The post Golf’s smoothest swing: 5 things Louis Oosthuizen taught me in 20 minutes appeared first on Golf.

The post Golf’s smoothest swing: 5 things Louis Oosthuizen taught me in 20 minutes appeared first on Golf.

“I’m not fussed by that,” the 43-year-old shrugs, tossing a sideways glance at the Full Swing launch monitor giving real-time feedback as he begins his range session.

“When I got on tour you only used launch monitors when you were testing new drivers, really. And I think I used get it to like 116, 117 [miles per hour]. I think I’m now probably 109 or 108,” he says.

“Ball speed, a few years ago I was still in the 170s when I played tournament. I’m now 168, 169, so I can definitely feel I’m slowing down. But with all the technology that you have now, I’m not really losing a lot of distance on my driver. I mean, you’ve got so many shafts that can help you. You can go to a softer shaft…”

It’s only fitting that one of the game’s legendary smooth swingers is unconcerned by chasing speed. He tried that once, he said, and It led to the worst golf of his career. So as we work through the latest episode of Warming Up, he’s content with a simple solution:

“If I hit it shorter, I’ll just take more club.”

Here are five things I learned from Oosthuizen’s legendary move in 20 minutes on the range.

1. He has two simple sources for his power.

Oosthuizen stands just 5’10” and his swing looks effortless — but he has always sent missiles down the fairway. (And our Full Swing data proved he still has plenty of pop, even if it’s not a priority.)

“Timing and good technique,” Oosthuizen says, asked how where he gets his power. “From day one when I started as a junior I went to a coach and and he was great with setup and posture; those was always the things we worked on and everything was always close to square. At a young age, because I was tiny, I didn’t have any power so I was very loopy, I had a long over-swing, and through the years when I got a little stronger, I could control that. But it’s always been aiming pretty square, just left of target, maybe, and working from an open position. It was never really something I had to do in my swing to try and generate anything. It was always pretty decent timing.”

The first of many understatements.

2. He copied Ernie Els — but not on purpose.

There have always been comps between Oosthuizen and fellow South African smooth-swinger Ernie Els. That’s no coincidence; Oosthuizen counts Els among his golfing idols. But whatever swing similarities they have came through osmosis rather than imitation.

[People] made quite a bit of a fuss about [my swing] after winning the Open,” Oosthuizen says, referencing his 2010 triumph at the St. Andrews Open Championship. “Look, Ernie was one of my idols growing up and he was the guy that always looked in rhythm. I mean, there’s not guys with better rhythm than him.”

“I think it’s just something that happened because I watched him,” Oosthuizen concludes.

3. His golf swing was partly a product of his era.

“It wasn’t really a thing to go out and see how long you can hit it,” Oosthuizen says, remembering the technology when he turned pro in the early 2000s. “Because I think that with the drivers at that stage, you could hit it left and right easily. So technology got so good with the driver that now it’s probably the easiest club to eat in your bag, where it didn’t used to be. So, you were more on hitting shots and hitting fairways and never really go out there and just try and hit it as hard and as far as you can.”

So if Oosthuizen had some along later, would his swing have looked different?

“That is interesting,” he says. “I wouldn’t know because watching the guys growing up now hit it today, you probably get taught differently. Like when you’re on the range, you try and hit it, you know. I’ve not seen someone come out of college, a youngster coming through that doesn’t hit a long way. Everyone hits it a long away.

“One kid that was in my academy, Aldrich Potgieter [now a PGA Tour winner and arguably its longest driver] — kid hits it 70 by me, probably.”

4. At his best, he’s not thinking of much.

“Just a little takeaway thought,” he says, demonstrating what he wants to do with about the first eight inches of his swing. He smiles at the idea that the rest of it falls into place from there. “You play your best when you don’t really think of anything, you just set your target and go,” he adds. “And you still want that to be your main focus, but I sort of just do that [move] to just remind me not to pull [the club] inside because when I pull it inside, I roll it.”

It won’t surprise you that Oosthuizen is chasing simplicity.

5. Don’t let the smooth move fool you. He’s competitive as hell.

Oosthuizen says he’s not just competitive on the golf course.

“Everywhere,” he says, with the possible exception of farming — though he brings an undeniable rigor to that side gig, too. “Anything. Any game. Pickleball, tennis…”

At the conclusion of any warmup session, he likes to “talk some crap to these boys, tell them have a nice day,” he says with a grin. That’s because, whatever he may say in self-deprecating fashion about his swing, speed, he’s not short on self-belief.

“I’ve always said I won’t play golf anymore if I feel like I can’t win an event,” he says. “We all have to believe that you can win a tournament. And otherwise, I mean, it’ll drive me insane coming here and just teeing it up for a paycheck. That will drive me crazy. I wouldn’t be able to do it.”

In recent years he’s won back-to-back DP World Tour events at home — and stacked up close calls around the globe. He has an eye-popping collection of close calls at majors (eight top-threes since that 2010 win) and stacked up four top-fives across the globe in 2025.

“At the end of the day, you still need to get the ball in the hole,” he says.

You can watch the entire video on YouTube here or in the embed below.

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The post Joaquin Niemann’s surprising swing story (and 10 other things he taught me) appeared first on Golf.

The post Joaquin Niemann’s surprising swing story (and 10 other things he taught me) appeared first on Golf.

Let’s get more specific: It’s pretty clear to anybody who watches much professional golf that Niemann is one of the more talented players in the world. But exactly how high he belongs on that list is where the debate begins. Phil Mickelson poured on some kerosene on the fire when he added “Top 5? Try #1” to the discourse earlier this year. Niemann won five times on LIV this season, which is certainly evidence of his ability. But he also finished T29-T8-MC-MC in the majors, another disappointing campaign for a player who knows that’s where much of his career will be defined.

Anyway, that’s the conversation around him. As for Niemann himself? He’s a real and delightful person. He’s on the verge of his 27th birthday. He’s wrapping his eighth year as a pro. He’s intense in tournament play but quick to laugh when he steps away. He still has the boyish energy of the teenage sensation who made it on Tour — but he’s contemplative, too, spending more time journaling. And he wouldn’t be able to change that unique swing — the weed-chopping, stone-skipping, hip-whirling swing — even if he wanted to. (He doesn’t.) And you can ask him anything except his favorite golf club. They’re listening, after all…

Here’s what I learned from Niemann in a half-hour on the range.

