Keeping in touch with our touch. One of the things that I would encourage
golfers to create a little bit of space at home to work on the putting.
Statistically, we know this right at minimum forty or more of our strokes
are had on the green. Not enough time is spent on the green in
particular. And the great news is that you can work on putting because you
can work on that motion very efficiently at home. So if it's snow outside,
you can work on it. And a lot of my players will tell
me in doing that being intentional about that during the off season or the winter
months, they come on to the greens once spring arrives as a better player
shooting better scores because they've been spending that time doing those little things to work
on that touch. Right, as we say, not losing touch with the
touch. Hi did the sky Thompson from Walsrom, British Columbia, and I've
played to Walton Springs Golf Course. Is it the golf Martyern number nine hundred
and thirty three and keeping in touch with touch during your off season featuring doctor
Greta Anderson. 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,
Doctor Greta. Hello, how are you. I'm doing wellsposed to be here
and it's great to see you again. Thank you. I'm very excited about
being able to have this conversation. And so let's talk about something. You
know in our setup are like, what do you want to talk about?
It's like, let's talk about golf. Oh, okay, anything golf.
We can do it, love it great. So let's talk about winter,
how to get through winter. I mean, you and I both live in
climates that allow us to play mostly twelve months a year. But I've taken
the winter off due to physical limitations, and most of North America has to
take most of the winter off because of the weather. And I just I'm
feeling so compassionate to those folks because I couldn't imagine taking four or five months
off of the game and then picking it up where I left off. Well,
that really doesn't happen, right, None of us take four or five
months off and pick up where we left off. I mean, even when
we listen to you know, the world's elite players. If they take a
month or so off that what do they come back When we're watching a tournament
on TV or whatever the case, maybe we hear them in an interview,
what's the first thing they say, I'm rusty. Yeah, it's just not
the way you know, human performance works. We don't just come back.
So, you know, we kind of all have that in common. That's
I guess that's the good news about being off. We're all off, yeah,
and so it's a little bit of a difference there. Oh, but
what is it that gets rusty? I mean, we know in our head
what our swing is supposed to feel like, you know, and stop tweaking
and stop doing these things. But just if you know, with our eyes
closed, we just feel the swing. We know what it's supposed to feel
like, you know what elements of the game, because they're multiple, sure,
are the things that really jump out of being rusty. Sure, for
some of us it's those very things. It's the movement. The motion.
For many golfers, golf is a big part of their physical activity, and
so if they're not getting out onto the course, they're not moving that way.
So for them, those reps in terms of moving, rotation, swinging,
whatever the case may be. That's what's been missing for four or five
months if they're off. But for all of us, if we're not playing
between the ears, the discipline of making those shots over and over, that
goes away, right, four or five months is a long time, even
if you're off for a short period of time like here, you know in
the southern you know, southeastern you know section of the states where you know
it's really about three months where it's just really kind of uh, and you're
more inclined to not play. Even with that, you're gonna you're gonna be
I will, I will use the word a little bit sloppy from a from
a mental standpoint. You know, you can maybe for example, you might
hit a great T shot, but we all know it's that second shot that's
really important. Right, But you've hit the T shot and now you're kind
of being lazy over the ball and boom a poor second shot. But three
months into the season, you're not gonna behave that way right, right,
right? So yeah, the mental game, you know that that is just
repetitions and stuff. And I guess so the swing is too. But you
know, so many people talk about touch, whether whether it's your short game
or you're putting. That is something that we could kind of practice during that
offseason to keep that not fine tuned, but not get fat on it.
You can keep in touch with touch. And so as a coach, I
will say this, I always tell people this is the one thing that touch
that you're talking about, that feel. It doesn't have to be the most
fancy of a setup, right, but you can work on that consistently at
home a very basic setup. Obviously, if you have a putter, and
if you golf balls, all you need is a strip of land, you
know, a strip of space. If you have a hallway, which you
have lived somewhere, you probably have a hallway or corridor, corridor, a
corner of a room or an office. To work on that stroke of timing
right, that two to one ration. You can consistently work on that.
You don't even have to have a ball to you know, be striking the
ball to do that. I mean there's technology. Tons of the technology allows
for that. For example, with blast motion, that's one of the things
you can literally work on your swing with air swings and get quantifiable data to
consistently work on your swing indoor, so they're the way to do things.
