Golfing

We are gathered here today… It was about a week ago when Bettinardi Golf announced that Matt Kuchar was now an official member of Team Bettinardi.  This announcement did not really surprise many of us, as Matt has been gaming a Bettinardi putter for a while now.  You can’t win a high profile tournament like the 2013 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship without every golf gear head out there wondering, “What putter is in his bag?” The answer to that question is “It’s a Bettinardi”. If Matt is putting with a Bettinardi putter, why wouldn’t he be on staff with them?  It’s a simple question, but sometimes in the golf equipment sponsorship realm, simple questions can have complex answers.  There are quite a few tour professionals who “unofficially” roll putters from companies other than their sponsors.  So why did Kuchar and Bettinardi make the partnership official? Why the Partnership Makes Sense From Bettinardi’s End? “With the recent belly putter ban, I strongly felt that the style of putting Matt uses would be the best alternative for players who struggle to putt the conventional way” – Bob Bettinardi Bettinardi Gains Exposure Here’s a crazy thought, there are golfers out there who don’t know anything about Robert Bettinardi and his putters.  To a putter lover like myself, this seems impossible, but it’s true.  I’ve made it no secret that I think that the Bettinardi shop makes some of the finest putters ever milled.  The precision and innovation found in Bettinardi putters are largely unrivaled in the industry.  But again, only those in the know, know this.  This is not the recipe for a successful sales-based business.  It’s great that the putter aficionados love your stuff, but at the end of the day, putters need to get sold. Matt Kuchar rolling a Bettinardi putter brings international exposure to the Bettinardi brand.  I would be willing to wager that more golfers recognize Matt Kuchar’s name than do Robert Bettinardi’s.  This is not a slam on Bettinardi in any way.  It’s just a matter of exposure.  Matt Kuchar is on TV playing golf a lot, and the guy typically works weekends. Think about your golfing mom, or the other golfers in your club.  They may not know the Bettinardi name, but they’ll know Kuchar.  It’s a Marketing 101 truism that attaching the name of a well-known celebrity to a product moves product.  If it’s good enough for Matt Kuchar, then it must be good enough for me.  Every time Matt drops another twenty-foot bomb, Bettinardi Golf gets a mini-commercial.  This is why companies pay for endorsements.  Again, it’s Golf Marketing 101. Kuchar is a Good Guy The other side of the equation for Bettinardi Golf is that this person endorsing their putter is Matt Kuchar.  Along with an amazing golf game, Matt brings an aura of class and likability to the table.  Seriously, have you ever heard someone say that they don’t like the guy?  About the only thing that I have heard is that Matt’s smile will likely need to be removed surgically.  This is a guy who would find your wallet, do his best to return it to you, and then refuse any reward other than thanks. Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe Matt has an off-camera dark side and frequently commits heinous atrocities.  Can you see Matt Kuchar as Lex Luthor, leering while manically rubbing his hands together as his evil plot comes to fruition?  Me neither, but I can definitely see him tearing off that sweet purple tie, uncovering a giant S on his chest.  In taking Matt Kuchar into the Bettinardi Golf family, they get the game and the man.  He will be an amazing brand ambassador. Kuchar Putts Like Freak Maybe that’s too harsh.  How about “Matt Kuchar’s arm-lock putting style is unique in the PGA field today”?  Is that more diplomatic?  Bottom line is he is a great putter, but he doesn’t putt like most of us do.  But that is an amazing boon for Bettinardi.  When Matt is putting on TV, something that he does quite a bit, his unique putting style draws at