1. You might not be saying his name quite right.

I bet you’ve got the full thing down. But “Joaquin” often gets shortened to “Joaco,” which I tend to say as a very American “Wah-ko” but he enunciates with a slightly subtler “Hwa-go.”

“Americans have a tough accent to say ‘J-O’ together,” he says charitably.

2. He used to have a specific 40-yard swing — but not any more.

Niemann begins his warmup with a 60-degree wedge, as do many of his peers. But I was interested to hear him say that over the years he’s actually gotten less mechanical with his in-between wedge shots. Once he gets to the point in his warmup that he starts thinking about yardages — 60 or 70 yards, say — he uses his head and his eyes.

“I feel like I’m better at hitting the number when I see something,” he says. “Let’s say I want to land it just on the green. I feel I’ll have a better knowledge of where to land that than just a number, so I go with my feeling.”

That’s a slight change from his younger self, Niemann says.

“I used to be more — I’ve got a 40-yard swing, I’ve got a 50-yard swing, I’ve got a 60-yard swing. But now it’s more free and I play with my vision.”

3. He thinks about throwing the ball to his target.

This is related to No. 2, but it’s interesting enough to separate out.

“For me if it’s like, ‘hey Joaco, throw a ball to the 50-yard [target], it’s not like I’m going to calculate how far I’m going to throw it. I’m just going to go.”

[Throws ball pin-high.]

4. He gets stuck on the 8-iron.

Niemann says he typically runs through all his wedges — 60, 56, 52, then pitching wedge — and then alternates on his way down through his irons (sometimes 9, 7, 5 but usually 8, 6, 4) doing what he can to “make sure they’re not getting neglected.” But then he gets stuck.

“I mean, growing up I used to hit a lot of 8-irons. Like, all day. And my 8-iron was destroyed,” he says.

This resonated with me because I, too, used to get stuck hitting millions of 8-irons during a through-the-bag range session. There’s something appealing about the first club that’s not a wedge.

5. As a kid, he used his clubs as weed-whackers.

Niemann’s father — a college basketball player in Chile and a 20-handicap — introduced him to golf. But it was his mother whose backyard bribery may have taken him next level.

“I used to live in a house where we had a big yard, like, outside the city. And my brother was probably playing video games or playing football or whatever, and I was working with a club.”

Niemann would pitch balls around his yard for hours at a time and then pitch in on some work in the garden, too.

“I remember my mom used to pay me, I dunno, five bucks to break [weeds],” Niemann says. “Sometimes I think that’s why I dig so much into the ground, and I’m like, ‘f—.'”

6. He’s a big thinker.

Niemann plays some video games, he says, after his practice-physical therapy-cold plunge-sauna routine. But he spends more time than you’d think on more intellectual pursuits, too.

“A little bit of reading, all that kind of stuff to kind of help me develop myself better; I feel like I’m getting to know myself better and I need to progress on reading, you know, journaling, all that kind of stuff. I can evaluate myself, how I’m doing in my life, in golf, my relationships, all of that,” Niemann says. “I feel like I’m a big thinker, I like to be quiet, you know, and just think about what’s going on outside.”

7. Trajectory, he says, is everything.

“I feel like more than having a number, I lean more on the trajectory,” Niemann says, showing off his creativity in the way he thinks through shots. “If the green is going to release, I can land it 10 short, hit something low, it’ll skip and spin. Or if the pin is on the front, you’ve got to hit something really high. I go more with windows than actual numbers, y’know?”

8. He favors a little cut.

Niemann likes to hit his irons pretty straight — but if the ball is going to move he wants it falling slightly left to right.

“Every time I ‘miss’ a shot I want it starting left but cutting,” he says. “That’s my feel. If I hit it right then cutting is no good. If I hit it left and it’s drawing, terrible. So I know when the ball starts a little left and it’s cutting that everything is going to be okay.”

To hit the cut, Niemann aligns himself a few yards left of the target and then, as he says, “rotate as hard as I can.” It works pretty well for him.

9. He says his golf clubs are listening.

I ask Niemann if he has a favorite club. He answers seriously.

I can’t tell you. They’re here and they listen,” he says. “They get jealous. They’re all in the bag because I like them all.”

10. He carries a 5 hybrid.

It says “5” on it, after all. But Niemann insists it’s a “4” or at least that it flies “4 distance.”

When you were a kid you were thinking about having a 2-iron,” he says. “I had to give away my childhood dream. I only [go through] 5-iron now.”

In fairness to Niemann, he does have a 3-iron he uses sometimes. But if you needed any further permission to grab a lofted metal, just know he has a 7-wood in his arsenal. He has a 4-slash-5 hybrid.

And they’re listening.

You can watch the whole thing below or here.

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The post Dustin Johnson improved his wedge play with this genius tactic appeared first on Golf.

The post Dustin Johnson improved his wedge play with this genius tactic appeared first on Golf.

Sure, bombing it is fun — but if you want to score, you’ve got to be able to answer with your wedges.

In a recent episode of Warming Up with GOLF’s Dylan Dethier, Johnson revealed the tool that helped him dial in his wedges, and the three-shot method that increased his distance control and confidence on these key scoring shots.

Johnson begins the video by giving us a peek into his pre-round routine: first an off-site workout, then a dynamic warm-up at the course to activate the body, followed by a few technical putting drills.

Only then does Johnson head over to the range. Starting, as most pros do, with wedges — and always with a key practice tool in tow: his Full Swing launch monitor.

How a launch monitor transformed DJ’s wedge game

While it’s standard to see launch monitors lining the range at today’s tour events, Johnson says there was a time when he didn’t depend on these data-driven machines. Relying mostly on feel, Johnson didn’t use a launch monitor extensively in his practice until around 2016 — the year he won the U.S. Open — and the change quickly proved to be worthwhile.

After making the change, Johnson’s wedge game improved immensely. In just one year, he climbed from just inside the top 40 in proximity to the hole on approaches inside 100 yards to ranking third best on tour. A breakthrough Johnson credits to the addition of his launch monitor. 

“I really wanted to start dialing in my wedges,” he said, “For me, that [incorporating a launch monitor] was probably the biggest difference. Just getting instant feedback.”

As Johnson fine-tuned his distances and accuracy, he realized that the launch monitor was also boosting his on-course strategy.

“It helped a lot on say a par-5 that I maybe couldn’t reach, or maybe I hit it in the rough,” he says, “Instead of just blasting it down as close to the green as possible, I would lay it up to 85, 95 or 105.” 

Leaving it to one of his preferred yardages gave Johnson the confidence to attack pins with this three-shot approach. 

