Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
This list put together by Golf Digest shows just how uneven the playing field is for men and women golfers! When a golfer like Jason Dufner (who is no slouch on the golf course) is ahead of World #1 Lydia Ko in earnings, that is just wrong! Folks, start watching the LPGA Tour on TV, and you will find these women can really play! Just as exciting and competitive as the men.
For the first 12 years of the Golf Digest 50 all-encompassing money list, Tiger Woods was No. 1, usually by a wide margin. But reduced play because of injuries and the loss of more than half a dozen A-list endorsement partners after the 2009 scandal caught up to him in 2016, when he fell to No. 3 behind Jordan Spieth and Mickelson. This year, Woods is No. 4 behind Rory McIlroy, Arnold Palmer and Mickelson.
10.) GARY PLAYER
Certainly surprised me!
PREVIOUS RANK: 10
ON COURSE: — $0.00
OFF COURSE: $15,000,000
TOTAL: $15,000,000
9.) ADAM SCOTT
Money does not seem important to him!
PREVIOUS RANK: 18
ON COURSE: $8,160,920
OFF COURSE: $6,900,000
TOTAL: $15,060,920
8.) JASON DAY
Has never quite fulfilled his potential!
PREVIOUS RANK: 7
ON COURSE: $8,845,112
OFF COURSE: $10,750,000
TOTAL: $19,595,112
7.) DUSTIN JOHNSON
Thought he would have been much higher.
PREVIOUS RANK: 13
ON COURSE: $12,664,185
OFF COURSE: $7,100,000
TOTAL: $19,764,185
6.) JACK NICKLAUS
Did not build an empire like Arnie!
PREVIOUS RANK: 6
ON COURSE: $42,000
OFF COURSE: $20,000,000
TOTAL: $20,042,000
Who do you think has the best golf swing on Tour – Here are the Top 10! As chosen by Swing by Swing.
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
Here are the Golfers with the Silky Smooth Swings!
A smooth, consistent, and powerful golf swing is poetry in motion. While most pros are world-class athletes born with near flawless swings, the majority have spent years grinding to make them as perfect as possible. Here are 10 of the prettiest swings currently on tour.
10. Louis Oosthuizen
Oosthuizen, the 2010 British Open champion, has honed his swing to near perfect. With flawless tempo and effortless power, his swing is one of the nicest in the game today. On plane and smooth as silk – good luck trying to copy this one!
9. Tiger Woods (2016)
Tiger’s been through it all with his golf swing, but nothing will top his form in 2000. Unfortunately, father time hasn’t been too kind and plagued the 14-time major winner with well-documented injuries over the last decade. Obviously, another overhaul was necessary. Still, in our humble opinion, it’s one of the prettiest out there. (We’ll blame the club drop on rust.)
8. Sergio Garcia
The current number 13 ranked golfer in the world has exceptional posture at address. His takeaway is smooth and he really fires his hips through the ball at impact. Check out that angle of attack! Hopefully, El Niño can put it all together to bring home a major championship before his career comes to a close.
7. Jordan Spieth
Jordan Spieth employs a rather compact, simple swing that has allowed him continued success off the tee and finding the greens. What we’d like to focus on are the shoulders and hips which are in perfect synchronization for the entire swing. Add in the slightly bent left arm and hopefully, we’ll be watching this beauty for the next 20-30 years.
A case for NOT keeping your head down – Be like Henrik!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
One of the biggest myths about the golf swing is, “Keep our head down!” I always like to say, keep your head level. That way, there is no up and down movement to throw off your timing. But some golfers like Henrik Stenson, David Duval, and Anika Sorenstam actually rotate their heads through impact to help them generate more rotation through the ball. Check out this article and then head to the range and give it a try. You might be pleasantly surprised!
Not how the head rotates through impact!
We all know that Henrik Stenson is an elite ball-striker.
He proved it again at the BMW International Open in Germany, capturing his 10th European Tour title with a three-shot victory over Darren Fichardt and Thorbjorn Oleson.
