Table of contents for October 2024 in Golf Monthly

In early September, GB&I defeated USA 10.5-9.5 after a thrilling finish at Sunningdale to secure the Curtis Cup for the first time since 2016. With the score at 7-5 going into the singles session, it appeared as though the Americans would maintain their recent stranglehold on the event, with splashes of red quickly filling up the board early on. However, the home team fought back with aplomb and big victories from Sara Byrne and Patience Rhodes, in the second and fourth matches respectively, put GB&I within touching distance. After Patience had dominated Zoe Campos 6&5, it was ultimately down to her sister Mimi Rhodes to secure the crucial half-point required in the penultimate match. It arrived late on via a wonderful par save on the 17th to remain one up,…

Spain GF: €145 (Lakes, Hills), €57 (Ruins) Stats: Lakes: par 71, 6,489 yards; Hills: par 72, 6,541 yards; Ruins: par 34, 2,642 yards Just an hour or so down the coastline from Barcelona is the historic, walled port of Tarragona. Between it and the resort of Salou, you will find not one but three excellent courses, which make up the deliciously mixed paella of golf on offer at the award-winning and eco-friendly Infinitum. Two of the three courses, the Lakes and the Ruins, were designed by two-time Open Champion Greg Norman. The former, as its name hints, is the toughest test with water beckoning virtually all the way. Stay dry and there is plenty of sand, but happily some grass, too. This is nonetheless a completely fair course, dramatic and…

Peter Finch is one of the most familiar faces in the new digital age of golf content creation. Having amassed 750,000+ YouTube subscribers on his three channels – nearly 200 million views on his main channel alone – plus 280,000 Instagram followers, he’s one of golf’s biggest voices and personalities, covering everything from course vlogs and tuition to buying advice. He’s also one of Golf Monthly’s Top 50 Coaches. In March, he took part in ‘The Q at Myrtle Beach’, a 16-player, 18-hole shootout among pros and fellow YouTubers with a sponsor’s spot at a PGA Tour event up for grabs. The tournament seemingly set the precedent for what looks to be a much closer relationship between the professional game and online content creators, with the Creator Classic following in August…

Juniors are essential to the success of golf on a global scale. At clubs, they should be welcomed with open arms, encouraged and respected. Many facilities do a fantastic job of nurturing and motivating young golfers, and countless clubs have schemes in place – often run by passionate volunteer members – to help juniors learn, develop, have fun and fall in love with the game. From taster sessions to free lessons and, in some cases, complimentary junior memberships – as at Seaton Carew in County Durham – the work being done in this realm is commendable. However, it’s not all positive. The old adage that ‘children should be seen and not heard’ is sometimes used as a metaphorical stick to beat juniors with. At times, youngsters can be treated like…

TaylorMade spearheaded the movement towards full-face grooves back in 2017. Four generations later, the brand has released the Hi-Toe 4, which continues to offer golfers of all abilities maximum versatility. The changes to the design, at least on the rear of the club, look spectacular in my opinion, although I could see how some people might say it almost doesn’t look finished due to the large clear space in the middle. But this is a change I like. The ATC grind was a joy to use in firmer ground conditions The copper finish is something that has remained consistent throughout all TaylorMade’s Hi-Toe models and this, along with the raw face, helps to reduce any glare on sunny days. The shaping is good, though those who prefer a straighter leading…

Essentials Wentworth Drive, Broadstone, Dorset, BH18 8DQ Stats: par 70, 6,393 yards GF: round: £130; day: £210 There are five very highly ranked courses in and around Bournemouth, with Ferndown, Parkstone, Broadstone, Remedy Oak and Isle of Purbeck all in our UK&I Top 200 and all remarkably different from one another. The one with arguably the greatest variety from start to finish is the beautiful, undulating heathland design at Broadstone. The club was founded in 1898 as The Dorset Golf Club, and its original layout was the work of Tom Dunn, who was then the professional at nearby Meyrick Park. Herbert Fowler was subsequently engaged to redesign the bunkering, but much of his work was on holes that were lost when the great Harry Colt was brought in at the…

“Scheffler isn’t the Elliott Golfer of the Year - Lottie Woad is our choice” So Scottie Scheffler won the FedExCup, his $25 million bonus taking his year’s winnings to more than $62 million after seven PGA Tour victories. Oh, and an Olympic Gold to hang round his neck when he next wears his Augusta Green Jacket. Except he won’t do that, of course. He is not that sort of bloke – I would, given the chance (increasingly unlikely) but we’re all different. He is also the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year, the undisputed champion of almost all he surveys. He is, however, almost too good for his own good. Wee Rory says he envies Scheffler’s calm approach to playing elite golf for a living, that he admires the way…

