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Matt Cleary
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19 Holes With ... Chad Townsend and Val Holmes
Former North Queensland Cowboys Val Holmes and Chad Townsend are Sydneysiders these days, turning out for the St George Illawarra Dragons and Sydney Roosters respectively. Yet their passion for golf and their Players Club social media and merchandise empire, forged in Townsville, has travelled into the deep south with them, as Matt Cleary found on a fine – if perilous to passing motorists - afternoon at Monash Country Club.
17 Mar 2025
Cleary: Postcard from California
Our man Matt Cleary visited the great state of California for a golf and cultural exchange tour for the ages, and found the fine city of San Francisco where there is craft beer and steep streets and freaky driverless taxis. And, he can assure you, there is some of the all-time top golf.
17 Mar 2025
Adam Scott fans winning as Players Championship Round One Tee-times announced
The Players Championship round one tee-times have been announced, and the news is good for Australia-based Adam Scott fans who should see plenty of their man on Friday morning's broadcast.
12 Mar 2025
Personal Lesson: Stop your chips dead at the hole
Andrew Cooper, Head Teaching Professional at Victoria Golf Club, demonstrates the keys to gaining sufficient elevation and stopping power for chips around the green – a very common skill requirement around the tight lies of the Melbourne Sandbelt, but an action which can be applied on most surfaces around the green.
12 Mar 2025
"More pointless than Pokémon": Tomorrow's Golf League critiqued, and roughly
Matt Cleary has seen enough of Tomorrow's Golf League (TGL), the hybrid, indoor-outdoor, digital-actual, teams-based golf league in Florida to know that it's not for him. Indeed he wonders if it has any point at all.
10 Mar 2025
Cleary: Postcard from Sin City
Our man Matt Cleary is on a sports odyssey of the United States, and comes to us live from Las Vegas where the stakes (and steaks) are large, the ice hockey impenetrable and the golf is flat-out extraordinary.
5 Mar 2025
Spotlight: Commonwealth Golf Club
Brian Slawnik and Tom Doak of Renaissance Golf Design have long been unabashed fans of the Sandbelt, and of Commonwealth Golf Club in particular. When asked to redesign the course, the first thing Slawnik told members was that it’s already great and that RGD would approach the work as preservationists. What Slawnik, RGD and Commonwealth greens staff did since has reimagined and reinvigorated one of Australia’s great courses.
1 Mar 2025
Video interview: Drinks With ... Matt Millar
Veteran tour pro Matt Millar on LIV Golf, the Australian Open and playing with Rory, Ernie and cranky Colin Montgomerie.
19 Feb 2025
Cleary: A Vintage Day of Golf in The Hunter
We were three beers deep at a pub called Nineteen when the barkeep offered us three hundred bucks. It sounded generous. Too generous. As friendly as these Hunter Valley folk are, they don’t hand out greenbacks to wandering golf hounds, particularly those who may come from Sydney. There must be a catch, our table of knowledge deduced.
17 Feb 2025
Cleary: A mug punter's guide to LIV Adelaide
Welcome to LIV Adelaide and your mug punter's guide to the Big Hopes in the tournament, featuring stupid-late mail on the players whose game suits the golf course to help gain a line on the favourites, the chances, the smokies, the flat-out pretenders. And, fact is, you’d sooner pick an Irishman on a roughie to win the Melbourne Cup.
13 Feb 2025
Cleary: If LIV Golf so wows Adelaide, why's it so 'meh' on TV?
The tourism industry loves it, the South Australian premier loves it, and the sports fans of Australia have voted with their feet. For the last two years the good burghers of the World Golf Awards have declared LIV Adelaide the best tournament in the world. It's passing odd, then, that LIV Golf remains a bit of a dud on television.
12 Feb 2025
PGA Personal Lesson: Six-Ball Putting Drill To Hone Feel For Speed
Tom Corker, Head of Instruction at Kingston Heath, demonstrates this very nice distance control putting drill to practise at any time, but particularly before your round or if you’re playing a golf course that’s unfamiliar.
12 Feb 2025
Cleary: LIV Adelaide and the power of people
On a mild April afternoon in 2022, day three of LIV Adelaide at The Grange, the enigmatic, cosmopolitan final group of Talor Gooch, Pat Perez and Charl Schwartzel were followed down the 18th fairway by what looked like everybody on the property. It was a triumph for organisers. Greg Norman was vindicated. Because LIV Golf had arrived.
10 Feb 2025
Leishman, Herbert, Jones in line for Oakmont start after U.S Open grants LIV Golf exemption
The USGA has created an exemption category for LIV Golf players to compete in the U.S. Open, making the tournament the first of golf's four majors to introduce a formal pathway for golfers on the Saudi-backed circuit, it said on Wednesday.
7 Feb 2025
Cleary: Medal Day? You need one for turning up
Golf is meant to be fun, right? Well, Medal Day, with the course setup at its hardest and every stroke counted, is not - much more often than not - fun. Indeed it can be like a four-day hike on the Kokoda Track without the sense of accomplishment, according to Matt Cleary.
3 Feb 2025
19 Holes With... Damien Fleming
To say Damien Fleming has the golf bug would be to infer that the zombies in Shaun of the Dead had a touch of the flu ... as Golf Australia magazine discovered over an enjoyable hit at Yarra Yarra GC.
23 Jan 2025
PGA Personal Lesson: Stop Hitting It Fat (and Thin)
PGA of Australia member and head teaching professional at Commonwealth Golf Club, Marcus Hakkinen, has a simple and effective drill for improving the quality of your ball-striking and eliminating the dreaded fat chunk
16 Jan 2025
Cleary: Tomorrow's Golf League starts today, and almost anything goes
Tomorrow's Golf League (TGL), the hybrid "real" and digital golf experience contested by teams in a tech-infused warehouse in Florida will kick off imminently, and, maybe, it will enamour Generation Next. Senior Writer Matt Cleary remains a tad sceptical, you could say.
8 Jan 2025
19 Holes With ... Clint Newton
The Jack Newton Celebrity Classic is a three-day golf tournament come Christmas party which for 45 years has raised millions for the late and great Jack Newton’s twin passions, diabetes research and junior golf. Following the man’s passing in 2022, the legacy is being carried forward by his son, Clint, among others in the Newton family. And Clint has a few tales to tell – and a legacy to create – of his own, as Matt Cleary found over 18 holes and a couple of beers at Shortees Golf complex in Sydney’s Terrey Hills.
12 Dec 2024
PGA Personal Lesson: the lost art of chipping with 5-iron
If you catch vision of Open Championships from the '60s and '70s, you'll see players of the day chipping onto greens with 4- and 5-irons. Chris Hynes, Head Teaching Professional at Sanctuary Lakes, calls it a lost art. And wants to bring it back. And, given its low margin for error and consistent results, particularly in the wind, you may wonder why you'd ever reach for lob-wedge again.
11 Dec 2024
Cleary: February beckons for standalone Australian Opens
Running the men's and women's Australian Opens concurrently has benefits for sponsors, television and fans. But, overall, interpreting the greater hive-mind of sports-loving Australians, it feels like the time has come to pull the pin on a bold experiment. And, with a blank slate and nothing set in stone contractually, our governing bodies should climax Australia's "Summer of Golf" in February with four world-class tournaments.
9 Dec 2024
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