Opinion & Analysis

Holiday Reflections: My introduction to golf

Published

11 years ago

Dec 9, 2012

I did not receive my introduction to golf from either of my parents. I think most of you might say your first introduction to the game came from your fathers, but my introduction came from my paternal grandfather. My father and grandfather were on good terms, but my dad never showed interest in the game until after I started playing. Oddly enough, I was the one who officially introduced my father to golf as my grandfather had done for me, and my father now plays everyday in his own retirement. I thought, since the Holiday season is upon us, that we might remember those first few swings we took with a club, and the kind wishes of those who shared their joy of the game of golf with us.

My family (parents and two siblings, both younger than me) visited my grandparents one Spring at their home in Florida. Just as Northerners do when they visit Florida with young children, the rest of my family had gone off to DisneyWorld except for me (I was “too old” for Disney, after all, being 14 whole years of age). With the two of us left, my grandfather was about to step out (and I was about to walk down to the beach to admire “the view”), when he receives a phone call. After hanging up, his mood apparently having turned sour, “Gramp” turns to me and says, “Get in the car.”

The old man (meant respectfully) was quiet on the way to “wherever we were going” and I honestly thought we were just running some errands; except that we turned in to a local golf course. In a classic Judge Smails bark he informs me that, “You are playing golf today.” The problem is that I had never played golf before in my life. I didn’t even know what the numbers on the clubs meant! I knew not to mention the obvious to him, as he already knew that. I just helped out as he took two sets of clubs from the trunk and walked to the range.

What followed next had to be the most intense crash course in golf ever delivered to a single individual. “Gramp” pulled out an 8 iron, showed me a grip, and told me not to move my hands out of that position till we were driving out of the lot. If you think I am kidding – I’m not! He even made me walk to the first tee with my hands on the club after we were done practicing. To be truthful, what we did on the range could never really be described as practice; it was more like “EPIC FAIL” with a grumpy old dude watching me. Seriously, I totally missed the ball on the first three swings and barely got out of the tee box the rest of the time. Towards the end of the lesson (which might have been a half hour or an hour, I don’t remember) I was able to at least elevate the ball in some meager approximation of a golf shot.

“Okay, that is enough,” he said. I asked him, “Gramp, don’t I need to learn how to putt?” He responded with, “Anyone can figure out how to putt, including you.” Okay…off to the tee, then!

Come to find out, my grandfather had a weekly money game going with another twosome, but his partner had come down with an illness (cancer) so he couldn’t make it that week. He told me that he was confident he alone could beat them both, but they insisted that he have a partner, ”Because they don’t want to have to admit that I beat them both by myself. They get embarrassed easily.”

Our two opponents turned out to be a gentleman about my grandfather’s age, and his son, who was about my father’s age. Despite being a well rounded, fearless, and a possibly immortal 14 year old, I was a little intimidated by the situation. I was playing against some older guys (older than me, anyway), playing golf for the first time, and I didn’t want to let down my grandfather. I thought about what he said about beating them both by himself, but that didn’t take the pressure off of potentially being embarrassed in front of “Gramp.”

Unfortunately, that was not to be, because after the first six holes I only had one hole on which I broke double digits, and I had to pick up on two others, which (at that point) was fine with me! The worst part was hitting the snack cart off the tee with the (very) cute cart girl still sitting in it.

The good part was that Milton Sr. was a golfing beast that day (or at least as I recall), having beaten the other team after seven holes on his own steam. So, as the intended 9-hole match came to a close I figured I could relax a bit. However, the group decided to play on anyway and finish out the nine. As we came to the ninth tee, the elder opposing gentleman offered a new challenge to my grandfather:

“Hey Milton, double or nothing. My kid versus yours.”

This resulted in a raised eyebrow from my grandfather. Not a sight often seen, just so you know. In hindsight, (not knowing at the time) this might have simply been an off-the-cuff reference to Caddyshack. I wasn’t aware of the movie at the time, but always get a chuckle when I watch the end of it because of this situation. Anyway, I was thinking there was no way he was going to take the bet, having already won the match and having a total hack (me) as a playing partner, but… he did:

“Okay, you’re on.” he replied.

