Guest Post from PGA TOUR Professional Zach Johnson

PGA TOUR Professional Zach Johnson, along with fellow PGA TOUR Professional Chris DiMarco and LPGA TOUR Professional Natalie Gulbis, make up Team McGladrey. Through their involvement with RSM McGladrey, Zach, Chris and Natalie participate in certain activities sponsored by the firm, and support a number of charitable organizations. The message below is from Zach. We plan to use his tips to help improve our game – feel free to use them to improve yours as well!

As a member of Team McGladrey, I’m looking forward to playing in the new PGA TOUR event, The McGladrey Classic this October 7 – 10. I’m also looking forward to being at Sea Island Resort later this month (March 29) for a special McGladrey Classic community event. I can’t share too many details about that just yet, but hope you’ll check back here regularly for updates and to ask any questions and/or leave comments that you’d like to share.

In the meantime, here are a few quick tips for improving your game:

MAKING MORE PUTTS – Visualization is a great help to making more putts. From a drill standpoint, on the practice green, set up tees around the hole, with three stations, at intervals of three feet, five-feet and seven-feet. Try to make 20 from the three-foot station, 10 from the five-foot station and five from the seven-foot station. Move through all three stations once without missing or repeat the drill. Bottom line, with regard to putting…practice makes perfect.

REVERSING A REVERSE PIVOT – If you have a tendency to reverse pivot, you’re not alone – it’s very common among amateurs. To move your weight to the left, concentrate on having the same posture at impact as you do at address. With good posture at impact, the weight of the club will move your weight to the left side naturally without your having to think too much about it.

CHOOSING A PUTTER – When choosing a putter, it’s important to remember that putting is such an individual thing that no one putter is right for everyone. Find one that suits your type of stroke and one that looks good to your eye. Putting is all about confidence, so choose a putter than inspires confidence in you.

Congrats and stay tuned for an exciting announcement...

Congratulations to three-time major champion Ernie Els on being honored this week with the Golf Writers’ Association of America’s (GWAA) Charlie Bartlett Award. The award is given to professional golfers for unselfish contributions to the betterment of society. Els was selected for his youth foundation in South Africa, the Els for Autism Foundation and the Els Center for Excellence. He will be honored at the GWAA Annual Awards Dinner April 7 in Augusta, Georgia.

Speaking of Georgia, Sea Island resident and Team McGladrey Member Zach Johnson announced this week that he will play in the 42nd annual Verizon Heritage at South Carolina’s Harbour Town Golf Links April 12-18, as well as at the newly-built AT&T Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio May 13-16.

Although none of our Team McGladrey Members are playing this week, we’re sure they are all practicing hard for the upcoming events in which they'll be competing.

Coming up later this month…look for a follow-up announcement about The McGladrey Classic – straight to you from Sea Island! Davis Love III, Zach Johnson, RSM McGladrey’s very own President and COO C.E. Andrews and a bunch of other great folks will be on-hand for what promises to be an exciting and fun time at one of the world’s most beautiful golf resorts!

What do you think it might be? Got a guess? Let us hear from you!

Team McGladrey from Phoenix to Singapore

The Waste Management Phoenix Open teed off this week (Feb. 25), with Team McGladrey members Chris DiMarco and Zach Johnson playing alongside other golfing greats such as Geoff Ogilvy, Phil Mickelson and Scott Verplank. Johnson posted a first round score of 66 (-5) and DiMarco shot 69 (-2). We will be keeping tabs on them!

Also this week, Team McGladrey Member Natalie Gulbis is playing in the HSBC Women’s Champions at Tanah Merah Country Club’s Garden Course in Singapore.

If any of our readers are at any of these tournaments, take photos of Team McGladrey members and send them to us. We’d love to post them here on our blog – and will give you credit for any photos we use.

Oh, and while we’re thinking about it, last week, Natalie was a guest on THP Radio Show recently, and talked about all things golf, as well as the new signature Adidas golf shoes she’s wearing this year. To hear what Natalie had to say, visit www.thehackersparadise.com.

Zach Johnson's final score for the Waste Management Phoenix Open will be:
	Higher than -5
	Between -6 and -10
	Between -11 and -15
	Lower than -16

PBJ, burgers and golf - doesn't get much better than that!

Congratulations to Dustin Johnson for winning the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am this past Sunday. What a great Valentine’s Day present for him!

We’ve been keeping a close eye on all three Team McGladrey members, as all three of them play this week:

Chris DiMarco is playing in the Mayacoba Classic at Riviera Maya in Cancun Feb. 18-21. Earlier this week, he accepted an invitation to play at the Dallas-area HP Byron Nelson Championship, May 20-23 at TPC Four Seasons, Las Colinas. This will be Chris’ twelfth Nelson appearance; he tied for third in 1999.

Natalie Gulbis opens her season playing in the Feb. 18-21 Honda PTT LPGA Thailand, along with Lorena Ochoa, Paula Creamer, Michelle Wie and other great LPGA TOUR professionals.

And Zach Johnson won his match in the opening round of the Accenture Match Play Championship Wed., Feb. 17! Zach and Francesco Molinari of Italy had to play extra holes before Zach closed out the match on the 21st. Maybe it was the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich that Zach ate just before the 21st hole that gave him the edge. Or maybe it was the promise he’d made to reward himself with a nice juicy burger if he won. Our guess is that he’s just an amazing golfer! What do you think?