DJ’s 3-shot approach

One of Johnson’s biggest keys for better wedge play is consistency. Starting every range session with the same simple, but effective wedge routine.

“I kind of have three shots with each wedge,” Johnson says, “A half, a three-quarter and a stock. And so I’ll kind of work through those with all three of my wedges.”

Take for example, Johnson’s 60-degree. On his half swing, the ball should carry 85-yards. On his three-quarter swing, 95-yards. And his stock swing should result in a 105-yard shot. This is where the fast, accurate feedback of the launch monitor is key. After every shot, Johnson is able to confirm if the ball traveled the right distance.

“I’ll hit a few shots at each distance,” he says, “And then if I’m struggling, I’ll keep hitting until I feel comfortable.”

It may be a simple approach, but sometimes that’s exactly what works — after all, it helped him win two majors.

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The post How full-sending shots on the range can help you on the course appeared first on Golf.

The post How full-sending shots on the range can help you on the course appeared first on Golf.

However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t some benefit from ramping things up. When you’re out on the course, sometimes you’re going to need to really go after one, so having that swing in your arsenal is crucial.

Consider Dustin Johnson among the camp that subscribes to that theory. In a recent episode of Warming Up with GOLF’s Dylan Dethier, DJ explained why he likes to carve out some time when he practices to go all out with each of his clubs. Check out the video below, or read on for more.

Why you should full-send shots on the range

If you want to maximize your abilities on the course, you’ve got to know your numbers with every club in the bag. It’s good to know your stock shot, your knockdown and then, crucially, your max yardage.

Why is the max number so important? Well, when your adrenaline is pumping and you’re under the gun, you tend to hit the ball further. And when you’re in that situation, you need to know how far the ball is going to fly.

That’s why it’s essential that you figure out your max number with every club in the bag. That way, when you’re under the gun, you’re not caught wondering if you’ve got too much club in your hand.

“I think that goes back to knowing what your max distance is, because if you know your max distance, you can’t hit it any further than that,” Johnson said. “You’re not hitting it any further; there’s only so far you can hit it.”

So, next time you’re on the range, take some time to really go after it for a few swings with each club. This will help you learn your max carry numbers and make you better prepared next time the pressure is on.

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The post 5 lessons Dustin Johnson taught me in 37 minutes on the driving range appeared first on Golf.

The post 5 lessons Dustin Johnson taught me in 37 minutes on the driving range appeared first on Golf.

For our purposes, it also means you can learn a thing or two. Here are five pieces of wisdom from a half-hour session with the former World No. 1:

1. He’s not afraid of a pre-round workout.

It’s no surprise to hear Johnson gets a proper warmup in the gym pre-round. But I was intrigued by his admission that he’ll put in two-a-days for a later afternoon tee time.

“Obviously if it’s Sunday and I’m in one of the later groups, we’re going off pretty late,” he said. “So yeah, I’ll probably have already done a workout and then I’ll get to the course and I’ll do like a warmup again, back in the gym for, like, 20 minutes, just get the body moving and firing.”

Again, this isn’t shocking to hear from one of the world’s most famously athletic golfers. But in the context of golf history — and the relatively short timeframe golfers have actually acted like athletes — it’s a reminder of just how far pros have come.

2. He leans on a simple wedge drill.

First of all, I like Johnson’s old-school wedge gapping: 60-degree, 54-degree, 48-degree. No need for a gap wedge if you don’t have a gap!

“For a little while, I switched and went 46, 50, 54, [60],” Johnson said. “But I’ve been playing like this since I was a kid, I think. … And I just switched back a month or two ago. So I tried it for like a year. It didn’t work.”

What has worked, though, is dialing in the details. That means hitting three different wedge shots with each club.

“I kind of have three shots with each wedge, like a half, a three-quarter and a stock,” Johnson said. “I’ll work through those with all three of my wedges.” On this day at LIV Golf’s Dallas stop, his half-60 went 85 yards, his three-quarters-60 went 95 and his stock 60 went 105.

Johnson didn’t use a launch monitor growing up (nobody did at the time), but as he’s gotten more into the data he’s focused particularly closely on calibrating these wedge shots.

“For me, that was probably the biggest difference was just getting instant feedback,” Johnson said. That freed him up to lay back on certain holes; he cited a different strategy for a second shot on a par-5.

“Instead of just blasting it down as close to the green as possible, I would lay it up to like 85, 95 or 105, depending on the flag. Suddenly, you know that there’s something there, instead of like a 40- or 50-yard shots from pushing up and then a lot of times you get stuck to flags where you got to hit a perfect golf shot to get it close. Yeah. So it made things a lot easier.”

3. He thinks studying video has its limits.

I asked Johnson whether he feels like his swing has changed much over the years.

“No, I mean, it hasn’t,” he said, after a pause. “I look at old videos and videos now and they all look [the same]. Obviously videos from when I’m swinging really well and playing really well to when I’m struggling, and I compare them and they don’t really look any different.”

This checks out; in general when I watch my own swing on video I can only really separate the best shots from the worst if I can see where the ball goes (or watch disappointment and frustration wash over my face). So what to do about it?

“That’s the thing, y’know, there’s such little small differences that make huge impacts on what you’re doing. So that’s why repetition and always trying to hit numbers and things is generally what helps me the most.”

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4. He’s hunting max distance on the range — for a good reason.

Just before this session with Johnson, I’d had a conversation with Louis Oosthuizen, who told me he hits it much further on the course than he does on the range. Johnson agreed — sort of. He doesn’t believe in the magic of the golf course allowing you to suddenly smash your personal ball speed record, but he does believe in preparation.

“I always try to hit some, like, try to smash it. Just hit as far as I can with each club just to know what my max numbers are.”

I pushed back wondering if it’s possible to elevate from that max during tournament play just because you’re charged up. DJ wasn’t buying it.

“I think that goes back to knowing what your max distance is, because if you know your max distance, you can’t hit it any further than that,” he said, then added this gem: “You’re not hitting it any further; there’s only so far you can hit it.”

Okay, what about down the stretch in the situation he described, in contention the last couple holes, adrenaline pumping, feeling good, confidence high — surely there’s another level you can access?

“Well, there is, but that’s why you try to access that on the range,” he said.

Case closed.

5. He’ll tell you how to hit the fade. (He’s just better at it than you are.)

There’s an old viral clip of Johnson talking about hitting a fade in which he says essentially that when you’re trying to hit a fade, the most important thing to do is fade it. I think there’s some actual insight there — if you’re hitting the fade, hit the fade! that’s what matters — but mostly it’s a funny clip that Johnson admits he still hears about all the time. So how does he hit a fade?

