alignment is crucial because if the face angle is off by as little as 1 degree, it results in a miss from as short as 10 feet. Brought back 10 years later, these mallets benefit from the feel of the White Hot face insert. The two-part urethane mixture yields a soft impact feel combined with resilient ball speed for more controlled roll.

WHY WE LIKE IT: When you resurrect a 10-year-old design idea, it needs some kind of modern tech update. Odyssey does it smartly with the Stroke Lab shaft. The graphite shaft features a steel tip to create more consistency in tempo by shifting the shaft’s traditional balance point closer to the hands.

PERFORMANCE

★★★★

PLAYER COMMENT

WHAT IT DOES: We suppose buying game-worn jerseys is a thing, but we don’t get it. Instead, give us a useful tool designed with direct input from the master. These models come from what tour players want to see, prodded by the engineers who know what works. The three relatively compact mallets in this family are each milled from 303 stainless steel in a four-hour process. In addition to the DS72 model used by Viktor Hovland and the popular Prime Tyne 4 (left), the line now has added the slightly heavier, heel-shafted Oslo 4.

WHY WE LIKE IT: These putters seem almost intuitively smart. The face’s deep-milling pattern provides a softer feel, and keeping the shaping of the angles, edges and ball-width cavities perpendicular or parallel to the target line ensures a proper aim.

PERFORMANCE

★★★★

★★★★

★★★★

PLAYER COMMENT

TAYLORMADE SPIDER GTX

RRP AED 1,695

WHAT IT DOES: This newest Spider mallet family takes a bold step toward stability on off-center hits. A heavy stainless-steel backweight places 154 grams behind the lightweight aluminum body to produce an ultra-high moment of inertia to minimize face rotation. The optometrist-created contrasting-alignment feature is designed to reduce a “parallax effect” that leads to toe mis-hits. Three hosel types and six stock colors (including ice blue) make this putter fit an array of stroke (and personality) types.

WHY WE LIKE IT: TaylorMade’s grooved-face insert has been a highlight for nearly two decades. This version uses flexible, thin aluminum beams encased in urethane. The angled grooves create an efficient forward roll and the click many players prefer.

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

“This one scores well on clean looks and contrast. The white stripe and fangs in back are effective in getting you aligned with confidence.”

“The rear wings bring your eyes to the center of the face, and when the ball comes off, it feels as good as climbing into bed.”

“Beautiful compact head with blacked out everything except for one line. A lot of right angles gives you precise lines. Very responsive.”

PLAYER COMMENT

BETTINARDI BB SERIES RRP AED 2,095

WHAT IT DOES: Unlike a lot of blade putters in this category, the three BB28 options (spud neck, center shaft and armlock) favor a straight-back, straight-through putting stroke because of their nearly face-balanced design. The wider blade and deeper fl ange push the center of gravity slightly farther back for better distance and direction control on off-center impacts.

WHY WE LIKE IT : The BB putter line, usually an even-year launch, is still largely available, and the new BB28 (pictured) is a great addition. Multiple sightlines and setups are available, but the deep milling on the face is what stands out. It has been developed with tour-player feedback to produce a soft, resilient feel and performance. Particularly helpful are the multiple lengths for the armlock versions.

BETTINARDI QUEEN B RRP AED 2,295

WHAT IT DOES: Like a grandmother stuck with her daughter’s kids for the weekend, the Queen B’s blades accomplish that diffi cult but desirable mixture of forgiveness with control. The compact but wider soles on these blades keep the center of the face closer to the hosel axis. This also moves the center of gravity a little farther back for increased stability. The line features different necks to better match diff erent strokes. With its single-bend shaft and spud neck, the #6 works for straighter strokes, and the #15’s gently wider sole and plumber’s neck fits arcing strokes best.

WHY WE LIKE IT: Pretty is better when it has a purpose. The minihoneycomb face-milling pattern might be a Bettinardi staple, but this one happens to be the softest version yet.