Wait, what is blast motion? Blast motion great technology that allows you a
couple of things. So it is a simple almost like a little coin.
It goes right onto the top of the club. Similar technology to arcos.
A lot of people have heard of arcos. Sure, the similar same,
basically the same technology, very simple and use it friendly, sits right on
top of there, and it works with the gyroscope and the other you know,
fancy technology, simple but fancy technology to manage tempo and create awareness for
you using a very simple system that shows up on your phone red, yellow,
green, right, where's your swing? In order? It uses it
establishes a baseline, you give it data. It's great, simple setup,
and many coaches like myself use that with their some you know, select clients
who choose to use it to then they're able to transmit that data to me.
I give them homework, assignments, all of those types of things.
So back to your question, some rust is going to happen because of whether
and that type of thing, But on the putting and that type of thing,
we can work toward not having that with some simple some simple is blast
motion a consumer product or product absolutely, it's both, but it's definitely a
consumer product. You can you can pick it up and buy and and and
purchase it in most retail outlets if they carry golf technology. And one of
the things as a value add in a coaching relationship is again, wherever you
are, whether you're on the other side of the planet from your coach,
you can you can uh that data can be transmitted to the coach and we
can work on things. So if I can go like, okay, we
can see fred, I can see that that backswing is off tempo. It's
not so much about how it looks, it's the temple. The data tell
me the truth, right, Okay, this club is coming way too far
back, which is affecting you know, time to impact, which is so
on and so forth, and causing issues or working for you, whatever the
case may be. But yep, it's totally available and very very reasonably priced.
Oh I. That's one of the things I love about being not being
a professional in golf is learning about new things like that going I've never heard
of that. I can't wait to see what that is. Let's get them
on the show. Let's do a show. Yay, it's a great great
technology. Yeah, super cool. Awesome. Okay, I'm gonna have to
find them and see what we can do and talk about that. Wow.
Okay, your base oh even better, even better. Now you mentioned the
two to one ratio. Yeah, was that on putting or is that full
swing? That was putting? Putting? Yeah, talk to me about that.
Yeah. So a lot of times people are a little bit too fast
or too slow. Right, It's all about tempo, right, and so
everyone may look a little bit differently, but the putting motion is a very
you know, less is more right, back and through, and so we
get a little bit too fast, we get a little bit too slow,
it's going to affect the you know, the impact. But more importantly or
equally importantly, we want to create that role, right, We want the
club to come up and create that top spin. So you're rolling the ball,
not hitting the ball. So it's all about tempo, and so we
just want that to be correct and appropriate for your setup, for the club
that you have, the putter that you've chosen, you the loft of your
putter to create that role consistent roll right, the consistent that we talked about
the consistency that we all strive for and desire. We go out onto the
course and we want to you know, get the final the frontal part of
the journey right into the hole. Wow. I recently found you know that
for shorter putts. This is working for me so far. But for shorter
putts, if I have a shorter backstroke on my putt and then follow through
all the way, yes, I seem to be a little more consistent on
the you know, the four or five footers. And I'm like, ah,
keep missing those left give whatever it is. But with a short backstroke
and then follow through with it, I seemed to be making more correct That's
a good one that works. Yeah, and think about this. So it
was because your backswing is shorter, you're probably being more consistent with the tempo.
Mmm. And so I would also guess that so if if as your
as your the link shortens, so is your stance. I mean you're not
having you're not having a super wide stance when you're working to make a three
or four foot foot So really the tempo is consistent with your stands right back
and through. Awesome, Let's take time out. We'll be back right after
this. With doctor Greta Anderson in sixty seconds. One of the other things
that happens for all of us during that winter time when we're not playing as
much golf. We're kind of lazy, right We're not. We're not.
We're not doing anything to increase our flexibility, increase our mobility, increase our
arm strength, chest strength, because if you want more yards, sitting around
watching football is not going to get it for you. No, not at
all. Although fun, it is fun. It is for me right now,
but it is a huge fun I'm a huge football fan. However,
You're right, we've got it. You've got to incorporate some movement, into
some consistent movement into our our daily lives if we want to create success for
ourselves out there on the fairways. Right. So I'm a big I'm a
huge fan of movement, and you know, mobility. It doesn't have to
be this, you know, arduous, super intense, you know, you
know, gym rat kind of thing, right, but we do have to
move and move consistently and really work on that flexibility and that mobility. I'm
a huge fan of that. I work hard to to maintain that for myself
and I really do encourage others. I even put it in a lot of
my programs, for my my executive and custom programs. We partner with a
mobility specialist for that because it's so important. H yeah, But I can
hear the thirty plus audience going, I'm good man, I'm in great shape.
