Since her runaway five-stroke victory in November, the Kiwi has gone on to claim a 17th LPGA Tour title in the U.S. but it is an Instagram post from world No.1 Jon Rahm that has truly emboldened Ko.

Find out the simple realisation the 24-year-old, world No.3 has come to in our preview to the $1 million Ladies European Tour event in the March edition of Golf Digest Middle East.

We also discover the Golf Saudi link to the Asian Tour’s new International Series and explain how the 10 new marquee events are a game-changer for a sleeping giant awoken by LIV Golf’s  $300 million investment.

Elsewhere, we get tee to green tips from the best players in each category on the PGA Tour and discover ways to cheat (gasp!) at putting…without actually cheating of course. You’ll also find our extensive guide to the best irons of 2022 in the continuation of our annual Hot List gear test.

All this and much more in the March 2022 edition of Golf Digest Middle East.

The issue is again free to our loyal audience. You can scroll through the ISSUU link provided here or download to your favourite device for later. Alternatively, pick up a copy at your favourite club. Whatever option you take, we hope you enjoy the read.

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By Joel Beall
A three-time Masters winner was an unexpected add to the tournament Monday.

That would be Jim (Bones) Mackay, longtime caddie for Phil Mickelson. Mackay, who was on the bag for all three of Mickelson’s Masters triumphs, was spotted on the grounds Monday working with Jimmy Walker.

The 2016 PGA champ has employed Mackay before, with Bones helping out at the 2019 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.

After parting ways with Mickelson in 2017 after 25 years together, Mackay joined NBC Sports as a commentator for its golf coverage. However, Bones has come out of retirement multiple times in the past three seasons, including fill-in loops for Justin Thomas and Matt Fitzpatrick this year.

One of those temporary gigs with Thomas led to a win at this year’s WGC-St. Jude FedEx Invitational, with Bones also caddying for Thomas at the following week’s PGA Championship while Thomas’ usual bag man, Jimmy Johnson, dealt with health issues.

Walker is hoping Bones can provide a much-needed spark. The 41-year-old Texan has missed the cut in eight of his past 10 starts, with his last top-10 finish coming in 2018. He enters the week 407th in the World Ranking.

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By Daniel Rapaport
DUBLIN, Ohio — Turns out, Bones still knows what he’s doing.

Jim (Bones) Mackay, who spent more than 25 years as Phil Mickelson’s caddie before becoming an on-course analyst with NBC/Golf Channel, decided to dust off the trainers and return to the caddie ranks for the Muirfield Village double. He knew Matthew Fitzpatrick was in search of a fill-in looper—Fitz’s full-time guy, Billy Foster, remained in England due to the COVID-19 pandemic—texted the young Englishman, and soon they had an agreement to work together for the back-to-back starts in Ohio.

Two profitable weeks, as it turns out.

Fitzpatrick shot a four-under 68 on Sunday amid brutal conditions to vault up the Memorial leader board, all but assuring himself a top-five finish as the leaders were just beginning their back nines. This comes one week after Fitzpatrick and Mackay teamed for a T-27 finish at the Workday Charity Open.

In typical caddie fashion, Bones was quick to redirect any credit to his player.

“He’s a very, very good player, and it was a joy to be with him,” Mackay said. “He was great out there. I mean, 68 today, what more could you ask for from the guy?

“He’s got a ton of shots,” Mackay continued, “and to me the most underrated skill a professional golfer can have—which he has in spades—is the ability to read greens. He’s an amazing green reader, and I think that’s going to take him a long way in this game. He’s longer than I thought he was going to be. He’s good. He’s really good.”

Fitzpatrick said having Mackay on the bag was rather helpful given the conditions, which were among the toughest you’ll see on a golf course. The wind blew a consistent 25 miles per hour all day, with gusts north of 30, which only exacerbated the already brutal setup that included juicy rough and concrete-like greens.

“I mean, he’s seen conditions like this plenty of times, and to have him on the bag was brilliant,” Fitzpatrick said. “I definitely learned a couple things off him, and I’ll be picking his brain to see what I can improve on.”

Despite their success, the partnership will not be extended. Foster, who spent years on the bag as Seve Ballesteros and Lee Westwood, will return to Fitzpatrick’s bag for the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational later this month.

But Mackay stopped well short of closing the caddie door.

