Golf Digest IrelandMagazine

think young | play hard

THE GENIUS OF

ONLY

JORDON SPIETH

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THE LAST STAND OF REES JONES

THREE WAYS TO RAISE YOUR GAME

UNDERCOVER CADDIE:

BY JORDON SPIETH

THINK YOU COULD CARRY A 40-POUND BAG FOR A LIVING?

MOST OF US ARE PLAYING THE WRONG SHAFT

BY MIKE STACHURAE A VERY SPECIAL IRISH OPEN AT MOUNT JULIET ESTATE

SHORT GAME MADE SIMPLE:

RELY ON THESE KEYS TO PULL OFF ALL THE BASIC SHOTS

2021 RANKED

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Golf Digest Ireland Issue 153

Editor’s letter

Ireland’s greatest golf courses

Blessed with beautiful countryside and stunning coastlines, it comes as no surprise that golfers from all over the world come to play our local courses

think young | play hard

THE GENIUS OF

ONLY

JORDON SPIETH

€4.90 £3.70

THE LAST STAND OF REES JONES

THREE WAYS TO RAISE YOUR GAME

UNDERCOVER CADDIE:

BY JORDON SPIETH

THINK YOU COULD CARRY A 40-POUND BAG FOR A LIVING?

MOST OF US ARE PLAYING THE WRONG SHAFT

BY MIKE STACHURAE A VERY SPECIAL IRISH OPEN AT MOUNT JULIET ESTATE

SHORT GAME MADE SIMPLE:

RELY ON THESE KEYS TO PULL OFF ALL THE BASIC SHOTS

2021 RANKED

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TOP 100 E

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COUR

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BALL STRIKING STARTS AT ADDRESS WITH COLLIN MORIKAWA

9 771649 352010

Available nationwide in Easons and all leading newsagents.

Editor: Linton Walsh Contributing Editors:Tom Callahan, Dave Anderson, Peter Andrews, Tomas Friedman, David Owen Senior Writers: Brian Keogh, Dermot Gilleece, Nicky Barry, David Gorman, Philip Reid, Dave Kindred, Anders Johansson, Jaime Diaz, John Hawkins, Pete McDaniel, Tim Rosaforte, Bob Verdi, Guy Yocom, Annika Sorenstam Instruction Editor: Matthew Rudy Events Director: Mark Traynor Equipment Editors: Mike Stachura, Simon Cooper Senior Staff Photographers: Dom Furore, Stephen Swurlej

Golf Digest Ireland Teaching Professionals: Rob Akins, Todd Anderson, Chuck Cook, Butch Harmon, Hank Johnson, David Leadbetter, Jim McLean, Tom Ness, Renee Powell, Randy Smith, Rick Smith, Josh Zander, Dean Reinmuth, Brendan McDaid Playing Editors: Bob Duval, Ernie Els, Justin Leonard, Phil Mickelson, Johnny Miller, Tiger Woods, Nick Price, David Toms, Grace Park, Se Ri Pak, Tom Watson Senior Accounts: Ben Arkins Walsh Advertising: info@golfdigest.ie Golf Digest Ireland, B2 Calmount Office Park, Ballymount, D12

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Design: Tony Monaghan B2 Calmount Office Park, Ballymount, Dublin 12.

Email: tony@golfdigest.ie

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example, Palmer was smitten at first sight and later went on to say “I may have designed the first nine, but surely God designed the back nine.”

Great golf courses are the result of great sites.

The aim is continuity of an experience. Robert Trent Jones Jr. said, “Like a good tailor, a routing plan must fit well to wear well. If it’s cut wrong to begin with, the garment will never wear well.”

The personality of a golf course is determined greatly by the routing and should reflect and expose the best of the site features without theatrics.

Golf holes should have variety, but also should feel like they belong within the family of 18.

Changing bunker styles, drastic or distracting topographic features, inappropriate locations for water can ruin the aesthetic and systematically detract from the beauty of the golf experience.

The outcome will be better if an idea springs from the landscape, thereby putting round pegs in round holes.

With this in mind, we set about compiling a list of the 100 best golf courses in Ireland in 2006 and have done it annually ever since. We think we have got it right but did we in your eyes?

We hope you enjoy and engage in the discussion and debate!

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here are over 400 golf courses in Ireland and we have some of the best golf courses in the world, not only links but parkland as well. But what makes a great golf course? As Ben Hogan once said when asked, “That’s as tricky as a flop shot over a creek from a hardpan lie”. To paraphrase an old saying, “I can’t define good golf course, but I know it when I see it.” This comment reveals how difficult it can be to define the merits of a great golf course.

Is the success of a design the result of following the basic principles and applying them to the course? Simply put, yes. However, as in the game of golf, there lies the rub of golf course design.

Assembling these principles to create an original, quality playing field, while dealing with unforeseen conditions and ambiguous details that the books rarely mention, is the challenge. Countless choices must be made. Each architect – whether it’s, Jack Nicklaus, Pat Ruddy, Robert Trent Jones Jr., Tom Fazio or Jeff Howes – has a signature framework with which he assembles the choices that determine the golf experience.

The dimensions and characteristics of an individual golf course change from day to day, week to week and throughout the span of its lifetime. And the differences between golf courses are infinite.

As good as the best architects are, the most important element of any great golf course is the site. It all begins here. It doesn’t matter how much you spend on a golf course or what designer you employ. If the site isn’t spectacular, the chances are the golf course won’t be either. Tralee Golf Club for

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Photography: Golffile, Getty Images, Pat Cashman, Keith Woodward, Dave Kenny Golf Images

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7.21 Golf Digest Ireland Issue 153

Tee Sheet

6 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

2 Editor’s Letter Ireland’s Greatest Golf Courses by linton walsh

122 What’s In My Bag Will Zalatoris with e. michael johnson

Mind

128 The Loop Before you bet, know these rules. by coleman bentley

8 Locker Room News from around the country and around the world.

Features

20 Year of the Comeback The defining thread of 2020-’21. by john feinstein 22 Undercover Caddie The true toll of looping on tour. with joel beall 24 The View From Pebble Beach My conversation with John Daly. by jim nantz 28 The Other 90 Percent Your best defense against emotion. by sean foley

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Equipment Special Investigation Most of us are playing the wrong shaft.

BY MIKE STACHURA

30 Golf was different 50 years ago Just as competitive and exciting. by dermot gilleece 32 Old habits rear their ugly heads What McIlroy can learn from PGA disappointment. by ronan macnamara

Body 118 Swing Sequence My approach to stance width and shot-shaping. by collin morikawa

34 The Genius of Jordan Spieth The clever way he found his swing could be a model for you, too. by ron kaspriske 40 Drive, Blast, Putt Pro tips on three key scoring shots. by jordan spieth 46 The Last Stand of Rees Jones The added significance of this year’s U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. by derek duncan 62 Accuracy off the tee The key for McIlroy and Lowry. by ronan macnamara 68 The Top 100 Rankings The industry standard for all Irish golf courses on the island of Ireland.

110 Short Game Made Simple The basics for every greenside situation. by todd anderson

106

A very special Irish Open at Mount Juliet

BY RONAN MACNAMARA

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 7

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high-quality field New August date for Hermitage Ladies Scratch Cup he Hermitage Golf Club is preparing to host one of its most important events of the season, the Ladies Scratch Cup. Traditionally played in May, there is a new date this year with the 36-hole event set for Sunday, 1 August. The Hermitage Ladies Scratch Cup is the longest-running ladies scratch cup in the country and celebrates its 49th year this year. Along with its longevity, the event has always maintained a high-quality field and the organising committee is confident that this year will be no exception.

Entry forms can be downloaded from the Hermitage website www.hermitagegolf.ie (Click on Visitors). The closing date for entries is Friday the 23rd July 2021. The course at Hermitage is sure to present a serious challenge this year following the completion of a major overhaul of the bunkering at the course by (re)GOLF.

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Eleanor Metcalfe from Laytown Bettystown

Men's and Women's Amateur Championships to be broadcast on internet The R&A will digitally broadcast the finals of its men’s and women’s amateur championships live to fans for the very first time in the history of the prestigious events.

The 36 hole finals of The 118th Women’s Amateur Championship and The 126th Amateur Championship will air on The R&A’s YouTube and Facebook channels as well as RandA.org.

Fans will be able to watch all the action in each final from the first tee shot until the champion is crowned. The commentary team will be led by Dougie Donnelly, Mickey Walker and Kit Alexander for the Women’s Amateur on June 12, with Richard Kaufman and Kit Alexander behind the microphone for The Amateur at Nairn on June 19. They will be joined on course by Trish Johnson and George Harper Jnr.

Premier Golf League targeting 2023 start date A proposed upstart golf circuit backed by Saudi Arabia grabbed the sport’s attention during the PGA Championship. While the validity and formidability of the Super Golf League remains a question, another operation tried to remind the game it too lurks in the shadows.

Andy Gardiner, who heads up the Premier Golf League, told the BBC that his group plans on being operational by 2023.

“The team is ready to go,” Gardiner told the BBC. “We've used the last eight months to bring in externals to check through every single piece of the model to make sure the events of the last 12 months with COVID haven't changed our thinking. The January

8 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

2023 date right now is entirely feasible. We will see how the conversations go with the community that we want to embrace."

Gardiner’s plan calls for an 18-tournament schedule—a dozen of which would be held in the United States—with 48 players. Each tournament would feature a $20 million purse, with $4 million directed to the winner and last place cashing in $150,000. There would be a team element involved as well.

The idea of a world golf tour is far from new. Greg Norman shared his vision for one in 1994, but it couldn’t gain enough traction.

Other iterations have come and gone without much fanfare. The PGL itself is not new, tracing its roots to 2014, although it didn’t gain

true public attention until fall 2019.

Still, the PGL and SGL are considered enough of a threat that PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan has informed players that those who join the rival leagues face a suspension or ban from the tour. A sentiment Gardiner has waved off.

Gardiner did confirm his group approached the European Tour about an alliance. However, the Euro Tour ultimately teamed up with the PGA Tour.

"There have been barriers, but there is no need,” Gardiner said. “I've listened to players talk about being banned. They are not going to ban the players, I can assure them of that."

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mitigate the risk of Covid-19 Major boost for Dubai Duty Free Irish Open Three spots in The Open up for grabs he R&A will offer three additional qualifying places into The 149th Open at Royal St George's at next month’s Dubai Duty Free Irish Open - a boost for the event at Mount Juliet from July 1-4.

Due to existing international travel measures and the requirement to mitigate the risk of Covid-19 transmission, golfers who have entered Final Qualifying in England on 29 June are now being offered alternative opportunities to earn places in The 149th Open if they are also intending to play in the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open in Ireland (1-4 July), Kaskada Golf Challenge in Czech Republic (1-4 July) or the Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge in France (8-11 July).

Those golfers withdrawing from Final Qualifying will now be able to earn places in golf's original championship through these events on the European Tour and European Challenge Tour, with the three leading non-exempt golfers qualifying at the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open and the leading non-exempt golfer qualifying at

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Shane Lowry the Kaskada Golf Challenge and Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge.

"With that in mind, we have agreed a solution with the European Tour that significantly reduces the possibility of our events being jeopardised in any way by the risks associated with international air travel and provides players with alternative opportunities to qualify for The Open through the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, Kaskada Golf Challenge and Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge."

Any golfers competing in Final Qualifying who do not secure one of the 12 places available for The 149th Open at these events will be unable to qualify through the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, Kaskada Golf Challenge and Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge.

Bryson DeChambeau insists Brooks Koepka taunts from Memorial fans are 'flattering'

Bryson DeChambeau

A few cheers went up for Brooks Koepka during the first two rounds of the Memorial Tournament. And he wasn’t even in the field.

The shouts were directed at Koepka’s rival, Bryson DeChambeau, who got peppered by the gallery with shouts of “Hey Brooksy” as he made his way around Muirfield Village Golf Club.

That goes to show just how many people are aware of the contentious nature of Koepka’s relationship with DeChambeau, perfectly illustrated by a leaked Golf Channel video that went viral May 24. In it, Koepka rolls his eyes as he sees DeChambeau standing nearby, off camera. He then closes his eyes and loses his train of thought in the middle of his interview as DeChambeau walks noisily behind him.

It was the latest evidence of a feud of sorts that began at the 2019 Northern Trust when the two butted heads over the issue of slow play – DeChambeau being the culprit – and it continues to simmer.

DeChambeau said he heard the taunts at the Memorial. But he did not ask for security to remove anybody from the grounds.

“Oh, they weren't taunts at all; it was flattering,” he said after playing 33 holes on Friday because of weather delays to the opening round. “I think it's absolutely flattering what they're doing. They can keep calling me that all day if they want to, I've got no issue with it. When you look at it, there's obviously a distraction … to most people they think it's a distraction, but I grew up learning how to deal with that stuff, and I honestly thought it was flattering.”

So, to recap, it was flattering. Which he repeated three more times.

“Look, I've got nothing against him,” DeChambeau said. “I've got no issues at all. If he wants to play that game, that's great. I'm going to keep trying to play my best game, and when it comes down to it, when somebody's that bothered by someone else it is flattering.”

“No matter what, he's a great player, and he's won a lot of tournaments and it's like somebody calling me Jack or Payne or Hogan or whatever. I think it's kind of fun,” DeChambeau added.

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 9

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I saw the video Justin Thomas is 'here for' Monday qualifier Michael Visacki with more than just money J

ustin Thomas said at the Memorial Tournament that he was “a little irritated” that a video got out on social media showing him giving mini-tour player Michael Visacki a cheque after Visacki missed the cut at the Charles Schwab Challenge last week in Fort Worth, Texas.

Thomas, No. 2 in the world, just wanted to do something nice without notice or fanfare for a player struggling to make a living as a touring professional. But a video went far and wide, and Thomas was only too happy to explain that like thousands of other people, he was touched by Visacki’s emotional phone call to his father after he Monday qualified in April for the Valspar Championship, which also was caught on video and went viral. ESPN’s “SportsCentre” and NBC’s “The Today Show” also aired video of a weeping Visacki calling his dad.

“I saw the video of Mike talking to his dad in Valspar,” Thomas said at Muirfield Village Golf Club, “and in a day and age where it seems like only anything in the media is negative and not good these days, I just felt it was so refreshing and great to see and how genuine his excitement and emotions were. I mean, I don't know

Justin Thomas Mike. I didn't know him. I met him at Valspar. I just went up and said, ‘Congrats on getting in.’

Thomas, 28, said the amount of money he gave to Visacki, “wasn’t anything crazy,” but he hoped it would help defer some of the costs that a struggling pro can incur along the way. “I know Q-School's expensive. I know playing in these events are expensive, and like any little way I can help out, I want to,” he said, adding that he wanted to support Visacki in other ways.

Shot Scope unveils new colour options for ultra-accurate G3 GPS watch Shot Scope has unveiled three new colour iterations of its ultra-accurate GPS-only G3 golf watch.

Now available with the original black strap, as well as new red, teal and grey options, the perfectly sized, unisex G3 is sure to fit comfortably on the wrist of any golfer. All new coloured straps are also fully interchangeable, allowing users to switch

10 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

out their strap at any time for a new colour.

Using the latest satellite technology, Shot Scope has produced the most accurate golf GPS on the market with G3, accurate to just 30cm. This marks an enormous improvement on the standard unit average of three to five metres. G3 is the most complete GPS watch in the game, providing dynamic distances to the front, middle and back of greens as well

as front and carry distances for every hazard on over 35,000 pre-loaded golf courses.

In addition to market-leading GPS technology, the G3 features a new everyday watch mode. With a slim profile and comfortable band, it is the ideal watch for everyday use, on or off the course.

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delighted to launch the Activator programme Golf Ireland and The PGA launch Activator programme aims to help introduce more young people to golf ollowing a successful pilot involving ten PGA Members from right across the island of Ireland, the ‘Activator Programme’ will now be rolled out as a national initiative.

PGA Members do a fantastic job in supporting beginner and existing golfers to participate in the game through coaching - by deploying an Activator to help them they can now reach even more people.

The Activator programme will provide individuals with the necessary training to help them to support their PGA Member in the delivery of quality experiences for participants. Training days will be co-delivered by Golf Ireland and The PGA. PGA Chief Executive Robert Maxfield commented: “PGA Members are the gatekeepers of the game of golf, they do an incredible job in helping hundreds and thousands of people to access the game through coaching. We want to help our Members by providing them with a way to reach even more people, especially juniors. The Activator programme does just that”.

Golf Ireland Chief Executive Mark Kennelly said: ”We are delighted to launch the Activator programme in partnership with The PGA. The mission of Golf Ireland aims to unlock the immense

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potential of golf across the island of Ireland and this initiative will see a diverse and increased number of participants being catered for in clubs The Activator is not a coach and no coaching training is provided within the scheme - coaching golfers remains the sole preserve of the PGA Professional. What the Activator can do is act as an ‘extra pair of hands’ within coaching sessions.

Tasks and duties they might undertake include setting up the coaching environment and area, welcoming people to the facility, taking a register, supervising and delivering non-technical games and activities, communicating with participants, posting on social media and dealing with follow-on communications with participants. There may be other duties which the PGA Member could ask the Activator to undertake and, as long as these do not include direct coaching, they are permitted.

Ultimately, it is the hope of Golf Ireland and The PGA that, with the support of trained Activators, PGA Members will be able to help more people to participate and enjoy the game of golf for life.

Tiger Woods discusses his rehab: 'More painful than anything I have ever experienced' Three months after sustaining serious leg injuries in a single-car crash outside Los Angeles, Tiger Woods finds himself in a familiar routine: rehab, rehab, rehab.

“This has been an entirely different animal,” Woods said of the post-crash injuries. “I understand more of the rehab processes because of my past injuries, but this was more painful than anything I have ever experienced.”

Woods’ injuries included comminuted open fractures to both his tibia and fibula bones in his right leg. Those required immediate surgery at Harbor-UCLA Medical Centre before he was subsequently transferred to Cedars Sinai and, finally, back to South Florida in mid-March to continue his rehab from home.

Still unclear is whether additional Tiger Woods

procedures will be necessary, or if Woods can expect to regain full mobility and strength in his leg.

Asked about his hopes of playing golf again, Woods had no comment, but said, “My physical therapy has been keeping me busy. I do my routines every day and am focused on my No. 1 goal right now: walking on my own. Taking it one step at a time.”

Shortly after the Masters, Woods posted a picture to his Instagram page showing himself smiling, on crutches and in a walking boot.

“It’s funny because in that photo, the crutches definitely make my shoulders look big!” he said. “Maybe it’s the workouts, too.

It’s been nice having the ability to still stay strong and work out my upper body.”

One motivating element Woods did acknowledge was the outpouring of support he’s received from around the world.

“It’s been incredible,” Woods said. “I have had so much support from people both inside and outside of golf which means so much to me and has helped tremendously.”

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 11

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number one priority Olivia Mehaffey signs with Dublin-based Sigmoid Sports livia Mehaffey has signed with Dublin-based sports management company Sigmoid Sports, which was co-founded by Rob Browne and high-performance coach, David Kearney.

Sigmoid Sports offers a different approach to sports management where a particular emphasis is placed on the performance of their clients as well as providing the usual tasks a management company undertakes such as athlete representation and commercial management.

“I am delighted to sign with Sigmoid Sports,” Mehaffey said. “I really like their vision of having athlete performance as their number one priority. It’s an exciting opportunity for me to work with a young, ambitious company that is striving to create something a bit different.“ Mehaffey intends to play tournaments in both the US. and in Europe through sponsor invites until she heads to Qualifying School in August with the aim of gaining full status on the LPGA Tour.

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Olivia Mehaffey

16 golfers to share €272,700 in Team Ireland Golf funding 30 starts on the European Challenge Tour have been secured for Irish golfers and the funding has increased from €221,000 in 2020 to €272,700 in 2021, allowing additional golfers to benefit from the scheme.

Sport Ireland Chief Executive, John Treacy commented: “Sport Ireland is delighted to once again provide funding to Golf Ireland for the management and administration of the Team Ireland Golf Scheme.

“The scheme supports emerging professional golfers in their efforts to establish themselves as regular players on the main international tours and has seen great success in previous years.

Team Ireland Golf Funding for 2021

“Included in the scheme is access to Golf Ireland’s National Academy and Quinta do Lago training base as well as access to the Sport Ireland Institute. This support will directly aid the players and I look forward to seeing them in action throughout the year.”

The new players on the scheme for 2021 are James Sugrue, Jonathan Yates and Olivia Mehaffey. Sugrue won the Amateur Championship in 2019 and competed in Masters Tournament and the US Open in 2020 and Yates finished 8th on the Alps Tour Order of Merit in 2020.

John-Ross Galbraith €17,500

12 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

Cormac Sharvin €17,500 Stephanie Meadow €17,500 Leona Maguire €17,500 Robin Dawson €17,500 Gavin Moynihan €17,500 Jonathan Caldwell €17,500 David Carey €17,500 Ronan Mullarney €17,500 Paul McBride €17,500 Stuart Grehan €17,500 Conor Purcell €17,500 Conor O'Rourke €17,500 James Sugrue €17,500 Jonathan Yates €17,500 Olivia Mehaffey €10,200* *pro rata rate based on 7 months

Cormac Sharvin

S t a n d on the stunning coast of West Donegal… overlooking Gweebarra Bay…and take in the history…

“…We were caught off-guard by how beautiful the countryside is… how it translates from mountain to peat to links –and the rocky coast –and the ocean.

Everything about it has been a revelation to our eyes. It’s just special.

We’re really lucky to be here.”

Gil Hanse, Architect, Narin & Portnoo Links

www.narinandportnoolinks.com Narin & Portnoo Links, Portnoo, Co. Donegal, Ireland. T +353 (o) 74 954 51o7. E: info@nandplinks.com.

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bring a lot to the team Lowry excited to play in Irish Open admits needing to get 'bend' in claret jug fixed he 34-year-old Irishman is clearly eager to show what he can do in front of the crowds that have largely been absent from European events since the coming of the pandemic.

“I was so disappointed last year when all the cancellations were announced,” said the World No. 44, whose only previous round at Royal St. George's is the 81 he shot in the stroke-play qualifying round of the 2006 British Amateur Championship. “I selfishly wanted to play in the Irish Open as the Open champion. But I understood. I didn’t pack the trophy away in July and think that was my year over. The decision was made for all the right reasons. I’m going to prefer going back to defend my title in front of a crowd as opposed to doing it last July in front of no crowds.”

Speaking of the trophy, Lowry had an admission to make. A familiar admission, as it turned out. Like some of his predecessors (Zach Johnson being one) the “champion golfer of the year” for 2019 owned up to having a little bend in the claret jug repaired. But that fact should not be construed as a lack of respect on Lowry’s part.

Quite the contrary.

“I had the claret jug with me in Dubai back in November 2019,” he said. “I was wheeling it in its box through the hotel lobby. A guy stopped me and asked if the trophy was in there. He begged me to see it. So I opened the box and let him hold it. He started to cry.

That’s what that trophy means to people who love their golf. Just to

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Shane Lowry have it and share it with my family, friends and everyone else has been incredible. I’ll be sad to give it back.”

Lowry and the jug might not be parted for long, of course.

Lowry’s form has seen a definite improvement over the past few months which has him in a good position to make what would be his European Ryder Cup debut at Whistling Straits come September.

A close friend of captain Padraig Harrington, Lowry would make a stout addition to the side charged with defending the trophy.

