The post This simple power move helped a pro add nearly 20 yards to his drives appeared first on Golf.

The post This simple power move helped a pro add nearly 20 yards to his drives appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Teachable Moments, GOLF’s weekly instruction column that will help you improve your game through the excellence and expertise of the Tour stars of the week. Class is now in session.

Squash the grape

There is no larger indicator of success in professional golf than distance off the tee. With analytics becoming more prominent in the game, it has become apparent that driving is not just for show — it is also important for making dough.

This understanding has led to a distance arms race on the PGA Tour. Bryson DeChambeau is the most prominent example of this phenomenon, but other pros have begun searching for distance as well.

Take Cameron Tringale, for example. Four years ago, Tringale averaged just over 280 yards off the tee, ranking 168th on Tour. In the time since, he’s added nearly 18 yards to his average off the tee and climbed inside the top 100 in driving distance last season.  

Part of Tringale’s speed jump came from reworking his swing to be more efficient and generate easier power. And he’s used a simple speed move to train his swing to be more efficient and add some pop to his drives. His favorite drill was shared in a social media video this week by the PGA Tour.

The theme of the drill is “squashing the grape” under his left heel on his downswing. By lifting his lead heel and imagining he’s squashing a grape underneath it on the way down, he properly transfers his weight through the ball and generates more efficient power.

“It’s more of a technique than a speed drill,” Tringale says. “But the byproduct of using my body more efficiently is more speed.”

If you’re looking to add a few extra yards to your drives, remember to squash the grape under your lead heel. Do that, and you’ll quickly see your distance soar.

Play your game

As noted above, distance is incredibly important for sustained success in golf. However, chasing distance can do more harm than good if a player gets away from their game in the process.

Celine Boutier is wise enough to know this fact, and she’s not let her lack of pop allow her to stray from what has made her a top player in the women’s game.

Short Game

The Frenchwoman averages just 256 yards off the tee this season on the LPGA Tour, but despite her unremarkable distance, she’s racked up seven top-15 finishes, including a win at last week’s Shoprite Classic.

“I feel like you have to focus on your own game. Everyone’s game is different,” Boutier said. “But it’s not my game to be bombing it and then having wedges everywhere, so I also know what to do with my strength.”

Boutier explained that while added distance would be welcome for her game, it’s not a priority for her to chase those extra yards. She knows what she does well, and if she plays her game, she can be a successful player.

“My gain in distance has definitely helped me, but I also know I’m not going to be a long hitter like Maria Fassi or Patty [Tavatanakit] or Bianca [Pagdanganan],” she said. “Any gain I can get of course is welcome, but I also know that’s not the strength of my game.”

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The post This simple power move helped a pro add nearly 20 yards to his drives appeared first on Golf.

The post Pro drops 100 leaderboard spots in two-hole meltdown at the PGA Championship appeared first on Golf.

The post Pro drops 100 leaderboard spots in two-hole meltdown at the PGA Championship appeared first on Golf.

At 1:00 p.m. local time on Friday, Cameron Tringale stood tied for second at the PGA Championship. By 2:45, he’d fallen into a tie for 125th place.

How does an individual fall one-hundred and twenty-three leaderboard spots in the span of a little under two hours? Well, a quintuple bogey and a quadruple bogey on consecutive holes is a good place to start.

Yep — that’s right. It took till Friday afternoon, but the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island has given us our first PGA Championship meltdown.

It should come as no surprise that Kiawah’s dastardly closing stretch served as the venue for Tringale’s collapse. Over the first two days at the PGA, the closing five holes (14-18) have played directly into the wind. On Thursday, those five holes yielded 367 bogeys-or-worse, leading to a back-nine scoring average well above par on each hole.

Things first turned for Tringale on the 14th (his fifth hole after beginning his round off the back), where he recorded a triple-bogey 6 to drop to even par. But it was on the par-5 16th that the wheels truly fell off.

Tringale began No. 16 by blasting his first two drives into the lake. His third drive (and fifth shot) stayed dry, but only because he blocked it into the native area to the right. Finally, on his sixth shot, he found the fairway — but only 30 yards from where his tee shot landed. Two iron shots and two putts later, Tringale carded a quintuple-bogey 10.

Now, it’s important we note there are few good ways to walk up to the Ocean Course’s 17th hole. The terrifying, forced-carry par-3 is one of the most intimidating tee shots in the sport…on a calm day. On Friday afternoon, with 20+ mph gusts blowing in his face, Tringale stepped to the 17th tee reeling from the sledgehammer his chances of contention received only seconds before.

Evidently feeling the pressure to turn his rotten luck into a handful of birdies, Tringale played a club short on the 17th and promptly dumped his tee shot in the water. But the carnage would not stop here. He overcompensated from the drop area a few seconds later, sending his approach shot towering over the green and into the sand.

His nightmare seemed over when he knocked his sand shot to five feet, but in fact, it was only beginning. Tringale missed his first putt, then missed the second — a two-footer — for good measure. He walked away from No. 17 with a quadruple-bogey 7.

Tringale stepped to the 18th tee an awe-inspiring nine over on the tournament, and nine over for his last two holes. He’d hit three balls into the water, two shots into the sand, and missed two putts from inside of 6 feet; in the process dropping from tied for 24th to tied for 125th. Perhaps most inconceivably, from our friends at DataGolf, Tringale went from a 3.6 percent chance of winning the PGA before he teed off Friday to a .4 percent chance of making the cut at the turn.

Kiawah Island promised us carnage, and thus far, it has not disappointed. Now, on behalf of the high-handicappers watching from home, somebody get us Cameron’s Venmo account so we can buy him a drink.

