The Bethpage State Park public course is difficult enough to play at the best of times.  But the weather made it harder still.

That said, unknown American Ricky Barnes, currently ranked 519th in the world rankings is still in the lead on a very respectable -7 after completing just one hole of their fourth round yesterday.  A lead he now shares with fellow American, Lucas Glover.

Phil Mickelson is still in with a shout on -2 along with Hunter Mahan and the only real British contenders, Ross Fisher and David Duval.

Tiger Woods is seven shots behind the leader (level) after completing 7 holes.

Luke Donald is set to take part in the Wentworth PGA Championship alongside Darren Clarke and Jeev Milkha Singh this week.

Speaking before the event, the 31-year-old spoke of the wrist surgery he had and revealed that rather than hinder his game, the injury could actually have ‘helped’.

Luke Donald will certainly hope this is the case because he hasn’t recorded a tournament victory since the 2006 Honda Classic in Florida.
The closest he has come in the last three years was at Wentworth last year when he finished two shots behind eventual winner Miguel Angel Jimenez.

With the remainder of 2009 ahead of him though, Luke Donald has said that people should not rule out tournament success for him.

He says that there is ‘no reason’ why he can’t win this week at Wentworth because he is ‘as good a player’ as he was before the injury setback.
One thing that has happened during his spell on the sidelines is that he has become more focused on achieving his goals. He admits that he now has a renewed ‘appreciation for the game’.

Whether this will be enough to record a victory this week though, remains to be seen. There are a lot of players that will fancy their chances, including Lee Westwood, Justin Rose, Rory McIlroy and Ernie Els.

The PowerSwing Trainer can improve your golf swing

With regular use, the Golf Gym PowerSwing Trainer can improve your golf swing and help you exercise, too.

The PowerSwing Trainer comes in two editions- Masters Edition and the Personal Edition.

Each one includes a very strong rubber “PowerCord” with either a left or right-handed grip, an illustrated exercise program, an exercise DVD and a neat pouch to keep the PowerCord clean and tidy. The PowerSwing Trainer Masters Edition includes the same contents as the Personal Edition but includes three PowerCord resistance levels: green lighter resistance for juniors and ladies, yellow medium resistance, and red for heavy resistance.

The PowerSwing Trainer is a useful golf aid that can be used as both for fitness and as a warm-up before a round. The Exercise Program includes warm-up, stretching, skill strengthening, general conditioning and injury prevention exercises.

The PowerSwing Trainer is a portable golf specific training and conditioning aid that helps to develop muscle memory, strength and flexibility; and its beauty is that it fits into its own zip bag the size of a pencil case, so can be used anytime, anywhere.

Choosing the correct resistance, this golf swing aid can really help you train your body to memorise how it feels to turn your upper body in the correct way. Similarly to the Golf Gym Weighted Club and the Explainar, the PowerSwing Trainer has started to train my body to turn and swing better, helping to iron out a common problem among higher handicap amateurs - my tendency to add a fade on shots, especially with my driver. The problem is caused by not rotating my upper body on the backswing and not following through on a straight plane, but slicing across the ball on impact. But I can honestly say, the PowerSwing Trainer is helping me here.

Regular exercise with Golf Gym’s PowerSwing Trainer is helping me to feel more flexible and less rigid in my swing. The result is, I am hitting longer, straighter, more accurate shots, with more frequency.

Joey D is currently coaching several pros on the US PGA Tour and uses Golf Gym’s PowerSwing Trainer as part of their warm-up exercises.

The PowerSwing Trainer Masters Edition costs $69.95 and the Personal Edition costs $39.95.

For more information visit www.GolfGym.com

The 33 year-old Swede was joint second with Ian Poulter and Tiger Woods going into the final round,  five shots behind German Alex Cejka.  But Cejka had a disastrous start to his fourth round and never recovered his game, leaving the door wide open for the chasing pack.

Stenson hit six birdies in a very impressive final round to finish on 66 (-12) and it was only this amazing score that stopped Ian Poulter from winning the title.  Poulter finished second with a solid round of 70, leaving him 8 under.

I’m sure plenty of bets were placed on Tiger Woods to win another tournament after round 3.  But like Cejka he had a disappointing final round of 79 to finish in eighth place overall on 5 under.

Tiger Woods has failed to find consistency over four rounds since returning in February after eight months out with a knee injury.  But both Henrik Stenson and Ian Poulter continue to move up the world rankings and are both looking to cement their positions with a majors victory in 2009.

Henrik Stenson is a good, solid, consistent golfer.  But I love Ian Poulter’s cockiness and flambuoyant personality.  Like snooker’s Ronnie O’Sullivan, Poulter brings excitement and cool to the game.

Poulter stood up to the extra publicity he received as Nick Faldo’s controversial Captain’s Pick for last year’s Ryder Cup team and appears to be cementing his place as one of the best golfers in the world.

The next step is for Ian Poulter to win a major; and the way he’s playing right now, this could be his year.

The Stadium Course at Sawgrass is one of the most famous in golf and Tiger Woods admits that even though it is ‘the best field’ around, it is also a ‘very demanding’ 18 holes.

Since returning from a long term injury, Tiger Woods has managed to finish ninth, first, sixth and fourth in his four strokeplay tournaments. This is far from a spectacular comeback, but considering the changes he has made to his game, he has done very well.

The player himself says that he thinks that he has ‘done alright, all things considered’. Amongst other changes, Tiger Woods has experimented with different drivers in recent weeks.

As a result of this, Tiger Woods believes that it is going to take a ‘little bit of time’ to hit the ball the same distances as he could prior to his injury. However, he believes that ‘it is coming’ and that he could be back to his best soon.

The World No.1 went on to reveal that his body ‘is starting to get more comfortable’ with everything, including being able to ‘practice after a round’.