Stenson’s prowess with his irons — he hits his 7-iron 195 yards with almost no curve — comes from both natural athleticism and body movements that don’t get in the way of his speed.
“A lot of weekend players hold on to a terrible piece of advice, which is to keep the head still during the swing,” says Golf Digest Best Young Teacher Shaun Webb, who is based at the David Toms 265 Academy in Shreveport, La. “If you lock your head down, it stays that way after the ball is gone and keeps you from rotating your body through the shot. That costs you lots of speed.”
Learn the secrets to Henrik Stenson’s pressure-proof swing!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
Henrik Stenson has a pressure-proof swing!
This was proven without a shadow of a doubt on Sunday afternoon in the final round of the 2016 British Open Championship. Henrik does a few things in his swing that I have been teaching for a long time now that buck conventional teaching methods. Keeping the lower body stable and moving through the ball with a strong upper torso rotation is Henrik’s secret. Matthew Rudy of Golf Digest brings you insights from the latest phenom’s golf swing!
The Denver Post. 2016 in Troon, Scotland.
You don’t keep your reputation as one of professional golf’s best ball-strikers if you don’t do things to support the claim.
The round of the year!
Henrik Stenson piled up five more birdies to go with the seven he made on Friday, hitting lasers that cut through the 30-mile-per-hour wind at Troon. Stenson has hit 40 out of 51 greens, second most in the tournament, and has made only five bogeys in three rounds–second fewest.
He does it with a swing action that goes against some of the prevailing teaching wisdom, says Golf Digest 50 Best Teacher Brian Manzella, who is based at English Turn Golf & Country Club in New Orleans. “The trend is certainly to teach free hip turn in both directions, and I certainly subscribe to that,” says Manzella. “That usually comes from straightening the right leg in the backswing and straightening the left leg in the downswing. But Henrik Stenson doesn’t do that at all.”
What is the correct strategy for playing the 18th at Royal Troon?
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
Piers Ward and Andy Proudman of Meandmygolf discuss the course management strategy for playing the 18th hole at Royal Troon. Could this hole play a significant role in the outcome on Sunday Afternoon? I’m pretty sure it will. The tee shot must be down the right-hand side. The second shot needs to carry to the front portion of the green to make a solid par. I have played this course twice and have yet to make par, so good luck to all the participants this week on a great finishing hole!
In this week’s special impact show Piers and Andy are at Royal Troon, where they play the 18th and show what lies ahead for the Pro’s at this year’s Open.
What is your take on the study on increased distance on Tour?
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
The USGA and the R&A stated that there were no immediate plans to change the rules on equipment. Using the words “slow creep” regarding increased distance on Tour, the governing bodies see no need to panic at the moment. I completely disagree with that! At the current rate of a 1% gain in distance each year, it would mean that in 17 more years (not that long, considering this study is over 13 years), the Tour Pros will be hitting the ball over 400 yards! We’re talking average here. The longer hitters will be driving short par 4’s with ease. And turning 500-yard par 4’s into a drive and a lob wedge. The time to act is now. Not like the anchored putter debacle when they waited too long to change the rule. I agree with Jack. Change the ball for the pros, but let the amateurs play with regular balls to enjoy an extra few yards and thus increase participation in the game!
USGA/R&A publishes research on driving distance gains on PGA Tour
It seems that everyone, from media critics to former players, has a solution for the problem of distance gains in golf today, whether it’s to dial back the golf ball, change regulations on equipment or to continue to lengthen golf courses. Even Jack Nicklaus offered his advice: “Change the friggin’ golf ball.”
On Thursday, the USGA and R&A published research from a joint study on driver distance that may put those concerns to rest for the near future.
The study looked at data on driver distance across seven major professional golf tours — the PGA, European, Japan Golf, Web.com, Champions, LPGA and Ladies European. As presented in the research, distance gains are at a “slow creep,” as opposed to what some critics have suggested.