The post Pro drops 100 leaderboard spots in two-hole meltdown at the PGA Championship appeared first on Golf.

The post Who’s won the most PGA Tour money without a win? A new player is at the top appeared first on Golf.

The post Who’s won the most PGA Tour money without a win? A new player is at the top appeared first on Golf.

Cameron Tringale rolled in a 15-foot putt on Sunday on the 18th hole at the Valspar Championship, moved up to a tie for third and cashed for $407,100. Over 297 events since 2010, he’s earned a hefty $13,743,938. He’s won a lot on the PGA Tour. 

But he just hasn’t won. 

Which puts him at the top of another leaderboard. As first reported by Golfweek, Tringale, behind his Valspar cash, has now won the most money on Tour without winning a tournament, surpassing Brian Davis, who’s played just the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship this season. Davis had been $37,390 ahead of Tringale to start this week. 

Quite understandably, Tringale simply said “no” when asked Sunday if he knew how close he was.

Of course, Tringale would not have hit that mark without some success. He’s finished in the top three six times in his career — in order, the Tampa Bay Championship in 2013 (third), the Barclays in 2014 (tie for second), the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in 2015 (second), the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in 2015 (tie for second), the 3M Open last year (tie for third) and the RSM Classic last year (third). In 2014, Tringale did win the Franklin Templeton Shootout with partner Jason Day, but that is considered an offseason event. 

And with $13,743,938 in earnings, Triangle’s won in another way.

In his bank account.   

The post Who’s won the most PGA Tour money without a win? A new player is at the top appeared first on Golf.

The post WATCH: Pro’s shot proves that trees actually ARE 95 percent air appeared first on Golf.

The post WATCH: Pro’s shot proves that trees actually ARE 95 percent air appeared first on Golf.

Trees: you can go over them, under them, through them, or — far more commonly — ricochet off them. Few moments in golf test “Murphy’s Law” more than players attempting to avoid striking wood when playing around trees. How can something that’s supposedly “95 percent air” feel so much like it’s 95 percent wood?

Perhaps because trees are not, in fact, 95 percent air. But a more complex conversation around forestry and tree composition will have to wait for another day, because Cameron Tringale just hit a shot that brings the “95 percent air” theory right back into contention.

News

It all happened on the long, par-4 3rd hole at TPC Twin Cities during Sunday’s 3M Open final round. Tringale — looking to give himself a reasonable approach into the pin — blocked his tee ball directly into the trees on the right.

When he reached his ball, he found what appeared to be an impossible line to the hole. With a wall of trees directly ahead and out of bounds stakes lining the right side, the only play, it seemed, was to hit a low pitch back into the fairway to his left. From there, he’d have roughly 160 yards left to get up-and-down for par.

Not terrible, right? Evidently, it was not good enough. Instead, Tringale elected to attempt the approach of the week. His line? A high, arcing cut over the stakes on the right side and through the wall of trees, aiming to reach the backside of the green some 200 yards away. The largest gap between branches in front of him was roughly the length of a forearm.

For anyone watching, it seemed like a truly awful idea right up until the moment it worked. Tringale somehow managed to poke his approach over the stakes and through the trees, finding a perfect roll that came to rest a hair past the green. Check it out for yourself.

While he couldn’t finish the birdie, Tringale went on to tap-in for par. An adventurous par if there ever was one, or as Tringale would tell you, just as he drew it up.

The post WATCH: Pro’s shot proves that trees actually ARE 95 percent air appeared first on Golf.

The post Cameron Tringale uses a data-driven approach for his massive clubhead speed increase appeared first on Golf.

The post Cameron Tringale uses a data-driven approach for his massive clubhead speed increase appeared first on Golf.

In today’s bomb-and-gouge era of professional golf, distance off the tee is at a premium. It explains why when looking at the top five of the Official World Golf Ranking, all are exceptional at smashing the ball off the tee. And while having a player’s height isn’t the end all be all when talking length off the tee, it does help give players a head start if they want to bomb the ball past their playing partners.

Still, size isn’t everything when it comes to distance. The best case study of this might be Cameron Tringale, who although standing at a stout 6-2, never managed to average more than 295 yards off the tee in his PGA Tour career. His length (or lack thereof) was so meager that he used to joke that he was “the shortest driver, pound for pound, on the PGA Tour.”

Driving

This simple ‘crow-hop’ drill will help increase your clubhead speed

Then during the 2018-19 season a remarkable thing happened; Tringale experienced the most substantial year-to-year improvement ever for a Tour player since they began recording the data in 2007 with his clubhead speed increasing by 8.6 mph, from 111.3 to 119.9 mph. The speed gains paid dividends not only in the driving distance category, but also in his overall game — he advanced to the FedEx Cup Playoffs for the first time in three years.

Tringale made these strides in clubhead speed by evaluating his physical capabilities and swing efficiency with the help of Greg Rose and Dave Phillips of the Titleist Performance Institute. The data revealed Tringale was beginning his downswing with his arms as opposed to his hips, which is a highly inefficient method for swinging the club.

Instruction

Why an obsession with swing speed might be hurting your game

Once armed with this data, Tringale could properly diagnosis the faults in his swing and address the issues, and the results followed. His data-driven approach reflected positively in the analytics department as well. Tringale ranked first on Tour in the aforementioned clubhead speed increase category, as well as ranking No. 1 in increase in SG: Off-the-tee and SG: Total.

And Tringale is building off these improvements in the young 2019-20 season, too, as his driving average is up over 300 yards for the first time in his career.

Shortest pound-for-pound driver of the golf ball no longer.

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The post Cameron Tringale uses a data-driven approach for his massive clubhead speed increase appeared first on Golf.