“My first eight years on Tour I played a draw,” Johnson says. “I used to draw everything, I wouldn’t hit a fade unless I had to like, go around the tree or something. And working with Butch [Harmon], the first four years together we worked on hitting fades we worked on hitting fades but still would never hit one [on the course].”

Johnson remembers one BMW Championship where he debuted the secret-weapon fade in a big moment down the stretch. So how does he do it? No surprise here but Johnson makes it sound pretty simple.

“I set up feet a little bit open. Club at the target. I’ll take it back on my feet line. And then release it to the target.”

I asked for some clarification on what “release it to the target” actually means, to which Johnson essentially shrugged. “I’ll take it a hair outside and then I’ll just release it to the target.”

Fair enough.

You can watch the interview in its entirety here or below.

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The post How to hit Shane Lowry’s low, flighted draw appeared first on Golf.

The post How to hit Shane Lowry’s low, flighted draw appeared first on Golf.

With meandering fairways lined by unruly fescue and punishing pot bunkers guarding tiered greens, Royal Portrush is challenge enough when the weather is calm. Throw in harsh conditions from the Northern Irish coast and it becomes one of the toughest tests in golf. 

As we’ve seen, when temperatures drop, the rain sets in and winds whip off the North Atlantic, traditional high, spinning shots become almost impossible to control. Into the wind, they balloon and fall short. Downwind, they fly too far. And in a stuff crosswind, they can drift offline. 

To stay in control, players will have to adapt to the conditions as they change. But flighting a lower trajectory shot with less spin is easier said than done. These low-running approach shots demand precision, touch and a bit of creativity, as players will need to use the natural contours of the course to land shots close. 

It’s a skill Shane Lowry displayed during his commanding victory at Royal Portrush in 2019. Amid torrential downpour and howling winds, Lowry had complete control of his shot-shaping abilities.

One shot in particular that Lowry relied on — and practices before every round — is his low, flighted draw. He broke down the shot in the latest episode of “Warming Up” with GOLF’s Dylan Dethier, and you can watch it here or below. 

How to hit Shane Lowry’s low, flighted draw

To hit Lowry’s right-to-left wind cheater, you’ll need to start by grabbing one of your lowest lofted irons. In the clip above, Lowry uses his 3-iron. Next, set your feet to promote a low, drawing ball flight.

“I just shut my feet, and get my left foot a little, get it back,” Lowry says. 

Closing your stance, or aligning your feet slightly right of your target (for right-handed players), encourages you to swing on an in-to-out swing path and deliver the club from inside the target line. This move is essential to producing a draw.

“And then, I just try and feel like I’m swinging in-to-out as opposed to down and left,” Lowry says. 

That inside path promotes the draw-bias ball flight we’re looking to achieve.

Beyond Lowry’s adjustments, you can also tweak your ball position and shaft lean to further control trajectory and spin.

Playing the ball slightly back in your stance — no more than a ball, ball and a half — helps to de-loft the club, producing lower launch and more roll. But this doesn’t always work for everyone. If you’re someone that has a steeper angle of attack, this could have an inverse affect and add spin to your shots. 

The same can be said for shaft lean. Increasing shaft lean (by leaning, or angling, your shaft toward the target) decreases your dynamic loft, meaning your 6-iron might play more like a 4-iron with a bit of shaft lean. This leads to lower launching shots with reduced spin, perfect for flighting shots under the rowdy Irish wind. But there can be too much of a good thing. Too much shaft lean can close the club face excessively, resulting in low hooks or chunked shots.

The best way to find your ideal setup is to test it out on the range. Try moving your ball back a hair or bumping your hands slightly forward. Once you dial in a combination that produces the ball flight you want, make a mental note. Then, build your practice around it.

Lowry’s keys for executing under pressure 

When it’s time to shape your shots, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by swing thoughts — especially when the pressure is on. But, Lowry takes a different path — one rooted in visualization and trust.

“I will just picture the shot in my head,” Lowry says. “Then I just get in, and kind of feel it and then I just hit it.”

His simple visualization, paired with trust and confidence built through repetition, allows Lowry to commit fully. It’s an approach that’s both instinctive and effective. 

“We do it so much, we do it every day, that it just becomes instinctive,” Lowry says.  

It’s a mindset every amateur can learn from. With consistent practice comes trust. Not just in your game, but in yourself to execute the shot under pressure. 

Next time you’re trying to hit this low, flighted draw, or any shot for that matter, remember Lowry’s three keys: see it, trust it, do it.

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The post Tyrrell Hatton and Jon Rahm taught me 10 lessons in 45 minutes. Here they are appeared first on Golf.

The post Tyrrell Hatton and Jon Rahm taught me 10 lessons in 45 minutes. Here they are appeared first on Golf.

Here are 10 things I learned.

1. Both start with their highest-degree wedges.

“I mainly start by trying to hit it anywhere from 50-60 yards and just get used to the club being in my hands again for the day,” Hatton said of his 60-degree. Any shot shape he has in mind? “I don’t think about that, I just hit it,” he said. “Golf’s complicated enough.”

2. But they’d already begun in the gym.

That wasn’t always the case, Hatton confessed. But at this point he needs to get his engine going before he hits the range.

“Definitely not,” he said. “But as I’ve gotten older and stiffer and fatter, I’ve needed to start doing a bit more in the gym to get the rig ready to try and rotate.”

3. Hatton has a “double grip-down” he uses to take off distance.

“I’ve always struggled to take distance off by slowing my swing down, it messes me up,” he said. “So I started gripping down and then with the 54[-degree] I have a double grip-down, so that goes even shorter. So I can still make my swing.”

He shows me the little “V” marks on his grip that he uses to monitor the extent of his grip-downs. How many yards does that strategy take off?

“From a full shot? The double-grip down would take off normally close to 12 yards,” he said. “So it’s quite a bit. It feels horrendous, but I’ve done it enough that you get comfortable with it.”

4. Rahm likes playing with other fiery competitors.

“One of the things that makes us get along is we tend to have some similar reactions on the golf course,” Rahm said of Hatton, who has been his Ryder Cup teammate and is now his LIV teammate on Legion XIII. How does that affect him, playing with another hothead?

“Whenever I play with somebody that might get a little bit more fired up on the golf course, not only just [Tyrrell], everybody, because I see myself in it, I laugh. So there’s a bit of a joy that comes with it. And a lot of times they’ll see me laughing and then they laugh. Because they fully understand where it’s coming from.”