The chart below was used in the research study, showing yearly driving distance averages across the seven major tours — data for the PGA Tour dates back to 1980.
Also included is a look at yearly scoring averages, which the report also refers to as a “slow creep” downward.
The Rise and Fall of the Wentworth Club’s PGA Events!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
WOW, talk about a comedown! From those heady days back in the ’60s and 70’s when the Piccadilly Match Play at the Wentworth Club attracted the top 8 golfers of the day. Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tony Lema were just a few. World-class golfers who took time out of their busy schedules to compete on this impeccable golf course! Later came the prestigious European Tour PGA Championship. The tournament represented the very best of European Tour golf, with all the top 50 players entering.
It was a “must play” event! It was a course I dreamed of playing as a young lad starting to play this game called golf! This year, Danny Willett, the 2016 Masters Champion, is the only world top 20 players on the field! A sad state of affairs, to be sure, and I hope Keith Pelly can bring The Wentworth Club back to the Flagship Status it rightfully deserves!
Wentworth is no longer the “Flagship” event on the European Tour!
“I’m telling you our flagship event, right here, is the DP World Championship, which is $8m plus a bonus prize,” said European Tour CEO Keith Pelley in November ahead of the circuit’s lucrative finale in Dubai. “I’m not sure how you couldn’t say this wouldn’t be our flagship event.
“It [the BMW PGA Championship] has a fund of €5m. It’s a terrific event with wonderful fan engagement with 125,000 fans that experience the game of golf, and the way that we actually present it should be applauded. The tournament committee under Jamie Birkmyre has done just a fantastic job. But I don’t see it as our flagship event.”
For years that title was universally bestowed upon the PGA at Wentworth. Where the championship has taken permanent residence since 1984. Such a statement would have been unthinkable during the previous leaderships of George O’Grady and his long-serving predecessor Ken Schofield. But times have unfortunately changed for the historic event within the continually evolving dynamics of the modern professional game.
Pelley, the bespectacled Canadian who took charge of the flat-lining tour last year.
He has made his ambition clear of increasing prize money significantly to attract the leading players from the PGA Tour at key points of the season. The winter and autumn sojourns to the Middle East have proven to be strongholds in the face of the overwhelming competition from Tim Finchem’s eye wateringly rich organisation in the United States, with many of the classic events beginning to slip away.
It has become incumbent on the likes of Rory McIlroy and Sergio Garcia to support the Irish and Spanish Opens respectively. Two important tournaments that would otherwise face an uncertain and ominous future had it not been for that star power lending a rescuing hand. Coincidentally, both of those players are two of the most notable absentees from Wentworth.
That has become the most telling hallmark of the PGA’s quiet decline. For whatever reason, whether it be in the face of an increasingly busy schedule or personal preference, Wentworth is no longer a must-play for the game’s best. While the likes of Faldo, Seve, Langer and Woosie dominated in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Masters champion Danny Willett, sure to receive a rapturous reception from the English galleries, is the only player in this year’s field who is ranks inside the world’s top 20.
European Tour players attempting to play the Worlds Fastest Hole!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
Breaking a World Record, any record is quite an accomplishment.
It means that you have done the test better, faster, or higher than anyone in the history of the world! So when Sergio Garcia, Raphael Jacquelin, and Thorbjorn Olesen decided to try and break the record for the fastest hole ever played, the European Tour videotaped the entire episode.
I was on the team trying to break the world’s fastest 18-hole round at Port Elizabeth Golf Club in 1983. The goal was to get the ball around the course from the first tee shot to the final putt in as short a time as possible. Players were situated on each of the 18 tees. A player on the fairway hit the second shot as soon as it stopped rolling, a person to chip on, and a person to putt. As soon as the ball fell into the hole, the person on the next tee would immediately launch the next drive! What fun we had.
We gave it 3 tries but unfortunately did not break the record. Looks like these guys had just as much fun on one hole. I would like to see the entire European Tour get involved in trying an 18 hole record. Now that would be fun. Thanks to the European Tour for sharing this fun video!
