I think there's a couple of things to be worried about with handicaffs. I
don't love handicapped for this reason, because now it's eight of your best twenty.
I know a lot of golfers that can shoot a seventy eight eight times
and they can shoot in the nineties. So are they a seventy eight shooter?
No, I think they should be any whatever. Every eighty five shooter.
That's what they should be called. And I don't mean we're calling them
that bad. I think for them that would help them, right, isn't
that more real? Eight of your best twenty? Now there's golfers that are
consistent. There are some that shoot seventy eight to eighty three. They're out
there. Then the handicaps is a good number for them. But most golfers
are not like that, all right. This is John Delt, golf coach
at Soufermilion High School in Clinton, Indiana. We play at Matthews Park and
Geneva Hills Golf Club. We golf Smarter. You should too. This is
Golf Smarter Number nine hundred and twenty one. Learn to close your club face
properly for better ballflight with Eric Shoulberg. This is Golf Smarter, sharing stories
and insights from great golf minds to help you lower your score and raise your
golf IQ. Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome back to the Golf
Smarter podcast. Eric Bred it's great being here. Thank you for having me
on. It's always an honor and a blast to get to talk to you
can catch up. Well, it's a blast for me too. I really
enjoy talking to you because when usually when I have a conversation with somebody that
we record, we'll chat for a while and discuss what we're going to talk
about. You and I just let it rip. Like Josh Sanders like that
too. We just can let it rip. We can go in anywhere,
any direction, and it's just fun. Yeah, it's good. Yeah,
yep. So anyway, But one of the things that I want to bring
up, and let's see how long we can make this last, what directions
we can go with it, is game improvement. Right. This podcast is
all about game improvement. It's not about the PGA Tour, but it's improvement
for the amateur golfer. Now, we see we try to compare ourselves,
which is ridiculous. Try to compare ourselves to what the pros are doing.
You know, we try to say, oh I saw that shot on TV.
I can do it. No, you can't. And you know these
guys they work ten eight to ten to twelve hours every single day on their
golf game with a team of coaches, and we have YouTube, we have
podcasts. Right, not everyone takes lessons and not everyone practices and going out
to the driving range before year round to warm up. It's not practice,
it's warm up. But are there stats? Are there things that we can
look at in our game that will enhance our development? Yeah? Right.
I think there's a lot of different ways that you can look at it.
I think number one, you have to establish as a golfer what what do
you want to gain out of it? What do you want out of it?
If you're that guy goes and plays every once in a while and you,
like you said, warm up, hit some balls first, your expectations
should be can I hit this golf ball? You know, if you're that's
the guy plays once, you know, every few months in the corporate something
like that, your expectations should be very low. So I don't think,
you know, we're not talking a ton about that guy that guy could be
happier with expectations set low. But let's talk about somebody who does want to
get better. Then I think you have varying levels, so you have the
pros, which is hard to compare to. Okay, but I think you
can go. One of the greatest things I think has been Arcos and the
data that we've gained from them. With there, I think they're gonna be
over a billion shots at some point here soon. Every time I hear lou
Say Lusteigner talk about the number that they're at, I'm like, well,
it was just five hundred million, Ou, it's eight hundred million. So
I have seen billions come in real soon the data. But what I love
it you can look at you know, scratch fifteen twenty five thirty handicap and
then it's it's very simple to break down where where you are first off,
as you can't go and say where do I want to get to? And
yes, course conditions can be somewhat different over here. It makes things different,
but it's just there's a there's a certain yard age you hit the ball
if you're a certain handicapped. In general, Okay, it's very hard to
say that somebody who carries the ball at two hundred and ninety five yards is
a thirty handicap. It's just they're they're not out there. That person is
probably a very very good golfer, unless they're you know, just out there,
you know for law drives or something like that. Because you you look
at the average mail drives it. Please don't send me hate mail people two
hundred and twenty yards, Okay, that is the average male golfers too.
Well, I think it's too eighteen actually so, but I know everybody hits
a three hundred. I hear all the time. But I'm like, I
know my TrackMan launch matter isn't wrong, but everybody has a three hundred.
But so driving distance can be one category we can look at. But then
I like to look at it like this, you have if you want to
break off down really simple. You can look at driving distance, you can
look at fairways hit okay, and you can look at greens and regulation,
and then you can look at putts. Those are three simple categories. If
you just want to focus on those and say where am I in those three?
And you can look at those numbers and say what do I need to
get better? You know if you're forty two putts, you cut down on
your putts, right, you have to be the tour guys or let's forget
out two guys. If you want to shoot below eighty and then you need
to get about nine greens around. That's just a basic fact. You better
get nine greens in regulation. You're now somebody can shoot an eighty with six.