I'm fine, and the forty you going yeah, maybe I should think
about that sometime, and then the audience fifties going, I think I should
start doing some stretching. And then there's those of us in our sixties who
are going, no, I do this every day. Yes, I have
to, because I want to be able to maintain you know, some semblance
of staying away from pain, looking at talking, but being able to play
around of eighteen holes and feel okay afterwards. Right right, I mean that's
part of the process of aging well, right, and being able to enjoy
many aspects of life, to be you know, functionally fit, right,
but also in terms off you're a golfer, that's part of being functionally fit.
I need to be able to function and move and rotate and walk and
all of those things to enjoy this great sport. So what do you do?
So? I do do lots of little things. I love yoga I
always have, so I practice yoga. I'm huge. As I mentioned one
of longtime partners that I really I refer tons of people too. But I
do that because they've worked wonders for me and continue to be a great partner.
Here. We're here based in Atlanta, Georgia, of course, and
so our good friends over at Atlanta sports recovery unbelievable and so I listen to
them closely. When they tell me what to do, I do it.
But more importantly, it's about maintenance. It's about consistently working on mobility.
It's not something that you can just it's not a one and done and that
is what's really important for us, and understanding that it's just a lifelong thing.
Just as you get up and you know, do all the other things
in life. It has to become a part of my life, particularly for
me as you know, as a successful hip replacement person. Stretching is just
an important part of life. I mean, it's non negotiable. And so
taking care of myself that and eating well and hydrating that's a big one.
I mean I do, I drink a ton of water. I think with
people spend time with me and they've never seen their shocked at how much water
I drink, but this makes a huge difference. I mean I was always
a good water drinker, but I don't really know when I something trigger.
Was something triggered, like me drinking more, the importance of drinking even more,
and it's really a game changer. So those are the big ones.
I just try to eat well, drink well, and do a lot of
stretching and mobility work along with the other fun stuff in the gym. But
really, as I've gotten older, I'm in my early fifties, those are
the biggiest. Yeah yeah. And then water on the golf course, stay
away from the sugary drinks, stay away from alcohol. You know, it's
like I'm just an old guy, you know, like you're no fun.
Yeah, I'm not. I want to play better golf. Yeah. Yeah.
A few years ago we kind of ran, I say we my team,
we ran a little bit of a study there about hydration and the different
all the different items on the market, and we ended up partnering with Golf
Magazine and golf dot Com to kind of republish that and do some things because
it was really kind of interesting and it's just so important to read the label
and understand so for example, I'm not here brand bashing at all, So
all the aids and that type of nobody comes sue me or anything like that.
But a lot of times people have no clue at how much sugar and
other stuff they're ingesting in the name of hydration. So you know, if
you if you're at the turn and you pick up a bottle of let's just
say, you know one of these brands that ends with AID, right,
let's just say that. And if you're not careful and you're like, you
know, you're thirsty, you've been playing good golf, you've been working,
and you've got this bittle that seems to be a reasonable size, like one
serving, Well really that bottle might be three serving. So when you're reading
all that stuff on the back and it's talking about how great this is,
and you know how much this and that and ass along with how much sugar
and other stuff is in there, and how many hundreds of millions they've spent
on advertising that part, right, you have just taken down so much sugar.
So by the eleventh hole, when you go up here and then you
crash, you're thinking, like, I've been hydrating, Well, you took
in a lot of sugar too, you know, so understanding what you really
need. You really need the hydration, you really need the minerals. You
really don't need all that sugar, and you certainly don't need those dyes and
all of those other additives. So you know, understanding that, so I'm
a big fan of lots of the things that come in, you know,
the little pouches that you can just easily stick in your bag. I don't
have to go in and drop five bucks on a Gatorade or power Aide or
whatever other aid there is, is you know, sugar free in my water
at my own time to get what I need to keep the brain sharp,
because that hydration is a game changer. We've all been out there on the
fairway, right and you're playing along fine and then you hit a stroke,
you hit a shot, and you're like, what possessed me to do that?
