Summer in Australia for a golfer is a fantastic time. This past summer presented great events led by the Presidents Cup in November at Royal Melbourne and rounded out last month by the Women’s Australian Open at the same incredible venue.
During the past three months I’ve spent quite a lot of time on the road at tournaments and checking out plenty of courses – some to satisfy my own curiosity and others for stories to appear in this magazine at some stage.

With all the travel comes plenty of time waiting in airport lounges. Here are some of the things that have occupied my head space while twiddling thumbs in transit.

EXCESS BAGGAGE HURTS

I have been travelling with Qantas on a regular basis, as a golfer, for 15 years. You may or may not know but these days it doesn’t matter how much your combined weight is, as soon as you check in more than one piece of luggage you need to cough up $30 ($20 if you pre-pay online). Economy passengers are now allowed just one piece of check-in luggage so if you want to go on a golf holiday with your clubs, and not pay the excess, figure on wearing the same clothes for the whole trip.
It’s even worse if you fly international with Qantas as it charges $150 per extra piece.
Travelling golfers, you have been warned. Has the time come where we need to seriously consider leaving our clubs at home and hiring? For me that’s not an option, I’ll have to look at … changing carriers.

TOO MANY SIGNS

Golf was meant to be a pleasant, relaxing game. The one thing I really dislike on a course is a barrage of signage telling me not to do this and that.

I can appreciate that some public access courses need to have some signs, for example, directing cart traffic.
But one course I saw recently had more signs scattered around the course than golfers. One one hole I counted six signs within 30 metres of the green – four telling me which way to drive the cart, one telling me “don’t park here” and another instructing me to “park here”. I felt like I was on a highway, not a golf course.

WELCOME BACK THE ‘TACHE

What started as high-profile support of the Movember charity by Geoff Ogilvy, has evolved into a permanent fixture on the face of the 2006 US Open champion.

Ogilvy’s mo has been a talking point since he returned to the PGA Tour still sporting the hairy top lip. Can he become the first player with moustache to win the Masters since Craig ‘The Walrus’ Stadler did it back in 1982?

Surely a Masters win by Ogilvy would mark a return of the great sporting Aussie ‘stache. It would sit alongside the wonderful mo’s worn by Dennis Lillee, Rod Marsh, John Newcombe and Bob Shearer. I will, however, stop short of saying it is in the Merv Hughes class.

OBSOLETE BUNKERS

I played a course over the summer that had spent a small fortune rebuilding some holes and adding plenty of fairway bunkers to the layout.

While these bunkers looked impressive and certainly intimidated you while standing on the tee, it didn’t take long to realise that only really wayward shots would end up in one of these bunkers.

This club, and many others I have seen in recent years, has a practice of allowing rough to grow around nearly all fairway bunkers. This not only narrows the fairways but it affectively takes these bunkers out of play because the only balls going in them are those that fly in and are well wide of the middle of the fairway.

Personally, I think cutting the fairways a little wider and trimming them right to the edge of the bunkers increases the strategy required to avoid the sand and make a good score. That’s how they do it in the Melbourne Sandbelt and if it works there …

UGLY AUTOGRAPH HUNTERS

Here’s a spray for the two blokes I spotted elbowing kids aside as they surged forward to get an autograph from Tiger Woods at the Australian Open. You know who you are because I told you ‘Mr black Royal Sydney shirt’ and your blond-haired mate in the red Emirates cap to let the kids you were towering over to get closer.

With so many people crowding around I couldn’t tell whether you got his autograph or not consider this … it takes a real low life scumbag to bully past starry-eyed kids to grab a signature just to sell on eBay. I wish I knew your names so I could give you the public shaming you deserve.

MORE PLAYERS ON COURSE

I would be interested to hear any feedback from clubs, but there seemed to be lots of people playing golf over summer. Nearly every course I went to from November through the start of February had good numbers of players out and about. Even my local driving range had a queue of people waiting for hitting bays to become vacant.
We can only hope this trend continues.

Do you agree or disagree with any of Brendan’s rant? What experiences have you had? Let me know your thoughts via email on golf@golfaustralia.com.au or by leaving a comment below.

For daily golf news, Tour player retweets and comment updates, follow me on Twitter at brendanjames2.

Motion capture technology is helping Justin Rose change the spec of his clubs – and his shot shapes.

