The 32-year-old was saying on Wednesday that when he first saw Congressional Country Club in 2011, he immediately believed it was a course on which he could shoot strong numbers. “It’s the same as here,” he said, waving his hand toward the South Course at Torrey Pines. “You hit fairways, you hit greens and you can shoot good scores. It’s just a matter of getting into a little more of a positive mindset going into the tournament.”

McIlroy will admit that since being a mop-haired 22-year-old who notched his heretofore only U.S. Open win in record fashion in 2011, shooting 18 under, he’s become a bit guarded, maybe even jaded, going into this particular major. “Cynical” is the word he chose on Wednesday.

The results can beat you down, and though the Ulsterman has a T-8 and T-9, respectively, in his last two appearances in the national championship, he hasn’t truly contended on a Sunday since ’11, when it wasn’t much of a competition at all, considering McIlroy prevailed by eight shots. There were also three consecutive missed U.S. Open weekends that preceded the most recent top-10s.

But—and yes, we know Rory loyalists have heard this before—it seems there are legitimate reasons to think that McIlroy can meld attitude and optimism with an improving swing to make some noise this week.

The recipe starts with confidence, and that comes from having competed well on the South Course over a rather condensed span. McIlroy didn’t play in his first PGA Tour Farmers Insurance Open until 2019, mostly because of the guaranteed money he got going to the European Tour’s Middle East swing. But he’s played three straight years at Torrey, and the results are impressive: T-5 in first appearance, T-3 in 2020, and then a T-16 this past February—the latter not a terrible placing considering he’d begun working on significant swing changes.

In nine rounds on the South Course during the Farmers, McIlroy has a scoring average is 69.8, and he made a nice weekend charge on Sunday in 2020, shooting 67-69 to finish three shots back of Marc Leishman.

The key point being that this isn’t Oakmont, Erin Hills or Shinnecock Hills—all layouts where McIlroy missed the cut in competing on them for the first time. It’s the same for everyone, of course. Tiger Woods built his career on winning at the same courses over and over, including Torrey Pines.

“It’s nice to come to a venue where we all know it pretty well from sort of being on the PGA Tour schedule,” he said. “There’s not really any secrets out there. We all know what to do and how to play it, and it’s just a matter of who can execute over the four days.”

It also helps that McIlroy arrived this week, played 18 holes on Tuesday and immediately deemed the setup as “great.”

“The rough is playable. You can hit it in the rough and at least have a chance to get it up around the green and sort of use your short game to scramble and save par,” McIlroy said. “It’s not as penal as some other U.S. Opens. … It’s really fair. I’ve heard nothing but positive praise from a lot of the players.”

McIlroy was 19 and already a professional golfer when Woods won the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. But he had played in only one major at the time, as an amateur in the 2007 Open Championship, and he was a year away from tying for 10th in his U.S. Open debut at Bethpage Black.

The conditions this time around at Torrey are very much like in ’08, when Woods and his playoff mate, Rocco Mediate, were the only players to break par, at one-under. The kikuyu rough, with a mix of overseeded rye, was not overly brutal that year or this, but it was still thick enough to produce concern. And there will probably be more of an element of luck—good or bad—than players would like.

“I think if you see your ball sailing into the rough, you hope you’re just going to get lucky,” McIlroy said. “It can settle into the kikuyu that’s sticky and juicy, or there’s the patches of Poa out there that are more of the yellowish, brownish colour, and you hope your ball is going to land in one of those patches and you can get it out onto the green.

“There’s no substitute for hitting the ball off the fairway here. It’s a pure—it’s fairways and greens. It’s a proper U.S. Open test. The one way to keep you from injuring your wrist is by not going in it.”

Sean M. Haffey
Rory McIlroy hits his drive from the 18th tee during a practice round prior to the start of the 2021 U.S. Open.

McIlroy ranks second in driving distance (318.6 yards) on the PGA Tour this season, countered by being 173rd in driving accuracy (55.17 percent). But missing fairways doesn’t seem to hurt him much—he’s ninth in strokes gained/off-the-tee. It’s his short game around the green—which figures to be heavily tested this week in heavy rough around the putting surfaces—that has been an issue. He’s 98th in that category.

Last week, McIlroy worked with Pete Cowen, the instructor with whom he teamed up in March after he missed the cut in the Players Championship. They’ve been reinforcing their previous efforts, which resulted in McIlroy capturing the Wells Fargo Championship in May, only to see him not score better than 72 in the PGA Championship.

