A warning has been issued on the eve of the 2023 Open Championship by one of golf’s greatest coaches.

Peter Cowen, who currently works with five-time major champ Brooks Koepka among others — and has previously worked with the likes of former World No. 1s Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood — was asked about Royal Liverpool’s new hole, the par-3 17th. And he did not hold back.

“I hate it,” Cowen told bunkered.co.uk. “I haven’t heard a player say a good thing about it. They’ll just deal with it.”

Listed as 136 yards, No. 17 with its elevated green and deep surrounding bunkers will play as the shortest hole on the course. But the par 3 named “Little Eye” is expected to be a big challenge for players this week. A potentially unfair challenge, according to Cowen.

“It could ruin somebody’s career if the wind goes in the wrong direction all of a sudden or there is bad luck rolling down from the wrong place,” Cowen added. “Why would you make a 120-130 yard par-3 impossible? It’s called an infinity green and that could be it. They could be playing infinitely backwards and forwards across the green.”

As for takes from the players? Well, Matt Fitzpatrick called the hole “interesting”. And Jordan Spieth said it could produce some “carnage”. So, yeah, better buckle up for this one.

The 17th hole replaced the par-3 15th that was in play when McIlroy captured the claret jug the last time Hoylake hosted in 2014.

The post The Open Championship 2023: Cowen warns Royal Liverpool’s new hole ‘could ruin somebody’s career’ appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Huggan
DUBAI, U.A.E. — It should come as no surprise to anyone to hear that Rory McIlroy—a proud Irishman born and bred—is predisposed to all things green. But, as ever with the four-time major champion, there is more to that aspect in his character than casual preference. One of the most thoughtful members of golf’s elite, the Belfast boy has always been mature beyond his years. Asked about the size of the global footprint someone with his jet-set lifestyle can potentially leave in his wake, McIlroy revealed that he is almost 24 months into positively alleviating that issue.

“Two years ago, after I won in China [at the WGC-HSBC Champions], I flew back home privately,” he said in Dubai, where he will compete this week in the final “European Tour” event, the DP World Tour Championship. “It was just me on the plane and a massive sense of guilt came over me. ‘This can’t be good,’ I thought.

“When the R&A and the USGA brought out their distance insights report, the best thing they spoke about was the sustainability aspect of golf and how to make the footprint of courses smaller. So that is certainly something we can all do. If every other industry in the world is making a push towards going green, why should we be any different?”

Good question. And in search of an answer, McIlroy approached the GEO Foundation, which is involved in the encouragement of sustainability within golf.

“What I was trying to do is make all my travel—I wouldn’t self-profess to be an eco-warrior, but I’m someone that doesn’t want to damage the environment—around the world neutral,” McIlroy said. “How can I neutralise what I do?”

Provided with a few ways in which he could achieve that aim, McIlroy typically took things even further. On top of what it costs him to fly privately, he pays an additional amount (£150,000 this year) to make sure he is carbon neutral by Dec. 31.

“It’s something I have a conscience about and I take it seriously,” he continued. “Especially when you see some of the weather events that are happening. I live in a part of the world where hurricanes are prevalent and becoming more and more prevalent as the years go on. I think we can all play our part in some way or another. We play on big pieces of land that take up a lot of water that some argue could maybe be put to better use. This isn’t something I’ve talked to many of the players about. But for my own peace of mind, I know that when I do travel I’m not doing it to the detriment of the world that we live in.”

As ever, too, McIlroy is likely in the minority in placing so much emphasis on the issues the world’s politicians spent two weeks discussing at the recent COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland. Asked to comment, BMW PGA champion Billy Horschel and the defending champion here, Matt Fitzpatrick, had clearly given the matter a lot less headspace.

“It’s a bigger issue than me,” Horschel said. “Do I want to leave this place in a better place than I found it? Yeah. But I think we need to look at all scenarios before we make a decision. At the end of the day, travel is what I do for my job, and I try to do it responsibly. But for me to do what I want to do, I have to travel. Simple as that.”

