There are plenty of fitness routines that come with the promise of tightening your abs, improving your cardiovascular health, shaving 20 pounds off your mid-section and making you feel 10 years younger. But this isn’t one of them. This one is all about the exercises that can make you a better golfer without having to
Instructions
Most amateurs struggle to manufacture different shots off the tee, particularly if they go against the player’s natural shot shape. One reason is, they make it too complicated. When it comes time to hit a draw, they might alter their alignment, ball position, grip, clubface aim—you name it. The tweaks can be endless. But as
Perhaps it’s a reflection of golf’s youth movement or a new spike in the game’s popularity, but whatever the reason, we believe there are more talented golf instructors under the age of 40 than ever before. Back in 2008, when we debuted our biennial list, we identified 20 teachers in their 20s and 30s who
There are so many things golfers can learn from Collin Morikawa, which is why we’re proud to call the young star our new Golf Digest Playing Editor. The 23-year-old has been successful at every level—including an illustrious amateur career, earning his PGA Tour card in just two months after turning pro, then his incredible 22-event stretch
A common fault among average golfers is hanging back on the downswing and flipping the club at the ball. It usually results in a loss of power, poor contact and a nasty slice. Try this exercise from top trainer Tyler Campbell to groove a proper weight shift and develop more speed by learning to push
Imagine you have a big walk-in closet where you store all your golf skills. On the shelves and hangers you keep your abilities to split a tight, tree-lined fairway with your driver, hit a long iron off a tight lie, and execute a downhill pitch over water—all the shots that make most amateurs feel uneasy.
Next time you get to a par 3, compare the divots on the back tee to the ones on the closer tees. You should see two differences: Divot holes from better players start past the ball (you can usually tell where the tee was), and they point to the target. The ones from less-skilled players
If all it took was to have a multiple-major-winning father to guarantee PGA Tour stardom for a son, you’d have heard much more about the Nicklauses, Players, Floyds and Millers who aspired to play high-level professional golf. Charlie Woods isn’t going to get there on pure pedigree. But if you can draw lessons from a
ORLANDO — The entire golf world’s eyes seem to fixed on the swing of a pre-teen. During Thursday’s pro-am for the PNC, Charlie’s athletic and powerful swing sparked multiple comparisons to the swing of a young Tiger. Woods spoke in detail with Golf Digest about his son’s move, and how it compares to how he
We know, we know. You don’t even want to talk about the shanks for fear bringing the subject up will cause you to catch them. But like it or not, you might find yourself in a situation where you’re going to want to know a solution. Though awful, the plague of the shanks is curable.
When you think of a U.S. Open, tough-to-hit fairways and difficult conditions likely come to mind. Players this week will face an added challenge: Adjusting to some of the biggest greens in competitive golf over the course of one round, while playing a much smaller set of putting surfaces in the second. This week’s U.S.
Even the most accurate guys on the PGA Tour are missing fairways on at least 25 percent of their tee shots. That means we all have to know how to hit good approach shots out of the rough. Part of it is recognizing how the ball is going to come out based on the lie.
