If you want to get faster, just practice faster. Just do you have
a couple of times a week. Takes some time to try and go faster
and work with a radar. Just that helps. And then the second major
thing is to like increase solshwing muscles in particular the ones that you using the
downs with and you can do some mesic band exercises. The band as symmetrics
a really good one to build your strength. Most people don't do anything for
their speed. So whether you're a lady, a junior, an amateur player,
a senior that's not swinging as fast as you once did and you want
to get a little bit of that speedback, just taking a little little time
a couple of times a week working on increasing your golf wing strength and practicing
swinging fast. The results that you can get into month really amazing. I
was consistently seeing twelve to sixteen miles an hour, which is thirty to forty
yards. Ah. It is Jeff Watson from then out of California and I
play at Wiliwick Golf Course. This is golf number eight eight eight swing speed
training to increase your distance without bulking up like Bryson featuring Jacob About This is
Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf mines to help
you lower your score and raise your golf IQ. Here's your host, Fred
Green. Welcome back to the Golf Smarter podcast, Jacob. Hello, Fred,
lovely to be back again for the fifth time. Yeah, for the
fifth time. But the first time we met was fourteen years ago. You
were just a baby, you were just out of diapers, and I remember
that episode you were talking about chasing a championship. You were kind of new
to golf at the time, it feels like, but you had this idea
that you wanted to play in a national championship more than once. Well there,
see, that would have been two episode two and nine, two thousand
and nine. I turned pro in two thousand and three, so it was
early in my career. Two thousand and nine, I would have been thirty
three. And yeah, the whole, the whole idea was just when I
when I first started, It was twenty seven and I was a fourteen handicap
at the time, and the whole thing, I guess with the start of
my journey was like, can I make make it as a pro? Turn
from this a forty ndicap and make a living in golf and tim pro and
maybe one day getting getting a tour. So yeah, I mean I remember,
I kind of remember the conversation because I wasn't rolling my eyes at you,
like yeah, right, you're gonna make a tour event as a fourteen
handicap, But I just there was something about you that made me believe that
you could do it. Yeah. It was, I mean, kind of
crazy to think that, just to consider that, Yeah, being of the
fourteen ndicap as it had been different if it like, oh, you're a
fourteen handicap and you're fourteen years old, Like okay, you got got a
little bit more time, like some time to develop, but like, all
right, you're already an adult. You're like into adulthood, not you're just
an average golfer. Like what what I mean? This is kind of ridiculous
going for something like that. But yeah, I guess looking back at it
now, it's like I was working and worked at corporate job for five years
and I wasn't particularly happy at Sports was always a big love of mine.
At a trial for the Twins with baseball, um, I played Division two
basketball in college, so sports was like super important to me, and after
neither of those worked out, I thought, well, I guess that's it.
And then there was a scene two thousand and one. So during that
five year period, I was thinking, gosh, what am I going to
do with my life? So I just started with a bucket list and like,
all right, let me just start doing some things off this list.
And one of the things on the list was to go to every major sports
event at least once, so like one super Bowl, one, NBA,
NHL, like you know, only said Stanley Cup. And I was working
and the PGA Championship happened to be in Atlanta when I was doing a corporate
education there and the last day got canceled, so I was like, oh,
I got an extra day, like, let me go over to the
PJA Championship. And when I got so, I got myself to take it.
Went on the grounds. You've ever been to a tour man, you
know that, Like the players are playing on the course of course, and
then it's roped off and then all hands are on the side and as the
players passed, they opened up the ropes and let the the people crossed the
course basically, and there was this one spot on the course where they opened
up the ropes and I was the only person crossing and I got out there,
and all of a sudden, when I got in the middle, I
had the view of being inside the ropes being a player, and it was
the strangest thing, felt like a sky lit up and I got warm,
and I was like, wait a minute, like maybe I could be a
pro golfer. And it was just like this ridiculous thought. So it took
me about a year to like like consider, like I mean, is this
is this even peasable? And my job got there were a couple of buyouts,
and corporate culture is difficult when you're going through buyouts, so that I
got unhappy enough in the job. And then also I was like, you
know, um, twenty seven, but like maybe let me try and just
see, like and then I'll least know I've got Unlike other sports you got
to retire when you're thirty or thirty five. With golf, if you're healthy
and motivating, you can almost do it like a full career, playing to
your fifties and sixties. So it's like I got time. I've got a
little bit of background in other sports that maybe I can apply to this and
put together plan and give it a shot. And yeah, one day I
just kind of finally got the courage and to give it a goal and Google
return. And you've done many things. I mean, you were involved in
speed golf, you were involved in long drive championships, You've been involved in
tour events, You've done them all. Huh, Yeah, it's it's kind
of been. All of it was in an effort to just try and keep
keep keep things going and and with an end goal and just find way.