“I work 22 weeks a year,” Mackay said. “That means there’s 30 other weeks I can go caddie if I want to. You know, if someone says that their caddie has got a twisted ankle, that’s something—I love caddieing. I consider myself a caddie, even when I’m doing TV.”

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By Daniel Rapaport
Jim (Bones) Mackay worked for Phil Mickelson for more than 25 years before mutually parting ways in 2017 and becoming an on-course TV commentator. Matthew Fitzpatrick didn’t recognise the number sending him the text message.

“The message said it was Bones, and he heard through the grapevine that I was in the market for a fill-in caddie,” Fitzpatrick said. “I told him I was honoured that he was even reaching out.”

Needless to say, the answer was yes.

Jim (Bones) Mackay, an on-course analyst for NBC/Golf Channel who spent more than 25 years on Phil Mickelson’s bag before mutually parting ways in 2017, will work as a fill-in caddie for Fitzpatrick in next week’s Workday Charity Open and a week later at the Memorial Tournament, both event taking place at Muirfield Village outside of Columbus, Ohio.

Fitzpatrick waited out most of the COVID-19 lockdown back in his hometown of Sheffield, England. When he flew back to the U.S. in late May and quarantined for two weeks in Florida before returning to the tour, his full-time loop, Billy Foster—a deeply respected caddie himself, who spent years on the bags of Seve Ballesteros and Lee Westwood—opted to remain with his family in England rather than risking infection and waiting out the mandatory quarantine in the U.S.

Fitzpatrick first met Mackay when he played in Mickelson’s group as an amateur in the 2014 U.S. Open, and the two kept in loose touch because Mickelson and Fitzpatrick are both sponsored by Workday. Since parting ways with Mickelson and taking the TV gig, Mackay has worked as a fill-in caddie before. He was on the bag for Justin Thomas for a spot start at the 2018 Sony Open.

David Cannon
Matthew Fitzpatrick’s regular caddie, Billy Foster, is expected to return on the bag at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational later this month.

During the first three tournaments of the PGA Tour restart, Fitzpatrick used a different fill-in, Cayce Kerr, finishing T-32 at the Charles Schwab Challenge, a T-14 at the RBC Heritage and missing the cut at the Travelers Championship, which broke his streak of 20 straight made cuts on the PGA Tour. The plan is for Foster to return to Fitzpatrick’s bag at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational later this month, while Mackay will return to his day job as a TV reporter.

Fitzpatrick, a 25-year-old Englishman, is currently ranked No. 26 in the world. A five-time winner on the European Tour and member of the 2016 European Ryder Cup team, he is playing his first full season as a PGA Tour member.

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By John Strege

Stories of interest you might have missed…

Phil Mickelson, a San Diego native, first had Jim Mackay caddie for him at the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach in 1992, and San Diego Union-Tribune golf writer Tod Leonard was there, as well as over the next 25 years. He writes in this story on the end of the Mickelson-Mackay pairing:

As a pair, their verbal dances as they analyzed shots or putts were highly entertaining. There were times when it seemed they didn’t need to speak to be on the same wavelength.

“An unbelievable team,” San Diegan Dennis Paulson said Tuesday.

He played alongside Mickelson on the PGA Tour and in retirement has followed him dozens of times as an on-course commentator.

“It’s the communication factor,” Paulson said. “They were both really smart. They both thought outside of the box. It was important for Phil to have somebody who saw shots like ‘Bones’ did. You could see that from the beginning.

“The fact that you had a caddie who could say, ‘You want to skip what off of what?’ … If Bones hadn’t been that way from the very beginning, they wouldn’t have lasted.”

Mickelson was from Mars, Mackay from Venus, and they ruled in their own universe.

A college practice facility as good as Augusta National’s?

San Jose State’s new practice facility has made a splash, San Jose Mercury News columnist Mark Purdy writes, even evoking a comparison with Augusta National.

“Can you believe this?” Roger Maltbie, who played golf at San Joes State, said. “It’s like walking out on the driving range and practice area for the first time when you first get to Augusta on Monday morning. It’s like, ‘Wow.’”

Writes Purdy: “The setup is indeed impressive, even if I personally wouldn’t go quite as far over the top in my description of the facility. Augusta National’s practice grounds are not under threat from San Jose State. But I must admit, the transformation of the university’s former soccer practice field and baseball field into a state-of-the-art golf experimental lab does tend to blow you away.”

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