If a person breaks one hundred, there would be a golfer for life,
essentially, and that's research based done by the proponent group. It's like a
hockey stick effect where people breaking one hundred they play more golf. It's not
necessarily how they any hit the ball, bat evasion and get up and down
around the greens little more. They need to keep the ball in play,
make less bad decisions. That's the name of the game. And the way
they go from eighty to seventy, they're already probably hitting eight nine greens regulation.
The PGA two averages eleven and a half on green relations, or if
you include the fridge, it's twelve and a half. So if you kind
of just promote those stats and give them a clear indication that it's not necessarily
just a golf swing, it's a part of the process. But I would
say it's manage their time more effectively. Hi, this is Ken Greenberg from
Dallas, Texas, and I played golf frequently at the courses at waters Creek.
This is called smarter number nine hundred one. Breaking one hundred is more
than just working on the range with so Cal PGA Teacher of the Year Blake
Jerks 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 to the Golf Smarter podcast. Blake, Hello,
Fred, How you doing, Bud? I'm doing good. Thanks thanks
for having me on. I appreciate it. Oh. Absolutely, you know
people are gonna think, oh, I can hear Blake. He's outside,
he's, you know, a golf instructor. He's about to give a letting.
You know, he's at Starbucks. So we're just kidding. He's got
two little kids. You got two little kids at home. You cannot be
doing your interviews at home. Absolutely not. No, it's it's a little
shoe box. It's like a fourteen square foot free bedroom house. It's my
girls take up one room and then my wife and I. Pretty much that's
about it. And they're probably playing toys and playing dress up, playing tea
party whatever. Maybe so defitable last right now, so I can back say
put myself for at Starbucks. Okay, well good, well, thank you
for doing that. I really appreciate it. Uh, congratulations are in order.
You've been named the twenty twenty two Southern California PGA Teacher of the Year.
Thank you. I appreciate it yet an absolute honor. It's a it's
a team effort in my in my opinion, honestly, just with the people
in my corner, the people that supported me and helped me along my journey.
And um, I appreciate just the recognition for the opportunity just to be
award of this and just be recognized as that teacher of the year. How
does the process work? Do they submit your name or did all of a
sudden you've got a phone call saying congratulations. What's the process? I'm curious.
So yeah, Sill in California, they's a it's a recognize So PGAs
ore PGA professionals are putting it names in the hat for who they believe is
maybe the best teacher teacher of the year. Me player Development Golf pfessional the
year, whe I d beb. I was nominated for the Teacher of the
Year for the first on California section. I won our chapter Teacher of the
Year as well the previous year. So once they had about I think fifteen
or twenty people in the in the hat, they knocked it down down to
three I believe or five. And then they interviewed us about half hour to
quarter five minutes, asking us questions of maybe our teaching and what our philosophy
as and what we why we believe it, maybe the why we should be
the teacher of the year, And um, I guess my answers were I
guess good enough to nominate my startup, be nominated and be awarded the opportunity.
So I was really cool, really cool opportunity. Well, I'm sure
that that interview was far more intimidating than this one will be not one,
not one, but oh well, I'm curious when they like ask you tell
us why you should be teacher of the year, how do you let humility
you know, take over there but still brag about yourself that yeah, I'm
a great teacher. Yeah. I mean the big thing for me, like
when I think about a teacher of the year in the section or even national
Teacher of the Year, it's it's not just like who you teach or how
you teach. It's I think it's just so much more components to that.
