Cameron Champ’s performance at the Sanderson Farms Championship proved he’s more than just a long-ball hitter. His four-shot win over Corey Conners, however, was built largely on his prowess off the tee combined with a deft touch on the greens.

For the week Champ averaged 334 yards off the tee, leading the field. Champ also picked up more than 5.5 yards off the tee in strokes gained/off the tee with his Ping G400 Max driver, albeit a backup that he had on site in his car after his gamer cracked shortly before teeing off Sunday. Champ’s driver has a 44.75-inch Fujikura Pro White TS 63x shaft tipped 1.5 inches and a swingweight of D-3.

At the other end, Champ displayed a nice touch on the greens with a Ping PLD Mid Tyne 4 prototype putter that is 34.5 inches with 2 degrees of loft and half a degree flat. Champ used the putter to roll in birdie putts of 10, 7, 5 and 38 feet respectively on holes 13 through 16 to boost his cushion to two shots after a slow start. Champ added a punctuation mark with one more seven-footer for birdie at the last. For the event Champ picked up more than nine strokes on the field in strokes gained/putting, ranking second. The PLD stands for Ping Lab Design which offers the opportunity for players to get putters that specifically meet their needs outside of production-run models. The Tyne 4 head is a mallet with wings in back for added stability.

What Cameron Champ had in the bag at the Sanderson Farms Championship

Ball: Srixon Z Star XV

Driver: Ping G400 Max (Fujikura Pro White TS 63x), 9 degrees

3-wood: Ping G400, 14.2 degrees

Irons (4): Ping i500; (5-PW): Ping iBlade

Wedges: Ping Glide Forged (50, 54, 60 degrees)

Putter: Ping PLD Mid Tyne 4 prototype

 

Source: golfdigest.com

Stop me if this sounds familiar. You set up to hit a chip. You’ve got your weight forward, the shaft leaning toward the target, and you’re playing the ball off your back foot. When you swing, you catch the ball super low on the face, and skull it across the green. On the next attempt, you gouge a chunk of sod behind the ball, and it goes nowhere.

This might surprise you, but although the results of those two mis-hits are very different, they’re often caused by the same mistakes. The first is the bottom of your swing is in the wrong place, and the second is the club is not interacting with the turf the way it’s designed.

The name of this page is Gimme One Thing, but I’m going to give you two things to think about the next time your chipping issues flare up. Remember the words bottom and bounce. What do they mean and how do they apply to better chipping? When you think bottom, your focus should be on getting the club to hit the turf consistently in the same place. For chipping, that should be slightly ahead of the ball’s position on the ground. You can help make sure that happens by checking your shirt buttons and nose at setup. They should be slightly closer to the target than the ball. I like to say, as the nose goes, so does the bottom of your swing.

The second word to think about, bounce, means how the club interacts with the turf. You want the club to glide along the grass, not dig into it. The leading edge and trailing edge of the clubface should contact the ground evenly. The beauty of this technique is that the swing bottom can be a fraction off, and you’ll still likely hit a decent chip shot. No one will be the wiser.

So set up with your weight favoring your front foot, the ball in the middle of a narrow stance, and your nose and shirt buttons slightly closer to the target. Now when you swing, focus on letting the leading edge and trailing edge of the club make contact with the ground simultaneously right below your nose. Fixate on that, and your body and arms will intuitively move to get the bounce just right.

You’ll notice that I’m relatively still with my body going back; it’s mostly an arm swing. I do that to make sure my swing bottom won’t change from where I want it to be.

And when I swing down, I’m letting my body rotate toward the target. This rotation guides the club through impact on a shallow approach. There’s no chopping into the turf; it’s the right amount of interaction between the leading edge and the trailing edge. One final tip: Keep your body rotating long after the ball is gone like I am here.

Next time you struggle around the greens, remember: bottom and bounce.

SURVIVAL GUIDE
Golf instruction on the range is great, but sometimes you need help while you’re playing—stat! In his video series, “Bad-Ass Short Game,” Ritter tackles many of the issues regular golfers have around the greens and gives his unique—and bold—approach to correcting them.

Source: www.golfdigest.com

Specials:

Appetizer:

Wurstsalat (German Potato Salad)

Entrees:

Flounder

Portabella & Chicken Linguine

Pork Chop Tower

Specials

1/2 Price Limited Appetizers:

Onion Rings – Mushrooms – Cheese Sticks – Blue Tee Chips Nachos – Bavarian Pretzels

Drinks:

$1.00 Domestic Drafts

$4.00 Well Drinks

$5.00 Mules

$6.00 Call Drinks

$3.00 Tangled Roots Drafts

$5.00 Glass of Wine

Brooks Koepka’s four-shot win at the CJ Cup propelled him to No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time. It also created a different kind of first in OWGR history.

Koepka kept alive a musical chairs situation in the top spot the likes that has never been seen before. For the first time since the ranking’s inception in 1986, the current top four (Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose and Justin Thomas) is comprised of players who all made it to No. 1 in the same year.

“It’s amazing to go World No. 1 on a win,” Koepka said after pulling away from the field in South Korea. “I think is something I’ve always wanted to do. I always wanted to earn my way to No. 1 in the world, and I felt like if I played and won, that would be exactly how I could draw it up. To do that this week has been special.”

It’s also just the second time that four different players ascended to No. 1 in the same year. The only other instance occurred in 1997 when Greg Norman, Tom Lehman, Tiger Woods, and Ernie Els all spent time in the top spot.