PLAYER

BETTINARDI STUDIO STOCK RRP AED 2,295

WHAT IT DOES: Use of Bettinardi putters on the PGA Tour is well established, including Matt Fitzpatrick’s win at last year’s U.S. Open, and this line is Bettinardi’s most tour-inspired collection yet. The two heel-toe weighted blades include plumber’s neck and face-balanced models, but Bob Bettinardi’s work with tour players isn’t implemented on a whim. Rather, extensive computer modeling details how visual tweaks can be incorporated and still be precisely milled while maintaining the ideal center of gravity for optimal roll.

WHY WE LIKE IT: Speaking of how putts matriculate to the hole, these faces use asymmetrically spaced grooves to impart forward spin that reduces the backspin at the launch of a putt, helping to get the ball rolling more quickly.

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

“Beautiful roll and great auditory feedback. Smooth, soft feel. The 28 is slightly bigger. It could favor players transitioning from a mallet.”

“First thing you feel is how heavy it is in a good way. Exudes balance. Smooths out your stroke like it’s swinging itself.”

COMMENT

“This is what you want a blade to look like—perfect shape, angles and size from front to back. Soft off the face and rolls consistently. Easy to align.”

★★★★ ½ INNOVATION

★★★★★

LOOK • SOUND • FEEL

★★★★ ½

PLAYER COMMENT

“It’s so pretty. Clean, elegant and stable through the stroke. Feels balanced: I’m in control the whole time without thinking about it.”

WHAT IT DOES: Compared to casting, milling a putter is an elaborate, high-cost exercise, but it consistently produces the most preferred putters on the market. For Cleveland’s engineers, the idea was to have those benefits in a cast putter at a more affordable price. That meant milling “on the surfaces that matter for performance.” In other words, precise milling certain shaping and alignment areas to eliminate any irregularities in casting. That intense manufacturing commitment produces consistency in loft, lie and face angle. The steel-tipped graphite shaft option is a worthy upgrade.

WHY WE LIKE IT: The milling process makes it look good, but it needs to roll nicely, too. Enter the intricate variable milling pattern on the face. It normalizes energy transfer across the face.

WHAT IT DOES: Evnroll continues to expand the way its V-Series putters transform to fit different players and strokes. Its interchangeable system of six shaft-hosel options aligns with player sight and stroke preferences. In addition, heel and toe weights in the sole bolster stability on off-center hits. The company’s grips even contribute to individual tastes, including the Midlock that makes the transition to an armlock stroke as automatic as four-foot putts will feel.

WHY WE LIKE IT: The Evnroll grooves remain the most interesting in the game. Because of their spacing and variable width, these grooves do the common job of making ball speed more consistent across the face. At the same time, the pattern creates a V-shape that redirects mis-hits back toward the target line.

ODYSSEY TRI-HOT 5K RRP AED 2,195

WHAT IT DOES: What you see here might be the appearance of a blade putter, but it performs more like a larger mallet, especially in terms of off-center-hit forgiveness. Heavy tungsten weights (120 grams) within the heel and toe of the stainless-steel front section keep the center of gravity forward for maximum face-angle control, but the extreme heel and toe weighting also provides stability for a consistent roll regardless of impact location.

WHY WE LIKE IT : Multiple materials in these heads include the choice of tungsten, steel or aluminum sole weights, but the most important one is the lightest. The venerable White Hot face insert, made of a laser cut, two-part urethane polymer, creates a resilient roll and maintains a soft feel.

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae specs 7 models; head weight 360 grams; length 33-35 inches

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

specs 4 models; head weight 345-370 grams; length 34-35 inches PLAYER COMMENT

models; head weight 340-380 grams; length custom

“All the options make it easy to find one that will suit your eye. Good contrast of the alignment lines. A soft click at impact.”

“I love how stable this is in the stroke for a blade. The heel-toe weighting produces a clean, efficient motion. No wasted energy.”