It's like, are you are you helping out other teachers actually teach? Are
you maybe helping the teachers below you get more business, Are you getting the
results from your students? Are you giving back to the game when it comes
to maybe part of the foundation or donations, or just giving your time and
effort into into the into the section in the PGA. And I believe that
teaching everyone. There's so many good instructors out there in the country, There's
so much good knowledge out there, and if we base off of that,
I think everybody deserves that. But I think there's so many more layers to
the teacher of the year. And I think for me, like when I
when I look back in my journey over the past two years or three years,
because that's where I feel like my my journey has gone, I think
propelled over the last few years, and just with my my mindset and how
I think about things and how I think about coaching. It's like I've been
the golf instructor where I talked about golf swing. I've been the golf instructor
that has gone through working on the technique and I figured out and just kind
of just and buy my mentor is not just from for myself, but just
my mentors that have helped me along the journey that it's the relationships, it's
the it's the being able to coach a player from A to Z. It's
not just that one off lesson. It's the long term journey. It's getting
the results that they want to they want to achieve, and if you're able
to kind of track that, maybe able to kind of see that with UM
all of my students that I've been coaching over the last few years at the
facility of ANAT It's been a really cool process and just the idea of being
able to be more of a more of a coach and more of a I
know the golf swing. I feel like I'm a family doctor, but I
specialize in UM. In a coaching world, you know, I could.
I want to make my players better and m half the time it's maybe it's
the technique is a small piece of the pie, but there's so many more
components. And I know that Fred, you're this this podcast is what you
preach. It's not just the technical parts. It's the mental and emotional aspect
of golf. There's so much golf such an emotional game, and I think
again, like teachers and instructors know the golf swing, they know how the
golf ball moves from right to left and left to right. But it's the
bigger, bigger components that are the reasons why I think people want to get
better and the people love hanging out their PJ professional It's interesting you say,
um, how peachers and teachers know how to at the ball so ball goes
right to left or the ball goes left to right. But you know,
lots of times I feel, and I've talked to a lot of teachers,
that teachers become golf instructors because they were good golfers as kids, and that
they just love to be around the golf course, not knowing what it really
means to be a golf instructor, of what kind of dedication it takes,
and how little you get to play golf once you become an instructor. Yeah,
right, Yeah, it's actually funny actually on that point, Fred,
like, honestly, the last year and this has got on a stoot,
I probably played fifty rounds last year, maybe seventy rounds last year with my
students. I may I played golf with my students. I got to play
with them on a whether we're traveling out to another golf course, whether I'm
on the golf course teaching with them, and I do most of my stuff
in group settings already, and so I actually played golf with my students.
And so like the model of you getting this business to not play golf,
it's such a I think that's such an almost like a bad termed a way
back in the day of like you worked sixty hours, eighty hours a week,
and you grind that, you taught every lesson you could. You're sitting
on the driving range getting burnt out, and I just like flipped it on
his head. And again, my mentors helped me along this journey, but
I took him on the golf course. I played golf with my students.
I um, I was able to kind of see how they play and helped
them out on that end more than I did on teaching on the driving range.
So I played more golf now than I've ever had my ultire life by
far. But are you playing golf or you just out on the golf course
with your students? Yeah, so yeah, I'll play. Yeah, I'll
play nine holes of my students, honestly, like i'll play in some money
games, eighteen holes. I'll play my actually played my first section event last
year for a three day tournament, and I've I felt almost guilty to ever
play in a tournament back in the day because I feel like I had to
work, I had to give golf lessons to make money because if I didn't,
then I wouldn't make money. Now at a point where my life is
I have I changed my mindset and how I believe, and I'm like,
know what, I'm gonna go play these terms. I'm gonna go test it
out there and and have more fun. Honestly, Like, that's why we
got on the business, is to play more golf and be around the business
and be able to coach our students. That's fascinating that you get to play
that much golf. But I was starting to talk about how teachers know how
to hit the ball right to left, hit the ball left right, but
not all of them know how to communicate that. There's a probably a huge
gap there of knowing how to do it and then being able to teach it.
So, as someone who's been named a teacher of the Year, how
have you been able to make that transition from being a probably a pretty good
golfer to being a really good tea teacher? Yeah, I mean I had
to. I had to know the the ins and outs of instruction part of
it, like how the club moves, how the body moves, and UM,
I've seeked all those, all the swing instructor help, I've I've gone
through a ton of education, um in my earlier years where I wanted to
know as much information as possible within the instructor realm of how the golf swing
moves and how the golf ball moves. And for me, like I wasn't
necessarily the best player, like I would get thirty minute lessons every two weeks
and I thought I was getting better and I really wasn't getting better at all,
and it was um. But I knew at an early age, at
sixteen seventeen years old, I wanted to be a golf instructor and I knew
I wanted to be helping people play better golf. So I kind of had
with that, with that vision and that goal, that goal in mind,
I knew I wanted to kind of follow that pathway and UM, I knew
I wanted. I knew I had to know the golf swing and I had
to know why the ball does what it does. And then being able to
communicate that was just kind of again, people that have helped me out just
has shadowed me a rive shadowed them on how much communication is necessary to provide
a student I'm all about less is more. I'm actually more on the side
of mental and emotional game than I am on the technical game. So I
feel like I can get better people, better results just by communicating with them,
with being able to build that relationship up and keeping them accountable for their
golf games. Awesome, Hey listen, Well we'll find out because we have
some more time to flesh it out, and we'll do that after this break.
