August 2010: Editors' Blog: Golf Digest

Nobody's happier than Gio Valiante

Sunday, August 29, 2010 Comments

Next to Matt Kuchar and his immediate family no one was more excited about his victory at the Barclays the other day than mental-side coach, Gio Valiante. It’s been quite a year for Valiante. Beginning with Heath Slocum's win at last year's Barclays, Valiante counts nine wins, including two by Camillo Villegas, two by Kuchar, and others by Justin Leonard, Justin Rose and Stuart Appleby--plus a D.J. Brigman victory on the Nationwide Tour.

I talked to an elated Gio over the weekend and he wanted to tell me about a recent change in the way he works with players; he thinks it’s paying dividends. Using questionnaires the players fill out for themselves, Valiante has given the players a say in what language, self-talk really, they’ll use on the course. “It’s working,” he said of the process, because “they own it.”

What they own is an approach Valiante calls “Fearless Golf,” when a player focuses on the idea of gradual, steady improvement, and not on what the world, or his competitors, think of his performance. It’s a golf competitor’s version of enjoying the journey, not waiting for the destination. Valiante calls it a “mastery” orientation versus an “ego” orientation. Here’s a quote from Fearless Golf, the 2005 Golf Digest book that’s now sold more than 50,000 copies.

“Because mastery golfers play the game for the personal challenge it provides rather than for the recognition they receive from others, their concentration is invariably on the golf course and not on the other golfers, the gallery, the scoreboard, or even their own score.

Whether one is a believer or not, this “mastery” orientation is producing a lot of recognition for Valiante’s students lately. Yes, he's got a very talented, hard-working stable. But he seems to have their talented heads in the right place.

Bob Carney

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Dustin Johnson Cont'd: Seeing is believing (what you see)

Thursday, August 26, 2010 Comments

The Dustin Johnson rules story won't die. (Can't to wait to hear from you on Jim Furyk). Here are two letters reacting to the Golf World issue covering the PGA Championship, where Johnson, on the 72nd hole, incurred a two-stroke penalty for grounding his club in a tramped-upon hazard.

I just received my August 23 issue, and the spread-out picture on pages 40-41 with Dustin Johnson was very telling. As a golfer for more than 40 years that area that he hit from looks no different than many areas in the roughs on the East Coast now due to the current drought that we are in. I hate to think I have to play all that as a bunker. even more telling was the woman kneeling down in "that bunker." Was that veteran LPGA player and reporter Jane Crafter? If so, then maybe she did not know that it was a bunker she was in. All the more reason for the PGA rules official to make sure that everyone in his group knew the situation. Had it been any number of the tour's bigger names--we know who they are--I feel sure the official would have made it perfectly clear on the 72nd hole of a major championship.

G.L. Kirby III, Charlottesville VA

Thank you for showing the picture of Dustin Johnson's shot in your Aug. 23 addition, pages 41 and 42. It is so obvious from this photo that he was in a bunker with defined lips and sand. Unfortunately, you are the first to release such a picture. The Golf Channel and CBS refused to show how obvious it was, even with the crowd, to identify it as a bunker. They were more interested in creating and fueling the controversy. David Fehrity must be a blind man !

Dave Riffey Sr., Homosassa, FL

Well, I'm glad that's settled. By the way, it was pages 40 and 41. David Feherty is sighted.

Bob Carney

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Rules, rules and more rules

Monday, August 23, 2010 Comments

You've not stopped kvetching about the PGA rules controversy with Dustin Johnson when here comes Juli Inkster, who gets herself disqualified while swinging a "donut" during a delay on the LPGA Tour. Golf takes a hit in these situations because regular sports fans--and sports columnists--don't understand, or don't want to understand, the nuances of the Rules of Golf. If you haven't, check out Geoff Shackelford's blog about Rick Reilly's ESPN column on golf rules, along with a small bucket of comments mostly taking on Reilly.

At any rate, your letters have been good and we'll print a few more here, beginning with a reaction to the Juli Inkster disqualification, opposing the point of view expressed in today's Golf World Monday that viewers, like the one who called in about Inkster, should not be able to "call" rules violations on competitors they see on television.

I just finished reading Golf World Monday and I vehemently disagree with your opinion that viewers should not be allowed to notify officials of rules violations. How is a fan from home different than someone at the event? If a rule is broken, what difference does it make who reports it? I thought the idea was to protect the field. It makes no difference if Inkter's fellow competitor reported the violation or someone watching from home.