It's just kind of survived it away and just because it's like, uh,
you know, I got myself good enough to turn pro pretty quickly, which
was amazing in itself. But then once you're good enough to turn pro,
it's like it's kind of like being a starving artist in a way. It's
like, unless you're in the top of the bunch, you could do amazingly
well at the half of the bunch, but for a lot of other people,
it's just it's the starving artist lifestyle. So I'm sleeping my car,
sleep in tents and just struggling, you know, trying to find ways to
patch it together and keep it going. And then in the process of doing
and I found my way into all these other things. So I competed in
long drives for a while and through that I kind of learned about swingsy training.
And that was part of the generalism of this swingman golf business that was
lost in two thousand and seven was people were curious, well and how I
made that transition from fourteen and handicapter pro. But then also, like I
don't know, I started hitting the ball longer, so that that was part
of the genesis of that, and then from that it got into UM speed
golf, which was really fun to be a part of UM. I finished
fifth in the World Championship with that, and and I remember in the two
thousand and twelve I believe they aired it right before the Masters on CBS,
so it was like cool to be part of that. In twenty thirteen,
I had the I set the record for UM golf score at the World Championships
that shot us Ham and d two and fifty five minutes with six clamps UM.
So that was pretty cool and amazing. And then you know that all
those kind of things. It led to single length fires too, and I
believe we talked about the whole single length fires in twenty eighteen, so sterling
irons that we ran those from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty. Um so super
cool. I never would have thought were though in the beginning, like would
Bryson de Shambo played Um, No, he was playing single length irons at
the time, wasn't he? Whereas yes, yes he still is, um
he just he originally signed with Cobe. Well we'll be back then up And
this is kind of a funny story too, actually, um, so I
was uh playing single like irons. I really believed in them. Uh.
In two thousand and seven, eight and nine, ten, I shot my
first round in the term around in sixties and I was like, yeah,
so I lunch singleing irons, but I felt like they needed to be improved.
And in twenty and ten, if you remember, the groove rule changed,
um, and none of the manufacturers wanted to update their their groove.
So I kind of had to go back to conventional variable lakes. That's for
a while, and I was trying to find a way how can I play
single like brons again? And so originally I asked Tom Washan of Washan gal
Um and he said he said no the first first time. He was not
a fan not at the time. That changed eventually and then um, and
then well, it was interesting when I went back to him for the second
time, we decided to parner up on that with me, so he didn't
end up having to change of opinion on that. But sidebar we so I
was he hadn't yet changed his mind. So I was like, I asked
David a down the Dell golf like, hey, do you want to do
sing like irons? Like could you make me a set? And he said
no. But then I later found out that Bryson, while he was still
an amateur, went to David and also asked if he could make a single
link set of iron. So I don't know if I inadvertently planted the theme
and David said, it's like to do that or or or what. But
um, so David built Bryson his original set of Adele's, and then when
Bryson won the amateur he was with instead of Adele's, and then when he
turned pro he went with Cobra and then Cobur designed their single single like bars.
And when Bryson was going through that, I also asked him he was
more accessible then he could just message you on his book because he's still an
amateur at the time, and I was like, hey, Bryson, you
want like we're doing these sterling irons, like do you want to do?
You want to play? These? These are like way better and the performance
is fantastic, And we really saw kept a lot of the things that worked
in single length but fixed a lot of the story of problems also. But
he ended up going with Cobra, and I understand that because Cobra is able
to combine with Puma offered apparel and like, you know, a big,
big financial contract like I just couldn't be at the time. So um,
but it was interesting, like Bryson has been into long drive and single length
byron for you or that I forget the type of cap than you had.