Overall, things are slowly slipping into place for Tiger Woods and perhaps he can move his form up a notch this week at Sawgrass.

Padraig Harrington and Sergio Garcia both missed the cut for the tournament, but Tiger Woods and the rest of the field will be taking part in the Players Championship between the 7th and 10th of May in Florida.

The Wind Meter application for iPhones was developed GoApps. They were the first to come up with this concept of using the iPhone microphone for detecting wind speed about 6 months ago and began working with the necessary sound conversions, algorithms and programmers. It has taken a considerable amount of testing time and program up-dating for this device to give good approximate wind readings.

The remarkable Wind Meter app can be used to check the wind velocity for a multitude of recreational uses such as golf, sailing, boating, kite surfing, wind surfing and many others.
The Wind Meter is a top 10 selling weather apps at  iTunes.  However, with most golf clubs banning the use of mobile phones while on the course, I see the use of this actual device being limited to reading the wind speed before you start a round, more than other hand-held devices that can be used before each shot.

The Wind Meter costs €78 or $0.99.

For more information on the Wind Meter app for iPhones, visit www.windapp.com.

GolfGym Weighted Training Club

Over the past year three PGA Professionals have analysed my golf swing and given me the same critique.  The backswing is, apparently, pretty good.  But like many amateur golfers I have a tendency not to follow right through the ball in a straight swing; and as a result if I’m not careful, my driver shots can be affected by a fade.

Attempting to train myself to swing true, I was told to place two clubs together and swing them several times.  It sounds simple but works.  The weight of the clubs helps to keep my forward swing inline and complete.

The problem with placing two clubs together is you cannot hold the clubs with a proper grip.  I thanked the Pro who recommended this to me last year and was surprised that, as far as he was aware, a manufacturer hadn’t produced a heavy club, as he said this was a tried and tested technique.

Well now GolfGym, a golf fitness company based in California, have produced a weighted club, and it works a treat!

The GolfGym Weighted Training Club comes in two weights: Club 38 weighs 38oz. (2.4 lbs) and Club 28 weighs 28oz. (1.75 lbs).

The GolfGym Weighted Training Club design distributes the weight to perfectly match a standard golf club, with half the total weight in the bottom third of the club.  The added weight increases flexibility and balance; and the weight of the club forces you to keep on the correct swing plane.

In much the same way as the excellent Explainar golf training aid forces you to follow the correct swing plane through a heavy weight system, the GolfGym Weighted Training Club works perfectly for me.  The only difference is the weighted club is portable and fits in my golf bag.  The Explainar is big, expensive and even though I could buy a portable version to fit in the boot of my car, it’s hardly practical to use as part of my warm up on the first tee!

The GolfGym Weighted Training Club comes with a  left or right hand grip that forces your grip, which I’m not overly keen on to be honest.  But that aside, I really can’t praise this golf training aid enough.

It includes a training DVD showing exercises well respected bio-mechanics golf coach Joey D employs with the five PGA Tour Pros he is currently working with.

The Weighted Training Club is part of a complete range of golf training aids from GolfGym and PGA Tour Coach, Joey D. GolfGym has just announced that the Joey D Signature Series is now being shipped globally.

The GolfGym Weighted Training Club costs $59.95

The youngster was approached by officials during the week who offered him a ‘special temporary membership’ which would have meant that the money he has earned on US events this year would have counted towards their money list.

However, if Rory Mcllroy was to have ambitions of reaching the US Tour’s end of season play-offs, he would have had to play in 15 of their tournaments.

Considering his commitments to the European Tour and the new Race to Dubai, this wouldn’t have been practical for the 19-year-old. It would have been too much for him to take on at this early stage of his career.

Speaking about the situation, Rory Mcllroy said that joining the US Tour would have meant playing ‘four more tournaments in America’ than originally planned.

Overall, this is probably a sensible decision. Rory Mcllroy is at such a young age that he will have plenty of time to join the US Tour in the future. There is a chance that he would have been taken on too much if he went for it.

The media pressure on him is great enough already and this would have increased if he had joined the US PGA Tour.

Rory Mcllroy is one of the next generation of young golfers with a serious chance of winning a major golf tournament. But Mcllroy seems like a sensible young man with good advisors though, so they appear to have his best interests at heart.

The decision to decline the temporary membership has been passed on to the relevant people and now Rory Mcllroy can concentrate on the rest of the year.

Fellow European Tour members Ross Fisher and Oliver Wilson accepted similar invitations to that which Rory Mcllroy received.

Golf Refugees - Black Ball Golf Competition

Golf Refugees, creators of the original black golf ball, are launching a competition to find the lowest score achieved by a golfer using a black golf ball.

Like us, Golf Refugees don’t like rules, so they’re going to keep the free to enter competition rules to a minimum.

This is a worldwide competition, and is open to anyone who plays 18 holes of consecutive golf using a black golf ball, between the 1st March 2009 and 30th September 2009.

Golf Refugees will announce the competition winner  on 5th October 2009.

And if free competition entry isn’t enough, if you contact Golf Refugees with your details and a pre-paid postage envelope, they will send you a free black golf ball.

After your round, all you have to do to, is send us a copy of your signed score card, and they will post all of the results on the Golf Refugees web site.

The winner will receive the ‘Best black ball golfer’ trophy and a selection of prizes including golf balls, clothing etc.

For more information contact Golf Refugees.

The New Rules of Golf Instruction

Charlie King, is a GOLF Magazine Top 100 instructor who runs a golf academy in Georgia, United States.

He recently released a free e-book called The New Rules of Golf Instruction which discusses how traditional golf instruction has failed, and is something of a call to action for golfers everywhere to get golf instructors to use a modern set of ideas and standards.

You can also contact Charlie King by email.