“It’s not something I think about,” Fitzpatrick said. “It’s my job. If I couldn’t get on planes, I would probably play only about five tournaments a year.”

Moving right along, McIlroy was on more familiar ground when asked about the state of play between himself and long-time coach, Michael Bannon. For the last few months, the pair were—publicly at least—estranged, with McIlroy employing swing guru Pete Cowen. In turn, that relationship has apparently gone less than well, even if, in the wake of McIlroy’s emotional reaction to his poor play at the recent Ryder Cup, he almost immediately went out and won the CJ Cup in Las Vegas. Anyway, as of now, Bannon is back and Cowen is, in soccer parlance, “on the bench” if McIlroy feels any need for his advice.

(Photo: Warren Little) Bannon back on the scene in Dubai.

“Michael has always been my coach,” McIlroy said. “He’s coached me since I was eight years old. He knows my swing and my game better than I know it at this point. And he’s always been there, even if he’s been in the background for the last six months. But in those two weeks in between the Ryder Cup and Vegas, I feel like I figured a few things out on my own, which sometimes you need to do. I’m not saying I won’t need help ever again and that I’ve got it figured out. This is about being myself and not trying to do anything other people do or what I can’t do.

“I went to Vegas with a little more self-belief, and I won that tournament, and that gave me even more confidence. So, if anything, Michael is more of a sounding board at this point. I say to him what I’m trying to do. And he tells me if I’m completely not right.”

Amid all of the above, one thing isn’t going to change, however. Yes, McIlroy was quick to acknowledge the benefits to rank-and-file members that will accrue from the overhaul of the “European Tour” brand and the emergence of the new “DP World Tour” that will start later this month in South Africa. But no, it will have little or no effect on his own schedule.

“It’s a great thing for this tour that those who compete here full-time have a place to play long into the future,” he said. “But I’m just going to play the same events I’ve played for the last five years or so. It may encourage me to add an event here or there, but for the most part I’ll probably keep doing what I’ve done the last few years.”

Indeed, sometimes in life you just have to green and bear it. Groan.

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By Matthew Brookes
When was the last time you hit 10 drivers in succession during a round? Unless you have a serious swing fault and this nightmare scenario collided with a hole featuring OB stakes tightly snugging each side of the fairway, I’m guessing never. Which makes you wonder why we stand on the range and belt drive after drive. 

My own short game was sharpest when I was a junior and played chipping comps around the green with my mates for hours on end. The winner of the hole would pick the next target and without knowing it we were learning and honing our games by putting ourselves in different situations every shot. Better still, practising was fun.

When learning a new move or at the start of the range session, “block practice” is understandable. If you’re really committed to improving though, you need to incorporate more random practice into your routine.

It’s something I rarely see. Fortunately, the awesome new Toptracer Range technology at Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club is perfect for measurable random practice.

Being able to play some of the world’s most famous courses virtually adds excitement and you can up the ante further with a points scoring system that allows you compare yourself to others at the club or even worldwide. It’s a nice bonus to give your practice sessions a little more competitive edge. Stick at it and your scorecard will quickly thank you. — with Kent Gray

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Matthew Brookes is a PGA teaching professional and golf specific fitness trainer at Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club’s Peter Cowen Academy Dubai.

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By Daniel Rapaport
AUGUSTA — Someone very wise once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result.” The Google machine tells me this person was Albert Einstein, who certainly fits the bill intelligence-wise.

Watching Rory McIlroy’s golf rounds over the last 10 months has brought Dr. Einstein’s definition to mind. They always seem to follow a certain rhythm. There’s been plenty of good, to be fair. Mainly off the tee—bombed drives, usually right down the middle of the fairway. And there are plenty of birdies, often set up by those drives. At his best, perhaps no player has ever made this most vexing game look so straightforward.

But recently, the good spells have been too frequently offset by head-scratching mistakes. He’ll miss a green with a wedge in his hand, or snap-hook a drive into the water. Or, like at the Players Championship, he’ll do it twice.