I'm sure you've done it. Fred, You've had a great day of
chipping and putting, okay, but just in general, you better think you're
going to be eight to nine and you know the number goes up to get
to low seventies. And that's Those are the barriers you can look at.
And I could even send you a link if you want later to some of
those breakdowns to look at of what they are. To know, this is
what I have to get to to be at a certain handicaff if that's where
I want to get to. So I guess to answer your questions very easy
to look at data and figure out where am I at in those three categories.
And if I want to get better, then I need to get better
here. If I'm missing fairways and taking penalty strokes, I have to become
a better driver somehow to get to the next level. Okay, so that's
just those are the numbers, and that's that's not how we get better,
but those are the numbers of what that needs me done to reach the different
level. And I think that's what it ought to be based on. If
you're trying to break a hundred, or you're trying to make ninety, or
you can look at a handicap if you want, or trying to make eighty
five eighty and working down that way. If you're a golfer, I think
that's the best way to break down. If that is the planer trajection you
want to look at. You don't go from one hundred to eighty, it's
just no, no, you progress slowly down the path, just how it
works. So I'd say that's the first step, and then the fun part
is going to work on each of those areas that you need to. But
it's it's the process. So I one of the things I get to do
for is I every student I bring back to my teaching bay, I have
to drive by the driving range to drop once doing off and I pick up
the next So I typically will make a comment about what I'm seeing to them
so hoping that they'll learn. I'm never making fun of anybody. It's just
an observation of what do I see, so simple observations. I see.
It's driving ranges, hitting one ball one after the other. The feet do
not move at all. I call it raking. You keep your grip on
and you just grab one ball and you like, raak it in right and
you swing again. Here's the funny thing, though, if you hit two
balls in a row, one you shank one, you hit perfect with their
steven iron or whatever it is. Your brain has no idea what happened different.
You didn't do anything in between to say, body, this is the
if I'm trying to make. This is what I'm trying to do. Now,
you stand on that range with a seven iron. Most of us,
if we're athletic at all, are going to get into some kind of little
groove something where we start feeling a little better about it, right, and
we may be able to start hitting that seven hour a little better. By
the end of our one hundred balls, we probably got Some of those guys
usually got a large bucket of balls, so they'll start probably feeling a little
better about it after hitting that. But it relates to zero. To the
golf course, that will absolutely relate zero, because how often do you stand
hit the same club in a row on a golf course and you're playing well.
I guess even if you have even if you have to go get another
ball because you hit one ob or something, you are going to move your
feet. But I think that's really a fascinating observation about about people in driving
range who don't move their feet, right, yeah, rac and swing and
rake and swing and rake and swing. Yeah. And it's so different than
it would be on the course, you know. It's like what I suggest
for people is if you're working and you have something you're working, you have
to do that in between swing and number one, don't buy a large bucket
balls, get the small bucket, step behind your ball, go through your
routine play golf. While you're out there, you go through everything you do,
do your practice swing or whatever you normally do. But have something you're
working on in between so you can get some form of feedback. If you
don't have any feedback, there's nothing you're learning feedback. I can't say it
enough. You have to have feedback in golf, whether it's your video,
whether it's something you're putting on the ground, whether you're putting something like the
headcover in the way if I hit the hit cover, my path was wrong
or whatever it is. It's the only way you're going to learn. Otherwise,
how do you know what you're doing? You don't, So just kind
of a few things I guess that I noticed and see, and then I'll
try to point out so that they don't fall into those traps. And I
know everybody out there at the range thinks that are working on it, and
they're exercising though, and you know, I wish I could just go up
there and say stop, let's get better. And I think us would do
it. I think most just don't know. I do think it's also harder
to practice the way I would ask you to practice than it is just staying
there nack golf balls. It's it's it's I would say, kind of brainless
hitting seven irons in a row possibly right verse? What if you had to
step back and do you know, like I prescribe like some kind of slow
motion move or whatever it is, so you can really feel it that takes
work right, and feedback maybe a video to see did I do it correct?
So there's ways to do it that take less time than it would hit
your large bucket of balls and get much better. So waste do Yeah,
there's too many questions to ask, but we're not gonna do it right now
because we're going to take a time out and we'll be back right after this.