Bill Tignanelli, Perry Hall, MD

How stupid is the LPGA to blow away its top star on a TKO? A 2-shot penalty, I could accept. It's time they overhauled their dumb rules section.

John Mehigan, Rancho Murieta, CA

And on to the still-smoldering PGA Championship rules brouhaha, and Johnson's penalty; here are two very different points of view.

The guy missed the fairway by 30 yards. what have we come to that a guy deserves a perfect lie in a bunker 30 yards from play. Hats of to the PGA for having some basic principles. Bunkers should no longer be considered hazards anymore but a safe place to bail out to for a perfect lie. I think people are loosing focus an feeling sorry for a guy who hit a bad shot and put himself in the position he did. Nicklaus never grounded his club for the reason of not wanting to disturb the ball and have any chance of moving it. Jack avoided putting himself in such a situation with the rules. Live and learn. Great champions are not judged by good shots from perfect lies but how they handle adversity over 72 holes of competition.

Steve Christian by email

You can blame Dustin Johnson for his penalty at the PGA, but the real culprits are the lazy PGA officials who wouldn't designate sand that people were allowed to stand in as waste areas. They took the easy way out in saying everything was a bunker, but allowed the crowd to possibly influence the outcome.

Bill Clinton, Houston, TX

My take on these two rules situations. Inkster says there was no advantage to be gained by using the donut. If so, why do it?

Johnson, I have more sympathy for. I know the PGA of America does. No tournament organizer wants his or her event decided that way. Nothing prevented the rules official from saying, "Dustin, FYI, that's a bunker." Could Johnson have figured that out for himself? Sure. But in that situation, with fans standing on the thing, it would have been prudent for the official, for the sake of the event as well as Johnson himself, to give a heads-up. And while the PGA now says nothing will change when the tournament returns to Whistling Straits, I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that bunkers aren't handled quite the same next time.

Bob Carney

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Rules: You're still fuming about PGA

Friday, August 20, 2010 Comments

It simply doesn't make sense to a lot of you, this ruling at the PGA that Dustin Johnson should be penalized for grounding his club in an area of the course where fans were allowed to walk, an area that nonetheless was designated as a "hazard." Your letters, to both Golf Digest and Golf World, keep on coming, mostly in fume mode. The whole world appears to have taken note of the controversy. The satirical site, the Onion, today published weighed in. Check out their list of "obscure rules" brought to light by the PGA ruling. My favorites:

A three-shot penalty will be issued to anyone caught enjoying themselves.

Your little sister gets to pick the red ball if you got to play with the red ball last time.

On to your letters:

I have played golf for 65 years on 178 golf courses in 16 states. I was a full time caddy for 4 years. The so-called bunker that Deron Johnson played from was a dirt patch, not a sand trap or bunker as they are now called. Their decision stands right up there with that of Craig Stadler kneeling on his towel to keep his slacks dry and being called for I believe improving his stance along with Paul Azinger and the penalty he was assessed for something involving his stance in a rocky brook. Why can't the officials simply use just an iota of common sense when that type of incident occurs. They are similar to the learned monks of antiquity trying to decide how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

Harvey Hinds, Edgartown, MA

The PGA highlighted two very big problems with today's tour players. First: their knowledge of the rules of golf is abysmal. In my opinion, if your playing for that much money, you should at least be cognizant with the rules your playing under. Second, the grip it and rip it, see how far you can hit it mentality, may be wonderful for stroke play but means nothing in match play. To wit: if Bubba Watson had hit a good layup it would have put tremendous pressure on his opponent and at the worst he would have wound up with a half and continued the match.

Robert B Watt. Tenafly, NJ

What a contrast between the third and fourth majors of the year. The bunkering at the Old Course at St. Andrews is original, quirky and authentic. The traps at Whistling Straits by contrast seem to be overdone and gimmicky. The fact that the PGA had to plaster rules on the walls of the bathroom stalls should have been a tip off that the bunkers outside the ropes were a contrivance that could not be "papered over." Is there a course on the Tour, never mind a major host site, where such ambiguity exists regarding the definition of a sand trap? Shame on the PGA!