Give your driving distance a boost using this two-for-one exercise from New York-based trainer Kurt Ellis. This full-body move works both the adductor (hip) muscles and thoracic spine to help you create a stable center and rotate more effectively. Translation: longer drives. The first part of Ellis’ stretch improves flexibility in your adductors, which help
The pandemic caused many lapsed golfers to pick up their clubs again, but our favorite returning player might be Joseph Maguire, a high school freshman from Port Washington, N.Y. Joseph is autistic, and this past year has been especially lonely and difficult for him with less access to teachers, coaches and friends. Although Joseph didn’t
I can always tell when golfers are nervous in the sand: They make no body turn through the shot—it’s just a fast swipe with the hands. And when the hands get active, they tend to close the clubface, which makes the leading edge dig. You want to do just the opposite: Slide the clubhead through
Mackenzie Stroh When Nelly Korda won her first LPGA Tour event in 2018, she matched a feat her sister, Jessica, had already accomplished. Together, the two became one set of just three sisters who have won on the LPGA Tour, the other two being Annika and Charlotta Sorenstam and Ariya and Moriya Jutanugarn. With five
Admit it. You’ve spent hours at the practice range, hitting ball after ball with your pitching wedge or 9-iron, looking for that pure contact tour players seem to achieve effortlessly. You’ve sped up your swing, slowed it down, and done all kinds of things with your hands, all in an effort to make the ball
I’m going to assume you don’t need my advice to hit a putt solidly. That’s pretty easy to do. But what about the rest of your game? If you’re honestly assessing it, are you making great contact most of the time on your drives, irons, pitches, chips and bunker shots? Yep, you can hit bunker
It usually doesn’t take more than a hole or two during a pro-am for one of my amateur partners to ask me about the way I chip. You don’t see it very much on the PGA Tour. I play the ball back in my stance, hinge my wrists up quickly, and hit down on it
If you’re doing Fourth of July weekend right, you’ve got a lot of golf lined up in between all of the obligatory BBQs. Having plenty of golf on your schedule is awesome, but there’s a good chance your body isn’t used to playing multiple days in a row in the heat. Are there ways to
I’ll concede that nothing panics a golfer like hitting two or three shanks in a row. But coming in at No. 2 on the pop charts is a case of the tops. Hitting multiple shots that fail to clear the limbo stick is pretty unnerving. Even worse, the reason it’s happening is clear to the
Kevin Tway’s development from a U.S. Junior Amateur champion to an All-American at Oklahoma State to a winner on the PGA Tour can be traced to lessons from his father, 1986 PGA Championship winner Bob Tway. But there have been plenty of other influences along the way, says coach E.J. Pfister. “He’s been hanging out
ABOUT Thousands of golf instructors around the world have trusted Golf Digest 50 Best Teacher Dave Phillips and his TPI Performance Center for elite-level training that helps players develop a swing that works best with their physical capabilities. The techniques and strategies Phillips uses in that training form the foundation for this six-part series, “The
Throughout Phil Mickelson’s 28 years as a pro, swing gurus, stats nerds and armchair psychologists have all taken stabs at the reasons for his brilliance. It has been a losing battle. The Paleo diet, martial-arts classes and amazing short game aren’t everything, and the puzzle of his career is clearly more complex. At age 49
There’s so much talk about impact and the positions of your body and the club. But with the clubhead moving 90 miles an hour, it’s impossible to control exact positions. Instead, think bigger: Think motions. You’ll improve your impact without getting fixated on the actual strike. — with Peter Morrice “Stop scooping — Extend your
Hang around the range at a PGA Tour event for awhile and you’re bound to see all kinds of gadgets and gizmos. If it helps their swing, a tour pro will try it, no matter how silly it makes them look. On Wednesday at the Travelers Championship, Joaquin Niemann’s toy of choice was a beach
If you had to draw up the perfect scenario necessary to create a great golfer, one of the first things you’d probably mention would be access to a range and a golf course. Sung Hyun Park, former World No. 1 and defending champion of the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, wasn’t so lucky. In her first
Take a guess what the average percentage was on the PGA Tour last year for putts made from four feet. Seventy percent? Eighty percent? Eighty-five percent? Guess again. It was 92 percent. While that might not surprise you, it should serve as inspiration if your success rate when putting from this distance isn’t nearly as
The best short game wizards do three things very well. They analyze lies around the green very accurately, they control where the club bottoms out in the swing very consistently, and they control the loft they want to use through impact. Gary Woodland did all of those things on the 17th green at Pebble Beach
If you’re tossing out stereotypes about U.S. Open conditions, narrow fairways and thick rough probably come to mind first. But increasingly slick and challenging greens throughout the weekend are another constant—especially given the USGA’s recent issues with keeping courses under control. Given the weekend forecast—clear and cool—and the moisture-removing SubAir systems Pebble Beach has under