It's so interesting because when people are on the driving range and they're just
you know, rake and swing and rake and swing. I don't know if
they're looking at the ball flight, if they're looking at you know, or
feeling the contact. Are they just going for distance? You know, let's
go back to the seven. I are not your driver. And even if
they they know immediately once the ball leaves the club face that the ball flight's
gonna be either what they want or what or what they're not hoping for,
it still has to be analyzed. You got to look at that ball flight
and say, what does that mean? Right? Huge? Huge? I
see this And I don't know if you've seen this too. I'm sure you
had been on golf. How many are hitting the next wall for the last
ball? Lands? Oh, I've done that. I know, well,
I know if I if I have a shot that that was not what I
intended I'll go ahead and do it again, but yeah, but I probably
don't step away and restart, probably keep my feet locked in and just like
scrape it up. So yeah, the moving of the feet, the repositioning,
the stepping away, going through your whole shot routine. Yeah, yeah,
is something that you know. It's like that makes a big difference.
It's less time, less expensive, you don't have to buy as many balls,
and it's way way more fruitful. I know the place I work,
they charged like thirty dollars for balls now, so it's like everything's getting crazy.
So yeah, I think you, you know, bring up some good
points. I I just fact there's you follow those do those right little things
at the range, and the payoffs can you know, be absolutely huge.
But you have to have some source. And I think you brought up the
greatest point of all in golf that I work very hard with every student to
try to understand. So if you go play golf or your driving range and
you hit a shot and it's you know, it starts left to your target
and curves off to the right, what percent of people I'm gonna asking you
you could analyze that shot as the nine ball flight laws what happened at impact?
What percent would you guess? And I'll tell you what I think as
the percent that could say this is what happened. Let's just say with path
and face, those two, only those two, this is what happened with
my path and face on that golf shot. I know for a fact this
is what happened. I mean, it's got to be a number. I
think it's just way lower than that from the leasons I see. And I
yeah, because I can see good golfers that don't know. Yeah, sure,
even good golfers that don't know. I have no idea, so real
simply if you you don't need a launch minor figure this out now. It
may be good to be with the pro at first to do it so you
can kind of calibrate and say this is what it is. But if you
if you were in general, the ball is going to start pretty close,
especially on the loger the clubs to where your club base is pointed. You
know, you can say, you know, seventy five eighty five percent probably
on the driver. You know, see wedge is gonna it's not going to
be as much, but you don't have to worry about it because the ball
doesn't move that much off when you're with your sandwich. So your typical seven
iron. Just assume the ball started pretty darn close to where that face was
pointed. Okay, so you saw your target was straight ahead. You saw
that ball start off to the left of your target. So what do we
know right now? Before anything? Your hips weren't open. No, that
doesn't matter. We're not worried about your hips or your shoulders, because that's
why I hear at first what happened on that shot? Oh my hips were
I don't care what happened with that Right now, we have to analyze club
face work first and then we work backwards to the body. Yeah so club
faced, Yeah, you left in your head. Okay, so your club
face had to be pointed left right, and the only way for that ball
to curve to the right would be with your club path further to the left.
Now, how much that ball curved is how how much your path was
to the left. So the greater difference between your path and your face is
the more curvature that you have. Okay. Now, obviously a driver is
going to move more because it's in the air longer. But if you have
if you start the ball on your target line. Like a lot of people
who swing over the top will start of the target line and they swing way
left. Okay, so it may start right on the target line for a
second, that peels way up to the right. That tells you you are
swinging your club path is way to the left. So you golfer have to
figure out your club path. Your club face was on the target line,
right, but you have to figure out how to swing your path on that
same line. I mean, you're gonna have to learn to close your club
face a lot more too, at the same time you're doing that. But
it's a simple analysis if you think about it. If the ball starts off
way to the right, which most people do, what happened. Your club
face is wide open. Learn to crank that club face down. Get yourself
a really strong grip when you look down at you. Most people, I
say, the weakest grips like weaker than John Rom's. Okay, and you
better see three to four knuckles most golfers. Okay, that way, it's
going to help the club face close on its own. You're talking about a
lead hand, right lead hand, Yeah, sorry about that. It's going
to help the club face close on its own and you'll be twisting the shaft
more and that gives you a chance. But what happens, and I've been
fortunate to see this a couple of times. I saw athletic young golfers,
juniors. They hit a shot, a good swing inside out, the ball
went by twenty yards to the right. And these are brand new golfers,
okay, So within three to four shots, their path was probably fourteen to
little left and then their face got more center now or their face was even
left, so it curved into the right. So they're happy now with their
shot. But if somebody would have been there right at the right time,
said buddy, great swing path, let me just show you how to close
this club face, they would have been off to the races. But everybody
relates. This is why it's important. They always relate it to the club
path, what the ball is doing when it starts. So if you know
that it wasn't that it's your club face, then you'll know that your big
air and golf golfers is your club face. Mainly, fix your club face
and you will find life and golf will be much more fun. And that's
all done with the grip. Well, there's basically a couple of ways.