Easy East Lake While Scottie Scheffler was clearly the best golfer this year, wouldn’t it have been interesting for the Tour Championship to play a difficult course that might have made it challenging and competitive? Golfers shooting 22-under-par and playing the back nine in 30 is more like a procession than a tough competitive test. Scheffler already had a start on the field (not sure about that, either) and dismantled the course. Royal Troon was a proper test of golf for The Open, but East Lake (and many other PGA Tour courses) are just set up too easy. I watch lots of golf but I find the PGA Tour so boring when they are shooting such low scores because there is no rough to speak of. Robert Butler, via email…

“THERE’S ZERO VALIDITY TO WHAT ANY OF THAT SAID. I DON’T KNOW WHERE IT CAME FROM”Jon Rahm reacts to a report he held ‘deep regret’ over his move to LIV Golf “IF IT HADN’T BEEN HERE, I PROBABLY WOULDN’T BE PLAYING. THIS IS PROBABLY MY FAVOURITE GOLF COURSE”Catriona Matthew on her last AIG Women’s Open at St Andrews was to be her last “I’M GOING TO THINK ABOUT TRYING TO BUILD IN A FEW EXTRA BREAKS… I FELT LIKE I HIT A BIT OF A WALL”Rory McIlroy admits his packed 2024 schedule took its toll and he plans to make changes next year “WITH THE NEW RYDER CUP SYSTEM COMING AROUND, IT HAS REALLY GIVEN ME THAT BUZZ TO GET THE JUICES FLOWING AGAIN”Matt Wallace has Bethpage Black well and…

Built on the successful foundation laid down by its predecessors, the new Mizuno JPX925 family of irons promises unmatched feel and distance, while offering excellent fitting options to boot. For the first time, the JPX Hot Metal family includes multi-material construction, enhancing the performance of Nickel Chromoly with tungsten to deliver higher launch and steeper landing angles. There are three distinct irons in the family – first, the JPX925 Hot Metal, designed with maximum speed and consistency at its core. Tungsten weighting from 4- to 7-iron positions weight lower to facilitate higher launch and a lower sweetspot. It features a Cortech design with a Contour Ellipse Face, which has reduced face thickness by 30%, paving the way to enhanced ball speeds from centre strikes and maximum speed retention through the…

9 o’clock comes around on Tuesday May 28, 2024 and I find myself sitting in the clubhouse at The Ridge Golf Club near Maidstone in Kent with photographer Howard Boylan awaiting the arrival of my playing companion. It will be a day of firsts for me: the first time I’ve played this course even though it’s less than an hour from home; the first time I’ve met someone from Nepal; and the first time I’ve played with a double below-the-knee amputee. I’m feeling abnormally nervous for someone who has been doing this job for 25 years, but Kushal Limbu quickly puts me at ease when he walks in with a warm smile. Soon we’re standing on the 1st tee as the rain begins to fall steadily and the proposed 18-hole match…

FROM THE TOUR ORIGINAL BALL FOUND BUT NOT BY PLAYER An experience many of us can relate to is hitting our golf ball offline and towards the bushes, and to then follow up by hitting a provisional ball straight down the middle of the fairway or on to the green. This is what happened to Shane Lowry on the 11th hole at Royal Troon on day two of The Open. Lowry’s second shot out of thick grass headed into the gorse bushes lining the left side, so he played a provisional ball which was struck onto the green. Following the fine approach with his provisional ball, Lowry wished to proceed with it and attempt a putt for a would-be bogey. However, a spectator had already found a ball in the…

For all the various iron models PXG has released since its inception, there has never really been a pure game-improvement iron offering… until now. From a shelf-appeal point of view, this is my favourite iron of the latest PXG releases, which also include the 0311 P Gen 7 iron. The brushed-steel finish is fantastic and the carbon-effect badge on the rear, which forms part of the dual-cavity design, adds a premium feel to the aesthetics. Down behind the ball, it is difficult to feel anything but extreme confidence with the Black Ops. The footprint is fairly substantial, the topline chunky and there is plenty of offset, but it all comes together well to produce an attractive iron for the higher-handicap player. The sizable footprint should appeal to golfers with higher…

Brands are always looking for ways to make their products even better and, in the case of Bushnell, it has done just that, with its incredibly popular Phantom 3 Slope GPS receiving a cluster of new features and updates to expand its offering further. We all know that Bushnell excels when it comes to distance-measuring devices, and the Phantom 3 Slope continues to be the top-performing, premium model in its GPS range. Now, thanks to an all-new, large, crystal-clear touchscreen and slope-compensated distances, it has just got even better. It’s unusual to find the Slope technology you see in many of the brand’s rangefinders incorporated into a GPS device. But Bushnell has always excelled at creating and adding new forms of technology to its products and, with the ability to…