I looked at my grandfather, knowing there was no point in arguing (like I could with my father) so, with a grimace, I approached the short par 4 teebox with 8 iron in hand and managed to keep the ball in play down the right side. My opponent, being somewhat miffed that I took the honor (I didn’t know any better) gruffly approached the tee with driver in hand, and took a monstrous swipe that duck-hooked into the water on the left. Two more angry swings yielded the same result before his fourth attempt reached the fairway.

I miraculously hacked my way up to the green in four (having been gifted consecutive “flier” lies) and took three to get down; winning the hole with a triple bogey to my opponent’s quintuple. I couldn’t believe my fortune; I shouldn’t have won that little playoff hole. I couldn’t believe my grandfather even took the bet, let alone that I won it. However, I felt an immense surge of pride at my own (meager) performance. “I can do this, golf isn’t so hard,” I was thinking. I thought also that my grandfather must be some kind of sporting sage, who somehow managed to foretell my unlikely victory over our opponent.

As we were enjoying an after-round Coke, (our opponents sitting across the room, not wanting to hear my grandfather brag about how his first-timer grandson beat them in a playoff) I asked my grandfather why he took the bet. He said, “Daniel, even a blind pig finds an acorn,” and got up to use the restroom. I knew he was proud of me, but he wasn’t going to directly brag me up either. No swelled heads in the Ross family!

While he was away, I noticed the “son” (the guy I had just beaten) get up and come towards our table, still looking angry. I am thinking, “Oh crap, he was waiting till my grandfather left to get a piece of me!” Instead he handed me a dollar bill. I said, “What is this for?” He told me that it is the winnings from the match, and to keep the change. I was speechless.

I thought my grandfather had some real money on the line with that match. Turns out that he was playing a nickel per hole! Double or nothing pulled in ninety cents, and I actually owed the dime. He walked off just as my grandfather got back. Gramp says, “Oh, there it is” and picked the dollar out of my hand and plopped it down on the table as part of the tip for the waitress and turned to walk to the car. I was thinking, “You have to be kidding!” I was feeling “all-important-and-stuff” and suddenly, that disappeared.

I know now why he didn’t tell me that the stakes were pretty low; he wanted me to try my hardest even when there wasn’t much to be gained. I think he was curious to see what I could do. I played a LOT of baseball, but not much else. There actually was something to be gained, though; an appreciation for the game of golf and the desire to keep playing, the opportunity to impress gramp, and the knowledge that I could succeed even when the odds were against me.

And my family thought they had it good when they went to Disney. God, I miss my grandfather.

Happy Holidays WRX. Remember…life is short. Say what deserves to be said while you can.

Click here for more discussion in the “Golf Talk” forum.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans betting preview

Published

3 days ago

Apr 22, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

The PGA TOUR heads to New Orleans to play the 2023 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. In a welcome change from the usual stroke play, the Zurich Classic is a team event. On Thursday and Saturday, the teams play best ball, and on Friday and Sunday the teams play alternate shot.

TPC Louisiana is a par 72 that measures 7,425 yards. The course features some short par 4s and plenty of water and bunkers, which makes for a lot of exciting risk/reward scenarios for competitors. Pete Dye designed the course in 2004 specifically for the Zurich Classic, although the event didn’t make its debut until 2007 because of Hurricane Katrina.

Coming off of the Masters and a signature event in consecutive weeks, the field this week is a step down, and understandably so. Many of the world’s top players will be using this time to rest after a busy stretch.

However, there are some interesting teams this season with some stars making surprise appearances in the team event. Some notable teams include Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa and Kurt Kitayama, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala as well as a few Canadian teams, Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin and Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners.

Past Winners at TPC Louisiana

2023: Riley/Hardy (-30)
2022: Cantlay/Schauffele (-29)
2021: Leishman/Smith (-20)
2019: Palmer/Rahm (-26)
2018: Horschel/Piercy (-22)
2017: Blixt/Smith (-27)

2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans Picks

Tom Hoge/Maverick McNealy +2500 (DraftKings)

Tom Hoge is coming off of a solid T18 finish at the RBC Heritage and finished T13 at last year’s Zurich Classic alongside Harris English.

This season, Hoge is having one of his best years on Tour in terms of Strokes Gained: Approach. In his last 24 rounds, the only player to top him on the category is Scottie Scheffler. Hoge has been solid on Pete Dye designs, ranking 28th in the field over his past 36 rounds.