Patrick J. Walsh, Vero Beach, FL

We have seen many sport athletes lose their temper. What we saw at the 92nd PGA tournament was unbelievable. This young man decided not to lose his temper, not to yell or throw anything or swear because the entire tournament had been taken away from him, or because his name would not be engraved on the PGA trophy, or he would not be part of history. No. He decided to act like a complete mench, a man. We can not tell you how impressed we were of Dustin Johnson, who we had seen earlier that morning and had wished good luck--a luck that was refused to adhere to him on the 18th hole. Nick Watney, who had been playing with him during that last round, said it best: "We just play." We play honestly.

As far as we are concerned, this tournament was stolen.

Deborah and Paul Max Rubenstein, Highland Park, IL

--Bob Carney

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You're blaming the PGA

Monday, August 16, 2010 Comments

We've received loads of mail on Dustin Johnson's penalty on No. 18 during yesterday's PGA finale. Overwhelmingly, you're holding the PGA, not Dustin Johnson or his caddy, responsible for what you see as an inequitable outcome.

The PGA should have been given a two-stroke penalty to match Dustin Johnson's penalty. The PGA took away a great tournament by not having an official on the spot. The fans gave Johnson little room under a pressure packed situation. Fortunetly I think that Johnson will bounce back. He has to much talent not to.

Ben Baker, Enumclaw, WA

What happened to Dustin Johnson is both a tragedy (for Johnson) and a shame, but it is the PGA of America and the USGA who should be ashamed. Those unkempt areas should have been treated by the PGA of America as what they really were, waste areas where players can ground a club. Ever heard of a sand trap where spectators can walk through, stand in or course employees can drive a cart through? I sure haven't. But the bigger problem is the absolute silliness that the Rules of Golf have become.The Rules are now counter-intuitive and way too complicated...Over-regulation is choking this wonderful game to death and the only positive thing that might come out of this sorry tournament result is if the uproar from the golfing public is so loud that the "blue blazers" cannot ignore this problem any longer.

Ron Lowry, Acworth, GA

As an avid golf fan for most of my life and an ardent supporter of the Rules of Golf didn’t the PGA have a rules official--David Price--following the group? Where was David Price when Dustin Johnson hit his drive “right of right” and well into the gallery? A “missed warning” or not, it is a travesty to have the potential outcome of a major championship so adversely affected when a simple reminder from a rules official would have sufficed. Amid the mayhem of spectators, noise, trampled bunkers outside the ropes, and the tournament on the line, it is a wonder any player could be thinking clearly enough to have stopped and asked for a ruling? It should have been offered. Whistling Straits has to be one of the great venues ever for tournament golf! It is a shame that the PGA of America adversely affected the playoff, but kudos to Johnson for the admirable way in which he handled the infraction.

Charles S. “Trip” Hoffman, III, New Canaan, CT.

Since an area of sand exposed is supposed to designate a bunker, according to Mark Wilson PGA rules official and the local rules sheet, does a sand-filled divot become a bunker? The PGA lost again in the rules department. Why not designate an official bunker raker to deal with damaged bunkers with a rake with each pairing on the course. The Brits do it in their championship, the caddies do not have to deal with raking the bunkers. Again, the question is...what constitutes a bunker?

Quentin Smith, Rohnert Park, CA

Here's what I know. Anyone who has ever planned or run a golf tournament abhors the thought that their tournament would be decided like this. The rules officials live to avoid it, and I'm sure David Price feels awful about what happened to Johnson. I remember when our club hosted the U.S. Girls' Junior. In one match a concession was misunderstood, and a girl who should have won a match lost the final hole because of it, and then lost the playoff. I remember officials huddling immediately afterward to determine what could have been done to prevent it. They held themselves responsible. The aim of every tournament organizer is: Let the golf, not a technicality, decide the outcome. (On the other hand, the situation surely reminds players that they can't depend on their "keepers" to save them.)

So what can the PGA do next time at Whistling Straits? It seems to me there are these options:

1. No change.

2. Designate all bunkers waste areas.

3. Designate all bunkers beyond a given boundary (a rope line, for example) designated waste areas.

4. Add rules officials.

Some version of Option 3 makes sense to me. If fans can walk in it, it's a waste area. If they can't, it's a hazard.

--Bob Carney

Email us your thoughts.

(Photo: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)

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Equipment: Web sites too good to be true?

