Happy birthday, Lydia!
Lydia Ko turned 19 Sunday. She has 12 professional wins, including two majors. Had she won in San Francisco, it would have been her third consecutive win at the Swinging Skirts. Instead, she had to settle for 6th.
Speaking of great golfers, Tiger Woods is back in the news, and he may or may not be finished. We might or might not see him in action as soon as Quail Hollow. If we do see him, will he or won’t he be able to compete again? Questions remain.
Let’s hit the links.
I took a six on a par 3 this weekend in support of Jordan Spieth.
With Masters weekend past, all of the major tours were in action this weekend giving the golf fan plenty to watch.
Jason Bohn returned to play for the first time since his heart attack, and made the cut; celebrities and those with deep pockets gathered in Myrtle Beach for the annual Monday After the Masters golf tournament/party; and those bitten by bad luck or bad play at Augusta licked their wounds while the media and fans pondered what it all means. And most importantly to me personally, Spring found the Midwest again and the golf was good!
Let’s hit the links!
Jordan Spieth lost the 2016 Masters by making a number of really bad swings. I take a deeper look into his collapse.
Winning a major golf tournament is an effort many years in the making. All of the practice fine tuning your swing, studying the course and pin positions. All of it take hard work. In 2015 Jordan Spieth had the golf world by the tail. He had won the season’s first two majors and was in the conversation at the British and PGA. It was a masterful year. All the hard work he had put in was paying off.
At the conclusion of the 2015 season, Jordan stated that he wanted to make some changes to his swing along with a workout plan to hit the ball farther. Nick Faldo, the guy who pretty much invented the long-term swing change, immediately came out and said Jordan should be careful to tinker too much.
Why would you go at a right pin on #12 with a lead?
For seven straight rounds over two years, Jordan Spieth led the Masters. Then over less than 60 minutes, he dropped six strokes (and two balls into Rae’s Creek). The safe play to #12 has always been the middle of that green, especially when playing with a lead on Sunday in the Masters. So did he really flare it that badly or was he shooting at the pin and wiped it?
Either way, an uncharacteristic series of mistakes by Jordan Spieth helped a charging Danny Willett emerge victorious for his first major and first win in the United States (he has four previous wins in Europe). Willett shot a bogey-free 5-under 67, that bested runners-up Spieth and Lee Westwood by three strokes. The last player to arrive in Augusta this year, Willett is a new father of less than two weeks, and the expected due date was to be Sunday, April 10. Right date, different coming out party.
Let’s hit the links.
It’s time to start the first major of golf’s 2016 season, let’s see what the staff expects for this years event.
Hello Friends, it is time for a tradition unlike any other, the Masters. I know for me watching golfer walk around such a beautiful setting like Augusta National is really a great way to get the spring season in gear.
This season has all sorts of intrigue with almost all of the young guns peaking at just the right time. Jordan, Rory, Rickie, Jason, all have either won, or been very close to winning and look primed to win the seasons first major. Even though Tiger will miss out, Phil looks ready to hold up the flag for old guard and might be a sleeper pick from the SandTrap staff.
Let’s see what the staff expects for this season.
Yes, sir!
Despite the fact that it snowed here in Central Ohio this weekend, Spring has arrived. I know, because the Masters starts on Thursday.
The annual Drive, Chip, and Putt contest kicked off the week at Augusta National, giving us a first look for the year at those Georgia pines and beautifully manicured grounds. The anticipation is just going to build until those ceremonial tee shots fly Thursday morning.
The women held their first major of the year in California and the same teenager who won the last one picked up where she left off.
Let’s hit the links.
Jason Day is really having his, well, day.
Austin Country Club had a good showing at this week’s WGC Dell Match Play. The short holes worked well in the format, and there were some ridiculously long downhill drives. As is typically the case with match play, big names fell at the hands of not so big names, but in the end the player on the hottest streak won.
We’re two weeks out from the Masters. Just a quick stop in Houston to go before that annual rite of Spring tees off on the hallowed grounds of Augusta National. Golf’s big three are playing well, as are a number of other top names. It’s going to be fun.
Let’s hit the links.
For Callaway’s update to the XR line of drivers they have collaborated with one of the world’s foremost aeronautical companies in Boeing to help you hit the ball farther. Do they succeed, read on to find out.
In the last few years golf equipment manufacturers have had to up their game in order to convince us golfers that we should upgrade from our current model. Each manufacturer is taking a slightly different route, but certainly a big focus nowadays is aerodynamics. The name of the game is reduce airflow in order to help you eek out as much distance as you can.
The engineers at Callaway went to the foremost expert on aerodynamics and partnered with them to make the XR16. They went to Boeing. In the airline industry the focus for the past few years has been remarkably similar to what has gone on in golf club design. They want to make planes lighter and they use materials like Carbon Fiber in order to accomplish this. They always want to reduce drag as much as possible to save on fuel costs as well.
Following the extremely popular G30 driver PING looked to design even more aerodynamics into their latest release, the PING G driver, I took it for a test drive to see how it performs.
It is often said that nature often inspires the best designs. It is evolution that often provides the simplest and most beautiful solution to many problems. So when PING engineers sat down to improve upon one of the best drivers on the market, the G30, they looked to nature. The engineers who worked on PING G driver looked to nature to inspire and improve their design; in fact, they looked to the wings of a dragonfly.
One of the key features of the extremely popular G30 was the turbulators that were added to the top of the clubhead. The features the PING engineers gleamed from the dragonfly were geared to further improve the airflow of the clubhead. More speed to help you hit it farther. The idea being that larger clubheads particularly ones that are 460cc do not need to trade off aerodynamics. So PING set out to make a driver that has the aerodynamic features of a 3 wood, but the forgiveness and power given from a driver.
For this review I was give a 9° PING G driver with an stiff Alta shaft. Let’s dive in to see if this merger of nature and technology helped me hit it any farther.