“The technical and mechanical parts of it are all there,” McIlroy said. “It’s just a matter of going out in a U.S. Open setting and just trusting what I’ve been doing in practice, and then that gets more into the mental side of things and just being really clear and really committed in what you’re trying to do and being as free on the course as I am on the range.

“That’s the big challenge, but in terms of where everything’s heading, it’s definitely in the right direction.”

The post Torrey Pines might be the perfect venue for a Rory McIlroy recharge in majors appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Matthew Rudy
Rory McIlroy wasn’t able to join the elite group of players who have won golf’s career Grand Slam, but another rare slam was completed on Sunday at the Masters. Claude Harmon III joined his father, Butch, David Leadbetter, Hank Haney, Pete Cowen and Jack Grout as the only coaches to have worked with players as they won each of the four major championships.

Dustin Johnson’s victory joined Brooks Koepka’s two U.S. Opens and PGAs and Ernie Els’ 2012 Open Championship on Harmon’s supervisory shelf—and the circumstances surrounding it might have made it the most meaningful. Harmon endured two separate 14-day quarantines—after student Brooks Koepka’s caddie, Ricky Elliott, tested positive for COVID-19 in June, then again after Johnson tested positive last month. That compressed preparation for Augusta into two weeks—two weeks to get back to the form that had seen Johnson win the Northern Trust and Tour Championship (and the FedEx Cup with it) and to recapture the World No. 1 ranking.

RELATED: Dustin Johnson’s play in 2020 redefines his golf legacy

“From a pandemic to Brooks’ injury early in the season to being on lockdown from Players to Colonial to travelling non-stop every week, it’s just been a crazy year,” said Harmon. “We all have had to adapt, and you have to make the most of the situation you’re dealt.”

Johnson shook off rust the previous week in Houston, tying for second, and came into the Masters a bit under the radar, as so much of the focus was on U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau. “You never say COVID is a good thing, but DJ came into Houston fresh mentally and physically from the time off,” Harmon said. “He was rusty on Thursday, but had good practice Friday and Saturday, and good practice early in the week in Augusta. He plays on confidence. Form is a huge thing for him. He felt—and all of us around him, A.J. [his caddie and brother], Joey D [Diovisalvi, his trainer] felt—that it wouldn’t be a surprise if he had an opportunity on Sunday.”

Masters week was peak Dustin Johnson. He set a tournament scoring record (20 under), another record for fewest bogeys (four), and tied a third for most greens hit (60). Cameron Smith got as close as two shots early on Sunday, but the outcome was never really in doubt. “Adam Scott told me something at Boston that sums up DJ pretty well—nobody makes the game look as easy as he does,” Harmon said. “What I saw last week was the result of five years of hard work. He’s a complete player now. He drives the s— out of it. His iron game is underrated. He’s done so much with his wedge game and short game. And he and A.J. are one of the best—if not the best—on tour in how they work together, make decisions and read greens.

RELATED: 15 Things You Need To Know About Dustin Johnson

Harmon thinks that the Masters win could set off a Mickelsonian run of mid-30s major championships for Johnson and said he’s looking forward to helping extend that run however he can.

“To be a part of the team behind DJ last week, and to know his name is going to be on the same trophy as my grandfather—that’s so gratifying,” said Harmon, who was taking Monday off before picking up his regular schedule of member lessons at The Floridian in Palm City, Fla.

“To see A.J. crying on the 18th green and DJ hugging him, I know the hard work that went into that. Lead[better], my dad, Hank—they’re icons of coaching. To be able to do something they did? And to be out here on tour with coaches like Cameron McCormick, Mark Blackburn, Mike Bender and Sean Foley, and younger guys like Drew Steckel? I’m proud to have success in this little sliver of the golf world, and I’m proud to be a part of the modern game.”

RELATED: Dustin Johnson’s emotional (seriously) interview wound up being the best part of Masters Sunday

The post Dustin Johnson made history at the Masters. So did his coach appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Normally, Pete Cowen—the renowned golf coach whose client list includes four-time major winner Brooks Koepka, reigning U.S. Open champ Gary Woodland, and major winners Henrik Stenson, Graeme McDowell and Padraig Harrington — would be stationed on or around the Masters tournament range “from sunup to sundown,” he says.

Instead, like everyone else in the golf world, he’s home. Only he’s also recovering from what he believes was COVID-19 after a flight home to England following last month’s cancellation of the Players Championship after one round. But after weeks in isolation he has shown considerable improvement. Earlier this week, his golf academy manager, Nick Huby, shared an optimistic prognosis.

