If you haven’t played for very long, the golf swing can seem like an impossibly complicated motion. There’s definitely a learning curve, but you can give yourself a much better chance at success by following a few simple concepts. Instead of trying to remember five or six different mechanical tips—keep your head down!—relax and try to let the club do the work.

What You Need To Know

• Trace a consistent path back and forth with the club with relaxed hands and arms and let the loft built into the club make the ball go airborne.

• When you add tension to your body—either out of stress or because you’re trying to hit it really hard—you throw off the natural rhythm of the swing.

• Solid contact in the middle of the face is better than off-centre contact with a faster swing.

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A hole in one might be the most sought-after accomplishment in golf. The unexpectedness. The out-of-nowhere jolt golfers feel when the ball finds the cup. The raucous celebrations that follow. There have even been aces made on par 4s, including on the PGA Tour (Andrew Magee, anyone?). But has there ever been a hole in one on a par 5?

Believe it or not, yes.

According to liveabout.com, it has occurred five times, with three of them coming on sever doglegs or horseshoe-shaped holes where the listed yardage could be mitigated by going at the green as the crow flies. A pair of par-5 aces, however, were made on mostly straight holes. Think of these guys as real-life versions of Happy Gilmore (yes, we know Happy is wielding his putter here but it was the only image of him available to us).
One of them was assisted by the altitude in Denver, as Mike Crean, a 4-handicapper, ripped a driver on the 517-yard ninth hole at Green Valley Ranch G.C. and found his ball in the hole when he reached the green. His feat came on July 4, 2002. Talk about fireworks!

Did you know: No one has shot fours rounds in the 60s in one Masters

If an ace on a par 5 sounds a little fishy, well, Dick Hogan, who made one in 1973 on the eighth hole at Piedmont Crescent Golf Course in Burlington, N.C., isn’t about to argue with you as even he isn’t sure his ace is legitimate.

A scratch player who played at North Carolina State, Hogan hit a drive on the 456-yard hole and knew the ball would be somewhat close to the green. “That thing was like an interstate highway,” Hogan told the Times News in 2013. “We were in a dry spell and the fairway was red clay. The ball just never stopped rolling.”
Still, after finding his ball in the hole, Hogan had suspicions. There were maintenance workers near the hole and none said a word—odd if they had witnessed the ball go in the hole. So whether it went in on its own or got an assist Hogan will never know. Oh, and this one also happened on July 4. What is it about July 4 and par-5 aces?

Adam Sandler plays golf in a scene from the film ‘Happy Gilmore’, 1996. (Photo by Universal/Getty Images)

The first known condor (don’t ask us how it got this name, but it’s been used several times so we’ll go with it) was by Larry Bruce in 1962, who cut the corner on the sharp dogleg 480-yard fifth hole at Hope C.C. in Arkansas. Guess he still believes in a place called Hope.

One of the par-5 aces came Down Under in 2007, when Jack Bartlett banged one in on the 511-yard 17th at Royal Wentworth Falls C.C. in New South Wales, again cutting the corner on a sharp dogleg.

So, making an ace on a par 5 is a pretty big deal. But making one with a 3-iron? Yep.

In a 2004 article in Golf World by Bill Fields titled “The Rarest Bird,” Fields noted that a golfer named Shaun Lynch took dead aim at the green on the horseshoe-shaped 496-yard 17th at Teign Valley G.C. in Christow, England. Lynch took his shot up and over a 20-foot high hedge and his ball hit a sever downslope on the other side, sending it toward the green and in the cup. See? Nothing to it.

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By Joel Beall
The coronavirus pandemic has hit a giant pause button on fans being able to watch golf on TV, and in some cases, even kept people off courses. But while we hunker down and hope for a speedy return to normalcy, we can also use this time as an opportunity to learn more about the game we love. Here’s our latest instalment of “Did you know?”

A grand total of six women have teed it up on the PGA Tour. However, only one has ever made a cut.

That would be the great Babe Didrikson Zaharias.

A late adaptor to golf, Zaharias turned to the sport in 1935 after winning gold in track and field in the 1932 Olympics. Zaharias first entered the 1935 Cascades Open, missing the cut with an 88 and 86. Her follow-up performance was a WD at the 1937 Chicago Open, and she missed the cut at next year’s Los Angeles Open with consecutive rounds in the 80s.

But Zaharias persisted and made the 36-hole cut at the 1945 Los Angeles Open, and though a Saturday 81 prohibited her from playing on Sunday, she would make the cut and played all 72 holes at the Phoenix Open and Tuscon Open. She would play just once more on Tour, missing the weekend at the 1946 L.A. Open.