You know, not even that it was an errant shot. It was
just a poor decision, right, A lot of times is what it is.
You know, our mental capacity is adversely affected by dehydration and poor nutrition
in that type of thing. So you know, it's interesting, Well,
you talked about when you you know, after eleventh hole and then twelve thirteen,
then all of a sudden, the crash happens from that sugar. That
also is a factor that happens if you eat during year round, right,
going stopping at the turn and having a sandwich and chips and all that.
That's that hurts me every single time. So I just kind of graze through
the round. I'll just do a bag of nuts and just little bits all
through the round. But I've noticed every single time that I was like,
oh, yeah, I'm really hungry, so I'm gonna have yeah, you
know, a tuna sandwich or something at the turn, or turkey sandwich turkey.
But then I'll have three or four holes that I just cannot figure out
what's going wrong. Correct. The reality is that most things that are sold
in at the turn or in the in the in the clubhouse, they're not
so great for you when you're Some of it period, right, but a
lot of it during your round it's just not that good for me. There's
nothing great about you know, a hot dog for sure. Right, as
you mentioned, you know, all sandwiches are not created equally. We do
so much better when we're grazing. If you look at even again, if
you look if you have a chain to you know, attend a professional event
for you know, everyone has not, but if you have, if you
notice and you watch the tour players, what a lot they're snacking along.
They're grazing, right, might be a sandwich. It might be a peanut
butter sandwich and lots of fruit, lots of nut. They're just grazing,
as you said, you do, Fred, They're just grazing along, versus
they're not waiting until they get to eleven and then scarfing down, you know,
a sandwich. It's keeping the brain shark, keeping the levels, you
know, our blood levels, all that good stuff, hydration, mineral count,
all that stuff at a good level so that you can make so you
can physically perform, but also make sound decisions, because golf is a game
of decision making, right, yeah, yes, I mean I have to
make rational decisions despite my emotions. Right. As I like to say,
when I'm working with my players out on the course, one of the things
they'll say that I tend to like, you got to stay out of your
feelings. This is this is these are these These are numerical decisions based on
the factors as they sit right now, right, So get out of your
feelings, get off your ego. What are the facts telling us we need
to do? And that's when we play our best golf. Yep. I
can hear be like, well, no, I have to finish the sandwich
quickly or the squirrels are going to come either the birds are going to steal
my food. It's like, well, what is you That is true?
It will happen. I've had that happen more than a few times. We've
all had that happen. You're like, hey, there's a squirrel on the
golf cart. Yeah, you got food open. Yeah. Oh the blackbirds
are coming here they are the crows. Yeah, yeah, that's harder than
came after my put a hole in the tubbleware. Oh wha yeah, big
crow, that one. He was about us all this my forearm. He
was a big boy. Scared me. I just you can have it.
It's yours. I bought one extra just for you. This guy came,
you know, I finished putting out and I got walking back to the cart.
This guy was had taken it from the you know, the the little
recess and was sitting on the on the seat in the cart and was just
take I was going, like you walk up to it and it turns and
looks you like, can I help you? Hey? I was just glad
that I had a putter and like, I don't know, five or six
iron or something, because I was just like, it was big. It
was a big guy. It's all you, buddy. That and the chips,
the chips to pull them up, put them in your pocket. Here,
here's an apple. Yeah, right, all right, we're gonna take
a sixty second lunch break. We'll be back right after you. I love
what you said earlier about keep in touch with touch. It's probably going to
be the name of this episode. I love it. Let's let's flush it
out some more. Let's talk more about keep in touch with touch for your
off season regimen. Okay, go, what do we yeah, what do
we give us for the off season? So keeping in touch with our touch
one of the things that I would encourage golfers to create a little bit of
space at home to work on the putting. I mean we know that,
you know, statistically we know this, right, are at minimum forty percent
or more of our strokes are held had on the green right, And so
I think many instructors would agree with this, and coaches would agree with this.
Not enough time is spent on the short on the green in particular.