Saturday, August 14, 2010 Comments

You're watching the PGA Championship, getting fired up to play, maybe even to buy some new equipment. You do a little online window shopping and.... whoa!...you've found a great deal. Then the doubt sets in.

I have recently come across two web sites that are selling top brand clubs for the lowest prices i have ever seen. This makes me suspect that something could be amiss. Do you know anything about these sites or have any readers reported anything good or bad about them or any problems with them to you? they have some great, great deals but i wouldn't want to get stuck with counterfeit clubs or experience any other kind of problem with the goods not being what is promised. i sent them both emails asking point blank if their goods were the genuine article and they both answered yes.

--Louis Delgado, San Antonio, TX

Two of our Hot List judges weighed in. First, Associate Editor Max Adler:

"We have not experienced any complaints or reports about either site you mentioned. In general, our advice on any online buying is that there are risks from buying through unfamiliar sites that do not list a physical location. You’re volunteering your money and personal information to an entity you know nothing about. Does the website have legitimate accounts with equipment companies? If not, in the event you need to act on a warranty, you would likely not experience the convenience of dealing directly with just the person who sold you the club. Golf Digest Retail Panelist Leigh Bader told us, “The person running these sites could very well be very honest, but if it were my brother or sister buying a club, I’d tell them to steer their mouse somewhere else. It’s not worth the risk of buying in gray markets just to save a couple of bucks.”

And then Senior Editor for Equipment Mike Stachura:

"If it appears to be too good to be true, it always, ALWAYS is. If you're looking for something that is more affordable, go to legitimate used-club sites such as callawaygolfpreowned.com or 3balls.com. There are no short cuts in golf, not even in golf equipment."

--Bob Carney

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Equipment: Picking the right ball

Monday, August 9, 2010 Comments

You'll get a look at a lot of golf ball commercials this week during the PGA Championship. But what about your game? We have reviewed the new offerings in the 2010 Golf Ball Hot List. We still get questions, almost always about fitting a ball to an average amateur's game. The latest:

What is it with golf balls? They all claim to be longer, softer, better feel, etc. At one time they were just hard or soft. How does somebody like me with a slow swing and low trajectory pick a ball? Also, why change so often?

Lloyd Brown, Jacksonville, FL

Stina Sternberg, a Golf Digest senior editor and one of the Hot List judges, replies:

I agree that the messages on the various ball packages tend to sound the same and tht trying to find the right ball can be utterly confusing. But it's not all marketing mumbo-jumbo. There's a lot of beneficial technology in golf balls these days. A lot of golf balls out there really do go longer while feeling soft and spinning pretty well. Still, in order to activate all the layers in the products that can perform like four different balls in one [balls such as Titleist ProV1/V1x, Nike One Tour/tourD, TaylorMade Penta, Bridgestone B330, the Srixon Z-Star and Callaway i(s)/i(z], you need a fast clubhead speed. And while these balls can still work for slower swingers (especially around the greens, where even a slow swing can get spin out of a urethan-covered ball) forking over the $40-plus they cost per dozen is really a waste of money. I'd recommend that you forego that category and look at the second-tier balls instead (priced $25 5o $35). These balls are typically made with two- or three-piece construction, but still have soft cores and a soft covers. In order for a slow swinger to get more distance out of a shot, you need a ball with a core that's soft enough for you to compress, and a dimple pattern that promotes lift (because height equals distance for slower swingers). If I were you, I'd try out any of the balls recommended in this category on the 2010 Golf Ball Hot List. If your swing speed is below 80 miles per hour and your trajectory really low, you might also want to consider some of the balls designed for women, since they have the softest cores and really promote a high ball flight. Here are some examples. Don't worry about bruising your ego; playing with these would is one of the trendiest things a male golfer can do these days.

--Bob Carney

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Learning about learning--golf and sailing--in Maine

Monday, August 9, 2010 Comments

The late Davis Love Jr., a great teacher and father of tour player Davis III, used to say that teachers would better understand what their students experience if they’d go out and learn a new skill themselves. Take up a musical instrument, for example, or learn ballroom dancing. It’s not a bad advice for magazine editors either, especially for editors on a magazine that majors in instruction.

Well, out of know such noble motive, I tried that last week while on vacation, and it was eye-opening. Our family spent 5 days at rustic Linekin Bay Resort in Maine as Dad (me) tried to learn what Mom and son 15-year-old Matt already know quite a bit about: Sailing.

