MESQUITE, Nev. -- Not to be overlooked in the Hot List is the physicality.
Conservatively estimating a pace of two balls per minute at the range, each player hit 480 full shots on day one of testing. And that’s excluding a two-hour session devoted to mallet putters some said was equally stressful on the spine. Also not tallied were the shots taken during the aprÿs nine holes where testers tried out the new clubs on-course. Based on the handicaps of our testers, you could tack on another 32-47 shots depending.
Five hundred-plus shots. More like six hundred-plus if we included putts. Even for a tour workhorse like Vijay Singh, it’d be the fullest of days.
Second-year player panelist Larry McCoy, a 6-handicap and a former club champion at Rock Ridge Country Club in Connecticut, learned his lesson. Like an NFL player eager to impress, McCoy arrived to camp this year fifteen pounds lighter and noticeably more muscular.
“Last year’s Hot List really motivated me to get in shape,” said McCoy, who for the past year has been focusing on back extensions, squats and a lot of core exercises. “When I left the Summit last year my legs were sore and my lower back hurt. The day we tested drivers I was dead from the waist down.”
“My first Hot List I did a lot of walking to prepare, nearly ten miles a day,” said three-year panelist Jason Shipley, a senior-circuit eligible 5-handicap from Baltimore. “But I think I’ve figured out the most important thing is getting my hands strong. This time around the two months leading up I hit a lot of 6-irons at the range. But not so many I’d get tendonitis. Marathon runners don’t run marathons, you know.”
To help preserve our lab rats’ health for at least the three days we ask of them, Golf Digest Fitness Editor Ron Kaspriske led a golf-specific group stretch at 7:45 a.m. The theme was active stretching, like rolling the wrists and ankles and other sockets of the body. The theory: passive stretching, where one holds a still position for fifteen or twenty seconds, is beneficial after a round but can overly stretch muscle fibers so much they fire less effectively in the golf swing.
Despite the summer training and game-day precautions, Day One of ball beating took its toll, even on the young guns. By the time the Nevada sun reached its apex, 34-year-old Hot List rookie Steve Verton of New Jersey, a former collegiate wide receiver, was already taping the blisters on his fingers. Even on his glove hand.
-- Max Adler
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