There was new voice on the Golf Channel broadcast of the Wyndham Championship this past week. No your ears were not deceiving you. That was the voice of four-time PGA Tour winner Camilo Villegas, who was making his broadcasting debut in the analyst chair.

While it’s a job that requires time to learn and be truly good at, you can often tell right away whether or not guys are cut out for it. After just four days on the job, it sure seems as though Villegas could be very good at it if he wants to stick with it. Originally, he was unsure if he wanted to do it at all, balking at a suggestion by Golf Channel’s Steve Sands that he might give television a try.

Villegas has not put his playing career to bed just yet, but the insight and energy he brought to the booth, and the positive reaction he’s received from viewers, might be enough to persuade him to come back for more. Of course, there were plenty of rookie mistakes and learning on the fly, as this A+ clip of Villegas commentating without the microphone next to his mouth shows. Thankfully, his boy Sandsy, a pro’s pro in every sense of the phrase, swooped in to save the day:

 

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A post shared by Camilo Villegas (@camilovillegasofficial)

What makes this save extra impressive from Sands is that he wasn’t even looking at Villegas to see that the microphone wasn’t on properly. He could hear something was off in his headset, which is when you’ll notice his eyes darting to the right leading to the eventual glove save and a beauty. That’s a TV professional right there.

As you can see from the fist pump, too, TV is a team game. Another reason Villegas might want to hang around the booth a little more. When you mess up on the golf course, it’s all on you. Nobody is coming to save the day. When you mess up on TV, you’ve got teammates like Sandsy to pick you up. For now, though, it’s back to the real grind.

“What a week,” Villegas said on Instagram afterward. “Honoured and thankful to get a chance to call some shots for the first time next to Steve Sands and the whole crew that make a broadcast possible. The Wyndham Championship is a is a special event for me and nice to add this week to the memories. Golf Channel, thanks again for the opportunity. I hope the viewers enjoyed as much as I did…. Back to playing though.”

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Camilo Villegas will make his broadcast debut at this week’s Wyndham Championship.

Villegas, 41, is a four-time PGA Tour winner, with his last victory coming at the 2014 Wyndham. Known for his fashion style and aggressive play, Villegas was once billed as a fledgling star, and finished as high as second in the 2008 FedEx Cup.

However, Villegas has struggled with injuries over the past decade, making just nine starts this season and failing to make the FedEx Cup playoffs since 2017. Though Villegas isn’t ready to surrender his playing career, the chance to try-out for a media role was too good to pass up.

“I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I need to find out if I like it,” Villegas told Golfweek’s Adam Schupak. “I’m going to continue to play golf. If I really like it and they think I have potential, could there be weeks where I hop into the booth and fill in? We’ll see. I don’t know. Too many moving parts to know where this thing will go.”

According to Golfweek, Villegas was initially approached by the Golf Channel’s Steve Sands at a charity event, who asserted Villegas could be good on television. Villegas apparently told Sands “in no uncertain terms” that he wasn’t interested.

“As a competitor, as a golfer, you never want to be done. When you start looking somewhere else and you’re 41 and you haven’t been performing, that was my first reaction,” Villegas told Golfweek.

This week’s Wyndham Championship is the regular-season finale for the PGA Tour, with the top 70 players in the FedEx Cup standings advancing to the revamped postseason.

The post Former PGA Tour star to make broadcast debut at Wyndham Championship appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
More broadcast changes are coming to the NBC Sports/Golf Channel broadcast, according to multiple reports.

A month after longtime voices Roger Maltbie and Gary Koch saw their extended runs with the network come to an end, former PGA Tour players Brad Faxon and Smylie Kaufman are expected to fill the vacated roles. The news was first reported by Golfweek, with a source confirming the move to Golf Digest.

Faxon, 61, is an eight-time winner on the PGA Tour and known as one of the best putters in the history of the game, serving as a short-game whisperer to a number of pros, including Rory McIlroy. He briefly worked for NBC Sports last decade and was the lead golf analyst for FOX Sports’ U.S. Open coverage for five years. Faxon has also been an on-air contributor to Sky Sports’ golf coverage in Europe and made a number of appearances last year on Golf Channel’s “Live From” show during its major coverage. Faxon is expected to take over a tower spot during the broadcast and continue to be a part of “Live From,” a source relayed.

Kaufman, 31, won the 2015 Shriners Open and is perhaps best known for playing in the final group at the 2016 Masters. The LSU product has transitioned into broadcasting and worked for ESPN, Golf Channel and NBC’s Peacock channel last season, earning rave reviews for his on-course reporting. Kaufman is expected to be an on-course reporter in his new role.

Along with Maltbie and Koch, Kathryn Tappen is not expected to return to NBC Sports’ golf coverage in 2023, according to Golfweek and The Quadrilateral. Tappen served as the post-round interviewer this past year. Also stepping aside is Justin Leonard, who is expected to take a reduced role in favour of playing on the PGA Champions Tour.

In a statement to Golf Digest, an NBC Sports spokesperson said, “We’re focused on celebrating Roger Maltbie and Gary Koch at the PNC Championship later this month and will be announcing any additional changes to our lineup early in the new year.”

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By Dave Shedloski
It sounds as if we will be seeing a lot more of David Duval on Golf Channel this year. Not sitting behind a microphone, mind you, but standing next to a golf ball.

The former World No. 1 makes his debut on the PGA Tour Champions Thursday at the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai in Ka’upulehu-Kona, Hawaii, the first of up to perhaps 20 events he’ll play now that he is 50 years old.

“Just the opportunity to build a full schedule, to know when I’m going to play, get into that routine of packing and traveling and all those things is going to be good,” said Duval, who tees off at 5 p.m. ET with Vijay Singh and Mike Weir at Hualalai Golf Club. “I haven’t entirely looked at the schedule and gone through it all, but I’m thinking roughly in the neighborhood of 20 [starts]. A full schedule, I guess, is the way to put it. Figuring out with family, with the kids, all those things, where to build breaks, where they can come, things like that.”