I'd say three ways to close the clubface. One is what most people do,
unfortunately, is they have a real weak grip. They take it back
and they square it up right in front by throwing the club face. Okay.
The other way you can do it is by this real rotational move like
this, which a lot of us were brought up to do. Okay,
it's so hard, it's impossible. And like even the pros they talk about
that have done it, they talk about two thousand shots a day, and
if you miss a day, it takes them three days to get that back.
Wow. Yeah, yeah, So tell me how you're our amateurs are
going to time that out. You're not. You may stripe one every once
in a while, but like you said, it's impossible. And the third
way is you can be like the pros. You get a stronger grip.
So the pros, I don't always have to have stronger if they've learned to
do what's called twisting the handle okay, and if if Fred can see my
hands, but what I'm doing is I'm twisting. Okay, So I'm going
from my left my lead wrist is extended here that cup so by the time
I can do the top of this wing, I have a choice. I
can flatten it out. So what did I do. I closed the club
face and if I just hold that more flat on the way down, my
club face is closed. The more I'm like this coming in with cup,
guess what the club face is wide, wide open. Okay, So the
pros what they typically do, say like John ram or whatever. He'll swing
up and he's twisting the shaft. John Rahm has done a lot of it
on the way up. That's why he's bowed. He's actually releasing on the
way down to an extended position that way. But most golfers, let's say
more that are more neutral. We'll get to the top and they're twisting the
shaft like this. If you guys, folks to see my hands. So
I go like this. It's like a motorcycle move. If you've ever rid
a motorcycle or anything that has handles that you turn for the throttle, you
want to take your lead hand is taking the throttle off. Turn it the
other way. Now, try to do that with a really strong grip.
You'll see the club If I have a really weak grip, Look how I
can barely turn my hand stronger. Look how much I can turn this thing
over. That means I can take the club and whip it down. Okay.
So most golfers need to fix their club face and they'll find out golf
will change forever for them. They were so hard path and they work and
everything. Fix your grip and then fix your club face and get your club
face in a much stronger position on the way down. The number one checkpoint,
i'd say for all golfers. So when you get to here, which
is P six where the club is sticking out like right here, your hands
are here? What do you mean? What's P six? Okay? So
I we have got you know, the positions in golf, So we have
we have P one address P two. So let's say, let me give
roll some P fours when we get to the top, okay, is P
four so we have two three, which is arm parallel. P four is
I'm at the top. P five as we're getting back to arm parallel.
P six is club parallel to the ground before P seven is impact. Okay,
So P six is club parallel to the ground on the way down.
That club should be parallel to the ground. It should be a little bit
behind your hands and the angle of that club face. Most golfers see how
this angle is. That'd be matching my back angle if I was hitting about
like that. See it. Most golfers their clup faces like this wide open.
So when your face is wide open at p six, what do you
do? You stand up and you throw it. It's the only way to
hit it. That's why you see every golfer. Most golfers early extend.
They thrust their pelvis into the ball and they stand up because what is your
body doing. It's helping you get that clupface closed, but you're throwing your
pelvis at You're slowing things down, and what do you do? It helps
you square it, but you're just you're throwing it at the ball. That's
why your arms are extended at the ball instead of having more of this look.
But it's all bait. Did everything I say there was all based on
an open clupface. It wasn't based on anything else. So don't roll that
club face open on the way back, have control of it, have that
thing down, feel like it's shut as can be, and then learn to
just do that, because here's what happens. The antidote to the closed club
fase is guess what, your hips clearing out of the way like the professionals,
like everybody wants to have, right, it's not an artificial clearing.
It's your hips go, Holy smokes, I better get out of the way
or this ball is going a million miles left. What is the antidote to
the open face? Your hips stopping for you so you can close the club
face. So if you want to look like Rory is not good, to
the top of your swing and flip your hips all the way because you're just
spinning out. It does you no good. You close your clup face and
after a little while your body goes, you know what, I gotta get
out of the way, or this's going way left. And that's the antidote
to the left. And guess what, then you start clearing out. But
everything I said there was based on the club face, yep. And don't
do what I do, which is tinker with it during your round. All
right, we're gonna take another time out. We'll be back right after this.
We talked about the nine different flight paths early. You mentioned it,
the ball flight laws, Yes, ball flight laws, Yeah, take go
deeper. I'm fascinated. Yeah, so they're really cool. It's it was
something that the old ones were wrong because the PJ had said that the ball
started closer to the path than the face, and when track Man came out,
they said, definitively, no, that's wrong, it's more on the
face. So we learned a lot of a lot about golf then, and
you know, it's really interesting. People asked how I taught back then?
What I told people? And you told some people wrong stuff because you would
have them swing more the right, which would cause a bigger hook for somebody
that would do it. But after a while we all knew that something's not
right because I'm telling this guy swing way over there on the ball's hooking more.