McNealy is also having a solid season. He’s finished T6 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and T9 at the PLAYERS Championship. He recently started working with world renowned swing coach, Butch Harmon, and its seemingly paid dividends in 2024.

Keith Mitchell/Joel Dahmen +4000 (DraftKings)

Keith Mitchell is having a fantastic season, finishing in the top-20 of five of his past seven starts on Tour. Most recently, Mitchell finished T14 at the Valero Texas Open and gained a whopping 6.0 strokes off the tee. He finished 6th at last year’s Zurich Classic.

Joel Dahmen is having a resurgent year and has been dialed in with his irons. He also has a T11 finish at the PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass which is another Pete Dye track. With Mitchell’s length and Dahmen’s ability to put it close with his short irons, the Mitchell/Dahmen combination will be dangerous this week.

Taylor Moore/Matt NeSmith +6500 (DraftKings)

Taylor Moore has quickly developed into one of the more consistent players on Tour. He’s finished in the top-20 in three of his past four starts, including a very impressive showing at The Masters, finishing T20. He’s also finished T4 at this event in consecutive seasons alongside Matt NeSmith.

NeSmith isn’t having a great 2024, but has seemed to elevate his game in this format. He finished T26 at Pete Dye’s TPC Sawgrass, which gives the 30-year-old something to build off of. NeSmith is also a great putter on Bermudagrass, which could help elevate Moore’s ball striking prowess.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 LIV Adelaide betting preview: Cam Smith ready for big week down under

Published

3 days ago

Apr 22, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

After having four of the top twelve players on the leaderboard at The Masters, LIV Golf is set for their fifth event of the season: LIV Adelaide.

For both LIV fans and golf fans in Australia, LIV Adelaide is one of the most anticipated events of the year. With 35,000 people expected to attend each day of the tournament, the Grange Golf Club will be crawling with fans who are passionate about the sport of golf. The 12th hole, better known as “the watering hole”, is sure to have the rowdiest of the fans cheering after a long day of drinking some Leishman Lager.

The Grange Golf Club is a par-72 that measures 6,946 yards. The course features minimal resistance, as golfers went extremely low last season. In 2023, Talor Gooch shot consecutive rounds of 62 on Thursday and Friday, giving himself a gigantic cushion heading into championship Sunday. Things got tight for a while, but in the end, the Oklahoma State product was able to hold off The Crushers’ Anirban Lahiri for a three-shot victory.

The Four Aces won the team competition with the Range Goats finishing second.

*All Images Courtesy of LIV Golf*

Past Winners at LIV Adelaide

2023: Talor Gooch (-19)

Stat Leaders Through LIV Miami

Green in Regulation

Richard Bland
Jon Rahm
Paul Casey

Fairways Hit

Abraham Ancer
Graeme McDowell
Henrik Stenson

Driving Distance

Bryson DeChambeau
Joaquin Niemann
Dean Burmester

Putting

Cameron Smith
Louis Oosthuizen
Matt Jones

2024 LIV Adelaide Picks

Cameron Smith +1400 (DraftKings)

When I pulled up the odds for LIV Adelaide, I was more than a little surprised to see multiple golfers listed ahead of Cameron Smith on the betting board. A few starts ago, Cam finished runner-up at LIV Hong Kong, which is a golf course that absolutely suits his eye. Augusta National in another course that Smith could roll out of bed and finish in the top-ten at, and he did so two weeks ago at The Masters, finishing T6.

At Augusta, he gained strokes on the field on approach, off the tee (slightly), and of course, around the green and putting. Smith able to get in the mix at a major championship despite coming into the week feeling under the weather tells me that his game is once again rounding into form.

The Grange Golf Club is another course that undoubtedly suits the Australian. Smith is obviously incredibly comfortable playing in front of the Aussie faithful and has won three Australian PGA Championship’s. The course is very short and will allow Smith to play conservative off the tee, mitigating his most glaring weakness. With birdies available all over the golf course, there’s a chance the event turns into a putting contest, and there’s no one on the planet I’d rather have in one of those than Cam Smith.