“As many of you will be aware, in recent weeks unfortunately Peter Cowen has been extremely ill battling against the COVID-19 coronavirus,” Huby wrote on Instgram. “I am delighted to announce that Pete is most definitely recovering and improving day by day, slowly building his strength back up. I am confident Pete will be able to get right back to the business of improving people’s golf very soon.”

Contacted by Golf Digest on Thursday morning, Cowen concurred.

“The worst part of it was at one point coughing non-stop for 24 hours,” he says via text, his voice still too weak to talk much.

He also endured low blood pressure, high temperature, hot and cold shivers, a racing heart rate and shortness of breath.

“Apart from that it was OK,” he said.

While Cowen continues to recover there hasn’t been golf for weeks and there won’t be until at least mid-June. There will at least be a Masters, now scheduled for November. The 69-year-old looks forward to that. In the meantime . . .

“Harrington is the player who can’t leave the range until every ball has been hit,” he says. “And Stenson is the man with the most questions. The rest do as they’re told.”

Even when he’s not with them, Cowen still hears from his players, of course. All and then some checked in when they heard he fell ill.

Not that Cowen ever lost his wit despite being sick.

“They said I was OK because they don’t need any miserable grumpy old men around them at the moment,” he wrote.

In the meantime, Cowen has been watching a lot of old golf highlights, including the “Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf” match between Sam Snead and Ben Hogan.

“I was lucky enough to play with Snead in a tournament!” the tour player turned instructor says.

He’s also been writing a book. It’s about golf, but focuses more on the stuff between the shots, he says.

“Like when three of us went around Europe in a little minivan in the mid-70s—there was no room in the back then—and we went to four different countries, finishing up in Germany with the van breaking down outside the football stadium there,” he says. “We just got our stuff and left it there.”

As for a Masters in November and golf returning, whenever that day might be?

“Just hope the weather is good (in Augusta),” Cowen said. “No flowers, so it won’t look the same.

“But health is everything. I’m looking forward to getting back to it. Just not looking forward to flying again.”

The post He says he coughed for 24 hours straight, but instructor Pete Cowen now on road to recovery from likely battle with coronavirus appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Brian Wacker
Pete Cowen, the golf coach who counts Brooks Koepka, Gary Woodland, Henrik Stenson and Graeme McDowell among his pupils and has a number of academies in Dubai, believes that he has contracted the coronavirus after falling ill last week and being told by medics that he has all the symptoms of COVID-19.

In a text message to Golf Digest on Monday, Cowen, who was at the Players Championship working alongside his stable of players 11 days ago, when the tournament was called off after the opening round because of the growing pandemic, said he believes he picked up the coronavirus on his flight home to England that night.

The Daily Telegraph first reported the news on Sunday evening.

“I feel like I’m fighting a tank with a pea shooter,” the 69-year-old told Golf Digest. “I still feel like s**t even after seven days of isolation.”

After arriving home in Yorkshire and a few days of self-isolating, Cowen said that he began to feel the effects last Monday, so he and his wife called for an ambulance. Upon its arrival, Cowen said he was told that he showed all the signs of having the virus.

“Low oxygen blood levels, high temperature, hot and cold shivers, racing heart rate, shortage of breath, continuous deep cough,” Cowen said via text. “They said I had all the symptoms but there’s nothing they could do about it other than give me [pain and fever medication] and fluids.”

Cowen has not been tested for the virus.

“They’re more interested if you recover,” he said, “then they do all the tests to see if you’ve developed antibodies so then they can start thinking about how to fight it.”

Meanwhile, Woodland told Golfweek on Sunday that he has spoken with Cowen within the last few days, but that he and his wife and their three kids feel well and haven’t shown any symptoms.

Last week, Victor Lange, who plays on PGA Tour Latinoamerica, became the first known tour pro to test positive for the virus.

The post Pete Cowen, who oversees a number of golf academies in Dubai, believes he’s stricken with coronavirus appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Zane Scotland’s evolution from battle-scarred tour pro to player-coach makes him a rich resource for youngsters making their way on the MENA Tour

By Kent Gray
The Golfing Machine owns pride of place in Zane Scotland’s golf library. The thing is, as much as he loves Homer Kelley’s classic textbook, he’s loath to recommend it for fear it might fall into impressionable hands. You’ve been warned.

One of the most comprehensive, and some argue complicated, tomes on the golf swing, The Golfing Machine is meant for professional instructors. It has enlightened those with the requisite base knowledge but with it’s “simple geometry and everyday physics” has also confounded just as many well-meaning but unqualified seekers of the secrets to golf for the past 50 years.

