You don’t always have to swing easy when it’s breezy. Being able to create different flighted golf shots will change the way you combat weather conditions.
This week, Golfweek’s fitness guru and long driver Averee Dovsek demonstrates how to execute a stinger with a few simple steps. These simple steps will have you hitting this shot like a professional.
Practice these steps to hit a stinger next time you are at the range to build up confidence before taking it to the course.
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A burgeoning segment of the game is the golf entertainment side of things.
CHANDLER, Ariz. – A burgeoning segment of golf is on the entertainment side of things. Topgolf comes to mind, as does the Tiger Woods-backed Popstroke. There are places like Putting World, too.
Now Golfzon is looking to get a larger piece of the action in the United States.
Hugely popular in Asia, the high-end golf simulator manufacturer is making inroads in the U.S., having entered the market here about six years ago. Stinger’s Golf Club, in the golf hotbed of Arizona, is one of newest businesses to feature Golfzon’s products.
The indoor golf facility, which owner Tyler Wilson likes to call a “golf bar,” recently held a grand opening in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler. Wilson was previously in the logistics freight brokerage business, but something told him to take a chance with a concept that’s a little more fun. And fun is to be had here.
Stinger’s Golf Club in Chandler, Arizona (Todd Kelly/Golfweek)
“I was always finding myself wanting to get out and play some more golf and turn my passion into a business a little more,” said the former college baseball player.
Inspired by a visit to Golf the Green in Chicago, Wilson sensed there was something to this screen golf concept. It led him to an empty storefront in a strip mall that used to be an AutoZone, where he set up shop for Stinger’s.
On his first day of business, a man popped in for a round. He had just dropped his wife off for a hair appointment, punched “golf near me” into Google and discovered Stinger’s was right around the corner.
Powered by simulators made by Golfzon, golfers can hit in six bays and play up to 200 simulated golf courses including Pebble Beach and PGA West. A hitting bay costs $50 an hour, and Stinger’s offers several membership options.
If you haven’t played this kind of screen golf, it may only be a matter of time until you do. Golfzon already is a major player in the trend, especially in Korea, where golfers are starved for any chance to wack a little white ball.
For a sense of Golfzon’s scale, the company offers the following sample of data from 2023:
Holes played on Golfzon simulators: 1,746,790,758
Rounds played: 99,965,162
Shots hit: 7,246,686,086
Countries with Golfzon simulators: 41
Golfzon simulators worldwide: Close to 10,000
Facilities in the U.S. with Golfzon simulators: Almost 200
Of the 500 or so Golfzon simulators in the U.S., about 200 are residential installations.
When Golfzon first arrived in the U.S., close to 90 percent of sales were to golfer’s homes. That has flipped, with 90 percent of screens now being installed in places like Stinger’s.
The bays have a variety of surfaces to hit from that simulate fairways, two thicknesses of rough and sand traps.
A synthetic surface that mimics a sand trap at Stinger’s Golf Club in Chandler, Arizona (Todd Kelly/Golfweek)
The floor moves to present golfers with sidehill and other angled lies. There’s an app that captures your best shots and sends you video replays, so you can brag to all your friends when you birdie from a greenside bunker on No. 7 at Pebble Beach Golf Links, for example.
Mostly, it’s about fun.
“I always try to refer to us as a golf bar,” Wilson said. “It’s something that you can go and watch the game if you want to, if you just want to hang out and meet up with your buddies, grab some food and watch the game, throw some bets down, whatever you want to do.”
He envisions big crowds for NFL games. He says he can also see fantasy football players settling disputes over draft order on the large putting green in front of the bar. The whole place can be rented out for corporate functions, bachelor parties, you name it. They’ll even extend hours past normal closing time if need be.
It’s also a place for Arizona’s golfers to scratch that itch without dealing with temperatures of more than 100 degrees.
“We feel like, obviously, in the summer, it’s going to be a great alternative, where you can play quickly, play cheaply and dodge the heat,” Wilson said.
An already disappointing 2020 season has taken a devastating turn for the worse for the Dallas Cowboys.
An already disappointing 2020 season has taken a devastating turn for the worse for the Dallas Cowboys. Starting left tackle Tyron Smith will undergo surgery to deal with an ongoing neck issue, head coach Mike McCarthy announced on Friday morning. Smith will miss the remainder of the season.
“It’s become official, just speaking to everybody involved,” McCarthy told media on a conference call on Friday, “Tyron will continue the process of going through surgery. This is a correctable situation. He obviously will not be available the rest of the season. Clearly, the focus is on him personally. I think the surgery is scheduled for next week.”
Smith missed the second and third games of this season with stingers but returned last week to play all 82 offensive snaps in the team’s loss to Cleveland. But more missed practices this past week led to medical consultations, which have now convinced the seven-time Pro Bowler to shut it down for the year.
McCarthy said Smith’s stingers have been a recurring problem dating beyond just the 2020 season and will only continue if not treated through the scheduled procedure.
“My understanding is it’s something that he’s been dealing with for some time,” McCarthy said, “and I’ve also been told that it’s a correctable surgery. If he doesn’t have the surgery, he’ll just continue to deal with this in the manner of how this season has gone. This is something that needs to be done.”
Now the club will be forced to continue to shuffle linemen, as they have all season long, as they simultaneously deal with the absence of starting right tackle La’el Collins and center Joe Looney.
“Your offensive and defensive linemen are clearly vital to your success,” said the coach. “It’s something that we feel very strong about, our linemen and the depth of our linemen. The game starts at the line of scrimmage and the importance of playing to that mindset will never change here.”
Rookie center Tyler Biadasz has stepped into the starting lineup. Terence Steele and Brandon Knight have also played, with varying degrees of success thus far in 2020. New bodies have been added to the practice squad just this week, but McCarthy wouldn’t divulge details about exactly who will play where come Sunday.
“We’re always going to try to put our best players out there that are ready for the challenge. And it’s not as much about what’s their personnel grade or the perception of where they rank. There’s a lot that goes into this. You have eight offensive linemen that play; obviously, you want to have the five that play with the highest level of cohesiveness, connection, communication. That’s something you continue to work on.”
The war of attrition rages on. While 2020 seems to have taken a costlier toll on the league’s superstar players than in years past, losing players to injuries has always been a part of the game.
“Make no mistake about it, ” Jerry Jones explained on 105.3 The Fan on Friday. “You don’t play pro football unless you factor in injury. You know you’re going to have them; you just don’t know where and what area you’re going to have them in. That’s what makes this such a challenging game. That’s why it’s so great when you win: because you’ve gone through a lot of challenges.”
McCarthy also chalked the injuries up to business as usual but admitted that losing so many offensive linemen in such a short span has made it especially tough for the team to find its footing this season.
“It’s life in the NFL,” he offered. “It just comes at you different ways. The unfortunate part of this game is, players have injuries. When they all come in the same position this quickly… We’re always starting that season where you’re trying to get the young guys to close that gap with your experienced players. And just to have this type of volume of losing your top three tackles this quickly, it makes the challenge a little tougher.”
The team may be losing No. 77 on the field, but the two-time All-Pro still plans on making his presence felt around the facility, doing what he can to help coach up the younger players who will be tasked with taking his place protecting Dak Prescott, and blocking for Ezekiel Elliott as the Cowboys try to turn the season around.
“After speaking with Tyron, that was one of the first things that he made the point of with me,” McCarthy said. “He wants to be here and make sure he’s helping the tackles every single day. I think that speaks to him as a man and a leader.”