Overall, Koepka, 28, is the 23rd player to be No. 1 in the OWGR and the 11th in the past eight years.

Source: www.golfdigest.com

Don’t Miss Out On The Best Halloween Party In Town!

The party starts at 6:00pm on Friday, October 26th! There will be free appetizers, prizes for those who dress up, and karaoke beginning at 8:00pm.

Call (815) 223-7273 to make your reservation! Be sure to reserve early so you can show us your karaoke skills at 8:00pm!

Walk-Ins Accepted | Call 815-223-7273 To Make a Reservation

Specials for 10/19-10/20:

Appetizer:

German Potato Skins

Entrees:

Schnitzel / Spatzel

Beer Battered Blue Gill

Crab & Clam Linguine

Specials

1/2 Price Limited Appetizers:

Onion Rings – Mushrooms – Cheese Sticks – Blue Tee Chips Nachos – Bavarian Pretzels

Drinks:

$1.00 Domestic Drafts

$4.00 Well Drinks

$5.00 Mules

$6.00 Call Drinks

$3.00 Tangled Roots Drafts

$5.00 Glass of Wine

It is arguably one of the few sports terms believed to be named after a person, and with ramifications beyond the border of a course and into politics and daily life.

You don’t have to be a golfer to enjoy the benefits of a Mulligan – the term is now widely used to describe any “do-over,” or second chance after initial failure.

Of course, the rules of golf forbid the Mulligan, though it’s become part of the game. Some golfers apply their own “rules” that the Mulligan will be in “play” once per round, or just on the No. 1 tee.

So, where and when did the Mulligan begin in golf? Well, that depends.

The USGA, and supported by research by GriffGolf.com, found the Mulligan became rooted in the game’s lexicon sometime between the late 1920s and mid-1930s. During that period, Canadian-born amateur David Bernard Mulligan had established himself as a prominent member of clubs that included Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

In the late 1920s, Mulligan had a regular club foursome, which he often drove to the course in a 1920s vintage Briscoe, a touring car.

Once on the first tee, the story goes, his partners allowed him to hit a second ball after mishitting his drive. Mulligan complained that his hands were still numb after driving rough roads and a bumpy Queen Victoria Jubilee Bridge (now Victoria Bridge).

Mulligan joined Winged Foot Golf Club sometime between 1932 and 1933. A generation later, in July 1985, journalist Don Mackintosh interviewed Mulligan for a column, “Around the Sport Circuit.”

Said Mulligan: “I was so provoked with myself that, on impulse, I stooped over and put down another ball. The other three looked at me with considerable puzzlement, and one of them asked, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I’m taking a correction shot,’ I replied.”

His playing partner asked what he called that.

“Thinking fast, I told him that I called it a ‘Mulligan.’ They laughed and let me play a second ball. After the match, which Mulligan and Spindler won by one point, there was considerable discussion in the clubhouse about that free shot.

“It all worked out amicably enough, but after that it became an unwritten rule in our foursome that you could take an extra shot on the first tee if you weren’t satisfied with your original. Naturally, this was always referred to as ‘taking a Mulligan.’ From that beginning, I guess the practice spread, and the name with it.”

Such a tale appears to be on solid footing, though USGA research hints there’s wiggle room for another “Mulligan.”

John A. “Buddy” Mulligan, a locker room attendant in the 1930s at Essex Fells CC, N.J., would finish cleaning the locker room and, if no other members appeared, play a round with assistant professional, Dave O’Connell and a club member, Des Sullivan (later golf editor of The Newark Evening News).

One day, Mulligan’s opening tee shot was bad and he beseeched O’Connell and Sullivan to allow another shot since they “had been practicing all morning,” and he had not. After the round, Mulligan proudly exclaimed to the members in his locker room for months how he received an extra shot.

The members loved it and soon began giving themselves “Mulligans” in honor of Buddy Mulligan. Sullivan began using the term in his golf pieces in The Newark Evening News. NBC’s “Today Show” ran the story in 2005.

Thus, a “Mulligan” found its niche along in our culture. Its popularity thrives because of who we are – lovers of a good story and a term that somehow fits. It thrives as we are reminded in a classic line from the 1962 John Ford Western film, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.”

Source: www.pga.com

Jordan Spieth failed to meet the PGA Tour’s minimum appearance requirement last season when he did not to advance to the Tour Championship. Perhaps making sure he doesn’t fall short of that number again, the three-time major winner has committed to his first career fall event in the United States.

On Friday, the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open announced that Spieth would be in this year’s field at the start of November.

“I’m really excited to be playing in the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open,” Spieth told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “The event has been on my radar for a while, as the course has a great reputation on tour and I absolutely love the affiliation with the hospital. It’s going to be a really fun week in a great city.”

Although not meeting the 25-event perquisite is subject to a “major penalty” and fine, Andy Pazder, the chief of operations for the PGA Tour, said in Atlanta last month that the tour and Spieth had “come to a resolution” regarding the provision and promised, “I’m not going to be able to share the details of that, [but] I will say the result is something that you will see next season. It’s resolved in a way that’s going to be a win for our tournaments, our fans and golf in general.”

Other commits to the Shriners include Rickie Fowler, Bryson DeChambeau, Tony Finau and Patrick Cantlay (who is the defending champion). The Shriners begins on November 1 at TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas.

Source: golfdigest.com