5. Rahm’s a gentle giant.

Asking Hatton what Rahm’s like away from the course led to probably my favorite exchange of the day:

Hatton: “Well, he looks scary, doesn’t he? But he’s like a big teddy bear.”

Rahm: “Why do people say I look scary?”

Hatton: “It’s probably something to do with being a f—ing unit and being like six foot three. When you’re a five foot eight hobbit, it’s unnerving.”

6. Hatton’s just as funny as you’d think.

“Tyrrell is one of the funniest people you’ll ever meet,” Rahm said. “He doesn’t like to do it, but I think he should be mic’d up for one of our practice rounds. Because he just drops gems. Like, any compilation you’ve seen of him saying funny things is very mild compared to what we usually hear.”

7. But he’s not much for positive self-talk.

I asked Hatton when he feels like he first got so good. I thought this was pretty safe territory; depending who you ask he’s considered one of the 10 or 15 best golfers in the world at the moment. That is, unless you ask him.

“That’s a weird question. I don’t think I am [so good],” he said. “I tell myself I’m s—.”

Then he invoked a line from an English comedian.

“What Micky Flanagan says: Positivity drains you.”

8. Rahm, on the other hand, is more positive than he sounds.

“I am, like, irrationally positive in my mind,” he said. “Never lose hope, always hoping for the best on the next shot in any situation — even though my mouth may be saying other things, I firmly believe it. The amount of times I’ll say in Spanish, ‘if you’re going to play like this, go home, what are you doing wasting your time,’ internally I really know i’m just trying to fire myself up yeah because I know, okay, you can do this.”

In other words, he’s never short on self-belief.

“No, no, no.”

9. Hatton hits the ball outrageously straight.

Just during our session he hit several shots that registered at an unheard-of “0” in side spin — including on one drive that carried 318 yards.

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“For how complicated the game is and how much we try to simplify it, [Tyrrell’s] only thought is to hit a straight, which is arguably the impossible play,” Rahm said. “That’s the funniest part to me, but how good is he at it, right? I mean, you’re seeing it. To get zero side spin with so many clubs, he’s clearly good at it.”

Hatton confirmed that he doesn’t think specifically about chasing speed.

“I feel like I can hit it far enough to be able to compete,” he said. “Sure, there are guys out here that absolutely send it and you’ll never beat them in a long-drive competition, but hitting it a long way doesn’t mean you’re going to go win every week. There’s other ways to get around the course.”

10. Rahm’s been hitting more draws.

I asked Rahm if he hit 100 drives how many would be fades versus draws. That number, he said, has changed dramatically.

“If you asked me this five years ago, I would have said 99 fades and one accidental draw,” he said. “If we’re including 3-woods off the tee, I would say I’m maybe getting to 30 percent draws.”

Rahm showed what it looks like when he hits his stock fade — pick a reference point a few inches in front of the ball, line up to that, aligning slightly left of his target, and swing down the line of his aim, knowing the ball will fall to the right.

When he hits a draw, on the other hand, he’ll close his stance slightly but move the ball up further in his stance — all while leaving his club in the same spot.

“I’m just allowing an extra foot for the clubface to close,” he said. “I don’t change anything on my swing. And when I’m swinging well, worst case is it’s straight. If it draws, it draws a little bit.”

Good news: There’s much more where that came from! To hear Rahm’s favorite part of golf, whether or not Hatton “loves” the game and what he finds “disgusting,” watch the complete video on YouTube here or below.

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The post Unlocking Masters secrets: 7 major champs dish on Augusta prep appeared first on Golf.

The post Unlocking Masters secrets: 7 major champs dish on Augusta prep appeared first on Golf.

“I spend all December working for Augusta,” says Brooks Koepka. “I’m five months out and already working on that. So my head is already there.”

Koepka was talking to our Dylan Dethier in an episode of Warming Up, but his point is consistent across major championship contenders: there’s no such thing as too much prep when a green jacket is on the line.

In fact, so many Augusta-centric topics have come up in previous Warming Up episodes that we created a supercut of the bunch, ripping out some of the most important Masters nuggets to splice into one handy video (which you can watch below).

The goal here isn’t just to entertain, but inform you. There’s a lot to learn from the seven major champs featured — Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Xander Schauffele, Shane Lowry, Wyndham Clark, Fred Couples and Koepka.

Below are a few quick takeaways — although you’ll need to watch the video to get a more thorough breakdown and see what I left out.

How major champs prep for the Masters

Lowry’s hole-by-hole ball flight never changes. “Down the 1st a hit like a low cut,” Lowry said. “Down the 2nd I hit a high draw. The 3rd I always lay up. Five I hit a low cut. Seven I hit a low cut. Eight I hit a low cut. Nine I hit a really high one.” And on it goes. Hearing Lowry break it all down is the perfect example of the shots, creativity and workability players must have to contend.

Mickelson’s practice includes putting on the range. He does this because when the rye grass is dry and sticky, like it is later in the day, he says it’s more difficult to chip because the greens will grab the ball more. So Mickelson will elect to use putter off the green more often — and the grass on the range is similar to what the fringe might be. “I think one of the mistakes that I have made in the past and that other players will make when they are putting from off the green is they’ll look at the green, and they will get this sense of the speed of the putting green but not the fringe,” Mickelson said. “So when I’m putting from off the green I don’t look at the green, I only look at the fringe and will try to get a touch for off the green as well as on.”

Schauffele confirms that, yes, the wind is no joke. “I’ve seen the wildest stuff happen being in some spots there,” he said. The year Tiger Woods won, in 2019, he said he could see balls get “absolutely stood up” on 12, which is when several contenders found the water at Rae’s Creek and when Woods took spin off his approach, made an easy par and eventually won the green jacket. The lesson here? No lead is ever safe on Amen Corner.

Lots of players prep for that par-4 opener. Both Clark and DeChambeau explained how they end warmups by playing the first hole of the upcoming round. At Augusta, that’s a par-4. Clark says he’ll usually hit 3-wood off that tee box then start his approach, usually a 7- or 8-iron, to the center or right-center of the green and try to hit a draw. Worst case it doesn’t draw and he has a somewhat low-stress 20-footer uphill for birdie. (This, also, is a good visualization strategy for amateurs beginning their rounds.)

