10 Reasons to buy the latest issue of TG
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10 Reasons to buy the latest of issue of TG: Featuring yearly awards, exclusive instruction, interviews and the rules you NEED to know for 2019
A Note from the editor
It’s the time of year for awards, from the BBC’s Sports Personality to the Queen’s New Year’s Honours. For the last two month’s, TG’s writers have been asking many of the world’s best players for their own award-winners of 2018 (answers on page 67). But to whet your appetite, here’s how the TG team voted in key categories.
➤ Player of the Year: Though Francesco Molinari has the season of his lilfe, we can’t look past two majors and climbing to World No.1 Step forwards, Brooks Koepka
➤ Breakout Star of the Year: Winning your first Tour event is tough. When it’s a Major, it’s incredible. And a Major on home soil? Wow. Georgia Hall’s Women’s Open win at Royal Lytham was spectacular
➤ Shot of the Year: Maybe it’s because it took place in the first of January, but all our pollsters forgot about DJ’s 433yard drive to six inches in Hawaii. Watching it back, it’s still astonishing.
➤ Social Media Star of the Year: Is there anyone but Eddie Pepperell in the running?
➤ Round of the Year: There have been hundreds of thousands of scores on the European Tour, but none had ever started with a five… until Oli Fisher’s historic round in September.
➤ Most Exciting Major: Molinari’s Open had it all: drama, blow-ups, a great course, Tiger in the mix. But if Tommy’s putt had dropped for 62 in the final round at the US Open…
➤ Best Performance of the Year: Cast your mind back to Sunday in Paris. What a team, what a result
➤ Funniest Moment of the Year: A slightly bleary-eyed Monday morning in Paris, when ‘Moliwood’ woke up together and sent social media into meltdown.
Most Memorable Moment: Tiger. Winning. Again.
Have a great 2019, and read on below for 10 reasons you should buy the latest issue of TG!! Chris Jones, Editor
HOW TO MASTER GOLF’S MUST HAVE SHOTS
Over eight pages in this month’s magazine are dedicated to helping you master the must-have shots, which will make up to 91.7% of your next round. Learn how to hit it longer, become more accurate with your approach shots, chip it closer and become smarter when it comes to putting!
20 NEW RULES YOU MUST KNOW OFF BY HEART
The new rules of golf are fast approaching (January 1!), so there’s not much time to brush up on your knowledge. We’ve put together 20 rules you NEED to know off by heart by the time you start playing next year.
SECRETS OF THE TOUR STAT LEADERS
There are to 190 players in each statistical category on the European Tour, which accumulates thousands of shots from every one of them during the course of a season. To get close to the top of a category, you’ve got to do something particularly well – and the six men in this feature have done exactly that. To find out how these guys do what they do so well, and how that can help you, we sat down with each of them to gain their insight. Featuring: Ryan Fox (Driving Distance), Ashley Chesters (Driving Accuracy), Erik Van Rooyen (Greens In Regulation), Edoardo Molinari (Sand Saves), Adrian Otaegui (Scrambling) and Chris Paisley (Putts Per Round).
JOY & DESPAIR OF LIFE AS A TOP CADDIE
If you really want to get inside the world of professional golf, there’s no one better to talk to than the long-serving caddies. In our latest feature we talk to Dave McNeilly, Brendan McCartain, Ian “Stretch” Moore, Dermot Byrne and Damian Moore – who total up an intimidating 132 years and 63 wins between them, including a major and a WGC. They talk freely and candidly about the highs, the lows, Majors, the Ryder Cup, their hopes and dreams and coming down the stretch as a winner… and a loser. It’s a must read!
INTERVIEW: HOW DANNY WILLETT BATTLED BACK
Just days before his victory at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, we sat down with Danny Willett, where he opened up about starting a new life in America, his new swing and the post-Masters depression that left him fearing for his future and struggling to pick up his kids.
TWIN TEST: COBRA F9 vs TITLEIST TS2
Speed is the most heavily researched area of driving right now. The idea is simple – by improving aerodynamics, you swing at the same speed but the clubhead travels quicker, equalling more yards. Two of the newest launches for 2019 both claim to have maximised this ingredient. Cobra has designed the new King F9 Speedback like a plane’s wing and taken inspiration from some of the world’s fastest objects, while Titleist say its engineers took two years to develop the ‘speed chassis’ inside the new TS2/TS3 drivers. But just how fast are they?
BEST GPS GADGETS
Getting a shot disance on the course used to involve yardage books and pacing out from an 150-yard marker, but nowadays there’s a plethora of ways to get your yardages! With New Year sales just around the corner, we thought it was an ideal time to highlight our favourite GPS Watches, Lasers, micro GPS devices, Free Apps and GPS Handheld devices!
2018 PLAYER AWARDS
Forget the Ballon d’Or or the PGA Tour’s equivalent. These are the end of season awards which really matter, the ones which are voted for by the players themselves. We know for a fact there’s plenty of opinionated golfers out there, so we scoured the driving range and locker rooms at three tournaments and formed a 20-strong panel of European Tour and PGA Tour stars to review 2018. We then presented each golfer with 10 categories and a list of nominees – and the stories which followed were almost as good as the beating Europe delivered at the Ryder Cup.
TG COLUMNISTS: ANDREW COTTER & NICK DOUGHERTY
In this month’s issue of TG, our two columnists look at two very different events in the past few months. Cotter takes a hard swipe at ‘The Match’ between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, the betting companies involved and why he much prefers ‘the proper golf’ battles of Molinari at Carnoustie, Georgia Hall at Royal Lytham and Tiger Woods at the Tour Championship. Dougherty meanwhile focuses upon Q-School, talking about the pressures of regaining your card – particularly for those like Mannassero, who is now headed back to the Challenge Tour after missing the cut at final stage.
COMPETITIONS: WIN A MIZUNO JACKET & PORTUGAL BREAK
This month we’re giving away two amazing prizes! SIX lucky TG readers have the chance to keep warm and look stylish on the course this winter with a Mizuno Move Tech Jacket, while one reader will win a three-night’s self-catering trip for four people at the Ocean Villa at Troia Resort, with two rounds of golf each. (Flights are not included)