“If I play to the best of my ability over the next few months, I’ll be in with a good chance of making the team,” he said. “That’s my main goal, to qualify automatically or get so close that I all but make Padraig’s decision for him. It’ll be mentioned that I’m a Ryder rookie.

But I don’t feel like one. I’ve won big tournaments. I’ve competed at the highest level. I feel like I would bring a lot to the team.”

LPGA names Princeton AD Mollie Marcoux Samaan next commissioner The LPGA officially announced Mollie Marcoux Samaan as its new commissioner.

“The LPGA Commissioner role is one of the best jobs in sports today and the opportunity of a lifetime," Marcoux Samaan said in a statement. "I’m passionate about the game of golf and have been an LPGA fan since I was a little girl.

I appreciate the LPGA’s history and the tenacity of its 13 Founders. I’m truly inspired by our Tour players and teaching professionals. I’m excited to dive into the LPGA initiatives to impact women and girls in the game at every age and ability.

Marcoux Samaan comes to the LPGA from Princeton University, where she served as its athletic director. She was a two-sport athlete at Princeton in soccer and hockey, earning All-Ivy League honours four times and won the C. Otto von Kienbusch Award, the top senior female studentathlete award at Princeton which recognises “high scholastic rank, sportsmanship and general excellence in athletics.” She graduated cum laude in 1991.

Samaan takes over for Mike Whan, who announced he was

stepping down as LPGA commissioner in January. Whan has since been tapped to lead the USGA as its CEO when Mike Davis retires later this year.

Mollie Marcoux Samaan 14 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

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make them gender neutral Portmarnock Golf Club votes in favour of women members ortmarnock Golf Club has voted overwhelmingly to bring the club into the 21st century and remove the ban on women becoming members.

The move paves the way for the great north Dublin links to host such events as the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open and even The Open Championship.

Announcing the result of the vote, the club said in a statement: “A vote by the Members of Portmarnock Golf Club, that Rule 3 be amended through the removal of the words 'who shall be Gentlemen’ has been passed. The result is 83.4% in favour and 16.6% against.

“As a consequence of this decision, the Rules and Bye-Laws of the Club will now become gender-neutral, which marks a positive development in the Club’s long and distinguished history.

Founded in 1894, the club could not host events that benefited from public funds or R&A events such as the Walker Cup or even The Open as long as it remained men only.

A vote was held to amend Rule 3 of the Rules of Portmarnock Golf Club, which states that "the Club shall consist of members and Associate Members who shall be Gentlemen properly elected and who shall

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Portmarnock Golf Club conform with the rules of amateur status."

The members agreed to amend Rule 3 as follows: 'That Rule 3 be amended by the removal of the four words 'who shall be Gentlemen' and that the Committee be empowered to make the necessary changes to other Rules to make them gender neutral."

David Kearney co-founds management company Sigmoid Sports Former ILGU High-Performance Director David Kearney has co-founded athlete management company Sigmoid Sports. Cofounded with sports marketing specialist Rob Browne, Sigmoid Sports offers a different approach to sports management. “With the experience I have gained in high-performance sport over the past 20 years, paired with Rob’s organisational and commercial skills, we really think we are well placed to make a significant impact in supporting athlete’s careers,” Kearney said.

The founders believe that supporting their clients must extend beyond the usual tasks a management company undertakes such as athlete representation and commercial management.

Sigmoid Sports is committed to placing particular emphasis on adding value to the performance of their clients on their respective field of play and supporting athletes across a variety of sports by carefully balancing the highs and lows of their careers through providing consistent, bespoke advice and care.

They believe they have a promising mix which could lead to creating a very special vehicle for athletes.

16 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

Another unique aim with the management strand of Sigmoid Sports is their ambition to keep their “community” of clients very tight in terms of size, but also in terms of recruitment. The founders believe that achieving success with their existing clients will lead to other athletes developing an interest in becoming a part of the Sigmoid group rather than the more typical method of approaching young, aspiring athletes.

To complement the above central tenet of the business, Sigmoid Sports will also begin their unique Academy experience by offering young golfers five-day camps in carefully selected overseas locations and an events service that will deliver premium, high-performance workshops for both businesses and sports organisations.

Using the performance experience and knowledge of its clients, Sigmoid Sports will also consult, deliver and support the development of high performing units across the business, sport and educational sectors.

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Life Changing

Michelle Obama and John McEnroe recently acquired his work.

Valentino Dixon Will Draw Your Course by max adler

his drawing of Sebonack Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y., hangs in the entrance of the clubhouse. It was commissioned by the club’s owner, Michael Pascucci, for $50,000. During quarantine Pascucci phoned artist Valentino Dixon after watching a TV show about his extraordinary life, which readers of Golf Digest know took a twist when Dixon mailed his work to our magazine while imprisoned for a murder he did not commit.

Pascucci got Dixon’s number from his golf buddy, Bryant Gumbel, who happened to be the host of the segment on HBO Real Sports. Next he mailed several photos of his beloved Long Island links to Dixon and told him to pick one. Dixon did, and he recommended a large size across four panels (a retained workaround technique he developed for creating large art in a cramped cell) and named his price.

“I said you got it. But he refused any money up-front,” Pascucci says. “I asked him, ‘How do you know I’m good for it?’ ” Dixon has been exonerated and out for more than two years and lives with his grandmother in Buffalo. Among many new skills of the modern world, he has learned to use a smartphone and could have Googled Pascucci to know that he is a businessman of integrity with his own remarkable journey. But the truth is, 27 years looking over his shoulder in a dangerous environment cultivated within Dixon a sixth sense for judging character quickly.

The drawing took three months to complete. In this time Dixon also sold a piece to Michelle Obama. He told me about it right away, and during the holidays I had fun dropping to friends and family that I knew what Barack Obama was getting for Christmas, even though he didn’t. Recently, tennis great John

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▶ vivid detail Dixon uses coloured pencils to create his meticulous golfscapes.

be a social-justice advocate.

Daniel owns more than 20 Dixons, mostly the 7-by-9-inch size that were the first experiments in prison. “They’re so much better in person, tight and small, clearly done by a guy who had all the time in the world to make them perfect.”

The packaging, however, nearly gave Daniel a coronary. “He’d stuck the drawing between two sheets of printer paper and put it in a priority-mail envelope.”

Worry no more. Dixon has since upped his shipping game to a pro level.

As the writer who introduced Dixon’s case to the golf world, I’ve facilitated a handful of art sales in the way Gumbel did for Pascucci. I’ve always done so with slight unease, as there’s a saying in journalism that we’re not here to put people in business or out of business.

The humanity here probably transcends that rule, but I have no desire to be an art broker. I simply want to announce that Valentino Dixon is set up to fulfill commissions. You can email his assistant at Liz@ValentinoDixon.com.

Prices begin at $3,000, and delivery will fluctuate according to demand.

Courtesy of Sebonack Golf Club

McEnroe commissioned work, asking Dixon to apply his green pencils toward rendering the grasses of Wimbledon.

But not all collectors of Valentino Dixons are high-profile. Dr. Christian Daniel is a family-care physician practicing in Wilmington, N.C. He hasn’t played golf since he was a kid but has a passion for outsider art. “The label ‘outsider’ applies to self-taught or untrained artists who aren’t making work predicated on art historical references,” says Andrew Edlin, owner of The Outsider Art Fair and the man who arranged the sale with McEnroe. Often, they come from the fringes of society and create art out of necessity. Daniels recently completed a major sale to a museum of a Minnie Evans piece he picked up for close to nothing. The late Evans was a Black domestic worker on an estate in Wilmington who often gave away her psychedelic crayon drawings for free.

“In the outsider world, you appreciate the art but often it’s the story that gets you,” Daniel says. “Like Evans, Dixon’s art speaks for itself. You don’t have to give a damn about his story to be wowed by the talent and beauty.”

Daniel actually gives much more than a damn. He has hosted Dixon in his home and has advised him on his potential to

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▶ victory at last Lydia Ko wondered if she would win again.

20 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

On Tour by John Feinstein

Mind

Other sports don’t allow slumpers to linger.

Year of the Comeback Tour pros of all ages are rediscovering their mojo e have witnessed tournaments without fans—which gave us, if nothing else, a break from screams of, “Get in the hole!” Perhaps in an act of karmic grace, we have witnessed what can best be described as “The Year of the Comeback.” They are familiar names to anyone who follows golf: Lydia Ko, Jordan Spieth, Stewart Cink, Sergio Garcia, Brooks Koepka, Rory McIlroy, Mike Weir, Hideki Matsuyama, Ariya Jutanugarn.

Julio Aguil ar/Getty Images

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All are major champions. All have endured droughts, some bad enough to draw whispers—loud ones in a few cases—that they might not win again. Cink’s last victory had been the 2009 Open Championship (which is best remembered for Tom Watson not winning at 59), and Weir, the 2003 Masters champion, had not won in 13 years.

Ko and Spieth were the biggest mysteries to those who think they understand golf. Ko won on the LPGA Tour in 2012 at age 15. She won two majors by age 17 and was No. 1 in the world for 84 weeks. When she won the LPGA Medheal Championship in April 2018—five days after turning 21—she had 15 LPGA Tour victories. Then her game—shockingly—went south.

She went through the usual changes that players often make when they struggle: She changed swing coaches and caddies. She bottomed in August of last year when her World Ranking fell to 55. But then something started to click. She had nine top-10s in 15 starts. Finally, in April she shot 65 in the final round of the Lotte Championship to win by seven shots.

Ko, 24, was dazzlingly honest after her victory when she talked about not winning. “When it doesn’t happen, you do doubt yourself,” she said. “If I said I didn’t doubt myself at all, it would be a lie. I wondered if I’d ever be back in the winner’s circle.”

Spieth traveled a similar path. He won the 2015 Masters and U.S. Open at 21 and the Open Championship two years later. Then, having won 11 times on the PGA Tour and ranked No. 1 for 44 weeks,

he stopped winning after 2017, hardly contending.

Spieth then found a spark this year with three top-fives before winning the Valero Texas Open in April. Like Ko, Spieth was candid about his struggles: “There were a lot of times I wondered if I’d be here,” he said. Then he hedged: “I never doubted in myself to get to where I wanted to go.” Then back to fully candid Jordan: “A lot of times it’s hard to see the positive going forward.”

Great players rarely doubt themselves publicly when they aren’t playing well.

Privately is different, especially when you have won a lot and stop winning. Golf is unique in that a player can go years without winning and still be around to win again. Other sports don’t allow slumpers to linger. Cink, 47, began the comebacks with a victory in September at the Safeway Open and again at the RBC Heritage in April. He’s at an age when most guys are thinking about playing with the 50-and-older set. No doubt his game was affected by wife Lisa’s battle with breast cancer, and her recovery is surely connected to his renaissance.

Garcia’s win at the Sanderson Farms Championship in October, at 40, was his first on the PGA Tour since his dramatic victory at the 2017 Masters. Jutanugarn ended her winless streak in May, the first victory in almost three years for the former world No. 1. Weir, 50, won on the PGA Tour Champions in May for his first victory since 2007.

There are many reasons why outstanding players lose their way. Ko and Spieth

likely had too much thrown at them because they were so good so young. They might benefit from being reminded that, “There’s a reason why golf is a four-letter word” as Greg Norman put it so eloquently years ago.

Koepka and McIlroy are both four-time major champions who should be entering their peak years. Koepka won the PGA in 2019, meaning he had won four of eight majors in two years. Then injuries intervened, and he stopped winning. Koepka ended his 18-month winless streak in February but is again dealing with knee problems.

McIlroy’s winless string dated only to 2019. But he hit a nadir unlike any in his career when he missed the cut at the 2021 Players and Masters. McIlroy admitted he had made a mistake by trying to hit the ball farther after watching Bryson DeChambeau overpower Winged Foot to win the U.S. Open last fall. The honesty wasn’t a surprise; the mental mistake was stunning.

Then there is Matsuyama. In 2017, at age 25, he had five PGA Tour titles and 13 victories worldwide. Then he stopped winning. But on Saturday at this year’s Masters, Matsuyama shot 65 to take control of the tournament and hung on to become the first Japanese man to win a major championship.

McIlroy distills what they’ve all been through in three simple words: “Winning is hard,” he said after winning in May for his 19th PGA Tour victory. Perhaps that’s the lesson. All golfers—from weekend hackers through Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Kathy Whitworth (who won 88 times)—go through periods when it’s hard to play their best. The reasons might be different, but the feeling when you find a way to win again is the same, as best explained by McIlroy.

“Relief,” he said after hanging on for his recent win. “And satisfaction.”

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 21

Mind On Tour

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Illustration by Freak City

We are by no means athletes, but our work is a workout.

Undercover Caddie Think you could carry a 40-pound bag for a living? ne of my first events 30 years ago was the PGA Tour’s old Tucson Open. I remember seeing caddies who looked beat up. They were not so much standing next to their bags as they were angled over them, their bodies overloaded by this invisible weight. I recall being sad and almost embarrassed for them. It just seemed like they had let themselves go. I called my dad and told him about it, promising that wouldn’t be me. ▶ What a stupid kid I was. Now I’m one of those guys bent over the bag who looks like a sparring partner for the heavyweight champ. ▶ We are by no means athletes, but our work is a workout. We were getting our steps in well before step-counting became a thing, and we did it carrying a 40-pound bag. That type of activity offers health benefits but can do a number on you, too. People think we all have back problems.

Some do, but more often we pull something picking up or putting down the bag. If you’re wondering why most of us don’t use two-strap bags, it’s because guys find one strap easier to maneuver. And, to be honest, you don’t look like a pro twostrapping it. We’re more likely to have problems with our knees and hips. It’s all about how you manage the pain.

We don’t work 52 weeks a year, but we also don’t get many breaks. It’s hard to miss extended time for major surgery unless your player tells you your spot will be there when you return. Knee arthroscopy—“clean and go” as we call it—is probably the most common procedure out here.

Anything else is Advil and ice.

Being in the sun six times a week can wreck your skin if you’re not

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careful. It can also drain your energy, and the more tired you are, the more prone you are to mistakes. But what I realised—almost too late—is that the physical stuff isn’t the hardest part. It’s the psychological hurdle of signing up to be a vagabond.

I’m in a different bed every week.

My first 10 years, I would room with so many caddies that I was lucky to get a bed at all, much less one to myself. That lack of consistency can affect your body and your sleep. Flying isn’t easy; neither are eight-hour road trips. Then there’s the diet. The tournaments do a great job now of providing a healthy spread, but that wasn’t always the case. Used to be a steady rotation of dollar burgers and deli meat. I didn’t complain.

I was in my 20s, but I didn’t really understand what that diet was doing to me.

Financial stress is also a factor. If you aren’t with a top-60 player, you aren’t saving money. That might be OK if you’re single but not if you’re supporting a family. I’d say upward of 120 regular caddies struggle with bills. Also, players outside the top 60 are more prone to slumps and switching caddies. Anyone with tenuous job security knows this can age you faster than a call from the IRS. It wasn’t until I was in my late 30s that I finally stopped looking at missing consecutive cuts as a disaster. We’re also competitors. We want our guys to succeed, and we take their setbacks as hard or even harder. Yes, we’re part of a team, but a lot of what happens is out of our hands, and that doesn’t exactly alleviate our stress.

Back to family. Forget money; it’s difficult to have a strong relationship when you’re away that often.

You don’t want to be the person who wakes up and realises your job cost you love, and trust me, there are plenty of examples out here of that. I’m happily married, but we met late in life, too late to have kids of our own. It is a “what if” that took me some time to come to peace with.

When I was starting out, several vets warned me to pace myself with how I handled myself socially away from the course. People might think the job is all fun, but there aren’t as many laughs working at the course as you might think. We get those off the course, and often it involves sitting around a table with beers.

I have a lifetime of stories because of those nights. When you’re sharing a common area with three other caddies, it’s hard not to have a couple of drinks a night. But if you don’t manage it, it will manage you.

Caddies used to sit and watch their guys warm up on the range.

Now we’re the ones warming up, getting our stretches in. Quality sneakers and ice-gel packs are essential. Arm-guard sleeves look ridiculous, but they keep our arms cool and unburned. The massagetherapy guns help, but nothing is better for your body than a few laps in the hotel pool. The bond we share with each other is also important for airing out complaints and knowing none of us is alone.

After 30 years, my mind and body have a few scars, but I still love it.

The spirit is still there, and I love to compete. I might be bent over at times, but at least I’m still here.

—with joel beall joel@golfdigest.com

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 23

Mind The View from Pebble Beach

Jim Nantz Thirty years later, John Daly and I reflect on his improbable PGA victory ohn daly will always be remembered for being one of the great Cinderella stories in the history of golf. In addition, it’s doubtful we will ever see a two-time major champion who fits the description “a man of the people” more emphatically than J.D. When I caught up with him in April at the Insperity Invitational, where he tied for second, he had a full-length beard that had him looking more like Santa Claus than the raw-boned kid from Arkansas who 30 years ago this summer stunned the world by winning the PGA Championship as the ninth alternate into the field. J.D. is 55 now, and this past year has been a tough one, as he revealed he has been battling bladder cancer. But his colourful demeanor, big game and commitment to helping others remain intact.

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How’s your health? Your bladder cancer diagnosis in September 2020 has a lot of people very concerned about you. We’re

getting there. I’m feeling OK. We caught it early, which is great. I’ve had two rounds of chemo, and the last test shows the cancer at the moment is benign. I go back for testing in October, and if it’s benign at that point, I go back for testing once a year for five years. ●●●

It has been 30 years since that magical week at Crooked Stick and the 1991 PGA Championship. What’s the first thing you think about when it comes to your mind?

I think of the Boys & Girls Club. It’s been 30 years since I became involved with that, and it happened because I won at Crooked Stick. We’ve done great things with that not only in Russellville and Dar-

24 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

●●●

The story of your winning is so rich. It’s one of the great underdog stories in all of sports. Take us back and put us in the middle of it. When did you get the phone call that you had a chance to get in as the ninth alternate? We were in

Memphis, and I had just bought a house in Germantown, Tenn., with my first wife, Bettye. We weren’t married yet. I had just taken out a loan for a BMW. I had made $162,000 on the PGA Tour in 1991 and had secured my card for 1992. Life was good, and I was really happy. Then Nick Price called to tell me his wife, Sue, was ready to have their baby and that he was withdrawing and that I might get to play at Crooked Stick. Nick offered to have his caddie, Squeaky—that’s Jeff Medlin, who passed away in 1997—caddie for me. I was like, “Oh, man, yeah.” We drove 10 hours to Indiana on Wednesday and got in at 1 a.m. on Thursday. The light on my hotel phone was blinking, and I got the news. I had made it into the field. ●●●

▶ long shot Daly went from ninth alternate to major champion at the 1991 PGA. Your game obviously was in very good shape. On my second hole of the first

round, Squeaky looked at me a little surprised and said, “Man, you hit it good.”

He caddied for Nick Price, one of the best ball-strikers ever, so he would know.

I said, “Yeah, and I’m hitting my driver really good.” I was pounding it, and straight, too. Squeaky said there was no trouble on the course I couldn’t carry, and I formed my strategy right there. I told him we were going to hit driver every time, and I did.

The distance you drove the ball got everyone’s attention. From my place in the CBS booth, I remember our commentators raving about your power. It

wasn’t just the driver. On the first par 5 I played, my tee shot left me 202 to the hole. I asked Squeaky, “What would Nick hit here?” Squeaky said, “A cut 4-iron, or a big, hooking 5.” I said, “Give me the 8-iron.” I hit it pin high and Squeaky, in that high voice that gave him his nickname, said, “OK, we’re four clubs longer than Nick. Got it.” I remember club selection being real easy after that. ●●●

PGA TOUR Archive via Getty Images

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danelle in the Arkansas River Valley, but others as well. We’ve poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into them over the years, and they’ve made a difference.

I’m proud of that.

Squeaky said, “OK, we’re four clubs longer than Nick. Got it.”

You followed that opening 69 with a 67 to take a one-shot lead. Do you remember who you played with?

Bob Lohr and Billy Andrade during the first two days—super guys. Bruce Lietzke in the third round. Bruce was an awesome ball striker, a lot shorter than me but a machine. He just didn’t miss fairways. The final round I was paired with Kenny Knox. Bruce was one hole ahead. ●●●

The story quickly became about you, this unknown coming out of nowhere to contend at a major. Did you feel the pressure? I didn’t care. All I knew was that the

fans were loving it, and they were behind me in a huge way. Saturday night, I had to ice my right hand. I had high-fived so many fans going from green to tee and signing autographs, it was killing me. ●●●

You shot 69 in the third round and finished with a 71 to win by three over Lietzke. The scene of you coming up 18, pumping and waving your fist, revving up the fans, is indelible to this day. It

was such a blur. Four days seemed like a minute. It didn’t hit me until I got to Colourado for The International the next week. The crowds outside the clubhouse were packed, waiting for me to come out, and the tournament hadn’t even started.

Only then did I realise that what I’d done at Crooked Stick was a big deal. ●●●

Would you call it the greatest moment of your career? To be honest, winning

the British Open in 1995 at St. Andrews was more special. By then, there was pressure to win again. Life had changed.

The history of St. Andrews and being surrounded by the blue-collar people like me who came out over there really got to me. It was just different than Crooked Stick and harder to do, so big picture it meant more. But I don’t know how you compare these things.

sas and didn’t have much growing up.

I’ve always felt for the little guy out there, kids especially. On Saturday I read the news about the guy dying. I learned he had been on the course watching me and was struck by lightning as he got back to his car to leave. He was 39. It was such a sad thing to read about, especially that he had two young daughters. I guess it stayed with me because I did make that $30,000 gift. Years later, I went back to Indiana to play in Fuzzy Zoeller’s charity tournament and met the family I’d helped. One of the man’s daughters became a doctor and the other became a lawyer, and they have kids of their own.

It made me feel so good, and it’s why I’m involved with charities to this day. ●●●

What is the most misunderstood thing about you? People think I’m a slob, but I

might be the neatest guy on the planet, in an almost OCD way. My shirts have to be hung in order, colour-wise and have to hang a certain way using a particular type of wood hanger oriented in a certain way.

I vacuum and do dishes like a maniac. It drives my girlfriend, Anna, a little nuts. ●●●

Any regrets about your career?

I shouldn’t have chased the money like I did. I’d go overseas and play for three weeks, then fly back and play five in a row in the U.S. I was tired a lot, and I think it kept me from winning more. Fuzzy, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus all warned me about that, but I didn’t listen.

The ironic thing was, I’ve never been obsessed with money. To me it was about winning trophies. But damn, when an appearance fee overseas guarantees you’re going to make triple what you could make here, it’s hard to turn down. ●●●

What does money mean to you today?

Not a damn thing.

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One thing that impressed me at Crooked Stick was what you did when you received the winner’s check for $230,000.

You were far from a rich man at that point in your career, yet you donated $30,000 to the family of a man who had been killed by lightning earlier in the week. Where does your big heart come from? I came from a small town in Arkan-

You have five PGA Tour wins, including two major championships. Should you be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame one day?

26 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

I wish the fans could decide that rather than a committee. If it were up to the fans, I probably would make it in. A committee, I’m not so sure.

▶ recovery road Daly says he doesn’t plan to shave his beard until he has been cancer-free for six months.

