The Fitting Game-Changer: Why Club Fitting Should Transform How You Think About Your Equipment Let me be direct with you: most golfers are playing with clubs that don’t match their swing. After 15+ years teaching high-level amateurs and tour professionals, I’ve seen this pattern repeat endlessly. A golfer will come to me with equipment that looks impressive in the bag but doesn’t actually work for their game. The frustrating part? They didn’t know what they were missing. This is exactly where the conversation around proper club fitting becomes so valuable. It’s not about having the latest, shiniest equipment—it’s about having…

Charlie Woods Goes His Own Way: What FSU’s Recruiting Win Tells Us About Golf’s Future I’ve spent thirty-five years around professional golf, and I can tell you with absolute certainty: the most interesting storylines rarely come from what happens on the course. They come from the decisions made before a player ever steps foot on one. So when Charlie Woods announced his verbal commitment to Florida State rather than following his father Tiger to Stanford, my first instinct wasn’t surprise. My second was respect. What struck me most, though, was what this decision reveals about how the game itself is…

When The Daily Duffer launched back in 2009, golf equipment testing was still finding its footing. Launch monitors were clunky, fitting data was limited, and frankly, a lot of gear decisions came down to feel and marketing budget. Fifteen years later, I’ve tested hundreds of clubs across multiple platforms, and I can tell you: the testing methodology matters enormously. Which is exactly why I want to talk about something that often gets overlooked in equipment discussions—the importance of diverse testing perspectives. “Our testing staff includes players ranging from low to high handicappers to provide perspectives relevant to all golfers, regardless…

Augusta National’s Patch Project: A Masterclass in How Golf’s Elite Can Actually Help the Game Grow I’ve been covering professional golf for 35 years, and I’ve seen Augusta National do a lot of things well. They run the Masters like clockwork. They protect their brand with the precision of a championship putter. But what they’re doing with The Patch—the reimagined Augusta Municipal Golf Course—that’s something different. That’s them using their considerable leverage not just to protect the game’s prestige, but to genuinely expand access to it. And in an era where public golf is struggling, that matters more than you…

Rory’s Return and the Pebble Beach Puzzle: Why This Week Matters More Than You Think There’s something refreshing about watching a top player take control of his own calendar. Rory McIlroy skipped the first four events of 2026—a statement in itself—and is making his seasonal debut this week at Pebble Beach. In my 35 years covering this tour, I’ve learned that when elite players get selective about their schedule, it’s never random. There’s always a story underneath. McIlroy’s decision to wait for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am tells us something important about where his head is at. He won this…

The Art of Knowing Your Tools: Why Wedge Fitting Is Actually a Lifestyle Choice There’s a moment in every golfer’s journey when you stop looking for magic and start looking for certainty. It usually happens after you’ve spent years hitting the same shot differently, wondering why your 54-degree wedge feels like a stranger in your hands one day and your best friend the next. That’s when you realize something crucial: you’ve been renting your game instead of owning it. I’ve spent enough time around elite players and their teams to know that the gap between a 9.8 and a 9.79…

The Missing Piece: How Emphasis and Proof Transform Your Golf Swing I’ve been teaching golf for over 15 years, and I’ve noticed something interesting about golfers who make real breakthroughs. They’re not necessarily the ones with the most natural talent or the fanciest equipment. They’re the ones who understand the “why” behind what they’re doing. One of my students, Shammah, came to me frustrated after years of inconsistency. His swing had parts that worked beautifully—his takeaway was smooth, his tempo was reasonable—but something was missing. When we finally identified the specific piece he needed, his entire game shifted. That’s the…

England’s Women’s Golf Moment Is Here—And It Matters More Than You Think I’ve been covering professional golf for 35 years, and I’ve learned to recognize the difference between a hot streak and a genuine shift in the sport’s landscape. What’s happening right now with English women’s golf isn’t the former. It’s the latter. When Lottie Woad cracked the top 10 in November, making her and Charley Hull the first two English players to occupy that space simultaneously, something clicked. Not just for these two talented competitors, but for an entire generation of English golfers who’ve been quietly building toward this…

The OWGR Top-10 Cutoff Is Equipment Punishment Disguised as Recognition I need to be straight with you: I’ve spent the last week reading through the OWGR’s decision to award Official World Golf Rankings points only to LIV Golf players finishing in the top 10, and it’s one of the most brutally efficient ranking systems I’ve ever seen—but not in the way the tour intended. Here’s the thing about ranking systems: they’re supposed to reward consistency and performance depth. In traditional tours, you earn points for finishing in the top 50, sometimes the top 75. The math works because 54-hole events…

The OWGR’s Top-10 Compromise: Smart Safeguard or Slow-Walk to Equality? After 35 years watching this game evolve—from the equipment wars to the equipment bankruptcies—I’ve learned that ranking politics matter as much as ranking points. So when the Official World Golf Ranking announced last week that LIV Golf players would finally gain OWGR eligibility, but only for top-10 finishers, I knew we were watching a carefully choreographed dance between two sides who still don’t entirely trust each other. Let’s be clear: this is progress. Real progress. For nearly four years, LIV players competed in a ranking vacuum, unable to measure themselves…