There are tons of magazines out there for golfers to read, but not all of these magazines are made of the same quality. Some are too dry, others are too fluffy, and some are a little too racy for a golf magazine. Whether you’re a beginner, a weekend hacker, or a full-fledged pro, there is a magazine out there that will bring you news, information, and knowledge about the game, no matter your level. Hopefully, this article to make finding that ideal golfing magazine a simple process 🙂
What I Use to View Golf Magazines…
Before I start, I want to pre-empt by saying that I love using the Readly application to view my golfing magazines. For a monthly fee of around $10 a month, I can get unlimited access to hundreds of magazines and their back issues. This also means that I can read magazines from all English-speaking countries, so I don’t only have to limit myself to the United States! If you want to find out more about Readly, you can take a look at their official website HERE.
When reading digital magazines, I also like using one of those Chinese generic brand iPad clones. There’s a lot of them out there and my favorite right now is the AllDoCube iPlay40 Pro. This is an excellent value tablet that comes with an awesome screen for magazine reading!!
So, without further ado, these are my favorite golfing magazines (in no particular order).
Today’s Golfer
Today’s Golfer is an awesome golf magazine from the UK, which packs a lot of cool information into a sleek and well-presented magazine. Today’s Golfer has recently merged with another stellar golfing magazine from the UK Golf World. So the combination is sure to be a powerhouse of golfing content!
When looking at the latest edition (at the time of writing), these are some of the awesome features it included!
As you can see from the cover above, they had an awesome piece on how to use statistics to compare your golf game to others and find ways to improve. They included many examples from famous golfers, so this was a great read for me. We all want to improve, right??
As you can see, the article included some excellent instructional photos to help you understand some of the techniques discussed.
With the Ryder Cup fast approaching, there was a simply mind blowing set of articles on that. They had interviews which each of the captains from the upcoming Ryder Cup, discussing their preparations. There was a hole guide to the course that the Ryder Cup is going to be on this time around. They even had interviews with other key figures (such as the owner of the golf course of the Ryder Cup and a caddie that has experienced the Ryder Cup many times!).
As someone that loves watching the Ryder Cup, I found this a lengthy and very enjoyable section. This is one example as to why I think Today’s Golfer is such an awesome and high quality golfing magazine. They leave no stone un-turned. And I enjoy the balance they have between golfing news, event coverage and golf tips!
This was rounded off by a massive ‘Play Better’ section that contained a whole host of tips to raise your golf game! And, as you would expect, they have excellent and detailed golf gear reviews and a list of the top 100 modern golf courses. Call me impressed!
I know I have a lot of North American readers that may be scoffing at the idea of reading a UK based magazine. But the quality of this magazine makes the slight European bias more than worth it to me!! In the age of the internet, why not spread your wings a little!
Golf Tips Magazine
This bi-monthly magazine out of America is great for people that don’t really care about golfing news or hearing about the latest and greatest pro players or looking up golfing history! This magazine is aimed squarely at people that are looking for golf tips to improve their game. And when you have a magazine dedicated to this you will get many more tips per issue than other regular golfing magazines.
The problem that I hear from many golfers around a lot of golfing magazines is the fact that you can get the same information on the magazine’s website, meaning there is no point to pay for the magazine. Golf Tips doesn’t fall into this trap, as they have high-quality photography and tip walkthroughs that would be tough to find on the internet in this quantity and easy to hand.
And you know these are top quality tips as they are often given by high-level golf instructors.
As well as covering golfing technique they also have articles about golfing strategy, which is great to see. In this particular issue, they had an article about the strategy of playing a par 5 (for example). This was backed up in the same issue by another great article about golf ‘The Mind Game’, which talks about the psychological side of golf.
Golf Tips do have the odd equipment review here and there, but it isn’t a major component of the magazine. If you are looking for a review heavy magazine, then I would look elsewhere.
I don’t really hear many people talking about Golf Tips and I don’t know why. It’s an awesome hidden gem of a golfing magazine, in my opinion.
The Golfer’s Journal
This golfing magazine is a totally different beast from most others. It offers a more classy and understated form of golfing magazine without the more ‘in your face’ articles and adverts you will find in most other golfing magazines.
If you like golfing stories and history, this is the golfing magazine for you. This is backed up by some of the best photography you will find in any golf magazine period. For me personally, this is the ultimate coffee table golf magazine. Although I don’t subscribe to every episode, I do buy the odd issue here or there to enjoy the special style that this magazine offers.
Golf Monthly
This is another magazine from the UK. For me personally, I feel that the UK has golf magazines down to a tee (excuse the pun). This is because they seem so good at balancing out the content in their publication. You want history? They got it! You want golf equipment reviews? They got it! You want features on popular golfers? They got it! How about detailed golf tutorials? Guess what? They got it! I personally don’t like magazines that only look at one or two of these elements, I want a magazine that combines all elements well.
The latest issue of Golf Monthly is a perfect example of this. They had a really well done interview with Adam Scott, looking back on his career and talking about his future plans.
They also had an excellent piece on Butch Harmon, going over his life, career and golf philosophy (including some really cool historical photos). If that isn’t enough golf history for you, they also had an article in this issue about the 1990 Solheim Cup 🙂 And in general it is great seeing this magazine embracing the women’s pro tour and having several articles on it in this issue.
As you would expect from any quality golfing publication, they have a decent sized section each month that goes over golfing technique and some fixes that you may need for your golf game. These are all well presented with clear instructional photographs.
Although this part of the magazine is often not as good as that offered by Today’s Golfer or Golf Tips above, it is good to see that they include this element and that it is at least a solid effort.
To wrap up, it is good to see that they have a double spread rules related page, answering reader’s questions about different elements of the golfing rule set. And my favorite part of this magazine is the equipment reviews. They are all well written whilst being concise (nothing worse than a long drawn out review for the sake of it!). I like the mini head-to-head comparisons they add into their regular reviews, as well as having some truly epic group test reviews. This month that had one comparing a bucket load of golf stand bags together.
The presentation of these reviews is top-notch in my opinion, and some of the best I have seen in any golf related publication!
Is The Golfing Magazine Dead?
I hear quite a lot of people saying that golfing magazines are dead and that you can just find the same information for free on the internet. What I would say to that is that you would struggle to find so much well curated golf information in one place, giving you access to all the golf information you could dream of. To get the same online would require a lot more searching and website jumping. As most of us have busy lives, this makes the golfing magazine as valuable as ever.
And with technology such as Readly around, you can simply pay one subscription and enjoy multiple magazines about golf (or any other hobby that interests you). I think this is the future of magazine consumption!