How can I tell them swing more to the left. This is working.
So even though we were told this and didn't understand it as coaches,
if you did it long enough, you figured it out, even though you
didn't have the data to prove it. So when TrackMan came out with that
tonus that the ball flew closer to where the face angle is, then we
learned a lot. So if you draw a straight just a straight line towards
your target path and then you had one go you know, like you pushed
it to the right, the other one you pulled it to the left.
Okay, there's three of them, and then you would have basically branches out
of each one of them. So I have the left, you'd have that
straight pole right, and then you would have one that would be a poll
hook as an option, and then you would have that pull, fade,
pull, slice, whatever you want to call it. So there's three there,
and then the same thing. The straight shot would have one that went
dead straight. You would have one that started on the line and then drew,
and then one that faded off of it. So there's you have three
off each one of those. So off of each one of those, you
can deduce what happened to any of your shots. And when you understand that,
you can make the changes that you need. So if I look at
a shot, a typical problem I'll have is I'll swing too far out to
the right and look it back in or leave a push out there, you
know, so I'll have a push draw or just a push just push it
straight out there. So if I push it out to the right, I
know the ball started to the right, and let's say it doesn't curve.
I know my club path and club face were exactly you can say exactly say
pretty much the same degree, Okay, So if the ball stays straight,
it doesn't matter if tragments those four degrees or six. Like I got an
idea about a little bit because I'm only a certain amount off to the right.
I know that my path and face are exactly the same, and then
the So that's the one part. The other part is knowing if it curves
the right, your club path is inside of the face. If it curves
the other way, your path is outside the face angle. So I think
if you just see the chart once and understand those three, then you can
figure out any golf shot. And and the thing is where like, without
knowing those how do you fix your golf game when you're playing? You can't
because you can't see your golf swing. And then for you to hit a
shot that you most people for you you know a pull cut or something in
there, you don't know for sure that what happened on that shot. So
it's like when you understand the ballfight laws, then you can go look at
a shot and go, I know what happened with my path and face and
our bodies are really good at organizing the other stuff around that. I mean,
you got to build a good foundation somewhat, get a good grip.
I tell people about golf. You know, if you build a foundation of
a good posture, good stance, you know your alignment can be different.
It's matchups for alignment. Get a good golf grip, you know, understand
a good posture, and then understand those ballflight laws. Then you'll understand what
path you need to make this work any I use ropes to teach people to
swing. Every time I put in a rope in somebody's hand that has a
twelve degree path to the left, way over the top right, they think,
oh, I can't fix this. I put a rope and I goes.
I stand on the right, I'll stand up the left. At first,
I swing to me. They do it really easy, and I'll walk
over about twenty feet to the right and say swing to me. That go
and swing right out to me like you did it in one swing. You
swung out to the right. So everybody can pick his path. There's nobody
that is like, I can't do this, But they don't understand the relationship
between the two. And when you understand that relationship. It's fixable. I'm
not I'm not trying to claim golf is easy, but golf is very very
hard when you don't have that basis as a framework. And I think if
everybody had that basis, golf would be golfers will be much much better.
But most golfers are just playing in the blind unfortunately because of that. Sure,
yeah yeah so, and trying to feel it while you're doing it is
also really that's why video is so great. And I've been using the Arcost.
You talked about Arcost earlier. I've been using the Arcos and uh it
says that my my average drive is two thirty three. Okay, so a
little bit above normal, right, but sometimes I'll have a two eighty five
drive, right, and it's like yeah, yeah yeah. But then also
there'll be time so I'll have a one seventy five drive, you know.
That's why I'm a two eighty three. You know? Yeah? Are you
so? Year after a round you fix it. But you're able to go
through with arcos, which I love. Now you're able to look at it
and say, this is why are you set against Because I have an idea
probably where you are as a handicammer, you set against a scratch or a
five or what do you set yours against? To look at ten? So
your goal is to be a ten and you're a what about nine? Six?
Okay, so you're looking at where you are in that arri's because I
know you can also set it against like a scratch and say yeah, okay,
I was like four behind that. Yeah, yeah, I don't want
to do that. I want to play like i'm playing. I want to
play consistent to where I am right now, and if I get improved on
it, that's great. But I'm not trying to be something i'm not.
And the fact that I'm I'm just around to ten right now is still amazing
to me. Well, I don't know what percent of the nation. I
can't remember what ten is. It's top I can't remember. I mean,
you're in the top fifteen percent. Maybe I think it's a big number.
Yeah. Somebody said, somebody asked me recently, are you a good golfer?
