Hi. This is Chris Ravi Kamar from Palo Alto, California, and I
played at the Halfland Big Golf Links. This is Golf Smarter number nine five
six. I played in college at Duke for four years and had a good
career, a couple time All American and when I turned pro, I decided
to start my career in Europe. And I was good friends with Peter yu
Line at Brooks Kopka, who were a couple years older than me. But
I kind of saw the trail that they had blazed through Europe and I wanted
to do something similar. So first part of my career I had quite a
bit of success, but I actually won my third event and then eventually worked
my way up to the European Tour, played the European Tour for a little
bit and then Challenge Tour, and really I ended up playing all over the
world, and then I came back to the States and played for a little
bit. But in total I played over two hundred events and over forty five
countries on every major world tour and six continents. I mean, I've seen
a lot that the game has to offer at much of different levels. Bad
results on the course can also be the result of poor food choices. Featuring
Brinson Paolini. This is Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips and insights from
great golf minds to help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ.
There's your host, Fred Green. Welcome back to the Golf Smarter podcast.
Brinson, Hello, Fred, happy to be here. It's great to have
you back on the show because you've been evolving your product line. When we
first met you, yep, it was through sharp Focus Nutrition and now you're
sharp Focused Golf. So let's back up for a minute talk about sharp Focus
Nutrition, the ideas that you had for that and where it is today,
and then we'll get to sharp focus golf too. For sure, I think
when it starts with sharp Focus Nutrition, it really bore out of my own
experience and my own coaching. I've been doing coaching for over a decade,
and it's something guy struggled with personally when I competed in college, when I
pleaded professionally on the European Tour and Challenge for many other tours, and something
my students struggled with was just proper nutrition on the golf course. And I
went out there to solve that problem. And we feel that we've been able
to do that with we call it SFN or Sharp Focus Nutrition our packets,
and that's really evolved and we've added additional items and products. We now have
an electrolyte supplement, which is really exciting since we last spoke, and so
that's evolved. And then you know, Sharp Focused Golf is something that I've
had in the back of my mind for a long time. Just I've had
my own website and performance website for a long time and have always wanted to
update it with contributors and really covering the whole gamut of golf topics for golfers
of all levels. And that's really what we've worked really hard on over the
last eighteen months. And you're excited with the with the end result excellent.
Just for those who've not been introduced to it before, let's recap what the
product line, product lines that you have for Sharp Focused Nutrition, what they
were, what they are, and what they do and why. Yeah.
So the idea of Sharp Focus Antutrition is it's an encourse eating supplement. It's
a program to eat food throughout the round to keep your energy levels and keep
avoiding spikes and crashes. In your blood sugar. And we put this packet
together and it's actually on a little carabiner clip and you could clip it on
your bag and you eat small amounts of food throughout the round and it tells
you which holes to eat it on. But the idea is that you're eating
a little bit pre round and then every three holes throughout the round from there,
and it's backed by science, back to our research on what to eat
and when to eat it, and so it's all in one in neat little
packet and then from there we've evolved and since we last spoke, we now
have an electrolyte supplement and we partnered with Tracemens on that and they're really the
leader when it comes to liquid electrolyte supplements and we've partnered with them to develop
one tailored for golfers. And so it's gonna be different than some of the
other stuff out in the market where the more tablet based. Ours is liquid
based and which has a lot of benefits. It's you keep it in your
bag, it has you know, through your shelf life, and it sometimes
in extreme heat, those tablets can get to where you can't use them anymore,
and the liquid that isn't the case, and so all it takes is
it's pure electrolytes, no additives, no sugar. It's actually got no taste.
So you just put five drops in your glass of water and you have
the proper electrolytes for golfers, and you know, we're really excited and it's
been been a cool thing to add for folks out there trying to play their
best. Yeah. So I for years, I've found that if I eat
a lot before or during around, it doesn't work for me. I have
a big crash. Yeah, And so I've always been a big fan of
the idea of just grazing through the round with whatever it is, like I
personally like like peanut butter pretzels. Yeah, I remember you saying that a
cliff bar some you know, maybe dried mango, dried fruit, but not
eating a lot. Just keep it going wheels, never fall off. What
was the need that you discovered that made you feel like you needed to develop
this product line. It was something that I just saw players losing energy and
struggling toward the end of the round, and I experienced it myself. I
think it's easy if you're on the last night on Sunday and in contention either
to make the cut or in contention to win, and you start making bad
decisions, to start blaming your technique or blaming your coaches or whatever it might
be. And I would just look at other folks and from outside looking in,
it's really simple. It's like you just got tired, you didn't have
the right fuel, and it's easy to forget to eat. I always sounds
like you had a good reminder, but for me, I would forget.