A  TaylorMade staff player, Justin Rose is quick to make use of the company’s Motion Analysis Technology (MAT-T) whenever he can to tune up his club set-up. But he admits that what he really loves about the system is its ability to hone his technique. “It bridges the gap between feel and real,” he says. “MAT-T tells you how much you need to exaggerate certain moves you are working on. It quantifies your game, and that accelerates the learning process. Shot shaping is a great example of this. Sometimes you feel you are swinging in-to-out, but this software shows you that, actually, you are not. Here, I am going to show you my approach to draws and fades, and how the system helps me achieve accuracy with both.”

Understanding The Draw and Fade

Not so long ago, when we wanted to learn to shape the ball, we were told “the path sends it, the face bends it”. In other words, the swing path through impact would set the ball’s initial direction, while the position of the face at impact would apply the spin.

However, thanks to launch monitor technology like TrackMan, we now know this is not quite right. TrackMan has demonstrated that, in fact, the aim of the clubface at impact dictates 85 percent of the club’s starting line. If my face is well open, the ball is going to start to the right, irrespective of the swing path. It turns out that the face pretty much sends it and bends it.

To understand what this means for shot shaping, we must first make sure we understand the draw and a fade.

Let us take the draw. For the right-hander, the idea is for the ball to curve left through the air, in towards the target. This of course means the ball must first be sent right of that target. As we now know, the face is the major contributing factor in setting that line. This means, somewhat paradoxically, that to hit a draw, the face needs to be open to the target at impact.

Equally strangely, the face should be closed to the target at impact to hit a fade, which requires the ball to start left. Things start to make a little more sense when you consider the swing path. For that “open” clubface to apply drawspin, it must be closed to the path the face is moving along through impact. So to hit a true draw, the face at impact must be open to the target, but closed to the path. Of course the opposite is the case for a fade – the face is closed to the target but open to the path.

I sense I’ve confused you enough, so let’s see how this works in practice, with a little help from the MAT-T system.

Whenever discussion among golf partners turns to favourite courses of the Melbourne Sandbelt and I am asked for my preferred options, I am always hit with a curious look or two when I follow up Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath and Victoria with Long Island.

“Where?” is the stock standard reply, especially from those not entirely familiar with the expanse and quantity of layouts that call the Sandbelt home.

I might have given the same ‘where’ answer a dozen years ago too but after missing out on a tee time at the neighbouring Peninsula Country Golf Club, I ventured next door to Long Island and negotiated a start on a course I knew very little about. What an eye-opener!

I can recall finishing that round and walking back to the car confused and thinking, why is this place such an unknown? Every time I have been back to play the course I have the same thought when I leave and the only thing I can pin it on is this: the St Andrews Old Course syndrome.

Please explain! Well, I have long held the belief that if the New course and Jubilee course at St Andrews were on the other side of Scotland, instead of next to the Old Course, they would be more highly regarded, more popular. In the shadow of the great course, they are not fully appreciated for their quality. The same can be said for Royal Melbourne’s East course.

In the case of Long Island, it too suffers from being in a golfing neighbourhood where world-class courses outnumber McDonalds restaurants. I’m not saying Long Island should be positioned shoulder-to-shoulder with Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath. It’s simply not in the same class but if you are after a Sandbelt experience that will have you craving more because you’ve had a lot of fun from holes 1 to 18, Long Island is the course for you.

Submit your caption, via the form below for the accompanying photo and the best entry as judged by Golf Australia editors, a pair of adidas TOUR360 ATV golf shoes, worth $219.

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MODEL AND SHAFT PLAYED:

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: I’m a user of long irons – I can hit my 3-iron to around 200 metres – so I’ve never really had a good look at hybrids. The Mizuno reminded me of a little 5-wood I used to own, with similar weighting and a little shorter shaft.

VERDICT: I wasn’t comfortable with the club initially, but I put that down to not being a hybrid player. It had a bit of a heavy feel, and you definitely couldn’t swing the hybrid too hard. That said, it wasn’t like a fairway wood – it did have that iron-like feel.
Early in the test round, I had to hit an escape shot from the rough on a par-5. There was a big gap in the tree line to get through, and I had a good lie. I used the hybrid, and hit it well – too well, as it went up quickly and clipped a tree above.

