Dustin Johnson clinches the World Number 1 spot with victory on the PGA Tour at the weekend and it's apparent that the world of Professional Golf is changing. It looks like the days of world ranking domination by the likes of a Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman or Tiger Woods have gone and the number 1 spot seems to change more often than the title of 'Best player to have never won a major'.
Ironically the LPGA tour has gone the other way. In the past decade we have seen the LPGA tour dominated in depth by Korean and Asian golfers and there are so many of equally good standard, that the wins get spread around a lot. So, once a golfer like Lydia Ko lands herself in the number 1 spot, it would take a lot of tournaments for her to be deposed by a very consistent competitor.
The huge equipment endorsements have also taken a back seat in recent months too. It was common for a player who was sponsored by TaylorMade to also wear Ashworth clothing and adidas shoes as the latter owned all three brands. Similarly with Callaway owning Odyssey, Titleist owning FootJoy and Scotty Cameron and Nike having all their players using the ball, clubs, shoes and clothing. Since Nike pulled out of the equipment market late last year and TaylorMade are up for sale, many of the players are choosing to play whatever clubs they like and be sponsored by corporate non-golf brands instead. Up until 20 years ago, players would be paid to promote the brand or a certain number of clubs and other than that, they were free to use whatever they wished, which is what is tending to happen again now. You've only got to see Rory (a Nike player) using Callaway clubs without being paid, and Tiger (a Nike player) using a mixture of TaylorMade and Bridgestone equipment and this week at Riviera there were 13 players using Mizuno irons on the PGA Tour instead of their sponsoring brand.
It's all good news for club golfers, who can be more confident that the player is using what works for them rather than what pays them the most (which was always ironic given that they are multimillionaires anyway), it's good news for club fitters like myself and of course it's good news for the equipment companies who now have the opportunity to get Tour presence without spending the big $$$$$'s.
Here's a picture of the eagerly awaited Mizuno JPX900 wood range which has just landed. Due to pre-orders, some of it has already been reserved but come and have a go with the demo kit.
We also have a new arrival in the shop in the form of Brocton member Graham Southall who you will start to see helping us out in the shop. Luke graduates with the PGA next month and will be focusing his attention on playing in the Midland region and the EuroPro Tour and junior coaching at Brocton, plus individual lessons, which means we have the need for some part-time help and Graham's got a fantastic attitude, plus he's a left hander so he can translate for us when talking to the wrong-way-round brigade! (Or maybe that's all the right-handers?!)
It's a busy time at the club now as the daffodils appear on the bank by the 17th, signaling the impending start of the season. The course maintenance has been taking place all week Andy and the staff working late on Monday to get as much of it done as possible before the forecast rain. If it does rain much, they'll be leaving the top-dressing until it's dried off a bit as otherwise it just washes away.
The kitchen refurbishment has been a huge team effort with Justin and the team all getting stuck in to the decorating and removals and they're due to get everything back into place this week I believe.
The golf course was busy on Sunday with the Texas Scramble event. You can never tell when it's going to be busy - I was there from 7:15 and we only had 4 golfers enter the competition by 8:15, but then 144 others came down in the next 3 hours! There are a few groups, of say a dozen people, who arrange to come down at the same time and throw the balls up to decide the pairings - not a problem unless more than one group turns up at the same time.
Straight away this would cause an hours queue on the tee. Maybe if you're in these groups, you could let the Pro Shop know what time you're intending to play and we can inform the membership when we send the message out requesting fix-ups?
Congratulations to competition secretary Neil Johnson who had a hole-in-one on the 3rd hole on the way to winning the event with a stunning 51.7 (13 under par gross!) with Anthony Dell, Andy Jones and James Skelton.
Finally, we have lots of you to get engaged with to improve your golf this year. In March I will be holding another Academy night in the clubhouse, and later in the spring we have a putter demo day, a wedge workshop and demo day, an Aimpoint green-reading class, a 10 yard challenge PLUS the popular Tuesday Night Social will be starting again in the middle of March.
After all, it's only 6 weeks until the first men's competition of the year! Until then, we have a new junior coaching session starting next Saturday as well as ladies group coaching and seniors group coaching - click here if you'd like the details.
In the Workshop this week:
- Miura Black Boron CB57 irons - 4- pw - KBS C-Taper shafts
- Cleveland RTX 3 Black wedges - KBS C-Taper shafts
- Cleveland RTX 2 wedges - lightweight steel shafts
- Mizuno JPX 900 fairway - ACCRA FX shaft
- Mizuno JPX 900 fairway - Speeder shaft
- Mizuno JPX 900 HotMetal 5-pw- Project X graphite shafts
- Mizuno JPX 900 Forged 6-pw - True Temper XP105 shafts