I'd always have food in the golf bag, but I would forget to eat
it. And there was great research and there is great research out there on
what to eat, when to eat it, and we just put it in
a simple package. And then the carabiner clip was kind of inventive to put
it on the outside of your bag so it's always visible. So you love
that so you don't forget to eat when you're coming down the stretch. And
I think that's the idea because the second you know, I know you've heard
this and we all have. But the second you're hungry, you're thirsty,
it's too late, and the first thing that goes is your decision making,
and you're not gonna be able to give yourself the opportunity to make good decisions
at the most important time in the round unless you're doing all the things right
leading up to that moment. And that was kind of the need that we
had wanted. And then hydration is a big part of it too, and
we struggled a little bit with hydration and how to solve that. But you
know, through some work with trade minerals, we feel we come up with
a really good product for golfers as well. That's awesome. Personally, I
walk the course when I play, but I have a push cart. Yeah,
so so my my food, you know, the things that I bring
with me that I'm grazing on is always kind of right in front of me
because it's right there on the on the pushcart. You got it on the
push cart, right, so for somebody who's carrying a bag, you may
not see it. So I thought the carabiner was such a great idea because
it's gonna remind you, for sure, it's gonna remind you. That's great
that you have that system. And it's funny, you know, Fred,
you encouraged us when I was on here last time to have an alternative because
we have beef Jerkey's the first thing in Mark sharp focus antutrition to you encouraged
us to get a plant based option, which we've been able to do and
it tastes really good as well. But we appreciate that. I appreciate that
feedback and we've been able to incorporate that in there as well. So what
did you do, because I remember you sent me at one point you sent
me some salmon based jerkey. Yes, so no, we did. We
ended up going plant based. We did go plant based. We did go
plant based as the option that we have for folks. Okay, and what
is what is the product and what is that it's gonna be. Yeah,
it's gonna be based on one, you know, plants one hundred percent being
in you know, specifically, not exactly sure. It isn't the most popular.
I mean, most people like the beef turkey. I mean, beef
turkey is the number one selling snack in America. I mean, I don't
think people understand that people love their beef turkey. So that's kind of the
main one from that same point. But we god that we're able to help
folks that that do want to do that, like yourself. Yeah, well,
thank you. I appreciate that. So now you've got that going.
It's been going for a couple of years now, yeah, coming up on
two years. Yep. Great, and it's still at sharp Focus Nutrition dot
Com. Correct, Yes, we've separated. It's still sharp Focus Nutrition dot
Com is where all those products will be sold. Okay, so please go
check those out. Appreciate it. But now you're moving on to expand your
your viability, not not just with the product line, but with your golf
instruction. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like I mentioned, this is kind
of born out of my own experience and coaching, and you know, I've
been fortunate in my life to have been exposed to a lot of great instructors,
you know, folks from sports psychology to fitness to swing instruction, and
I wanted to be able to bring that to folks in a low cost,
systematic way, and that's what we've been able to do. So we've got
some great contributors on there, really folks that are leaders in their respective fields,
and we've covered every topic for every range of player on our website.
And you know, we're going to continue to expand and have more videos from
contributors that we have now and then we're going to continue to add more contributors.
Is as you know, it's golf is so important about hearing it a
different way, right, I mean sometimes you could be hearing the same thing
from a different person and just a slightly different way that resonates a little bit
more for you. And you know, that's what we're working to to help
folks with as they try to push their game to be the best that they
can be. Yeah, and you just never know what's going to connect with
you at what time. Because I had an email from the listener. I
talked about this before, but he said that he got one tip from one
of our episodes that allowed him to not only shoot the best round of his
life, but he shot below his age. He was seventy and he shot
a sixty nine. And I'm like, what's the tip? Yeah, yeah,
He's like, it was a Tony Mansoni tip and he said that if
you cannot hold your finished position until the ball hits the ground, then you're
swinging too hard. Love that That's really good, isn't it. It's so
good. It's so simple. I mean, the best thing I know.
I'm wait a minute, I've never heard that on the show. When did
you hear that? Like, I don't remember ever hearing it, which was
hilarious for me, but yeah, he says it worked. That's so great.
I mean, that's almost like something I feel like one of my first
instructors told me that when I was six years old, is hey, hold
your finished all the ball lands, you know, and it's like a lot
of times it comes back to something that simple. So that's that's so neat
and it just clicks right and all of a sudden, you know, whatever
it did in his golf swing to swing within himself or stay and balance,
more solid contact, whatever it might be. But that's really cool. And
when that light bulb goes off in a golfers it's really fun. You kind
of alluded to it a second ago. But one of the things you talk
about on your website, which I thought was a great way to do it,
is just by saying no two golfers are alike. They are everybody's got
their own unique path. And I think where a lot of people struggle.