As I got used to the flight that the hybrid produced over the course of the test, I found I could use it more effectively. I used it off the tee to cut the corner on a short, dogleg par-4 and get over a tree. It was a shot that I couldn’t hit with a long iron – while I found the distance of the hybrid was equivalent to my 4-iron, about 180 metres, the height was entirely different.

MODEL AND SHAFT PLAYED: Mizuno JPX Fli-Hi 25º fitted with regular flex graphite shafts.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: It’s a nice-looking club, in that classic Mizuno way. It definitely has an iron feel rather than the fairway wood-type hybrids you see out there – it really is designed to fit into the rest of a JPX set.

VERDICT: The hybrid hit the standout shots of the test round for me, a couple of approaches into long par-4s where I normally wouldn’t be thinking of getting there in two. I’m a player that needs the extra help with the distance, so I found the hybrid to be
really useful.

They’re also forgiving and really accurate. The ball would go where I would aim, and even on those occasions it didn’t, it would not miss by much.

I found the hybrid did perform best when I treated it more like an iron than a wood. The ball came off with a high flight, and would stop quickly. It’s an easy club to hit, and with that extra weight behind the face, it gives you confidence not to hit it too hard.

I did like how the hybrid options worked with the JPX irons, which we also played during the round. I definitely could see myself swapping out the 5-iron for the equivalent hybrid – it really performs better in the situations that I normally use my 5-iron.

FACTS & FIGURES

SUITABILITY: All levels of player.

SHAFTS: True Temper Dynalite Gold XP steel is standard. Graphite options include Fujikura Orochi and Project X.

LOFTS: 19, 22, 25, 28 and 32.

LEFT-HANDED MODELS?: Yes, in steel shaft only.

HOW MUCH?: $115 (steel), $140 (graphite).

MIZUNO SAYS: “The new JPX Fli-Hi replaces the difficult-to-hit, traditional long iron with an easy-to-launch, hugely forgiving wood-type hybrid.

“The JPX Fli-Hi harnesses the same distance-generating technologies used in the JPX irons. A multi-thickness HOT METAL clubface and MAX COR Pocket Cavity are used to increase ball speeds across the entire clubface. Combined with a low, deep centre of gravity, the JPX Fl-Hi allows players of all levels to execute long, soft landing shots with ease and accuracy.

“The JPX Fli-Hi can be integrated seamlessly into any one of Mizuno’s JPX iron sets.”

Contact Mizuno on (03) 9239 7100 or visit golf.mizunoeurope.com

For optimal viewing select LAYOUT/PRESENTATION VIEW and then FULL SCREEN.

He may have contributed to a big opening day foursomes win, but American Presidents Cup star Jim Furyk missed some short-range putts en route to victory.
The following morning, more than two hours before he teed off in the fourballs, he could be found on the slick Royal Melbourne practice putting green working through a series of putting drills with caddie Mike ‘Fluff’ Cowan.

The one drill he used the most was the ‘Through The Gate’ drill, where two tees are placed in the ground to form a ‘gate’ (about six feet from the hole) and wide enough for your putterhead to swing through (pic 1). The gate should also be perpendicular to your putting line.

This starting gate trains three key aspects of short putting. Firstly, the ball is always in precisely the same place, so any break is exactly the same with every putt, and this will not be a variable you need to contend with.

The gate also forms a visual cue that encourages you to square your putter at impact (pic 2). This will result in putts that are hit more on your intended line (pic 3).

Finally, the gate trains you to swing the putterhead naturally through the middle of the tees, in order to avoid hitting them, every time. This consistency can only lead to a more consistent stroke of the ball on the face of your putter, giving you a truer roll, which ultimately leads to more holed putts (pic 4).

It worked for Furyk, as he went through the Presidents Cup undefeated, and it will work for you.

MODEL AND SHAFT PLAYED: Cobra Long Tom driver 9º loft fitted with stiff flex Grafalloy Blackbird shaft.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: You certainly notice the long shaft and light weight very quickly. Another thing that makes an immediate impression is the short grip. The clubhead has a fine look, with a composite-like appearance although it is all-titanium. Funnily enough, though, for all the differences, it looks familiar to the other Cobra drivers I’ve used.

VERDICT: You expect this kind of driver to go long – maybe you have too much expectation that it will go further than you’ve ever hit it. It did turn out to be long, and when I think about where I was on the course during a windy day, it was probably getting out there past where I would usually be.