The great news is that winter, spring, summer, fall, darkness,
you know, sunshine, you can work on putting because you can work on
that motion very efficiently at home. Right, So if it's snow outside,
you can work on it. And oftentimes a lot of my players will tell
me in doing that being intentional about that during the off season or the winter
months, they come on to the greens when spring arrives as a better player,
shooting better scores because they've been spending that time doing those little things to
work on that touch. Right you said, as we say, like not
losing touch with the touch. It's so important, you know, experimenting with
and getting comfortable with their putter, different types of grips because things changed,
body changes. We talked about mature golfers. Things happen, Life happens.
Is you say, live long enough, life happens. It's okay to experiment,
to explore, and the off season is a great time to do that.
Yep. What do you or do you even recommend to your students a
grip for putting or is it just what's ever most comfortable with? You,
let's just work on this struck. So one of the things that I do
love about putting is and I often when I start with beginners, particularly in
my classes, we start on the putting green. I'd like to say,
like in life, a lot of times you begin with the end in mind,
right, were working back. So if you understand the power of putting,
that's very it's empowering for miny golfers. Right, So okay, I
know that I can perform here pretty well, pretty quickly, and so that
they can build upon that. So with that, as I like to say,
this is the one place where we're not gonna be asked uptight about your
grip. We have a couple of rules that we can violate. We need
the cutter to be positioned squarely right. We don't want it open, we
don't want it closed with all, as you can hold it in a manner
where the putter face will be square, if it's comfortable for you, we
can begin there. But most of the time we start with the good old
fashioned traditional grip. But very early on I will introduce options to them so
that they can see what's comfortable to them, or at least have some options.
So as they're out practicing and playing, they can go like, oh,
this is a little bit different because again we're all built a little bit
differently, our equipment's a little bit different, and you know, as circumstances
change and they explore that watch they're watching more golf on TV and in person,
they're seeing different things. So I like to expose them to it because
I'm not wet to any grip. I want what works best for the golfer
to work well for them. And one of the things that I typically will
show them, which which most of my clients have found to be an I
high moment, is that I'm a I'm a huge fan of, you know,
the reverse grip. So I will help you show hand low, right,
hand low, whatever the case may be for you very quickly. But
also because from an instructional standpoint, it shows you how much you may or
may not have your wrists involved in the putting stroke. So they go like,
hold it, I can't flip exactly, you can't flip that thing around.
So all that to say, I start with one place, but I'm
very open to allowing people to explore it, and it's all about what works
for them and their body. Because everyone's just a little bit different. But
we need the fundamental We need the principles to be consistent. I need the
putter to remain square so that when we come through, we're rolling on a
nice line. And Hunt, I'm gonna cut that part out, and what
about them when I cut this part out too, I'll get this question out
of that promise when you say, get the wrist involved. Okay, I've
noticed, you know, I have some friends who take a beautiful practice stroke
when they're getting ready to make their putt, and then they come up and
make the putt, and all of a sudden, it's just it's a different
looking stroke, and then the putter face is not necessarily where it was when
they were taking the practice strokes. What issues should we be watching on our
wrists as we're putting? Well, when our wrists are involved, you know,
as i'd like to say, when we get risty, the chances are
high that the putter is not going to move. It's not going to stay
online, right, the face is going to open or close, which is
essentially going to put the ball on a line that's inconsistent with the desired line.
Right, it's not going to be down the path as you want it,
and so I like to keep things very simple. I often use I
mean, we have a plethora of technology and tools at our disposal during instruction,
but I like to keep things very simple. So I will use the
good old fashioned alignment sticks, right, you know, two bucks at the
golf store, right, one here, one there, to help and illustrate
that, to just make it clear for people, Like our objective is very
simple. We need this putter to move down this path so that the ball
moves down this path when we violate or come across these lanes, these lane
markings, just like in traffic, we're gonna have some problems. We don't
want that. Keeping it simple to help people understand the movement, the motion.
But if I'm here coming out or in or out, I'm all over
in the traffic. And so keeping it very simple like that. We know
that you know, some motions are more back and through. Some people will
have a bit of an opening and closing. But the reality is that the
way humans are designed, it's not either or. And a lot of putting
and putter and marketing says you're going to be one of the other, it's
not really the case. You're every human is a little bit of both,
so it's kind of whatever their stroke works out to be. And of course
there's going to be some refinement as we as you know, every everybody is
built just a bit differently, so we can generalize, but then it's going
to be a little bit tweaking for that individual. But it's a it's a
it's a simple motion. If we understand that we need the ball to be
just a little bit forward so that we can get it on the upstroke to
create the role. That simplifies everything. When you say a little bit forward,
you mean in your stance. Yeah, So where should the ball be
sitting? You know, if your if your feet are shoulder with a part,
where should the ball be I do this for students, help them understand.