Follow us on Twitter for regular Team McGladrey member updates.

Team McGladrey Member Natalie Gulbis is playing in this weeks Honda PTT LPGA tournament in Thailand. Where do you think she'll finish?
	Top 5
	Top 10
	Top 20
	Top 30

Team McGladrey marks another busy week!

We’ve been following Team McGladrey Member Chris DiMarco in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am this week, and have enjoyed also watching various celebrities in the tournament, including comedian Ray Romano, country music singer Vince Gill, football great Tony Romo, actor Andy Garcia and singer Michael Bolton. This is, without a doubt, one of our favorite tournaments to watch.

New this year: the tournament is linking up with the American Heart Association to dedicate Valentine’s Day (Sun., Feb. 14) to “Swing for the Heart” day. Golfers and spectators are being encouraged to wear red Sunday to show their support for a cure for heart disease, the leading cause of death in the U.S. While the RSM McGladrey sports marketing team isn’t lucky enough to be attending this tournament in person, we plan to show our support by wearing red this Sunday. ’Hope you’ll do the same!

Also this week, Team McGladrey Member Natalie Gulbis participated in a photo shoot for the March/April issue of Golf Fitness magazine, and participated in a public service announcement where the LPGA pledged its support for the First Lady Michelle Obama’s campaign to end childhood obesity, Let’s Move.

The goal of Let’s Move is to solve the childhood obesity problem by encouraging U.S. families to adopt healthy lifestyles and inspire children to include 60 minutes of active play in each day. This is a theme that the LPGA adopted in 2007 via an Ad Council and Department of Health & Human Services advertising campaign to encourage children to Get Up and Play an Hour a Day.

We’d like to conclude this week’s update by congratulating Mike Bender for being named The PGA of America National Teacher of the Year. Mike has taught numerous golfing greats over the years, including our very own Team McGladrey Member Zach Johnson. Way to go, Mike!

And speaking of Zach Johnson, the second in our series of “The Power of Being Understood” ads, featuring Zach, will begin being rolled out this month. (The first in this ad series featured Natalie Gulbis, and appeared in national and golf-related publications beginning this past fall.) Stay on the lookout for Zach in these ads! And visit here frequently to stay up-to-date on Team McGladrey members and the upcoming McGladrey Classic to be held in Sea Island this October.

Thoughts of warmer weather and, of course, golf...

Well, we made it through the first month of 2010, and all the snow, ice and rain that came with it this year here in the Carolinas. I know…I know…it’s nothing compared to what our friends up north have experienced but for us Southerners, it’s been a cold, wet winter. And as our minds turn to warmer weather, they turn, of course, to golf. (Actually, we think about golf year-round, but that’s another story…)

A lot of great things are already happening in the world of golf this year. We were excited this week to learn that Davis Love III, whose foundation will be The McGladrey Classic’s host organization, was named by 2010 Ryder Cup Captain Corey Pavin as an assistant captain. Additional assistant captains include Paul Goydos, Tom Lehman and Jeff Sluman. In a recent press conference from the Northern Trust Open, Pavin said that he hand-picked his four assistants because of their intelligence, experience and their ability to express their opinions. Sounds to us as if he’s chosen a winning team!

Also this week, Team McGladrey Member Natalie Gulbis was on the Matt Minkus Show where she talked about a number of items, including her participation in last fall’s Celebrity Apprentice (Natalie says that “The Donald” is a big supporter of women’s golf.), her thoughts about golf being added to The Olympics, a “typical day” for her during the off season and, of course, her thoughts on the Tiger Woods situation. (No golf-related interview these days would be complete without questions related to that issue, now would it?)

We’re looking forward to next week’s AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, which will be played at multiple courses in the Pebble Beach area. The Payne Stewart Youth Golf Exhibition will be held at the Pebble Beach driving range on February 6th, the Saturday prior to the start of the Pro-Am. We’ll be tuning in to catch their tournament rounds – and envying that warm West Coast weather!

What do YOU think about The McGladrey Classic?

With this week’s post, we’d like to thank Davis Love III for his guest post last week, in support of the recently announced McGladrey Classic. It’s only been a few short days since the announcement, but we’re already working in tandem with the PGA TOUR and the Davis Love Foundation to make sure that everything is teed-up and ready to go for October. It promises to be quite an event!

In the meantime, we’ll continue to use our golf blog to keep you updated on progress with The McGladrey Classic, activities of Team McGladrey members Chris DiMarco, Natalie Gulbis and Zach Johnson, and other golf-related activities. But we need YOUR help to make sure we’re sharing what you want to know about. Submit your comments and questions here. We LOVE talking about the game of golf, and would like to hear your thoughts on “all things golf!”

Finally, we’ll close this week’s post by congratulating Hall of Fame golfer Annika Sorenstam for recently being named honorary chair for the 2011 U.S. Women’s Open, which will be held at The Broadmoor, July 4-10, 2011.

We’d also like to salute the good work done by the ANNIKA Foundation in helping teach children the importance of living a healthy, active lifestyle through fitness and nutrition, and for offering aspiring golfers opportunities to pursue their dreams.

As Davis said last week, “Golf is a game of honor.” At RSM McGladrey, we’re honored to be a part of the game, and we look forward to continuing to use our involvement as an avenue for giving back to the community!