Few golfers are aware of what really happens when a clubhead collides with a golf ball at high speed, not to mention how much an off-center collision can effect the flight of the ball. My hope is that this article and the accompanying video footage will give each of you a much better understanding of the importance of solid contact. I would encourage you to watch the following PGATour.com video a few times… As you can see a strike away from the center of gravity of the clubhead will lead to twisting of the clubhead. While most of the twisting occurs after impact, a portion of it does occur during the impact interval. It is this twisting during impact that leads to gear effect which can greatly alter the flight of a shot. An off-center collision will twist the clubface in any direction. A hit high on the face will tilt the face upward and reduce the amount of spin on the ball, while a low strike point will deloft the face and increase spin rate. A strike towards the toe will open the clubface and increase draw or reduce fade and a strike towards the heel will close the face and increase fade or reduce draw. Interestingly, the clubface will tilt vertically (top/bottom) almost as much as it will horizontally (toe/heel). There are seven shots in the video and if each of them had a neutral club face and club path during impact, the results of each shot due to gear effect would have been as follows: Shot 1 – A strike above the “equator” of the clubface and slightly towards the toe. Ideal if you would like to hit high launching, low spinning, draws that go a long way. Shot 2 – A High Toe Side Strike Shot 2 – A more pronounced high, toe side strike. This strike point is too far from aligning with the center of gravity of the clubhead to be beneficial. This flight due to gear effect would have been fairly high launching, low spinning and would not have faded as much as it might have appeared. Shot 3 – Another extreme high, toe side strike along with a heavy descending blow – not good. High and right, but a fairly straight flight. Shot 4 – A Low Heel Side Strike Shot 4 – A severely off-center hit where the collision is with a very low portion of the face and in the heel. Believe it or not this ball gets airborne and will almost always be an unimpressive high spinning,  low fade with very little distance. Shot 5 – Charley Hoffman: I have seen numerous clips of high speed driver footage like this and I don’t think I have ever seen one where I cannot detect any twisting at all. A slight downward attack angle. Appears to be very close to a perfect center of gravity strike – a truly rare event! Very straight. Shot 6 – Matt Kuchar: A neutral attack angle along with a high, toe side strike. High launch, lower spin and a slight draw – boom! Shot 7 – Luke Donald: About as solid as Charley Hoffman’s shot, but the interesting thing about this clip is the attack angle – quite severely down. Solid and straight, but not optimal for maximum distance. It is interesting to note that today’s larger clubheads will resist twisting due to having a higher moment of inertia. MOI is a measure of a body’s resistance to angular acceleration or twisting. MOI really comes into play when the ball and the clubface meet someplace other than the sweet spot. The MOI of a club is higher for heel/toe mishits than it is for high/low mishits and therefore tends to be more forgiving on heel/toe mishits. However, golfers tend to mishit a shot further towards the heel/toe than they do high/low so the clubheads’ resistance to twisting tends to even out. Please know that physics is not selective and any golfer, pro or amateur, can hit any shot solidly or severely off-center. Also – no golfer can “stabilize” the clubface during or after impact due to an off-center strike. This article shows you which part of the clubface is best. I love this

Somehow my little girl and I got on the subject of injuries in sports.  Not sure how this came about since she’s no sports fan, but maybe she’s a fan of sports injuries.  I think we were watching a game, or maybe Sportscenter, when the subject came up.  She asked me if I ever got hurt playing a sport to which I responded “Sure, but nothing serious.”  I went over the time I took a baseball to the chest and chin thanks to a bad hop, and the time I broke my thumb playing basketball…but that’s about all I had.  She knows, for the most part, my sports career is now relegated to the golf course.  So she asks if I’ve ever gotten hurt playing golf.  “Well” I tell her, “I once took a golf ball, that someone else hit, off the ankle.  That stung a bit.” So she says, “You should write something about golf injuries” she says.  “What do you mean?  I’ve already sort of done that before.”  She responds with “No, I mean people getting hurt doing something stupid.”  Now we’re talkin’.  There’s nothing quite as funny as someone getting hurt doing something they shouldn’t be doing. Anyone ever hear about Thomas Levet?  Well back in 2011, after winning the French Open, he celebrated by jumping into a lake on the course.  After that little stunt, he had to skip the British Open thanks to the broken shin he suffered after his victory leap. I’d have to agree with Colin Montgomerie when he said “I’ve always been suspect about people diving into lakes that don’t know how deep it is and what’s in there.” Also from 2011, how about Robert Garrigus at the Tournament of Champions who ended up with a sore shoulder due to excessive fist pumping after sinking an eagle putt.  Geez…thanks Robert.  No wonder people think us golfers are wimps.  We can’t even celebrate properly! One more from the pros…how about John Daly who injured a rib trying to stop his swing when a fan attempted to take his picture at the Honda Classic.  He actually sued the tournament organizers, but I couldn’t find any results of the suit. But we know all the real stupid stuff comes from us – the average hack out on the public course.  I’ve found plenty of ridiculousness out there, such as one guy who, doing his best golf cart impression of Erwin Rommel, hit a large root which bounced him out of his seat and broke his finger on the steering wheel when he landed.  Or how about a guy who tried to hit a ball out of a tree only to step onto a rotten branch, fall about eight feet down and give himself a concussion. But the probable grand daddy of them all is when NASCAR star Jimmie Johnson attempted ”golf cart surfing” at a tournament.  The result…of course…the idiot fell off.  Yup, he broke his wrist. Me personally, I’ve never suffered an injury on the course, nor has anyone I’ve played with.  I’ve also never seen an injury occur on the course.  But I’ve heard some stories!  And now we’re looking for more.  Anyone got any good ones?  Let’s hear ‘em!  I’m sure some of you have seen someone out on the course get what they deserve. Swing ’til you’re happy!

