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Wednesday, April 24, 2024



Three 40-somethings have been in the golfing news recently, and there are some really interesting numbers flying around here.

1. 40 year old Englishman Paul Casey won last week’s Valspar Championship at Innisbrook’s tough Copperhead course, for his first PGA Tour victory since almost exactly 9 years ago when he won the 2009 Shell Houston Open, eventually getting to his best ever World Ranking of #9 in that year. Casey has been a top player for some time now, despite only the 2 PGA Tour wins and 13 titles on the European Tour, and he now finds himself at #12 in the World, just ahead of Rory McIlroy. He’s finished in the Top 10 in all 4 Majors, and has been on the winning side twice in Ryder Cups in 2004 and 2006, but also on the losing side in 2008. But, 5 Top 10’s in The Masters puts him ‘on the radar’ for the annual Augusta showdown in just 3 weeks’ time, and he’ll be a key player in Thomas Bjorn’s Euro Ryder Cup team this year. BTW, Casey shot 65 to close out the Valspar, only needing 21 putts in that final round!

2. Whilst I’m talking Masters and 40-somethings, another name on everyone’s lips must be 3-time Green Jacket winner 47 year old Phil Mickelson. He won the WGC event 2 weeks ago, has been in good form, and will always be a favourite on a course that leans towards leftys.

3. But the 40–something who’s been on everyone’s lips for a few weeks now is definitely 42 year old Tiger Woods. A 2nd place finish at the Valspar event, and being in contention over the weekend, and not falling off the pace, and hitting the ball well, and hitting fairways and greens, and with a short game that doesn’t appear to be falling apart as had been so widely reported and predicted, shows that Tiger is back! There remains only 2 further questions that he needs to answer:

(a) Will his health (read back/body) hold up for a continued period of time under the pressure of his 128mph driver club-head speed and the obvious amount of practice that he’s been doing to get back close to where he once was?

(b) Can he regain that winning confidence, or killer instinct, that was once his trademark? Tiger Mk1 was a lock once he led or was within a couple strokes starting final rounds, and though he’s won 79 PGA Tour titles and 14 Majors, he hasn’t won since 2013, and he’s undergone surgeries and putting and chipping issues since, so the $Mil? is whether he can ‘cross the line’ when it really counts. On Sunday at the Valspar, his irons were a bit off, which left him a bit too far from the hole, and which made putting a little tougher, and which symptoms could easily be put down to feeling some amount of tension. But with a few more weeks of this, he should be much better prepared for Augusta, and this coming week at Bay Hill in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, where he’s only won 8 times before, will hopefully see him more attuned to the rigours of the leading groups, and the pressure which goes with it.

(c) Tiger’s World Ranking: 30th Nov 2017 – 1199th.
     Tiger’s World Ranking: 11th March 2018 – 149th!

4. When Phil won In Mexico 2 weeks ago, it had been 1687 days since his last victory on Tour; IF Tiger was to win again this Sunday at Bay Hill, it will be exactly 1687 since his last win!!! That is a pretty scary statistic, which comes courtesy of Golf Channel senior researcher Justin Ray.

5. The TV ratings of 5.11 at the Valspar were the highest-rated (non-major) PGA TOUR broadcast since the 2013 Players Champs (5.7), and Sunday’s final round also was the highest-rated golf telecast (outside of the Masters) since 2015 PGA Champ (5.14). That’s just Tiger moving the needle again!

6. Some tech numbers: The increase in digital audience for NBC was massive. Golf Channel and NBC Sports Digital saw a 612 percent increase in minutes streamed vs. last year on Saturday and 27.2 million minutes streamed for the tournament.


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Please click on these images for the full version of the latest updated Hunt lists.

 


The R&A and the USGA finally announced earlier this week the new Rules that will take effect from Jan 1 2019, and, true to their original promise, where they took comments from anyone and everyone throughout the world, they did make a few changes to what they’d initially proposed.

Below are just 4 of the changes they made, but I’ll be covering the new Rules later in the year as we get closer.

Remember though that we’ll go from playing under 1 set of Rules on the 31st of December of this year to an almost completely different set of Rules overnight!

Most of the new Rules are geared towards speeding up the game, so you’d better get used to ‘ready golf’, putting with the flagstick in, and looking for balls for only 3 mins, as opposed to 5, amongst others!



1. This Saturday is a new country-wide event called the Heritage Golf Championships. It’s a Betterball Stableford format with the winners going through to a final at Sun City with a R100,000 worth of prizes. Comp entry is R100 and there’s a goodie bag worth R800, which will include a Srixon ball fitting and a free sleeve of Srixon balls. The shop will also do a Srixon glove special with Srixon Cabretta gloves at R150 instead of R240 and the Srixon All Weather gloves at R100 instead of R140.

2. Sunday the 25th March is the club’s AGM at 6pm.

3. Wednesday 4th April is our own Masters Par 3 event at Houghton on our short course. It’ll be a 3:30pm shotgun start where you’re invited with your kids/grandkids, dress-up in white overalls or anything in Masters green, and there’ll be a Nearest the Pin with a hickory club.

4. Then Sat the 7th April is our 1st Jack Nicklaus Major of 2018, and the start of The Race to Pecanwood. You can check here for the display ads for the Par 3 event, the Saturday Nicklaus Major, and also remember the raffle for R50k, which will be done at the prize-giving for this comp, BUT you no longer need to be there to claim the cash!!! The tickets are R200, and we’re only issuing 250!

 



Srixon Cabretta gloves at R150 instead of R240 and the Srixon All Weather gloves at R100 instead of R140.


That’s about all for this week.

Have a good one.

Kappy.



Lift will play a significant part in getting your next flight off the ground. Back spin
generates lift for your golf ball, but how much is too much for you?

 

 
Peter Kostis, in a Golf.com instruction piece using Paul Casey, highlighted how
much improvement Casey had made by concentrating not on the latest swing gimmicks but,
but on the good old-fashioned setup and fundamentals.

This article shows Casey’s whole swing in pictures, but take special note of his perfect posture at setup. 
 

Last week we asked you tell us why you think most golfers don’t concentrate on their setup
anywhere near as much as the very best golfers do. This week we’re challenging you to
answer that question for yourself. Is your alignment and posture good enough to give
you a chance of making a good shot? Not sure?
 
 

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