And I said, I'm not good, but I'm not bad. Yeah,
I know. I think it's very respectable. I mean it's you know,
I feel like, but you have a good you have a good knowledge.
You also do other things too. I mean, I don't we don't
know what Fred would be if he had. I think you always have to
factor in your ten handicap with you don't practice a ton, you don't play
a ton. What would you be if you had five days on the course
a week tired, tired and achy, Ay, dude, I'm sixty eight
years old, I'd be I'd be in a lot of pain. I mean,
it's hard to hard to think that. But because you don't look at
thank you, well you're welcome. Yeah, sponsors, you'll know why,
Well, yeah you do. But you do it right, yeah, one
hundred percent. It doesn't You got to work on it. But I think
that's the same as golf. But I think it's how you do it is
fine. You know, setting against ten, so you go have a round
and you can look at it when you didn't play as well and say,
well, I was plus three in my putting or whatever. You know where
you were off and probably I don't know yet if you're do you see trends
when you're going the wrong way, Possibly you have to say, oh my
putting's going a little or this is going a little awkward. It's Another thing
people have to have is arcos or some kind of something to tell them because
yeah, the feed. Yeah, I mean, the thing that's so interesting
is the first thing I'll look at is on it's my total number of putts.
And you know, I know that if I can keep it into the
twenty nine to thirty one thirty two range of putts in a round, I'll
have a decent score. But then if I have a high score, I'm
like, oh, well, you had thirty nine putts today, you had
forty putts today, and you had four three putts and okay, so that
means the four three putts also could mean that I'm not picking the right club
on my approach shot because I'm leaving myself a sixty foot putt on my first
pot, and that's yeah, a sixty foot putt is like, okay,
that's gonna be a three putt perhaps, Yeah, yeah, I think over
thirty I think when you tour average, they go once it's over thirty two
feet, that's when they creep into a possible three putt. So at sixty
foot we have a pretty good chance. Yeah you said thirty two. Yeah,
so I think once it goes are thirty two, their putts go to
thirty, they go to two point oh one. At thirty two feet or
thirty three feet is when they finally break over over a two point oh one
and they had at thirty two or thirty three feet. My last couple of
rounds, I actually started looking at what's the length of my first putt.
That's the one of the number of things you can do that first. That
helps on the approach, right, because now it's telling me if I'm using
the right clubs on my approach shots massive. It gives you this massive new
level done it than just gi rs or how many pots. That number is
absolutely crucial to having. It makes a world of difference huge. So that's
good. That's good, you're getting that data. Okay, we talked about
earlier about comparing ourselves to how pros improve how versus how we improve. When
we come back after this break, let's talk about how a fifteen handicap versus
a three handicap, you know, because three handicap is not someone who's gonna
be making the tour at anytime soon, no matter how good they think they
are. So let's let's find out what's happening on golf Smarter Mulligans this week,
and then we'll back right after this. This week on Golf, Smarter
Mulligans is the second conversation with legendary coach Jim Hardy, just after he published
his book Solid Contact. You know, recently I heard someone say golf's a
simple game that's really hard. Well, in this hour long episode with Jim,
he puts it this way, Golf is a ten thousand different pieces,
all some way glued together. And the ball flights of mystery and the impacts
of mystery, and our swings a mystery, and we've got timing, tempo,
rhythm and balance. We've got a strong grip, a week grip.
You bendo where you stand up, you put the ball forward, you put
the ball back, You make a long back swing, a short back swing,
you take it straight back, you take it to the inside, You
cock your wrists, you're across the line, your legth off. I could
go on for hours, but that's why people look at golf. They look
at golf as though we've got all the colors of the rainbow going on,
plus fall the sounds of an arch distract going on, and it's just too
complicated. That's Episode two hundred and thirty seven of Golf Smarter Mulligans, the
second of two episodes with Jim Hardy after the release of his book Solid Contact.
Originally published as a member's only episode in April of twenty twelve, this
is the first time this episode has ever been shared publicly and it's a good
one. So if Golf Smarter is one of your favorite golf podcasts, then
don't miss the chance to get two episodes each week, Golf Smarter on Tuesdays
and golf Smarter Mulligans episodes from our archives that revisit the best of Golf Smarter
that cannot be found on any podcast platform anymore. They're both available for free
from wherever you're listening right now. So golfers who would love to get to
a low index, and I'm not even gonna call it scratch, because that's
just to be a scratch golfer, your consistency has to be on such a
high level and it doesn't even come close to what the pros do. Because
even the best player at your local course, if you're country club and they're
playing the same course over and over and over again, or you're on the
men's club, are you just you know, you like to compete locally.
Getting to a low index versus versus scratch is a tremendous amount of work.