“There’s a book from years and years ago [it was first published in 1969], that if you try and read it, it messes with your life, let alone your golf,” says Scotland when pressed for the foundation of his coaching philosophy.

“It’s so confusing because there is so much stuff going on in it but pretty much, most modern coaching is based off of that or versions thereof.

Scotland was in hot demand in his heyday, including being summoned to a promotional photoshoot during the 2008 Malaysian Open. (Getty Images)

“So for me, from a technical point of view, there’s Mac O‘Grady, what Pete Cowen’s done is fantastic, a guy called Andy Plumber, almost too many to name, to be honest. So it’s The Golfing Machine but on top of that someone who I think does an amazing job is Butch Harmon who almost looks like he wouldn’t even use a camera so much, he just knows the person and can work from there.”

Just as Kelley’s fabled work doesn’t prescribe one particular style of swing, Scotland’s wide-spread coaching influences are a melting pot of the game’s best swing theorists. What’s not clouded is the 37-year-old Englishman’s growing reputation in the field of coaching, a vocation the MENA Tour’s most successful player has fallen into sooner than anticipated.

Scotland always envisaged this route in the game but not until his mid to late 40s. However,  after competing alongside and tinkering with the games of now rookie professional Todd Clements and the Englishman’s big-hitting compatriot Joshua White in 2015, the decision to delve into coaching fulltime was accelerated when the pair sought a more permanent relationship the following season.

Now, as well as his record 10 tour wins, Scotland boasts two titles as a coach although he humbly takes more credit for MG Keyser’s victory at the Dubai Open in March than he does for Daniel Gaunt’s emotional Troon Series-Al Zorah Open triumph the previous month.

The Englishman in action during the 2010 Open Championship on the Old Course at St. Andrews. (Getty Images)

While South African Keyser is part of Scotland’s stable alongside Clements, White, fellow Englishmen Joe Heraty, Taylor Carter and Zak Morgan and Saudi Arabia’s pioneering professional Othman Al Mulla, Gaunt merely sought remedial help after a long layoff through sheer frustration with our maddening game. The Aussie has since gone on his merry way but wanders just off the M25 in Redhill south of London and you’ll find Scotland hard at work at Bletchingley Golf Club honing the games of clients at the ZS Academy, many of the MENA Tour’s biggest names regularly among them.

Scotland offers a holistic approach to game improvement at his “boutique academy”, from traditional swing mechanics to the perhaps more important mental side of making it in the cut-throat professional game.

“There’s the traditional swing coaching, game coaching, technical pieces which I’m good at and then the next part is like, how do you play golf for a living? Not every young golfer is going to be the next Rory McIlroy.”

Scotland knows better than most that very few young golfers will ever be the next Rory McIlroy or Tiger Woods. The MENA Tour’s first life member actually won a competition to ‘find the British Tiger Woods’ in 1997 and went on to become the youngest Englishman to qualify for the Open Championship two years later, eventually missing the cut at Carnoustie the day before his 17th birthday.

But a stellar amateur career – he ascended to be Europe’s No.1 – is no guarantee in the game of life. Scotland turned professional in 2003 but a minor car accident that year proved a major pain in the neck, quite literally, to his progression in the pro game.

Scotland shows his style during the opening round of the 2015 Omega Dubai Desert Classic at Emirates G.C. (Getty Images)

Scotland did tee it up in golf’s oldest major again in 2010, finishing a creditable T-55 on the Old Course at St. Andrews alongside, among others, Steve Stricker and above players the ilk of Jason Day and Ian Poulter. But the injury meant he was never healthy enough for long enough to keep a steady footing on the European Tour.

Rather selfishly, that’s been a boon for the fledging MENA Tour where Scotland has helped lift standards since the regional circuit’s inception in 2011.

Young players with big ambitious could certainly do worse than extract the choicest morsels from Scotland’s topsy-turvy journey through the game, from the highs of major championships to the lows of lugging his own bag on mini-tours playing for little more than beer money. So what wisdom would Scotland impart in such a conversation?

“Being honest with where you are. I think a lot of young guys, we’ve all done it, we hide away from the truth of what is actually happening,” Scotland beings.

“Especially in this day in age when social media is such a big part of life, everyone wants to look a certain way, to look like ‘I’m doing well’ instead of being okay with what you are not good at because then you can improve that.

“It’s about seizing your weakness or your downfalls as more fun areas that you can actually improve rather than hiding from them.”

Formulating that plan for improvement is one thing, building on it another.

