By Shane Ryan
JOHN’S CREEK, Ga. — This week’s KPMG PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club will see the use of rangefinders for the first time in a women’s major competition, continuing a trend seen at the men’s PGA in Kiawah in May. The PGA of America has permitted their use at other competitive events in 2021, and the move has sparked an immediate controversy about whether it benefits the game and whether it will even achieve its intended purpose of speeding up the pace. Some players still insisted they’d use their yardage books, and that double-checking would actually prolong play, and as of now, no other governing bodies have made moves to legalize the devices (though the PGA Tour does allow rangefinders in Monday qualifying).

Danielle Kang, winner of the 2017 PGA Championship, is against the new development entirely, as she made clear on Tuesday in Atlanta.

“Being honest, there’s a lot of things that I don’t agree with that the rules are changing because I’m kind of an old-school golfer,” she said of the new developments. “So I don’t even believe in greens books. I don’t even carry one. I believe that green reading is a skill.”

Her take on green-reading books is especially relevant this week, as rumours circulate that the PGA Tour may be on the verge of banning them. But Kang didn’t stop there; rangefinders equally offend her sense of how the game should be played.

“Rangefinders, I don’t think it’s going to speed up play,” she said, “just like I don’t think putting with the pin in is speeding up play. It hasn’t. I believe that the caddies, they work hard. I mean, some caddies are veteran caddies, they know how to get cover numbers, like being able to adjust, doing math is part of golf, adding and subtracting, sometimes making a mistake that you added instead of subtracted, that’s just part of the game. It’s part of life. If you take that out of play, I don’t know, I guess there might be less mistakes, I don’t know, but I see it as a little bit of a downside for just taking a classic game away.”

Kang is only 28 years old, but clearly has a throwback mentality when it comes to technological advances. Not all of her competitors agree.

“When I’m not sure about the lines on the greens and I can have a green book that everybody can get, I mean, I think it’s fair,” said Shanshan Feng. “If I can have a green book to help me to read it, to make it from 80 percent to 95 percent, I think it’s a good thing.”

“I feel like it will be a lot easier out there to calculate numbers and maybe a little bit more confidence because you know for sure that the number is right. Moving forward, it will be a good thing,” Brooke Henderson, the 2016 KPMG PGA winner, said of rangefinders. “And the green books, I understand why a lot of players don’t agree with them and why the PGA TOUR is possibly banning it next year. At the same time, I use one, so I really like it. I feel like, yes, it is definitely an advantage, just like rangefinders are, but I feel like they’ve been in play now for a few years and it seems to be okay. So that one I hope that the LPGA doesn’t ban.”

On the other side of the debate, Sophia Popov, last year’s Open Championship winner, agreed with Kang’s take on green-reading books, and struck a nostalgic tone.

“To me it was a little bit sometimes that I felt like I lost the little junior player in myself, the one that got really excited about having a good read, hitting the putt where I wanted to and it going in, going, that was a perfect read,” she said. “Now I rely on green books a lot and I make mistakes because of green books because it takes away my intuition and the first thing I saw on the greens. I’m right there with a lot of players where they say, if we got rid of green books I wouldn’t be very sad about it because I think it’s a skill that every player should have.”

Inbee Park seemed to be against it, if only slightly, and spared a thought of the effect it would have on caddies.

“It’s just literally taking their job away,” she said. “So I think it’s just — like I said, neutral. We’re going to get exact yardage to the pin, that’s for sure. Sometimes with the caddies, when you do the add-ups wrong or step it slightly wrong, you get a yard or two wrong, but we’re not going to get that with the yardage guns. I think it’s more accurate for the players, but from a caddie perspective, I think they might be against it.”

The divided opinion creates a sort of philosophical battleground ahead of the year’s third major, and comes at an interesting time in the sport’s technological evolution, when some governing bodies are curbing technology and others are forging ahead. Golf may look very different in five years, and how the conflict plays out this summer will play a massive role in the sport’s future.

