Peerless Golf

New Zealand is getting more and more respect from the world golfing press as writers increasingly pay a visit to the country and sample the courses. Many return home to rave about the layouts and spectacular scenery, which shouldn’t have surprised them, given New Zealand’s reputation of having some of the finest topography on the planet. The press has also come around in understanding the game’s popularity with Kiwis—New Zealand has more courses per capita than any country in the world. And with the large number of affordable car rental companies in the country (such as Omega Car Hire New Zealand), touring around from course to course has never been easier.

Here are the highest rated golf courses in the country, as judged by several independent authorities, including Golf Digest and worldgolf.com:

1. Cape Kidnappers Golf Course. In Hawke’s Bay, this is the highest-rated Kiwi course on the Golf Digest list. One look at the layout and you will understand why! It is a true art to take a seaside property and maximize it for a course; Cape Kidnappers succeeds in this endeavor. As some reviewers note, the Pacific Ocean might be as big a draw for this course as the golf. The holes play fast and stiff ocean breezes add even more challenge. Deep ravines and numerous bunkers guard many of the greens.
   

   Cape Kidnappers Golf Course

2. Kauri Cliffs Golf Club & Lodge. This layout routinely makes the top 25 in the Golf Digest rankings as well. It is a par-72 championship course that runs 7,119 yards with five sets of tees for different skill levels. An astounding 15 holes have views of the Pacific Ocean; six of them are built on cliffs that fall straight into the water, so watch your ball and your step! Inland holes traverse marsh, forest and farmland. There is also a practice range, full pro shop and club rental.
3. Carrington Golf Course. This course is on the Karikari Peninsula has a seaside location, although it plays more like an inland layout with a links feel over rolling hills and valleys. The natural lay of the land gives this course much of its character. No matter how your round goes, you will enjoy the elevated clubhouse that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. Few 19^th holes can match it.
4. Paraparaumu Golf Club. If you love links golf, this is the place to go. It has hosted the New Zealand Open 12 times. Australian Open champ Alex Russell designed it in 1949 for links lovers, and its undulating fairways, thick rough and huge bunkers provide the best of links action. Whether you are an experienced links golfer or always wanted to give it a try, Paraparaumu will put you to a supreme test.
5. Wairakei International Golf Course. This layout is in the heart of the Lake Taupo region between Auckland and Wellington. Many visitors rate that area the most scenic in New Zealand due to the many volcanoes that have shaped the landscape in a unique way. This public course stretches over 450 acres of rolling countryside and has a driving range, pro shop and nice clubhouse.
6. Gulf Harbour Country Club. This club is just north of Auckland on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula. It was designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr. and starts with a hilly, spacious feel then veers toward the ocean, with finishing holes that many compare to Pebble Beach. Because many visitors to New Zealand stay in Auckland, this course has been a popular choice for tourists.
7. Clearwater Golf Course. Near Christchurch, this par-72 layout has played host to the HSBC NZ PGA Championship. It combines a Scottish links feel with parkland golf, taking players on a journey through streams and lakes, with amazing views of the Southern Alps thrown in. If you are on South Island, this course is worth a look.

For those looking for the perfect golfing holiday destination, you can’t go past New Zealand!

Twitter is lighting up right now with speculation that Luke Donald might be disqualified from the Masters.

The reason? During the TV coverage Luke was seen finishing with a birdie 3 on 17 and a par 4 on 18.

They had him listed as shooting and 3 over par 75.

It was to my shock when scrolling the awesome Masters.com scoreboard that Luke was listed as shooting 73.

Naturally I turned to the Twitterverse. A quick search for “Luke Donald” has listed a bunch of tweets speculating that he might be DQ’d for signing for a lower score.

The hole in question is the fifth. At the time of the completion of the hole they had Luke down for a 5 when in fact the Masters.com scoreboard has him down for a 3.

The issue might just be with someone at the Masters entering the score wrong but who knows.