As for his television work with Golf Channel, and how that will fit into his schedule, Duval was more circumspect. “That’s a decision that hasn’t been made yet,” he said. “Right now, it’s about hitting the little white ball into the fairway and knocking it onto the green.”

Duval is the latest major champion to turn 50 in recent years, joining the likes of Weir, Ernie Els, Jim Furyk and fellow broadcaster Rich Beem. He won 13 times on the PGA Tour, including the 1999 Players and the 2001 Open Championship. Another of his victories came in Hawaii at the ’99 Sentry Tournament of Champions, which he won by nine strokes. He spent 15 weeks as the top-ranked player in the world, but his career got derailed by a series of injuries.

“We’ve got a lot of juice out here right now,” said Weir, the former Masters champion, who won once and finished second four times in his rookie season. “Having David out here just adds to that. You know, we all want to compete out here and win tournaments, but we also support one another and want to see guys do well, and I think a lot of us want to see David come back and play well.

Duval last played in a sanctioned event in July at the TPC Colorado Championship at Heron Lakes on the Korn Ferry Tour near his home in Denver. His only other official start came at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on the PGA Tour. He missed the cut in both tournaments, and he hurt his hip at Pebble Beach, forcing him to shut it down for five months. In December, he and his son, Brady, finished T-13 in the PNC Championship in Orlando.

The Florida native hasn’t played in more than a handful of events since the 2013-14 PGA Tour season. The last time he made a cut was at the 2013 OHL Classic at Mayakoba, where he finished T-75.

There is no cut at Hualalai, nor at most other senior events.

Since 1997, six players have won the Mitsubishi Electric Championship in their debut, most recently Darren Clarke last year. The others were Jerry Kelly (2018), Duffy Waldorf (2016), Miguel Ángel Jiménez (2015), Loren Roberts (2006) and John Jacobs (1999).

In addition to Duval, six other players will play in the event for the first time, though Duval is the only rookie. He doesn’t know quite what to expect.

“My golf has been good,” he said prior to playing in the pro-am at Hualalai. “I’ve been working hard, I’m swinging the golf club well, you know, but as I’ve talked about in the past on TV and stuff, it’s different when you’re at home doing things as opposed to when you get into a competitive environment. I just have to get used to kind of that competitive environment.

“Surreal, I guess, is the best way to put it,” he added when asked to describe his feelings about the next phase of his career. “Tremendous excitement, tremendous satisfaction, tremendous pleasure. Really looking forward to what the PGA Tour Champions presents, the opportunity it gives us as players. There’s some nervousness and some excitement and anxious, because I haven’t competed consistently for a very long time, but the opportunity to do that is just putting a smile on my face.”

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By Dave Shedloski
Tim Rosaforte, a senior writer at Golf Digest for more than 20 years and a former Golf Channel broadcaster, died Tuesday of complications from Alzheimer’s Disease in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., according to longtime family friend Craig Dolch. He was 66 years old.

Born Oct. 25, 1955, in Mount Kisco, N.Y., Rosaforte began his career in journalism in 1977 at the Tampa Times after graduating with a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island, where he played linebacker on the football team. He wrote for three other Florida newspapers before joining Sports Illustrated in 1994. Two years later, he was hired as a senior writer for sister publications Golf World and Golf Digest, and he remained on the staff of Golf Digest until 2018.

He won more than 40 writing awards and was the author of three books.

Rosaforte’s television career began in 2003 as co-host of USA Network’s “PGA Tour Sunday” program, and in 2007 he joined Golf Channel as a contributor while also appearing on NBC Sports during coverage of its major golf events, including the U.S. Open and Ryder Cup. He retired in 2020 after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

In a statement Tuesday, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said, “The PGA Tour family lost a friend today in Tim Rosaforte, one of the great golf journalists of his generation. Tim was an amazing storyteller and spent much of his energy showcasing what sets golf apart from other sports—the people and the personalities.

“A true professional, Tim always treated our organisation and our athletes fairly, writing and speaking with an opinion, but without an agenda. He never stopped working the phones, ensuring that he not only got the story first, he got the story right, Those phone calls—and Tim’s gentle spirit—will be missed tremendously by all of us lucky enough be a part of the greater golf community.”

“Tim developed relationships and trust from so many in the game, and you always know that if there was an important story to be told in golf, Tim was going to be the first call you received and usually the first one to report it,” Jack Nicklaus said last year after Rosaforte received the Memorial Golf Journalism Award at Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament in Dublin, Ohio.

A past president of the Golf Writers Association of America, Rosaforte covered more than 150 major championships. He received the PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism in 2014, and in 2020 he was awarded an honorary membership in the PGA of America, making him the first journalist and just the 12th person ever to earn such a distinction. In 2021, The Honda Classic, the PGA Tour stop in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., created the Tim Rosaforte Distinguished Service Award and dedicated its media room in his name.

Rosaforte is survived by his wife Genevieve and two daughters, Genna and Molly, and three grandchildren.

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The Indian amateur is conspicuous by his absence in the line-up for next month’s 12th Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship at his home Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club after falling outside the top 1000 of the World Amateur Golf Rankings. It was an event he very nearly won in 2018 which would have secured a dream invite to the Masters and Open Championship.

It has been quite the plummet since for Thomas who became the first amateur winner on the Pro-Am MENA Tour in 2016 before defending the title at his home Dubai Creek course the following year amid an explosion of global media interest. That courtesy of a second-round 61 where he tied Mark Calcavecchia’s world record by making nine straight birdies.