I think all of us that love the game have gotten lost online on YouTube
trying to find swing fixes for whatever it might be, whatever video it might
be. And I think the struggle there is to your point, we're all
at a different port point and our journey in golf exactly just because somebody is
saying, hey, this is the feel that you need to be having.
It's so dependent upon one year level of golf and where you're coming from,
what your tendencies are, what your body allows you to do. And I
think it's important to have a tailored approach and not a cookie cutter approach.
And I think that it's super important to have swing instructors, and we really
highly encourage folks to have a swing instructor, but I would steer them away
from someone that's teaching them one method. You know, I struggle with with
method instructors because we are all so different. And literally there's a golf swing
on like there's golfers on tour during everything. I mean, you got cup
risks and bowed risks and shallow and steep and rotary and verter. I mean,
people are doing everything, and it's just a matter of finding what works
for you. And in my experience as an athletic person, you should when
somebody encourage you to try something, it should work relatively quickly, Like sometimes
you have to take a step to take a leap forward, but you should
be able to see pretty immediate at least in a couple of shots, Like,
hey, like that feels right, Like, okay, that's different.
If you're not able to do it, you're pretty quickly on the range or
nine holes in the golf course, Like you need to move on and try
something different. And like, we really encourage folks to be in charge of
your swing coach too and say, look like that, I understand that feel,
but it doesn't work for me. I've tried it in the past.
We got to do something differently and own that relationship and understand, Okay,
this is what I need to do to get better because you're in control when
you're in those lessons. Yeah, exactly. But when you're in your lessons,
it's when you try something different, you feel like something's not working for
you. Don't do it during a round. Yeah, don't beat yourself up
with that and stry and start trying multiple things during your round, because no,
it's only going to get worse and you're gonna get more frustrated. That's
so true. I mean, during the round, you have to whatever that
swing thought or feel is for the day, Like you're committed to that through
the through that round one hundred percent. I mean, I think you you
can't be going out there then you're in that. You know, we've all
been there, right, We have a thought, we have a feel,
we're excited about it. We get to number three or four and hit one
out of bounds and then we're we're down the rabbit hole of Oh. I
remember three months ago, I was trying this, okay, lag feel,
I'm gonna do that, and then you know, to your point, then
you're in the area downward spiral, a nasty, nasty downward spiral. But
I will say that there are periods of time when experimentation is important, and
I think, like in lessons on the driving range, when you're out just
playing for fun, not for a score. Like, at those periods of
time, it's okay to experiment and try things out to see what works,
because every now and again you will find a feel that really can change the
game. I mean, I mean, I know, I think back in
my career and there's been probably three swing thoughts that I've had then periods of
time would really change the game for me specifically. And you know, sometimes
it's hard to get back to those fields later on, but it's important to
have those. When you have a man, you gotta press it. So
share what are the three what are the three swing thoughts that you had that
you held on to. So this is to the point before. This is
where it's so individual because it's all based upon my tendencies and my golf swing.
So my tendencies and my golf swing are to over rotate too quickly with
my body in the backswing, and then my upper body tilts towards the target
instead of my lower body leading. So everything that I did, that's my
overall DNA, my tendency, my mistake. So everything that I did,
my fields were trying to get away from that. But if I share with
what my fields were, most amateurs are going to struggle with the complete opposite.
They don't get a big enough of a turn in the backswing. So
I think that's where it's a little bit more challenging because yes, I could
share those feels, but it might be the worst thing in the world for
one player and the best thing for another player. So I mean, you
have to understand what their golf swing looks like, what their tendencies are,
what their ball flight is how they're struggling and then and then move from there,
and how did you assess that was a problem for you. Did you
have a coach who is telling you this or did you figured it out on
your own? I did? Yeah. No, I mean I've had swing
coaches my whole career, my whole life, and you know, it's extremely
important to have those. I mean, I've worked with probably more than I
probably should have in my career. But I think too much in your head
at once. Yeah, I think all professional golfers at some point, not
all, but I think you can fight that battle of hey, I'm not
doing well and I'm going to start shopping swing coaches. And I think there's
been There's one coach I had for the majority of my career, a guy
named Toddy Anderson, who's an incredible instructor and he was the main person that
I worked with and really taught me the game. And then you start to
struggle, Then you start to go see a bunch of different instructors and trying
different things, and I really don't encourage that. However, through the process,
I learned a lot. I mean, I think in hindsight, it
was really good just for me as a developer as a golfer and a coach
and understanding different swing philosophies and different things that might work for different folks,
but for me as a professional, it was not the best thing in the
moment, right right. Tell me about your professional career. I mean you
were you played college golf, you went on to be a professional golfer.
