Author: Michael C. Hepp

2013 British Open Staff Picks

The 2013 Open Championship is being played at Muirfield and should be a great event, lets see what the staff expects for the event.

Thrash TalkThe 2013 edition of the British Open moves to Muirfield Golf Club. The story lines for this year’s event look great. Phil Mickelson is peaking with a win last week at the Scottish Open, Graeme McDowell is also riding high with a win at the French Open and of course there is always Tiger. There are certainly some questions around if Tiger is going to be his best this week after sustaining the injury at the U.S. Open. Let’s see what the staff expects for this year’s event.

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Why Hank Shouldn’t Talk About Tiger

Recently Hank Haney tweeted his opinion on why Tiger struggled at the U.S. Open, I give my opinion on why he should keep his trap shut.

Thrash TalkHank Haney should really learn to keep his mouth shut. In a recent tweet, Hank Haney shared the idea that Tiger’s reason for struggling at the 2013 United States Open at Merion Golf Club was because Tiger did not prepare well enough before the tournament. Hank went on to say that he has seen Tiger prepare in the past when he was Tiger’s coach and in his opinion it was not enough preparation for Tiger to win the event.

Beyond the fact that Hank really has no direct knowledge of what it takes to win a major tournament, Hank should have refrained from making any comments about his former pupil. For starters, he has no first-hand knowledge of what Tiger did to prepare for Merion. Yes, he’s watched Tiger prepare for majors in the past, but he has no idea what Tiger did at Merion. None.

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2013 Adams Golf Idea Super LS Hybrid Review

I take the 2013 edition of the Adams Idea Super LS hybrid for a test drive. Let’s see how it performs.

Adams Super LS HybridAdams Golf has undergone a great deal of change in the past few years. After the company was purchased by TaylorMade many thought that they would kill the Adams line. In the short term at least that does not appear to be the case. Which for those of us who have liked the Adams clubs is great news.

Since their introduction that Adams hybrid line has been the number one hybrid on the PGA Tour, and even though that doesn’t help you or I hit more greens, it does say something about the quality of the clubs. For this season Adams has announced the Idea Super LS hybrids along with the Idea Super S line. Even more recently they have announced the Idea Super DHY and the Idea Super 9031 as well. For this review I was give a 19 degree Idea Super LS with a Stiff Mitsubishi Kuro Kage 80 graphite shaft.

Join me as I take this hybrid through its paces.

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This Year’s Winner of the U.S. Open… Merion Golf Club

Justin Rose edged Jason Day and Phil Mickelson for the 2013 US Open trophy, but I explain why the real winner this year was Merion and the USGA.

Thrash TalkThe winner of this year’s U.S. Open was Justin Rose, but the REAL winner of the U.S. Open was Merion Golf Club. The USGA and the team that sets up the course also deserves a great deal of credit as well.

Early in the week many people, including myself, thought that Merion was not fit to handle the length of the modern golfer. Sure, they had some extremely long par threes and a limited number of par fives but they had a number of par fours that measured under 350. On paper it looked like many of the pros could drive half of them. I for one thought the final score, especially after the poor weather they had prior to the tournament, would be lower than ten under. I was definitely wrong.

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2013 U.S. Open Staff Picks

The U.S. Open moves to historic Merion Golf Club, and we try to pick ’em.

Thrash TalkThis year’s version of the U.S. Open moves to a very historic site – Merion Golf Club, site of the now famous Hogan two-iron into the eighteenth green. The U.S. Open has not returned to Merion because of the concern that the golf course was going to be overpowered by today’s equipment, but now the wait is over, and we get to see how the USGA sets up the course for the players.

Despite his recent hiccup at the Memorial, Tiger is the clear favorite at this year’s event. Matt Kuchar, the winner of the Memorial also comes in very hot and will sure to be a factor on Sunday as well. Rory McIlroy has been very quiet this season, but that might just be the quiet entry he needs to make a big impact on the tournament.