Bryson DeChambeau and his pursuit of distance is a big story. What are your thoughts? The way he uses science is

cool, and I can’t help but imagine him and me in my best years having a distance rivalry—a smart kid from California doing it through equipment, nutrition and physical conditioning, and a redneck from Arkansas doing it my natural way. It would have taken the excitement about driving the ball to another level. ●●●

Who’s longer, Bryson or John Daly?

If Bryson were hitting a balata ball and persimmon driver, the John Daly of old would fly it 40 yards past him. On the other hand, if the 1991 version of me were using the modern clubs and balls alongside Bryson, he would fly it 40 by me. See, our swings and technique are different and tailored for the equipment of our time. ●●●

Everyone is pulling for you to get better.

We want the John Daly story to continue for years to come. Months ago, I

started growing a beard and promised I wouldn’t shave it off until I had a clean bill of health. After the test in early April showed the cancer was benign, Anna asked me to shave off the beard. I told her no; we had to wait until the test in October came back clear. So if you see me with a clean face on Halloween, you’ll know it’s all good.

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 27

Mind The Other 90 Percent

28 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

Illustration by Santino Calvo

This isn’t about psychology; it’s about physiology.

Don’t Forget to Breathe It’s the golfer’s best defense against tension by sean foley

rofessional golfers are meticulous about how they treat their bodies.

That’s a good thing—being physically fit, eating right and staying hydrated are crucial if athletes are to perform at their peak. However, far too many golfers at every level essentially ignore the life force of humanity. We’re talking, of course, about breathing. ▶ Breathing is our best defense against the roller coaster of emotions this game wants to take you on. You don’t have to take my word for it. It is backed up by science.

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When you focus on your breathing— say, breathe in on a three-count, hold it for one, then breathe out for five— you saturate your red blood cells with oxygen. When this happens, the primal part of your hardware is tricked into believing that everything is calm and under control. When your breathing hastens, and you don’t have enough oxygen in your red blood cells, your brain begins to detect a threat. This activates your sympathetic nervous system, which regulates your “fight or flight” response.

Let’s apply this to an example on the golf course. Say a player is struggling with his driver. Perhaps he has some internal trauma of having once had the lead down the stretch only to hit driver into the water and lose the tournament. (Every player, and every person, has internal trauma). That memory is stored in the brain, whether the player realises it or not. Now he steps onto the first tee, a long par 4 that calls for driver, but he sees trouble on both sides of the fairway. He might tell himself that he’s thinking about the basketball game the night before, but his subconscious is revisiting that traumatic memory. Here we go again. If he ignores his breathing, it will begin to speed up, and the sympathetic nervous

system will take over.

When the brain detects a threat, there is fear. Though the player might not realise it, his body is now in an agitated state. He will tense up. His hands might begin to sweat. This makes it much harder to make a free swing through the ball. How can a player hit a driver 50 yards right and then, on the next shot, hit it right at his target? That isn’t physical—it’s not even conscious!

If playing great golf was as easy as tapping into the right mind-set or attitude, we would all be able to do it.

There has been so much written about the “mental side” of the game, and we can all read and comprehend this information. You might come to the golf course with great thoughts in your head about staying in the moment, worrying about the process and focusing on the things you are grateful for.

But when you step up to the ball and things start to move quickly, all that stuff goes out the window, and your head goes blank. You just want to get the shot over with, to see where it went.

Not long ago, one of my students on the PGA Tour was upset because all the things we had worked on seemed to disappear the moment he got on the course. I asked him if he could remember breathing at all—even once!—dur-

ing the round, and his face went blank.

This isn’t about psychology; it’s about physiology.

Luckily, we are not powerless when it comes to controlling our subconscious. We have the breath. If you were to measure a PGA Tour player strolling down the fairway, he would probably register around 16 breaths per minute.

But to achieve focused, diaphragmatic breathing—the kind that convinces your brain that everything is OK—you would probably be around six or seven breaths per minute. I tell each one of my students to focus on his or her breathing, and virtually all of them tell me what a tremendous help it is.

One more thing: Slowing down your breathing will not make you lethargic or swing slower. If you watch videos of Usain Bolt, he can be running 25 miles an hour, and yet his jaw is bouncing up and down, completely devoid of tension. He is in control of his breath, and he’s still running faster than any human likely ever has.

The time between shots is the most important period in golf. This is when you have time to focus on your breathing and get control of your physiological response. If you wait until you’re over the ball, it’s too late. —with daniel rapaport IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 29

Dermot Gilleece A different game

a predictable outcome Golf was different 50 years ago but just as competitive and exciting ummer golf, with the relieving of Covid restrictions, conjures glorious images of how our great game should flourish at this time of year. Which got me looking to how things were, 50 years ago, when the money was a lot more modest in the professional game, though enthusiasm remained undimmed and competition was suitably intense at tournament level.

“O’Connor shelves Ryder ambitions” read the headline on a piece in mid-June from my scrapbook of 1971. My information was that Himself hadn’t taken a club in hand since capturing the Guinness Irish Championship at his beloved Galway GC, two weeks previously, and had to be considered doubtful for the biennial clash with the US in St Louis, that September.

After missing the opening three events on the British circuit, he lay 67th in the Order of Merit. The problem had to do with a recurring wrist injury sustained while competing against the Continent of Europe in the Joye Cup at Royal Waterloo, some years previously.

Meanwhile, as a 21-year-old, Paddy McGuirk was finding it difficult to shoulder the burden of being the country’s new professional hope. “The Continental circuit has already cost me £400 and had I not pre-qualified for last month’s Penfold Tournament, I would have packed it in,” he said. “My ambition has always been to succeed as a tournament pro, but if I don’t make it in the next year or two, I will have to shelve the idea.”

Another young player at odds with the world was John O’Leary who was disgusted with a two-under-par 72 in the £10,000 Carrolls International Tournament at Woodbrook. “I didn’t hit a decent shot throughout,” said the typically self-critical 21-year-old. “As an amateur last year, I would have kicked the ball around here in 72.”

Elsewhere in the tournament, 23-year-old Peter Oosterhuis claimed the halfway lead with the help of his first competitive holein-one, from a six-iron tee-shot on the 186yard 13th. A measure of the qualify of the Woodbrook field was that the winner, Neil Coles, was followed home by Oosterhuis, with five-time Open champion, Peter Thomson, placed third and another Open winner, Kel Nagle, fourth.

Having finished down the field at Woodbrook, O’Connor withdrew from the

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John O’Leary

Gallaher Tournament at Malone a week later, raising fresh concerns about his wrist.

Doubts were finally removed, however, by a return to action in the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, though he lacked his customary sparkle, finishing 35th behind Lee Trevino.

On the amateur scene, Roddy Carr was back at Royal Portrush, 12 months after losing a play-off to Johnny Faith for the North of Ireland Championship. This time, Carr had the considerable boost of a recordsetting appearance in the Walker Cup at St Andrews in May, when he took three and a half points out of four in a memorable home triumph.

Still, Portrush failed to deliver for him.

Though he won his second round match to the scream of go-cart engines nearby, defeat came against another local man, Ian Meneely. Ultimate victory, incidentally, went to Robert Pollin who beat Brian Hoey in the final.

By September, news was a lot more heartening from the professional scene. O 'Connor was in line for a ninth success Ryder Cup appearance, while McGuirk carded remarkable figures in the Southern Ireland Championship at Grange. Achieving what many from his craft thought was impossible, the Baltray assistant carded rounds of

67,68,66,68 to win by a crushing 11 strokes from Christy Greene and Paddy Skerritt in a tie for second place.

“I believe this will never be done again,” said Danny O’Brien, captain of the IPGA southern branch. “A par of 68 is ridiculous for such a difficult course.” For McGuirk, it meant a serious overhaul of his feelings for a notoriously tight, parkland stretch.

“Before this happened, I hated Grange,” he said. “There were too many trees around for my liking.” Over his final 36 holes, he carded nine birdies, five bogeys and one double-bogey.

The professional season in Ireland had its customary ending with the Carrolls Matchplay Championship at Tramore. It was a rather curious finale on this occasion, with Englishman, Peter Townsend, beating Scotsman, Iain Clark by one hole for an Irish title.

In his moment of victory, Townsend made no attempt to endear himself to his Irish colleagues. “It was a predictable outcome,” said the current Ryder Cup player, who was then attached to Portmarnock. “Apart from Christy O’Connor, no other player in this field should beat me.”

Which, one imagines, provided sufficient food for thought to see those same colleagues uncomfortably through the winter.

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Ronan MacNamara A funny old game

old habits reared their ugly head What McIlroy can learn from his PGA disappointment olf is a funny old game, one week you could be on top of the world and the next your game is all at sea. No two days are the same for us mere mortals but that also applies for the pros too.

When Rory McIlroy tapped in on 18 to win the Wells Fargo at Quail Hollow many believed he was back and destined to contend at the business end at the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island where he previously romped to an eight-shot win in 2012.

Unfortunately, old habits reared their ugly head for the four-time major winner.

Many will point to another poor opening round and his inability to play the par-5s well, shooting +2 for the four days on the four par-5s and they are right to, both are valid points and it’s entirely a mental issue.

However, I want to cast your mind back to the 16th hole on Friday evening with Rory standing on the tee having played superbly to fight his way back to level par, at which point he was in the tournament then and anything else was bonus territory.

Coincidentally the 16th is also a par-5 and after once again failing to put the ball in play off the tee McIlroy faced a 112-yard wedge shot for his third. Note that his playing partner Brooks Koepka had an extremely difficult shot from 87-yards out in one of the waste areas.

I know it’s important to focus on your own game but surely McIlroy must notice he makes more of these needless unforced errors more often than his playing partners.

Instead of playing fifteen feet right of the pin giving himself a birdie chance but most importantly guaranteeing a par, Rory opts to play a fiddley wedge shot into the wind which he completely misjudges and misses the green long. Koepka does the sensible thing and hits his wedge shot 15 feet right of the pin and was unlucky to see his birdie putt turn its nose up at the hole.

McIlroy made a bogey six and then stumbled his way home with further dropped shots on 17 and 18 thus ending any hopes he had of igniting his bid for a fifth major title over the weekend. His demise mirrored his efforts at The Masters in November where a resurgent McIlroy attacked Augusta after an opening round 75, but when it appeared he had dragged himself back into the fringes of contention

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dropped shots would blot his card.

When McIlroy was at his swashbuckling best, the depth of quality behind him wasn’t there. These days any mistake he makes is punished by the quality of field he is competing against. He is no longer the standout talent on tour he has Koepka, Thomas, Rahm, Hovland, DeChambeau and others of that ilk to contend with. If anything, the contrast in performances at Kiawah in 2012 and last month showed how

the chasing pack have caught up with Rory which brings its own pressures as winning has become increasingly difficult in recent years. Does his ‘B’ game beat the top players’ ‘A’ game? Not currently.

For me, the par-5s, the opening rounds and the overall silly mistakes mould themselves into the one problem. I believe Rory was increasingly tense when he was on the par-5s, trying too hard to make a birdie.

I am hopeful he has spent time with Bob Rotella on this issue heading to the US Open at Torrey Pines. Winning majors may be a while away yet, another PGA Tour win in a high-quality field and doing himself justice in a major championship would be another step in the right direction for Rory McIlroy.

Surely McIlroy must notice he makes more of these needless unforced errors

by RON KASPRISKE photographs by WALTER IOOSS JR.

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Photograph by First Lastname

THE

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2

2

A +B = C

OF

JORDAN

F=ma

HE WANTED A CONFIDENT, RELIABLE SWING. HE FOUND IT IN A CLEVER WAY Photograph by First Lastname

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING MAGAZINE issue x . 2021GOLF digest 35x | golf

ATHLETIC FROM THE START Among the improvements Jordan Spieth and his coach, Cameron McCormick, have worked on is to get Spieth in a more athletic setup. A deeper hip hinge at address (right) puts him in position to make a more dynamic swing.

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Photograph by First Lastname

IF

to the moment of truth, the strike, and worked backward. Spieth is now in a place where he’s “giving himself permission to go after the ball,” McCormick says, and he has returned to predominantly hitting a “bullet cut,” meaning a lowerflying drive that starts a little left and works back to the right and rolls out once it lands.

Spieth is not chasing yards. He’s keeping his tee shots in play and relying on his irons and short game to challenge the field regularly since finishing tied for fourth in the Waste Management Phoenix Open in February. Spieth ranked in the top 25 in strokes gained/approach the green and top 15 in putting average on tour through April.

The key is that at the top of the swing, Spieth senses the club is in great position to create the feel he wants through impact. “He’s swinging much more like he did when he first came out on tour,” McCormick says.

Specifically, Spieth takes the club back on a steeper angle than he returns it to the ball. He doesn’t roll his forearms clockwise through the middle of the backswing, and the butt end of the

A GRIP THAT WORKS BETTER FOR HIS BALL FLIGHT Since recovering from a painful injury to his left hand, Spieth has been able to strengthen the orientation of his hands on the club so the right palm is turned slightly more under the shaft (below). This gives him better control of the clubface, so he doesn’t lose many shots to the right.

If social distancing during the pandemic has revealed anything noteworthy about how PGA Tour pros go about their business, it might be just how much thought Jordan Spieth puts into every shot he hits. Without large galleries to muffle what is said inside tournament ropes, Spieth’s conversations with his caddie, Michael Greller, have been a fascinating peek inside the mind of one of the game’s most thoughtful and determined players.

“He’s worked very hard over a long period to get his swing to where, when he takes the club back, he’s only got a picture in his mind about the ball flight he’s trying to create. That’s what he’s talking [to Michael] about,” says his longtime coach, Cameron McCormick. “His swing is now jelling with what he sees. There’s no conflict.”

A victory (the Valero Texas Open) and four other top-four finishes in a stretch of eight events earlier in 2021 speak to the resurgence of Spieth and the golf swing that won three majors.

McCormick says that Jordan 3.0 is a blend of what he did right earlier in his career and some new wrinkles—and how he arrived at this point is what’s really interesting.

“We reverse-engineered the swing changes starting with creating a good feel at impact and then building the rest around that,” McCormick says. “We recognised that if he started feeling better about impact, then pre-impact, then transition, the jigsaw-puzzle pieces fit together really well. Make sense?”

It does, but that’s not typically the way elite golfers go about improving. Diagnostics usually follow the sequence of the swing, starting at address. But Spieth and McCormick went directly

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THE MOVE SPIETH CAN ’T WAIT TO MAKE Spieth takes the club back with the shaft in a more vertical position as he reaches the top but then lets it flatten during the transition to the downswing (left). From a feel standpoint, this “laying down” of the shaft mentally gives him the green light to go after the ball aggressively.

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Photograph by First Lastname

shaft points inside his target line as he approaches the top. But in transition, things dramatically change. As Spieth begins to unwind aggressively starting with hip rotation, the shaft flattens with the butt end now pointing at the ball or even outside the target line. From there, Spieth knows he can just turn hard and produce the ball flight he sees in his mind during those in-depth conversations with Greller.

If you want to know what that move feels like, Spieth and McCormick talk about the club going from “light to heavy.” It’s light as Spieth takes the club back, by virtue of the shaft being more vertical in orientation. But when Spieth transitions into the downswing, the club starts to feel heavy in his right hand, because the shaft is lying down or flattening.

“That’s what some people call the slot or the hitting position,” McCormick says. “The earlier he can set that hitting position, the better he feels about it. It’s funny, but when he won at Valero and finished third at Augusta, he actually

got to the point where he was setting it up way too early. He couldn’t wait to get there.”

Overcooking a great swing feel aside, Spieth is mostly doing everything right with his full swing these days, McCormick says. He’s gripping the club slightly stronger after recovering from a hand injury that forced him to hold the club in a weaker position in recent years. That weak grip helped contribute to his predominant miss right of the target. He’s also standing more athletically over the ball (a deeper hip hinge), McCormick says. And when he swings through the impact zone and gets into the follow-through, it’s a result of good body turn and a feeling of passive hands.

He can still hit a draw and get some extra distance when he needs it, but it’s not something Spieth looks to do often.

“With his covered cut, you’d expect he’d lose some carry distance because he’s launching the ball lower,” McCormick says. “But honestly, so what, he’s still hitting it around 300 yards and control trumps distance.”

GOOD ROTATION IS KEY Spieth isn’t trying to guide the clubhead into the ball with his hands.

Instead, impact is a result of good body rotation toward the target in the throughswing (above). He gets the club in the position he wants at the top of the swing and then it’s turn, turn, turn.

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DRIVE

Finish What You Started A simple way to stop steering it

BLAST

PUTT THREE WAYS TO RAISE YOUR GAME

by JORDAN SPIETH

confidence comes when you’re looking forward to what happens next, not thinking about what came before. To get some of that in your game this summer, I’m going to help you with three important shots— off the tee with the driver, from a basic greenside bunker and on the green.

When you have more control over the clubface, a better impact point in the sand and a clear visual of the best line for your putts, you’re going to shoot lower scores.

Let’s start with your tee game. If you want to keep your drives in play, focus on the position of your lead wrist at impact.

You can see here (left) that the back of mine is flat and facing my target. If you wear a watch, think about rotating it in the downswing until the face is pointing at the target as the club meets the ball. Do that, and I promise you’ll straighten the curve in your drives.

Turn the page for my advice on bunkers and putting.

—with matthew rudy

CLIP THE SAND CLOSER TO THE BALL Taking classic advice to the extreme, a lot of amateurs strike the sand a few inches behind the ball and end up hitting weak bunker shots with no spin. My contact point is about an inch behind the ball, which gets it to launch and spin much better. It’s just like hitting a flop shot out of the rough. Try this: Draw a line in a practice bunker and make swings where you enter the sand right in front of it. Then graduate to hitting shots still focusing on that line—real or imaginary. You’ll soon groove the proper contact point and be able to treat bunker shots like opportunities instead of penalties.

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Photographs by Walter Iooss Jr. and Ben Walton

OBSESS ON THE ROLL, NOT YOUR PUTTING STROKE With putting, the place you should spend most of your attention is on improving the connection between what you see and what your stroke makes the ball do. Set up a practice station where you determine the ideal combination of line and speed for a breaking putt, and then make a gate with two tees at the apex of the break.

Your job is to roll the ball through the gate on its way to the hole—which gets you visualising the entire path of the ball, not just some vague aiming spot. Be sure to vary the putts (and the width of the gate). This type of practice makes your routine more focused on seeing the roll, instead of obsessing about the stroke. For me, that’s an important key to making clutch putts late in tournaments.

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practice You can improve the quality of your short-game shots with two drills that Reed does. ●●●

The first is trying to return the golf shaft at impact to its orientation at address—which is key to avoid flubbing these finesse shots. “If I’ve got the shaft leaning 10 degrees toward the target at address, I want 10 degrees of shaft lean as I meet the ball,” he says.

A great visual aid is to stick an alignment rod into the ground next to your ball (right), and make rehearsal swings or hit shots trying to copy the angle of that rod with your shaft at impact. “Experiment with trying to match various alignment rod and shaft angles to see how the ball’s trajectory changes,” Reed says. “Just remember to always set up with your sternum ahead of it.” ●●●

The second drill improves body rotation and trains the correct upward movement of the right hand through impact, Reed says. You might have seen golfers practice hitting chips and pitches one-handed to help feel how the club should glide along the turf as it strikes the ball.

“But it’s not an arm-only drill,” Reed says. “You want to rotate your body toward the target as you swing the club down and through with your right hand (right). To remind you, put your left hand on your sternum and make one-handed swings—or even hit shots—really focusing on body turn. This allows the club to skim the grass and pop the ball up with minimal wrist action until after impact. Note how the clubface is still skyward in the follow-through.

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WORK ON TRAJECTORY “From each spot in a short-game area, I’ll hit three different shots, paying attention to what the ball does,” Reed says. “I’ll hit one low, one medium and one high, and then move on to another spot. This really improves ball control.”

gutter credit tk

CONTROL DISTANCE WITH YOUR BRAIN “When it comes to landing the ball where you want, a lot of it comes from feel,” Reed says.

“I’ll make two or three practice swings behind the ball getting my body in tune for how big a swing I’ll need to make.

Then it’s just a matter of stepping in and recreating that swing.”

Photograph by First Lastname

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BY DEREK DUNCAN PHOTOGRAPHS BY J.D. CUBAN

T H E U . S . O P E N AT T O R R E Y P I N E S R E P R E S E N T S T H E 46 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

THE LAST STAND OF

END OF A DESIGN ERA IN MAJOR-CHAMPIONSHIP GOLF IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 47

IGER WOODS double fistpumped and howled to the sky amid delirious screams of a rapturous gallery. He had just rolled in a birdie putt to tie for the lead on the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open, and for several minutes in June 2008, the 18th green of the South course at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, Calif., was the blinding but bittersweet centre of the sports universe.

Though it would not become official until the next day after a 19-hole playoff with an unblinking Rocco Mediate, the 2008 U.S. Open was the Emperor’s most emphatic conquest. Woods’ 14th major title (and sixth since 2005) seemed like the latest inevitable step toward an unprecedented 19 majorchampionship trophies. But Woods played through pain on a severely damaged leg that afterward required surgery. Eleven years would pass before he would win another major, the 2019 Masters at 43. No one could have predicted it in 2008, but that moment at Torrey has increasingly represented glorious victory presaging the collapsing twilight of one of golf ’s greatest major-championship epochs.

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The return of the U.S. Open to the South course at Torrey Pines in June marks the twilight of another significant era in major-championship golf: 2021 is likely to be the final time a men’s major championship is contested on a golf course prepared by architect Rees Jones, who remodeled Torrey Pines in 2001 and renovated it again in 2019 ahead of this year’s event.

During the past 33 years, Jones has modified 12 courses for the U.S. Open and PGA Championship, covering 22 tournaments and four Ryder Cups. No other living architect has come close to matching his widespread association with major-championship golf or the influence on how these competitions look and play. Every design decision— fairway widths and orientations, tee adjustments, putting-surface expansion and contour, tree removal, bunker locations and depths—plays a role in determining how tournaments unfold and who is most capable of contending. Jones’ architecture has impacted the fortunes of a generation of majorchampionship winners with a mirror dimension of also-rans and what-ifs.

However, the U.S. Open and PGA Championship will travel in new directions beginning in 2022, ones not likely—at least as it appears—to include the name or imprint of Rees Jones.

If Torrey Pines ends up being the last

jones style The 223-yard 16th (right) plays to a green set on a promontory. Previous pages: The 387-yard second features deep bunkers and a perched green.

stress test Drives will have to carry a new fairway bunker at the 449yard par-4 10th hole for the best angle to right-side flags.

time Jones’ design ideas are presented in a men’s major, it’s for several reasons.

The first is that for most of the next decade the USGA and the PGA of America are moving their tournaments beyond his consultation—the announced U.S. Open lineup indicates the USGA is refining its footprint, settling on a market-driven East Coast-West Coast rotation that includes Winged Foot, Shinnecock Hills, Oakmont, Pinehurst No. 2, Pebble Beach and to-bedetermined California-based courses.

The PGA of America is venturing more widely but to sites it has visited this century, mixing in several additional venues like Aronimink Golf Club near Philadelphia (2026) and PGA Frisco, a

Gil Hanse design being built at the new PGA headquarters in Frisco, Texas, (2027 and 2034). The first vacant dates aren’t until 2028 for the U.S. Open and 2030 for the PGA Championship.