I did playing competitively or professional instructor. So I played professionally. So I
played in college at Duke and played there for four years and had a good
career a couple of time all American and had a good career, and then
when I turned pro. This was gosh, over a decade ago now,
But I decided to start my career in Europe. And I was good friends
with Peter yu Line at Brooks Koepka, who were a couple years older than
me. But I kind of saw the trail that they had blazed through Europe
and I wanted to do something similar. So that's what I did. So
I played in Europe for first part of my career. I had quite a
bit of success, but I actually won my third event professionally it was a
challenge for event in France, and then eventually worked my way up to the
European Tour, played the European Tour for a little bit and then the Challenge
Tour, and really I ended up playing all over the world, and then
I came back to the States and played for a little bit. And but
in total, I played over two hundred events and over forty five countries on
WOW, one on every major world tour. So yeah, and six continents.
Yeah, I've been very fortunate. I mean, I've seen a lot
that the game has to offer, and you know, at a munch of
different levels. So it was it was a great it was a great feat.
And you know, a couple of years ago, we're almost three years
ago now, I stepped away from my playing career, but it was you
know, I'm super grateful for the time that I had playing out there and
chasing my dream. So you dropped a big name. I'm going to pursue
this, Okay, said Brooks. You said Brooks. Koepka, yep.
Do you ever beat him? Did you ever go head to head with him
and beat him? I so Brooks as obviously an incredible player, and yeah
he was. He was at Florida State when I was a duke, and
he won the SEC championship my junior year, which would have been his senior
year. And I'm sure there's some tournament that we played together that I beat
him, for sure. I mean, I think he was a very good
player in college. I mean he has progressed into a well, you know,
an unbelievable player, right, A generational type player. I mean,
I wouldn't say he was a generational type player in college. And yeah,
I would love to know what that switch was that he flipped to move forward,
yeah, and what that is. But he is a Yeah, he's
a special talent. He's a special talent for sure. Maybe for my grandkids,
I'll have to go back and look and and find a time that I
that I might have been able to beat him. I did. I did,
fortunately beat Jordan Speeth head a head once in junior golf. It was
at an AJJ event, a match play event. He was a joke because
I think he was fourteenth at the time, maybe fifteen. But how old
were you? I was a couple of years older, some a couple years
older than Jordan, so you know, when you're that young, two years
can make a big deal. But at least I could tell my grand kids
that well, listen, let me tell you about telling your grandkids stories.
They're not going to fact check you. You can say whatever you want and
they're still going to go Grandpa. I had never heard of Brooks Koepka.
What are you talking about? You know, it's it's not going to be
too soon that you're dealing with your grandchildren, just to guess. But do
you have any kids now? Not yet? Hopefully, Well then come on,
man, you'll be able to tell your kids hopefully. I'm really curious
about your time at Duke. Did you get recruited? Did you walk?
I mean, because getting onto a college team is always tough for a for
a freshman because they're seniors out there that you've got to compete against already.
So what what was it like playing on that level? But getting in getting
in from the first place, for sure, Golf, as really any college
athletic is just such a privilege to be able to play college sports. I
mean, I love my time there, super grateful, and yes I was
recruited. I think I was benefited by my sister, who maybe could touch
on a little bit later, but she played college golf before me at William
and Mary in Virginia. It was a good player, and she had been
through the recruiting process and which term is to play a JG events and those
types of things, and I think by the time I went through it,
we kind of knew what tournaments to play in and the path that it would
take. And you know, I was fortunate to play well and was a
good junior player and highly recruited and was fortunate that, you know, I
had options, and you decided that I thought Duke would be a good fit.
I wanted to go somewhere where I could pursue high level academics while also
pursuing, you know, as high level of golf as we could, and
was able to do that. We had some good teams when we were in
college and it was a lot of fun. So the Paolini family growing up,
I mean, you would all golf all the time. How many siblings
do you have? And were you all golfers and all, you know,
striving to be at the highest level of competition. So just me and my
sister, But but yes, golf was a huge, huge part of it.
She was two years older than me, and you know, we were
traveling around the country playing junior tournaments. My parents were going different places and
then you know, we overlap for two years in college and my parents came
to at least one of them came to almost every one of our events.
So it was, uh yeah, it was a it was a lot of
golf, for sure. But my sister is she's an incredible person. I
mean, she's extremely accomplished person. You know, she went on to not
pursue golf, but she went into she's actually an MD PhD, so she
has her MD, and she also has her PhD in neuroscience and because in
addition to being a college golfer, so you know, she's had a big
impact on my life and my coaching on you know, these businesses. I
mean, she's a really smart, bright mind with great perspective, and you
know, it's been really fun to have her not only as a sister,
rich is a mentor in my life and is she she's involved in Sharp Focus
Golf. She is, she is. I mean she's a big, big
part of it. I mean she's a big contributor. If you go to
our go to our website, she's got some great videos on neuroscience. Like
I mentioned, she's a you know, she has her PhD in neuroscience.