Nothing has been confirmed yet and no one has mentioned anything on the TV coverage.

What can we all take from this?

Obviously double check your scores at the end of each round.

And don’t believe everything you hear on Twitter.

Today’s segment of the Monday Moring Caddie is talking how you can help your game by playing more match play games. But playing match play against your personal par. If you don’t know what a personal par is, read the three posts I have below talking about why it’s important to have one. Hint, Tiger Woods used a personal par growing up!

I also talk about why Nick Faldo is the best analyst in golf. The six time Major champ always has great insights and tips to help your own game. Click play below to see what tips you can learn from the tour pro’s this past weekend!

Very quick video today which begs a simple question….

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This video is the first in a new segment called the Monday Morning Caddie. I’ll be giving you tips on how to improve your mental game and course management based on something that happened during the previous PGA Tour Event.

For this week I will break down to key reasons why Bill Haas won in the playoff over Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley and how you can learn from Bill Haas. Consider this like a podcast as it’s 15 minutes of length but very informative. Sit back, learn and enjoy!

This is a Tiger Woods golf lesson you shouldn’t sleep on. Lately I’ve been thinking golf. It could be the fact that I am going stir crazy since I haven’t played in over 4 months. Perhaps it’s that the 2012 PGA Tour season is motivating me to play some really great golf.

So I decided to go on Twitter and check out what a few of the people I have been following are saying. I came across a tweet from Matt Wilson that is a link to a GolfWeek article on Eldrick a few other things. The text of the tweet included something about a ‘Tiger Par’ so naturally I was intrigued.

Well there wasn’t much about this Tiger Par in this article but it’s powerful enough to post about it. Here’s the excerpt from the GolfWeek article….

Crocs golf shoes are here and surprisingly they’re not ugly! I don’t normally post about non coaching/instruction stuff but this for some reason interests me.

The PGA merchandise show just wrapped down in Orlando and from what little I have been following golf lately, not many new products have stood out to me. That only thing that did stand out from this show was that my friends over at Kikkor golf ran a cool night lite golf tournament. I’m sure no alcohol was served that the everyone behaved themselves.

Oh yeah, Crocs golf shoes. I was bored and browsing a few branding/business sites and came across this. So yeah, they’re pretty cool looking all things considered. They do kind of have that loafer look to them which should appeal to those who are looking to wear something from brands other than Adidas and Foot-Joy.

You may have the best putting stroke in the world but you’re good at reading the green, you have a very slim chance at making any putts. This is probably the most overlooked aspect of putting and one that requires experience, visualization and imagination. It will take you sometime to learn and improve at but with commitment and practice you will be making more putts.

Once we visualize the line of our putt and which way it breaks we can then select our aiming point.  95% of putts have some break and require you to aim and something other than the center of the hole.  Sometimes a putt might only break 1 inch which would require you to aim just inside the edge of the hole and other times you may be aiming 3 feet outside of the hole. We often aim at something other than where we want the ball to end up.  Although it will end up there, we have a different aiming point or target.

So what goes into reading a putting surface?  A few things actually…

Achieving a lower golf handicap is really easy. How can I say that? Because if you follow this blog on a regular basis and put some effort into your game, you will have all the tools you need.

But before we get into my top 10 posts from 2011, Happy New Year! I truly hope that you read this blog more and more over this coming year as it will only increase your chances of shooting lower scores.

If your a new visitor then this post will help you get up to speed as it’s the best of the best. This blog is much different from all the other blogs on the internet. Why? Simply because I mostly talk about the mental game, short game and course management. From my own personal experience teaching players for the last seven years and playing the game for over 20, you will lower your handicap the fastest by focusing on those three areas. You will find the odd post on the swing but not often.

These are some of the best golf shots in 2011. Instead of just listing the best, I thought it would be better to post what I think were the clutchest ones. Ranking them was tough but I tried to do so based on difficultly, significance of the event and moment during the round the shot occurred.