Getting fifteen to attend takes work. I mean, it all takes work.
It's not a game of perfection and it's not a game of consistent progress.
And anyone thinks they can get better every time out is fooling themselves. Correct,
that's a good point, I think, you know. So we have
so much data now to know the difference. You know, as I think
I said earlier, to look at if you're fifteen, you want to become
a five, which a lot of people I see say that they want to
attain a certain level. And I'm like, that's great, So let's sit
down and look at what is the difference between you and then. And that
doesn't mean I'm showing them a swing of what a five is, because I
think there's a couple of things to be worried about with handicaps. Is this
is that you can look at golf. I don't love handicapped for this reason,
because it's now it's eight of your best twenty. Okay, so what
kind of I know a lot of golfers that can shoot a seventy eight eight
times and they can shoot in the nineties. So are they Are they a
seventy eight shooter? No? I think there should be any whatever, every
eighty five shooter, and that's what they should be called. And yeah,
I mean we're calling them that bad. I think for them that would help
them, right, isn't that more real? Like eight of your best twenty?
Now, there's golfers that are consistent. There are some that shoot seventy
eight to eighty three. They're out there and then that's then the handicap is
a good number for them. But most golfers are not like that. Oh
no, No, I mean like I got to a point recently where over
my last twenty rounds was a ten stroke like seventy six to eighty six where
it was my you know, the range that I had that is incredibly consistent
for me. I couldn't believe. It's like wow, over twenty rounds.
I you know, I know that a handicap is there for gambling purposes,
but a handicap shows your potential. It doesn't show what your average score is.
And I think that for the gambling purposes you got to go. You
know what I might generally I shoot an eighty three. Okay, let's work
from that, not ye a nine hands cap. You should have your last
twenty if you entered them, average them. You know what I mean.
It's if you're honest with your score, just average it and then that's.
Oh, it'll tell you. It says your last It'll show you on the
gin USGJ. Yeah, it says, here's your last twenty rounds, your
high score, your low score, and the ape score of those twenty.
Use that. Use then you know what else, and you know what else,
and then move up to the test. Moving back. Everybody the ego
I hate this. Okay. You know what, if you want to play
the back tease, you're going to get in less trouble because it's designed for
your skill level. And that's why they put the bunkers where they do,
in the water where they do. If you want to not get to the
bunkers, move back. Okay, fine, fine, But if you want
to have more fun playing golf, play it forward. Man. What How
what distance do you play your corset? I don't know about I usually,
honestly, I never look at the distance. I look at the slope.
I look the slop okay, so you're you do a better job that way.
I think it's I don't know, it's I have not run into this
yet. I so I try not to judge people yet because I hope I'm
not one. I usually am not ego driven with so many things. So
I don't like when I go play golf with my wife a lot. I'll
play the reds with her, but I don't whip a driver oute ever,
like I'll hit an iron off the tee and have fun because I don't want
to go back and forth to tea boxes, and I just I think it's
fun for me and her just tea off the same tea box. We're more
together instead of a part. So I hope that is a thing for me
saying I'll be able to do it, but move up, don't. I
don't think I'll have that ego issue. I don't know why men do,
because I don't think people look down on anybody for it. And I feel
sorry for those guys that when you hit a three wood or a hybrid every
time in the second shot, and I teach those guys, I'm like,
isn't that get tiring and old? And they're like, well yeah, but
I'm not going up to those teas. Well. You know what, that's
an interesting point is that you know, no one's going to look down on
you from moving forward, but boy are they going to have judgments if you're
playing from the back teas and you don't belong there. Oh you're that's where
the judgments are. Yeah, and so like, dude, you should not
be playing the black the back tees. You should not do that. Yeah,
it's interesting, but people, I think, equate it to the other
way, which is really interesting. So yeah, I hope, I hope
I don't have an issue, and I hopefully if you are getting better.
I just think I don't know what it was. I don't know if it's
the ladies tea that it got called and you're not. I don't call them
the lady's I know, and I think I don't know if that. I
think my point is by saying that for so many years that that got in
men's minds that they can't move forward. But I you know, I don't
know they have you know, T boxes that are a part of it.
I don't I just know I would never want to hit a three wood out
of the fair rate. I don't like hitting it now on part fives.
I don't love hitting three woods, like I'd like to have an iron in
my hand, so if I wouldn't do it all day long. So you
know, I'm not going to play a T box where I have hit three
woods, you know, but fourteen of the holes to it hopefully to the
green I mean on my second shot, and probably end up short. So
I'll move up, I promise. Oh wait, wait, wait, you
don't use driver? You lost me on that? What? No, I
don't love even hitting three woods on a par five from me if I play
that tea is like I like hitting irons. I would hate to have to
do it fourteen times in a row, have to hit a three wood because
I'm short, you know, like a lot of people have to, you
know. So it's like I would I like it. I'd rather play a
T box where I have an eight iron in yeah yeah, oh yeah,
yeah yeah. Well the whole idea of playing forward was play like the pros
do you know. It's like, but what do they do? They hit?