And so she understands. She's been in my ear for a year saying aybrids
And there's some cutting edge research coming out around neuroscience and nobody's talking about it.
I mean every single day there's more research coming out around neuroscience that should
be applied to golf, that people in sport and life and just how we
live that people aren't talking about, people aren't applying. And I mean her
videos are really powerful and what she's put in and especially with her perspective and
understanding of golf and things around that. So yeah, she's she's been she's
been great. So we've really really enjoyed that. Can we get her on
the show? I love talking about it, about how neuroscience impacts golfers,
and you know, the kind of stuff that we don't think about. Even
if you're thinking about the mental game, you're not thinking about neuroscience. It's
a more different thing. Yeah, there's a different Yeah, you got your
sports talking to her, you got thank you. You would much enjoy talking
to my sister. She's much better looking and much you know, she's much
easier to talk to than me, So you guys would much enjoy talking to
her. But I enjoyed talking to you, and you're a fine looking man,
and I have no interest in how people look. My wife is like,
she said that to me that she goes. Isn't that person cute?
I said, I'm not going to answer that question. I don't. It's
not relevant to me. I've been married forty four years. Why would I
so Anyway, but that's a very sweet compliment. You paid for your sister,
but not going there. Yeah, but it's great. No, that's
understandable. You're a good you're a good man. But to that point though,
I mean, you got your sports psychology, which is kind of the
right kind of what people have talked about for decades, and then your science
is kind of this. It's a different sphere. I mean there's there's similarities,
but there's differences. And you know, Eurosciences is important, and I
mean top minds of the golf and really a sport or thinking about it,
and we feel that others should as well. Yeah, we've had neuroscientists on
before talking about this thing. It's great stuff. I've got some amazing insights
on you know, what a problem it is for people to be thinking about
parts of their body while they're taking a golf swing, it doesn't help.
Yeah, And there's even like little I'll call them, you know, techniques
and things that you can do right. I'm I'm very much a doer.
I don't like when I hear fluff of things around. Oh, stay in
the presence, stay in the process, and those are great, But what
does that mean right? And like? And how do I do it?
So? I mean, I think our ethos is, you know, simple
effective techniques that you can do in the moment that you are going to make
a difference quickly. Because when we're out there, we're competing and we're whether
it's a club, championship, stadium, you know, whatever, it is
us open like we're coaching ourselves. We're all coaching ourselves, whether we want
to admit it or not, Like we have an internal dialogue, we have
some talk. We are all coaching ourselves and we need to be able to
give ourselves the tools that are effective when we're in those moments. And neuroscience
is a big, big part of that for sure, Absolutely fascinating. Yes,
I'm gonna I'm gonna bug you to see if we can get her on
the show. That'd be great. I appreciate it. She's a she's a
busy, busy woman, but we'd love to have her on man, she's
she would be your listeners would really value listening at her for sure. Yeah.
I cannot wait to talk to her. I think it would be really
fascinating. That's great. H Yeah. So now that you're you're now focusing
more on instructional and and doing this business, do you get to do both?
I mean, because they both demand a lot of attention and time.
They do, So what where is your focus? Are you working one on
one with students these days? I do? I do coaching. I do
one on one coaching for sure, But I am too point. I am
focused on shar Focus anutrition and we're committed to continue to grow that business and
it has over the last couple of years. And you know, we're also
committed to growing Star Focused Golf. And like I said, we're proud of
the website we put together. We feel we've got great contributors covering great topics,
but we want to continue to grow that in the future. And you
know, we're excited about more videos from current contributors and some other really exciting
contributors that we'll have in the in the near future. Well, that's what
I would like to spend our time that we have together here now is talking
about the contributors that you have and what they are contributing to the sharpfocusgolf dot
com website, because you've got some really interesting topics and a variety of topics,
which obviously I appreciate because my stuff is all over the map, right.
I looked at the titles recently and went, wow, I guess I
talk about a lot of different things. Let's call that a if you want,
but it's all things golf, except maybe talking about players on the tour,
so when we're name dropping like before. But so I was watching some
of your videos today and I'd love to pick your brain on some of them
and hear about them like you had a mental coach on there, yep,
to talk about what his contribution was and what we'll take our takeaways from that.
So Chris Dorris mental toughness. He has been my coach for well over
two decades since I was a kid and my sisters and a lot of other
top performers and golfers, and his videos are profound. I mean, there's
no other word to describe them. I think he has evolved and still works
with some athletes, but I mean he's working with Fortune one hundred companies training
sales teams. I mean him to hire Christoris to come speak to your sales
team would be a very large check. And you know the videos that he
has put together for Sharp Focus Cover, you know a lot of the stuff
that he covered in those, in those talks and in those trainings, I
mean really really powerful stuff. A move's had people say that they watched them
almost weekly because they're just a reminder and he really talks about how we can
train our minds to really control our emotions and understand how we can control our
emotions, which is an extremely important topic when it comes to not only performing
on our best but just living a happy lifestyle. And you know, he's
been a big, big influence in my life. But his h his videos
are great, you know, to highly encourage folks to check them out.