You said a moment ago that you knew that you wanted to be an
instructor when you were a teenager. You were not saying I'm going to be
on the PGA tour. You were saying I want to be a teacher.
Where did that come from? Where? How did that practical knowledge sink into
you as a teenager. Yeah, it's it's it's it's pretty interesting. I
mean, for me, my parents don't play golf, none of my of
my family members play golf. I just I love the game and I played
other sports as a kid, and I fell in love with golf at thirteen
fourty years old, and UM, and I wanted to be an almost an
elementary school teacher back in the day where I wanted to teach like third grade,
fourth grade, UM, just as a teacher when I was a third
and fourth grader really, and so I kind of I knew at UM.
As sixteen came along, seventeen came along, I was like, you know
what, I love teaching kids. I love teaching people, like just like
helping people out. And I was just kind of gravitated towards added um.
I put put two and two together of teaching kids and juniors too, like
as a farm it. I was like an how much school teacher to teach
me how to play golf in the game I love. So it was kind
of it. It was I think I caught it on earlier than I think
others, and I knew I wasn't good enough to play at at a high
level. I played one of your pend college golf and I wasn't posting to
the scores. That wasn't necessary. My mental emotional game was probably the weakest
part. And nobody actually taught me what that even looked like exactly. So
I kind of had to figure on my own and I knew at that like
that age, it was definitely not going to happen. I knew I wasn't
gonna make the two where I knew I wasn't gonna I didn't have the driver
the want to do it. So I kind of just fell in love with
golf and fell love with teaching, and I kind of made my career based
on that and made the moves that I did to go from it's just a
professional to a full time instructor to now a director of instruction. So they
kind of was a m The pathway was was seamless for me and I the
moves that I made was always just get to the goals I wanted to get
to. Did you play competitively growing up? I played junior tournaments. I
played in our local section events for SOUN California PGA. I was I did
a little bit of a j GA, but again was not nearly good enough
to ever play at a collegiate level at a D one, D two or
D three or maybe I didn't know about it, honestly, like nobody kind
of really helped me out. My parents had no idea about it because they
were just goldful parents that didn't have any sort of people that were helping them
out, and I kind of figured out I had to figure out my golferents
on my own in it, and they just financially supported me and took me
to the golf course when I needed to, and they were super impactful on
that front. But yeah, like I like, I played at a community
college just because I knew the coach and I was like the fourth best or
fifth best player in the team for the one year. I was like,
you know what, I'm not I'm gonna go to I went to Golf County
America and Carl's Bad actually for some schooling, and I knew I wanted to
get in the golf business right away. It was kind of like just the
passion I knew I had, and it wasn't gonna playing competitively wasn't going to
be the thing that was gonna hold me back. But there were there people
that you were playing against that were you were like, oh, Okay,
this guy is so much better than me. And if he's this much better
and we keep getting up to the higher levels, I just know that there's
no way I can compete. And I'm not that you said, I'm not
that hungry for it. You weren't driven for it. Yeah, I mean
we had so many good juniors in our team. Like I went to UM
we played against a program and my best friend at the time, UM,
his name's Chris, and Chris is actually was Patrick Hanley's caddy and we would
hang out with Patrick Hanley all the time when we were kids, and UM
and seeing him play golf and playing in matches against him in high school,
I'm like, yeah, there's no there's no chance. You know. We
had a guy named Shea Kim who is playing a live tour right now,
and he was I used to practice around him and he was he went to
Stanford. You had Alex Kim went to UCLA. I mean, we had
so many good juniors that were we would all practice with. I'm like,
yeah, you guys are so much better. You guys practice here nine hours
a day, grinding it out, and I'm like, yeah, there's Uh.