Zaharias attempted to become the first open to qualify for the U.S. Open in 1948, but her application was rejected by the USGA, which said only men could enter the event.

Despite her late introduction to the game, Zaharias won 10 women’s majors and over 40 events in her career, and in 1950 become one of the 13 founding members of the LPGA. There have been 12 starts on Tour by women since Zaharias’ last event, the most recent being Brittany Lincicome at the 2018 Barbasol Championship.

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Based off its name alone, Amen Corner has to automatically be considered the most heavenly place at Augusta National. In reality, the most heavenly place isn’t even on the golf course.

Magnolia Lane? No. The Champions Locker room? No again. Ok, it must be that spot underneath the massive oak tree in between the clubhouse and the first tee, right? Wrong. 0-for-3.

No, the most heavenly spot is one of the hardest to find, and it’s open only to amateurs. Yes, we’re talking about the “Crow’s Nest,” which has been home to amateurs competing in the Masters since the very first small gathering of friends in 1934.

Don’t believe us? Just take a look at some of the quotes from those that have stayed there, pulled straight from this incredible 2012 piece on the Crow’s Nest from our own Dave Kindred.

“You dream of being there, and when you’re there, you go, ‘Wow, is this really real?’,” says Manny Zerman, who stayed there in 1991.

Brandt Snedeker had a similar feeling. “You’re walking on air, like it’s not really reality. Everything, the Masters, the place–it’s inspiring. I’ve made no secret how much I love it. If I could win a Masters, I wouldn’t care if I ever won another thing. I’d make that deal right now.”

“No player, no amateur, no junior wouldn’t want this,” says Billy Andrade, who accidentally wandered into the Champions Locker Room when he first stayed at the Crow’s Nest in 1987, only to be met by an angry Gene Sarazen. “Your goal in life is to get to that peak where you can stay in the Crow’s Nest. It’s like Bobby Jones has this attic in a big house, and you’re a little boy going up there. When you come down, you’re grown up.”

Former U.S. Amateur winner Bill Campbell once told the Masters Journal that “It was kind of like heaven for a golfer.”

To find it, amateurs first need to locate the secret door inside of the clubhouse marked “TELEPHONE.” Once there, a second door leads to a staircase, which takes you into the nest. The 30-foot by 40-foot room sits atop the Augusta National clubhouse, and more resembles a college dorm than a luxury hotel. There are four bedrooms, divided off by wooden partitions, and a common area, complete with a small TV, a small couch, a game table and one bathroom. Amateurs do have to pay to stay, though the price is unknown. In 1968, it was just $1 a night, according to 1972 U.S. Amateur winner Marvin “Vinny” Giles III.

There’s little doubt the price has changed over the years, but the old-school nature of the Crow’s Nest will always remain the same. As Ben Crenshaw perfectly put it in a video profile of the Crow’s Nest last year, “pretty nice, this is a pretty nice spot.”

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By E. Michael Johnson
The Coronavirus pandemic has hit a giant pause button on fans being able to watch golf on TV, and in some cases, even kept people off courses. But while we hunker down and hope for a speedy return to normalcy, we can also use this time as an opportunity to learn more about the game we love. Here’s our latest instalment of “Did you know?”

The old saw about Augusta National is that it’s a par 68 for the long hitters, the assumption being the bombers can dismantle the course’s four par-5s. However, since the Masters began in 1934, there’s something that has never happened during the tournament. Something that many people likely will find difficult to believe, but it’s true. Since the first time it was played in 1934, over 6,600 golfers have teed it up and more than 4,200 of them have played all four rounds of the tournament.

Not one of them, however, has shot four rounds in the 60s in one Masters.

The course that made going low in major-championship golf fashionable has also been remarkably stingy in doing so for four straight tournament rounds. How miserly is Augusta? Consider that it has happened on 50 occasions in the other three majors: 35 times at the PGA Championship (including seven alone in 2018), 10 times at the Open Championship and even five times in the U.S. Open, generally considered the stingiest major in terms of rounds in relation to par.

In fact, there’s not another event on the PGA Tour calendar where shooting four sub-70 rounds has not occurred. Even new events such as the Bermuda Championship and Zozo Championship has seen it happen in their inaugural playings.