The foul-ball show at the Players, where he shot 79-75 to miss the cut by a million, seemed to be the last straw. Rory McIlroy is not insane, and so he knew something needed to change.

He was seen later that afternoon hitting balls in front of noted instructor Pete Cowen, who has worked with plenty of major champions. Koepka. McDowell. Woodland. It was a notable development because Pete Cowen is not Michael Bannon, the reclusive Northern Irishman who’s coached McIlroy since he was a boy.

“It felt comfortable because I’ve known him for so long,” McIlroy said at his Tuesday pre-Masters press conference of the move to Cowen. He was quick to note that Bannon is still “part of the team,” for what that’s worth.

“I worked with Pete when I was 13, or from the age of 13 during Irish national (team) weekends, and he was a consultant for the team. It’s not as if it felt like we were getting to know each other for the first time. We’ve known each other for a while.

“I just thought with what I have been sort of struggling with or trying to find a grasp with my swing, Pete likes to get his students to do what I was trying to feel I was doing, and he’s worked with a bunch of different players, and he’s got a lot of knowledge and a lot of wisdom.

“It just felt like a comfortable fit for me. That’s the reason I brought him in.”

And so McIlroy arrives at this Masters with new swing thoughts, albeit simpler ones. He admitted that he was inspired by Bryson DeChambeau’s romp at Winged Foot, and that inspiration sparked an ill-fated attempt to add speed. The speed was indeed added, but the rest of his game suffered, and COVID-19 travel restrictions made it impossible to put in consistent in-person work with Bannon. Every time they did meet up, it felt like they were working on something different. As any golfer knows, that’s never a good sign. So Rory made the tough call to move away from the man who molded his swing, his gorgeous swing, and bring in another set of eyes.

The team is different this week, but the opportunity has not. This will be the seventh time he tees it up at Augusta National with golfing immortality up for grabs. A win would see him complete the career grand slam, something only five other men have accomplished.

In some of those seven years, Rory’s quest has been the main storyline. He’d be asked about it constantly. This year … not so much. That’s what happens when you play poorly (at least by his standards). He has missed the cut in two of his last four stroke-play events and failed to get out of his group at the match play. He ranks 80th in strokes gained/approach for the season and 127th in approach play from 50-125 yards, which is tough for a guy who has 50 to 125 yards into par 4s so often.

As such, he has dropped to No. 12 in the World Rankings. And, if you read between the lines, the 31-year-old is not exactly approaching this week with a win-or-bust mentality.

“Yeah, look, I’m trying to view what I’m doing with my golf game on a— I’m trying to see the big picture here,” he said. “I’m obviously focused on this week, but it’s bigger than that. It’s a journey, right, and it’s a journey to try to get back to playing the game the way I know that I can play the game.

“So obviously this week is very important, but I’m still looking beyond that. I’m just at the start of a journey here that I know will get me back to where I want to be.”

McIlroy knows there are no shortcuts to the summit of this sport. It took Jordan Spieth nearly four years to win again. Now, McIlroy’s slump, if you can even call it that, is not close to the depths Spieth saw. But the principle holds true: Swing changes take time. Not everyone is Tiger Woods, who found a way to win with a work-in-progress swing.

Clearly, the expectations aren’t what they’ve been in years past, but this is still Rory McIlroy and this is still Augusta National Golf Club, and if you subscribe to the mentality that winning isn’t everything in golf, McIlroy has a terrific history here to look back on. In 2011, he led here after 54 holes by four. In 2018, he made a Saturday charge and played in the final pairing on Sunday. The man has top-10 finishes in six of the last seven Masters, including last year—when he overcame a first-round 75 by shooting 14 under the last three days to finish T-5.

But McIlroy doesn’t look back much these days. It’s a point of emphasis for him and Cowen, actually—to focus on the player McIlroy can and will be going forward, not the player he was. “There’s no future in the past,” is how Cowen put it to Sky Sports earlier this week.

“It’s not as if you can just magically delve back into it and bring it all back to life,” McIlroy said. “I think that golfer going forward is just a little more knowledgeable about what he does and how he swings the club and the movements he needs to make to basically hit three shots, right? Hit a draw, hit a fade, hit one straight. That’s all you need to do in the game of golf. It’s not that hard.”