I like hanging out with you guys. It's a it's been a blast.
It's fun to just to compete and uh, that's all. That's that's
all I got better, honest who was competing and playing with better players and
UM, my buddy Chris, Uh, he uh him and I would go
out and play golf literally every day, and we went on the golf course
all the time. And that was kind of like our biggest um, like
my biggest past member with him just with his development and and and he got
way better as in his junior and senior year, so that was really cool
to see. And um. But yeah, it's just the kids that were
just so good back in the day. That's fast. You were so good,
so good, and like I'm not they're so good. I mean,
and I see Patrick exactly, and I see Patrick Hanley at top five in
the world, right, and like, I mean, we it's just crazies
see the development that these players have. And in Southern California has some of
the best players in the world. Right, you have Colin Morricaw, we
have Max Homa. I mean, there are some top ten players in Southern
California. I played on the GA Tour. I mean, I mean think
on the woman's side, you have Rosang, who's the number one player in
the world right now in the amateur circuit. You know you have so they're
just it's just crazy how many players we have here. You know. Strangely
enough, I completely get where you're coming from on that, Because when I
was growing up, I was playing in rock and roll bands. I was
a drummer and the kids and I grew up in southern California, the San
Fernando Valley, and I was playing drums with all these different guys, all
these different bands, and it's at one point I'm like, Okay, these
guys are really good and I'm not keeping up with them at all. I'm
just yeah, I'm not gonna do it. So I went from playing drums
to playing records and became a district hockey. But but those guys that I
played with all became professional musicians, touring musicians, you know, with with
some big name bands touring the world. I'm like, okay, I was
at least I caught that early on. It wasn't necessarily me. It was
just these guys are so good. Oh my gosh. Um. I want
to talk a little more about you. You're playing lessons and why you think
that adds value, and we're going to talk about it more. We'll take
a break in a few minutes, but I want to get a first answer
from you about what you can learn and how quickly you can learn it.
When you're out on a playing lesson with the student. Like as far as
like from a teaching standpoint or from like a coaching like from a like me
as a teacher of me coaching that the players on the golf course, Well,
you're going out on the golf course with him, going out as a
teacher, going out there to coach them. Yeah, so I'm coaching them
for sure, And I'm I'm out there just watch them how they play,
right, I'm watching them, observing them and finding coachable moments. Honestly,
it's not like on the drive range to get so comfortable, you know,
it's your You have all these groups golf balls, you have a big driving
range. It's so easy to kind of get comfortable on the on the drive
range. But on the golf course, it's that's reality. And I put
my players in group settings because that's what you most likely do with golf.
You actually play with the group of two or three or four others and you
compete and you play. And so being able to provide that environment and I
kind of give them some games or some some thought process or this ideas like
kind of kind of give them the row. Overall lesson of the day we'll
say, but like we'll tee off on the very red teas and we'll give
them and see how low they can go. You know, we'll play having
to disagree on purpose because I'm trying to asess their short game. I'm having
them tee off with the with an iron instead of a driver because they can't
the ball and play off the tea box and so being able to kind of
put them in that life situation and that that environment and seeing how they actually
deal with it. Um, there's so many, so many moments out there
where you where you get them out there and you see him hit a great
shot and it's like, man, that was a great golf shot. How
did that feel? And it's like, yeah, it felt great, felt
smooth, Like how is your routine? How is your thought process? How
is how are you thinking during the golf shot? Like all those things you
kind of want to kind of emphasize in their um. And they're playing and
then when you hit bad shots, because they all hit bad shots, it's
just it's not like it we don't. I don't coach them on every shot
they hit. I just find a moment where I can kind of plug in
and maybe it's a few holes later. Honestly, like I sometimes I won't
even speak to them for two or three holes because I don't need to speak
to them for free holes. It's so often like an instructor or teacher can
kind of talk a lotted and be able to kind of overcoach. I'm the
complete opposite. I give them a framework and then I kind of let them
go on the on the journey and I just watch them play with them and
see how they do, and at the end of the day we'll have a
lesson learned and we'll have an idea of what we need to this and how
we're going to get better and what that. And me my job is as
a coach to keep them accountable for their for their golf games, because at
the end of the day, they're looking for the results and they're looking for
to get better at golf. Um some say they want it to more consistency,
some say they want to hit their irons better. But when I ask
them, you keep you ask them why why why they want to shoot Laure's
course, they want to get better the game, they want to play better,
and as a coach, you want to tend to help them out on
that journey to get there. Yeah, all right, that's only part one
of your answer. We're going to take a time out. We're going to
get more of that, like we'll be back after this commercial message. All
right. I definitely only want to talk more about the idea of of your
playing lessons. I love this idea of playing lessons. And you even mentioned
you like, I won't even and I won't even talk to them for three
or four holes. And it's like, make sure that you remember that as
a parent, because silence is painful. The hardest thing you can do and
someone's waiting for you to talk is to not talk right. And and I
can imagine that the student, when you're not saying anything, must be just
beating themselves up like crazy, like oh my god, what's he thinking?