And then there was another one Positive Mental Life. Yeah. Different different coach,
right, different coach. I mean I think that comes back to you
know, different voices, right. I think you know we Chris dorris So
I mentioned earlier, it's kind of more of a mental toughness type that's what
he calls himself the mental coach. And you know, doctor Richard Goldberg,
who you're referencing there, is a forty five year psychiatrist and he's been a
Brown University and he's taken a lot of what he's worked with real life folks
and dealing with, you know, some difficult situations in their life. And
now he's evolved and his working with golfers and wanting to help golfers apply that
same those same techniques to helping control how they think and really reaching their potential
on the golf course. But you have videos that just start at the very
basics. We do, Yeah, we do. So all my videos on
the website are free and as of now, I mean that's the idea to
go to my website, and you know, I cover a ton of topics
and we got a really cool one on etiquette that was a lot of fun
to put together. Tell me about that one. I haven't seen that I'd
love. Yeah, so it's ten minutes, and you know, to your
point, it's for folks. You know, we want people to come to
the website regardless of their level of golf, and you know, we ask
them to fill out our player profile and it will kind of it will build
a systematic way for them to continue to get better. But there's folks come
there, they've never played the game before, and as you know, if
you get invited to play nice club with your boss for the first time,
it can be intimidating and there's no real place to go to get everything that
goes into technique or sorry, etiquette excuse me. And that was our goal,
was like, hey, let's make a video to help those folks to
really feel comfortable when they go out on the golf course. And we think
we've done that. It's about a nine little over nine minute video and it's
been fun and it was fun filming it, and we've got some some actors.
It's a pretty cool video. I think people will enjoy it. But
that that that yes to your point where we're starting. And then if you've
ever played the golf before, for each development level, I've put kind of
development series of things for you to think about that are important for you to
continue to do better, even if you've never picked up a club before.
So what's what's the most abused etiquette you know, rule of etiquette on the
golf course. But I think everyone can pick their own. But what what
is the biggest surprise as far as etiquette that people are like, Oh,
I had no idea. Yeah, I know that that's a good point.
I think it's probably going to be individual to your point. But for me
personally, as I sometimes play with folks i've never played, it's just understanding
where to stand. I think they understand. I think they understand. Okay,
I need to be quiet and not make noise. But you know what
we talk about in the video, You always want to be looking at someone's
front, of their face or their back. You never want to be looking
to the left or right of them. And I think that can surprise some
folks. And I still think people struggle with that on the green, specifically
standing in people's through lines or standing behind someone and that can be at least
for me, that could be kind of jarring when someone's standing behind the hole
and I'm trying to hit a plot. I know that really bothers me.
But I think it's important to understand where to stand when you when you're out
there. Fabulous, fabulous one. Now another one I would love to talk
and actually let's do this one is talk about the setup just going right at
the very basics, which everyone should really depending on your level of golf,
if you're playing seasonal golf, there's things that you just need to be reminded
of every year. To sure RADI, it's like, oh right, I've
forgotten about that at the end of last season and stuff. Let's talk about
this set, the basics setup and the needs that people should be reminding themselves
of. They already know, but these basics no super important. I mean,
I think I come back to no player has ever gotten worse by setting
up to the ball better. This setup is so important. And whenever I
work with folks, and you know, on our website, you can send
us a video for free. You know I need to need to be a
subscriber. You can send us a video and one of our coaches will go
back with you, and I really with you about ten minutes of coaching,
and we always start there because it's so important to understand, Okay, how
do things evolve from the setup, And most things are going to if you're
a good player, I mean, most things are going to go long in
the setup. And I know Jack Nicholas the beginning of every year to Jack
Growd, his instructor, he would take time off, he would come back
and he would say, hey, Jack, like, we're going to start
this over from zero. We're gonna start with the grip. Then we're gonna
start with my feet, and then we're to start with my posture. And
we're literally starting over from zero. And that's the best player of all time.
So I think it's important for everyone especially. I mean, now it's
kind of middle of the season, but when you're coming out of tough it's
cold, and okay, what do I need to be aware of? And
let's start with the grip, Let's start with posture, Let's start with ball
position. And I mean, you'd be shocked at the problems that people get
in and the rabbit holes they go down when it could just be hey,
your ball position is like a half inch too far forward. It's causing you
to come over the top, catch it too far and you hit in these
mixed slices. Just move the ball back half inch and it could solve everything.
