Archive for October, 2006

Tiger Woods has been a cash machine ever since he turn pro back in 1996. He’s earned a total of $547 million in those 10 years and this year looks to be another banner year for Mr. Woods.

He earns an amazing amount on tour, and that’s because he just keeps winning. But the real money comes from endorsements, and rightfully so. He single handedly brought a golf department to Nike. Back in 1996 Tiger inked a contract with the sports apparel and equipement giant at a time when Nike had no golf equipement.

Now they have one of the top selling drivers in the sasquatch and they have a plethora of irons, putters, and one of the priciest golf balls on the market.

Take a look below at Tiger Woods’ earning year to year. GolfDigest.com puts Tiger at a lifetime earnings of a Billion Dollars! by 2010.

technorati tags:Tiger, Woods, Earning, Money

Look at Retief Goosen’s compact and powerful swing. Take some pointers from this CBS Swing Vision view at You Tube.

I recently was hunting around for a new driver and headed over to a local Nevada Bob’s Golf Store here in Honolulu. They allow you to try out the clubs, as all golf stores should. Heck Golf stores should have 2 or 3 sets you can check out, like a library and take to the course or the range.

I grabbed a few drivers and headed right for the cage. Now going into this little test run I was already smitten by the Nike Sasquatch. It’s big, it has a huge face, and lets face it, Tiger Woods uses it. Well Ok, he uses it sometimes, but none-the-less it’s still in his bag.

I also grabbed the goofy looking HiBore, a store rep recommended Nicklaus Driver, and an Exotic.

Now before I get into the thick of things let me tell you that I was just going to the store to get a feel for what each driver hit like. I didn’t want to see ball flight or distance, just feel. If a club feels good in my hands when I swing it, that’s what will give me confidence to hit the ball well. I need to feel like I’m in control when swing, not willy nilly chopping at the ball.

The Nicklaus and the Exotic both felt like regular old clunky drivers. Nothign special, just a stick with a mallet face to smack a little white ball down the fairway.

The Sasquatch on the other hand, although very light in head swing weight, felt like I was swinging a snow shovel at that little white ball. If I miss-hit with that thing I would feel a little embarassed. I liked it though. It had a, I’m in the drivers seat type of feel. The kind I’m sure you’d get with a H2 or something like that.

Then it was up to the HiBore, a strange looking club that I couldn’t help but keep staring at. Some people say when you’re standing over the club at address it looks wierd, but I liked it. I started to swing the HiBore back and forth

and noticed that the club “felt” a little heavier down below than the others. I came to find out that the good people at Clevland Golf placed a little more weight in the base of the HiBore. Now if that little more wieght made a difference or not I don’t know, but the club had the feel that it was pulling my swing through.

This pulling my swing, or my arms is something I’ve been trying to get with my woods for a while and only sometimes am able to accomplish. To have powerless arms on the drive would be great and if I need a club to give me the confidence to let go then so be it.

Now I’m waiting for the cleveland day at my local driving range to really try and give the HiBore a smack to see if I like the ball flight and distance of the club, but right now I’m shifting towards the odd club of the HiBore.

technorati tags:Cleveland, HiBore, Golf, Sasquatch, Nike, Review, Club

David Leadbetter coaches some of the best players on tour, has numerous instructional tapes, as well as the training tool, the Leadbetter Swingsetter. One of his students is Michelle Wie who is a 16 year old girl from Hawaii who regularly drives the ball 300+ yards.

What does he tell his students to help them out? Create a shorter compact swing. And he shares this secret with you in a recent article in golfdigest that you can find online at his Instructional Section. He points out the advantage to taking the club back only to 10 o’clock rather than a full rotation. Check out the article and get some good golf tips.

technorati tags:David, Leadbetter, Swing, Coach, Golf, Driver