Louis Oosthuizen +2200 (DraftKings)

Louis Oosthuizen has simply been one of the best players on LIV in the 2024 seas0n. The South African has finished in the top-10 on the LIV leaderboard in three of his five starts, with his best coming in Jeddah, where he finished T2. Perhaps more impressively, Oosthuizen finished T7 at LIV Miami, which took place at Doral’s “Blue Monster”, an absolutely massive golf course. Given that Louis is on the shorter side in terms of distance off the tee, his ability to play well in Miami shows how dialed he is with the irons this season.

In addition to the LIV finishes, Oosthuizen won back-to-back starts on the DP World Tour in December at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the Mauritus Open. He also finished runner-up at the end of February in the International Series Oman. The 41-year-old has been one of the most consistent performers of 2024, regardless of tour.

For the season, Louis ranks 4th on LIV in birdies made, T9 in fairways hit and first in putting. He ranks 32nd in driving distance, but that won’t be an issue at this short course. Last season, he finished T11 at the event, but was in decent position going into the final round but fell back after shooting 70 while the rest of the field went low. This season, Oosthuizen comes into the event in peak form, and the course should be a perfect fit for his smooth swing and hot putter this week.

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Opinion & Analysis

The Wedge Guy: What really makes a wedge work? Part 1

Published

1 week ago

Apr 18, 2024

Terry Koehler

Of all the clubs in our bags, wedges are almost always the simplest in construction and, therefore, the easiest to analyze what might make one work differently from another if you know what to look for.

Wedges are a lot less mysterious than drivers, of course, as the major brands are working with a lot of “pixie dust” inside these modern marvels. That’s carrying over more to irons now, with so many new models featuring internal multi-material technologies, and almost all of them having a “badge” or insert in the back to allow more complex graphics while hiding the actual distribution of mass.

But when it comes to wedges, most on the market today are still single pieces of molded steel, either cast or forged into that shape. So, if you look closely at where the mass is distributed, it’s pretty clear how that wedge is going to perform.

To start, because of their wider soles, the majority of the mass of almost any wedge is along the bottom third of the clubhead. So, the best wedge shots are always those hit between the 2nd and 5th grooves so that more mass is directly behind that impact. Elite tour professionals practice incessantly to learn to do that consistently, wearing out a spot about the size of a penny right there. If impact moves higher than that, the face is dramatically thinner, so smash factor is compromised significantly, which reduces the overall distance the ball will fly.

Every one of us, tour players included, knows that maddening shot that we feel a bit high on the face and it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s not your fault.

If your wedges show a wear pattern the size of a silver dollar, and centered above the 3rd or 4th groove, you are not getting anywhere near the same performance from shot to shot. Robot testing proves impact even two to three grooves higher in the face can cause distance loss of up to 35 to 55 feet with modern ‘tour design’ wedges.

In addition, as impact moves above the center of mass, the golf club principle of gear effect causes the ball to fly higher with less spin. Think of modern drivers for a minute. The “holy grail” of driving is high launch and low spin, and the driver engineers are pulling out all stops to get the mass as low in the clubhead as possible to optimize this combination.

Where is all the mass in your wedges? Low. So, disregarding the higher lofts, wedges “want” to launch the ball high with low spin – exactly the opposite of what good wedge play requires penetrating ball flight with high spin.

While almost all major brand wedges have begun putting a tiny bit more thickness in the top portion of the clubhead, conventional and modern ‘tour design’ wedges perform pretty much like they always have. Elite players learn to hit those crisp, spinny penetrating wedge shots by spending lots of practice time learning to consistently make contact low in the face.

So, what about grooves and face texture?

Grooves on any club can only do so much, and no one has any material advantage here. The USGA tightly defines what we manufacturers can do with grooves and face texture, and modern manufacturing techniques allow all of us to push those limits ever closer. And we all do. End of story.

Then there’s the topic of bounce and grinds, the most complex and confusing part of the wedge formula. Many top brands offer a complex array of sole configurations, all of them admittedly specialized to a particular kind of lie or turf conditions, and/or a particular divot pattern.

But if you don’t play the same turf all the time, and make the same size divot on every swing, how would you ever figure this out?

The only way is to take any wedge you are considering and play it a few rounds, hitting all the shots you face and observing the results. There’s simply no other way.

So, hopefully this will inspire a lively conversation in our comments section, and I’ll chime in to answer any questions you might have.

And next week, I’ll dive into the rest of the wedge formula. Yes, shafts, grips and specifications are essential, too.

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