From the GAM: Grab Three Friends, Sign up at a local qualifying site for the GAM Scramble, & Have…

Sandbox8.comWhat’s in the Bag: Sang-Moon Bae 2013 HP Byron Nelson ChampionshipSang-Moon Bae won the 2013 HP Byron Nelson Championship making clutch putts down the stretch to give him his first PGA Tour win. Bae is the first player to win with Callaway’s HEX Chrome + golf ball, which Phil Mickelson has been playing all season. Driver: Callaway RAZR Fit, 8.5 degrees3-wood: Callaway RAZR Fit, 15 degreesHybrid: Callaway X Hot Pro, 18 degreesUtility Iron: Callaway X Utility Prototype, 21 degreesIrons (4-9): Callaway RAZR X MuscleBackWedges: Callaway X Forged, 48, 52, 60 degreesPutter: Odyssey Tour Milled #1Ball: Callaway HEX Chrome+ Join the conversation on Google + The post What’s in the Bag: Sang-Moon Bae 2013 HP Byron Nelson Championship appeared first on Sandbox8.com

Sunday May 19 is the final day for GolfSmith’s Anniversary Sale. Details below:

As with most stories there are two sides to be told. This case is no different, especially since the two sides were separated by fifty yards. The scene of this controversy was The Players Championship in the delayed third round in the final pairing of Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia. On the second hole, Garcia, away and hitting his second shot in the fairway was distracted by the gallery that was gathered around Tiger's drive in the left pine straw. Several seconds prior to Sergio's swing, Tiger pulled his fairway wood out of this bag and the crowd reacted favorably to his choice to go for it. This favorable cheering distracted Sergio and caused him (his own words) to miss the ball way right into the trees on the right. Sergio bogeyed the hole. (...)Read the rest of Why Tiger was Wrong, Sergio was Right (657 words) © mchepp for The Sand Trap, 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Colsaerts’ drop gives a new meaning to ‘taking relief’. Belgium’s Nicolas Colsaerts played Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell in the quarter final of the Volvo World Match Play on the weekend and found himself taking a drop in the toilet. Colsaerts wayward tee shot on the 10th hole (at the spectacular Thracian Cliffs Golf Resort in Bulgaria) crossed straight over the toilet block which also happens to be the line of the hazard. Related posts: Rules of Golf: Embedded Ball Winter has begun to clasp it’s cold hands around much... Immovable obstructions and local rules: video Ossie Moore took viewers through an important rule concerning immovable obstructions, that... What happens when your drive bounces off your partners golf ball? Another week, and another rules reminder courtesy of the PGA...

The latest issue of Golf Digest has the results of tests conducted on the latest crop of golf balls. The…

Maybe 2013's lousy, rotten, no-good spring is finally done throwing snow and sleet and rain at us. The last week has been downright pleasant. I don't know, but I'm not trusting it. After a wonderful start to the season, which saw me shoot a caree…