What's he doing? What are you doing? So U use that silence.
It's a very powerful tool in your in your toolbox. But let's talk about
thought process. Let's talk about off the first tea. When you're with somebody
and they you know they're going out to play with you, there's a little
bit of nerves there. And as you said, being on the golf course
is the real thing. So tell me how how you start that round of
playing of a playing lesson with them? Um, what are you looking for?
And you know, do you have to let's just start there, We'll
ask that question. What are you looking for? Yeah, so I'm looking
at how they I mean just from a from a from just so washing them
standpoint of just seeing like even how they enter the golf ball, like how
are they walking? How are they do they actually warm up and hit the
golf like DoD they actually warm a hit golf shots. They get there early
enough even prior to them hitting that first tea shot, you know, and
then once it get to the first tea I'm thinking, Okay, what kind
of decision making they're doing, m maybe what kind of club choice, maybe
the direction that they're they're going for. And then see how the routine is
honestly like the things that we I focused on the things that we can control.
So a lot of it's like how are what our processes is, So
it would be a presche routine. Um, how engaged are we with a
golf shot? And then what we're doing dealing with it afterwards? So especially
like that first and then and when I do a lot of on course game
assessments. Actually, so my very first session that I take people out,
because on the golf course, I literally take them out for nine holes.
I'll watch them play golf. I actually don't say words. I talk with
them, I get to know them, build a relationship, but I don't
really talk about their golf game or what they're doing right or wrong. When
it comes into that assessment period, I'm actually just watching again the routines,
like club decision. I'm looking at how they deal with good shots or bad
shots, how their their skill sets are, whether it's off the tea or
in um side, holies, fairways, rough, Korean side, whatever,
putting like, I'll check all that stuff out. And so that first hole
and that that where I kind of I set the stage up in the very
beginning, especially in a game assessment, where I'll say, hey, I'm
just watching them observing. I'm just wanting to get to know you a little
bit more. IM want to see kind of how you um manage up on
the golf course. I'm gonna keep tracking my stats and then afterwards going to
hang out and have a conversation and so prepasent that way kind of gives them
a little bit at ease that it's not really much of a they're not gonna
getting a golf lesson, They're getting an assessment so that I can build them
a game plan. And then after that we kind of build that game plan.
That's where we have groups of three or four that will go out on
the golf course and uh, like every other week we'll do like an encore
session and an off course session and on the encorese sessions, like my guys
and are kind of already prepared to deal with that pressure and then more that
they're able to kind of practice that environment like where they're in a group,
they're kind of they do struggle a little bit. They um, they learn
from their lessons that when they do struggle kind of why and be able to
use that for the next time they go out, like, Okay, I've
been here before, I've done this, Let's not do that again. Let's
try to have a better process into hit in this next maybe this first t
shot. H Well, you also said that on a first lesson you'll go
right to the to the course and take them out. But then you have
mentioned about having a lesson of the day. Do you have a lesson of
the day idea before you go out, or do you need to know about
this person's game a bit more before you decide? Okay, this is what
we're going to focus on today. Yeah, So, like I'll from an
assessment protocol, I'll they'll find out more about me and a lot of that.