They'll hit driver or three wood and then a wedge or a nine iron
or an eight iron. That's what we do. We're hitting driver and then
a hybrid. Yeah, it's like I think a good way to think about
it is most people, if they watch golf, look at the clubs they
use on their second and find the tea box that fits that, right.
I mean it's like if they're hitting driver nine irons, drivers, wedges,
drivers, some iron, then find t boxes that allow you to hit driver
some iron and that'll be fun. It'll be much more fun. Look.
Yeah, so you know, getting back to your point on what somebody needs
to do to get to if you're everybody's going to have a little different path
to go from twenty to fifteen to fifteen, ten, ten to five,
handicap five and down. If we're using handicap as the as just the general.
You know, Art Coast uses that a lot because it makes it easier
to look at numbers. But you're going to find out when you grab those
numbers what you need work on. Okay, and typically people aren't as good
as punt. If I had a prescription for somebody that you just want to
score better, it's going to be within one hundred yards. Okay, you're
going to get your one hundred yard game better. But that doesn't mean that's
the prescription for everybody. You need to get your usually your whole game better.
But if it's like Eric, I have one month we're getting I got
to get as good as like can in a month. I'm like, okay,
we're getting really good short game here. That's that's where that's the low
hanging for you, right with everything. But if you have to improve your
whole game, you need these metrics to say, and I'm only hitting five
greens per round. If I want to shoot an eighty, I have to
get to eight, eight to nine greens. You know you do have to
get there on average, right, So that's a good metric right there.
You know you're driving distance probably can't be from a back T two twenty and
do that you're knock hit three woods in and get down to a five handicapped.
You better have a lot of irons in your hands if you want to
go down to a five handicap. So if your business doesn't match less ease,
you better get up to the right tea that'll allow you to hit the
right irons in. But it's a pretty simple formula when you look at it
of what you need to get better at to reach whatever handicap you want.
When we have the data in front of us, so you know, if
you go get a lesson, show up to your lesson and have some stats,
if you play and say this is what I get, this is typically
where I am. I want to get here, and then you can kind
of build a plan off that and what you need to do based on whatever
the golfer does. So it doesn't have to be I think golf it's really
complicated, but it doesn't have to be as as complicated I think as it
is, especially with the data we have today, should make it much easier,
not harder, to get to an answer of what we need to do
to get better. And it's typically you can break it down, like I
said greens and regulation. You can look at how many putts and like green
putts fairways hit. You know, to get your fairways hit up. So
somebody say well, I always get kicked back from somebody to say well I
hit I hit twelve fairways. I'm like, okay, you probably drive it
one eighty two right. That's the only way somebody's sitting that many fairways.
They aren't hitting it far right. So then they run into that. Everybody
everybody does something different and you always get comments from somebody, well my foursome.
Nobody does that. I'm like, well, this is uh Arcos is
nine hundred million shots, not your foresome. So remember that. It's a
it's a general look at things that you can base some numbers off that are
pretty good, you know what I mean. So it's just the general idea,
a way to break it down. But I think going back, if
you want to become a better golfer and you want to get down, go
back to a lot to what we talked about, learning your face angle and
ball flight, those ballfight laws. Get your learn to close your garden club
face so you can get a more piercing shot that comes off lower with more
spin. You'll quit hitting behind it, no more tops. You'll get spin
and you'll hit you'll hit the greens, it won't roll anymore. But that's
all having a nice clothes cup face. Awesome. All right, we're and
you're still teaching at I teach up at McCormick ranch back with the range you
got teaching bay there, and I teach online Arizona, right, gott Arizona.
Yeah, so you can find me an ejs goolf dot com. And
that's where basically all my stuff is and do some I think you see me
on some social media stuff. Are doing a little more. I'm doing more
YouTube stuff because I like long, long format where I can talk like I
did here and get more in depth. I just feel like it's hard and
minute to three minutes to get out what you you know, what you want
to talk about, and help you absolutely the whole golf yep. Ye.
Well, it's great to talk to you again. As we started out saying,
let's see where it goes. It went and it was a lot of
information and a lot of helpful information and insights and as always Eric, it's
a blaster to talk to you. Thank you man, but love talking to
you and hopefully make golfers there today. Man, I just loved hearing from
Golf Smarter Ambassador John Delil, the golf coach from South Vermilion High School in
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