Start by voting in the poll, and then (if you’re brave) tell us more about your thoughts in the comments section. After a week or so of gathering the votes, our own Steve Atherton — as a part of the ASK STEVE feature — will offer his thoughts on the groove rules change. Specifically, Steve is going to talk about the results of the poll, discuss any questions or comments that you leave and then talk about how he thinks the rule change will affect him personally.
So, cast your vote and leave your thoughts. Then look for Steve’s response next week.
Overall, we aren’t surprised by the results. We didn’t have anyone on either extreme — carrying only one wedge or carrying five or more.
As always, we don’t ever want to leave you empty handed, so here are a few bits of wisdom from our own Steve Atherton — GolfTEC VP of Research and Development and PGA Master Professional in Instruction — on choosing how many wedges to carry.
Longer hitters should consider playing four wedges (which includes your PW) — the resulting increased yardage-gap between clubs can be minimized by carrying an additional wedge.
Match your wedge selection to the course you’re playing — each course presents unique challenges based on the conditions. Adding specific wedges to your bag according to the course can give you an advantage.
Consider not just the lofts that you need, but also the bounce…
…which happens to lead us to today’s poll, or rather, quiz.
Related to this quiz, we have an idea: we want to make Steve Atherton (follow him on Twitter: @AthertonPGA) a familiar face on this blog — which makes sense considering he is our top pro and this is, afterall, the GolfTEC Blog. Currently, we’re considering a weekly or biweekly Q&A type post. Basically, we open the floor up to all of our readers (that’s you) to ask any question they have related to golf, and then Steve chooses one and offers his insights.
Pretty cool to have the opportunity to get personal advice from a PGA Master Professional and Golf Digest Top 20 Under 40 instructor, huh?
We think it will be a great way to connect with our readers. It may work, it may not, but we’re at least going to give it a shot.
To transition towards getting direct questions from our readers, we’ll start with a few quizzes. Here’s how this works: below you’ll see our quiz; click on the answer that you think is most accurate. We’ll gather the results, and then Steve will provide his additional insight on the topic in the next week or so.
So let’s get to it — what do you know about bounce?
The 50-yard bunker shot is the most feared shot — receiving 56% of the votes
Now we don’t want to leave you empty handed, so here are a few tips on dealing with the dreaded 50-yard bunker shot:
Don’t hit your ball into the bunker — particularly the bunkers that are 50 yards from the green(the next three are serious)
Use a sand or gap wedge
Choke down slightly on the club
Take out minimal sand
Remember that a 50-yard bunker shot is an extremely challenging shot. And the tips we offered are far from a complete lesson on hitting it. The tips simply provide a few things that might help you.
Moving on to the new poll. It seems that the days of the long irons are coming to an end. Hybrids are rapidly gaining popularity — and rightfully so. But there are still some — and likely always will be — that stay loyal to their long irons. So what about you? Vote below. And feel free to tell us more in the comments section.
In a 63-27 vote, with two abstentions, the IOC voted golf in as an Olympic sport for the 2016 and 2020 games.
After the news broke this morning, we’ve gone around the office to gather some thoughts and opinions. Here are a few:
From a golf instruction perspective, this is exciting news. In countries where golf is in development, adding the sport to the Olympics has the potential to bring greater attention to growing the game. Globally, this could mean more golfers in more countries. We love to see opportunities for the game to grow.
Regarding the PGA Tour and the players, it will be very interesting to see the impact of another event. While it has been agreed that no major championships will be scheduled during the Olympic dates, the reality still remains: it’s one more tournament for the Tour players to deal with.
However, Tiger, at the President’s Cup in San Francisco, seemed positive in saying, “There are millions of young golfers worldwide who would be proud to represent their country. It would be an honor for anyone who plays this game to become an Olympian.”
It certainly will be interesting to see the impact adding golf as an Olympic sport has on the game as whole. To read more, check out this article on Golf.com.
So what do you think?
Vote in the poll below and feel free to tell us your thoughts in the comments section.
Posted by GolfTEC 