The post Danielle Kang can’t stand rangefinders or green reading books; opinion divided in women’s game appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Kent Paisley
In the fall of 2018, Danielle Kang’s game had its most inconsistent stretch of her career. After becoming a major champion at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in 2017, she missed seven of nine cuts a year later, from June to September. With a one-month gap between events, the then 24-year-old Kang called Butch Harmon for help.

“I think she was just in a bad place mentally, anxiety and things that weren’t allowing her to be herself,” Harmon said at the Bank of Hope LPGA Match play. “I really just want to bring her own personality out and just let her be herself.”

The decision had more impact on her career than her victory at Olympia Fields in 2017. Kang ventured across the Pacific Ocean, refreshed with a new mindset, and finished T-3 at the LPGA Hana Bank Championship, followed by her second career victory a week later at the Buick LPGA Shanghai.

“He just focuses on a lot of positives,” Kang said. “As a golfer, it’s really hard to do. So I do give him a lot of credit for where I am now, and I think he expedited my journey.”

Since Harmon became Kang’s coach, they’ve won four times together, including a three-win-in-seven-start stretch from the end of 2019 at her successful Buick LPGA Shanghai title defence to back-to-back victories when the LPGA returned last August from the pandemic halt. In 51 starts since Butch came aboard in October 2018, Kang has finished in the top 10 25 times, a nearly 50 percent clip. She has missed only five cuts. Harmon attributes her energizer bunny level motor for her success since they teamed up.

“She works as hard or harder than any of the male players I ever had success with,” Harmon said. “She is always striving to get better. We talk about weak parts in her game, which used to be a weakness is now she’s turned them into strengths, so it’s been fun.”

Kang reciprocates the effort of the people around her, responding to their energy to bring more out of herself. “Having a caddie that gives me over 110 percent,” Kang said, “Having a coach that’s there for 150 percent makes me work harder, makes me want to be better, and it drives me to be a better golfer, better role model, better player.”

The two still go at it full bore today. After Kang played self-described “Wi-Fi” golf, missing wildly in both directions in San Francisco but with her short game carrying her to a T-5 finish at the LPGA Mediheal Championship, she and Harmon went back to work. In frustration, as she worked to get her swing back to neutral, Kang threw her club at one point. In response, Harmon then threw one himself.

“He said it’s [her club throw] pitiful,” Kang said. “He’s like, ‘Let me show you how to do it.’”

Harmon’s retort reinforced the most important lesson he taught her that came to Kang’s mind first on Tuesday. “That’s the one lesson that he put in my head is that everything’s fine,” Kang said. ”You’ve just got to keep working hard and be positive. Just believing in yourself and doing what you need to do and just trusting yourself.”

The trust they have keeps them in lockstep on their mission to win more. Harmon envisions one of his hardest-working players achieving that dream with her consistency delivering her to No. 6 in the world rankings and a spot on the U.S. Olympic team.

“It’s been fun,” Harmon said. “We got a few more [wins] to have.”

The post Butch Harmon may help Danielle Kang just as much with her mind as her swing appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

While Olympia Fields has hosted the U.S. Amateur and the Women’s PGA Championship in recent years, the Chicago course hasn’t been home to a men’s professional event since the 2003 U.S. Open. According to various outlets, that will change in 2020.

The Fried Egg and Chicago Tribune reported on Saturday that Olympia Fields is jumping into the BMW Championship rotation. Formerly known as the Western Open (which went to Olympia Fields five times), the tournament has been played in Illinois every other year since 2012, with next year’s event coming to Medinah after a visit to Aronimink in Pennsylvania this summer.

Along with its Western Open past, Olympia Fields has hosted two U.S. Opens and two PGA Championships. It was also the site of Bryson Dechambeau’s U.S. Am victory in 2015, while Danielle Kang enjoyed her major breakthrough there in 2017.

Olympia Fields ranked sixth (North) and 10th (south) in the latest Golf Digest Best in State rankings.

The post Reports: Olympia Fields to host its first professional men’s event since 2003 U.S. Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.