My students come from PJ dot coach, which is a free probile for
PJA professionals, So I'll find out information from there, and then I'll have
a conversation with them, whether it's through text, messure calling. I'll have
them fill out a Google form where I get to another golf game prior to
actually be having conversation with them, so I get to know kind of what
their skill sets are already. I'll have a phone call with them for ten
to fifteen minutes, set the stage up for an encourse game assessment. They
go play an holes with me and UM and that assessment, I'm just watching,
observing. I'm keeping track of the stats that I want to see and
then being able to afterwards kind of talk them through it and what I observed
and then kind of build my game plan from there. And majority of the
time they're they're already bought into the process. Just because they they and by
the way, in the assessment protocol, like I'll usually have two or three
others with us, and it just provide them more of a live experience.
And I haven't had one person say that that doesn't sound good where they said,
I know I want to our private when I want to work in my
golf swing. People that come to me are already kind of knowing that I
take people on the golf course right away in that assessment. But that's kind
of like and once we kind of manage that way. I called my provos
called the Biggest Loser and U it's basically a whether you can lose strokes off
their game rather than losing weight off their bodies. Um, there was there
was laugh about that one, but I I the results that they want to
see, we kind of guarantee them getting twenty percent better in a six month
period. And and then we and when we're on the golf course, will
like I said, we'll preface the session based on kind of what we you
asked me earlier, is like what kind of things you work on or is
there a preset plan? And honestly, there's no preset planned because kind of
each week may be different. There's some of the guys may struggle they're potting,
or maybe they struggle with they're off the tea game, and so we'll
kind of manage the on course sessions based on kind of what's been going on
for that week, honestly, and kind of tailor the practice based on what
their needs are and what I think their needs are, not what they think
their needs are, which that's an important thing, Yeah, very important thing.
So it recently did an interview with a guy who's in the San Diego
area right now who started a YouTube channel called from Scratch to Scratch. And
this is a guy who knew basically knew nothing about golf, absolutely nothing,
that wanted to do a video every day and become a scratch golfer. And
you know, we all can roll our eyes a bit about that concept.
But it was a fascinating conversation and his determination is unbelievable. But there's so
many things he just doesn't understand about golf and that it's like, oh,
you got a long way to go. And I'm like asking him, how
long do you think it's going to take for you to become scratch? He
goes, I think we in the five year range. I can be pretty
good. I'm like, oh, okay, do you understand that what handicap
is for? No? Okay, So if somebody came to you, if
a student came to you and said, look, I've never played golf.
I have not even played golf video games as a kid, but I want
to be a scratch golfer soon, how do you approach something like that?
The bold, bold, bold statements, And I don't I love I love
audacious goals. I asked every one of my clients what's the most audacious goal
that they have? Oh, yeah, one hundred percent and and some I
mean being realistic, right, And like when we set goals, we've got
it. I always like, whether it's my junior, my elite juniors,
out of coach and then we do a lot of smart goals setting UM specific,
measurable, attainable, realistic and timely goals, and um so we we
always wanted those audacious goals like hey, I want to shoot even part by
the end of the year and the lowest scores seventy eight. You know,
it's like I love that. I love that they want to do that.
Well, here's once it's gonna take you and I need this much practice and
this much effort, UM, this much coaching needs to be going on as
well. I may be watching you play and watching you, um, they
watch how you practice as well and teach you how to practice. UM.