Incredibly though, the swing yips that have taken Thomas to rock bottom had already emerged. He started 2019 with two European Tour starts including an opening 67 at the Saudi International to sit inside the top 10.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA – OCTOBER 30: Rayhan Thomas reacts after missing a putt during Day 3 of the 2019 East Lake Cup at East Lake Golf Club on October 30, 2019, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Mike Zarrilli/Getty Images)

“And then I just blew up,” Thomas, who followed with a 77 to miss the cut, told Golf Channel.

In his first two seasons in college golf for the Oklahoma State University Cowboys, Thomas qualified for just four events – all came during his freshman season – and faded from the limelight.

“It affected pretty much every part of my game,” Thomas said. “It took a toll on me physically and mentally. … It definitely did cross my mind, maybe taking a break, but deep down I know I love this sport. It’s what keeps me happy.”

Unable to return to Dubai due to the COVID-19 outbreak, about all Thomas could do was dig a solution out of the range dirt.

Now in his junior year at OSU, things are looking up. As Golf Channel report, Thomas has yet to finish outside the top 20 in his five starts as a junior. He’s qualified for two starting lineups, including for this week’s East Lake Cup, where he tied for eighth in stroke play and halved his match against Arizona State’s highly regarded Cameron Sisk. In his individual tournaments, he has two more top-10s, most notably a runner-up showing at the Herb Wimberly Intercollegiate.

OSU coach Alan Bratton is full of praise for the fight shown by the serial Emirates Golf Federation winner and MENA Tour trailblazer.

“Golf’s a hard game, and you’re usually not as bad as you think you are, and good golf is not usually as far away as sometimes it can feel … but it happens all the time, even to the best players in the world,” Bratton said.

“But Ray did all the work. He’s such a great kid, and through his struggles he’s kept a great attitude and worked really hard. He came to the course with a smile on his face, trying to just work to keep getting better, and he’s played well this semester.”

Our man @RayhanThomas is showing that the turnaround in his form is for real.

A week after finishing 2nd at Herb Wimberly Intercollegiate, he qualified for the @eastlakecup and is traveling with @OSUCowboyGolf teammates in style. #GolfSchool pic.twitter.com/pDVLKWBJE8

— Joy Chakravarty (@TheJoyofGolf) October 24, 2021

The best bit is Thomas knows he’s nowhere near his best yet.

“I don’t think I’m anywhere close which is a good thing because I know I can get a hell of a lot better.”

Getty Images

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By Alex Myers
During a rare moment on the eve of the 2020 Masters in which the conversation shifted from Bryson DeChambeau, Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee turned his attention to another big hitter. “Imagine Kyle Berkshire,” Chamblee said with Augusta National Golf Club as a backdrop. “Imagine him out here if he could chip and putt.”

At that point, few people had considered the possibility of a World Long Drive champ trading in his title belt for a green jacket. Even fewer knew Berkshire had already begun making the radical transformation from pro hitter to tour pro.

With the ability to swing a golf club more than 150 miles per hour (241kmph) and produce ball speeds over 230 (370kmph), Berkshire doesn’t just hit golf balls, he hurts them. The same could be said for the 100 driver heads he’s estimated cracking the past three years. Those staggering numbers led Kyle to a convincing win at the 2019 World Long Drive Championship. And at 22, Berkshire looked to have a long and lucrative long drive career ahead of him.

He still might, but recently Berkshire has turned his attention to a new pursuit. Well, an old pursuit.

The former junior and college golfer is about to embark on a journey that has rarely been attempted, but if ever there was a time to try, it’s now. After all, we’re coming off a season in which a former physics major pulled off his own groundbreaking experiment that proved just how important distance is in today’s game.

Bryson’s breakthrough year came after he decided to bulk up and become more like, well, a long drive champ. He put on 40 pounds, ratcheted up his swing speed, and became, at least statistically, the longest hitter on tour. Along the way, he won the U.S. Open in dominating fashion.

In a sense Berkshire is looking for similar results while travelling from the opposite direction. So can Kyle chip and putt on the level necessary to score with the game’s best? Can the longest hitter on the planet make it all the way to the PGA Tour? We’re about to find out.

“I think at the very least, it’s going to be something people are going to really enjoy following,” says Berkshire, who proudly posted the Chamblee Live From The Masters clip to Instagram the following day. “And it could really turn into an unbelievable story. If I’m three, four years from now walking up the final fairway with a two-shot lead and the tournament in my pocket, it could be one of the coolest stories in the history of golf.”

——————–

At 6-foot-3, 215 pounds, and with long flowing locks that would make Samson jealous, Kyle Berkshire is an imposing figure. But it wasn’t always that way. Golf Digest Top 50 Instructor Bernie Najar, currently the Director of Instruction at Caves Valley Golf Club in Maryland, remembers beginning to work with Berkshire when he was just a scrawny 12-year-old.

“He was a kid who came out to work on his game,” Najar said. “He was a special character. Not someone out of the gates you’d look at and wow this is going to be the longest player in the world, but certainly you look at the player and you knew they had very good hand-eye coordination and for a smaller kid his age, he could hit the ball pretty hard.”

Even then Berkshire hated being out driven by older, bigger kids. By the time he was a senior in high school, that was no longer a problem.

“You can’t coach speed, just like in basketball you can’t coach 7-foot, you can’t coach somebody swinging 135,” said Brad Stracke, who recruited Berkshire from Crofton, Md. to play at the University of North Texas after seeing him play in a junior event. “I mean, they’ve got to have that in their genes.”

At that point Berkshire was far from the best player in the field, but he was certainly the longest. And in college, he only got longer. Somewhere between his freshman and sophomore years, Berkshire was strong enough to break the screen on a team’s simulator, and was starting to pay closer attention to his swing speed numbers.