But not at the Masters. It’s 83 events and running—and will last a little longer with this year’s playing pushed to November. Consider that even some of the longest droughts in sports haven’t lasted that long. The Cleveland Indians have been without a World Series title for 72 years; the Detroit Lions have gone 63 years without an NFL title. Lengthy, to be sure, but nowhere near the mark Augusta National is putting up.

Not that there haven’t been some close calls. Forty-one times in Masters history has a player shot three rounds in the 60s, a feat accomplished by 34 different golfers. Included among them is Phil Mickelson, who has done it four separate occasions, as well as Patrick Reed in 2018 who looked like a real possibility to end the drought by going 69-66-67 before finishing with a 71.

Thirteen times players had a chance heading into the final round to conquer golf’s version of Mount Everest. Some failed epicly; Craig Parry’s 78 in 1992 and Ed Sneed’s 76 in 1979 being the biggest breakdowns. A trio of players have come ever-so-close, shooting 70 in the final round. Arnold Palmer needed a final-nine 34 in 1964, and after birdies on Nos. 14 and 15 he was just one shy as he played the final holes. A 71st-hole bogey ended his hopes, although Palmer made birdie at the last and walked off with his fourth green jacket in seven years.

There was no such consolation for Mickelson in 2001. Chasing Tiger Woods, who was going after the “Tiger Slam,” Lefty was one shot in arrears coming to 16. But his 7-iron shot hung up on the ridge, and he raced his putt past the hole and missed coming back for a deflating bogey.

“Sixteen was the real killer,” Mickelson said.

In more ways than one. Mickelson parred the final two holes for a 70 to come up three short of Woods and a single shot short of making history.

Which just puts him alongside those 6,600-plus other Masters participants.

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By Joel Beall
The Coronavirus pandemic has hit a giant pause button on fans being able to watch golf on TV, and in some cases, even kept people off courses. But while we hunker down and hope for a speedy return to normalcy, we can also use this time as an opportunity to learn more about the game we love. Here’s our latest instalment of “Did you know?”

In 2019 the Augusta National Golf Club launched the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. But it’s not the only time a tournament other than the Masters was played on the hallowed Georgia property.

In 1937 and 1938, Augusta National served as host for the PGA Seniors’ Championship. The tournament, which debuted in 1937, was brought to Augusta National by co-founder Bobby Jones, who thought the event would be a platform to honour the pioneers who came before him. Jones asked the club’s board of governors to alter its bylaws to allow another tournament to be played at Augusta National.

“They all feel as I do, that they are glad to make an exception to an established policy in order to make a gesture of appreciation to those members of your association who have contributed much to golf in this country,” Jones said.

It was supposed to be more of a celebration rather than a competitive tournament. There was a practice round and three 54-hole tournaments, divided by ages groups: 50-54, 55-59 and 60-plus. Jock Hutchison won the inaugural Senior PGA over 36 other players with a seven-over 223, while Fred McLeod won the rain-shortened 1938 event in an 18-hole playoff over Otto Hackbarth, after Hackbarth three-putted the 17th and 18th in regulation. (Related note: “Hackbarthed” should be the new term for “three-jack.”).

The tournament moved to warmer confines in 1939, but the spirit of the Senior PGA was brought back with the introduction of the Honorary Starters in 1963, with Hutchison and McLeod serving as the ceremonial strikers.

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By Mike Johnson
In 2018 the USGA announced its new playoff format, a two-hole aggregate setup, to break ties for the U.S. Open. For Billy Burke and George Von Elm, that decision came some 87 years too late. Which, in hindsight, might be good for the duo’s legacy. That’s because the pair battled in the longest playoff in history—72 holes after completing the tournament’s regulation 72 holes—so given the new format, we might not be uttering their names at all.

Not that Burke and the Von Elm weren’t fine players. They just weren’t household names along the lines of Bobby Jones (who Von Elm downed in the final of the 1926 U.S. Amateur), Walter Hagen and other stars of the time as the 1931 U.S. Open got underway in early July at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio.

The tournament lasted long enough, so let’s dispense with the first 72 holes quickly. The marathon playoff would never had materialized if not for Von Elm making a birdie at the last (after bogeys at Nos. 12, 14, 15 and 16) to forge a tie. U.S. Open playoffs used to be 18 holes, but for reasons unknown to any sane person, in 1928 the USGA upped the overtime to 36 holes.

The first 36 holes of the playoff saw the kind of golf that today would be better reserved for a club championship final than a major championship. Burke took a two-shot lead with a morning-round 73. He then stretched the margin to four shots after Von Elm bogeyed the fifth in the afternoon. Burke, however, bogeyed the next three holes while Von Elm birdied them to flip it to a two-shot lead for Von Elm.