You can learn a lot from Tiger. Just ask Lowry, who played with Woods for three rounds in 2020. “I remember the first day I played with him he shot four under, and I was like, you didn’t even play that good,” Lowry said. “But like off the 5th hole he would never hit in the bunker on the left. His second shot on 15 he hits it kinda long and right of the green where it’s the best leave. He leaves himself in the best positions and Augusta is nearly about that.”

You can watch more Warming Up videos here.

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The post Ludvig Åberg taught me 10 lessons in 30 minutes. Here they are appeared first on Golf.

The post Ludvig Åberg taught me 10 lessons in 30 minutes. Here they are appeared first on Golf.

How do you pronounce your last name?

“I always tell people “Oh-berg” is the best way to say it,” he says. “I don’t know where the ‘Oh-bear’ came from, or the ‘Oh-burge’ [said to rhyme with ‘purge’]. I don’t know where that comes from.”

So how does he say it?

“It’s different in Swedish and English,” he explains. “That’s where where it gets a little tricky, is people are pronouncing it in Swedish; you can’t do that in America.

“If I go to Sweden, I say Oh-bear,” he says [editor’s note: this spelling doesn’t quite do it justice either — his pronunciation is almost closer to Oh-bair, or Oh-baiy, but with a cool rolled R, sigh, just watch the little video below]. “But the G is kinda silent in Swedish. But then you look at, like, ‘Forsberg’, you don’t say ‘Fors-bear’ [in the U.S.], know what I mean?”

In other words, Åberg understands your confusion.

“If I were to read the alphabet in Swedish, it’s totally different than English,” he says with a shrug. “It’s just different.”

So we got that out of the way.

All that was left was introducing the Swedish star and then standing beside him as he launched a half-hour of clinical golf shots into a North Florida headwind, one missile after another sent into onto the bottle-green Tour pros-only side range at TPC Sawgrass — for the latest episode of Warming Up.

Here are 10 things I learned from Åberg. (Eleven, if you count the pronunciation.)

Or here’s the video, if you want it straight from the source himself:

1. Åberg likes to “touch every wedge” in a warmup.

Like many pros I’ve talked to, Åberg starts by hitting his 60-degree wedge. This wasn’t the only 60-degree in his bag on the day we filmed; while he denies the veracity of a report that he always travels with 22 clubs, suggesting it lacked context, he admits that “I travel with quite a few different options”.

He starts by hitting some half-wedges, getting a feel for “how the club interacts with the ground.” He hits one shot trying to swing from the inside, hitting a draw, and another from the outside, hitting a cut. He flights one low and lofts the next one high, calibrating, messing around, finding his feels.

But unlike some other pros, Åberg doesn’t skip straight to his irons after a wedge or two.

“I like to touch all the wedges,” he says. “I like to do sand wedge, I like to do gap wedge.” He works his way into full swings now, picking targets, ramping up his warm-up, dialing in his scoring clubs.

2. He likes to practice into the wind.

Åberg is firing into the wind on this range, which I point out has always intimidated me during warm-ups. This is, it turns out, just one of about two dozen ways we identify which he is my superior.

“Sometimes if you want to practice it’s almost nice to have it into the wind,” he says. “Because if you can come out of that session hitting it nice, you know that things are looking pretty good. If I’m working on something and it’s downwind, you might not get that same feedback. You feel great, but then that first tee shot is into the wind and you’re like, ‘ah, s—.’

3. His player-caddie meetings kick off pre-round prep.

Two (of many) things that set Åberg apart are his commitment and his consistency. Case in point: On tournament days he’ll arrive at the course just over two hours before his tee time and meet with his caddie Joe Skovron, “somewhere quiet,” he says.

They’ll review the day’s pin locations and wind direction, one hole at a time. And they’ll make a plan.

“I think it just simplifies things because when we do get to the golf course we just do what we said we were going to do and it takes away all these emotional decisions you make on a golf course,” Aberg says. “Because sometimes you’re like, ‘ah, I just made two bogeys…’ but no, dude, we said we were going to do this, let’s do it.”

4. He sticks to their plan.

This is directly related to No. 3, but once Åberg and Skovron have settled on a plan, they try to stick to it — eliminating frustration, momentum or emotion from the equation.

“It simplifies in my head because I can prepare for it in here,” Aberg says, pointing to his head. “So I know before I get to No. 7 that I am going to hit this tee ball with this club, most likely — unless something wind-wise has changed. And I know if I get to No. 12 at TPC Sawgrass [the drivable par-4] I’m going to hit driver and I’m going to go for it. It makes things easier than standing on the tee box, like, ‘Should I hit 4-iron, should I hit this,’ know what I mean? So that’s where I’m at with those things.”

Does he change strategy in-round based on how he’s hitting it? Not really.

“I try not to,” he says. “Because driving is one of my strengths, I like to use it as much as I can. And just because I miss a few doesn’t really change that.

“Maybe if you’re coming down the last couple holes of a tournament … that’s a different angle to it.”

5. He hits it really straight.

Åberg is almost sheepish talking about his ball flight because it’s just … very straight.

“On the golf course I like to do a little bit of both,” he says of hitting fades and draws. But even those don’t move much. A fade will fly straight and fall right. A draw will fly straight and fall left. Bubba Watson he ain’t.

“It’s just so straight,” I remark after one fastball down the middle.

“Yeah,” Åberg acknowledges, the way a mathematician might after putting down his chalk. “We’ve never really been working one way or the other, I feel like when I’m playing my best I’m able to do a little bit of what I want to.”

6. When Åberg does work the ball, it’s just through setup.

“I do it all in my setup,” he says. “If I’m going to play a draw right of this pin, I’ll aim a little bit right and close the face and my setup. I might move [the ball] back [in my stance].” But he doesn’t try to change anything in his swing or his release pattern — nothing more than a little feeling.

“Obviously moving the ball back in [my stance] it’s going to start a little further right,” he says. “I learned pretty quickly that’s the easiest way for me to feel it, because that way I’m keeping the big motion the same, and I’m just changing a little bit in the input to make that look different. And then obviously the opposite if I want to do it the other way [hit a fade]: move it up a little in my feet, open the stance and it should [fade] a little bit.”

Typically if Åberg misses something it’s because his setup was off, he says. That’s another reason that it’s helpful when your natural shot shape is straight and pure. Golf is tough enough; life is better if you only have to tweak the simple stuff.

7. He loves the nine-window drill.

The nine-window drill is popular with plenty of legendary ball-strikers, Tiger Woods among them. If you picture a strike-zone grid of sorts, with a high draw going in the top left, a medium draw going mid-left, low draw going bottom left — you get the idea.

