Ben Sharpe, recently named president of Toptracer, shares his insights on what's right with golf and what needs improving.

All the sales and discounted golf items to shop on 2018 Amazon Prime Day

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland (AP) As golf exhibitions go, this probably once seemed like a good idea.

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson in a prime-time television special playing 18 holes for – and let’s pause for a moment here – a cool $10 million. Put it under the lights in Las Vegas with some cool celebrities following inside the ropes, and it becomes must-see TV.

Back in 1999 anyway.

A concept past its time is heading to prime time, at least according to hints dropped by both Woods and Mickelson. The two say they are deep into negotiations to play a winner-take-all match with $10 million on the line.

The best part for both players? Neither will have to reach into his own pocket to pay the other off.

”I would hope for a sponsor,” Mickelson said last week at the Scottish Open.

That takes some of the drama away from the match, mostly because $10 million isn’t life-changing money for either man. Woods has won $111,878,724 in official money in his career, while Mickelson is not far behind at..

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland (AP) Two rounds of 63, made eight months apart and on different sides of the Atlantic, are fuelling the belief that Tommy Fleetwood can end the American dominance of the majors at the British Open.

The first came at the Dunhill Links Championship in October when he broke the course record at Carnoustie, where the world’s oldest major will be staged this week.

Then came another in the final round of the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills last month, which propelled him to within a stroke of eventual winner Brooks Koepka.

Fleetwood, with his long, flowing hair and cherubic smile, was the face of last year’s British Open played at his home course of Royal Birkdale.

With those recent 63s on his resume, it’s no surprise he’s among the favorites 12 months on.

”The only thing they do is build your confidence and give you examples of what you can do,” Fleetwood said on Monday, ”but at the end of the day, come Thursday, it’s the Open Championship, and I’ve got to go out the..

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland (AP) Jordan Spieth figured someone from the R&A would be waiting for him when he pulled into the parking lot at Carnoustie to take back the silver claret jug. Instead, he was part of a ceremony with enough pomp to drive home the point.

His reign as British Open champion was over.

”The traditions of the Open are very special,” Spieth said, ”even if you’re on the wrong end of that one.”

This ”tradition” is only a few years old, though typical of the august manner of this major, nothing was left to chance. Spieth was to arrive in a car provided by one of the R&A’s sponsors, and as it drove slowly down a dirt path behind the grandstands on the first hole, cameras moved into position. The door opened and a woman slowly emerged from the back seat. That’s where Spieth would be sitting. This was just a rehearsal to make sure the cameras had the right angle.

Moments later, an R&A employee asked people sitting in the right portion of the grandstands to move to the other ..

If you believe that golf was invented in Scotland, then there's a little bit of the U.K. in every American golf course. Here's a list of worthy candidates.

Steve ScottIf you’re in a family, you’ve no doubt experienced the feelings brought on by the phrase “summer vacation,” and those feelings are cruel panic and hideous terror. Breaks are restorative and sunshine is fine or whatever, but the term is generally a hilarious oxymoron when used in describing something that involves 14-hour Caravan rides, forced interactions with anthropomorphic mice, paying $24.95 for a horse feedbag-sized serving of chicken fingers and attempting to apply sunscreen to the shrieking face of a 6-year-old. Yet because we at The Loop are optimistic sorts who strive to find the good in anything, even naked Greg Norman, we like to focus on the positive. As such, we’d like to submit these few ways that you can make your family vacation seem dangerously like an actual vacation.
First, Splurge on the Extra Room for the Kids: Actually, we take that back. “Splurge” isn’t the correct term for a decision that will encourage sleep, create important space and facilitate the..

Photo by Atiba JeffersonWAITING GAME: Golf “helps me with my patience,” says snowboarder Red Gerard. There's a laid-back quality to Red Gerard. He's thoughtful and funny, never rushing. It suggests an unforced confidence, the kind of self-assuredness most teens would love to have.
But then, Gerard is far from a normal teen. He won the first gold medal for Team USA in the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. The event was Slopestyle, where snowboarders fly down the course, riding on rails and hitting jumps, hurling their bodies through the air. At 17, he was the youngest U.S. snowboarding gold medalist ever.
Gerard and two of his brothers recently moved from Colorado to Carlsbad, Calif. While there, he's been playing a lot of golf—a game his dad, Conrad, introduced him to as a 10-year-old.
“I'm kind of obsessed,” says Gerard, who began teeing it up regularly a couple of years ago. “I've been playing every day lately. It's very different from snowboarding. It helps me..

Does there come a point when a new ball starts to underperform? How are groupings decided for the first day of a PGA Tour event? Golf Digest answers these and other readers' questions.