Open de España tournament host Sergio Garcia, Raphaël Jacquelin and Thorbjørn Olesen captained four-man teams from Spain, France and Denmark this week in a bid to break the Guinness World Records title for the Fastest hole of golf by a team of four.
Miguel Angel Jimenez wins the title of Golf’s Most Interesting Man!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
If there is one man I would like to have as a friend on both the PGA and European Tour, it is Miguel Angel Jimenez. To play golf with him would be an adventure, and sharing a meal, along with a glass of wine with him, would be a relaxing and entertaining experience. In a world where many players just don’t connect with their audience, Miguel is the fan’s man. How can you not enjoy watching this player warm-up before a round?
Miguel Angel Jimenez turns 52 today, but the “the Most Interesting Man in the World” continues to emit a unique zest for life. How does the Spaniard remain a nimble soul in the face of rising age? Here are Jimenez’s tricks for staying forever young:
He owns a sense of adventure.
Most view a wall as an obstacle; Miguel sees an opportunity:
He can dance
And baby, those hips don’t lie.
He doesn’t put up with any gruff
Confrontation amongst golfers is a rarity, and Miguel’s questioning of a Keegan Bradley drop was a tad bizarre. However, you have to respect his conviction in the rules, and for those who think it was gamesmanship, well, it worked. Bradley ended up losing the match.
He keeps things in perspective.
From an interview with SI’s Alan Shipnuck, regarding a bad round at Augusta: “I am here with the sun shining, I’m surrounded by friends and family, tonight I will eat good food, drink good wine, smoke a good cigar and make love to my beautiful wife. It’s a good life, no?”
He doesn’t care what you think.
From that same interview, on haters: “I come from a different generation. And I’m not a hypocrite. I don’t hide the way I am. If I want to have a drink, I have a drink. Why shouldn’t I? Is it illegal to drink alcohol? Is tobacco illegal? So why should I care if people see me smoking? I do what I do out in the open. If people have a problem with that they can stick their tongue up their ass and let the rest of us do what we want to do.”
He likes to go fast
Miguel Angel Jimenez of Spain with his Ferrari, circa 2000. (Photo by Phil Sheldon/Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)
While the publics knows Jimenez as “the Most Interesting Man in the World,” his fellow players refer to him by a different moniker, “the Mechanic,” for his love of cars, most notably Ferraris. He also briefly worked in a repair shop.
Powerful Swing Sequence of Euro Tour Star Danny Willett!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
Danny Willett is already a star on the European Tour, and I’m pretty sure it won’t be long before he makes his presence known on the PGA Tour and in major Championships. His pedigree is impressive. #1 amateur in the world in 2008, Walker Cup member, and 3-time winner of the European Tour. He came close in the British Open this year, so look out for this young man in 2016! This is a great swing sequence that amateurs can really learn from. Thanks to Roger Schiffman of Golf Digest for the captions, and thanks to Dom Furore for the great pictures!
Danny Willett doesn’t always go out of his way to make you feel comfortable, and that might be why he’s such a tough competitor.
As his teacher, Mike Walker, says, “He was the No. 1 amateur in the world in 2008, so he expects a lot of himself. He’s not unfriendly. He’s single-minded.”
A 2007 Walker Cup standout from England, Willett had to learn patience as a pro. It wasn’t until 2012 that he captured the BMW International, the first of his three European Tour titles. Since then, he has put himself in position on Sunday many times. He won the Omega European Masters in July, and a week earlier, he found himself one stroke out of the 36-hole lead at the British Open at St. Andrews, and wound up finishing T-6, his best showing in a major.
As Willett refines his swing, mainly working to eliminate the miss to the left, look for great things. “He’s become a much better putter this year,” according to Walker, who says he gives Willett drills that would help the average golfer, including hitting balls with only the right or left arm. “They magnify the problem so we know what to work on,” Walker says.