More significantly, an increasing number of core-championship courses have embraced contemporary architectural trends at odds with Jones’ modernist style, restoring their designs to the more natural, organic appearances of their early years. Looking toward the future, clubs are turning back to their past. Baltusrol’s Lower course (site of the 2029 PGA Championship) and Congressional’s Blue course (the 2031 PGA), two clubs Jones had remodeled in preparation for previous PGAs and

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cliffhanger The beauty of Torrey Pines belies its difficultly, like the daunting 486-yard par-4 fourth along the Pacific.

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trouble all around Neither long nor short is a good miss at the 195-yard par-3 third.

U.S. Opens, have each undergone substantive redesigns during the past 18 months based on the historical interpretations of Hanse and Andrew Green, respectively, rather than Jones.

The program changes are important because course architecture does affect tournament outcomes. If the players are the actors in major-championship theater, and the governing bodies are directors capable of manipulating drama via site selection and course 52 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

setup, architects are set designers who construct the stage and scenery against which the characters strain. Years before Woods sank the famed birdie putt, Torrey Pines was a beloved but scruffy public course with scenery that overwhelmed the quality of the golf. Jones completely remade the 1957 William F. Bell design for the Open, adding length and fairway hazards, rebuilding every putting surface and shifting several greens, like the third, fourth and 14th,

closer to the property’s canyon edges.

The green pads were propped like pedestals with deep, bracketing bunkers recessed into their bases.

Jones extended the championship tees at the par-5 18th 75 yards and installed two bunkers in the left rough.

An existing bunker farther down the fairway on the left was adjusted and expanded toward the tee. This is the bunker Woods drove into during the final round; had it not been modified,

his tee shot likely would have settled in the rough. Without a raised bunker face near his ball, it’s not certain Woods would have laid up for position like he did; he might have gone for the green in two to increase the likelihood of making the birdie he needed to tie, a choice that would have brought the pond fronting the green (also enlarged by Jones) into play. Without Jones’ modifications, the 72nd hole—and the entire tournament— would have set up differently.

The most obvious alterations made for this year’s Open include the reconstruction of the long northward running par-4 fourth. The fairway was widened as far as possible toward the left-side cliff overlooking the ocean and Torrey Pines State Natural Preserve, though the rolled edge of land, rather than forming a hard precipice, means the hole can only get so close to the drop off. The fairway bunkers on the par-4 10th are now staggered

to create short and long landing areas requiring a risk assessment from the tee. Jones added two carry bunkers to the left of the driving zone at the cross-canyon par-5 13th and built a new tournament tee on the par-4 17th, creating an angle that now brings the steep ravine on the left more into play.

Bunkers throughout the course were reconstructed and adjusted, pulling them flush to the mowing lines, allowing the USGA to bleed fairways into

what’s your line? The new tee at the 440-yard 17th brings the steep ravine into play.

them, and the championship tees now max out at 7,652 yards.

Jones believes these amendments make an already respected tournament course even stronger. “Torrey Pines has proven to be a championship test that the players like,” he says. “It’s a course that fits their eye, but it’s a test. The greens will hold their shots, but there are hazards around the greens and places you can’t miss it. Yet it’s still recoverable.” With few true doglegs, most of the holes set up to receive straight drives, or drives cut or drawn off flanking bunkers. The elevated greens, typically featuring some orientation of back-to-front slope, offer visibility and relatively level hole locations separated by tiers or steps.

Says Greg Muirhead, senior designer who joined Jones’ architectural firm in 1984, “Our concept has always been ‘greens within greens,’ where if you hit a really good approach shot, you’ll have a relatively level putt, but if you miss that spot, you’ll have to come over some contour. We’ve never really done fall-away greens or a lot of false fronts.

We try to make the greens a reasonable size and receptive.”

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JONES’ ARCHITECTURE HAS IMPACTED THE FORTUNES OF A GENERATION OF MAJOR-CHAMPIONSHIP WINNERS. outlines, elevated green platforms and the ability to recover—have categorized much of the Jones approach to course design and major-championship golf. The architecture engages in a social contract with the player—it’s not there to trick but to enforce, with an offer of fair treatment for expertly executed shots.

“The pros can score well at Torrey,” Jones says. “It’s going to be their own fault if they don’t achieve their goal.”

His bunkering, as found at places like Torrey Pines or Bellerive, is edged with clean, artistic lines that curve and play with height and depth, suggesting a beaux-art formality. This sense of composure and tradition, and an almost self-conscious commitment

to the proportionality between crime and punishment, runs through most of his tournament courses. “In my career the most important thing has probably been to make sure a recovery shot can be achieved and not to over-penalise a slightly errant shot,” he says. “That’s what the players most criticise.”

David Fay, USGA executive director from 1987 to 2010, worked closely with Jones on numerous remodel projects, including overseeing the reconstruction of the greens at Pinehurst No. 2 in preparation for the 1999 U.S. Open, based on specs taken from the 1962 U.S. Amateur. (Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw have overseen the most recent alterations of the No. 2 course.)

“Rees was governed, in my opinion, by the old outline of what a championship course should be,” Fay says, adding that it’s a view Rees inherited from his father, Robert Trent Jones, who gained the nickname “The Open Doctor” for his famous (some would say infamous) alterations of courses like Oakland Hills, Baltusrol Lower and Firestone Country Club for major events. (Rees inherited the Open Doctor nickname, too.) It’s an outlook, espoused by executive doyens like Richard Tufts, Joseph Dey, Sandy Tatum and P.J. Boatwright

keeping up with jones u.s. open and pga winners and runners-up on courses remodeled by rees jones *Parenthesis indicates World Ranking at time of the event

u.s. open

from the 1950s through the ’80s, that places a premium on accurate driving to narrow fairways, the use of trees and rough, fast and firm greens, and insistence that there should be a penalty for wayward shots. In Jones’ case the penalty should be firm but never absurd.

Fay says Jones was faithful to the notion that the championship course should be a stern challenge that yielded only to excellence. “I felt that way, too,” Fay says. “I thought that once a year I wanted these guys to feel like they’ve been in a fistfight. I want to knock them out of their comfort level. It’s what Sandy Tatum said: ‘We’re not trying to embarrass the greatest players; we’re trying to identify them.’ But I think his thought-cloud, that he never actually uttered, would be, But if we embarrass them a little bit, that’s OK, too.”

Jones first collaborated with The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., to bolster its defenses for the 1988 U.S. Open. Using vintage photographs from the early 1900s, he helped reestablish the club’s foundational turn-of-thecentury aesthetic. Many designers view it as the profession’s first historical restoration. Curtis Strange defeated Nick Faldo in an 18-hole playoff, and the tournament’s popularity prompted other clubs to hire Jones to oversee their modifications. A significant number of jobs involved remodeling his father’s work. Hazeltine National, Baltusrol and Oakland Hills called. At Congressional, Jones rebuilt much of 56 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

the Blue course for the 1997 Open, regrading fairways to open up sightlines and remove blind tee shots. After walking a decrepit Bethpage Black in the mid-1990s with Fay, who spearheaded the organisation’s push to bring the Open there and to other public facilities like Torrey Pines, Jones agreed to rebuild the course for no charge (the USGA provided the construction fund).

Once considered among the country’s great courses, the Black had fallen into disrepair and off of this magazine’s ranking of America’s 100 Greatest Golf Courses. After the renovation and the 2002 Open, the Black returned to the list where it currently resides at No. 40.

Though he can’t claim credit for creating the theaters themselves (that belongs to A.W. Tillinghast, Donald Ross and others, even his father), Jones’ set pieces usually allowed the skills of the best players of the moment to radiate.

The stages he prepared “fit the eye,” as he puts it, and made it possible for professional players to visualise different shots while dropping sand bags on errant contestants. More often than not the architecture melded with the temperament of tour pros, who want to know the exact lay of the land, what is being asked of them on any given swing and to trust there will be no gimmickry or unexpected surprises on the other side.

At Congressional in 1997, three players—Ernie Els, Colin Montgomerie and Tom Lehman, ranked seven, six and

The Country Club / 1988 Curtis Strange (5), Nick Faldo (12) Hazeltine National G.C. / 1991 Payne Stewart (7), Scott Simpson (60) Baltusrol (Lower) / 1993 Lee Janzen (41), Payne Stewart (16) Congressional C.C. (Blue) / 1997 Ernie Els (7), Colin Montgomerie (6) Pinehurst (No. 2) / 1999 Payne Stewart (13), Phil Mickelson (11) Bethpage State Park (Black) / 2002 Tiger Woods (1), Phil Mickelson (2) Pinehurst No. 2 / 2005 Michael Campbell (80), Tiger Woods (1) Torrey Pines G. Cse. (South) / 2008 Tiger Woods (1), Rocco Mediate (158) Bethpage State Park (Black) / 2009 Lucas Glover (71), Ricky Barnes (NR), David Duval (NR), Phil Mickelson (2) Congressional C.C. (Blue) / 2011 Rory McIlroy (7), Jason Day (19) Torrey Pines G. Cse. (South) / 2021 To be determined

pga championship Sahalee C.C. / 1998 Vijay Singh (16), Steve Stricker (45) Atlanta Athletic Club (Highlands) / 2001 David Toms (19), Phil Mickelson (2) Hazeltine National G.C. / 2002 Rich Beem (73), Tiger Woods (1) Baltusrol (Lower) / 2005 Phil Mickelson (4), Thomas Bjørn (31), Steve Elkington (129) Medinah C.C. (No. 3) / 2006 Tiger Woods (1), Shaun Micheel (NR) Oakland Hills C.C. (South) / 2008 Padraig Harrington (3), Ben Curtis (77), Sergio Garcia (6) Hazeltine National G.C. / 2009 Y.E. Yang (110), Tiger Woods (1) Atlanta Athletic Club (Highlands) / 2011 Keegan Bradley (115), Jason Dufner (78) Baltusrol (Lower) / 2016 Jimmy Walker (48), Jason Day (1) Bellerive C.C. / 2018 Brooks Koepka (4), Tiger Woods (50) Bethpage State Park (Black) / 2019 Brooks Koepka (3), Dustin Johnson (1)

jones: Peter Gregoire

send it The reachable 568-yard par-5 18th should provide lategame theatrics.

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tempting In 2008, the USGA moved up the tees to make the par-4 14th a drivable hole, but this time the hole will likely play at its full 434 yards.

three in the world—battled down to the end. Woods and Phil Mickelson, ranked one and two at the time, finished in those same positions at Bethpage in 2002. The 2019 PGA at Bethpage came down to the No. 3 player, Brooks Koepka, holding off Dustin Johnson, the No. 1 player.

“I think my legacy is that I helped crown the proper champions,” Jones says. “Tiger Woods won a lot on courses I re-did. Bethpage and Torrey Pines are probably the ones that we transitioned most to bring the championship game into a public arena, and Tiger won on both of those. East Lake, too—Tiger sure made it look good [in 2018].”

Though there’s nothing currently scheduled, it’s not a given that Torrey Pines will be the Open Doctor’s last house call. Once Bethpage and Hazeltine National host the Ryder Cup in 2025 and 2029, they will likely re-enter the pool of courses to be considered for future majors. West Coast venues 58 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

EVERY DESIGN DECISION PLAYS A ROLE IN HOW TOURNAMENTS UNFOLD AND WHO MIGHT CONTEND. will also be prioritised, and if Torrey Pines can replicate the kind of bittersweet magic it did in 2008, it could be awarded an upcoming date. Then again, even if Torrey Pines, Bethpage or Hazeltine are extended a major, another decade might pass in the interim, giving each time to pursue other architectural directions.

Speaking of bittersweet, an ironic coda to the Rees Jones era is that the

architect who introduced the practice of historical restoration at Brookline seems to have been displaced by a movement of restoration, at least as it pertains to major championships.

A little more than a decade ago, Hanse restored the North course at Los Angeles Country Club, bringing back the George Thomas elements from the 1920s that had been gradually modified out of recognition. The impressive reveal—which included tree removal and tee lengthening—helped earn it the 2023 U.S. Open. Around the same time, Hanse was consulting with The Country Club, implementing adjustments that helped the course land next year’s Open, the first since 1988. In addition to these two U.S. Open venues, Hanse will be the architect of record for six of the next 10 announced PGA Championship destinations, including Southern Hills in Tulsa (2022), Aronimink, PGA Frisco (twice), The Olympic

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twilight round The sun appears to be setting on an era of major-championship remodels.

Club Lake course in San Francisco (2028) and Baltusrol Lower. His work at these courses, with the exception of the newly developed PGA Frisco complex, involves reestablishing the design concepts of the original architects, just as he did for Winged Foot’s West course before the 2020 Open.

“If you’re on a roll, it tends to keep going,” Jones says. “That’s what’s happening with Gil. People like working with him.” Jones has been there, too.

Two other future PGA Championship sites have received similar treatment by course builder Andrew Green. After its East course was awarded the 2023 PGA, Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y., hired Green to overhaul its design to reestablish the lost 1925 Donald Ross character. Green’s renovation of Congressional is even more radical, essentially a new build that reimagines the entire property as a pre-treed, Golden Age throwback. Other storied tournament locations like Inverness Club in Toledo (Green) and Oakland Hills’ South course (Hanse) have likewise strengthened their position for upcoming events through full-throttle restorations back to their original Ross foundations, and Medinah Country Club near Chicago recently 60 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

CHAMPIONSHIP COURSES HAVE EMBRACED THE MORE NATURAL, ORGANIC APPEARANCES OF THEIR EARLY YEARS. hired the Australian firm of Ogilvy, Cocking and Mead to develop a comprehensive master plan for changes to its No. 3 course, inspired by features from its past.

The 2020s are the new 1920s, and players who contend for Open and PGA titles in the next decade will do so under changed major-championship paradigms. The restored, originalist principles of many of the upcoming venues—including wider fairways, an absence of trees as hazards, more expressive green contours (possibly necessitating slower speeds), bunkers that shade more toward the penal than the benign, the occasional random bounce and generally more hide-and-seek than “fits the eye”—represent modes of de-

sign that seek to promote varied shots above punishing purely poor ones. How players adapt to the new looks and demands of these clubs will determine the next roster of greatness.

Then again, the greatest players have always proved they can win anywhere. Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer required no special setups.

Woods has won at Augusta National, Pebble Beach, St. Andrews, and played exquisitely at Royal Melbourne in Australia—all courses that demand power, finesse and creativity. He has also won at muscular point-to-point designs like Medinah and Bethpage. The latter style is what we can expect from Torrey this year, where thick rough and bunkers positioned to defend each landing area will mandate contenders drive the ball powerfully and straight and be able to recover from deep traps around the greens, all in accordance with the traditional Open dictums espoused by Dey, Tatum, Fay and even Jones. It will be a physical, nail-biting grind topped-off with a reachable par 5 at the finish capable of providing lategame explosions of drama. If this is the end of the Jones era, it’s likely to go out with a bang.

ACCURACY O

KEY FOR MCILROY AND L

By Ronan MacNamarra

The US Open heads to Torrey Pines this week for the first time since Tiger Woods famously beat Rocco Mediate in the first hole of sudden-death following an 18-hole playoff in one of the most dramatic finishes in US Open history. It is a US Open better remembered for Woods’ putt on 18 in regulation time to force a playoff with Mediate where the cameras cut to Mediate watching on from the scoring hut saying, ‘I knew he’d make it.’

F

ast forward thirteen years and the South Course will be primed and in pristine condition for another gruelling test.

This course already hosts the Farmers Insurance Open, offering a much different test in the winter conditions. The course has undergone more than $12 million of work by Rees Jones and Greg Muirhead. Still, the changes have not been overwhelming and a similar test should be in store to what was presented in 2008.

Of the standout changes, the par-4 10th hole has been lengthened with the addition of a fairway bunker, bunkers have been

62 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

added down the left side of the par-5 13th while run off areas have been installed on the seventh, ninth and fifteenth holes with the latter being lengthened by 35 yards. Such is the ability of the longer hitters to make fairway bunkers redundant, some have been moved in order to come into play for the bombers.

Firm and fast conditions are expected at Torrey with the course at the mercy of the USGA who have free rule to do what they see fit to the layout and then it’s up to mother nature to rule the roost.

It is a big week for the much-maligned USGA who have been accused of losing control of the golf course at previous US Opens

OFF THE TEE

LOWRY AT TORREY PINES – notably 2015 at Chambers Bay and 2018 at Shinnecock Hills. The pressure is on them particularly since the PGA put on a stunning show at TPC Harding Park and then Kiawah Island last month.

The standout features of a firm and fast Torrey Pines will be the heavy and lush kikuyu rough while the greens will be firmer with volatile first bounces to be expected putting a premium on higher hitting iron players.

USGA senior director of championships, John Bodenhamer is aiming to create a traditional US Open test which we saw at Pebble Beach and at Winged Foot, putting a premium on accuracy off the tee to avoid the punishing kikuyu rough.

Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry will carry Irish hopes while Pádraig Harrington didn’t earn a spot after his T-4th finish at the PGA Championship last month, contrary to reports. Graeme McDowell’s 10-year exemption at the US Open expired last month, the 2010 winner has not qualified for Torrey Pines having withdrawn from qualifying when a rain delay left him under pressure to make it to the Charles Schwab at Colonial – where he missed the cut.

Despite winning at Quail Hollow, McIlroy’s driving was quite poor while other facets of his game dragged him to victory. His driving was shown up at Kiawah Island where he flattered to

“ the greens will be firmer with volatile first bounces to be expected” deceive in a major championship yet again. The 2011 US Open champion has had two top-5 finishes around Torrey Pines in the Farmers Insurance Open – not a great form guide given the contrasting weather conditions but with his driving he can take to a US Open style Torrey like a duck to water.

McIlroy’s project with Pete Cowen would have been specifically geared towards the majors. The four-time major winner needs to eradicate the unforced errors that he made at Kiawah Island if he is to feature at the business end this week. The Holywood native is 6th in strokes gained off the tee and 13th in strokes gained tee to green, which are the two key categories heading into any US Open. Rory has seen a marked improvement in his approach play

which has seen him rise to a respectable 40th in the strokes gained category.

A victory at Torrey Pines would be a bonus for McIlroy in his journey with Pete Cowen and Bob Rotella, after all he has yet to really put himself in contention on a Sunday in a major since Patrick Reed won the Masters in 2018.

Shane Lowry has enjoyed a good spell with his best finish at Augusta National sandwiched between three top-10s at The Players, RBC Heritage and the PGA Championship. Lowry has used the big events to bolster his ever-brightening Ryder Cup hopes and has the Memorial Tournament hosted by Jack Nicklaus at Muirfield Village to continue his resurgence before Torrey Pines.

The Open champion has been left to rue inconsistency on the greens, preventing him from seriously contending at the business end of The Masters and the PGA Championship. The Clara native is 143rd in strokes gained putting while ranking in the top 48 in every other category including 22nd tee to green. Lowry has got pedigree in the US Open, he was the 54-hole leader at Oakmont in 2016 before he was pipped to the post by Dustin Johnson.

Lowry spoke recently about how he relishes the big stage he revels in the atmosphere of a major championship and other big events – proven by his Open Championship win in 2019 and WGC Bridgestone Invitational win in 2015.

“I don't know what it is, but I just love major championships. I just love big weeks. I love the atmosphere.”

The firm and fiery conditions will suit Lowry who has form around links courses and the addition of run off areas will create a Kiawah-like feel to Torrey Pines. A win doesn’t seem too far away for the Florida resident whether it arrives at the Memorial or at the US Open remains to be seen but a strong finish this week could see him overtake Frenchman Victor Perez in the Ryder Cup world points list.

Contrary to reports, three-time major champion Pádraig Harrington did not secure a place in the field at Torrey Pines after he finished in a share of fourth place alongside Lowry at the PGA Championship.

The European Ryder Cup captain stated in his post PGA review on his Twitter page that he still had work to do to secure a spot at the US Open.

“Unfortunately, that did not qualify me for the US Open, I still have Jack’s event in Muirfield Village, then I’ve got the Congaree event and in between those I’ve got US Open qualifying.”

Harrington also mentioned in his video that his game is in good enough shape to stand the test of a big challenging golf course this week. The Dubliner ranked 10th in strokes gained off the tee and 8th in strokes gained tee to green. The layout at Kiawah brought all the shot makers and aristocrats around the greens to the top and the run-off areas shouldn’t faze Harrington who was 4th in strokes gained around the greens at the PGA. If he can wrestle his way into the field, Harrington buoyed by his own game and Mickelson’s historic major win could surprise a few.

Phil Mickelson defied all the odds to become the oldest major champion in history when he held off Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen at the PGA.

64 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

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Leftie had already been granted an exemption to the US Open. Now he has a five-year exemption, his grand slam bid has been reignited.

Phil has not contended at a US Open since Justin Rose edged to victory at Merrion in 2013 and has not finished inside the top-40 since 2014. The six-time major winner has six runner-up finishes in US Opens but the modern-day US Open golf course is no longer in his wheelhouse. Despite his improved driving at Kiawah Island the ‘who can hit it the furthest’ set up will be tough for him to keep up with the likes of Bryson DeChambeau, Gary Woodland and Brooks Koepka who have won the last four US Opens combined.

Dustin Johnson has endured a quiet 2021 so far with 8th place at the Genesis Invitational his best finish since the turn of the year. The 2016 US Open champion can’t be ruled out, his game is ideally suited to the South Course and he is one of those players who can turn it on in a heartbeat, let’s not forget he won The Masters in No-

vember so it’s not like his form is terrible!

Defending champion Bryson DeChambeau must be licking his lips both after a protein shake and at how the course will be set up. Bryson generated a lot of coverage for his ‘bomb and gouge’ gameplan which saw him conquer Winged Foot in 2020. His short game was equally impressive and it gets lost in all the media hype about his scientific methods and bombing drives but Bryson possesses all the shots and has an incredible ability to hole a putt when his back is against the wall. His driving is quite poor, but his length will give him an advantage out of the penal kikuyu rough.

Brooks Koepka is clearly still struggling with a knee injury as golf fans still come to terms with his unique green reading stance. The four-time major champion

Shane Lowry has enjoyed a good spell with his best finish at Augusta National

66 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

won’t be at 100% at Torrey Pines but he can adopt an Adam Scott approach to tailor his game for the majors. Nobody would say no to a Byrson and Brooks Sunday shootout!

Jon Rahm and Victor Hovland flattered to deceive at the PGA, but they will headline the European hopes alongside 2013 champion Justin Rose who has a stellar record around Torrey Pines, including a win at the 2019 Farmers Insurance Open.

The USGA have a duty to make a tough course easy, not make an easy course tough. Torrey proved its mettle in 2008 and with a similar layout expected they should let the golf course do the talking, if they do that, the 2021 US Open shall be remembered for all the right reasons.

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2021 RANKED

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THE PROCESS The Golf Digest Top 100 Ranked Golf Courses has been established since 2006 and is the industry standard for all Irish golf courses on the island of Ireland.

Each year Golf Digest Ireland writes to all Irish Golf Clubs to see if they have completed any upgrade work or if they would like a member of the panel to visit their golf club.

The replies are added to last year’s Golf Digest Ireland Top 100 ranked golf courses and the top 30 golf courses, who did not make it into last year’s rankings. This list of circa.

130 golf clubs tbecomes the list of golf courses to be accessed during the upcoming year.

The panel made up of professionals from different sectors within the Irish Golf Industry: green keepers, general managers, PGA pro's, elite amateur golfers, tour operators, media etc.

We begin with the Top 10 golf courses from last year and discuss the possible courses that could possible make it into the Top 10. These are in the main, golf courses who were ranked 11 - 15 in last year list, but not always. Any letter received from any golf

club in this bracket is read out.

