May 16th, 2012 by Phil Reich PGA Golf Art
I serve on the GCAA committee that helps pick the recipient of the David Toms Award, which is given to a golfer who has overcome adversity to achieve excellence in college golf. It’s humbling work,…
May 16th, 2012 by Phil Reich PGA Golf Art
The current state of golf courses in America can be summarized by a closer look at Pit Golf Links, a scrappy set of 18 holes five miles south of Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina. In…
May 16th, 2012 by Phil Reich PGA Golf Art
We’ve all made mistakes on the course and in life that we wish we could do over. So, if you could have a mulligan, what would it be? We asked that very question to some of golf’s most prolific names, from Arnold Palmer to Yani Tseng. Here are their answers.
May 16th, 2012 by Phil Reich PGA Golf Art
We discuss Matt Kuchar’s big win, chips and salsa, the Macarena, and of course, this week’s PGA Tour stop.
May 16th, 2012 by Phil Reich PGA Golf Art
Zach Johnson, who has won seven times on the PGA Tour, including the 2007 Masters, offers these quick drills to groove your downswing.
May 16th, 2012 by Phil Reich PGA Golf Art
Doing his best Fred Couples impersonation, Matt Kuchar has a chance to take a good career and make it great.
May 16th, 2012 by Phil Reich PGA Golf Art
On a Mother’s Day when just about everyone associated with the Players — from tour pros to volunteers — wore pink to celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness Day, the closest Tiger Woods came to honoring the cause was the colorful energy drink he occasionally pulled from his golf bag. Apparently, Woods is in his own world when it comes to discussing his golf game as well.
Following a final-round 73 that included a dismal front-nine 40, he offered this stunning assessment:
“Just one of those things where Joe (LaCava) and I were talking about that on the front nine, I didn’t really hit any bad shots, and all of a sudden, I had a bogey, a birdie and a double,” Woods said.
Photo by Getty Images
LaCava is Woods’ caddie. He also just might be the world’s most patient listener. Then again, he is getting paid a lot more than most psychiatrists.
No bad shots? Did we hear that right? How about the sand wedge over the green on No. 1? How about the 9-iron from the middle of the fairway into the water on No. 4? How about the drive on the par-4 fifth? Or your tee shot on the par-3 eighth, both of which could barely be tracked on the computer screen by the PGA Tour’s ShotTracker?
May 16th, 2012 by Phil Reich PGA Golf Art
Ever let your clothes do your talking for you? Watching Rickie Fowler in his head-to-toe Sunday orange makes that old adage “silence is golden” pop into my head. If clothes can actually speak, Fowler’s get-ups…
May 16th, 2012 by Phil Reich PGA Golf Art
Editor’s Note: Every Monday Kevin Hinton, Director of Instruction at Piping Rock Club in Locust Valley, N.Y. and one of Golf Digest’s Best Young Teachers, tells you how a tour player hits a key…
May 14th, 2012 by Phil Reich PGA Golf Art
It was an odd Sunday at the Players Championship, one in which the final-round focus was bookended by men responsible for the most groans and grins.
The winner by a smile was Matt Kuchar, whose two-stroke victory at the TPC Sawgrass buttressed the notion that he is a major champion in training.
Kuchar, 33, has become an assembly line mass producing top 10s — 20 in the previous two seasons (which would explain his grinning year to year) and five already this year. More importantly for the months ahead, four have come in the most important tournaments with the strongest fields to date: the Players (first), the Masters (a tie for third), the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship (T-5) and the WGC-Cadillac Championship (T-8).
A month from now, Kuchar will be returning to U.S. Open at the Olympic Club outside San Francisco, where as an amateur in 1998 he tied for 14th and was tied for fourth through 36 holes. It doesn’t make him a favorite, but he isn’t a long shot, either.
Kuchar’s happy nature, even on a TPC course capable of inflicting so much misery, gave the Players a happy ending that wasn’t inevitable in the wake of the negative reaction to the man everyone was lamenting.
Related: Players tabbed as the next great American star
Kevin Na dominated the weekend conversation at the showcase event of a tour that steadfastly declines to address the issue of slow play, as do many of the players responsible. Na, for instance, was graciously apologetic on Saturday for the pre-shot twitches that Johnny Miller described as “the heebie jeebies,” and insisted he’s working on correcting it. Is he? Six months ago, Na posted this on Twitter: “Trying my best to speed up. Working on a new pre shot routine. I am not playing so on purpose. Hope the viewers understand.” It’s a slow process, apparently.
Na, the 54-hole leader, attempted to quell the criticism by picking up the pace on Sunday, which might have contributed to a final-round 76 that left him in a tie for seventh.