I’m now awash with insight about what we ask of our readers. Sailing, like golf, is a sport that a) looks pretty easy from a distance, b) takes place in beautiful surroundings that make it all the more seductive c) proves much trickier and more mechanical and counterintuitive than you think, with the a confusing a language all its own. As in golf, weather, and especially wind, makes all the difference. We were lucky there. But if you are a rank beginner, just keeping terms straight was a challenge. Port: what’s left after dinner, was one of my cleverer memos to self, I thought.

Three sessions in a our Rhodes 19 and one as a passenger in a 30-foot Pearson left me thinking, paradoxically, that I could be great at this and I had no clue, seconds apart. The fact that we had young Andy, our 17-year-old instructor, in the small boat with us, was, how you never wanted to let go of that halyard when you were rigging the boat, reminding us what when to let out the “main sheet,” and what the “points of sale were”, was a relief because I for one couldn’t remember any of it.

Davis Jr. would have loved Andy and the other instructors in Maine, because they were all patience and enthusiasm. There gave no exams, applied no pressure, conveyed a love of the sport throughout; as a result, I was hooked. I will sail again, not because I think I’ll ever be good, but for the pure pleasure of it: the beauty of the sails catching the wind, the thrill of coming about without killing yourself, and then, once on the move, the almost silent pleasure of that slide across the waves. It was both peaceful and, with 100 feet of water below you, sobering. Don’t get too misty-eyed here, I kept reminding myself; people drown doing this.

What sailing lacks, to its benefit, is a scoring system. Nobody timed us or tested us; there was no scorecard, no “what did you have there?” question every 15 minutes. At week’s end, we had a competition, a 45-minute sail around a small island in our little cove, but it was all fun. Of the seven boats in our heat, we came in last. By a lot. As we slowly made our way out of the starting gate--not the right term, I'm sure-- already far behind, the instructors played the Star Wars theme and cheered us on; we could only laugh. My son and my wife, each with fantasies of winning, were disappointed. I was disappointed only when we reached the finish line, because our last sail was over.

What I learned : In golf as in sailing, we expect a lot of beginners. We speak a strange language and most instructors—and tip writers—expect them to master it quickly. We fill them with facts about what makes the ball (or the boat) do this or that and they’re supposed to memorize that, too. And in golf we hand them a scorecard and start them counting.

What works, really, is patience and compassion and absolute clarity in our instructions. My first marine experience convinced me that we have to watch our (jargon-filled) language and stop expecting beginners to master it quickly. It convinced even more that our game’s obsession with score, with handicaps and with competition almost from the start, holds us back. It makes learning the sport harder and has the potential to suck out the fun out of the sport because it gets newcomers judging themselves, often harshly, from the start. Add to that a dress code and a million points of etiquette and we're not exactly welcoming.

That's why I think the industry game-growth program, Get Golf Ready, really has potential. That program offers a terrific orientation and instruction, emphasis on fun, not score, five sessions for only $100. I only wish it were available in more places. But we're getting there.

In the end, my Maine experience reminded me that it's the sail—or in our sport, the walk and the camaraderie—that counts. Sell that, and people will stay.

-Bob Carney

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Your tips or our tips?

Tuesday, August 3, 2010 Comments

Every day we get your critiques, advanced proofreading (some of you are very good at this), corrections and story suggestions. Here's an interesting one from a Virginia reader. I'd like to suggest a feature--and I'll be your guinea pig to try it out. The feature could be "Tips I've Found Helpful," written by amateurs who submit them. It could be made more interesting by having a teaching pro, or even one teaching pro and one tour pro write a blurb about what he or she thinks of the tip.

Patrick Dennis, Centreville, VA

Patrick, as an old instruction editor, I love this idea. At Golf Digest, we're always trying to present tips that really work--check out our Guaranteed Issue in June--and your idea is a way of getting at those. We once devoted a cover to "best tips from our readers." and Truth be told, it was one of our poorest selling covers ever. Why? Because as much as readers love to tell us about their favorite tips, they look to us to use tour pros and top teachers to find those tips. They trust the experts. Which is why I like your addition of a tour pro or teaching pro comment about each of the reader tips submitted. We'll definitely consider it. In the meantime, readers ought to keep track of their favorite tips and refer to them when their game goes south. It's something those top teaching pros recommend.

--Bob Carney

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