“I think working with the Trackman and seeing the numbers and seeing them jumping up pretty quickly, I think he kind of got addicted to it, the swing speed and seeing his ball come off the face like that,” says Stracke, who has coached two future PGA Tour winners in Sebastian Munoz and Carlos Ortiz during his time at UNT. “I think that’s what triggered it, I really do.”

On the course, there was one shot from a team practice Stracke will never forget Berkshire hitting.

“I remember at Gleneagles we were on a hole you have to hit iron off the tee,” Stacke said. “It’s really tight and there some guys down there 275 and I lasered them and I was like, ‘Kyle, you can hit.’ And he said, ‘No, coach, I can’t hit.’

“I said, ‘what are you going to hit?’ And he said ‘3-iron.’ And I said, ‘Well, they’re 275.’ And he said ‘no, no, no.’ And then they left and he flew the ball and it would have hit right on top of their cart. I’m like, holy cow. I knew you were long, but I had no idea you were that long.”

That led to a life-changing conversation between the coach and a player who had yet to crack the Mean Green’s lineup.

He’s a WORLD CHAMPION!

The 2019 #WorldLongDrive Champion is @KyleBerkshire pic.twitter.com/LmCn4sVYkR

— World Long Drive (@WorldLongDrive) September 5, 2019

“I pulled him in my office and I basically said, ‘You could be No. 1 in the world in long drive,” Stracke said. “Are you going to be No. 1 on the PGA Tour? Probably not. But how many guys are No. 1 in their craft in the world? And I said, you can be that guy.”

But even Stracke was surprised by how quickly his vision came to fruition. Berkshire walked away from college golf to pursue long drive full time in 2017. Originally, he was hoping it would help him gain confidence that could benefit his golf game, but by the time what would have been his senior season rolled around, he was already ranked No. 1 in the sport. He punctuated that status with a win at the 2019 World Long Drive Championship, the Super Bowl of the long drive circuit.

By that point, Berkshire had stopped playing golf completely to put all his energy into training and practicing for long drive. According to his long drive coach, Bobby Peterson it’s Berkshire’s work ethic that sets him apart.

“There’s a lot of guys that have the talent to do this sport, but the one thing I’d say Kyle has beyond anyone I’ve worked with in 30 years is focus,” Peterson says. “When he sets his mind to a task, he’ll do it.”

Peterson owns and operates the One Stop Power Shop in Newton Grove, N.C., where he works with a stable of long drive competitors not just on technique, but with their equipment and fitness. He’s been officially with Berkshire since the beginning of 2019.

“We set up practicing really late one night and it was hot and I have those little bags you put air in them and I blew up a pillow and said ‘I’m going to take a little power nap while you get loose.'” Peterson says. “Well, two hours later he’s standing over me and he says, ‘What did you think of that?’ And I went, ‘It’s good.’ I fell asleep and he was warming up and hitting. And he just kept hitting and hitting for two hours. And his hands were bleeding and he had a rash on his arm over here where he was really releasing. I said why didn’t you wake me up and he said well, honestly, you had your sunglasses on and I thought you were just watching and if you saw something wrong you would say something. So for two hours he just ripped shot after shot and it was one of the best practice sessions ever.”

Peterson conservatively estimates that Berkshire hit 50,000 drives full out in practice last year, a number bound to go down as he works on other parts of his game. But so far, fewer reps hasn’t hurt Berkshire’s long drive results. What finally slowed him down was something no one saw coming.

Cy Cyr

——————–

As with virtually all other professional sports, the World Long Drive Association has struggled through the Covid-19 pandemic, to the extent that its owner Golf Channel wound up cancelling the 2020 season. And with no plans to resume in 2021, long drivers came together to host a series of their own events, highlighted by a national championship in Memphis in November. We’ll give you one guess who won that.

To fill the void left by the World Long Drive Association being put up for sale, the Professional Long Drive Association has been formed, and a series of eight events has been scheduled for 2021, including a World Championship in September.

But the sport is still not on the same footing as it was, which is part of why Berkshire acknowledges the time is right to try out pro golf. And since he’s still making good money from competition, sponsors, and a popular YouTube channel, he says he can afford to chase a dream that never went away.

“It’s great to be a long drive champ and it’s a huge deal to me, but I don’t want to be that guy who avoids potential failure,” Berkshire says. “I’m not going to be this untouchable guy who’s unbelievable at what he does. I want to push myself and I have an opportunity to do something great and I’m in a position in my life to really pursue it and I’m kind of putting it on the line here.”

There’s a history of the PGA Tour and long drive crossing paths. In its early years, the World Long Drive Championship was held in conjunction with the PGA Championship. And several PGA Tour pros won the event, from John McCommish to Lon Hinkle to Dennis Paulson. But those guys were accomplished golfers first before stumbling into long drive success. Berkshire would be the first to truly go the other way and make it on the highest level.

In the late 1980s, an era that featured far smaller purses than today, long drive competitions held at many PGA Tour stops were a decent way for golfers to supplement their incomes. But money wasn’t the only difference between then and now. Another was how back then extreme power on tour was almost discouraged.

The PGA Tour only started keeping driving distance as an official stat in 1980. And for a long time after that, the widely held belief was that accuracy was much more closely correlated to tournament success. In a 1989 Daily Press story titled “A Long Drive to Nowhere,” McCommish claimed “Leading in driving distance is the kiss of death.”

And two-time reigning U.S. Open champ Curtis Strange said of “Big John” and the day’s longest players, “They’re hitting 9-iron out of the rough. I’m hitting 6-iron out of the fairway. I’d rather hit 6-iron out of the fairway.”

Three decades later, thanks to golf statisticians from Mark Broadie to Scott Fawcett to Lou Stagner, that thinking has been turned on its head. And younger players from Bryson to Berkshire are believers in newer numbers, most notably Broadie’s strokes gained metric, which better quantifies how much each shot is worth during a tournament.