But it's funny because I was like doing a lot of those same things before
him, although I didn't achieve the same level of playing the success that he
did. But it's interesting that we were just kind of like following. We
were interlaced a little bit and getting into long drive and doing speed golf us
sorry nut speak, golf fast used to be training single length f irons,
all these things. Mhm. Interesting, Hey, listen, we're gonna take
a time out. We'll be back right after this, Jacob, when you
were doing the long drive championships, um, and we'll get to speed golf
too. But I'm just curious what the mindset is in long drive to champion.
I mean, everybody wants to hit the ball farther right, but competing
for long drive has got to be different than just hitting it farther off the
tea? Is there a Is there a huge mindset difference that you found between
the two. It is a little bit different. Yeah. The average swing
speed of a PGA tour player now is about one fourteen and it kind of
rages on tour from one oh five to maybe one twenty five average usually each
year. And the typical long driver is going to be swinging one thirty five.
And then the top guys are in the one forties and even in the
one fifties now, so they're really really swinging fast, and there is the
vibe around the events are a little bit different. With golf. You're trying
to hit it far, of course, but you need to control it also.
So typically, at least in my measurements, guys are swinging ninety two
percent to ninety six percent of their max on the golf course. Um so
h. But in long drive. Oftentimes in long drive it's you're swinging as
hard as you can pretty much. Um, you don't have to get every
single ball and you're just trying to get that one in. And typically long
drive is a little bit more ego, a little bit younger guys, more
guys in their twenties versus a broader range of like you know, twenties,
thirties, forties, fifties in golf. So to me that I guess I'm
kind of like more the spiritual side of golf appeals to me. M And
I'm not particularly driven by my my my ego or money and power or whatever.
So, um, the that vibe around long drive is a little bit
different because it's all about you know, who has the longest drive. Um,
so it is different. That's the ego party referring to is just like
further than you were. Yeah there, I mean there there is a little
bit of that. You feel that a little bit when you go to those
events. Um so. Um. Not to say that there aren't egos and
regular golf also, but exactly there there there is a difference in how those
events feel and the goals also what you're trying to do UM long drivers to
there. I guess in both, you're trying to maximize your equipment as much
as you can. UM, you're trying to to be good and long drive
now you also have to have pretty good technique UM. Although the technique and
long drive is you're you're really trying to get all the power of pieces UM
and enough accuracy UH. In golf, you're trying to have a little bit
of both. And then with the training swing sweet training starting to gain a
little bit more popularity now, I guess and awareness long drive guys have been
doing it that kind of stuff for a long time. No one swings as
fast as they do naturally, they're all working at it, working on their
bodies to be able to make their swings, but just as fast as possible.
And you're starting to see a little bit of that filter into like tour
to a golf now behind to the same extent was long drive, but I
think eventually that will filter down into regular golf and golf fitness and I guess
is popular. But you can be fit and not fast. So there's the
tour has a lot of fitness starting to do some speed work. They still
have a lot to learn, I think as far as the getting there called
dead speed up. And you see also that there's a correlation between speed and
handicaps. So any scenes starting, you see that in the data now.
So eventually that's going to find its way down on tour. I don't know
how long it's going to take, but I think that's coming. H Well,
it's you know, you talk about the egos, and one of the
things that we hear so frequently from instructors and tour players is that when you're
playing competitive golf, and this could be recreational players as well, but when
you're playing competitive golf, you got to lose the ego. You can't you
know, on the golf course, you can't like yeah I can do this
shot because I've seen it on TV. No, man, if you haven't
practiced it, just don't try to be a hero that you don't know what
you know what you're doing so you can really get it. Yeah, keep
that in check. There is a definitely a mental component in a wrangling of
your go um, like do you should you hit a six iron when you
think you can get the seven iron there? Um? Are you affected by
their playing partners, and it's interesting to watch people sometimes when either they are
the longest hitter and the effect it has on the group, or there you're
one of the other people in the group are longer than you, and how
sometimes that affects people and they maybe try and start doing things that swinging swinging
beyond what they can really control. So yeah, there's definitely a like UM.
I think as you developed as a golfer, there you kind of have
to reckon a little bit um with yourself internally to to get the most town
of yourself. You seem to have a thing for the s swing speed training
UM, thinking that there's value or you believe there's value to it for everybody.