Now, sometimes we don't love simplicity and we wanted trying it all these
different things, but it is vitally, vitally important from that standpoint, And
I would say, if we think about sequence, it would start with a
grip. I mean, I think, like we talk about on the golf
swing during these videos, there's three different types of grips and they all can
work. I think it's just everybody doesn't have to have the perfect neutral grip
like a Tiger Woods had. You can have a strong grip like a Paul
Easier. You can have a weak grip like John Rahm. I mean,
you just have to have things that match up to that setup. And you
have to understand, Okay, I have a weaker grip, what do I
need to be aware of? Well, in my opinion, you need to
make sure your lead risk stays flat, the club stays outside your hands,
right, I mean those are almost non negotiables of all players with a weak
grip. So I think that's where, you know, setup can be really
important. Yeah, played with a friend recently who's new to golf, and
so he thinks that I'm like, you know, well, I'm probably the
best player he's ever played with. Not that I'm that good, but I'm
not bad. What are you playing with these days? Fred, Well,
I'm ten and a half. Yeah it's very good point. Yeah, it's
a very good play. Yeah. Yeah, So I'm trying to get it
back down, but I'm going I had to take a bunch of time off
in the during the winter for some pain and injuries, and now I'm getting
back and I'm playing pain free again. But there's things I'm you know,
fixing and working on. Plus I have a whole new set of irons,
so I'm making a lot of changes change to putter, but I'm gonna probably
change it again soon. Stay tuned for that one. And but no,
I'm I'm pretty pleased with my game. And a friend and someone I was
playing with this weekend, he says, The thing that I just love to
watch you do is you really don't have multiple blow up holes in a row.
You just don't lose your stuff. You know, what do you equate
that? What do you equate that to your your Over nine hundred and fifty
episodes of interviewing golf instructors of realizing that, you know, once the ball
leaves the club face, okay, it happens. I mean this, This
guy also just like beats himself. He yells at himself. He's able to
get past it, but you know, the ball goes where he doesn't want
it. It's like and it's like, it's his faults. Don't go there,
don't it's not worth it. Yeah, to your point, I love
that once the ball's gone, man, it's out of your control. Yeah.
Yeah. So but this other friend who thinks I'm such a great golfer,
and he's like, please give me tips, give me insights and advice
anytime you want, no problem. And the last time we played, I
you know, pointed something out in the beginning, and it may have been
something as simple as using the line on the ball to line up your putt.
Because he uses he like puts the putter down and stands behind it while
he's holding it, thinking that that's the line, and he doesn't move the
ball at all. And I'm like, you know, you can make this
a lot easier on yourself. Line the ball up with the line that's on
the ball. There's a line somewhere you can use to line up where you
want to go, and behind it, look at where you want to And
he was, oh, that's a great tip, thank you, And by
the fourteenth hole or something, he was like, it wasn't in use anymore.
Wow, he didn't do it. And so I'm like, I'm not
going to give you tips anymore. Yeah, I mean, because you're just
going to go back to what you're doing and you're going to struggle and you
and that you're gonna be that's gonna be your game. Okay, let's let's
have fun being hanging out together. Yeah. One of my favorite mantras is
the nature of commitment is that it goes away. Right, And so he
committed use Yeah, he did committed using the line until he didn't, right,
and then you got to recommit. You got to recommit. You got
to recommit because you know it's inevitably going to go away and you're gonna get
away from what worked. That's powerful. That's really good. Thank you.
Wow, let's see. So are we uh? Are we in good shape
here for the setup? Are we finished? Sure? There's more to remind
ourselves of the setup? Oh? For sure. I think there's a lot
of things to be aware of. I mentioned kind of coming back to that
grip, understand what works for you and then from there getting into a good
powerful posture. And you know, we've got great videos. I mean,
you know doctor Kevin neil On there, I mean he's an anesthesiologist and pain
doctor, but he really understands physiology and he's got some great videos and understanding
how to get into a good proper posture. And I think like the main
areas that people struggle struggle excuse me, or with the S and C posture
in they're set up from their spine and you kind of understand whether your spine
makes a sea or if it makes an S. I think really the idea
there is just making sure that we're not forcing ourselves in any positions, but
we want to make sure our abs engage and make sure that our posture is
good and strong, cause that way we're going to be able to have a
good one. We're going to put ourself in a position and I get injured,
which as we all age, which we all are, we want to
continue to play great golf into great time, so that that's extremely important.