Broadie has mathematically proven how valuable long tee shots are—even if they don’t find the fairway. The list of major champs over the last three decades makes an equally compelling case. Beginning with John Daly in 1991, a Grip-It-And-Rip-It Era was ushered in.

Since then, Daly, Davis Love III, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, and Bryson DeChambeau have all captured at least one major while leading the tour in driving distance at least once. Tiger Woods could have easily been another, but even though he had the length, Woods often purposely laid back off the tee more than his peers.

So, yeah, not exactly the kiss of death.

Being conservative is not an option in Long Drive. Hitters get six to eight attempts to crank a golf ball as far as possible. But while traditionally viewed as novelty performers, the reality is that most are actually very good players. And the line between a hitter and a tour pro has narrowed in recent years, especially with Long Drive equipment now having to conform to USGA standards.

With more televised competitions, the sport had become more mainstream—perhaps influencing the PGA Championship to bring back its own long drive competition in 2014 after a 30-year hiatus. In 2018, that contest was won by DeChambeau, who later went on to claim the biggest victory of his career by bombing his way around Winged Foot at the 2020 U.S. Open.

Although plenty of other players had pushed the game in that direction, it’s DeChambeau who has underscored the direct correlation between driving distance and tournament success. In gaining 20 yards to increase his average to 322 yards, he also became the PGA Tour’s leader in strokes gained driving. And Berkshire was paying close attention.

“Watching Bryson win the U.S. Open at Winged Foot was the moment I think, if I ever make it on tour, that’s the moment I’m going to go back to that started it all for me in terms of this drive,” Berkshire said. “He made every pundit and critic look like a complete jackass. And that appeals to me. That appeals to me very greatly. That’s something I really want to do is prove everyone wrong and prove everyone who believes in me right.”

One pundit who hasn’t been surprised by DeChambeau’s distance experiment succeeding is Chamblee. And the Golf Channel analyst uses a baseball analogy to explain why he won’t be shocked if Berkshire or another long driver finds his way to the PGA Tour.

“Imagine there were 40 guys who got together for kicks and they all threw it 120, 118 miles per hour, faster than the fastest in professional baseball. Well, that’s what’s been going on in the world of professional golf,” Chamblee says. “If we look at the longest drivers in professional golf, meanwhile there’s 50 or 100 or 200 guys that drive it miles longer. I mean, miles longer. They’re swinging 150 miles per hour, the best on the PGA Tour is 125 miles per hour. It would have been ludicrous to think that those pitchers wouldn’t have made their way into Major League Baseball or the moves they have wouldn’t have made their way. The fastest pitchers were in the majors. They were in the bigs. The fastest swingers are not playing at the highest level in golf. It’s crazy to think those moves won’t make their way into professional golf.”

Which is not to say Chamblee thinks Berkshire will have it easy. If anything, he can point to his own competitive career as an example of just how hard it is to make it on tour. While Berkshire never even cracked the starting lineup in college, Chamblee was an All-American at the University of Texas. And yet it still took him years to succeed at the highest level before ending his playing career with one PGA Tour win.

“This not just about who can lift the most weight in the gym,” Chamblee says. “This is about who can lift the most weight in the gym and who can play the best chess. Those are two different animals, but that’s what golf is. It’s not just power. It’s nuance and strategy. And patience.”

“That’s farther than the average tour driver.”@KyleBerkshire hit this 8-iron 302 yards. ?

(?:Instagram/@b_dechambeau) pic.twitter.com/KHDn9hU6FJ

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) December 13, 2020

Patience is one thing Berkshire seems to have. He says he’s “ahead of schedule” and has received encouragement to start playing from many, including DeChambeau. The two have become friends and the mutual admiration for each other was apparent during a recent meeting. Berkshire was impressed by DeChambeau’s gym routine while Bryson was blown away by Kyle’s distance, including a 302-yard 8-iron that went viral.

Although he doesn’t have a specific timetable on when he will start entering tournaments, he plans to start small with Florida mini-tour events even though he could likely use his long drive stardom to get a few starts on the PGA Tour. Again, the goal isn’t just to play against the best, but to eventually be one of the best.

“If I emailed every event I could asking for an exemption, it’s very probable I wouldn’t have to write too many before I would get one,” Berkshire says. “But I want to make sure I make this entrance the right way. I don’t want to shoot 80-80 and get blown away. I want to go out, I want to make a statement. . . . I’ll know when I’m ready.”

With what he calls a potential “miraculous” path through familiar qualifying sites, Berkshire has made qualifying for the 2021 U.S Open at his favorite course a first—and lofty—goal.

“I can tell you right now, the first hole at Torrey Pines is a driver hole,” Berkshire says. “There’s nothing more I’d love to do than hit a 360-yard opening salvo that carries that bunker and leaves me 80 yards left. That’s what I’d love to do and that’s what I’m trying to make happen.”

—————-

JAKARTA, INDONESIA – OCTOBER 09: Jamie Sadlowski of Canada plays a shot during round four of the BNI Indonesian Masters presented by Zurich at Royale Jakarta Golf Club on October 9, 2016 in Jakarta, Indonesia. (Photo by Arep Kulal/Asian Tour/Asian Tour via Getty Images)

Jamie Sadlowski thought he was ready when he decided to pursue his own tour pro dreams in 2016. The Canadian nicknamed “Super Freak” had won a 2016 U.S. Open local qualifier and even made some cuts on the Korn Ferry Tour. In many ways, he is the closest comparison to what Berkshire is attempting. But there are also several important differences.

Although both won World Long Drive titles at young ages, Sadlowski eventually put in more than a decade competing and doing as many as 80 corporate events a year. Unlike Berkshire who has only been doing long drive for three full years, he was burned out and decided to completely walk away from the sport. Also unlike Berkshire, the 2008 and 2009 World Long Drive champ thought shifting to tournament play required him to re-tool his golf swing.