ODYSSEY WHITE HOT OG

RRP AED 1,395

WHAT IT DOES: The legendary two-part urethane insert in this line continues to be very popular with tour players. They even ask Odyssey to incorporate it into Odyssey putters for which the insert wasn’t originally intended. Who can blame them. The urethane insert’s unique combination of soft feel and resilient ball speed has proven to be effective and was inspired by the ingredients in Callaway’s early golf balls. Makes sense: If you want putter and ball to flow as one, why not make them two versions of the same thing?

WHY WE LIKE IT: The insert not only performs great on center hits, it is resilient and consistent across the face. Gently used original White Hot putters can be found online for about $30, but the precision milling makes these updates more alluring.

RRP AED 1,595

WHAT IT DOES: These three blades have different faces: Two use milled steel for a firmer feel, and the other is fronted by a polymer insert for a softer touch. They all, however, reflect a similar approach: increasing the forgiveness in a blade. All three of these tour-inspired frames feature heavy tungsten inserts in the heel and toe to increase forgiveness on off-center hits yet remain relatively compact.

WHY WE LIKE IT: Even with these similar-looking blades, Ping magnifi es the diff erences to help you settle on the right model. Examples include off ering diff erent face textures, graphite- and steel-shaft options and contrasting colors at address. Another cool choice: The Kushin 4 is designed for an aggressive arcing stroke and the Anser 2 D for a stroke with less arc.

PING

PLD MILLED

RRP AED 2,495

WHAT IT DOES: PLD stands for Putting Lab Design, which perhaps makes you think of some sort of odd transmogrification of golfer and metal. As it turns out, that’s what happened here. These classic Anser blades, including the longer-hosel Anser D inspired by Bubba Watson, are a precise melding of what tour players want, the insights of Ping engineers and a milling process that takes four hours per head. In addition to that is the process in Ping’s putting lab in which multiple high-speed cameras analyze thousands of putts to better understand how small changes lead to big success.

WHY WE LIKE IT: The precision of these fully milled models extends to a deep aggressive mill in the face. It’s designed to create the consistent ball speed and softer feel preferred by its tour players.

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

“Sometimes simplicity is more. Clean head design with a soft, muted sound at impact. No worry about the ball rocketing off the face.”

“The use of solid black with a contrasting alignment line is clear. The ball leaves the face with purpose. Everything felt in balance.”

“Classy with not much going on other than perfect looks everywhere. Beautiful weight. Consistent end-over-end roll all day.”

PLAYER COMMENT

WHAT IT DOES: Who says stability is reserved for mallets? The five blades in this series use various amounts of tungsten weighting to keep the head from twisting on off-center strikes. The wide-bodied Closer has 208 grams, and the slender new Dagger+ has 40 grams in the heel and toe. Extra sole weights further optimize stability. A pyramid-studded face reduces the depth of grooves to direct energy into the ball for more consistency across the face. Four hosel options ensure the putter’s setup and alignment matches yours.

WHY WE LIKE IT: Despite its burgeoning online business, PXG remains committed to fitting. An example of this is how the company developed a putter shaft with a graphite upper and steel tip to provide even more stability and a softer feel at impact.

WHAT IT DOES: Scotty Cameron is always looking for subtle ways to improve his iconic putters. An example here is how he milled out a bit more room for the heel and toe weights to increase forgiveness on off-center hits. On the face, a new milling pattern achieves the traditional soft feel of the past Studio Select’s deep milling pattern with the consistent roll of mid-milled mallets like the Phantom X. WHY WE LIKE IT : Naturally, the little things include the shape of a grip or the paint fill in back, but one of the small changes we think is quite big is adding three “Plus” models to the venerable Newport line. The use of aluminum sole plates creates more perimeter weighting for better forgiveness in the same classic footprint.