Let's talk about it a little bit on what you do for your swing
speed training, what you recommend UM swing speed training. That's been an interesting
evolution. When I first started, I competed in long Drive in two thousand
I think three stakes and Saturnum and back in launch Swingman Golf, which was
about swayers retraining primarily about swings from training the two thousand and seven, So
back then people didn't even a lot of the pushback out Again, people didn't
even believe that you could do that. And it's like you get even quotes
from like Tiger Woods and he'd be like, all right, well you dis
you God and you just you know, got um. And I remember one
time my introduction to Barney Adams or Adams Golf. One time I got a
I just opened up my email and I kept this blaming email like Barney Adams
is this like me, Barney Adams. He's like, what are you doing
making these claims that you can like increase just like no one can do that.
You can't do that. He's kind of funny, like that was my
intro to adving a relationship and party. But then he's a character. He
I just like having on and ask a question and he can riff on it
for twenty five minutes and just you know, he's so old school um that
it can it's sometimes humorous and sometimes insightful. But now with the swing speet
trading, it's it's evolved a little bit like Bryce and he wishes much I
who knows media attaching that he gets. He really brought a lot of attention
to like he actually change his body significantly, like really significant increasing swing speet.
But now, um, I mean he put on a lot of weight
to do that. But what people don't realize is you don't actually have to
on that kind of way to gain that kind of speed. So so swing
speed training is something that I think can benefit You can probably start doing it
in high school age like fourteen to eighteen, and then it helps regular golfers
just doing some basic things. Like there's too many things with swing speed training.
One, if you want to get faster, just practice faster. If
you just do that a couple of times a week, take some time to
try and go faster, and work with a radar. Just that helps.
And then the second major thing is to like increase the strength ashland muscles,
in particular the ones that you use in the down swing. And you can
do some just basic band exercises ymmetrically BANDI symmetrics are really good one to do
for that to to build your strength. And if most people don't do anything
for their speed, So whether you're a lady, a junior, an amateur
player, a senior that's maybe not swinging as fast as as you once did
and you want to kind of cut that off or get a little bit of
that speedback. Just taking a little time and in a couple of times a
week working on increasing your golf wing strength and practicing swinging fast. The results
that you can get into a month really amazing. I was consistently seeing twelve
to sixteen miles an hour, which is thirty to forty yards. Whoa,
it's it's really significant. It does take a little bit of altow grease on
your party. You gotta put it in a little bit of work, but
it's there for the taking. Um, so it's not just for long drivers
or who are the ones that are mostly doing it, or tour players who
are starting. It's it's really for everyone, and you can take it as
as far as you want. I've had some oh I forget on the ladies
that were maybe swing in the fifties or sixties and then get up him seventies
or eighties. Wow, so you know, not a significant increase. And
then like, um, there were a couple of guys. They were started
out in the nineties, which is a typical amateurial swing about ninety three miles
an hour, so just normal adventure swing speed, and then they well,
probably about six months of work, got up in the warm thirties and one
forties and started competing in longer and it's uh, what is forty miles an
hour is one hundred yards roughly, so they like literally added one hundred yards
to how far they were hitting. It's really amazing. So that's the extreme
end of like someone working really hard and being dedicated and doing all the things
that you can do to really increase speed. But it's any did they didn't
have to put on forty pounds away bryce to be able to achieve that.
It's just a lot of smart pity basically, and that's when a lot of
them Because we make golf stuff. We've been done the sleepy training stuff a
long time now since you thousn't stopping The PHAs magazine just launched this Golf Fitness
Association of America and we won all Marshal Awards um from the GIFF in the
last two years. But that's work can seems to be training. So it's
awesome. Um, it's it's a it's a really great thing, and you
don't you can do a lot with it. You don't have to be just
doing a few little basics can really make a big difference to anyone in this
golf game. Wow, hey, time for another quick time out. I
want to continue this part of the conversation. We'll be back right after this.
Okay, So you don't have to bulk up like Bryson to increase your
swing speed. And to increase your swing speed, you're going to get more
distance. The key to everybody They just want to learn how to hit it
better and think they're going to hit it farther. But you're saying the better
way to do that is, I guess go to swingman golf dot com and
start working with you on increasing your swing speed. Right. Well, the
um with swing speed, there's a correlation between swing speed and handicap. So
if you're interested in becoming a better player and lawyer your handicap and shooting scores,
more swing speed will help UM. And it's not one of the things
I'll bump up into with people on this. It's like, oh, well,
if I start swinging faster, I hit it off the planet or off
the golf course. So there's there's it's important to differentiate between your control speed
and your max speed. So, like I said that, in my testing,
people can generally they always say like, oh, swing me eighty percent.