“Things have changed, Bryson has changed so much now just in the last year,” Sadlowski says. “We were always of the opinion that you can’t do both, it’s impossible. But now the more you read, the more you see what these guys are doing, you see Tony, you see Bryson, you see Rory, DJ, all these guys what they’re doing. I had that, I owned that, and I changed it.”

In hindsight, Sadlowski says his struggle to make it on tour can be traced to him going from being “a doer to a thinker.” But it’s also a reflection of the difference in pacing between a long drive competition and a golf tournament. One requires you to peak for three minutes at a time, the other stresses focus over four long rounds. After making just $11,000 over three seasons on Canada’s Mackenzie Tour and failing to make the weekend in both of his PGA Tour starts, he’s hoping a return to his athletic instincts will help.

“It’s a different transition when you’re programmed to do something,” Sadlowski says. “It’s like teaching a sprinter to be a long-distance runner. They’re the same, but they’re different. You have a different mentality about them.”

A final key difference between Sadlowski and Berkshire is that Sadlowski never had much of a foundation as a tournament golfer. Like the movie character Happy Gilmore, Sadlowski was always focused on his first love: hockey. That’s where Berkshire may have an edge, even if all his tournament experience came on the junior level.

Sadlowski and Berkshire just missed overlapping on the long drive circuit so they don’t know each other, but both are very familiar with each other’s careers. And in seeing some of the playing videos Berkshire posts to social media, the 32-year-old Sadlowski is particularly impressed—and also perhaps a bit envious—that Berkshire brings the same swing that made him a long drive champ to the golf course.

“I would tell him don’t change anything,” Sadlowski says. “You know, putt, chip your butt off, and learn how to flight some wedges, flatten shots out. And why not? If there’s any time to be inspired, it would be now from how much the game has changed in just the past six to eight months. And I sit here in Canada, shaking my head I’m like, ‘what has happened?’ You know, before it was, we’re going to shorten the backswing up and get it in play a little more. Yeah, that’s important stuff, but it’s also important to hit it 400 yards.”

That last point seems so obvious, but again, prioritizing distance over accuracy goes against long-held conventional wisdom. As someone well versed in the game’s modern metrics, though, Berkshire knows the importance of distance as well as anyone.

“I don’t have to have everything firing on all cylinders, I don’t have to be making more 20-footers than everybody else, I don’t have to be avoiding trouble off the tee every time to stay with people,” Berkshire says. “I can hit a loose shot off the tee here or there, I could three-putt maybe once or twice more than most guys could, I can miss the green with a wedge in my hand here or there and still be OK because again, the statistical advantage of me being 50 yards ahead of someone off every hole or even being able to hit an iron off the tee when they’re hitting driver the same distance, that accuracy advantage of an iron has over a driver, that’s very significant, so I have a wider path to walk.”

So how good of an actual golfer is Berkshire? He says he’s back to his peak form of being a plus-four handicap, but the goal is to get to at least a plus-six before truly testing his game in a pro event.

Obviously, a lot of that improvement will have to come in the short game, which is why Kyle has spent approximately 80 percent of his practice time within 150 yards in recent months. Even the worst chippers and putters on the PGA Tour have elite touch. His swing coach Najar estimates Berkshire is a plus-two handicap as a putter on a good day and that’s not good enough. Yet.

As for his full swing, Berkshire doesn’t need an overhaul, but in an effort to tighten his dispersion, he has been working with Najar on honing what he calls a “pull cut.” The shot will make him shorter, but it’s a move that would help eliminate a two-way miss. That’s also why he’ll probably use a 45-inch driver instead of the 48-inch one typically used in long drive competitions.

“I think his biggest challenge is controlling his club speed,” Najar said. “Let’s just say he’s swinging at 140. To take a swing at 60 miles per hour is pretty extreme as far as going the other way. Being able to be soft with your grip, being able to just lightly clip the ball off the ground when you have adrenaline. So I think controlling his adrenaline, I think learning to vary his speeds, those are the big challenges.”

Berkshire says he’s working on putting more backspin on the ball to make it go straighter. He’s also been collaborating with Callaway on a 2-iron that he can hit farther than most PGA Tour pros hit their drivers.

Even taking something off his fastball, Berkshire has been comfortably swinging at about 140 miles per hour in practice rounds. By comparison, DeChambeau leads the PGA Tour at 133 miles per hour, 20 miles faster than the tour average. And while Berkshire knows distance will be his biggest physical advantage, he’s also hoping it will give him a mental edge.

“I know PGA Tour players are some of the most mentally strong players in the world, that’s why they get there,” Berkshire said. “But I can’t help to think it’s got to affect some of them if I’m 60, 70 yards past them.”

Berkshire’s speed could cause some huge misses, especially if there’s a sudden shift in wind. But when it comes to talent and potential, well. . .

“There are times, where I’m telling you,” Najar says, “This guy, he has shots that I’ve never seen anyone else hit.”

———————-

Rob Carr

The old axiom, “You drive for show, you putt for dough” has long been disproven. Just look at this past season’s PGA Tour money list, which is filled with big hitters from Bryson to DJ to Rory. By contrast, only one of the tour’s top 10 putters, according to strokes gained, finished in the top 22 in the money. That player? Bryson DeChambeau.

“I’d say the world of golf has been working on their doctorate,” Chamblee said. “It started with Tiger, then came the money, then came the interest, then came the athletes, and now has come the knowledge. And you know, their dissertation is Bryson DeChambeau because he’s put together added length with an understanding of how to use that length on a golf course and plot his way around. But then the caveat, that Brodie has always offered, “all things being equal,” all things aren’t equal with Bryson because he became a much-improved putter. And that’s the name of the game so he’s done it. It’s been this 23-24-25-year education in the world of golf. And it’s not done at all.”