If we start, if we start with the ball right right, right
in the middle, right right at the balls obviously on the ground, and
it's at the tip of your nose right that would be in the middle of
you. If the club comes back and through an even you know, pendulum
motion, right TikTok, as the club putter is descending down right at the
middle right, what's gonna happen there is the putter is going to strike down
on the ball. Well, in this instance, that's not our desired effect,
right, because I want to put top spin on the ball. With
that being said, the ball would need to be forward of center so that
on the upstroke, I'm creating the role the top spin. So very simple.
I keep it simple in the beginning. Right, this is the nose.
This is the center of the nose. If you are again, I'm
a left handed golfer, right correct, So I need the ball forward.
So for me, I just think about, hey, instead of being at
the point of my nose, I need it at this in front of this
right nostril. It's not a big moat movement, just a little bit just
to help them understand that. And so that will vary maybe if I'm a
little bit upheill or downhill on that green, but understand and conceptually what I
want, what I want the putter to ultimately do I want upstroke, not
bashing down and certainly not bashing the ground back here, and so helping people
with that is is where I start. And it usually works very well.
And there are putters that claim to get the ball rolling faster than others.
Is that marketing hype? Or do they really help that a lot of times,
you know, it's I won't say that it's marketing hype, but I
don't teach from a brand perspective. I teach from a science perspective, and
so we focus on what do we want the ball to do? How,
you know, how will this uh, this thing, this ball react if
we if it is struck in a certain way. So I won't say it
is not true, but I just teach by the science and because you know,
and staying brand agnostic in terms of instruction health, because you don't know
what equipment someone's going to come up with, what they're going to change into.
You don't know, No, you do not. What we do know
is we're going to take a break here and we'll be back in sixty seconds.
Now, let's talk about short game practice for the off season. Putting
is the first step, but then there's always that talk about the touch.
Yeah, the short game from around the green, from ten yards off the
green, from thirty yards off the green. How do we work on that
in the off season. What do you recommend? Well, that's one of
the things. So if we have the space, you know some of us,
do you know you have you may have, you know, space in
the backyard. And again you may have a space in the backyard, but
your backbar might have be full of snow, so that's not always a good
thing. So again, if we want to talk about motion and movement,
there are a lot of great teaching age that you can use at home.
I'm a big fan of my balance board to help people. It's simple.
I don't I don't even remember how much it costs, but I have two
or three of them around. Of course, I know, I'm a golf
teacher, so I've got all kind of wacky stuff like that, but they're
really good because a lot of times what people, again not practicing and playing
for several months, what people lose is an awareness about where the body weight
needs to be, what it needs to feel like in the feet. So
I found that for myself, but more importantly among many many of my clients
is that if I keep them in touch no pun intended there with the feeling
of where the body weight needs to be, positioning of the body, that
goes a long way right, Because again I can work on those things in
a room just like this on the board, feeling it, weighting the feet
because again in the spring. When I'm helping do a lot to clean up
work and refresh work with my clients, Oftentimes the weight's too far back right,
we're in our heels all these things. When just a little bit of
reminding work, reminder work, we get back in position, which means we're
in a better position to strike the ball to create the tempo, to create
the forward progress that we need versus chunking and thinning and all that good of
stuff. One of the things that I love to talk about with you is
because you have so much going on in your life. You do so many
things other than just teaching golf. Yep, what's going on. Lots of
cool stuff, lots of cool shit. Please. So you know, I've
always been a fan of technology in golf and using it to really help broaden,
broaden the exposure and the participation in golf. So loving really working harder,
being really busy at that for this past year, so just really doubling
down on using technology one to build golf community, but even more so to
really expand my instructional academy footprint. And so that's been super cool. So
really loving that because you know, it's so it's just so interesting. I
love that I have, you know, probably twenty five percent out of my
client base lives you know, literally on the other side of the earth.