And I also wondered, like what what what is the real percentage.
So I test them the more to people, and it's typically people can keep
good control, pretty good control of ninety two to ninety six percent of their
max link. So that's what you want to play with. But with the
swing speed training, you're working on your one hundred percent. So the idea
is to raise your one hundred percent over time so that when you back off
to that to control your ball, basically it's gone up proportionally, if that
makes sense. Yeah, yeah, okay, I get that, and you'll
see it not just off the tea, You're going to see it with all
your clubs, right yeah, yeah, So, um, you know someone
might if they go up ten miles an hour, they're going to be twenty
five yards farther off the team. But you might pick up a club of
distance on your irons too, so you might be coming into the green with
the nine iron and six and it's it's really amazing to like to. I
was get a kick out of one night when I maybe played golf with someone
before and after and who one of these gets this is one of in particular
Phil Reid m he was all author and ridden some both in California. I
played with him. Here's one of the initial people I did testing on,
and he was he didn't know. He felt like he didn't know how to
play his own old course that he played a billion times because he was just
heading it into places that he'd never been before. Interesting kind of changes your
game. So it's it's it's sweeps to be. Training is not the only
thing you can do, of course to become a better player and hit the
ball longer, but um, it isn't important. It is something you can
do, right if it can be a contributing factor, sure, yes,
yes, but its work. It does, um, I guess most of
it. Well, you could go through an equipment. I think that doesn't
take much work. But so that's kind of a little She'll maybe work on
your technique. Um, that takes a little bit of work. But you
know it was just a missing profound miss. Maybe he is trying them all
a little bit more. Um, so that there things to be. Training
does take a little bit of effort, um, but maybe not as much
as you think. And you certainly don't have to it on forty thou away.
Yeah. Yeah, so and you were also involved in speed golf,
which is different than speed swing training. Yeah, speed swing, speed training,
right, right, a different kind of speed. Yeah, yeah,
tell me about that. I've always fascinated me. Speed golf is basically playing
golf as fast as you can and shooting as long as you can. And
so a speed golf score will take your golf score plus your time and that's
your speed golf score. So the idea, so it takes a little bit
of there's a little bit of stra in the speed golf world, eatier around
a max or savy clumb. So basically like aside, if you took out
your odd arms or even arms, you basically have like what you could work
with. So but it's is, yeah, it's kind of interesting. So
the strategy is kind of have to tailor to yourself, I guess. So
for me, I'm to typically way about two fifteen and I'm sixteen, so
I'm a pretty large person. I'm not really gold for distance running, but
I'm a really great golfer. So for me, I like to carry.
I'll take a little less time, or I'll take more time on my running
and maybe be one of the slower runners with the World Championships, but I'll
be shooting the belt scorers, and so I'll take a full set of clump,
well seven six or seven clumps, whereas there was himmembering the one of
the World Championships. Bernardo Legatt was there and he's amazing to see watch or
to watch run in person. It's like just like a dear gazellets. It's
just kind of jaw dropping how beautiful it is to see someone like that run.
So he's an excellent runner, but he's like not really a good golfer,
so he like, will you know, blow me out of the water
on the run part, but his golf score will be higher, so you
know. So there's a little bit of strategy. So some people will take
like just a sixth is and and play. So you're carrying less and you
can run faster, so you take that. You can use your advantage from
that and then just try and shoot a reasonable score with your one club.
So it's it's it's interesting. I guess what people try and do and sure
the strategy is left the jake. Sure, what was in your bag?
What do you carry when you're um when you're playing speed golf, are you
focus more on wedges or longer clubs? What do you do? How do
you do it? I took a putter, and I'm most everyone's going to
take a putter unless you take shot, say a six iron, and you
try and blade it a little bit to put it. I'm so I had
a putter, and then I was like, all right, let me take
a driver. Also, some guys will take like a three winter. I
took a driver, um, because I don't mind taking a little bit off
and the driver. I can get a partial drive with a driver, which
some people might think would be kind of hard, but it's like played not
too too bad to do. Us would just practice with it a little bit.