But if somebody's like those those bold statements have going from from A depends on
how much time and honestly how much time resources and um they want to put
it into the game. Honestly, that's the that's the way I would look
at it from A From that standpoint, it's as it possible. Absolutely,
I think it's one hundred percent possible. It just takes again a ton of
time, a ton of help. UM. I've I've learned a lot with
U with doctor Rick Jensen, UM and how people develop skills and um,
how long it really takes to really play under pressure and to go through the
pathway to to getting better. And it takes a definitely does take a journey,
and it takes a lot of people to to help out that. So,
like I, like I always say, it just depends depends on what
what. If that's the goal, then they have all the money and the
resources possible, and they have all the time in the world. Absolutely it's
possible. Why not? And this guy did I mention? This guy has
a full time job. Yeah you' look yeah, but I'd love I love
I love the effort though, and and maybe it's like the the idea of
being a scratch golfer in the head, whether it's in five years, ten
years, twenty years. Um, it's that people. People's goals are always
different, right, and people when people want to achieve something, it's got
to um, it's gotta match. It's got to match kind of their time
and their efforts, you know. And sometimes like I've got players that want
to get better, yet I see them once a week or once every other
week, and they're just not practicing in between. That's the unfortunate part sometimes
And because jobs get the way, and um, life happens and we go
on vacations, we have kids, and um it's uh sometimes gets challenging for
sure. UM. So it's about like again, just goal setting, being
able to manage a good schedule that is effective, and being able to have
a coach that's going to kind of support that that vision that you have and
keep you accountable. If that's what it's looking like. Because when you think
about like achievement goal and say, for instance, UM, my daughter wants
to get my daughter gets married and hopefully thirty years from now, whatever it
may be. Well, and I I need to lose fifteen pounds in a
six week period. Well, I can't be telling my trainer I want to
get I want to eat cheeseburgers every day, and that I only want to
work out once a week, and and I really don't want to run.
Actually I just want to m I. Yeah, I just want to lose
fifteen pounds. So they're like, shoot me straight, and we all know
that's not never gonna work. And the trainers are ways going to say,
hey, you gotta be in the gym three years a week. You've got
to eat this way, You've got to and if you want to look good
in that suit at the end of the day, at the six week period,
you're gonna look real damn good at the end of it. And being
able to have like that vision, And that's how golf instructors are. Golf
coaches really need to kind of visualize their their students, you know, not
just to take money and just give a swing lesson, but kind of get
this student to where they want to go to and keep them accountable for where
they were, for how they want to get there, and you're the job
is to lead them there. Wow. All right, Oh boy, you're
kind of teacher I would love to work with. All Right, listen,
we're gonna take another time out. We'll be back. Find out what's going
on in Golf Smarter Mulligans this week. Well, this week on Golf Smarter
Mulligans, we'll feature one of the early episodes with a Golf Smarter regular,
the wedge guy, Terry Kaylor. In an episode from twenty eleven, we
call give me ten feet closer over ten yards farther any day, And ain't
that the truth? The industry R and D guys they'll design a six iron
and they'll tist it and they'll tweak it. They'll tist it and they'll tweak
it. When they have that sixth iron really doing what they're after. The
conventional wisdom is the match that of irons all has to look just to like
well. The difference between a six iron at twenty seven or twenty eight,
twenty nine degrees and a pitching wedge or what I call a peat club in
today set, which is a forty four to forty five six degree golf club.
This is seventeen sixteen fifteen degrees difference. That's the difference between a six
iron and a driver. Nobody would ask for their three aren't even to look
like they're six iron. Why would your pitching wedge and nine aren't look like
a sixth airn They're totally different golf clubs. They're used a totally different way,
and so we broke out of this idea of said, you know,
realistically, rather than my pitching wedge and nine aren't match my sixth, an't
they really ought to match my wedges? These are scoring clubs too. That's
golf Smarter Mulligan's episode two hundred and seventeen featuring the wedge Guy when his company
was called Idolon, which we now know as Edison Wedges. Please subscribe for
free to both of our golf podcast, Golf Smarter, published every Tuesday,
and our sister podcast that revisits the best of the evergreen content from the Golf
Smarter podcast, called Golf Smarter Mulligans, being released every Friday from wherever you're
listening right now. So if somebody has an audacious goal of becoming a scratch
golfer or even breaking eighty or becoming a mid seventy shooter regularly, do you
feel that it's more of their energy should be put on being at the range
powering balls, just you know, striking balls, or more time on the
course playing situational golf, you know, being in various situations and learning from
that. Where do you find the greatest value? Is it playing golf or
hitting balls, which I think are two completely different things. Yeah, it's
it's it's it's appends honestly on the per se. Usually people if they're if
they're shooting ninety and they want to break eighty, it's gonna take that's.