For me, that's just me is just so cool. Yeah, being able
to do online lessons, yes, yes, yes, and building those relationships.
I mean, it's it's fun. Now. It's interesting because of course,
you know, some of these people living places where it is hot,
like fire right now, so you know, it makes for a complete cycle.
Whereas you know, I have clients here and they're like, oh,
it's twelve degrees today, so I'm just gonna do a little bit work here
on my matt here in the basement where someone else is like, well I'm
inside today because it's you know, forty degrees celsi. It's like it's on
fire, you know, So it's you know, so it's a great,
great, great thing. But also working hard to really ask my passion to
really expand golf and the accessibility of not just instruction, but great instruction instruction
that encourages people of all types to really get into the game and enjoy it.
Awesome. So, you know, it's interesting that you talk about the
technology and as we're speaking right now, the PGA merchandise show is going on
and neither of us are there. Yes, in spirit. I was actually
there in spirit because I did a couple of presentations that were on video.
Oh really yeah, yeah, presentations on what community and technology? Those exactly
those exact topics that I was scheduled to pres did participate in. Long story,
I'm not in Florida, but yeah, but I was. I'm there
in participation in doing a lot of background work there with a couple of brands
in fat Yeah. So what kind of technology are you talking about? Are
you talking about the stuff that makes coaching and teaching easier or are you talking
about stuff that consumers can in your time? I'm sure you're talking about golf
technology. Golf technology, right, So from I was speaking from a perspective
of speaking to my colleagues as teaching professionals. But these tools are tools that
I'm always a fan of. Are the tools that actually make golf instruction easier,
more effective, and fun for the consumer. Because at the end of
the day, if it's not good for the consumer, it's not going to
play out well for us as professionals. It's just not right and it reflects
on you. Yeah, So give me some examples of what you're digging these
days. So number one that I'm digging, and I won't say any specific
order below, I dig them all. I am on the Skillest platform and
I absolutely love Skillest one because it's a marketplace. So you get a chance
to skillest like skill and then est like the most skilled right skillest, and
on that platform, it's it's instructors just like me from all over. But
I like it because it allows consumers one from from you know, from a
from a shopping perspective, if you will, to learn about you and then
to work with you, so you really have to. One of the things
I enjoy about teaching remotely is that while you build relationships as an instructor,
you have to you have to know what you're talking about, right, because
in the beginning, that's what someone's coming to you about. It's not because
you know you had on a great you know, sweater as you said on
the range and they saw you. It's because you can add value to them,
and the relationship develops. They know and see that you can add value
and help them, and then you build a relationship. But I like that
you get a chance from a from a from a teaching professional standpoint, it
forces me and not that I didn't want to do it, but to really
keep my skills and to add some additional tools to my toolbox. So with
that, I'm really I'm I'm diving into UH sports box AI, which from
that that's from a from an instructional standpoint, many many, many golfers may
have heard of that, and it's super cool two D and three D technology
to help us help golfers. So that's another of my favorites. In terms
of community, I'm a big fan of UH professionals like myself building community that
allows our students and our clients to have a safe, safe spaces to really
get to know each other and build their golf community and match and you know,
match and create friendships and leagues and all that type of thing outside of
the algorithms that are going to profit from their data. Okay, which means,
yes, you can have a Facebook group, but you're essentially when you
do that, your data, your client's data is being used by others.
I'm not personally a fan of that, and many of my clients do not
want that, and so I think as a professional, if I'm providing service,
then it's important to to provide a space where people don't feel compromised or
uncomfortable with being there. So I'm big on those technologies. And so one
of the brands that I that I've worked with and I'm a huge fan of
called Coterie, and they design, they've designed and continue to evolve their technology
just for that. It's it's it's you can It's basically building out your own
community space and using it as a professional however you see fit, whether that's
instructional, community building. You know, you want to have tips, you
build it, it's branded, it's white labeled, it's great for a very
affordable price point, and so I'm big on that. So those are kind
of the things that I've really been honed in on, you know, i'd
say probably in the last six months. But I am I believe in technology.