I'm so I could hit a driver three wood distance or hygdwood distance,
and then between that it's like I think I would. I didn't want to
take a lob wedge because you could open up like say a sandwich or a
gap wedge to play flop shots were on the green if you need to,
but with a sixties degree like a lobwudge, you can't hit it as far
as like say a gap wager sandwind. So I would typically take the gap
wiser sandwich because I could get a little bit of distance, but then I
could still easily around the green, and then between that I would kind of
like divvy up. I'd try spacing out as best as I could, so
I might take We'll see, so I drive or a player and it's too
or a little jobs I take like a wedge and then maybe like eight iron
a five iron, like a herd. So just kind of like space it
out, um, so that you can kind of have a pretty even spread
or on your distances, and then you just kind of feel out the jobs
and you can play a lot of a lot of partial shots or if you're
if you're good at hitting draws or face you can like do like that.
Um. Yeah, so it's it's it's it's fun. Um well, I
guess I enjoyed aspects of feed golf. I enjoyed the creativity. It's been
golf. Um, I'm you're not really a distance from there, so like
I don't I didn't really. I liked I like casual jogging, um,
but when you're in the World Championships, you're like really really rubbing it up.
So it's like, you know, I did the Abandon Dunes and how
many two and fifty minutes, so it was like fifty five minutes of fifty
five minutes of pain of just Yeah, it's it's really uncomfortable to like to
be running as hard as you know, getting your heart read up really really
high just to stay so yeah, can get Yeah, abandoned dunes could get
pretty windy and you're running in that. Um. And also it's the kind
of golf course you want to absorb as much as you can. You don't
want to be done in an hour abandoned dunes right right right, unless you're
competing for speed golf. Well that's the thing about it too, is like
you know, at the World Championships, you are trying to do as fast
and you can. But if you want to do be golf casual recreationally,
it's kind of a it can be a cool thing to do. So you
know, one of the complais about golf as it takes a long time,
so you got to get to work it. Whatever. You could pop out
to your course, be one of the first people off, Yeah, the
first guys off the teeth. You can't have anybody in front of you,
and then you played nine holes. But you could just kind of just do
a very very light god and finished career though and do nine holes in an
hound a half or something. Um, So you can get your nine holes
in um and still you know, be able to get to work on the
whatever. So that's one way to do an or sometimes it's good to go
at the end of the day. Also because sometimes I took for training,
I would go out at the end of the day and most people, you
know, an hour before sunset, no one is going off the first tea
because they're just not gonna have time to finish nine holes. So you can
go to the first that first team and then play a few holes and then
maybe if the courses are back and forth that course, he can skip over
a hole and then loop back and just do the first second terminal again and
just kind of do it that way. But it's an interesting way to get
a bit of exercise and get a little admit of cardio in and if you
want to go a little STARTI stan John Morris. Even my friends who do
cardio, I don't think they like to do it on the golf course.
I have a friend that I play with regularly who's a runner, but it's
like, yeah, I'm not interested in running. With my golf clubs,
I listen, you know, we have golf smarter mulligans is when we play
the older episodes and we bring them back and we'll be getting to you know,
one of the second episode you were on in twenty twelve was a member's
only episode, so it's never been heard before. So I don't think that's
coming up too soon, but it is going to be coming up, so
hopefully we'll do that. But let's find out what's happening in golf Smarter Mulligans
this weekend, because it's time for Tony Manzoni. This week is number five
of nine in our Tony Manzoni series to help you launch your new golf season.
In this episode, we talk about a variety of topics, including growing
up in the shadow of greatness and shot making. But you should be able
to take a pitching one job and hit it fifty sixty, seventy eighty.
You should be able to hit it all those distances. That's called shot making.
The great players like Holding, he would hit every club in the bag
and during a practice around twenty five times, and he hit them different trajectories
left or right, right to left, high and low. And he could
stand out there and with his whole set of clubs and hit a green about
one fifty one sixty with every club in the bag, including the driver,
so he had the ability to speed it up or slow it down and still
make a legitimate swing and hit the ball flush. That's what's missing today.