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The swing evolves from the initial move away from the ball. Let Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club professional Euan Bowden get your takeaway right from the get go.

By Euan Bowden
The takeaway is crucial as the rest of the swing evolves from here. It gives you a chance to set width in the swing and trigger the correct body movement from the outset.

To initiate the takeaway, feel as though you are applying pressure in the club down and away from the ball. This will encourage you to keep the club-wide and the arms connected to your body. It is important to ensure your body stays centred as you do this.

A mental image to help you achieve this feeling is to picture yourself holding a beach ball underwater, moving it away from your body. In other words, you are trying to drag your club through the water as it goes away from the golf ball. The feeling will create a resistance that slows the club down, helping to produce a slow and controlled takeaway.

A driving range drill to help with this is to place an alignment stick parallel to your target, half way between your feet and the ball. A good takeaway will see your hands staying on the inside of the stick as the club head stays on the outside just as the club reaches a position parallel to the ground. A lot of amateurs snatch the club away from the ball, whipping the club head inside their hands and around their body, often separating the elbows as a result. Others pick the club up from behind the ball, getting it working too far from the body. Both of these will make it hard to initiate the correct body movement.

Essentially, you should look to move the ‘V’ shape created between our arms at address straight back away from the ball, keeping the hands and club head low and wide. Work on this feeling and you’ll be on the path to sweet strikes in no time.

Euan Bowden is PGA teaching professional at Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club’s Peter Cowen Academy Dubai.

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By Daniel Rapaport
PONTE VEDRA BEACH — Amid some of the worst ball-striking of his career, Rory McIlroy has sought the opinion of a legendary swing coach with a penchant for turning around struggling players.

After shooting a seven-over 79 in the opening round of the Players, which included a quadruple-bogey 8 on the 18th hole, McIlroy was seen hitting balls on the TPC Sawgrass driving range in front of the watchful eye of Pete Cowen.

“Opinions, that’s all,” Cowen told Golf Digest. “They are only my opinions.”

Cowen, 70, has worked with a number of major champions, including Brooks Koepka, Graeme McDowell, Louis Oosthuizen, Danny Willett, Darren Clarke and Henrik Stenson.

McIlroy and Cowen have worked together before, as Cowen was once the head coach of the Irish men’s golf team, which McIlroy was a member of when he was as young as 14 years old.

Still, seeing the two work together at a tour event is a notable development given McIlroy’s longtime relationship with Michael Bannon, who has coached McIlroy since he was a young child in Northern Ireland. Bannon has not been able to travel to the U.S. much given COVID-19 restrictions.

It is not clear whether McIlroy wants to go a different direction with his swing or if he simply wants another opinion from a fresh set of eyes, but one thing is clear: McIlroy’s ball-striking—particularly with his short irons and wedges—has been off since he returned from the tour’s three-month pandemic hiatus last June.

He ranks third on tour in strokes gained/off the tee but 87th in strokes gained/approach, 137th in approach play from 50-125 yards and 174th in approach play from 125-150 yards. McIlroy says he has struggled with getting the club “stuck” behind him in transition, which forces him to manipulate the clubface to deliver a square strike. In their session on Thursday afternoon, Cowen repeatedly encouraged McIlroy to get his hands more in front of his body on the downswing.

“I think that’s where I’m sort of struggling to come to terms with it and sort of trying to figure out what I need to do because the good stuff is there,” McIlroy said Tuesday. “It always will be. I’ll always be able to figure it out and find a way.

“But it’s when it goes slightly off, how do you manage that and how do you—I feel like over the last few years, I’ve been really good at when my game hasn’t been fully there still be able to shoot 69, 70, still being able to get it under par, where I feel like the last few weeks when it hasn’t felt quite right, I’m sort of treading water and I’m just trying to shoot even par, and that was sort of what it felt like last week.”