“I think it’s the best thing ever,” Åberg says.

“I like to do it with my 7-wood,” he adds, a true sicko’s admission. “Because it really exposes like, hey I need to flight it, I need to hit it high…”

I jump in.

“How do you hit a low 7-wood?”

“Exactly,” he says.

8. He’s obsessed with 7-wood.

It’s not just for drills — high-launch fairway woods are way in vogue, and Åberg is in on the trend.

In college in windy west Texas Åberg mostly hit 2-irons. But now, from under a Ryder Cup headcover, he pulls a 7-wood.

“[Two-iron] was great off the tee, not as great into par-5s,” he says. “Whereas the 7-wood, when I tried it out [in late 2023], I started playing around with it even more. And some of the best shots I’ve hit this year have actually been with 7-wood because you can hit it so high, stop it softer, and it’s great into par-5s.”

You may remember the 7-wood Åberg hit at Pinehurst in 2024 that stunned Skovron into a meme.

He describes a high cut he hit on No. 11 at TPC Sawgrass, and another from the Olympics in Paris.

“I feel like I can hit it high and turn it over,” he says, motioning a draw. “Or I can hit it really high and cut it. Can’t really do that with a 2-iron.”

“I think so,” he says, as though he’s surprised himself. “It’s getting there, at least.”

9. He thinks playing is still the best way to get better.

We’re on the range, but still, Åberg admits, he prefers to be on the course.

“I still like to play a lot more in my practice than a range rat hitting balls all day,” he says.

Is that what he thinks is the best way to prepare for tournament golf?

“I mean, I personally think so. Because ultimately you play golf, you’re not swinging golf. Obviously the [range] practice is an important piece of that; you have to have that down. But I think you’re able to play really good golf even if your mechanics are a little bit off, just from decision-making, shot shape, chasing a score. What happens inside when I’m four-under through five or six-over through seven? There’s all these different things that you can’t really simulate on the range. But because I played so much [as a kid], I was able to handle that pretty well, I think.”

I laid things out on the Scheffler-vs.-Bryson spectrum — two of the best pros in the world, the former who plays constantly and the latter only during competition (or YouTube filming).

“I think it speaks to the personality of the player,” he says. “How your brain works, how it operates in the best way. People are just different, that’s what’s cool, there’s not a right way or wrong way to do it.”

10. He’s a golf romantic.

Åberg’s favorite thing about golf?

“That’s a massive question,” he says, before delivering his most expansive answer of the day. 

“It’s so simple, but it’s so hard. It’s logical, but it’s hard. And you’re never going to be finished. You’re never going to figure it out. You can think you are, and maybe you think you’ve come a long way, but there’s so much more to learn. There’s always a better score out there, or a better shot. And trying to figure that out is what excites me. On a good day, you can come out to practice and there’s just so much you can do, y’know? It’s never, ‘Oh, I’m done with that.’ That’s what excites me.”

Us too, Ludvig.

You can watch the entire video on YouTube here.

Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com.

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The post Golf’s best twins taught me 10 lessons in an hour — here they are appeared first on Golf.

The post Golf’s best twins taught me 10 lessons in an hour — here they are appeared first on Golf.

That’s where I began, as I met the two young Danes, Nicolai and Rasmus, on the back of the driving range at Panther National, an enclave on the western edge of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

“What’s the secret?” I ask.

“The chubby one is Ras,” Nicolai says, twinkle in his eye.

“I was going to say that Nicolai is trying to grow somewhat of a beard at the moment. Trying to,” Rasmus counters.

They both laugh. It turns out to be an appropriate tone-setter for the hour that follows, our Warming Up interview, which largely becomes one twin ripping on the other interrupted by some occasional golf talk.

Luckily for me they’ve color-coded for the day: Nicolai is wearing a black hat while Rasmus’ hat is white, making it easy to keep track. And while they share a Florida rental home, a birthday and a set of DNA, by the end of the hour it’s easy to pick out differences between the two — in golf swings, in mindsets, in personalities. This is the first year that both Nicolai and Rasmus are playing the PGA Tour full-time. They’d love for the year to end with the two of them playing together for Team Europe at the Ryder Cup. In the meantime? Ribbing each other seems like a full-time sport.

“Ras has almost like a quarter-life crisis haircut,” Nicolai says with a grin.

Here are 10 things I learned from an hour with the top twins in golf.

You can also watch the interview on YouTube here or below.

1. They each start with wedges.

It’s always interesting to hear how different pros begin their warmups — particularly when those pros are identical.

Nicolai starts by grabbing his lob wedge and putting down his launch monitor to help dial in some specific yardages with half-wedge shots: 50, 55, 60, 65.

“Just trying to get a feel for, ‘today, what does 50 [meters] feel like?'” Nicolai says. He hits one 48 meters. That’s within his two-meter tolerance. “We’ll go up to 55,” he says. He hits one. I check the monitor. 55.

Rasmus has several 60-degree wedges in his bag; it’s an off-week, so there’s a lot of testing going on, he says as he selects one with which to begin his warmup. While he’s not trying to hit as many specific numbers with his half-wedges — “I’m not as systematic when it comes to that,” he says — he, too, is calibrating the day’s feels.

“I like to see what I would call a smooth one, which looks like about 75, and then what is a full one, and that will be different in the morning and afternoon,” he says. He works down the bag from there.

I wonder aloud if Nicolai is more the technician while Rasmus is the artist; Nicolai immediately seizes on that, while Rasmus hates it.

“Did he just call himself Rasmus the artist?” Nicolai asks with glee.

“I didn’t say that,” Rasmus counters.

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2. They’ve learned a lesson from their pilot father.

Their father Ole is a pilot, which may not seem particularly similar to golf until you consider the attention to detail, the commitment to a process and the need for a cool head under pressure required for each.

“There’s a checklist to go through to make sure that I do the right things that’ll help me,” Rasmus says. It’s a different checklist for driving, for short game, for putting. It’s a different checklist for him versus his brother. But it helps with accountability and preparation.

“When something is going wrong in the plane; say you get an engine fire, a loss of cabin pressure, whatever. You obviously have to react pretty quick,” Nicolai says. “But you have to do it the right way. The only thing you can’t do is stress. No panic.

“So then you pull out the checklist and you go through it bit by bit, you do it correctly, because you can’t make a mistake there. And the same thing in golf, sometimes you feel like you’re in the fire, you’re in the mix, everything’s happening pretty quick and you’re like, ‘what you you do?’ I like the picture of being a pilot and losing cabin pressure: you pull the mask down, you open the book and you go through it so that you don’t stress about the situation.

