Golf has seen its fair share of oddball moments over the years. Here is our selection of six of the most memorable weird and miraculous golfing moments ever to take place on the green.
MacIntyre Aiming for More Than a Top 50 Spot
Every week the world golf rankings receive an update via a supercomputer. The results are often eagerly anticipated, especially by those who feel they will have made progress by moving up a few places. It applies to Scottish player Robert MacIntyre, a man with a big future in the sport if things continue to go to plan.
MacIntyre, 24, who hails from Oban in Scotland, picked up his maiden European Tour title a couple of months ago back in November 2020 by winning the Aphrodite Hills Cyprus Showdown. The final round saw nineteen players remain, with MacIntyre carding 64 that edged him past Masahiro Kawamura by a shot to seal the victory. Following the success, MacIntyre was sitting in fifty-sixth in the world rankings. But even though he hasn’t played since, he’s climbed five places to fifty-first. And he’s now on the verge of the top fifty and everything that brings.
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Reflecting On Bryson DeChambeau’s 2020: Has He Really Changed Golf?
Let’s face it: Not everyone is a fan of Bryson DeChambeau. Or, at the very least, the 27-year old’s ‘revolutionary’ tactics and focus on his physique divide opinion. Regardless, whatever it is that DeChambea is trying to say about the game of golf is worth hearing; the results he has achieved in a short space of time make that the case. But is the big-hitting player truly changing the game? Or is he just an outlier who will continue to play his own game while the rest of golf moves at its own pace? Looking back at 2020, the year that DeChambeau broke out (at least in the eyes of the media), those questions are still not easy to answer.
The first thing that we should clearly stress is that the story of Bryson DeChambeau is a bit more complex than is sometimes portrayed in the media. Sure, the Californian did emerge in the late spring bulked up (he gained about 40lbs) and with enough power to hit the ball further than anyone has managed before. But it is not as if he came from obscurity. DeChambeau was pinpointed for stardom as a young amateur and throughout his college years. In 2015 became only the third player in history to win the NCAA Division 1 Championship and US Amateur Open in the same year. The other two men to complete that feat? Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus.
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Masters 2020: Why Dustin Won and Bryson Lost
Dustin Johnson is one of those “obvious after the fact” type of players. By that, we mean the world number one is capable of breezing through a tournament with supreme confidence, never looking in any danger of losing. As you watch, it becomes so clear that he was always going to win, and you kick yourself for doubting him. Of course, Johnson is capable of losing – his Masters 2020 triumph is, after all, only his second Major. But when he is in the zone like he was at Augusta last weekend, there is no better frontrunner in golf.
Being “in the zone” is important for Johnson, perhaps more than any other player in the game, although we might make an exception for Rory McIlory. Johnson isn’t exactly a streaky player, though. In fact, he is highly consistent, as you must be if you are to have over 100 weeks ranked as the world’s best golfer. But there is something imperious about the South Carolina man when he gets locked in for a tournament, and we saw that in all its glory with his 20 under par haul at Augusta National.
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Precision Pro NX9 Rangefinder Review
Are lower cost alternatives to the big-name rangefinders a worthy value, or just inexpensive gadgets?
I like nice things. I’ll admit to paying a bit more for things that are well built or feel or look better than competing products that do the same exact thing. This is particularly true in golf and tech, and when those two meet, well, let’s just say I could have afforded to play a little bit more golf if I had been more logical in some of the decisions I’ve made. <grin>
We all knew what a “good” rangefinder costs. Sure, you could go to Dick’s and get a rangefinder from a brand you’d never heard of for as little as $150. The thing might work for a few months before the display would start to fade, or it wouldn’t work with a hint of fog, or the laser would get mis-aligned after dropping it a foot into the rough a few times before playing your shot.
Get used to that shade of green – it’s Precision Pro’s shade.
We all knew what the “good” brands were, and a lot of golfers either had to shell out as much as a brand-new big-name driver (or more!) to get one, or try to mess around with GPS apps or devices. (I’ve always been a big proponent of laser rangefinders over GPS, for various reasons, but this isn’t the place to re-open that discussion.)