The sound at impact was good, a bit muted. The ball flight was high, comparable to how I usually hit it. One great thing about the dark finish of the head was being able to see where it came out of the face, which told me a lot about how forgiving this driver was.

I found the shaft was well-suited to my swing. I was able to get used to the length of the 48-inch shaft fairly quickly – it didn’t feel like you were too far away or reaching for the ball. The only thing I’d worry about with this shaft would be trying to fit it in a standard travel cover bag!

MODEL AND SHAFT PLAYED: Cobra Long Tom driver 10º loft fitted with regular flex Grafalloy Blackbird shaft.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: It looks easy to hit, even with the longer shaft. The look of the entire package is very fine – even though the head is less than 460cc, effectively it appears the same. I noticed good depth in the face – something you don’t see with a lot of drivers these days.

VERDICT: It didn’t take much to get used to this driver, even for all the quirks like the long shaft and short grip, which I didn’t find to be too much of a problem.

It was definitely longer, but only by a bit. Because it’s so light and easy to swing, you have to be careful not to overdo it. Make a good swing, and let the extra length in the club pick up the extra clubhead speed.

The level of forgiveness was very good. I did miss a not quite out of the middle, and especially had a few out of the toe, but I found they wouldn’t go too far off course.

I’m always looking for higher ball flight with the driver, and overall the trajectory was good. The shaft flex felt well-suited to me. Overall, for players with slower swing speeds, I think this driver would be fantastic.

FACTS & FIGURES

SUITABILITY: Players seeking maximum distance.

SHAFT: Grafalloy Blackbird 50g.

LOFTS: 8, 9 and 10.

LENGTH: 48 inches.

LEFT-HANDED MODELS?: Yes, in 9º model only.

HOW MUCH?: $399.

COBRA SAYS: “Cobra is going the distance and letting it fly with the Long Tom Driver, a four-foot-long, ultra-light driver that is the ultimate weapon for jaw-dropping distance. At 48 inches and 269 grams, the Long Tom has the highest length to weight ratio of any Cobra driver.

“The clubhead features Cobra’s Advanced Material Placement, with a high-strength, thin Titanium 8-1-1 alloy face that repositions up to 20 grams of weight to move the centre of gravity extremely low and deep.

“The Long Tom also incorporates E9 technology with dual roll. The elliptical face features an new canted bulge with the dual roll design, providing more distance to shots hit above and below the centre line.”

Contact Cobra-Puma Golf on 1800 811 511 or www.cobragolf.com.au

CAN you remember what you were doing in 1987? If it’s a little hazy, let me try and refresh your memory.

You might recall that was the year the first mobile phone call was made in Australia. Bob Hawke was PM for a second term and Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen and his Queensland Government came under scrutiny for corruption. The stock market crashed on Black Monday, with 25 percent being wiped from the All Ordinaries. It was also a year in which gunmen claimed 15 victims in two separate Melbourne shooting massacres in Hoddle St and Queen St.

Is 1987 becoming a bit clearer now?
This might help a bit more. Kerry Packer sold the Nine Network to Alan Bond for more than $1 billion and a few months later Fairfax offloaded the Seven Network to Christopher Skase’s Qintex Group for $780 million.

In golf, Greg Norman had his heart broken at the Masters by Larry Mize’s chip-in and later that year he led a walk-off at the Australian Open when the lightning-fast Royal Melbourne greens became unplayable and the final round was abandoned. Peter Thomson said “it was a day of shame for Australian golf”. Norman returned the following day to win the championship, which saw him regain his top spot in the world ranking ahead of Seve Ballesteros.

Now you’ve got the picture.

For me, it was the last year of my teens. I had acid-wash jeans, Rayban sunnies and big hair, well a mullet actually (given the sparseness of the crop I have now, it is hard to believe). Ah, 1987, it was a great time to be alive.

It was also the year in which this magazine was first published. It proclaimed to be the first golf magazine in this country to be predominantly about Australian golf and its players. It was Golf Australia and, like so many other readers back then, I warmed to its coverage of the local golf scene and performance of players abroad.

The contributing writers back in that inaugural year read like a who’s who of the best Australian golf journalists, including the late Don Lawrence and Tom Ramsey, Terry Smith, Jack Craig and Brendan Moloney. Most of the photography came from the talented and acclaimed John Knight.