The big unknown this week seems to be the weather. There has been quite a bit of rain and the last time we had that at a U.S. Open Rory ran wild in the nations capital breaking all sorts of scoring records along the way. Lets see what the staff of The Sand Trap thinks will happen at this years event.

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Why Tiger the Golfer Matters

Tiger Woods is the greatest player of his generation, maybe ever, and I discuss why every golfer should root for him.

Thrash TalkIn Billy Casper’s book titled “The Big Three and Me,” Casper talks about his time on Tour and how when a new golfer came onto the scene it was extremely rare that they had a great swing combined with ability to handle pressure. He mentions that sometimes on the range they would see someone with the most beautiful of swings and how he would think to himself “surrender now.” Usually, though, it would come to pass that under pressure that golfer would struggle and that beautiful swing paired with a shaky putting stroke.

Certainly you must admit that the PGA Tour is full of great swings whose trophy case does not match up with their beautiful swings. The players who have both are extremely rare – maybe once-a-generation type players we are talking about here. For my generation I have been lucky enough to get to watch one of these greats, and his name is Tiger Woods.

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Who Belongs in the Golf Hall of Fame?

Recently Fred Couples and Colin Montgomerie were inducted into Golf’s Hall of Fame, and this is my take on whether they truly belong.

Thrash TalkRecently the World Golf Hall of Fame inducted two extremely controversial members to the ranks: Freddie Couples and Colin Montgomerie. Both were controversial because neither had an overly impressive body of work for their careers. Both were especially light when it came to major wins. Freddie won a single Masters and Colin could only count a handful of near misses.

Freddie’s career was marred by a bad back, so in reality we will never know his true potential. Without a doubt he was an incredibly popular golfer amongst most of the fans because of his easy going nature and the fact that he was one cool dude. He was for a brief period the world’s number one golfer, yet he only amassed seventeen career wins including the one aforementioned major. Freddie won a number of “unofficial” events during what was called at the time golf’s “silly” season, but they are not truly wins against full fields. I think inducting Freddie was more a ballot of how well liked he was amongst the golf press and his playing competitors, rather than on his merits. I say Freddie does not belong.

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TaylorMade Rocketballz Stage 2 Driver Review

TaylorMade updates their Rocketballz line with the addition of the Stage 2 Driver. I take it for a spin to see how it performs and check out if it is really better-ier.

RBX Stage 2 DriverRecently, TaylorMade has released two different driver and woods product lines. Last year it was the R11s line and the extremely popular Rocketballz line. For the 2013 season TaylorMade switched it up and released the R1 line and continued with the Rocketballz line, dubbing them Stage 2. It is my belief that the success of the Rocketballz driver surprised TaylorMade. At my club among golfers who used TaylorMade drivers the Rocketballz ruled over the R11s by a two to one margin. The Rocketballz price point is a bit below that of the R11s but still provided a great experience.

Hoping to continue with the fantastic success of the Rocketballz driver TaylorMade has released the Rocketballz Stage 2 driver. TaylorMade has taken some of the adjustable technology and crown graphics that they offered in the groundbreaking R1 driver and they added speed providing a driver with more control and distance. It is always a challenge to follow up such a successful club but leave it to TaylorMade to give it a try.

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Why Tiger was Wrong, Sergio was Right

Tiger wins but in the process exchanges some verbal blows with Sergio over an etiquette dispute, see why I think Tiger was wrong and Sergio was right, but not innocent.

Thrash TalkAs with most stories there are two sides to be told. This case is no different, especially since the two sides were separated by fifty yards. The scene of this controversy was The Players Championship in the delayed third round in the final pairing of Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia.

On the second hole, Garcia, away and hitting his second shot in the fairway was distracted by the gallery that was gathered around Tiger’s drive in the left pine straw. Several seconds prior to Sergio’s swing, Tiger pulled his fairway wood out of this bag and the crowd reacted favorably to his choice to go for it. This favorable cheering distracted Sergio and caused him (his own words) to miss the ball way right into the trees on the right. Sergio bogeyed the hole.

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