“When someone is at the point of turning pro, just hitting lots of golf balls, ball beating, like, it’s lazy. It’s probably the 100 per cent easiest part of pro golf. What is difficult is trying to be smart… not many people do it.

Patron Darren Clarke and tour co-founder Mohamed Juma Buamaim surprised Scotland with a MENA Tour life membership at this media conference in 2017. (Getty Images)

“Someone that hits 500 balls a day, a 1000 balls a day, I’m not impressed. I’ve been there, done that and I’ve got the injuries to prove it. And you don’t get any better.”

Scotland’s perpetual quest for improvement as a coach means he is in no hurry to hang up his sticks. While he doesn’t have the time to beat balls to even a carefully prescribed practice formula like he once did, he’s trying to work smarter in a bid to add to his 10 wins, a legacy that included four titles in a breakout 2013 campaign where he ran away with the circuit’s overall order of merit title. Indeed, Scotland feels compelled to stay as sharp as possible inside the ropes.

“I’ve not had that much time to compete during the summer but you know, as any golfer can relate, I think to myself, if I can hit a golf ball, I could have a good week. That never leaves you,” Scotland said eyeing the MENA Tour’s five-event autumn swing which resumed late last month.

“I’m around good golfers and, you know what, I still try and play and practice just to remember how hard it is when you are teaching somebody. I think this is one thing a lot of coaches don’t do enough, they don’t play enough and practice themselves. You haven’t got to be amazing at it, you’ve just got to do it to be able to empathise with somebody. If you don’t, I believe you can lose touch with reality. It’s so important, a duty to the person you coach I believe.”

Scotland at a recent Mercedes Classic corporate day in England.
(Photo courtesy: TribecaMedia.co.uk)

While he hasn’t got rich from golf, the game continues to enrich the life of Scotland who is, coincidently, the nephew of the first woman to be appointed Britain’s Attorney General, Patricia Scotland QC, or just plain “Auntie Pat”.

Indeed, enriching lives is what makes the 20-minute drive from Scotland’s home in Banstead to the range at Bletchingley G.C. – like the regular trips to the Middle East – a breeze each morning.

“We’d like to think everybody could earn the 20 million that Rory’s going to earn this year but being realistic, that’s not going to happen,” Scotland says.

“Some guys won’t make a hundred grand in their career so if you can help them make 150-200 grand, that’s great isn’t it?  If you can at least double their career earnings or their earnings over a year by thinking better…”

Smart thinking. Now there’s an idea. Like getting someone else to decode The Golfing Machine for you. Scotland’s impressionable young chargers don’t know how lucky they are.

Photograph by Joy Chakravarty

The post Zane Scotland: MENA Tour record maker turned player creator appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

More recently, Brooks Koepka’s dominant play at last week’s PGA Championship at Bethpage Black left at least one of his fellow competitors, Xander Schauffele, admitting to feeling simply melancholy.

It’s easy to understand why.

Kopeka’s make-up and his performances in majors, of which he has now won four of the last eight, would undoubtedly earn him a spot in the “99 club”—a rare group of Madden NFL players with high enough attributes to earn a perfect rating—if video-game-maker EA still produced a golf title.

“One-hundred percent the prototype,” says Tiger Woods’ former coach Hank Haney of Koepka.

Other golfers over the last handful of years have had similar runs and eye-popping performances—Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, Justin Thomas and Dustin Johnson all come to mind. But Koepka appears to be best built to withstand the test that is major championship golf, now and for years to come.

Why?

There are a few reasons, starting with, not surprisingly when it comes to the beefy 29-year-old: the physical.

“Muscle structure is massive to do what he does,” said longtime coach Pete Cowen, who first formed a bond with the newly (re)minted PGA champion during Koepka’s early days as a pro, when he played the Challenge Tour in Europe, and works with the star on his short game. “He has some of the best shoulders in the game.”

RELATED: Grinding out the win at Bethpage will help Koepka more than a runaway victory

Cowen likened Koepka’s broad shoulders (we’ll get to the large chip on them later) to the transmission on a finely tuned race car. They’re the link between the application of power between the engine and the wheels, or what most helps him generate the kind of speed and accuracy that allowed him to lead the field at Bethpage Black in strokes gained/off-the-tee and in approach.

Length has long been a consistent trait from one generation of greats to another—from Nicklaus to Greg Norman to Tiger Woods—and Koepka is no different. It’s a skill that will continue to prove useful as courses get longer and tougher. Koepka’s bomb-and-gouge approach, however, means that when he does hit one off line, it’s not quite the penalty it once was. A short iron from the long grass is even more deadly than a mid-iron from the fairway.