We then discuss the golf courses in the Top 10 that could possible slip out of the Top 10. These are in the main, golf courses who were ranked 11 - 15 in last year list, but not always. Any letter received from any golf club in this bracket is read out.

Following discussion and debate, we then write down the list of 15 golf courses and we vote on them. The result of this vote gives us the golf clubs who will be in the Top 10 section (not in any position).

We then discuss which clubs could come out of the Top 5 and which clubs could go into the Top 5. These two sections (not final positions) are verbally agreed around the table. We then discuss and debate the Top 5. On this is completed, we do a secret vote around the table - add up the scores and this gives us the actual positions of the Top 5.

We repeat this for the second section, places 6-10 and this gives us the positions 6-10.

This process is repeated for position 11- 20 and then repeated again throughout the entire list.

On behalf of Golf Digest Magazine, we would like to extend our sincere thanks and gratitude to everyone who took part in this year’s rankings and of course, to all the golf clubs, who graciously gave us courtesy of their golf course.

RANKING PANEL Linton Walsh, Anthony Byrne, Mark Traynor, Cid Harmon, Fintan Brennan, John Eggleston, Mark McGowan, Rory O’Connor, Con O’Connor, John Dwyer, John McLaughlin, Shane McGlynn and Bert MacKay

2021 RANKED

ROYAL PORTRUSH

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Decided by a panel of golf experts, it is your ultimate guide of Ireland’s finest golf courses.

100 BLAINROE GOLF CLUB

100 ROGANSTOWN (SAME) www.roganstown.com

Roganstown in north Co Dublin boasts an elegant country house hotel with a beautifully manicured golf course.

BLAINROE GOLF CLUB

blainroe.com

(DOWN 3)

A seaside parkland course just outside Wicklow Town,

The lush fairways are aligned with beautiful mature trees,

Blainroe Golf Club is perched upon a cliff top offering

while plenty of water surrounds the greens, posing a stern

sea views and a unique view of Mount Snowdon in Wales

test of all facets of the golf game.

during the summer months. A relatively short course,

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DUNDRUM HOUSE (DOWN 1)

The impressive 18-hole Championship Parkland at Dundrum

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castleknockgolfclub.ie

House has been woven into the fabric of a mature Georgian estate, designed by 1995 Ryder Cup hero Philip Walton. The

measuring at 6175 meters, this fantastically located golf course is certainly worthy of a visit.

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MACREDDIN GOLF CLUB (DOWN 1)

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Designed by Ryder Cup legend Paul McGinley in the

fairways cut through the natural features of woodland and

heart of the Wicklow Mountains. Macreddin is a beautiful

parkland while the Multeen river meanders its way through the

course, its fairways are aligned by enormous mature pines

course. Measuring at just over 7200 yards the course demands

with spectacular views along the way cutting through

accuracy from tee to green with tight fairways complimented

Macreddin Valley. The course features protected greens

by numerous water hazards.

with undulating landing areas.

72 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

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96 CASTLEKNOCK

castleknockgolfclub.ie

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A scenic parkland course located in the suburbs of Dublin city, Castleknock offers a tough but fair test with the main defence of the course being lakes which frame a number of holes and the undulating greens which require precise approach play. The course is excellently maintained from tee to green which is playable all year round. The greens have been constructed to USGA specification.

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RATHSALLAGH (DOWN 1)

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Another gem in the garden county of Wicklow. Under new ownership since 2015, Rathsallagh has been restored to its previous splendour. A championship standard course

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NEW FOREST GOLF CLUB (DOWN 1)

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New Forest boasts a truly spectacular championship course

designed by Peter McEvoy and Christy O’Connor Jnr that

that is both a joy to the eye and a pleasure to play. The

sits in 530 acres of parkland near Dunlavin. Rathsallagh

undulating and natural forested surroundings bring an

features a mix of short and long par 4s with the shorter

outstanding quality to the course. A feature of New Forest

holes often being the most demanding off the tee. Towering

are the rapid and undulating putting surfaces. The course is

mature woodland lines all the fairways with numerous

always presented in great condition with its closely mown

burns, ditches and ponds bringing water into play. The

tees and fairways that move with the terrain.

greens have been built to USGA specification.

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ST ANNES GOLF LINKS

ST ANNES GOLF LINKS (UP 3)

stanneslinksgolf.com

his Dublin course shares Bull Island with Royal Dublin and

92

KILLARNEY GOLF & FISHING CLUB (UP 1)

killarney-golf.com

The less famous of the two Killarney golf clubs, Mahony’s

sits on the UNESCO Wildlife Sanctuary. St Annes offers

Point shares many of the characteristics of the Killeen

a classic links test with wind a major factor on what is a

course, and is located at a superb venue, with a spectacular

tight course with holes nearby and parallel to each other.

finish to enjoy. Mahony’s point offers immaculate views

A hidden gem with a great variety of long and short par 4s

of the Killarney Lakes with the McGillicuddy Reeks as a

while providing a unique test for golfers of all levels. The

backdrop. Measuring at 6,780 yards the course features

final three holes overlook Dublin Bay, leaving you with

numerous dog-legged holes that require you to hit the ball

images that will live long in the memory. .

on the correct sections of the fairway to open up the greens.

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DUNDALK GOLF CLUB (DOWN 2) dundalkgolfclub.ie

A former host of the AIG Ladies Cups and Shields, this well-established parkland course offers magnificent views of the Cooley and Mourne Mountains, the Irish Sea and Dundalk Bay. A tough but fair challenge measuring at only 6826 yards this is a course suitable for all levels.

86 L AYTOWN & BETTYSTOWN GOLF CLUB (UP 3) landb.ie

A traditional narrow links course adjacent to the golden sands of Laytown beach, Laytown is a short course by

WOODENBRIDGE GOLF CLUB

modern standards but remains a formidable course when

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the winds inevitably pick up. When the wind gets up,

DRUIDS HEATH (DOWN 3)

finding the narrow fairways is a challenge. The greens

druidsglenresort.com

are carved into the landscape and are hidden between the grass dunes. Measuring at 6426 yards, Laytown &

The second course at the outstanding Druids Glen resort

Bettystown presents an enjoyable challenge for golfers of

is a tough challenge which requires pinpoint accuracy

all levels.

off the tee to find the narrow undulating fairways. Driver is not always necessary off the tee with position of paramount importance to have the best opportunity of finding the raised sloping greens . Trouble lurks all over the course with the golden fescues and gorse defining the course.

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GRANGE GOLF CLUB (SAME)

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Perched at the footsteps of the Dublin Mountains, Grange boasts an original 18 holes and an outer six incorporating three 18 hole layouts. The club is famous for producing golfers like Paul McGinley. The course which mixes mature woodland with picturesque views was previously voted the best course in Dublin which is testament to its excellent greens and course playing conditions.

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WOODENBRIDGE GOLF CLUB (UP 2)

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Labelled as ‘Ireland’s Augusta’ this picturesque Wicklow course needs no further introduction. It makes wonderful

85

MULLINGAR GOLF CLUB (UP 1)

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Home to the famous Mullingar Scratch Trophy, this James Braid classic winds its way through this wooded parkland setting providing a solid championship challenge with an enjoyable atmosphere. Position off the tee is key with numerous dog legs and short holes that demand you find the correct sections of the fairway. There is a premium on good iron play with bunkers surrounding the elevated and small putting surfaces.

84 CASTLEMARTYR HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (DOWN 1) castlemartyrresort.ie

Set on an old sprawling woodland manor estate, Castlemartyr is a great example of an inland links course.

Always in great condition, this Ron Kirby design is almost on par with his works at Gleneagles and Old Head. This is an inland links style layout which is an enjoyable challenge for any calibre of player.

use of the meandering Avoca and Aughrim rivers are a prominent feature running throughout the course. The par 3s are short yet dangerous while the par-5 18th is a risk reward hole making for a pulsating finish.

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CASTLE GOLF CLUB (DOWN 1)

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One of the oldest clubs in the Greater Dublin area, it has been updated a number of times over the years. This course is a test of your accuracy with over 75 bunkers plotted around the layout. The fairways are tough to find with mature trees lining both sides of every fairway.

74 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

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GALWAY GOLF CLUB (UP 1) www.galwaygolf.com

This excellent parkland course is just five kilometres outside Galway City. It is home to some amazing views of Galway Bay and the Burren from its elevated site. The opening four holes run alongside Galway Bay via an underground pedestrian tunnel. The fairways cut through the mature woodland with gorse bushes plotted around the course putting a premium on accuracy off the tee. The greens are elevated with numerous tiered greens so you have to find the right sections.

82 FARNHAM ESTATE HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (DOWN 1)

WESTPORT GOLF CLUB

farnhamestate.ie

Farnham is one of the best courses in Cavan, situated on 500 acres of rolling, peaceful countryside, with challenging greens and water hazards aplenty. There is a sense of tranquility as the course immerses itself in the countryside, travelling through the undulating meadows and rugged woodland. The back nine is a challenge with

79 KNIGHTSBROOK HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (SAME)

water features, Knightsbrook is a considerable test. It was

undulating greens and well placed bunkers.

81 ST MARGARETS GOLF CLUB (UP 1)

stmargaretsgolf.com

Designed by Tom Craddock and Pat Ruddy, this parkland course has hosted many tournaments such as the Ladies European Tour and Senior Tour as well. Under new

designed by the late Ryder Cup legend Christy O’Connor Jnr and has hosted the AIG Ladies Cups and Shields National Finals and the PING Junior Solheim Cup.

78

breathtaking golf on the back nine at Westport, peaking at the par-5 15th that plays over and around Clew Bay to

beautiful greens while plenty of water hazards feature

a distant green. The finish is strong but a slow start hurts

throughout the course to punish any wayward shots.

the ranking.

77

ballinrobegolfclub.com

challenging yet forgiving parkland located in the west of Ireland. The course boasts some great par 3s which are praised by the likes of Padraig Harrington. Voted best parkland course in Connacht three times in the last seven years this mature parkland course is surrounded by a 300 acre estate which dates back to 1238.

tulfarrishotel.com

the beauty of the landscape is matched by the quality of

BALLINROBE GOLF CLUB (SAME)

This Eddie Hackett design is a good example of a

80 TULFARRIS HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (SAME) Located in a lovely spot overlooking the Blessington Lakes,

westportgolfclub.com

boasts picturesque views of Clew Bay. There is

former glory. This course boasts tree lined fairways and

WESTPORT GOLF CLUB (SAME)

Located in the shadow of Croagh Patrick, this course

management, the golf course has been restored to its

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knightsbrook.com

With undulating fairways, testing greens and demanding

76

SHANNON GOLF CLUB (SAME) shannongolf.com

the course on this top-class resort in Wicklow. Tulfarris has

hosted European Challenge Tour events in the past. This

This course has matured into one of the best inland tracks

championship course boasts tree lined fairways, juicy rough

in Munster. Measuring just under 7,000 yards the course

and undulating greens and plenty of water hazards which

features mature evergreens and deciduous trees which

come into play both off the tee and around the greens. A true

align the natural meadow grass fairways and greens that are

test of golf for all levels of ability.

protected by some tricky bunkers and water hazards.

76 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

75

ESKER HILLS GOLF CLUB (DOWN 1) eskerhillsgolf.com

Shane Lowry’s home course in Offaly is a challenging layout and plenty of character makes this course worthy of a visit and its place in the Top 100. This course boasts great variety, every hole is different with conditions playable all year round with elevated greens that are protected by water hazards and deep bunkers.

74

ARDGLASS GOLF LINKS (UP 1)

ardlgassgolfclub.com

This memorable seaside course is starting to get the credit it deserves. The first five holes at Ardglass run along the rugged coastline and are as good as any opening five in Ireland. The 19th hole is a restored castle which makes for a pleasant end to a round.

CASTLETROY GOLF CLUB

71

CASTLETROY GOLF CLUB (DOWN 1) castletroygolfclub.ie

This charming tree-lined course was redesigned in 2006 and continued improvements see it gain two places this year. It offers some testing holes and splendid views, evident when you see the spectacular panoramic from the 14th tee.

70

GLASSON COUNTRY HOUSE HOTEL & GOLF CLUB

73 GLASSON COUNTRY HOUSE HOTEL & GOLF CLUB (SAME) glassongolfclub.ie

70 GALGORM CASTLE GOLF CLUB (UP 1)

in Ballymena, Count Antrim. It is long enough for the tour

Glasson has been revitalised recently and lakeside scenery

pro and forgiving enough for the club player due to the

and tour quality conditions are what make this course a

vast number of teeing areas. It hosts the annual NI Open

perennial top 100. The beautiful rolling hills and views of

on the European Challenge Tour and hosted the 2020 Irish

the water just outside Athlone make this Christy O’Connor

Open on the European Tour. The rivers Maine and Braid

Jnr design a wonderful day of golf.

72 DINGLE GOLF LINKS CEANN SIBHEAL (SAME)

galgormcastle.com

Galgorm Castle is an excellent, well-manicured parkland

meander through the course and appear on numerous holes as well as a number of lakes which come into play.

dinglelinks.com

69

to the mental challenge for the golfer, the Ceann Sibheal

Tullamore has hosted numerous national championships

With excellent turf and open drains and streams adding is a perfectly natural course that shows that low-lying micro-undulations can provide just as much fun as their big dune brothers. The fairways undulate throughout the course with a stream meandering throughout the course coming into play on 13 of the 18 holes. The greens are elevated and made of fescue grass.

TULLAMORE GOLF CLUB (DOWN 1) tullamoregolfclub.ie

over the years. Located right in the heart of Ireland, this classic parkland course provides a challenge to all who play it. Massive clusters of century old oak, beech and chestnut trees surround the fairways. Water is a prominent feature as well as intricate bunkering on the fairways and around the greens making this quite the test.

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 77

68

ROSSLARE GOLF CLUB (DOWN 1) rosslaregolf.com

Rosslare is an established performer and one of the standout venues in the Southeast. The original Hawtree design is a great example of a traditional links and has hosted many high profile championships down the years.

67 POWERSCOURT GOLF CLUB (EAST COURSE) (UP 2)

powerscourt.ie

The East course at the Powerscourt Estate is well worth playing. Following the contours of the historic landscape, Pete McEvoy designed an impressive course that is a testing and rewarding challenge for golfers of all levels with the signature par 3 16th playing over water.

66 POWERSCOURT GOLF CLUB (WEST COURSE) (DOWN 2) powerscourt.ie

STRANDHILL GOLF CLUB

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At just over 6,300 yards in length, Strandhill is short by modern standards. Playing to a par of 70 this course offers a challenging but rewarding test. It is a traditional links

This course is a tricky parkland mixes up wildly undulating greens with strategic bunkering and deceptive

course with a terrific variety of challenging shots and

approach shots. Add in breathtaking views of the old

dramatic scenery to provide one of the west coast’s most

estate house and Sugarloaf Mountain and you have the

beautiful links settings.

recipe for a great golf course.

65

CLANDEBOYE GOLF CLUB (UP 1) cgc-ni.com

Firmly established in Ireland’s Top 100, the championship

62

ARKLOW GOLF LINKS (SAME) arklowgolflinks.com

Situated on a compact and flat piece of linksland that has receded over the years. A hidden gem that has hosted the

Dufferin Course at Clandeboye in County Down that is a

Southern Region of the Irish PGA in 2001 and 2002. Eddie

largely wooded layout that offers golfers a genuine and

Connaughton’s green designs are a marvellous collection,

demanding test. Accuracy off the tee is of paramount

rolling raucously and undulating violently in some places.

importance with gorse and trees strategically placed on

At just under 6,400 yards, Arklow is a traditional links test..

every hole to catch any wayward shots.

64 MOUNT WOLSELEY HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (UP 1)

STRANDHILL GOLF CLUB (SAME)

strandhillgolfclub.com

mountwolseleymembersclub.ie

Host of the Irish Challenge on the European Challenge

61 DROMOLAND CASTLE GOLF CLUB (SAME) dromoland.ie

Dromoland Castle Golf Club has benefitted from considerable and consistent investment in its facilities, on

Tour, Mount Wolseley is a great parkland played through

what has been one of Ireland’s premier resorts for over 40

mature woodland on one of the best maintained golf

years. The course is built on gently sloping fairways with

courses in the country that is ideal for Stay & Play

ancient woodland and hidden water hazards, testing all

packages. The course features quick undulating greens

facets of your game. On grounds which span almost 150

and fairway bunkers that lie in wait to catch out the

hectares of woodland, there is a fantastic finale to golf at

bigger hitters.

Dromoland.

78 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

MOUNT WOLSELEY HOTEL & GOLF RESORT

OPEN WEEK 2021 JULY 25TH–29TH

P U R E

•

P A R K L A N D

•

G O L F

25th July (Singles Ladies and Gents) 26th July (4 Person Scramble) Mixed Teams Permitted 27th July (4 Person Team) Mixed Teams Permitted 28th July (Singles Ladies and Gents) 29th July (4 Person Team) Mixed Teams Permitted

Online Bookings: https://visitors.brsgolf.com/slieverussell#/open-competitions

PGA National Slieve Russell, Ballyconnell, Co. Cavan Tel: 049 9525090

Email: golf@slieverussell.ie

www.slieverussell.ie

60

60 BALLYBUNION GOLF CLUB (CASHEN COURSE) (SAME) ballybuniongolfclub.ie

Despite being in the shadow of the most illustrious Old Course, the Cashen course at Ballybunion is a fine test of golf. If you want a challenge, with Cashen’s minuscule greens perched on tiny crevices, then this is the place to play in the beautiful Kingdom.

59

ROYAL BELFAST GOLF CLUB (SAME) royalbelfast.com

The oldest golf club in Ireland, a visit to Royal Belfast offers a step back in time. Situated on the scenic southern shore of Belfast Lough, this Harry Colt gem has seen less tinkering

HERMITAGE GOLF CLUB

57

blessed with a verdant, rolling setting within the part of the beautiful Liffey Valley known as the Strawberry

place for a great game of golf. Tricky greens are a feature

Beds. The fairways cut through mature woodland with

throughout with accuracy off the tee required to find the

the greens protected by bunkers. The fairways are tight

right areas of the fairway. A pulsating finish with two par 5s

with the trees narrowing them and the bunkers perfectly

on 16 and 18 which offer a chance to pick up late birdies.

placed to catch out any wayward shots.

SEAPOINT GOLF CLUB (DOWN 1) 56 seapointgolfclub.com

A cleverly designed course that will test every golfer in County Louth, Seapoint is an enjoyable challenge along the

hermitagegolf.ie

The Hermitage is a quality parkland test in Dublin. It is

than most since its inception. A unique and enjoyable

58

HERMITAGE GOLF CLUB (UP 2)

PORTUMNA GOLF CLUB (DOWN 2) portumnagolfclub.ie

A beautiful parkland course that sweeps its way through forest and woodlands close to Lough Derg, the last and

Irish Sea. A challenging test off the tee to avoid the fescue

largest lake on the River Shannon. Its mature and graceful

and fairway bunkers, the addition of more run off areas

trees backdrop the full range of seasonal colour to provide

require a good array of shots around the greens. A links that

a different challenging experience throughout the year. A

rewards good shots, with every hole a strong test. It includes

former host of the All Ireland Senior Close Championship

G A L W A Y B A Y Gone O L of F the R E best S O Rfinishing T stretches in Irish golf.

and the All Ireland Finals of the Ladies Senior Cup.

55

BUNCLODY GOLF CLUB (SAME) bunclodygfc.ie

This beautiful open parkland course features mixed terrain that will challenge golfers for the entire round.

A worthy neighbour of Mount Juliet with Adare-style features. The course’s true value can be seen with a string of quality holes that culminate with a tree-lined par-5 18th.

54 LUTTRELLSTOWN CASTLE GOLF CLUB (SAME)

luttrellstowncastle.com

Situated within the 567 acre walled estate of Luttrellstown Castle, only 20 minutes’ drive to the centre of Dublin City, it is an 18-hole Championship course with McKenzie/ SEAPOINT GOLF CLUB

80 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

Steele design, featuring magnificent mature trees and links-style bunkers.

Ballybunion Golf Club would like to invite you to entertain your customers and staff at their fantastic venue. Due to the global pandemic they have availability at reduced rates for the domestic market.

Located on the north west coast of Co. Kerry, on a beautiful stretch of sand dunes overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, you’ll find two wonderfully challenging and unique links courses at Ballybunion – the Old Course and the Trent Jones Cashen Course. Please contact the Club for further details.

SANDHILL ROAD, BALLYBUNION, CO. KERRY, IRELAND T +353 (0) 68 27146 info@ballybuniongolfclub.ie www.ballybuniongolfclub.ie

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 81

G A L W A Y B A Y G O L F R E S O R T

53 GALWAY BAY GOLF RESORT (SAME)

49 ROYAL PORTRUSH GOLF CLUB VALLEY COURSE (UP 1)

This brilliantly designed Christy O’Connor Jnr course

This unique test is riddled with humps, hollows and

galwaybaygolfresort.com

52

royalportrushgolfclub.com

which combines parkland and links features. It is situated

undulations that helped make Graeme McDowell the

on the stunning backdrop of the bay and the rugged

golfer he is today. This Harry Colt design is a worthy

curves of the Atlantic coastline with mature trees, water

sibling of the Dunluce course. Accuracy is key to avoid

hazards, concealed bunkers and world-class putting

the long fescue style rough with pot bunkers surrounding

surfaces.

many of the greens.

BELVOIR PARK GOLF CLUB (SAME) belvoirparkgolfclub.co.uk

This Harry Colt masterpiece is situated just two miles from Belfast City Centre and is still one of Irish golf’s best kept secrets. Any golfing visit to the north’s capital should include a round at Belvoir.

51 DUN LAOGHAIRE GOLF CLUB (SAME)

dunlaoghairegolfclub.ie

This 27-hole championship course was designed to allow for the combination of three different nine-hole loops.

Bunkers lie in wait throughout the course to gobble up errant shots. With the beautiful Wicklow Mountains as the backdrop, you can be sure that a thrilling golf experience awaits, as was the case in the 2016 Curtis Cup matches.

50

50 CARTON HOUSE HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (OMEARA) (DOWN 1)

cartonhouse.com

O’Meara course at Carton House is situated at the home

THE HERITAGE GOLF CLUB

48

THE HERITAGE GOLF CLUB theheritage.com

(UP 2)

The great Spanish golfer Seve Ballesteros’ only golf course design in Ireland is a real treat and this Co Laois golf

of the Golfing Union of Ireland. Set amid rolling meadows

club, set in the tranquil surrounds of a five-star hotel, will

and mature trees, you will get the five-star experience

test the very best, with water a consistent feature. The

when playing at the course designed by the 1998 Masters

undulating greens can make short putts difficult with

champion. Sharing the limelight with the Monty course

putts breaking towards the water regularly. This Seve

the O’Meara is more of a parkland style with undulating

design features links style bunkers that feature fescue

fairways and elevated greens..

grass with strong par 5s that are risk reward.

82 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

47

TRAMORE GOLF CLUB (SAME) tramoregolfclub.com

One of the oldest courses in Ireland, it is also one of the premier parkland courses. Tramore provides the player with a variety of challenges throughout. This was certainly the case for the elite amateurs at the 2015 Irish Close Championship. Tramore boasts 27 holes each with undulating sand based greens built to USGA standard.

