MEDIA GUIDES 2014 The County Zone Golf Mag Media Guide

About The Zone Golf Magazine An online National digital publication which publishes monthly to databases of over 180,000 Golfers. NEWS TIME FOR A NEWS BY DEREK CLEMENTS NEWS EQUIPMENT NEWS Westwood, Darren Clarke, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel, ostensibly because he did not think that the company could give him the attention he felt his elevated status in the game deserved. FIFTH MAJOR? I have to say that I was more than a little surprised at that assertion. ISM has done well enough for the players named avove, not to mention Ernie Els, and it does as well as it does because Chandler employs a number of former tour professionals who understand the game. Tour level performance fitted to your swing speed I have heard some pretty daft ideas in my time, but right up there has to be the lunatic proposal to move the USPGA Championship out of America. Now let's just think about this for a moment. It is called the USPGA Championship - the clue is in the title. It is not the Botswana PGA Championship, the Australian PGA Championship or the Piri Piri.com PGA Championship. It is also one of golf 's four majors. By tradition, it is played in America. Full stop. Period. End of story. Of course, the reason this idea is being floated is because in 2020, the event 14 NEWS BY DEREK CLEMENTS will clash with the Olympic Games unless it is moved to a different spot in the calendar. I have to say that I believe professional golfers have no place at the Olympics, but that is an entirely different argument. There are also those who asked why three of the sport's majors should be played in America. The bottom line is that those three majors have been played in the US for years - and golf is all about tradition. The very idea of Jason Dufner defending his USPGA title anywhere but on American soil is preposterous. Now if the sport wants to create a fifth THEZONE / ISSUE 28 major, why that is a very different story. The existing majors are played between April and August, which means that for eight full months every year there are no majors. But there are European Tour events... in Australia, China, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Dubai! And there are also LPGA Tour events in most of those same countries. Some of the best golf courses on the planet are in Australia. And do you know one of the best things about Australia? From October through to February, you are pretty much guaranteed perfect weather. THEZONE / ISSUE 28 Callaway have lanuched what they call ‘important game-changing technology’ with the launch of Speed Regime Golf Balls, a family of Tour-level products engineered to golfers’ individual swing speeds to maximise distance and spin. So if we want a fifth major, let's stage it in Australia. All we need to do then is decide what to call it. Here's a radical idea - call it the Australian Open. Available in three models – SR1, SR2 and SR3 – Speed Regime Golf Balls deliver Tour standard aerodynamics and performance across all three products regardless of swing speed, creating optimum spin separation for longer drives without compromising on feel around the greens. What's that you say? There already is an Australian Open? And it is played on great courses? In great weather? Well, isn't that convenient? Let's get everybody together and agree that we could, and should, confer major status on the Australian Open. To maximise the benefit of Speed Regime technology, Callaway’s R&D team have developed the golf balls to match three Moving the USPGA Championship out of the USA - really, what will they come up with next? A world series of baseball featuring only American teams? That would never happen! 15 42 common swing speed categories; 90mph and below (SR1), 90-105mph (SR2) and 105mph and above (SR3), allowing golfers to ‘custom fit’ an exact Speed Regime Golf Ball to deliver total performance. The Speed Regime family also features a new, proprietary, soft cover, delivering tour-level control for the short game, plus Callaway’s trademark HEX pattern, which optimises aerodynamics by covering a greater surface area resulting in longer, more stable and penetrative ball flights. Speed Regime 1 is a four-piece ball, while Speed Regime 2 and 3 are five-piece balls featuring a thin outer mantle, which also helps reduce spin off the driver even further to achieve explosive distance. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! uch nonsense has been written about Rory McIlroy during the past 12 months, with everything from his Nike clubs to his relationship with tennis player Caroline Wozniacki blamed for his indifferent form. It seems to me that the reason for McIlroy's travails is pretty obvious. If he just focused on his golf, everything would have been fine. Instead, he has THEZONE / ISSUE 28 THEZONE / ISSUE 28 RORY’S BACK M 43 10 allowed those around him to give him advice that, at best, was questionable. I don't have the foggiest idea why he and Horizon Sports Management fell out after such a short period of time together. On the face of it, they did pretty well for him, securing the Nike deal that took him into the Tiger Woods earning league. Horizon is a smaller company, looking after a few hand-picked individuals. When Graeme McDowell won the US Open at Pebble Beach, the first man to run onto the green and embrace him was Conor Ridge, Horizon's head honcho. Indeed, it is a safe bet that McDowell played some part in persuading McIlroy that Horizon would look after his interests. Instead of focusing on his game during 2013, there is little doubt that McIlroy has been weighed down by his dispute with Oakley, which has, thankfully, now been settled. He is taking action against Horizon and they, in turn, are suing him for breach of contract, but it is evident that McIlroy has finally been able to put it all to the back of his mind - it is all expected to come to a head at around the time of next year's Ryder Cup. In the meantime, he is back to what he does best - playing golf. Playing attacking golf, hitting fairways with 300-plus yard drives, crushing towering iron shots into the heart of greens, producing miraculous recovery shots when called upon to do so; in other words, playing like Rory McIlroy. What he isn't doing is holing putts. Anybody who witnessed his opening round of 69 in the Australian Open will marvel at the fact that he could produce such a good score on such a difficult course on a day when he missed at least four putts of less than three feet. But that didn't stop him from looking Adam Scott in the eye, going head to head with the Australian on his own turf and overcoming a four-shot deficit to win the Aussie Open. The only time McIlroy was in front was when he holed for birdie on the 72nd green - and afterwards he clearly felt embarrassed at pooping Scott's party. It was his first win of 2013, a year he will want to forget but during which he still managed nine top 10 finishes. McIlroy is a confidence player, and there is no doubt that he has rediscovered his confidence and his game. When he goes back to see Dave Stockton, the putting guru who has helped him out in the past, his recovery will be complete. Make no mistake McIlroy will win at least one major in 2014 and will soon be challenging Tiger Woods and Scott at the top of the world rankings. McIlroy left Chubby Chandler's ISM, which looks after the likes of Lee THEZONE / ISSUE 28 THEZONE / ISSUE 28 11 View the latest live edition at www.thezonegolfmag.co.uk About The County Golfer Publications A series of six printed monthly and bi-monthly golf publications. Golf Clubs and related businesses across Kent, Surrey, Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall have been receiving copies of this publication for many years now and the titles have built up a loyal readership across the huge area covered. Now find out about our new publication and what we can do for you

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