“If he hits it in the rough, it’s not hard to hit it on the green because he has an upright swing plane and speed and strength,” noted veteran instructor and Golf Digest Top 50 teacher Jim McLean. “So if he hits six fairways, it’s fine. That’s the difference in today’s game.”

Mike Ehrmann

Other elements—a solid short game with a stable chipping motion that’s built around body pivot as well as a putting stroke aided by a still lower body—only make Koepka more formidable.

“He’s not a guy who hits it great and putts it just OK,” said Phil Mickelson’s former coach Rick Smith. “He putts it great. I’d put him up there with Rickie Fowler as one of the better putters in the game.”

But physical talent and Trackman-optimized tools run deep on tour these days. To his peers, where Koepka separates himself he most is mentally.

“His quote unquote not caring is a weapon,” 2017 PGA champion Thomas said. “Don’t let that fool you though, he’s a competitive SOB.”

From making them feel melancholic about their own chances, to causing others, such as Tony Finau, to rethink their own approach to how dissect diabolical setups like Bethpage, to using real or perceived slights as motivation, Kopeka again is in a different class.

“You can’t teach somebody to think the way that Brooks Koepka thinks,” Graeme McDowell said. “I wish I could think that way—use negativity the way he’s able to use it. He just drives himself to another level. Tiger was very different from that. He didn’t seem to need negativity. He could go to a different place mentally than the rest of us could go, but Brooks gets himself there via the little chips, via the negative comments he gets from people, and he’s able to take himself to places that, like I say, we’ve only seen from guys like Tiger, really. It’s impressive.”

Added Marc Leishman: “He has so much determination to prove people wrong. He also drives it great and has everything else needed, but mentally I think he has the biggest edge.”

How long will that edge last? In some respects, it depends as much on Koepka’s rivals as it does on him.

• McIlroy rattled off his four majors in four years, including three in a nine-major span between from 2012-’14. But he has proved wildly streaky at times, endured his fair share of noise and distraction, and remains, at best, an average putter.

• Spieth posted his first top-10 of the year at Bethpage, but he doesn’t have the power game or ball-striking abilities of Koepka, and remains in a winless drought that has stretched nearly two full years.

• Day has similar physical skills to that of Koepka, but his body has been fragile at times. Being No. 1 in the world also proved mentally burdensome.

• Thomas, likewise, can hang with Koepka when it comes to length as well as other areas of his game. But his temperament is often the opposite of the flat-lined Kopeka.

• Johnson is the closest thing to Koepka. Yet he’s blown a handful of chances in majors and remains stuck inexplicably on one.

Koepka? He got from his first major to his fourth faster than even Nicklaus or Woods. Heady stuff. Yet he continues to roll along unencumbered and undeterred. More majors will follow, no doubt.

“He’s a guy that needs to be a great player,” Cowen said. “I know a million guys who wanna be great. It’s not want with him. It’s need.”

The post Here’s what’s separating Brooks Koepka from his peers (and why his major run isn’t over yet) appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

I played a little as a child, occasionally at Emirates Golf Club when my father was in his first stint at the club, and during the summer holidays back in the UK. I actually made a hole in one on my first full 18 holes on a golf course at the age of 10 during one of these summer trips. Sadly, I haven’t had one since.

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I didn’t really play again until I was playing professional football at al Nasr at the age of 19. Only training for two to three hours a day, I had plenty of time on my hands and this was when I truly caught the bug and became a little bit of a range rat, spending most mornings and afternoons on the practice tee up at Jebel Ali.

RELATED: Robbie Williams – Let me entertain you

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After school I took a gap year to pursue my football career and ended up signing for Al Nasr Club in Dubai, playing in the youth and reserve teams. Due to the Arabian Gulf League regulations, only a certain number of foreign players could play for the first team in one particular season and at that time they had a host of foreign players including a World Cup winner in Luca Toni. Unfortunately for me, they were a lot better than I was. I played as a centre midfielder or a number 10 for most of career.

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I attended Jumeirah English Speaking School by Safa Park. Then, at age 11, after spending a year at Dubai College, I moved back to the UK having signed schoolboy forms with Wolverhampton Wanderers. During my final year of school, I was selected to play for the England Independent School representative team and we played against the Australian and Scotland schoolboys teams. Unfortunately, I was released from Wolves at age 15 for being too small.