46 K-CLUB

(SMURFIT COURSE) (SAME)

kclub.ie

The less famous of the two K Club courses, the Smurfit Course is nevertheless a fine parkland kept in immaculate condition. Described as an inland links course with dunetype mounding and dramatic landscapes, if coming to play the Ryder Cup course, make sure to play the Smurfit as well.

45

CARLOW GOLF CLUB (SAME) carlowgolfclub.com

Founded in 1899, this classic course is always in great condition and is playable all year round. Watch out for the 8th where the tee shot is played to the West into the setting sun from the highest point on the course down to a

MALONE GOLF CLUB

43

course weaves its way through a picturesque estate. Just five miles from Belfast, it has a number of large lakes and

and legend has it that they are taken by the “little people”

water hazards, coupled with tree lined fairways which

from the raths or fairy rings.

PALMERSTOWN STUD (SAME) palmerstownhouse.ie

Located on the grounds of the historic Palmerstown House estate, this tree-lined course is known for its impressive

malonegolfclub.co.uk

One of Belfast’s premier parklands, this immaculate

sloping fairway below. Many tee shots have been lost here

44

MALONE GOLF CLUB (SAME)

place a premium on accuracy through the round.

42

HOGS HEAD (SAME) hogsheadgolfclub.com

The first Robert Trent Jones II design in Ireland occupies a site that once housed Skellig Bay, a golf course built

bunkering and exquisite use of water that provides a true

in 2006 that failed financially. Hogs Head is built on a

challenge. Palmerstown is renowned for the quality greens

majestic peninsula outside Waterville Village taking in

and has many great holes to test every club in the bag.

stunning views of the mountains and lakes that surround the course. The course is sand capped, yielding firm and fast conditions, and is carpeted in fescue from tee to green, so it plays like a links, complete with wind and water views.

41 CARTON HOUSE HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (MONTGOMERIE COURSE) (SAME)

malonegolfclub.co.uk

Cut through the rolling meadows and punctuated by native fescue, Carton House’s Montgomerie Course perfectly combines the pristine parkland setting with the exciting qualities of links golf. A great test of golf, and watch out for those strategically-placed bunkers which will gobble up even the slightest of wayward tee shots and result in you laying up.

P84 A LIRELAND’S M E R S T OBIGGEST-SELLING WN STUD GOLF MAGAZINE

40

40

HEADFORT GOLF CLUB (SAME) headfortgolfclub.ie

The New Course at Headfort is one of the country’s finest.

Headfort New offers variety throughout the round with water featuring prominently, while mature woodland places a premium on accuracy from the tee all the way to

37

CONCRA WOOD GOLF CLUB (DOWN 2)

concrawood.ie

Designed by golf legends Christy O’Connor Snr and Jnr, this strikingly beautiful course features a brilliant landscape that has been carefully sculpted around Lough Muckno in Castleblayney, Co Monaghan. The fairways gently slope in tandem with the landscape surrounding the course, with towering mature woodland framing each hole. One of O’Connor’s finest creations, it will be sure to leave you wanting more.

the greens. A ball strikers paradise it is a testing challenge for golfers of all levels depending on what tee markers are in play.

39

LOUGH ERNE RESORT (SAME) lougherneresort.com

The Championship course at Lough Erne, just outside Enniskillen, is a true beauty. It has the marks of Nick Faldo all over it, and it provides a strategic challenge, nestled on a 24-hectare peninsula between Lower Lough Erne and Castle Hume Lough. The course features links style fairways and undulating greens and is playable all year round. Lough Erne is in play on 11 holes of course.

38

CONNEMARA GOLF LINKS (SAME) connemaragolflinks.com

There is no other landscape quite like the boulder strewn

CONNEMARA GOLF LINKS

sand hills that form the basis of the unique links at Ballyconneely. An isolated links course designed by the ubiquitous Eddie Hackett. A traditional links track with that has hosted The Irish Amateur Close Championship.

The individuality of this finish and the unique rugged terrain goes a long way to explaining Connemara’s place in the rankings.

36 KILLARNEY GOLF & FISHING CLUB (KILLEEN COURSE) (SAME) killarney-golf.com

The wonderful lake and mountain views here make for a spectacular backdrop to one of Ireland’s best parkland courses. The Killeen Course has hosted multiple European and Ladies European Tour events, most recently the 2011 Irish Open. Water hazards are the main defence, featuring on almost every hole, with small putting surfaces putting a premium on approach play.

35 SLIEVE RUSSELL HOTEL & COUNTRY CLUB (UP 3) slieverussellgolf.ie

The premier golf course in Cavan, Slieve Russell is dominated by its lakes, and provides a challenging, yet peaceful setting for golf on a parkland that is as pristinely kept as any on the island. It is vital that you pick your spots around here. The fairways are protected by a variety of woodland and water hazards putting a premium on accuracy off the tee, the severe undulating greens test every facet of your approach play to find the correct levels.

Whether you are in search of a quick golfing break or a nice resort get-away, this place has it all.

CONNEMARA GOLF LINKS

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 85

34 FOTA ISLAND HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (DEERPARK) (DOWN 1) fotaisland.ie

Set amid a stunning 780-acre island, this popular Cork venue is maturing nicely and features tricky bunkering and engaging greens. The Deer Park course was designed

by Christy O’Connor Junior. A former host to the Irish Open, the fairways meander throughout the course with thick luscious rough swallowing up any errant tee shots.

33

CORK GOLF CLUB (DOWN 1)

corkgolfclub.ie

One of Ireland’s oldest courses, Dr Alister MacKenzie’s

30

30 KILLEEN CASTLE GOLF CLUB (DOWN 1) killeencastle.com

Down one place this year is the 2011 Solheim Cup course Killeen Castle but it is still inside the top 30 for a reason.

The Meath course is another wonderful Jack Nicklaus design that was only opened in 2009. Killeen Castle also hosted the Ladies Irish Open. With beautiful views of the

work at Little Island might not be as well-known as what he

Co. Meath countryside throughout the 600-acre estate,

did at Augusta National or Royal Melbourne but it is truly

players will never become bored of the golfing test that

stunning. With a variety of scenery and diverse landscape

is provided. Renowned for its quick, bent grass putting

this challenging course takes you on a ride, and with an

surfaces this course is playable all year round.

unforgettable finishing four, it is well worth a round. The greens are modelled to PGA specification while evergreen and deciduous trees align the fairways with hidden gorse and water hazards.

32

CASTLEROCK GOLF CLUB (UP 2) castlerockgc.co.uk

Down two places this year, Castlerock is another jewel on the Causeway coast. This scenic links course features eye-catching views of Donegal and, on a clear day, the Isle of Islay towards Scotland. It is a testing layout that is both challenging and fun to play for golfers of all levels, featuring grass dunes, a rugged terrain with tiered putting surfaces.

31 ROSAPENNA HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (OLD TOM MORRIS COURSE) (SAME)

rosapennagolflinks.ie

Winding its way along a high dune ridge parallel to Sheephaven Bay, Pat Ruddy’s design is uncompromising and difficult to tame, yet remains a joy to play in this scenic part of Donegal. Every year, the links seems to get tweaked a little more to enhance its playability. THe Old Tom Morris features a mixture of traditional and modern links holes cutting through the low lying dunes.

DRUIDS GLEN HOTEL & GOLF RESORT

29 DRUIDS GLEN HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (DOWN 1) druidsglenresort.com

One of the country’s premier parkland courses, Druids Glen has seen the likes of Sergio Garcia and Colin Montgomerie lift the Irish Open there. Always in pristine condition, the course is loved by the shotmaker, with views over the Irish Sea, fantastic facilities and surrounding woods making for a wonderful golfing experience.

28 NARIN AND PORTNOO GOLF CLUB (UP 2) narinportnoogolfclub.ie

A hidden gem in the North West. A classic, picturesque course, spectacular sea views can be enjoyed on a terrain that draws around sharp doglegs. Crisp iron shots to par 3s over carnous terrain and accurate tee shots down snakelike fairways are needed on this wind-swept links course.

86 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

DOOKS GOLF CLUB

23 THE ROYAL DUBLIN GOLF CLUB (UP 1)

www.theroyaldublingolfclub.com

One of Ireland’s grand old courses has risen two places this year. Royal Dublin was designed by Harry Colt on Bull Island, and is a challenging yet fair course that is full of character and charm. This course has it all, sand dunes, long wispy fescue rough and water hazards. Just a short distance from Dublin’s city centre, it is a super test of R O S A P E N N A H O T E L & G O L F R E S O R T ( S A N D Y H I L L S )

27 ROSAPENNA HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (SANDYHILLS) (SAME) rosapennagolflinks.ie

classic links golf.

22

Dooks Golf Club has plenty of links competition in Kerry, but manages to stand out itself thanks to a magnificent

One of Ireland’s newest 18-hole links courses is undoubtedly

conditioning and wonderful scenery. Founded in 1889 it is

one of its most spectacular. Winding its way along a high

one of the five oldest links in Ireland. The McGillycuddy’s

dune ridge parallel to Sheephaven Bay, Pat Ruddy’s design

Reeks and the Dingle Mountains provide a scenic

is uncompromising and difficult to tame, yet remains a

backdrop to a course that features a fantastic atmosphere

joy to play in this scenic part of Donegal. Elevated tees and greens help you bask in the stunning views surrounding the Sandyhills course, while the fairways run away into natural dips and hollows amongst the dunes.

26 DONEGAL GOLF CLUB (MURVAGH LINKS) (SAME) donegalgolfclub.ie

Often referred to as the Muirfield of Ireland, Murvagh in Donegal, this is a challenge to even the most accomplished golfer. Panoramic views of the Atlantic and Donegal Bay make this a truly enjoyable course and one

DOOKS GOLF CLUB (SAME)

dooks.com

21

K-CLUB (PALMER COURSE) (SAME)

kclub.ie

A golf course with all the daring risk-and-reward shot selection of the late Arnold Palmer, the Palmer Course at the K Club is one of the best parkland courses in the country. Rory McIlroy’s heroic shots to win the 2016 Dubai Duty Free Irish Open showcased to the world a course of plush conditions and great challenge. Its Ryder Cup pedigree makes it one of the most dramatic parkland finishes that you can play in Ireland.

which Darren Clarke rates very highly. The memorable 5th hole, aptly named ‘The Valley of Tears’, has brought many a great round to a halt. Another Eddie Hackett gem with a traditional links feel.

25

PORTSALON GOLF CLUB (SAME)

portsalongolfclub.ie

Portsalon is one of Donegal’s unsung heroes and is a beautiful links in the North-West. The par 4 second is one of the world’s great holes with the 14th – named Matterhorn – not far behind. The undulating greens are eccentric whilst the quirky nature of some of the holes means there is a surprise around every corner.

24 TRUMP INTERNATIONAL GOLF LINKS - DOONBEG (DOWN 1) www.trumphotels.com

The world renowned 18-hole championship course at Trump International Golf Links & HotelTM Doonbeg, spans 1.5 miles of crescent shaped beach and century old sand dunes along Doughmore Bay. The course has been transformed recently by Dr. Martin Hawtree to one of the ‘must play’ golf courses on the international circuit.

K-CLUB (PALMER COURSE)

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 87

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18

Built along the rugged coastline jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean, Old Head is one of the most spectacular

20 BALLYLIFFIN GOLF CLUB

settings to play golf in the world. Nine holes play along

(OLD LINKS) (SAME)

the clifftops and all 18 provide an ocean view. It is easy to

ballyliffingolfclub.com

see why this Kinsale course is a bucket list venue for many international tourists.

The Old Course at Ballyliffin has undergone significant change in recent years. Initially heralded as a supreme example of natural linksland, it was partially compromised when the neighbouring Glashedy was built in the 1990’s. Nick Faldo’s interest led to the club appointing him to oversee a major renovation a few years

19

OLD HEAD GOLF LINKS (DOWN 1)

oldhead.com

17 PORTMARNOCK HOTEL & GOLF LINKS (SAME) portmarnock.com

The Bernhard Langer-designed Portmarnock Hotel &

ago, the end result is a huge success with the original

Golf Links is a beautiful championship course, which is

rippling fairways being supplemented by strategic

a natural test of golf along the Irish Sea. Located on the

bunkering on one strong hole after another.

original Jameson estate, it provides an enjoyable round of

MOUNT JULIET GOLF CLUB (DOWN 1)

mountjuliet.ie

This stunning Jack Nicklaus design is the third highestranked parkland course on the list for good reason. It has hosted many high profile events over the years including

links golf, combining all the charm of a traditional style layout with the challenges of the modern game.

16 BELMULLET GOLF CLUB (CARNE GOLF LINKS) (UP 3)

carnegolflinks.com

Carne Golf Links on the western tip of County Mayo is a

two WGCs, won by Tiger Woods and Ernie Els respectively.

unique must-visit venue. The remote beauty of the Mullet

When Tiger won in 2002, he said the greens were the best

peninsula and inquisitive holes are laid out through some

he’d played on all year which is testament to the quality

of golf’s largest dunes. It is the epitome of adventurous

of this picturesque but challenging layout, seamlessly

golf. The back nine in particular provides as interesting

blended into the landscape of this old estate. It now also

of a nine holes of golf as can be found anywhere in the

features a Paul McGinley designed Academy..

country. The finish is particularly strong - the 15th and 17th are great par 4s with a dizzying drop-shot par 3 in between.

15 PORTSTEWART GOLF CLUB (STRAND COURSE) (SAME)

portstewartgc.co.uk

Portstewart Golf Club was a fantastic host of the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open in 2017, as the whole world saw the superb Des Giffin-designed Strand Course, set on Ulster’s famous Causeway Coast. The front 9 is a particular treat, with high dunes complemented by stunning views across the bay.

14

ENNISCRONE GOLF CLUB (DOWN 1)

enniscronegolf.com

This is a must play course for anyone looking a traditional track surrounded by stunning scenery. Located on the beautiful shores of Co Sligo, this Eddie Hackett design is steeped in history and will test the very best. As well as holes in the open flatland, the naturally bumpy fairways MOUNT JULIET GOLF CLUB

88 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

meander through the sand dunes with the occasional dogleg adding to the attraction.

One of Ireland’s premier places to stay and play classical links golf all year round

To reserve a tee time please contact

+353 1 866 6592 or email golfres@portmarnock.com For information on all golf packages, please visit our website

www.portmarnock.com

THE EUROPEAN CLUBS

13

THE ISLAND GOLF CLUB (UP 1)

theislandgolfclub.com

Winding and twisting its way through rugged terrain and

12

10

A popular spot for Padraig Harrington to prepare for Open

some of the largest dunes you will find anywhere, this

Championships, Wicklow’s European Club is a challenging

century-old links course is golf at its best. This award-

course that requires great imagination and shot-making.

winning links venue adjacent to the Broadmeadow

This Pat Ruddy-design has a number of outstanding holes.

estuary is simply one of Ireland’s most demanding and

Supreme routing builds up to the seaside stretch in the

finest links courses

middle of the back nine with the idiosyncratic greens at the 12th and 13th. However, it is the downhill par-5 3rd, the

COUNTY SLIGO GOLF CLUB (SAME)

much photographed 8th and the dune enclosed par- 3 14th that are perhaps the best holes on a golf course that has no

countysligogolfclub.ie

comparison anywhere else in the world.

Rosses Point is a traditional links course that is undergoing upgrades to keep up with modern day demands. Each hole brings a new challenge as golfers navigate along the Atlantic and Benbulben Mountain.

This course, perennial home to the West of Ireland, is

9

ADARE MANOR (UP 1)

adaremanor.com/golf/

Celebrated golf architect Tom Fazio has taken what was

where Rory McIlroy won back-to-back titles as a teenager.

already an Ireland’s highest ranking parkland golf course

It shows off all that is great about Irish links golf, and is a

and transformed it into parkland perfection, which

true test in high winds.

will host the 2027 Ryder Cup. Masterfully designed,

11 BALLYLIFFIN GOLF CLUB (GLASHEDY) (SAME)

THE EUROPEAN CLUB (DOWN 1)

theeuropeanclub.com

ballyliffingolfclub.com

As if the beautiful Inishowen Peninsula wasn’t reason enough to visit Donegal, here’s one more - the Glashedy Links course at Ballyliffin. Host to the 2018 DDF Irish Open, a delightfully challenging course that is both difficult and enjoyable to play all year round. The changes that have

magnificently maintained with mature tree lined fairways and daunting water hazards. Adare is perfectly set within the glorious estate of one of Europe’s most spectacular manor house hotels.

8 COUNTY LOUTH GOLF CLUB (BALTRAY) (SAME)

countylouthgolfclub.com

This peaceful links course located on Ireland’s east

been made over the past few years have really enhanced the

coast is a snapshot of the way golf should be. The serene

course, and it is definitely a ‘bucket list’ course.

atmosphere gives way to towering dunes, treacherous rough and long holes that will make use of every club in the bag. Featuring various blind approach shots and severe run off areas around the greens which blend into the terrain, it is a course that demands trust with each shot. It hosted the best players on the European Tour at the Irish Open in 2009, which Shane Lowry famously won as an amateur.

BALLYLIFFIN GOLF CLUB

ROYAL PORTRUSH GOLF CLUB

Arklow Golf Club Traditional links golf since 1927

A true links course with a warm welcoming clubhouse Arklow Golf Links was formed in 1927. Since the very beginning, the Club has extended a warm and inviting welcome to all of its visitors from at home and from overseas.

Open Competition: Every Tuesday Blue Tee Challenge: First Friday Every Month.

Men’s Seniors: Last Thursday Every Month

Your friends at Arklow Golf Links will ensure that your visit is much more than a great round of golf.

Call 0402 32492

info@arklowgolflinks.com

ArklowGolfLinks

New Memberships Available

www.arklowgolflinks.com

@ArklowGolfLinks

arklowlinks

4

LAHINCH GOLF CLUB (SAME)

lahinchgolf.com

One of Phil Mickelson’s favourite golf courses in the world, golf at Lahinch dates back to 1882 and it’s hard not to marvel at how well the early pioneers carved out so many great holes from the natural terrain. Today, Lahinch plays host to the South of Ireland every year and the course is one of the spiritual homes of Irish amateur golf. With its naturally rugged linksland, overlooking Liscannor Bay, Lahinch is worthy of its place within the Top 5.

3

PORTMARNOCK (SAME)

portmarnockgolfclub.ie

The Old Course at Portmarnock falls behind its northern rivals for best course in Ireland, and has not been able to recapture its top position from 2014, but there’s no doubt that it’s still one of the standard bearers of Irish golf. This traditional links may not have the same instant appeal as some of the dune courses of Ireland’s west coast but the WATERVILLE GOLF LINKS

routing – which changes direction on every hole – and the subtle ripples and undulations combine to create

7

a supreme test from start to finish. This iconic course

WATERVILLE GOLF LINKS (SAME)

has hosted the best players in the world, from Arnold

watervillegolf.com

Palmer to Tiger Woods. It is still the Republic’s premier championship course.

Following a Tom Fazio facelift in recent years, Waterville has blossomed into a perennial Top 10 course and is likely to remain there for quite some time. Situated on the shores of Ballinskelligs Bay in beautiful Co Kerry, the course is loved by American tourists and why not? It provides a true links golf experience, complete with rolling dunes, firm fairways, sod-faced bunkers and unpredictable weather.

2

ROYAL PORTRUSH GOLF CLUB (SAME)

royalportrushgolfclub.com

Renowned course architect Harry Colt once remarked that Royal Portrush was his best ever layout, and the

6 BALLYBUNION GOLF CLUB

changes have helped accentuate its original design, which

ballybuniongolfclub.ie

is seamlessly integrated into the natural landscape,

(SAME)(THE OLD COURSE)

With very few man-made elements, it’s the natural surroundings that provide a challenging yet exciting round of golf. One of golf legend Tom Watson’s favourite courses, it boasts a unique layout featuring back-to-back par 3s and par 5s. An unparalleled back nine with countless

hosted the Open Championship back in 1951. The course providing golfers with a vast range of shots that will test skill and patience along the gorgeous North coast. The fairways and greens appear miniscule as they cut their way through the natural rugged terrain with large grass dunes framing numerous holes.

interesting and challenging approach shots are what bring this club to such a high ranking.

5

TRALEE GOLF CLUB (SAME)

traleegolfclub.com

This spectacular Arnold Palmer designed course is arguably one of the most majestic courses you will ever encounter. The front nine features some spine-tingling holes that navigate the rocky Atlantic coast, but it’s the back nine’s massive dunes and challenging tee-placements that will leave a lasting impression. Tralee has also put in upgrade work on a Hawtree designed par 3 course, and a state-of-the-art practice area. It will enhance the experience of one of the most beautiful courses in the world.

92 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

ROYAL PORTRUSH GOLF CLUB

DINGLE GOLF LINKS CEANN SIBÉAL PLAY EUROPE’S MOST WESTERLY LINKS JUST 15 MINUTES FROM DINGLE TOWN

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Book now: Phone 066 9156255 or visit www.dinglelinks.com Follow us @ceannsibealgc for news & special offers.

phone: 066 915 6255 | email: info@dinglelinks.com | www.dinglelinks.com

Donegal Golf Club

2011 Open Champion Darren Clarke

“one of my favourite courses in the world“

Est. 1959

DONEGAL GOLF CLUB SOCIETY DEAL Tea/Coffee & Scone before play, Green Fees & Main Course after your round, starting from ONLY €45.

Offer applies to groups of 12 or more.

Use promo code GolfDig19 to receive a Complimentary Prize on the day of play when making your booking.

To Book:

Call: +353 (0)74 97 34054

Email: info@donegalgolfclub.ie Full Bar & Catering facilities available

Visit www.donegalgolfclub.ie for more details

T&C’s Apply

ROYAL COUNTY DOWN

1

1

ROYAL COUNTY DOWN (SAME) royalcountydown.org

Royal County Down is the Rolls-Royce of golf courses, and deservedly regains top spot in this year’s rankings. . Voted best course in world by Golf Digest in 2016, the Old Tom Morris layout dates back to 1889. Several blind shots on the course always cause conversation but one thing is for sure, there are few better settings for golf in the world. With Slieve Donard providing a beautiful backdrop, standout holes include the stunning par-3 fourth and two par fours, the ninth and 13th. A must-play.