McIlroy went into the COVID-19 break ranked No. 1 in the world but has since dropped to No. 11, and the four-time major winner has not won since the WGC-HSBC Championship in November 2019.

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By Daniel Rapaport
PONTE VEDRA BEACH — Just eight months ago, Brooks Koepka hardly missed a shot in finishing T-4 at the Open Championship, his putting holding him back from making a charge. The swing was the least of his problems. Heck, there were hardly any problems at all—it was his fifth straight top-five finish in a major, and he was unquestionably the top men’s player in the world.

Fast forward to now, the week of the 2020 Players Championship, and he’s decided his swing has gotten to the point where it’s time for a new set of eyes.

After shooting a career-worst 81 and finishing T-47 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, his fifth straight finish of T-17 or worse since returning from knee surgery last fall, Koepka flew out to Las Vegas on Sunday night to see famed swing instructor Butch Harmon. Koepka stayed there on Monday before flying back to the East Coast a day later, arriving at TPC Sawgrass late Tuesday afternoon.

“It’s one of those things I felt like I just … I had so much going on in my head, so many swing thoughts and needed to clear the slate,” Koepka said.

It wasn’t a drastic change to see Harmon by any measure. In fact, he’s keeping it in the family—Butch’s son Claude Harmon III has been Koepka’s chief swing coach for years, and Koepka said Claude gave him his blessing to go see his father. And it’s not like this was a completely new ordeal—the elder Harmon has seen Koepka swing it plenty of times, at the Floridan and at Ryder Cups in years past. Koepka made a point to stay that Claude is still his coach and will always be his coach, and noted that Pete Cowen remains his short-game consultant.

Still, flying across the country and back to see a guy who has coached Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, and doing so between two marquee events on the PGA Tour schedule, is a noteworthy decision from the World No. 3, an admission that there’s something wrong, something that needs addressing.

“Claude was telling me the same things he’s said for five years, the three keys that we have worked on, and for some reason I just couldn’t do it. “That’s on me. It’s not on Claude, it’s not Claude’s fault. It’s not Pete’s fault. It’s not anybody’s fault except my own. And the fact that I couldn’t do it … I just needed a fresh set of eyes just to look at it and see if he saw anything out of the ordinary.”

Koepka is making his fourth start is as many weeks as he continues searching for the form that saw him take the professional game by the throat, winning four majors in nine tries from the 2017 U.S. Open through the 2019 PGA Championship. He’s also scheduled to play at next week’s Valspar Championship and the following week’s WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, then it’s off for one week before the Masters.

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images
Koepka chips to the 16th green as short-game coach Pete Cowan watches during a Wednesday practice round at TPC Sawgrass.

One thing Koepka’s not willing to blame his recent struggles on is his knee.

“My knee’s fine,” he said, despite having been on the record as saying the recovery hadn’t been going the way he’d hoped. “My knee’s exactly where it should be. It’s just a matter of execution, taking care of what I need to take care of. It has nothing to do with my knee.”

Koepka’s history here at Sawgrass is a bit of a mixed bag—his best finish in five Players starts is a tie for 11th, but he also holds a share of the course record with a final-round 63 here in 2018.

He’ll play the first two rounds with the two guys ahead of him in the World Rankings: Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm. Perhaps that bit of motivational fodder, combined with the emergency visit to Brooks, will jump-start Koepka’s year. Just in time for the majors.

“What Butch said, he saw it in four swings and told me a couple things. I had planned on being out there all day Tuesday, except he told me to fly out here get out here and practice, because he felt like everything was on the right track. Now it’s our job to make sure that it progresses and it progresses nicely with Claude.”

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By Alex Myers
The most piercing shots of the 148th Open Championship so far were delivered not by golf balls, but rather through the pointed words of one of the game’s most successful coaches. Pete Cowen, well known in Dubai where he has academies at all three Dubai Golf properties, was asked about the recent on-course antics of British golfer Matt Wallace. And he did not mince words.

In an interview with The Times published on Wednesday, Cowen condemned the fiery Wallace specifically for a berating he gave his caddie, Dave McNeilly, during the BMW International last month.