“When there’s a lot on the line, when it’s happening quick, you’ve got to calm down and just take it one step at a time.”

3. Just thinking about Tommy Fleetwood can help.

Searching for something in your swing? These guys know that feeling.

“I always like to think ‘Tommy Fleetwood’. I love the way he hits those shots to this finish,” Nicolai says, holding an abbreviated followthrough with perfect upright posture, Fleetwood-style.

“When I’m a little bit off in my game, we always work on the Tommy finish because that just feels like you’ve got to be connected. That’s a little shoutout to Tommy there.”

4. Competing with your twin isn’t always easy.

“When we were 10 years old we entered our first tournament, not knowing what the level of golf in Denmark was at that time. So we played this Danish championship for our age, under 12,” Rasmus remembers. “We turned up with these junior clubs and everybody turned up with their Titleist clubs, they all looked so good and we were like, ‘we don’t belong here.’ But then we ended up finishing 1-2.”

In what order? That’s the key to the story: Nicolai ended up four-putting 18, he admits ruefully, to lose to his twin brother.

“I was winning that one and then ended up making that double bogey on the last to lose,” he says.

How do you deal with that as a 10-year-old? He can’t remember. He blocked it out. But Rasmus knows it was a quiet ride home.

“We’ve learned to deal with it,” Nicolai says. “When we were younger we’d be fighting and couldn’t speak, sometimes for days.”

There were stakes attached to their finishes, too: Low bro of the day would get to sit in the front seat.

“I remember I won an event and I go in the front seat and Ras goes in the back,” Nicolai remembers. “And he says to me, ‘Nico, don’t you think you’ve got the throne now?’ He was so pissed that I’d won in a playoff.”

5. Managing twins requires saintly parents.

“Our parents have been great,” Nicolai says. “It must have been very tough for them. I mean, we’ve never really spoken a lot with them about it … but they dealt with it very good.”

Rasmus points out the conundrum: “It’s a hard one, because who do you go up to: the guy who’s done well or the guy who’s not done well?”

I’m pretty sure I know the answer, but just to make sure I ask: Are you happy for each other when you’ve done well?

Rasmus ducks and swipes something from his face; Nicolai’s just hit him with a crosswind divot.

“That was on purpose, by the way,” Nicolai says.

6. They’ve never played their best at the same time.

“We’ve never really had situations where we’ve both played well at the same time,” Rasmus says. It’s remarkable looking at their results pages; it’s been clear at various points that one brother is playing better than the other — but then it flips.

“We’ve discussed it quite a bit. How can it be?” Rasmus says, referring to their intriguing push-pull.

“To be fair I think it’s been quite healthy for us. In a way that if one of us is doing quite well the other one is eager to come out and play well. And I think that’s been a good thing to get sharper when the other one is on his game. It’s frustrating when Nicolai’s on and I’m not. I’m happy that he’s playing well but I really want to play well as well. So it’s that balance, and I think that’s helping us.”

Jokes aside, they confirm they each other’s biggest fans. Take last fall at the Irish Open, when Nicolai and their friends were in the crowd — “literally the only ones celebrating,” he remembers — when Rasmus took down local favorite Rory McIlroy.

7. Play well enough for long enough and you make big-time friends.

Speaking of McIlroy: Nicolai finished second to McIlroy in the 2023 Race to Dubai rankings on the DP World Tour. Rasmus finished second to McIlroy in the Race to Dubai a year later. That’s fitting, of course. It’s a remarkable parallel. I’m also curious: Have they become friends with McIlroy as a result of good play and increased proximity?

They’re unwilling to go that far; perhaps it seems presumptuous. But they freely call him a hero.

“He’s been great to us,” Nicolai says. “There’s that saying that you’re not supposed to meet your heroes but we’ve been very lucky. He’s been absolutely great to us.”

The twins turned 23 during Players Championship week in 2024; Nicolai had lunch that day with Fleetwood, Justin Rose and McIlroy, his Ryder Cup teammates from 2023.

“Rory came over, tapped me on the shoulder,” he remembers. “‘Hey Nico, happy birthday! When I was 23 I was World No. 1 and I’d won two majors.’ I was like, alright, back to work. I loved that. It was pretty cool. It shows that you have a relationship for him to come and say that.”

8. Want to control your draw? Hit a bunch of fades.

One area Nicolai has been strong but has looked to improve is in his iron play, where he’s chasing neutral.

“I’d love to hit a little fade, but I always end up drawing the ball. When I’m under pressure, I always draw the ball,” Nicolai says. He’s been working on zeroing out his swing path on the range, knowing that force of habit on the golf course is a completely different animal. He talks about being able to get it “to the corners” of greens, which can be a challenge if you’re only hitting a draw. That’s why wants something more versatile.

“This year my approach game has been pretty solid so far and I feel like it’s because I’m working more to neutralizing the fight a little bit more and have more options,” he says.

The way he describes it, that battle is a necessity. Jack Nicklaus would hit draws on the driving range so that on the course he’d just hit a gentle fade, for instance. Otherwise, your natural tendencies can get exaggerated past playability.

“If I start hitting draws [on the range] all the time when I get to the course, it turns into bigger draws,” Nicolai says. “So it’s always that balance of how do we neutralize it before it goes to the golf course?”

A little at a time.

9. Patience is, unfortunately, the key to everything.

Seventy-two holes is a long time. A season is a long time. It’s important, Nicolai says, to keep that in mind.

“You can play poorly for a long time and then you got nine holes, you shoot five under and you’re in the tournament,” he says. “Or you shoot a 65 final day from nothing and you’re at the top. There’s so much golf to be played. You just have to stay patient all the time, which is a thing everyone says: ‘Stay patient’. But it’s true. It’s true. I mean, we haven’t done much in this game yet, but we still feel like we’ve tried quite a bit and it’s the same thing everyone says, stay patient, focus on yourself and your own craft and then it will come over time.”

10. …but so is a temper.

“You’ve gotta have a temper to be good,” Nicolai says. He runs a little hotter than his brother, he says. Golf is frustrating, particularly with high standards. You can hit a decent shot but it’s not quite good enough. You want to achieve perfection while knowing that you never, ever will. Still, he sees running hot as a serious asset. “You just have to control it.”

Good news: That’s only half the interview! Watch the full thing on YouTube here.

Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com.

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