94 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

ROYAL COUNTY DOWN

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 95

TOP 100 GOLF COURSES IN IRELAND 2021 1 ROYAL COUNTY DOWN

11 BALLYLIFFIN GOLF CLUB (GLASHEDY)

2 ROYAL PORTRUSH GOLF CLUB

12 COUNTY SLIGO GOLF CLUB

3 PORTMARNOCK

13 THE ISLAND GOLF CLUB

4 LAHINCH GOLF CLUB

14 ENNISCRONE GOLF CLUB

5 TRALEE GOLF CLUB

15 PORTSTEWART GOLF CLUB (THESTRANDCOURSE)

6 BALLYBUNION GOLF CLUB(THE OLD COURSE)

16 BELMULLET GOLF CLUB (CARNE GOLF LINKS)

7 WATERVILLE GOLF LINKS

17 PORTMARNOCK HOTEL & GOLF LINKS

8 COUNTY LOUTH GOLF CLUB (BALTRAY)

18 OLD HEAD GOLF LINKS

9 ADARE MANOR

19 MOUNT JULIET GOLF CLUB

10 THE EUROPEAN CLUB

20 BALLYLIFFIN GOLF CLUB (OLD LINKS)

21 K-CLUB (PALMER NORTH)

48 THE HERITAGE GOLF CLUB

74 ARDGLASS GOLF LINKS

22 DOOKS GOLF CLUB

49 ROYAL PORTRUSH GOLF CLUB VALLEY COURSE

75 ESKER HILLS GOLF CLUB

50 CARTON HOUSE HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (OMEARA COURSE)

77 BALLINROBE GOLF CLUB

23 THE ROYAL DUBLIN GOLF CLUB 24 TRUMP INTERNATIONAL GOLF LINKS - DOONBEG 25 PORTSALON GOLF CLUB 26 DONEGAL GOLF CLUB (MURVAGH LINKS) 27 ROSAPENNA HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (SANDYHILLS) 28 NARIN AND PORTNOO GOLF CLUB

51 DUN LAOGHAIRE GOLF CLUB 52 BELVOIR PARK GOLF CLUB 53 GALWAY BAY GOLF RESORT

76 SHANNON GOLF CLUB 78 WESTPORT GOLF CLUB 79 KNIGHTSBROOK HOTEL & GOLF RESORT

54 LUTTRELLSTOWN CASTLE GOLF CLUB

80 TULFARRIS HOTEL & GOLF RESORT

55 BUNCLODY GOLF CLUB

81 ST MARGARETS GOLF CLUB

30 KILLEEN CASTLE GOLF CLUB

56 PORTUMNA GOLF CLUB

82 FARNHAM ESTATE HOTEL & GOLF RESORT

31 ROSAPENNA HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (OLD TOM MORRIS COURSE)

57 HERMITAGE GOLF CLUB

83 GALWAY GOLF CLUB

32 CASTLEROCK GOLF CLUB

58 SEAPOINT GOLF CLUB

84 CASTLEMARTYR

59 ROYAL BELFAST GOLF CLUB

85 MULLINGAR GOLF CLUB

29 DRUIDS GLEN

33 CORK GOLF CLUB 34 FOTA ISLAND HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (DEERPARK) 35 SLIEVE RUSSELL HOTEL & COUNTRY CLUB 36 KILLARNEY GOLF & FISHING CLUB (KILLEEN COURSE) 37 CONCRA WOOD GOLF CLUB 38 CONNEMARA GOLF LINKS 39 LOUGH ERNE RESORT 40 HEADFORT GOLF CLUB (NEW) 41 CARTON HOUSE HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (MONTGOMERIE COURSE) 42 HOGS HEAD 43 MALONE GOLF CLUB 44 PALMERSTOWN STUD 45 CARLOW GOLF CLUB 46 K-CLUB (PALMER SOUTH) 47 TRAMORE GOLF CLUB 96 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

60 BALLYBUNION GOLF CLUB (CASHEN COURSE) 61 DROMOLAND CASTLE GOLF CLUB 62 ARKLOW GOLF LINKS 63 STRANDHILL GOLF CLUB 64 MOUNT WOLSELEY HOTEL & GOLF RESORT 65 CLANDEBOYE GOLF CLUB 66 POWERSCOURT GOLF CLUB (WEST COURSE)

67 POWERSCOURT GOLF CLUB (EAST COURSE)

68 ROSSLARE GOLF CLUB 69 TULLAMORE GOLF CLUB 70 GALGORM CASTLE GOLF CLUB 71 CASTLETROY 72 DINGLE GOLF LINKS CEANN SIBHEAL 73 GLASSON COUNTRY HOUSE HOTEL & GOLF CLUB

86 LAYTOWN & BETTYSTOWN GOLF CLUB 87 DUNDALK GOLF CLUB 88 CASTLE GOLF CLUB 89 WOODENBRIDGE GOLF CLUB 90 GRANGE GOLF CLUB 91 DRUIDS HEATH 92 KILLARNEY GOLF & FISHING CLUB (MAHONYS POINT)

93 NEW FOREST GOLF CLUB 94 ST ANNES GOLF LINKS 95 RATHSALLAGH 96 CASTLEKNOCK 97 MACREDDIN GOLF CLUB 98 BLAINROE GOLF CLUB 99 DUNDRUM HOUSE 100 ROGANSTOWN

2021 RANKED

E

O

LF

S

G

TOP 100 COUR

S

TOP 30 LINKS COURSES IN IREL AND 2021 1 ROYAL COUNTY DOWN

16 PORTMARNOCK HOTEL & GOLF LINKS

2 ROYAL PORTRUSH GOLF CLUB

17 BALLYLIFFIN GOLF CLUB (OLD LINKS)

3 PORTMARNOCK

18 DOOKS GOLF CLUB

4 LAHINCH GOLF CLUB

19 THE ROYAL DUBLIN GOLF CLUB

5 TRALEE GOLF CLUB

20 TRUMP INTERNATIONAL GOLF LINKS - DOONBEG

6 BALLYBUNION GOLF CLUB (THE OLD COURSE)

21 PORTSALON GOLF CLUB

7 WATERVILLE GOLF LINKS

22 DONEGAL GOLF CLUB (MURVAGH LINKS)

8 COUNTY LOUTH GOLF CLUB (BALTRAY)

23 ROSAPENNA HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (SANDYHILLS)

9 THE EUROPEAN CLUB

24 NARIN AND PORTNOO GOLF CLUB

10 BALLYLIFFIN GOLF CLUB (GLASHEDY)

25 ROSAPENNA HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (OLD TOM MORRIS COURSE)

11 COUNTY SLIGO GOLF CLUB

26 CASTLEROCK GOLF CLUB

12 THE ISLAND GOLF CLUB

27 CONNEMARA GOLF LINKS

13 ENNISCRONE GOLF CLUB

28 ROYAL PORTRUSH GOLF CLUB VALLEY COURSE

14 PORTSTEWART GOLF CLUB (THE STRAND COURSE)

29 SEAPOINT GOLF CLUB

15 BELMULLET GOLF CLUB (CARNE GOLF LINKS)

30 BALLYBUNION GOLF CLUB (CASHEN COURSE)

TOP 30 PARKL AND COURSES IN IREL AND 2021

1 ADARE MANOR

16 MALONE GOLF CLUB

2 OLD HEAD

17 PALMERSTOWN STUD

3 MOUNT JULIET GOLF CLUB

18 CARLOW GOLF CLUB

4 K-CLUB (PALMER NORTH)

19 K-CLUB (PALMER SOUTH)

5 DRUIDS GLEN

20 TRAMORE GOLF CLUB

6 KILLEEN CASTLE GOLF CLUB

21 THE HERITAGE GOLF CLUB

7 CORK GOLF CLUB

22 CARTON HOUSE HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (OMEARA COURSE)

8 FOTA ISLAND HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (DEERPARK)

23 DUN LAOGHAIRE GOLF CLUB

9 SLIEVE RUSSELL HOTEL & COUNTRY CLUB

24 BELVOIR PARK GOLF CLUB

10 KILLARNEY GOLF & FISHING CLUB (KILLEEN COURSE)

25 GALWAY BAY GOLF RESORT

11 CONCRA WOOD GOLF CLUB

26 LUTTRELLSTOWN CASTLE GOLF CLUB

12 LOUGH ERNE RESORT

27 BUNCLODY GOLF CLUB

13 HEADFORT GOLF CLUB (NEW)

28 PORTUMNA GOLF CLUB

14 CARTON HOUSE HOTEL & GOLF RESORT (MONTGOMERIE COURSE)

29 HERMITAGE GOLF CLUB

15 HOGS HEAD

30 ROYAL BELFAST GOLF CLUB

HONOURABLE MENTIONS 2021

MILLICENT GOLF CLUB

ATHLONE GOLF CLUB

KIRKSTOWN CASTLE GOLF CLUB

BALBRIGGAN GOLF CLUB

HILTON TEMPLEPATRICK GOLF CLUB

LISBURN GOLF CLUB

ROYAL TARA GOLF CLUB

ROYAL CURRAGH GOLF CLUB

FAITHLEGG GOLF CLUB

MOYOLA PARK GOLF CLUB

DUNFANAGHY GOLF CLUB

WOODBROOK GOLF CLUB

NORTH WEST GOLF CLUB

NEWLANDS GOLF CLUB

MOYVALLLEY GOLF CLUB

WEXFORD GOLF CLUB

RING OF KERRY GOLF CLUB

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 97

MOST OF US ARE PLAYING THE WRONG SHAFT * 98 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

*

THE RIGHT ONE COULD GET YOU 17 MORE YARDS WITH THE DRIVER, BUT FINDING IT IS AS MUCH ART AS SCIENCE

BY MIKE STACHURA

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 99

*

THE FIELD AT THIS YEAR’S PUERTO RICO OPEN had 132 exception-

ally talented golfers with similarly perfect swings as hypnotic as the nearby palm trees blowing in the island breeze. But when you looked closer, a subtle but distinct difference kept reflecting in the light: bits of metallic blue in one moment, sparkly green or smoky black in another place, shiny silver here, and hints of red, yellow or even orange over there, each tracing that perfect line between hands and clubhead.

Shoes, hats and even physiques have a certain consistency on the PGA Tour, but the driver shaft reveals a rainbow palette of variety, and not just in colours—68 of the 132 players used a different driver shaft.

On its face, that number sounds absurd. Tour-player swings all hover in the same swing-speed range. Why would there need to be so many models? How is such subtlety possible or necessary?

The reasons aren’t entirely clear, but finding a shaft that’s perfectly suited for your game isn’t only for golfers with their names on their bags. A Golf Digest/Club Champion test with a 10-handicapper revealed as much as a 17-yard difference between similar— but not the same—driver shafts. And even that gain isn’t as clearly defined as it might initially appear to be (see chart, page 68). In a game increasingly adept at measuring potential performance, the mysterious, mystical shaft is the game’s last great frontier. But like all frontiers, it still lacks a map.

The voyage for a pro starts with a precise fitting, says Don Brown, vice president of innovation and product creation for True Temper Sports, makers of the Project X brand of shafts,

which includes the HZRDUS and EvenFlow lines. “Guys can use a launch monitor to dial in tenths of a degree of launch and spin by 50 revolutions per minute to get optimal launch conditions,” Brown says, “whereas 20 years ago, they mostly stood on the range with their caddies and said, ‘Yeah, that looks like the right window.’ ” But when the same analytical tools that PGA Tour players rely on are found at nearly any golf shop, the shaft search becomes a shifting minefield of science joining forces with art. The game’s best clubfitters watch the readouts from high-tech launch monitors with nuclear physics-like precision while trying to translate all that math into what the 12-handicapper in front of them is trying to communicate about “feel.”

lag

droop

One who has studied that variety is Jon Sinclair, one of the top-rated teachers in Texas and a clubfitter and consultant to shaft manufacturer TPT. Sinclair has captured 3-D data on thousands of swings, perhaps more than anyone, and he has seen just three or four things that rise to the level of similar fundamentals in all those moves. “When I look at all the 3-D swings in my database, it is enough to tell you that a golf swing is a fingerprint,” he says. “Having all these shaft options shouldn’t be a surprise; it should be encouraging.”

The implication of these swing varieties and shaft options is clear: The vast majority of recreational golfers are playing the wrong driver shaft.

Whether they have the capacity to realise this and the time, interest and money to discover the truth is a more difficult question. Nick Sherburne, founder of leading clubfitting-franchise Club Champion, believes 90 percent of average golfers use a shaft that is not optimal for their potential.

“They just have a run-of-the-mill golf shaft,” he says, admitting, of course, that part of his business is getting golfers into the right and often more expensive shaft. “It’s not that what they have is crap; it’s that it’s not specific. The shaft is the missing link to the best possible performance.

Get the right shaft and your swing becomes more effortless. Let the head

lead

▶ Golf biomechanist Sasho Mackenzie’s research with Ping reveals how a shaft bends during the swing and how that bending affects clubhead speed. In the illustration above, the yellow shaft represents the typical bending compared with the theoretical unbending blue shaft. During the downswing, the shaft bends back (called “lag”). Near impact, the shaft bends down (“droop”) and then toward the target (“lead”). Mackenzie’s 100 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

research found that forward bend (called “kick velocity”) increased with more flexible shafts than with stiffer shafts but not for all players. And even though kick velocity might increase, the overall clubhead speed didn’t change because that forward-bending effect causes the hands to slow down. Says Mackenzie, “There’s not really a great way to be able to predict who is going to get that clubhead speed.”

quickhoney

the various ways a shaft bends during the swing

morikawa: Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images • hovl and: Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

solve direction. The right shaft is going to be all about consistency and speed, speed, and more speed.”

The challenge is that there are thousands of potential right shafts. Companies like Fujikura, Mitsubishi and True Temper each offer hundreds of drivershaft options, sometimes dozens under the same model. Fujikura’s Ventus, which has been the most played shaft on the PGA Tour, is available in 23 versions on its website. True Temper’s Project X HZRDUS has 70 varieties.

Mitsubishi’s tour-proven Tensei family of driver shafts has 111 options.

Each of those companies, and more than a dozen others of substance, are cooking up more each day. Although there is considerable overlap among models, weights and flex profiles, the differences remain hidden in pockets of knowledge among fitters and engineers. Mix in driver heads that adjust and the fact that individual shafts can be cut from the tip end to alter stiffness, and it seems paralysing for the lonely golf consumer to even start on the journey to finding the right one.

To their credit, shaft companies and a fair number of club manufacturers offer interactive online tools and guides that allow golfers to match swing characteristics and trajectory desires to narrow that universe of shafts. GolfShaftReviews.info, the website that is to golf-shaft gearheads what the Sibley Guide to Birds is to aspiring ornithologists, has profiled the technical details of more than 2,000 driver shafts. TrueFitClubs.com measures shafts across 21 metrics to match your golfer profile to get specific online recommendations. Mizuno’s Shaft Optimiser, first developed for iron shafts and now used for drivers, has sophisticated strain gauges, hardware and software to demonstrate how your swing makes a shaft bend. Then Mizuno correlates those forces to shaft profiles that will fit your game best.

Even artificial intelligence has come to shaft matching. SwingFit, with locations in South Carolina and Florida, uses motion-capture analysis to track more than 30,000 data points per swing to determine the ideal club and shaft combination.

But no matter how detailed the analysis, the right shaft usually comes down to the hitting—and all the quirks that implies. Feel to a golfer, even an average Joe, can’t be reduced to an

▶ same speed, different ways The clubhead speeds of Collin Morikawa (above) and Viktor Hovland (left) are nearly the same, but their different movements during the swing lead them to use different shaft models. Factors include how aggressive the player transitions in a few milliseconds of the downswing and how firm or soft various sections of the shaft feel.

eHarmony.com algorithm. (Relationships between humans involve compromise; the right shaft matched to the right golfer, on the other hand, is the perfect bliss of the gods.)

“When you’ve got a flexible stick in your hands and what is basically a hammerhead, and then you have 20 million individuals delivering this hammerhead in 20 million different ways, well, that’s a mystery that might never get solved,” says John Oldenburg, who has been designing shafts you’ve likely played for nearly three decades and now is director of shaft development for Ping. “No doubt you can change the performance of the golf club with the shaft.”

That isn’t just the opinion of shaft makers and clubfitters and others trying to sell you the latest miracle in a stick made of carbon fiber, resin and paint. It’s science. One doctoral thesis on the subject cites 37 pages worth of past research. Summing up that analysis on the golfer-shaft symbiosis

neatly is Sasho MacKenzie, a professor of human kinetics at Canada’s St. Francis Xavier University, who has been studying shafts for nearly two decades. MacKenzie, who has a Ph.D. in sport biomechanics and did his doctoral thesis on shaft stiffness and golfer performance, has recently written in published research that “robotic testing reveals relatively clear relationships between each shaft property and clubhead delivery.” But, he also writes, “when the neurobiological nuances of a human golfer are called upon to supply the kinetics to the grip of the club, those clear relationships become considerably stirred.”

Talk to him outside of a science journal, though, and he’s a golfer like the rest of us. He concedes getting a player’s swing and shaft together requires more than stirring. “It seems really hard to predict,” he says. “But I would say ‘chaotic’ is a good word because it is deterministic. There is cause and effect.

“There is this mystique about what the shaft does. Each golfer loads it so differently. I sunk a reasonable amount of time in trying to sort it out, and I came to the conclusion that whatever method we come up with— let’s say it has something to do with

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 101

100 80 60 40

yards

0

100

300

200

400

20 40 60 80 100

a • shaft shaft • shaft bc • • shaft d

test: a 10-handicapper, four stiff shafts and a 17-yard difference ▶ In our test with national clubfitting leader Club Champion, we had a 10-handicapper with a higher than normal swing speed hit 10 to 12 shots each with four shaft models from the same company, cycling through the shafts every three swings. All were labeled “stiff,” but each had a slightly different profile, or what’s called an “EI curve” that measures the relative stiffness of different sections along the shaft. In other words, all of these stiff shafts were the right starting point, but in theory they were different enough that one might produce better results based on the way our player swings the driver. Although not instantly clear from the distance and dispersion circles seen here, the data showed that shaft C and shaft A produced the best average distances (with shaft

grip strength, flexibility, downswing time, stance width, whatever it is—my gut would still be to give me a launch monitor and a bunch of balls, and let’s see how the shaft changes the results.”

That is not a terrible compromise.

Good fitters know shafts not so much by “R,” “S” and “X” but by the way shaft engineers talk about bend profiles, particularly what’s called the EI curve. Generally the shape of an upwardly sloping stock trendline, the EI curve reflects a series of calculations of a force applied at multiple sections of the shaft. It shows the relative stiffness of the butt section compared to the middle and the tip and is a means of comparing those sections to other shafts that might be labeled with the same overall stiffness. There are clear-

C a little longer and and shaft A a little straighter) by about 17 yards over shaft B and about seven yards over shaft D. The differences were even more dramatic than expected for Club Champion founder Nick Sherburne. He saw swing-speed improve by three miles per hour from the worst to the best shaft, for example. “The shaft was clearly making him release at different times, and this was with shafts with only minute differences,” he says. “It’s what we see every day and why you should get fit.” Still, there’s uncertainty. Factoring in the standard deviation showed less clarity among the four shafts. And there’s this: Our player, without knowing the results, did prefer one of the two shafts with better numbers but wasn’t completely satisfied with the feel of any of them.

ly similar types of shafts, or what Russ Ryden, the top fitter behind the Golf Shaft Reviews website and a designer of EI curve measuring machines, calls “archetypes.” He suggests one of the more popular profiles is shafts that are softer in the middle section. Another has a decrease in stiffness from butt to tip, and a third might trace that decreasing stiffness slope more steeply, especially to the extreme at the tip.

“Successful technologies survive,” he says. “That soft mid design is really the best fit for the majority of golfers.

Is the soft mid a shock absorber for inconsistent or jerky loading on the downswing? That might be why it’s made by every company in all kinds of variations and price points.”

This idea of loading or applying

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force at various points during the swing is meant to correlate with how the shaft bends in multiple directions and depending on a golfer’s swing, speed and strength. Stories from fitters of golfers with poorly fitting shafts having to compromise their driver swings or work too hard to achieve optimal conditions are common.

“I had a young golfer come in who was swinging his 6-iron at 93 miles per hour, but he was barely swinging his driver any faster,” says Mark Timms, longtime fitter and CEO of high-tech fitting chain Cool Clubs. “When I measured his driver shaft, it was near what would be called a soft flex despite what it said on the label. He had slowed his driver swing just to keep the ball in play. You wonder if he’ll ever get that

quickhoney

yards

20

speed back. The right shaft, even for a high-handicapper, lines up with the signature of your swing.”

There are general rules all fitters use: (1) A lighter shaft will be easier to swing faster and is likely to launch the ball higher. But it’s best to match your strength to shaft weight. (2) A more flexible tip section compared to the butt section likely will launch the ball higher. Conversely, shafts that are heavier and have less flexible tip sections than the butt section will launch the ball lower and are best for fast swingers. But even with all his shaft measuring and analysis, Ryden isn’t a fan of predictions.

“Giving fitting advice without seeing the swing and testing different combinations is a swamp,” he says, noting that if you are looking for a shaft that’s going to address your 40-yard slice or significantly alter your launch angle, guess again. Lessons with a quality teacher should be your first stop and maybe the clubhead can help a little more. The shaft is there to bring out your best, not eradicate your worst.

Martin Broulliette, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Sherbrooke, a member of the

Golf Digest technical panel and someone who has been fitting golfers for 20 years, urges a simple approach. He believes there is an ideal shaft weight for each golfer that will produce more clubhead speed, and that a launch monitor will be clear about which shaft produces the best launch conditions. But don’t focus only on distance, he says: “Play the stiffest shaft that you can tolerate, to minimise shot dispersion,” he says, emphasising tolerate.

Because carbon fiber keeps improving, though, the possibilities keep multiplying. For instance, tour-level golfers now swing lighter shafts that maintain their stiffness at swing speeds of 120 miles per hour or more.

Some estimate that shafts on tour today can maintain gram weights in the 60s but are twice as stiff as they were a decade ago. For paying customers, technology and material gains mean some graphite shafts weigh half what they once did.

“Shaft designs from 10 years ago couldn’t be more different than they are today,” says Alex Dee, Fujikura’s veteran designer and vice president.

“Our current designs have more than double the number of plies per part

compared to shafts made back then.

By using thinner materials with more carbon content and less resin, we’ve been able to better fine-tune the structure, enhancing feel and performance and improving strength and endurance. We’ve been able to design completely different products with performance metrics previously impossible unless weight was sacrificed.”

The vast majority of golfers, of course, don’t opt for one of these aftermarket custom shafts, sticking with the stock version that comes with the driver they buy. Stock shafts are really designed to not offend or alienate any potential customer, but they are not optimised for individuals. Just as you can buy pants with a 34-inch waist, they won’t feel ideal if your waist is 33¼. Can you wear the 34s and make it through your day without them falling off? Of course. But how much better would your day be with perfectly fitting pants?

It’s easy to know our waist size, but defining swing types that match shaft profiles might require a ruler that has not been invented yet.

Timms has been studying this golfcomponent unicorn matrix with

more swings than you can shake a stick at

1 accra fx 3.0 ▶ The gram weights on these 24 driver-shaft options range from the 40s to the 80s.

2 evenflow riptide mx ▶ The smooth flex profile features extra stability at the tip to tighten shot dispersion.

3 fujikura ventus red ▶ The ultra-strong carbon fiber on this highest-launching Ventus adds stability mid-swing and at impact.

4 graphite design tour ad hd ▶ The lower launch and low spin comes from the firm butt section and the even more stable tip.

5 la golf trono ▶ Co-designer Bryson DeChambeau called for a stout mid-section with a softer feel in the hands.

6 mca golf diamana tb ▶ The four weight ranges feature the same smooth flex transition from butt section to tip.

7 oban airburst ▶ Ultra-thin, high-density carbon fiber builds in a medium firm feel and mid-to-high launch.

8 tpt red range ▶ There are 14 profiles built through an automated seamless carbon-fiber wrapping process to ensure consistency.

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 103

shafts: courtesy of companies

▶ The latest shafts often come in an array of weights with new materials to stabilise the clubhead as a perfect extension of your hands.

next-generation measuring devices for decades, and he is still trying to crack a code he believes exists.

“All of shaft fitting now is essentially trial and error,” he says. “The ideal amount of shaft bend and where along the shaft it bends can differ from golfer to golfer. But we haven’t figured out why yet. Right now, we’re just handing it to them, and if it works, it’s right.”