RELATED: Live Open coverage to be streamed to Middle East fans

“He is a complete idiot and the European Tour has to do something about it,” Cowen, who works with Brooks Koepka and Gary Woodland among others, told The Times. “A b——–g is no good, a fine is no good. He needs a ban. It’s a form of cheating because you’re putting your opponent off. The best thing would have been if his caddie had dropped his bag — I’d have chucked it in the bloody lake — but that wouldn’t do Dave McNeilly any good.”

Wallace, the 23rd-ranked player in the world, shot a final-round 70 to finish tied for third at the BMW, two shots out of a playoff eventually won by Andrea Pavan. After, Bunkered reported the European Tour was reviewing the matter for potential caddie abuse, but no punishment was issued. Wallace, who was also widely criticised for a putter slam at the British Masters in May, apologised and vowed to improve his behaviour on the eve of the Open.

Wallace’s agent, Chubby Chandler, responded to Cowen’s comments to Telegraph Sport’s James Corrigan. Chandler contends, “Matt and Dave have a terrific relationship and are very close,” and says, “Matt admits that sometimes his eagerness to succeed has got the better of him and has faced up to it, both with his team and the media.”

Chandler also closed with a jab at Cowen: “He’s a good kid who hasn’t smashed up markers or abused officials unlike some other players and to say he should be banned is utterly ridiculous. It’s funny, I remember a young player who I was on Tour with in the 70s who was renowned for his tantrums and snapping clubs. His name was Pete Cowen.”

Wallace will certainly be in a prominent spot at Royal Portrush: He’s paired with Tiger Woods and Patrick Reed for the first two rounds.

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By Kent Gray
Jumeirah Golf Estates’ world-class training academy has jettisoned its European Tour endorsement to put Peter Cowen’s name above the door.

Formerly the European Tour Performance Institute, JGE’s facility will become the third Peter Cowen Golf Academy to fall under the auspices of Dubai Golf, joining academies at Emirates Golf Club and Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club.

A long-held industry secret, the partnership between the world-renowned English coach to the stars and the host venue of the European Tour’s season-ending DP World Tour Championship was confirmed on Wednesday.

Cowen coaches some of the biggest names in the game including 2016 Open Champion Henrik Stenson, 2016 DP World Tour Championship winner Matthew Fitzpatrick and former world No.1 Lee Westwood. He also helps three-time major champion Brooks Koepka with his short game.

The announcement comes after Dubai Golf assumed management of JGE in October, meaning it oversees Dubai’s two European Tour venues. Emirates G.C. hosted the 30th-anniversary edition of the Omega Dubai Desert Classic in January.

Related: Dubai Golf assumes management of Jumeirah Golf Estates

“I have been coming to Dubai and Jumeirah Golf Estates for a number of years now and I am very proud of my association with the club, with many of my players enjoying success at the DP World Tour Championship,” said Cowen.

Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images
Cowen works with many of the game’s biggest names including former Open champion Henrik Stenson.

“The Peter Cowen Golf Academy Dubai will be a place for all players from beginners through to elite to come and get the most out of their game. The facilities at Jumeirah Golf Estates are unparalleled to anywhere in the world, and the players whom I work with around the time of the DP World Championship and Omega Dubai Desert Classic love to use the club and its facilities. I look forward to continuing my relationship with Jumeirah Golf Estates and Dubai Golf for many years to come.”

The Peter Cowen Golf Academy Dubai at JGE will officially open its doors late this month.

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A simple way to control the trajectory of your wedge game is via your tempo.

When the flag is located at the back of the green, a low running wedge shot will be useful. As well as moving the ball position back in your stance and having the hands forward, a shorter faster tempo will help to keep the trajectory down and have the ball release and run up to the flag.

For flags tucked away with little room to work with, a higher, softer landing shot is a must. By moving the ball position forward and performing a longer, smoother swing, the ball will fly high and drop out the sky.

Joe Way is a PGA Teaching Professional at DCGYC’s Peter Cowen Academy Dubai. For more information, visit dubaigolf.com

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