By the time they reached the 15th, they were tied. Burke made bogey but Von Elm doubled. Coming to 18, Burke still had the lead, but Von Elm birdied the 325-yard par 4 to produce matching 149 totals for the 36 holes. It wasn’t exactly Bob Tway holing out to stun Greg Norman, but it did mean the duo got to do it all over again the following day.

After 18 holes the next day, Von Elm led by a shot after carding a 76. But Burke managed to grab the lead at the 14th hole of the afternoon session and then came the crusher. Von Elm botched a two-footer for par on the 16th handing Burke a two-shot lead. That was enough of a “cush,” as Tiger would say. Von Elm missed a six-footer for birdie at 17, allowing Burke to make a three-putt bogey at the last and still win. After 144 holes and 1,179 strokes in 90-degree heat, it was finally over.

By the way, no I am not old enough to have witnessed all this first-hand. However, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette has a terrific hole-by-hole account of the playoff.

One could forgive Burke if he was tempted to light up a victory cigar after such an exhausting few days. Fact is, he needed no such encouragement. Reports from the time say he smoked north of 30 stogies during the tournament.

For their efforts, Burke took home $1,750 and Von Elm $1,000—including a $750 playoff bonus for the winner and $250 for the runner-up. You know, the equivalent of tip money today.

The lengthy playoff also caused the USGA to re-think the rules for ties. The following year it was back to an 18-hole playoff (with another 18 if still tied). In the 1950s, it became sudden death if tied after 18 extra holes, but that wasn’t needed until Hale Irwin got crazy at the 72nd hole at Medinah Country Club and started high-fiving everyone in sight.

Writers were probably cursing Irwin and bemoaning having to stay another day for the 18 holes and what turned out to be sudden death afterward. To those, we would only say it could have been worse. You could have been covering Billy Burke and George Von Elm in 1931.

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By Alex Myers

The coronavirus pandemic has hit a giant pause button on fans being able to watch golf on TV, and in some cases, even kept people off courses. But while we hunker down and hope for a speedy return to normalcy, we can also use this time as an opportunity to learn more about the game we love. Here’s our first instalment of “Did you know?”

In the beginning, there was St. Andrews. And this old course that is most appropriately named THE Old Course had 18 holes. Well, near the beginning it had 18 holes, that is. And eventually, other courses were copycats.

Those are the broad strokes of how a typical golf course came to have 18 holes. Sadly, as Snopes confirmed, the number has nothing to do with how many shots are in a bottle of Scotch—though that makes for a much more fun story.

In any event, if you love golf, 18 holes is great because it takes a long time to play that many. Of course, if you love someone who loves golf, it’s not as great. But again, it took a long time for this to become standard. Even longer than it takes to play 18 holes at a public course today.

So how did St. Andrews come to have 18 holes? There must have been some special Scottish reason for this, right? Wrong.

The first courses actually varied in number of holes, and even St. Andrews had 22 at one point. TWENTY-TWO! Too bad it didn’t stay that way, huh? According to the website Scottish Golf History, the number was cut to 18 pretty arbitrarily when four short holes were combined into two (played in two directions) in 1764. And this still wasn’t a template right away for other courses as evidenced by Prestwick Golf Club opening in 1851 with just 12 holes.

In fact, Prestwick’s dastardly dozen (Not an actual nickname, but something I just made up. Like it?) hosted the first 12 British Opens—sorry, Open Championships—beginning in 1860. That makes Willie Park Sr.’s three-round winning total of 174 seem a lot less impressive, huh?

It would have been a baker’s dozen of Opens to start, but there was no tournament in 1871 because Young Tom Morris was allowed to just keep the title belt (yes, an actual belt) that year because he had won the three previous years. Man, they had some crazy rules back in the day.

Anyway, when the Open returned in 1872 at Prestwick, it remained a 36-hole event and stayed that way when it moved to St. Andrews (two rounds of 18) in 1873 and Musselburgh (four rounds of 9!) in 1874. And you thought the current Open rota was tough to keep track of.

In 1881, Prestwick finally joined a number of other courses in getting on board with having 18 holes, because, again, everyone was trying to copy the Old Course, which also happens to be where the Royal and Ancient Golf Club is based. And when you’re regarded as “The Home of Golf,” people tend to follow your lead. It’s just too bad they didn’t stick with 22. . .

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