Shaft companies understand that subtlety and continue to explore the idea that the differences are knowable and meaningful. Fujikura’s ENSO camera system analyses swings and their effect on the shaft at 2,000 frames per second. Mitsubishi is pulling from carbon-fiber varieties originally developed by its parent company to lighten airplanes or strengthen buildings and bridges from earthquakes.

“In the past the shaft might have been pretty close for a player, but then we would adjust the head to match. Now the shaft is becoming that non-variable, that constant that you can pair with the right head combination,” says Zane Nuttall, manager of product development and innovation for Mitsubishi. “We’re eliminating more variables by pro-

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viding more options.”

That’s what tour players do on a weekly basis: confirm that the connection between hands and driver head is still seamless. That decision might have taken days or weeks of testing in the past, but now through adjustable hosels and launch monitors, it might take only a couple of swings.

When he thinks about how he combines his teaching with his clubfitting, Sinclair says average golfers should approach their shaft search the same as the best golfers. “If an elite player can’t just play anything,” he says, “neither should anyone.”

The shaft industry has become much smarter at understanding how a shaft’s properties effectively align with certain swing types. It’s not unlike doctors staring at the array of medical options as they desperately search for the right way to fight a disease. It’s not that the wrong choice won’t work; it might make the disease worse. In golf terms, the shaft choice is critical, too. In both cases, the only real mistake is doing nothing.

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A VERY SPECIAL IRISH AT The Dubai Duty Free Irish Open has been given the green light after months of uncertainty. Mount Juliet in Kilkenny will finally get the opportunity to host, having given up the right to host the event in 2020 due to the pandemic. After the carnival atmosphere of Lahinch in 2019, the Irish Open was staged behind closed doors in Galgorm Castle, Northern Ireland as John Catlin edged out Aaron Rai for his maiden European Tour win.

T

he Jack Nicklaus designed Mount Juliet Estate has played host to the 2002 and 2004 WGC American Express Championship, won by Tiger Woods and Ernie Els respectively.

When Tiger won here in 2002, he described the greens as the best he had played on all year. The Irish Open has also been played here on three occasions between 1993 and 1995 where Nick Faldo, Bernhard Langer and Sam Torrance claimed victory. The course measures at 7200 yards basking in the 180 acres of Irish 106 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

countryside with mature woodland framing the course.

Keith Pelley and his team deserve immense credit for staging an Irish Open last year while maintaining Mount Juliet’s place on the rota for this year. The European Tour’s doggedness and determination to stage events make it easy to understand why they deemed it necessary to hold multiple events in the UK, Italy and Cyprus in 2020.

Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry can look forward to playing in

OPEN

By Ronan MacNamarra

MOUNT JULIET ESTATE front of 5000 adoring Irish fans in the first week of July. The Dubai Duty Free Irish Open has been confirmed as one of the 15 test events to allow spectators back to watch live sport. This makes perfect sense. Golf is a perfectly safe sport to play and watch. The spectators will quite literally have acres of space in which to move around while watching the week unfold.

2019 Open Champion Shane Lowry, will at long last get to play in front of a home crowd as the Champion Golfer of the Year, that coupled with the presence of Rory McIlroy and hopefully Pádraig Harrington and Graeme McDowell should attract the full 5000 through the gates every day.

The Clara native has been trending in the right direction both in pursuit of a Ryder Cup place and a first win since the Open Championship in 2019, what a story it would be if he could break his drought at Mount Juliet in front of Irish eyes.

Irish European Tour players have been struggling in 2021 with Jonathan Caldwell, Paul Dunne, Cormac Sharvin and Niall Kearney all languishing outside the top 110 in the Race to Dubai. The European Tour has become a lonely place at times, travelling from

country to country in a bubble, in the absence of an experienced Irish head to lean on and gain valuable advice to rise out of their respective slumps. The return of fans to Mount Juliet could be the tonic they need to play some good golf again. The tournament will see an increased prize purse of €3 million which will give our struggling Irishmen a chance to seal a healthy payday should they play well. They will also have the backing of a partisan home crowd.

The Dubai Duty Free Irish Open will also provide an opportunity for Irish fans to cast an eye on teenage sensation Tom McKibbin.

The 18-year-old has been finding his feet as a professional, playing in a select number of events on both the European and Challenge Tour. The Holywood native, who has drawn comparisons with Rory McIlroy was impressive as he finished in a share of 12th place at the Irish Challenge in May at Portmarnock Links.

James Sugrue will play on Irish soil for the first time as a professional, the former British Amateur champion has enjoyed a steady start to his professional career finishing in the top-25 on two occasions on the Challenge Tour.

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 107

The stunning Mount Juliet course is a fantastic venue for any event

The participating players would be subject to a strict bubble.

The travelling fans would also have to adhere to strict guidelines outside the ropes with no seating allowed throughout the Jack Nicklaus designed layout. The European Tour also has an added problem of trying to attract other marquee players to the event, which will be difficult with covid protocols. The Dubai Duty Free Irish Open is a fortnight before the 149th Open Championship at Royal St. Georges where Shane Lowry will finally get the chance to defend the Claret Jug he won at Royal Portrush in 2019. The stunning Mount Juliet course is a fantastic venue for any event, but the fact it is not a links course might see very few if any of the star names tee it up on July 1st, with many preferring to fine tune their links game at the Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open at The Renaissance Club the following week.

The European Tour is attempting to coax the likes of two-time Irish Open winner Jon Rahm, Tommy Fleetwood and Lee Westwood into competing this year. Perhaps Rory McIlroy, who would be making his first Irish Open appearance since 2018 might tempt a few stars over – he famously opted away from the event in 2018

108 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

stating it didn’t fit into his schedule in preparation for the open so it’s not the first time this event has had that to deal with.

McIlroy has done wonders for the Irish Open in the past, while also attracting big names like Rickie Fowler, Justin Rose and Hideki Matsuyama to come and play in the past.

The European Tour has struggled to put up significant prize purses for every event while also watching many of its established names take up membership on the PGA Tour during the pandemic, they have a task on their hands to tempt that calibre of player to Kilkenny in July. Previous European Tour stalwarts like Matt Wallace, Matt Fitzpatrick, Erik Van Rooyen and Christiaan Bezuidenhout all ply their trade across the Atlantic.

A festival atmosphere awaits the players who do decide to tee it up, with Irish golf fans being heralded among the best in the world. The admission of fans through the gates for the first time since 2019 and the opportunity to see the Open Champion compete on Irish soil alongside Rory McIlroy who will play his first Irish Open for three years will be worth the admission fee alone.

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RELY ON THESE KEYS TO PULL OFF ALL THE BASIC SHOTS

By TODD ANDERSON With DAVE ALLEN

SH RT GAME

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MADE SIMPLE

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BASIC PITCH

112 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 00 golf digest | issue x . 2021

gutter credit tk

Set the shaft more vertical at address to help the clubhead slide along the turf, not dig deep into it.

Your arms, club and chest should turn back together and finish together with your hands remaining in front of your chest (right).

Photograph by First Lastname

STOCK CHIP

With your weight forward and the front shoulder over your lead foot, move the triangle formed by your arms and shoulders back and through (below). Continue turning your body to keep the club’s shaft and lead arm in line at impact (below, right).

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE 113

IN THE ROUGH (SITTING DOWN AND PROPPED UP)

When your ball is down in deeper grass, allow your trail arm to fold as you swing back, setting a sharp angle between your lead arm and the club (above, left). This helps you to hit down sharply on the ball. Swing high to low with little follow-through, popping it out. When the ball is sitting up, address it in the center of the clubface, setting the leading edge even with the bottom of the ball—not nestled under it. This promotes a solid strike (above, right).

114 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

BUMP-AND-RUN

gutter credit tk

Grab a 9-iron and hit a chip with some hook spin, taking the club back more inside the target line and letting the face close through impact (below). If you’re playing up a slope, land the ball midway to kill its momentum so it doesn’t scoot over the green.

Photograph by First Lastname

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING MAGAZINE issue x . 2021 GOLF digest 115 00 | golf

116 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

FLOP SHOT

To lob the ball high, take an extra-wide stance and play the ball slightly forward of center in your stance. On the forward swing, unhinge the trail arm and slip the clubface under the ball (bottom photo, below). Keep your trail arm under the lead arm through impact to hold the clubface open and pop the ball up.

Golf Digest Teaching Professional todd anderson is director of instruction for the PGA Tour's Performance Centre at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach and one of the 50 Best Teachers in America.

BUNKER SHOTS (LONG AND SHORT)

For long sand shots like this (left), take a gap wedge or pitching wedge and make a swing that is three times harder than required from the fairway. For a 30-yard shot, make your 90-yard swing and explode the sand behind the ball. For standard greenside bunker shots, play the ball off your lead heel, set the clubface open about 45 degrees, then take your grip. On the downswing, accelerate the trail arm and thump the sand with the backside of the wedge. This creates a high, soft shot.

IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING MAGAZINE issue x . 2021 GOLF digest 117 00 | golf

Body Tour Technique

Get Set Ball-striking success starts at address by collin morikawa

mateurs often stand over the ball with their feet too wide apart. I understand the appeal—they want to feel more stable throughout the swing, and a wider stance seems a logical way to achieve that. Ever notice how many tour pros have both feet anchored to the ground at impact? Not everyone—some pros get up on their toes for more power—but most know having both feet planted is such a stable position when you’re swinging through the hitting zone. It helps provide consistency to ball-striking. ▶ That said, there is such a thing as being too wide. It hinders body rotation and truncates the swing. This is something my coach, Rick Sessinghaus, and I keep an eye on as it pops up periodically when I address the ball. When my stance is too wide, my tendency is to slide away from the ball in the backswing,

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A

“If your stance is too wide, you’ll struggle to rotate.”

rather than making a good turn off the ball with my upper body. Often this leads to my right hip sliding outside my right ankle during the backswing, or my right shoulder dropping too much and too far back, getting my swing out of sequence. The club gets blocked by my body in the downswing—we call this “being stuck”—and I leave the face a touch open to my target at impact. If you see me miss with a spinny shot to the right of the fairway or green, I was probably too wide at address.

When amateurs get too wide, their lower body gets locked off and they don’t rotate toward the target in the downswing like they should. The only way they can generate clubhead speed is with their arms. When you swing like that, you become too reliant on timing and the hope that you can get the clubface in a good position for a solid strike with your hands and wrists. Good luck trying to improve consistency.

So how should you stand over the ball? The key is to set your feet just

wide enough that you feel stable and balanced—but not so wide so that you can’t arrive at a fully rotated finish position with your belt buckle facing the target. For me, a good checkpoint with a middle iron is making sure that my feet are just a hair wider than my shoulders. This gives me just enough width to keep my head and chest centreed over the ball in the backswing, but I’m not so narrow that I can’t fire my hips through and arrive in a balanced finish with my lower body fully uncoiled.

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Body Tour Technique

“You don’t need to make big changes to shape it.”

When I’m holding any wood, I stand a little wider, but again, not so wide that I feel locked down. If you’re going to err, a little too narrow is better than a little too wide. And you’ll know when you’re too narrow if you can’t maintain your balance during a practice swing.

Next time you’re hitting balls or waiting for your next shot on the course, take a second to note the width of your stance and adjust if it appears or feels a little off. It’s easy to forget about width of stance, but a simple tweak can turn your ball-striking around in a big way.

Changing topics, my go-to shot is a cut, and I’ll stick with it on the vast majority of tee shots. You might think pros are always shaping their shots to fit the hole—so for me, fades on dogleg rights and draws on dogleg lefts—but

I don’t know anyone who is equally comfortable shaping the ball both ways, and veering away from your stock shot can lead to a big miss. The one exception I’ll make is when it’s windy. If it’s whipping off the left and there’s trouble down the right, I need to hit a shot that draws into the wind and holds its line.

Hitting a cut into a 30-mph gust coming from the left is a bad idea.

Instead of manipulating my path or my swing to hit a draw, I alter my setup. We know from using launch monitors that to impart the right-toleft spin necessary for a draw, I need to aim my clubface where I want the ball to start and swing on a path that is open when compared to the face.

For righties like me, that combination makes the ball start right of the target

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and then curve toward it, because the face is closed in relation to the path.

You can check that here at address (above, left). For my normal cut setup, you wouldn’t be able to see my left thigh or a sliver of my left arm from this view.

Here, my feet and shoulders are aligned a little right of my target and the clubface is set where I want the ball to start.

When it comes to the actual swing, I make an effort to move the club along my foot line, which makes my path in to out in relation to the target. If all you did was make this adjustment, you would draw the ball so long as your clubface is closed to that swing path at impact (above). You don’t need to make big changes to shape it. Simply alter your setup and swing along your body line.

—with daniel rapaport

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Body Equipment

What’s in My Bag Will Zalatoris driver age 24 lives Plano, Texas story Six top-10s on the PGA Tour through early May, including second place at the Masters. home improvement During the break caused by the pandemic last year, I was rooming with fellow Korn Ferry Tour player Davis Riley. We bought a hitting mat and a net and rearranged the living room in our apartment so that we could hit balls. We set up the TrackMan and often hit balls until midnight. It was a really good way to work on our games, and thankfully the neighbors never complained.

—with e. michael johnson

club

yards*

driver

305

specs Titleist TSi3, 9°, Fujikura Speeder 757 TR X shaft, 44.5 inches. ▶ I got this driver the week before last fall’s U.S. Open and immediately had success with it. Minimising the effect of mis-hits is important to me, and off-centre strikes are much better with this driver. It also gives me the medium-flat trajectory I prefer. fairway wood specs Titleist TSi3, 16.5°, Fujikura Atmos 8 Red shaft, 42 inches. ▶ There’s a little more loft on my 3-wood for a couple of reasons. My old one was going too far, and I needed to bring it back about 20 yards, so we added loft and shortened the shaft. I’m also a low-spin player, so the extra loft helps keep the ball in the air. irons specs Titleist U500 (3), Nippon NS Pro Modus 3 shaft; Titleist T100 (4-PW), True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 shafts, Golf Pride Z-Grip Cord grips. ▶ These irons have been in the bag for about 18 months. I love that they have a little less offset. That’s a good look for me.

At my swing speed I tend to get more flyers than most players, but the sole design with more camber helps minimise those.

3-wood 274

wedges

3-utility

specs Titleist Vokey SM8 (50°, 55°, 60°), True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 shafts.

256

4-iron 240 5-iron 222 6-iron

210

7-iron 196 8-iron

pw 157 50˚ 141 55˚ 129 60˚

108

* carry distance 122 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

hittin’ the books ▶ Wake Forest is very special to me. I attended on an Arnold Palmer Scholarship and was first-team AllAmerica in 2017.

This yardage book is just a nice reminder of all those great memories.

▶ We square off the leading edge on the 50 and 55. It just looks better to me. On the 60, I like the wider sole for bunker shots, and the leading edge sits close to the ground.

The stamping you see here is a quote from Butch Harmon about how thin I am.

178

9-iron 168

my own spin ▶ A lot of guys on tour play the Titleist Pro V1, so I needed more than just a line. I put my initials and 99 on it. The 99 comes from a game at Dave & Buster’s where I always hit 99 by throwing a football.

putter specs Odyssey White Hot Pro 7 Long, 5.5 degrees, SuperStroke grip. ▶ I’ve had this putter for a little more than two years. It has a double-bend shaft that looks better to me. I like how the outside lines frame the ball. For an armlock-style, it doesn’t have much loft, only 5.5 degrees.

I cut the shaft down a little, so I use lead tape to keep the swingweight I want.

open tradition ▶ They gave this valuables pouch to every player at last September’s U.S. Open at Winged Foot. I used one before that from the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock. I’ll just keep cycling through them from every U.S. Open I play.

Photographs by Cooper Neill

“I needed to bring the 3-wood back 20 yards, so I added loft and shortened the shaft.”

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Body Golf Digest Schools

Get Your Power Back Or find it in the first place by mark blackburn

Check ball position and posture Charley has worked on improving his setup, because he knows that if you want to bomb it, you can’t overlook how it affects the golf swing. Just like he’s doing here (below), make sure to play the ball in the ideal position—in line with your lead foot’s heel and the lead shoulder socket. If you play the ball any farther back, you’re likely going to hit down on it and create too much distance-robbing spin. And if you play the ball forward of your front heel, it gets difficult to hit it solid without feeling like you have to reach out for the ball.

Also monitor your posture. Make sure to hinge from your hip joints as you bend over to address the ball. Many players get sloppy and only slump their shoulders forward at address, making it a lot harder to stay in posture during the swing.

hroughout his career, four-time PGA Tour winner Charley Hoffman (above) has played with an awesome combination of ball-striking quality and raw distance. But in 2019, 13 years after joining the tour, Charley saw declines in his strokes-gained stats and came to me for help. He had added some “restrictor plates” to his swing over time to make sure he kept the ball in play, but those things also prevented him from swinging the club as well as we knew he still could. He needed to make some changes and I’ll share some of them here, including getting him to swing through impact better.

A common fault is letting the hips move toward the ball in the downswing. It feels powerful, but losing your posture like this actually kills clubhead speed. Instead, to sling the club through fast and free, imagine you’re swinging with an open window right behind your rear end. As the club moves through impact, push your butt through the window. That thought will help you stay in posture and pure it. —with matthew rudy

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mark blackburn is a Golf Digest Teaching Professional. The Blackburn Golf Academy is at Greystone Golf and Country Club in Birmingham, Ala. 124 IRELAND’S BIGGEST-SELLING GOLF MAGAZINE

Increase the width of your swing I’m sure you’ve heard to swing with good width, but what does that actually mean? The average player tends to stay too centreed in the backswing and hinges the wrists too much, too early and too open. That makes for a narrow swing arc and a missed opportunity to generate more power. Even pros like Charley sometimes struggle to maintain good width, which is why we work on it.

In the backswing, I want you to load onto your trail leg and stretch the club away from your body without hinging the

club upward with your wrists so quickly. To create better width, feel like you’re giving your club to somebody standing on the target line behind you.

By shifting to your trail leg and unweighting your lead leg in the backswing—you might even lift your lead foot—you’ll make a far bigger turn, like you see us working on here (below), which means you’ll have more time to create speed on the way down.

Know your numbers

I use data with all my players, because it reinforces the message I’m trying to deliver and is great for motivation. It helped Charley improve his driver swing speed from 113 miles per hour to 117. That’s the difference between hitting tee shots 295 yards, like he was doing in 2019, and 306 yards, like he’s smashing it this year. At age 44, he’s 11 yards longer than the tour average and hitting a full club less into greens. What would 11 more yards do for your game?

Push from the top Pushing off the ground is a powerful way to create more speed at impact, but the push has to happen earlier in the swing. To add some of those forces and torques to your game, increase the pressure under your feet when you start down with the club, not as it’s reaching the ball. Here Charley is rehearsing a feel he wants to re-create at the top, which is to stuff his toes into the front of the lead shoe (right). A great visual is, you’re wearing one of those big clown shoes and trying to shift your toes toward the tip and then pushing like you’re going to jump.

Photographs by J.D. Cuban

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gutter l arge photo: credit Andy tk Lyons/PGA of America/Getty Images • small photo: Jamie Squire/Getty Images

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Tour Technique

Body

Jump Start How LPGA Tour rookie Bianca Pagdanganan crushes it by ron kaspriske

here is a classic training principal that if you want to get better at anything, practice with people who are better than you.

This partially explains how 5-foot-4 Bianca Pagdanagan of the Philippines became the longest golfer on the LPGA Tour in 2020. With a driver swing speed of 106 miles per hour and a ball speed of 156, the 23-year-old averaged 283 yards off the tee in 10 tournaments during the pandemic-shortened season.

She credits her aggressively athletic swing to competing against anyone who was longer than her, especially her father, Samuel.

“From the first time I went to the driving range with him, probably around [age] 7, I remember wanting to hit it as far as he could,” says Pagdanagan, who remains an LPGA Tour rookie for 2021 because of the abridged ’20 season. “My goal wasn’t to hit it farther. It was to beat him. And beat my sister [Ines], too.”

gutter credit tk

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Her competitive nature certainly helped shape the golf swing she has now, Samuel says. Similar to how the PGA Tour’s Justin Thomas swings (and an unintentional homage to Hall of Famer Laura Davies’ power move), Pagdanagan combines a healthy rotation of her hips toward the target in the downswing with a forceful push off the ground (left). Her lower-body action is so pronounced, her left foot often leaves the turf.

“I didn’t even realize that I jumped until I saw it,” she says. “I’m not trying to do it. It just feels natural and comes from wanting to hit the ball hard.”

Before she was a teenager, Bianca’s speedy swing caught the attention of respected Filipino golf coach and former tour pro Carito Villaroman, Samuel says, and they have been working together since. Their partnership led to Pagdanagan’s victory in the 2014 Philippine Junior Amateur and a college scholarship to Gonzaga University in 2016. She eventually transferred and graduated from Arizona, leading the Wildcats to the 2018 national title.

The goal now is to refine her stock drive—she plays a fade—into something that is as reliable as it is long. She finished 117th on tour in fairways hit last season (67 percent).

“Keeping it in play is important on the LPGA Tour—she knows that,” Samuel says. “It reminds me of when she was a little girl. Just before it got dark at our home course in the Philippines [Camp Aguinaldo], I’d give her a brand new ball to play. She knew if she didn’t hit it straight, it was too dark, we’d never find it. She did not want to lose a good ball. Like I said, she’s a competitor.”

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The Loop

Crash Course You don’t need to know all the rules, but you better know a few if you’re playing for €€€ By Coleman Bentley ▶ In golf, a buck isn’t just a buck. It represents honour.

If you’re playing for one today and haven’t memorised the 168 pages in the Player’s Edition of the Rules of Golf, you can avoid a black eye if you stick to these nine edicts.

5

Ball on a paved cartpath?

If you want an excuse to get new clubs, play it as it lies.

If you still like your clubs, find the nearest spot off the path that lets you stand and swing without dinging it.

From there, you get a clublength, no closer to the hole, to drop. No penalty.

club-lengths of where the ball crossed into the penalty area if the stakes are red (no closer to the hole). The simplest option to remember is to replay from where you just hit. Hey, at least you’ve “practiced” the shot already.

6

1

Do you have a bad lie?

Life’s full of bad lies.

Unless it’s plugged anywhere but in sand, or resting on a cartpath (or Mr. Larson’s foot), you’re likely playing it, dude.

3

Did you whiff?

Ohhhh, it was a practice stroke. Nice try.

Own it and count it.

Hit your ball by accident?

As Deepak Chopra once said, there are no accidents, only a purpose we have yet to understand. Unfortunately, if you’re not on the tee box or green, that purpose is going to cost you a stroke.

(And put the ball back.)

7

Knock it in the drink?

You’re not Michael Phelps, so forget trying to play it to save a penalty stroke.

You’ve got options, including dropping within two

2

Is it near an animal?

Does that animal look like something Crocodile Dundee would wear? Free relief. No questions asked.

4

Lose a ball? You’ve got three minutes of search time, and no, we don’t think it landed over by the beer cart. If it’s gonzo, replay from the previous spot with a one-stroke penalty.

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8

Hit one O.B.?

Don’t wince. Proudly reload and take a one-stroke penalty. If it was a quality ball, hop the fence and get it, but watch out for Cujo, the “cuddly” rottweiler.

9

Waiting to hit?

Save the good manners for date night. Play when ready unless you gain an advantage going out of order or are in the way of your opponent. In the case of the latter, duck. ★★BONUS ADVICE★★ House Rule I: Two-beer minimum House Rule II: Three-beer maximum Illustrations by Sam Island