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Like most people at the age of 22, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do as a career. My only real plan was to try and become a professional footballer. That was why I thought I’d try and do as many things, in as many different industries as possible, to find a career path. It just so happened that I managed to find it in the first industry I tried.

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I happened to be playing golf with Chris Turlik, who was working on the Omega Dubai Desert Classic at the time, and told him that I didn’t think my career in football was going to amount to anything; he asked if I’d be interested in working as an intern for 25th anniversary edition in 2014 and I jumped at the chance. It was really a baptism of fire.

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I’m very fortunate that I’ve found my passion at 26. The region has given so much to my family, being our home for over 30 years, providing incredible opportunities for my father, and now me. I feel a great responsibility to support the game in this part of the world.

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We have a very close relationship and as many are aware, my father [Emirates G.C. teaching professional James Williams] has a great affinity for conversation. He’s great to be able to bounce ideas off and has been very supportive of me and my sister in our respective career paths. My sister, Anna-Louise, is a physiotherapist in London.

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He’s been a huge influence but by his very nature, I don’t think he’d like to take any of the credit in this regard. He’s very conscious of not getting too involved with what I’m doing and to letting me find some things out on my own. But it is comforting to know that if I ever do need any advice or assistance, I don’t just have David Spencer [the MENA Tour’s strategic advisor] and [tour founder] Mohamed Juma Buamim to turn to.

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It’s a huge honour to become general manager of the MENA Tour, and I’m very grateful that David and Mohamed have entrusted me with such a responsibility. They have been great mentors and have included me in all aspects and discussions regarding the tour from the very beginning. We’re a young tour made up of young players, in a region that in a golfing sense is still quite young, so it’s quite fitting that we have a young general manager, brought up in the region to take the tour on its next steps.

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Williams is flanked by the MENA Tour’s amateur trailblazer Rayhan Thomas, patron Darren Clark and Dubai Golf boss Chris May.

I wouldn’t say star-stuck, but there are a few moments when you have to pinch yourself doing what I do. Spending a couple of days with [former Open champion] Darren Clarke, our patron… I got to hit balls with him on the range, compete in chipping competitions, play on the course with him. That was a pretty incredible moment. Darren’s been great at imparting his wisdom, not only with me but with players on the MENA Tour and we wish him well as he embarks on his career on the Champions Tour.

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The best part of my game is probably my short game, in particular, bunker play. My father is probably the best bunker player I’ve ever seen and that includes tour pros and Pete Cowen, so it’s something I’ve always enjoyed working on.

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I’m a relatively straight driver of the ball but lack in distance, a fact that annoys me given I play a lot of golf with MENA Tour players and my girlfriend…all of whom hit it longer than I do. My girlfriend is a good golfer, currently playing off one handicap. She works as a cabin crew for Emirates Airline and is looking to head to LPGA Q-School in August.

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We’ve got a lot of work to do with the MENA tour over the next few years and I hope to see this through to the end. Dubai is my home and I see myself staying here for a long time to come. The game is still young in this part of the world and I wish to continue the work of David, Mohamed and my father by contributing to its development as best I can.

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It is a bold ambition to become the finest feeder tour in the world and so should it be. The MENA Tour is headquartered in a city that was built on bold ambitions and lofty goals. We have the opportunity to introduce the game to more people in the region and offer a pathway for those in the region, expat or local, to progress.

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David Spencer is a great ideas man and for him to be so open and approachable is one of the reasons I love what I do. David’s been around the golf industry so long and is really on the pulse of what is happening in the world of golf. He’s a mentor and I can’t wait to work even closer with him in the years to come.

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I’ve known ‘MJB’ [Juma Buamaim] since I was a young child and he was GM at Emirates Golf Club. To work with him over the last few years has been a true insight into Dubai’s story and golf’s story in the region. His passion is evident in everything he’s been involved with and he’s constantly encouraged me to put myself in uncomfortable positions and to understand I have a responsibility to grow the game in this part of the world.

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The tour has so much potential and this is starting to be recognised throughout the region. There is no reason that we can’t be staging 15-18 quality tournaments a year, with prize funds north of US$100,000. We also have ideas of a mini MENA Tour and other grassroots programmes that we’re looking to implement as we progress too.

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I’ve never really been a gamer despite being from that generation. In fact, the only console I owned was the original PlayStation. Strangely though, I have recently taken an interest in eSports as it’s an exciting industry. The ties with the traditional sporting world grow ever closer.

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“It can get quite frustrating for my Mother, with the constant golf talk, however, she has a remarkable amount of patience, and a good knowledge of the game considering she has never had any interest in playing.”