If a person would take the clubs that they have and practice with them and
use them for different distances, you'd be surprised they could literally eliminate some of
the clothed in their bag and still and still be able to play without any
problem. That's Golf Smarter Mulligan's episode two hundred four, the fifth of nine,
featuring our friend and mentor Tony man Sony. Check the show notes to
learn how to get Tony's book The Lost Fundamental One Simple Move, Better Golf
Forever and gain access to his video of the same name. Please subscribe for
free to our sister podcast that revisits the best of the Golf Smarter podcast called
Golf Smarter Mulligan's being released every Friday from wherever you're listening right now. And
with all those dreams that you had, my friend of like seeing like you
walk in the middle of a golf course during a term of going, I
can do this. I can be a professional golfer. You have played on
tour you've had some tour experience, tell me about that. Yeah, I've
played. I haven't yet played in a PGA Tour event. I've done,
uh, some qualifiers for tour PGA Tour events, but I have played a
lot of other There's a lot of other various tours in the world. I'll
still have done the Cutsky Tour or the Hooters are done, Open qualifying,
britsh Old qualifying, US Open qualifying, PJ qualifying. I think I finished
off with the Poland Open, with the Challenge Tours, still calm. The
Challenge Tours Europe's uh, it's kind of like a Burnfur Tour of European DP
World Tour and constantly changing the names. But I played in the getting on
this too. The sponsor is that month. You're right, I played the
Tusker Canyon Open, So like, um, coming looking back now, UM,
I started this when I was twenty s don't know. I'm forty seven
now, twenty a year and looking so I have a bit of hindsight now.
And and although I haven't didn't or maybe I haven't yet played a PGA
Tour event, I've really had some amazing and remarkable experiences in golf. You
know, aside from playing like I did caddy on caddy the Balero Texas Open,
I caddied in the Senior Major, and doubt Parmy job being hest like,
I've had just really um amazing, amazing golf experiences and so it's uh
yeah, it's it's been amazing. Have you ever gotten a sponsor exemption?
Uh? Not to a PGA Tour event. I did try and go for
one, um with an AT and T Pebble Beach program. Um. And
I was like they they told me because I got a lot of my calls
and he's starting on the Monarch and so I met my wife, my now
wife, UM on the Modern Dance Loom and she was in grad school there.
So um, that area of the country it's loped to me. And
UM. So I was like, they told me I was one of this
past year, one of the fin people. They ended up going to somebody
else. But I was like, right during the running, so I haven't
gotten one. Yeah, Um, perhaps I'll get one. Um. I
live in Detroit now and um, the Rocket Mortgage Classic is here and so
I schemed my name in the hot for one for this year. It's it's
marched down this the term was growing up in June. Made your decision in
May. The UM the Rock and Mortgage and is the we're big sponsor.
UM from Detroit is a very important building up of Detroit. And I'm currently
the one way myself and another guy who's sixty, I believe are the only
prods that lived in city mbits. So I think, like, I haven't.
I mean, we'll say, yeah, I haven't. I think I
haven't good shot at getting more this year, just because I am here in
the city and really involved in the city today in my life that I did.
We be a part of an effort to play one hundred and fifty trees
in our neighborhood. Um so, I have a letter recommendation from our neighborhood
Association from city council. Um so, there's a good package. There's a
lot of plant those in to get. I'm glad to be in the money.
I hope you get one and we'll see, we'll see what happens.
We'll turn out in a couple of woods. Yeah, Oh, fingers crossed
for you, buddy. Amazing, that would be amazing. That would be
nice. That would be And then this year with the BM my twentieth year
I turned pro into why the first week of July twenty two, thousand and
three and just in thousand, last week of June will be twenty three,
So it's it's basically it would be like a really cool thing to to get
in the plan this tournament because it's almost exactly twenty years. Um wow wow.
And then, so what do you want to do for your twentieth anniversary
playing? There's obviously plays, Oh yeah, but play? Are you gonna
like do anything to say? Now looking back in my twenty years of starting
to wanting to be a golfer, to becoming a pro, to teaching,
to becoming an entrepreneur, to getting involved in various businesses, and like,
you've been doing so much over this twenty years, it's really impressive. Yeah.
Um, well, next year I'm thinking about doing in a second generation
of the Sterling Irons Singling Clearnce. That's there's no hard date on that,
but that's that's a possibility. But that's next year. I'm so okay.
This year twenty at the air and was consoling um writing a book. Was
the tentative title in my mind was twenty years on Tour Life Lessons learned through
my journey and professional golf. UM. So I have a lot of notes
hashed out already for what would go in that. UM. I've had some
really amazing experiences, done a lot of things that I never thought I would
have done, learned a lot about myself and life. So now I think,
yeah, you know, I still have some years left in my career.