I believe, as I've said before, if we're really going to grow
the game, if we're truly passionate about growing the game, then we're gonna
have to do some things very differently. And the use of technology is one
of the ways that we're going to get to the democratization of golf. Everyone
doesn't have the luxury or the access to get to a professional and stand in
front of them. I mean, it's expensive to stand in front of people
like me just candidly right on a daily or weekly basis. Many people cannot
do that, But that doesn't mean that they don't want to and don't deserve
access to great instruction and golf service. Yeah. Absolutely. It's so funny
because twenty twenty three, probably the word of the year, if it wasn't
announced, that should have been was AI. Right, Everyone's talking about AI
and how they're going to lose their jobs and yeah, it's going to take
away so many jobs and people you know, wherever, whatever you do,
yep, but not golf instruction and not golf, not golf instruction and not
golf. But I will say this, it still demands the interpersonal contact absolutely
if you are and I will say this my whole take on AI because in
a previous another part of my life I do I still do consulting and work
in that regard that doesn't necessarily have to do with golf. So it's the
same thing. But it's very similar in this regard. If you are not
in a position, or have not developed yourself to be in a position to
add value to your respective genre industry, however you like to term it,
then you will become obsolete. Right there are as I like to say,
very simply, there is nothing about golf that you can't find on the internet.
There's nothing about the swing. You can't find nothing about putting. That
is not why people come to me. They come to me because they want
the bypass right. They want to get directly to accurate information and the application
of it, and they want to get there quicker than if they just tried
to go around it. I mean, it happens all the time. Someone
comes on your lesson to a new client and they're talking, and they might
spend the first five minutes talking. They've told you about four YouTube videos they
watched in the article they read about in Golf digests, and the podcast they
listen to on the way there, and they've got all this stuff jumbled up.
And I'm fine with that as we have conversation. But what I invite
them to cons that or resist. And the reason you've landed here is because
you have either gotten a referral or you know, in our conversation prior to
this lesson, you understood that I can help you take all of those things,
those you've learned whether they're correct or maybe a little bit flawed for you,
and put them into a package that's going to work effectively for you.
That's what that's value adding. So if you're not able to do that,
you will kind of go by the wayside. Yeah, yeah, So how
do people get in touch with you? How do they find you online?
So if they want to take lessons from the other side of the planet,
make sure sure so find me at You can find me at at doctor Greta
Golf on most of the socials. If you're on LinkedIn, it's just doctor
Greta, no golf on there, and then of course my website doctor gretagolf
dot com. Awesome. So enjoy having these conversations with you and I look
forward to doing it more and more. Yes, thank you for having me
well. One of the great benefits of introducing our latest Golf Smarter Ambassadors is
that we get to learn about new cities and golf courses all over the world.
This week's episode was introduced by Sky Thompson. Sky is one of my
all time favorite names, by the way, and he's from Swasson, British
Columbia, where he plays at the Swason Springs Golf Course, which is a
winter wonderland just south of Vancouver. Swassen is spelled tsa ww a ss En.
Thanks Guy for joining the team. Sky received a free link to Tony
Manzoni's video of the Lost Fundamental Now. If you're not familiar with Tony Manzoni's
work as an incredible instructor, please keep your eye on Golf Smarter Mulligans when
it returns in April, as we honor him by laying ten consecutive episodes in
a row that we did with Tony before he passed away in twenty eighteen.
In the past few years, we've only played nine episodes, but I recently
found one that hasn't been repeated before, so you won't want to miss that.
And to this day, I still get more email about the impact that
Tony has on golfers games than any other teacher we've ever featured, and I'm
talking over nine hundred interviews that we've done here. If you'd like to learn
more about Tony, go to Golfsmarter dot com slash Tony and don't try searching
anywhere else because you won't find anything on Tony anywhere on the web. He
was in his eighties. By the late twenty teens, he just wasn't savvy
with the Internet, so we kind of helped him out. But I want
to invite you to become a Golf Smarter ambassador by recording an episode opening telling
us who you are, where you live, and where you play. For
your effort, you'll be given a choice of three great gifts to choose from.
Like Sky, you can choose Tony Manzoni's video of the Lost Fundamental,
or you may want to get a glove and glove storage compartment from Redroostergolf dot
com, also from Canada. And our third and newest option is an eight
pack of flightpathgolf tees from flightpathgolf dot com. Just for trying a free box
of those out alone is worth writing to me. Just write directly to me
and I'll send you a simple instructions on how to record an episode opening that
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