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I was aware of how respected and popular dad was as I encountered others in the industry who know him, but I was still amazed at the amount of praise he received after rejoining Emirates G.C. (earlier this year). He’s a great character and one certainly of the old-school, and I think the genuine care and passion he has from the game is infectious and resonates with people.

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We actually don’t work on the range together that much anymore. He knows my swing so well, having been there when I first started, that we often have a lesson over the phone or a cup of coffee. Whether I put his advice into practice is another story though!

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Like most people working in the golf industry, he doesn’t often get the opportunity to play much. In fact, I don’t think we’ve ever played a full 18 holes together. Since returning to Emirates he’s had a little more time to work on his own game and it’s great to see him hitting balls on the range out of our office window. He’s a hugely talented sportsman and his golf swing is a joy to watch. I hope he can get back to playing competitive golf again. — with Kent Gray

The post Meet the new, 26-year-old GM of the MENA Golf Tour appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Huggan
Links golf being what it is—a game of constant adjustment—it is not surprising to hear that many of the 156 competitors gathered at an unusually fast-running Carnoustie for the 147th Open Championship are fiddling with their swings and shots and clubs on the range. As a result, at least two of the European Tour’s leading instructors, Pete Cowen and Denis Pugh, has been busier than usual these last few days.

“Just about every player I work with has changed his wedges,” says Cowen, fresh off a session with South Africa’s Branden Grace. “They’ve all gone to clubs with virtually no bounce. The ground is so firm that makes sense. And many of them have added a 2-iron at the expense of a hybrid.

“There is so much run to be had. Which is not always a good thing. How far shots are travelling depends a lot on the first bounce. You can hit an upslope or a downslope and the difference between the two can be massive. You might be left with 200 yards in, or 90 yards, depending on where the ball lands.

To specifically address this, Cowen has been working with some players on bringing down the height of their shots. But he warns that flighting the ball lower can be “a bit of overkill.”

“On a links course with a bit of wind about, you should never hit a full shot,” Cowen said. “So we’ve been working more on picking the right shot at the right time more than pure swing technique.”

As for Pugh and his star pupils, Francesco Molinari and Ross Fisher, the view is a little different. Molinari, the recent winner of the Quicken Loans Championship, is focusing on shaping his tee shots more than normal.

“Francesco usually tries to hit pretty straight shots, but here he needs to get more curve on the ball,” Pugh said. “The wind is enough to make the fairways, which are already quite narrow, even narrower. Especially when you are talking about a cross-wind. If the fairway is, say, 40 yards wide, hitting down the middle gives you only 20 yards either side. Starting the ball on one side or the other doubles that amount.

“Generally speaking, he is going to let the wind do the work on his tee shots, then he’ll take over on the second shots. He has the ‘Monty Fade,’ what we call his ‘30-30’ shot. That’s 30 wins and £30 million. We don’t have a name for the draw yet. Any suggestions welcome.”

Molinari and Pugh are working on shaping shots in preparation for the wind. (Andrew Redington)

Where there is more consensus is in the area of how aggressive players can be off the tee. While some will surely start cautiously with irons, Pugh can see most switching to the driver by Day 2 in an attempt to either hoist themselves into contention or make the cut.

“I think the really long hitters will hit drivers almost everywhere,” seconded Cowen. “If they find a bad spot, they’ll just play for the middle of the green and move on. If they hit the fairway, they will be in great position to make a birdie. And if the top players are all doing that, anyone else is going to be behind the eight-ball if they don’t do the same.”

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Cowen admits this isn’t the “real” Carnoustie, so picking out scores is tricky. He thinks, however, that somebody could shoot a 63 on any given day. “I can see a range of scoring through the field,” he said. “But no one knows what the winning score is going to be. I’m not sure how the bookies are going to work out their odds.”

There is but one caveat to the “bomb and find it” theory. As Pugh says, you still have to find it.

“And when you do find it, shaping a shot into the greens—and getting close to the flag—is not easy,” he said. “If you do play conservatively, you can end up playing 3-iron, 3-iron to a par 4. That’s difficult, too.”

In contrast to Cowen, Pugh doesn’t believe we’re in for particularly low scores. “This is not going to be a birdie-fest,” Pugh said. “Pars are going to be valuable commodities. The R&A will tuck the pins. The course is just how they would want it. … They will set-up the course so that, if the wind blows, it will be tough. If it doesn’t, the players will shoot low.”

Ideal really.

The post The Open 2018: How a pair of instructors are preparing their tour pros for the challenge of Carnoustie appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.