Perhaps it’s Berkshire who will author the next defining chapter in the game, but despite his seemingly superhuman length, he’s got a long way to go—especially after taking such an extended break while contemporaries like Collin Morikawa, Matthew Wolff and even DeChambeau have become established PGA Tour stars.

No one on the PGA Tour can hit it anywhere near as far as Kyle can, but they’re miles ahead when it comes to mastering all the shots you need to compete at the highest level. If Berkshire never makes it there, though, Najar notes it won’t be due to a lack of effort.

“Everybody out there’s working hard, but I would say he obsesses over golf 24/7,” Najar said. “With anything and everything he can do whether it’s what he can do in the gym, what he’s eating, how to visualize, equipment optimization, so he’s really committed. And he’s got a genius mind for thinking of combinations.”

Speaking of that mind, Berkshire is also reuniting with famed sports psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella, whom he worked with during his junior golf days. It’s all part of helping Kyle adjust from one type of competition to another.

Not that Berkshire hasn’t faced pressure in long drive. On his way to winning the 2019 World Long Drive Championship, Berkshire was down to his final ball in the round of 16 after missing the grid with his first seven attempts. He responded by pumping a draw 426 yards, 420 of that in the air, to advance.

But as his long drive coach Bobby Peterson says, tour golf brings with it a different dynamic. Remember even World No. 1 Dustin Johnson shot a pair of 80s at the Memorial just a few months before winning the Masters.

“And I think that’s another learning lesson that’s waiting for Kyle is the ups and downs of that,” Peterson said. “Because right now he’s one of the top guys or the top guy in long drive and where’s he going to be at in golf? So how he handles that as a person hopefully will help him grow just in general as a person because adversity seems to lead us or destroy us and I think it will lead him because he’s that motivated to get better at things.”

And while he’s got the time and money to pursue a second career right now, being a tour pro is expensive. As Chamblee says, you only have so much time until the wolf is at the door. But Kyle claims the experience going to be worth it—no matter the results.

“My hope is that it gets big enough and positively impacts a lot of people one way or the other,” Berkshire said. “If people like laughing at me for shooting an 80, I mean, then that’s good. If people love watching me because I shot a 67 and lit the course on fire, then that’s good. I think a lot of positives will come from it regardless. I think that’s definitely the best part about it. It’s kind of a win-win for everybody, quite frankly.”

If you’ve watched any of Berkshire’s videos, you’d probably agree. Kyle’s patented pre-shot rocking motion disappears when he’s hitting shots on the course vs. the grid, but the jaw-dropping power is still there.

The guy can hit a putter over 300 yards, hit stingers that would make Tiger Woods drool, and he routinely takes apart long holes with ease. In one video, Berkshire comfortably reaches Firestone Country Club’s famed 667-yard par-5 16th hole, known as “The Monster,” with a driver and a 3-iron to set up an easy two-putt birdie.

As entertaining as those videos are, though, Berkshire wants to be much more than a sideshow in professional golf. In hearing him discuss his goals of making it on tour, it’s clear the risk of not going for it is greater than trying and coming up short.

“I mean business,” Berkshire said. “I’m not doing this to have fun. I’m not doing this to just goof around. I mean every bit of this. If I’m pursuing this, it’s because I want to be in the final group on Sunday. It might happen, I don’t know if I can get good enough, but I sure as hell not going to say that I can, because I think I can. And I’m going to do the things that I need to do to the best of my ability with the team around me that I have which I’m very confident in. I think it can lead to some pretty crazy stuff and the only way we can know is if I try.”

The post Can Kyle Berkshire, the world’s top long driver, make it on the PGA Tour? We’re about to find out appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

RELATED: Rory McIlroy daggers Phil Mickelson before leaving Kiawah Island

On Monday night, a rogue video from what appears to be a post-round Golf Channel interview from Friday evening somehow made its way to social media. In the clip, you’ll see Koepka and Golf Channel reporter Todd Lewis in the frame, as Lewis waits for his cue to begin questioning Koepka. “Ready?” says Lewis, who then turns to Koepka and asks what he was able to do so well in his second round.

As Lewis was speaking, you’ll notice Koepka is focused on something else, and whatever that something else is has clearly drew his ire. After Koepka’s eyes almost roll to the back of his head, he begins answering the question, only to lose his train of thought as Bryson DeChambeau walks behind the interview. Have a watch for yourself (warning: NSFW language ahead):

The disdain he has for Bryson is the best thing going in golf these days. ? pic.twitter.com/1bwMkUx0iy

— Ryan (@RJWinfield) May 25, 2021

Oh boy. We knew these two had plenty of history, but their so-called rivalry, which has yet to actually manifest itself on the golf course, had seemingly died down over the last year or so. That, apparently, could not be further from the truth if Koepka’s facial expressions and F-bombs just at the mere sight of DeChambeau are any indications. Yikes. There’s nothing playful about this one. It appears to be pure, unadulterated disdain. 

Two things to note – 1. It’s safe to assume someone at Golf Channel leaked this out, which, is, um, not something you’re supposed to do, and 2. that means Koepka likely thought he was venting in private, only for it to be made public without his permission. Then again, he does say “I don’t care” at the very end, which is just about as Brooks Koepka as it gets.

Last note – we have no clue what DeChambeau said as he walked past Koepka. Could it have been THAT bad to garner this reaction? Whatever it was, it looks like this rivalry we thought was dead is very much alive.

RELATED: Louis Oosthuizen falls victim to latest social-media manager fail

The post Rogue video of Brooks Koepka eye-rolling Bryson DeChambeau into another dimension taking Twitter by storm appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Brian Wacker
As a caddie with two decades of experience for some of the game’s top players on the PGA Tour, this week’s Sentry Tournament of Champions in Maui is a familiar spot for John Wood to begin his year. Instead of toting a golf bag, however, he’ll be carrying a microphone.