Greg Norman was the obvious choice for the cover of the February/March edition (Golf Australia was a bi-monthly magazine for several years). He was World No.1 and had come off a year where he led all four majors into the final round and captured the Open Championship. He was looking very sun-tanned, with the same flowing white locks, hadn’t taken to wearing a hat and was squinting into the sun as he sent another ball on some long-distance journey. The accompanying coverline enticed the reader with ‘Greg Norman teaches you touch’.
Amazing really that a quarter of a century later, we – that is Australian golf fans – still love to watch the Shark in action. His immense drawing power remains he is today the most recognisable Australian sportsman in history.

Only seems fitting that Norman should also grace the cover of this 25th anniversary issue, in which he figures among our ranking of the best players of the past quarter century (turn to page 60 for our full list of players).

In that inaugural issue, there was also a preview of the Australian Masters, that had begun in 1979 and how former Melbourne schoolteacher David Inglis had built it into what it was then – and still is, all these years down the track. It remains the biggest single success story in Australian golf after he lost $30,000 staging the inaugural event.

One of the photographs appearing in that article was a huge action shot of Norman showing just an expansive fairway and his caddie. You should see this young kid who’s carrying the bag for him. Locks as long and unruly as a thoroughbred at full gallop, yellow baseball cap, the shortest of white shorts, white socks, blue sneakers (yes…blue), hand on hip, legs crossed and looking suitably attentive.

It’s rather hard to recognise him as the Kiwi Steve Williams – now a whole lot richer and able to afford a haircut and better-fitting shorts – who later teamed with Tiger Woods and now carries the bag for Adam Scott.

Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s I was an avid reader of Golf Australia. I bought every issue and still have them stored in my office. They are a fabulous record of golf in Australia at that time.

Flicking through the magazines of that first year, there was one constant reminder of just how long ago 1987 actually was – the  advertisements for persimmon woods, metal-spiked golf shoes (with the fancy flap that covered your laces to keep your feet dry) and Balata golf balls.

If you’re feeling old now, like me, well consider this. In 1987, Adam Scott was seven years old, Aaron Baddeley, six, and Jason Day was born in November of that year.

Having been a part of the Golf Australia team since 1996, I must say we are indebted to the loyal readers who have stuck by us for years. I get to see a lot of familiar names writing letters, sending emails and entering competitions on a monthly basis and I have even been lucky enough to meet some of you along the way. It is this loyalty to our pride and joy that has helped see the magazine survive in an intense market and grow well beyond initial expectations, especially when the knockers had us dead and buried within 12 months of the first edition.
Well, we’re still here.

For the past 25 years, Golf Australia has chronicled Australian golf – the players, the courses, the tournaments, the controversies, the equipment and the fashions – while also keeping a keen eye on the international game and its stars.
It has been a quarter century of enormous change in the game and we now look forward to see what the next 25 years will present and I hope you can stay with Golf Australia for the journey.

What have been your favourite or most memorable moments from the past 25 years in golf? Was it Tiger’s first major victory or do you go back to Steve Elkington’s great PGA triumph in 1995? Let me know what you think via email on golf@golfaustralia.com.au or via our website www.golfaustralia.com.au

For daily golf news, Tour player retweets and comment updates, follow me on Twitter at brendanjames2.

One of the great strengths of Australian golf is the accessibility we have to affordable and enjoyable courses of quality. While it can often be difficult to get a round on a city layout, particularly on weekends, you won’t find the same kind of boundaries in the country.

When you load the clubs into the car and head off for a country ‘drive’, you will discover there is some enjoyable golf to be played in regional Australia. Generally, the better country courses have been in the ground for many years and you can sometimes stumble across original creations from designers of yesteryear. In most cases, the small budgets and course staff numbers these courses survive on preclude them from doing major alterations to their course unless it is absolutely necessary.

One such course of this ilk is the Duntryleague Golf Club, located in Orange, about four hours’ drive west of Sydney.

Duntryleague has been on my must-get-back-there-for-a-game-soon list for some time, having enjoyed many rounds there in tournaments and competitions as a younger man. With the exception of one visit a few years ago for a photo shoot, I had not played the layout for nearly
20 years.

Before hitting off on a course I haven’t seen for a while, I always like to ask the management if there have been any changes – routing, design or otherwise – in recent times. “I don’t think anything has changed significantly in the past 15 or 20 years … it’s still beautiful,” was the reply.