The Titleist 975D is on our retro radar this month, a club that was a phenomenon in 1998 when it led the driver counts on almost every major tour. David Duval became World No.1 using it and Tiger was arguably at his very best with it, wielding it during the ‘Tiger Slam’. What was the tech? The 260cc all-titanium head has a bore-through hosel and a very pear-shaped profile that sculpted the look of many subsequent Titleist drivers. It was available in a wide range of lofts from 5.5˚ to 12.5˚ and was one of the last drivers available in both steel and graphite. How did it perform? I pitted it against the newly released Titleist GT3 in a launch monitor head-to-head. The first thing I noticed was the sheer…

Lydia, congratulations on winning the AIG Women’s Open. How do you reflect on that? It’s been a crazy past few weeks. You know, something that was too good to be true happened [winning the Olympics], and I honestly didn’t think it could be any better. Now I’m the AIG Women’s Open Champion. Obviously being at the Old Course at St Andrews makes it so much more special. I played here when I was 16 in 2013, but I don’t think I got to really enjoy it and realise what an amazing place it is. Honestly, it’s been such a fairytale. You’re now a three-time Major Champion, but it was eight years between numbers two and three. How do you assess that period? I’ve had my fair share of ups and…

Jason Day has been at the very top of this game, while also seeing some low points with injuries and poor form along the way. He’s just wrapped up his 17th season on the PGA Tour and the one-time boy wonder now brings some sage perspective when discussing his career accomplishments and what he still wants to achieve in golf. He’s won one Major to date and finished 2nd in the other three. He would love to add their spoils to his trophy case. You can’t fault his drive and desire. What I find fascinating about Day is how steely and determined he can be inside the ropes when winning at what fellow Aussie Adam Scott called Tiger-esque rates in 2016, while also being so amicable with fans and media…

To flight it lower, move the ball further back than usual to increase your chances of showing more shaft lean and reducing dynamic loft. Have your weight favouring your lead side, then feel very little weight shift onto your trail leg as you swing, to encourage ‘ball first’ contact and, again, to reduce the loft you present at impact. Too much spin is a killer into the wind, so slow your swing tempo to reduce this. Finally, club choice – ask yourself this: when was the last time you overshot a green playing into the wind? Next time you face such a shot in a friendly, drop a few balls and hit them one by one taking less loft each time. You may be surprised how many more clubs you…

Titleist has retained its familiar, clean aesthetic. From the playing position, the GT2 looks exceptional New driver releases from Titleist are among the most anticipated in the industry. With a huge tour presence and an incredibly loyal customer base, a lot of people have been looking forward to seeing if the new GT2 driver can compete with, or even outshine, its competitors. Titleist was determined to make the GT range faster than its predecessor, the TSR family, and it felt that the only way to do so was by moving away from an all-titanium construction. This led to the development of a material completely new to golf club design that Titleist refers to as a proprietary matrix polymer, which is used in the crown section. I was given a cut-out…

Adidas has had itself a busy year. After launching the hero Tour360 24 shoe in February, we’ve now seen new colourways drop for the Samba and MC80 shoes. This autumn, the brand has brought the third generation of its impressive, spikeless Codechaos shoe to life, with subtle changes that seek to build on its success. It is currently available in two colour options One of the most noticeable is the outsole. On the 2022 model, the outsole actually bled onto the sides of the shoe, providing an eye-catching look as well as the benefit of extra grip on the instep. That’s gone in the 2025 version, with the lugs also changing shape and covering a greater surface area than on the previous iteration. You can really feel it at work…

Vietnam is enjoying a golfing boom with 50+ new courses under construction. Its greatest hotspot is arguably the central section of its glorious coastline in the east. Here, where the sparkling South China Sea laps onto golden beaches, the country is packed with historic cities and sites, spectacular scenery and cultural diversity. There are more than enough strong courses to warrant its billing as Vietnam’s Golf Coast. From Hanoi in the north or Ho Chi Minh City in the south, it’s just a short flight to the heart of the action, the French colonial port of Da Nang. Within easy reach are several fine courses including the outstanding and multi-award-winning Ba Na Hills, designed in 2016 by Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald. It plays through an undulating junglescape overlooked by…

At the highest point of the course, the short 6th at North Wilts is nominally the easiest hole on the card and with wonderful far-reaching views too North Wilts GF: 18 holes: £50wd, £60we If scenery and variety are what you seek in a golf course, then North Wilts more than ticks both boxes. There are two contrasting loops here, with the opening ten holes playing over the road from the clubhouse. These follow the gentle, and occasionally not so gentle, slopes and reward the golfer with panoramic vistas of the rolling hills all around. As you rise up to the top, the views get ever better while the elevation changes can make club selection tricky at times, especially if the wind is up. There is more of a parkland…