In August, Wood split with Matt Kuchar following a missed cut at the PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park. A few months later, it was announced that Wood would join NBC and Golf Channel as an on-course reporter for the networks.

Truly, the groundwork for the career change was laid five years earlier.

“Going back to 2015, I enjoyed the experience a lot more than I was anticipating,” Wood said of that year’s RSM Classic, where he joined Jim “Bones” Mackay as an on-course reporter for Golf Channel in its broadcast of the Sea Island, Ga., event. “I always kept that in the back of mind if an opportunity came up again.”

At the time, both men were employed loopers—Wood for Kuchar and Mackay for Mickelson. Two years later, one of golf’s most famous twosomes broke up when Mackay and Mickelson parted ways. Mackay joined the network full-time shortly thereafter.

Now, Wood is by his side again.

“I was ready for a new challenge,” Wood said of the career change. “I love caddying and I’ll miss it—no question—but when this opportunity presented itself, the timing was just right. You can’t caddie forever. Not all of us can be Fluff [72-year-old Mike Cowan]. I knew I could keep caddying, but I thought three, four, five years down the road would this opportunity still be here? I didn’t know.”

After Wood informed Kuchar he’d no longer be working for him, he caddied a few more times for Cameron Champ in the fall portion of the tour’s 2020-21 schedule. But his mind was already made up.

“I talked to a couple of [players] who got in touch, but I was committed to doing this once I made the decision,” Wood said. “There was no looking back.”

But even as the 51-year-old looks forward to his new role, in reality he’ll use many of the same skills—preparation, anticipation, knowing what to say and not to say—that he’s used for years. Those are just some of the reasons Wood was one of the most respected and successful loopers in the game, and why he figures to be an excellent fit for television, much the way Mackay has been.

As a caddie, John Wood worked with a number of top players, including Matt Kuchar. AR

“I was blown away how good Bones is now,” Wood said. “Not that he wasn’t good at the beginning, but watching him now, the job he does is incredible. Watching and listening to him helped me make the same decision.”

And in Wood NBC and Golf Channel gain a wealth of knowledge.

After playing collegiately at Cal, Wood spent the next 20 years on the bags of a handful of players. In addition to Kuchar, whom he began working for in 2015, he also caddied for Hunter Mahan, Kevin Sutherland, Chris Riley and Mark Calcavecchia.

Among the highlights: helping Kuchar to a bronze medal at the 2016 Olympics in Rio; being part of two winning Ryder Cup teams, first for Mahan in 2008 then Kuchar in 2016; and more than a few victories on tour.

Despite that success, however, Wood said he was at a point in his life in which he was ready for a change. He’s intrigued by the inner workings of television and excited about the opportunity to provide his insights.

“You can have a plan always, but as soon as something deviates from that plan you have to think on your feet and come up with what your player wants to hear,” said Wood, who figures to work 18-20 tournaments this year and even more in the years ahead. “Now my attention will go to what will inform the viewer and what they might want to know about a shot that they might not otherwise know—what’s in the player’s head, the caddie’s head. Every week you prepare as a caddie for one player. Now I like looking at it in more ways than one.”

As for being critical of a player or reporting on something controversial? Wood plans to take the same approach he did as a caddie.

“There’s a big difference between being critical of a decision or bad shot and being personal,” he said. “Most of the guys understand that. As a caddie, you know when you screwed up, and I’m not afraid of someone saying I did. But I never want to cross that line and get personal. I just plan on calling it like I see it.”

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By Joel Beall
John Daly revealed he has been diagnosed with bladder cancer on an upcoming episode of “PGA Tour Champions Learning Center,” according to the Golf Channel.

Daly, 54, told the Golf Channel he withdrew from last month’s Charles Schwab Series in Missouri after dealing with kidney stones and back pain. But a visit to the doctor showed it was more than kidney stones ailing Daly.

“[The urologist said] it doesn’t look like any stones are in there. But unfortunately, you have bladder cancer,” Daly told the Golf Channel. “After I did the CT [scan] I was fixing to sip on my Diet Coke and he said, ‘Don’t drink anything. We have to get you back in here and get this cancer out of you.'”

The two-time major winner said he underwent a procedure to remove the cancer, which was successful. However, he asserted a need to stay vigilant, noting his cancer has an 85 percent chance of recurrence. “So I’ve got to go back and see him in three months. They will probably have to cut it out again,” Daly said. “It’s probably going to come back, and then another three months that you don’t know. You just don’t know. Luckily for me they caught it early, but bladder cancer is something that I don’t know all the details. But it doesn’t look like it may go away. We will just see what happens. Maybe there’s a miracle.”

Daly, whose health and battles with alcohol have been concerns throughout his career, said the diagnosis made him re-evaluate his habits.

“I’m cutting way, way back on the Diet Coke and counting minutes before I can have a cigarette. I’m trying to quit smoking,” Daly said. “The doctors aren’t saying it’s too late. Unfortunately, it’s a cancer that keeps coming back. But I’m going to listen to them, and I’m going to try and quit smoking. If it comes back, it comes back. Six months to a year, if it doesn’t go away, I’m going to live my life. I’m gonna have some fun.”

Daly acknowledged he’s had “one hell of a life,” but did not express any notion of surrender, saying he’s ready for the obstacles ahead.

“No matter what happens, I’m not scared to die or anything,” Daly said. “It would have been nice to play the last seven or eight or 13 years of my career a little more healthy. But hey, I’m still working, I’m still living life, I’m still doing the things I need to do … I can accept the challenge. I’m not scared of that. I just want my kids to be OK and everyone else in my family.”

Daly’s interview will be aired on the Golf Channel Monday night.

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