MEDIA GUIDES 2014 The Zone 2014 Media Guide | Page 3

The zone editor - Derek clements
Great content from one of the UK’s best Golf Writers
Derek is a National newspaper sports journalist with a
particular passion for golf.
He worked for 12 years as Chief Sub-Editor on the
sports desk of The Sunday Times, and has also worked
for The Daily Mail, Independent and Daily Star, as well
as a number of golf magazines. Aswell as editing
The Zone, he contributes to SwingbySwing, Bunkers
Paradise , GolfShake and a weekly golf blog for The
Sunday Times.
He has also worked closely with the European Tour
and major brands from the golfing world.
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

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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
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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.

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!

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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 trade mark 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!

M

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

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RORY’S BACK

43

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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
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