PERFORMANCE

★★★★ INNOVATION

“Such a beautiful putter. This is one you want to maintain. Even when I strike the ball slightly off center, it rolls pure.” MIZUNO

★★★★

LOOK • SOUND • FEEL

★★★★ ½

PLAYER COMMENT “The look of a treasure Indiana Jones might uncover. Pleasant feel and a ton of feedback. Controlling speed came naturally.”

WHAT IT DOES: Sometimes customers are, in fact, always right, even if they don’t know why. These putters grew from an earlier version of Mizuno’s M.Craft line after company research found that customers opted to adjust their putters to the heaviest configuration, using the original model’s weight kit, more than any other choice. That revelation led to this heavier-is-better line in which head weights reach 375 grams. That’s 10 to 20 grams more than typical putters and provides a lot more stability on off-center hits.

WHY WE LIKE IT: Most compelling, and true to Mizuno’s heritage, these putters—completely milled from the same 1025-forgedcarbon steel as its irons—don’t veer from traditional shapes. The heavier weight also serves as a smoothing salve for jerky strokes.

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

specs 5 models; head weight 325-420 grams; length custom

“Clean blade look from above. Easy to align. Ball hugs the ground. You feel the weight in the head, so it’s not hard to get the ball to the hole.”

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

Demo this club at eGolf Megastore, or buy online at egolfmegastore.ae

nathan fox

Know your three-putt zone to inform your practice

Is there anything more frustrating than a threeputt? No golfers are immune. According to data from the Arccos Golf stat-tracking app, even scratch players three-putt 20 percent of the time from more than 30 feet and more than a third of the time from 40 feet.

For perspective, the PGA Tour average for three-putting from long range is about 9 percent—and only about 1 percent of the time from 15 to 20 feet. The average scratch player threeputts from 15 to 20 feet four times as often as a PGA Tour player.

So what can you do about it? Try identifying the distance at which you start three-putting most often, and practice that length before moving out farther.

A 20-handicapper, for instance, starts threeputting 10 percent of the time when putts are longer than 10 feet. A 10-handicapper reaches that point at 20 feet, and the average scratch player starts to three-putt nearly 10 percent of the time at 25 feet.

WHAT IT DOES: There is no equipment-industry proclamation that a beautiful-looking putter has to cost the same as a car payment. The crisp bearing of these blades comes from surface milling on the bodies of the 303-stainless-steel cast heads. Further classing up the appearance is the hydro-blast fi nish, a high-powered jet stream of water that smooths out every edge.

WHY WE LIKE IT: As on Tinder, looks might start a conversation, but you had better tell a good story, too. These putters do thanks to the little things such as hidden pockets and channels that help reposition the saved weight for more forgiveness in the form of heel and toe weight screws. However, it’s the grooved faces that provide the ultimate swipe right: better roll for optimal distance control.

specs 3 models; head weight 345-355 grams; length 34, 35 inches

“The face is pretty lively but in a controlled sense. It encourages a smooth action. The line caters to a variety of strokes.”

ARCCOS SAYS . . .

The Haig Played in Colour

Walter Hagen had a refined style not fully captured in black and white

literal

COLORFUL IS AN ADJECTIVE OFTEN ASSOCIATED WITH flamboyant personality but is given a literal meaning with this colorised 1926 photo at England’s Wentworth Club. Tom Whitehouse and brother Chris, who colorise black-and-white sports photos for their company, ManCave Pictures, added over 70 layers to uncover the light colours favoured by Hagen and the subdued hues of 1920s-era British crowds. The seafoam blue accents capture Hagen’s refined style. It’s a polished touch from the man who rose from modest beginnings as a caddie at the Country Club of Rochester — a few miles from Oak Hill, site of this year’s PGA Championship — to win 11 majors and elevate the status of golf professionals previously regarded as unkempt sportsmen.

Walter Hagen’s

2 Cameras.

13 Metrics recorded with every swing.

30,000+ Simulated Courses.