But too it's just going to give us give us a good position to where
we can grip the ground and understand how we can leverage and use the ground
from being in a good posture position with our abs engaged and the proper muscles
engaged. And one of the things that you pointed out in the video that
I thought was like an excellent point is people who stand too far from the
ball. Yeah, I mean there's the old adages. You can't you know,
it's hard to stand too close to the ball, you know. I
think folks can typically benefit by standing a little bit taller, staying a little
bit closer to the ball. Yeah, not universally, but most of the
time you're going to see folks too bent over, more of an s posture
with their hands too low. So most of the time you're going to see
folks benefit. You think Jack Nicholas tiger Wood's will Ludvigobert, I mean his
golf swing. I mean, you don't see those guys super bent over,
and most of those guys are staying a little bit taller, abs engaged,
taking that pressure off their little back. Well, folks, you have heard
all of it from Brinson about what's going on at sharp focusgolf dot com,
and I highly urge to go there and check it out for yourself. You'll
get a lot of valuable information from a variety of voices, which is really
nice. And then also think about your nutrition and hydration. Go to sharp
focus Nutrition dot com as well and think about what you do on the golf
course, whether you're eating sandwiches, or you're drinking beer or drinking coffee.
I mean you got to really think about those if you want to improve your
golf game, those may be things that don't necessarily help one hundred percent.
Yeah, no doubt. Hopefully, hopefully all those things will help. I
mean, we're here to help and that's what we want to do, and
feel free to reach out on us know how we can help you along in
your golfing journey. Brentson, It's been great to have you back on the
show. Good luck with the websites and your instruction. Thanks, Fred,
appreciate it. I appreciate the partnership and thanks for all you do for the
game. Well, I just returned for my long weekend in Eugene, ore
Again. I made short drive south to the city of Creswell to visit Sam
Han at his impressive and growing lab golf Factory situated at the Emerald Valley Golf
Course, which is also the home of the Oregon Ducks golf team. While
there, my friend Kevin and I got the full factory tour, played eighteen
holes with Sam joining us was the head of their tour relations department, Liam
Bedford, who I will get on the show at some point soon, and
a young phenom who was visiting from Florida for some junior events Zevi Perez.
Now. Just before our round, Sam provided me with a tutorial on how
to play with my new lab Golf DF three point zero broomstick putter. Thanks
go out to their content director Carter Lee. He captured hours of audio and
video of the tour and my tutorial, but I didn't have enough time to
review the footage to have it ready for this week's episode. It may be
a couple more weeks before it's ready to share, but when I do,
I'll make sure that both the podcast and the YouTube video will be released at
the same time, so please stay tuned for that. But first, let
me give you a taste of my tutorial with Sam. In my opinion as
kind of seeing the spectrum between what I consider to be the two kind of
opposite ends of it, Bernhard Langer one end, Adam Scott at the other.
So these guys are both prolific putters with their broomstick putters. Bernhard is
about five foot eight, uses a forty seven inch putter sometimes forty eight inch
putter, stands virtually straight up. Wow. This arm is pretty close to
his body. The forearm can't touch the ribs right, that's part of the
anchoring. So he's close, but not that close. And then his whole
stroke is driven just by the right arm. And yeah, his shoulders will
move, but he's not moving them, if that makes sense. They're along
for the ride. On the other side of the spectrum, you've got Adam
who's spent over quite a bit, really framed up, elbow out to the
target, and he's using his back and his core to move the putter.
And so, you know, I'm kind of somewhere right in between personally,
and so messing around with both sides of that equation is important. I will
tell you that the broomstick is a little heavier than what I've been accustomed to,
but it did not take long to get the feel for it, and
I'm not sure I'll ever go back to a standard length putter again. Kevin
and I played three rounds in Oregon, twice at Emerald Valley and another at
the gorgeous Toka Te Golf Course about an hour east of Eugene. Sam was
supposed to join us, but he had too much going on and had to
get prepared because the next night he was leaving for the UK to go to
the Open Championship. But on our final nine holes, things started to click
for me and I shot even par, which I've only done a couple times
over nine holes, hitting six fairways and seven greens in regulation and only thirty
two putts, including a couple of bombs from over fifteen feet. Wow.
It was really cool and I'm very excited to play more and more with this
broomstick now. This week's Golf Smarter Ambassador, Chris Ravi Kumar from Palo Alto,
California, plays at the half Moon Bay Golf Links. Of course,
I've enjoyed three or four times that I've played there. It's a beautiful property
right on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, and some refer to it as
the poor man's pebble Beach, although I'd probably say it's more like middle class
course because it's not inexpensive to play there, but it is much easier to
get to from the Bay area and a beautiful and challenging course when you're visiting
from out of town. Kumar recorded his show opening on his phone in order
to get a free link to Tony Manzoni's video of the loss fundamental. Our
Ambassador program has become very popular, but there's plenty of room for you to
play along too. It's free to join and you get to choose a free
gift. All you need to do to become one of our featured golf Smarter
Ambassadors is introduce a future episode. Just write to golf Smarter Podcast at gmail
dot com and I'll get back to you with some simple instructions on what to
say and how to do it. If you have any questions, comments,
or suggestions for upcoming episodes, please write to golf Smarter Podcast at gmail dot
com or click on the Heyfred button when you visit golfsmarter dot com