UM, but now I would would be a perfect point, a perfect
marker to kind of like say, you know, it's been twenty years,
what's happened here and and maybe put something together that people hopefully found interesting,
maybe people finding maybe inspirational or help them and wow in their lives and in
some capacity. So we'll say it's it's it's just in the notes stage.
But you know that's how these things start. It's it's just it starts with
an idea like this mystery and their neighborhood. Yeah, exactly, my wife
moved to here and we're just walking around our neighborhood, and the eats us
to kind of wind out, you know there we need more trees in the
in the in our in our neighborhood. That UM. Probably about fifty years
ago in Detroit, there was the city lost half a million trees um,
and it used to Detroit used to be called the City of Trees and um
then that all these trees got wiped out. So there's just a ton of
like places when you drive around where it's like, oh, there, there
used to be a tree there, there, there's a planter there, but
it's not there anymore. And so we just started out with this little idea
like no more trees. So one night we just went out and walked around
our neighborhood and we like marked every single place that uh needed a tree and
wrote the address down. And then sure enough, there's a nonprofit here on
the greening of Detroit that was looking to play at trees and they didn't know
where they're going to plan them, and we inadvertently ran into them and said,
hey, we got two hundred trees that we were we know the spots
that they need, and enough they were able to give us one hundred and
fifty years. So these kind of things, like you know, this book
at this stage is just an idea, but like that's how all these things
start. It is just someone thinks about it and then and then takes actions
as the courage and strength to take action on it and then be to comp
with a plan and start on it and then be persistent and make it you
know, adapt along the way. Um, and then just pick away at
and then well and hold one day you know you have a sweet spy training
business or your own branded golf clubs and or like you're a professional golfer,
you know, so on the plank currently, right, So when we first
started talking years ago, you were just swingman golf. And I don't even
think at the time Swingman Golf that even the technology was available to be giving
lessons online. Is that primarily what you're doing these days is giving lessons online
through that platform. Yeah, that was yeah in two thousand and seven,
Um, social media was just kind of starting. YouTube was just starting that.
Two thousand and seven was the year the iPhone came out, during the
launched of no smart bones yet and how I do matter one has a smart
bond. Oh, So the the technology back then, it was really innovative
to like kind of take golf instruction and golf training online back then. Um,
so yeah, it was kind of at the start of that I was
saying, or more towards the beginning of the stack of thing, particularly in
golf when golf is kind of about slowed them to adapt sport and slowed them
in the sport. Um. So I remember I tell people like like Bob,
people just didn't get it. And now like now that's more. Yeah,
I wouldn't say it's common, but like there was, there was YouTube,
there's and influencers and a lot of people have websites and those kinds of
things. So the technology has really come around. And yeah, so like
I still have about swimming golf website, it's still up and running, it's
still working, We're still leaking up its um there's still activity and there's people
you know, working on their spling speed and I was I was still here.
Great, great, well buddy, it was great to catch up with
you. It's been a long time. We've now we've seemed to have known
each other a long time now, and I appreciate you agreeing to come back
on golf Smarter. Great talking to you again now, good luck. Yes,
thank you so much for having me back on. And I always enjoy
You're always fun to talk to you. Yeah, I love it. Thanks.
Hey Jeff Watson, Santa Anna, California, thanks so much for opening
up today's episode now. As a golf Smarter Ambassador, Jeff chose to receive
Tony Manzoni's video of the Lost Fundamental, and you can too, send an
email the Golf Smarter Podcast at gmail dot com and request our simple instructions to
just leave a voicemail at our toll free golf Smarter line, and when you
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Golfsmarter dot com and smell it starting to smell like spraying, which means the
Masters is just around the corner. And to celebrate, we'll get our annual
visit from doctor Bob Jones, the fourth the grandson of legendary golfer Bobby Jones.
So how's this for remarkable. In the eight seasons between nineteen twenty three
to nineteen thirty, Bobby Jones won thirteen Majors, which still includes the only
true Grand Slam of all four majors. In the same year, six months
after he won the thirteenth, at the age of twenty eight, he retired
from tournament golf. That's next week on Golf Smarter. And I'm thinking of
experimenting with having two guests who've each been featured on the podcast before and having
them together on the show at once. What do you think of that idea
and who would you like to suggest we have on together? And if you
have any questions or comments or suggestions about which two guests you'd like to hear
at the same time on talking to each other about game improvement, Please click
on the Hey Fred button when you visit golfsmarter dot com,