I say “knew” because Precision Pro aims to change the game with their NX9 Slope, NX9, and NX2 range finders. They claim to deliver a quality product at a fraction of the price of the other companies.
How’d they do? Let’s find out…
RZN Golf Ball Review
Nike exited the hard goods business in 2016, but the original manufacturer of the RZN balls has brought them back to live (and store shelves).
When Nike exited the golf hard goods business in 2016, fans of the Nike golf ball with “RZN” technology grabbed all of the remaining balls that they could, fearful that the ball would never be seen again.
It’s not often that truly new things happen in the golf ball industry. The last may have been the switch to the solid-core ball at the premium level, started by Top-Flite, strongly pushed by Titleist, and now the realm of everyone including direct-to-consumer brands like Snell or Vice. A strong case could be made for the introduction of Nike’s “resin” technology, which isn’t constructed quite like other golf balls.
As best as I can tell, Nike produced balls with Bridgestone for a number of years, but introduced the resin ball produced by Feng Tay Enterprises since 2006.
So, fans of Nike’s later golf balls rejoiced, and the rest of the world? Well, I suppose we were interested to see if the golf world had moved on from 2016, or if Nike was truly on to something that was reborn in the RZN.
Read on to find out what we thought of the RZN HS-Tour and MS-Tour balls.
TRUE Linkswear OG Feel Shoe Review
TRUE continues to smash out the hits with this lightweight, zero-drop, flexible shoe for warmer (dryer) days. Read on to see how I feel about the OG Feel.
If you see me playing golf, teaching golf, watching golf (in person, not on my couch!), or shopping at Lowe’s for golf training aids…, you’ll see me wearing a pair of TRUE Linkswear shoes. They’re my every-day, every-where, every-thing shoe, and I still have and wear pairs of them dating back to the original Tour.
I love that the original Tours, even though they looked a bit “clown-ish” according to my wife, had wider toe boxes and flexible soles, were zero drop, weighed less than most golf shoes, and were still waterproof and had enough grip to play golf in most conditions without fear of slipping.
Continuing (and improving) on many of those features of the original Tours, and among the latest from TRUE are the TRUE OG Feel. They have a lot to live up to.
Do they? Read on to find out.
Impact Press Training Aid Review
A simple training aid based on a classic drill.
The Impact Press is a golf training aid that’s designed to teach you how to get proper impact alignments in your golf swing. Many golfers struggle with a flip or a roll through impact and often simply do not know what a proper impact position feels like. The Impact Press is designed specifically to train them to feel the correct mechanics through the hitting zone.
We like to say around here that “feel ain’t real.” Often a golfer will try to achieve something like shaft lean in their swing by simply feeling more shaft lean through impact and they’ll say they had the best range session ever, but when they look at a video of their swing, it looks exactly the same as it always has. The better ballstriking was merely the result of spending more time practicing and timing their compensations better. The Impact Press, when used properly, gives immediate feedback on whether or not they performed the swing correctly. Does it work? Read on to find out.
TRUE Linkswear TL-01 Review
TRUE Linkswear’s lightest shoe evokes a simple, classic style that appeals to many. Does it work for us?
I’ve been a big fan of TRUE Linkswear since the Tour debuted in 2010. The classic TRUE “way” is a minimalist, spikeless golf shoe that performs well in all sorts of weather and is comfortable and stylish.
TRUE revitalized itself with the Outsider and Original in 2017, returning to their roots of minimalist, comfortable, stylish shoes that perform. That continued with the TRUE Knit and the TRUE Major.
The TRUE TL-01, introduced earlier this year, continues the old and recent tradition of delivering stylish, comfortable, minimalist shoes in all but one regard (we’ll get to that part), and is a welcome addition to the TRUE lineup, which also includes three shoes mentioned already: the Original, Major, and Knit.
How does the TL-01 stack up? How will it fit? How does it fit compared to the other TRUEs? Read on to find out…