Yeah, they have to maybe be a better ball striker. But at the
end of the day, like what I see a lot of times is their
short game of potty need a ton of work. Honestly, It's like their
golf strings are fine, they're manageable. You can kind of teach them how
to maybe play different golf golf club, maybe play more club, or play
smarter, thank you very much. Yeah, nice, exactly, not play
smarter. It's golf exactly the U. But like there's but like if you're
if you're talking like a person that shoots one hundred, they want to break
a hundred for the first time. Which is probably the most important number for
golfers and golf coaches to realize, is that if a person breaks a hundred
and they're going to be more inclined to play more golf, there would be
a golfer for life, essentially. And that's research base um done by the
proponent group, And it's like a hockey stick effect where people breaking a hundred
they play more golf, um. And it's not necessarily how they don't hit
the ball batter aasition, get up and down around the greens little bit more.
They need to keep the ball in play, make less bad decisions and
um, I mean that's the name of the game and the way to go
from even from eighties seventy's, it's not the any if they're already probably hitting
eight nine greens regulation the PGA two ur averages eleven and a half on green
relations, or if you include the fringe, it's twelve and a half.
So if you kind of just promote those stats and give him a clear indication
that it's not necessarily just the golf swing and so the driving range is not
necessarily it's it's a part of the process. But I would say it's manage
to their time more effectively. Like I have a junior right now that just
came to me. He wants to be a D one college golfer. And
he practice on the range for three hours a day, and he puts a
little bit for half hour, he chips for half hour, and is in
he three puts every time. He doesn't play on the golf course enough,
and and so now his whole practice sessions. Now, hey, you're only
going to practice on the golf course, and if you do practice outside of
the golf course, you're just putting it chipping, you're not hitting any golf
balls. And so it all depends on the person and where they're at and
where there what their goals are. So sometimes people don't hit a golf balls
if they're trying to go from nine to eighty or eighty five to seventy five,
whatever it may be. So they probably need it hit some hit some
golf balls or but it's more about how they practice is probably the better question.
Because people just majority of people that don't get coaching, they kind of
just hit the seven iron or the eight iron, and they just hit the
same shot over and over again. A lot of block practice and research based.
Again, it's it's not how people get better. Faster, more variable,
more random practice is a lot more effective and it may be a short
term that the results up might be as good in the short term, but
the long term effects are a lot greater. So it's more about how they
practice as well, and having that the accountability partner, the coach to kind
of guide them for that processes. Isn't a fourth part of that to person's
journey? Is it harder to break a hundred or is it harder to break
eighty? Uh? Because once you break one hundred, breaking ninety isn't that
out of reach? But right? But once but getting to break one hundred
for a lot of people, that's just physical, right, that's just skill
set. But then when breaking eighty, I think is more almost more mindset.
Yeah, I think it's I think it's more. I think from a
I'm more of a I call myself more of a strategy coach from even from
a swing perspective too, like how to swim the club or maybe different strategy
to promote a different ball shot rather than changing a technical change. So like
breaking from a hunt, breaking one hundred is going to be, especially if
they're playing a little bit. You can kind of get if they can hit
the ball somewhat decently, Like they don't need to hit any greens regulation pretty
much to break a hundred, Right, if they just like literally chipped the
ball around the greens and made then started to pop more, I mean,
they're gonna break a hundred easily. But from from breaking eighty, it's definitely
an emotional aspect of it too, because it is a huge barrier, just
like one hundred. But you do have to Green's regulation, you do have
to have a decent short game, you do have to make some puts um
and so it's definitely like going from eighty five to breaking eighty. I think
the mindset barriers a little bits a little challenging for sure, but if you
just kind of stick to the process and stick to I think more of a
game plan. One I always hear this a lot is like, um,
it's such an emotional game, but we sometimes make it too emotional, right,
We make it like we almost attach our our emotions to each and every
golf shot. And if we just kind of stick to a strategy that kind
of detaches us from a golf shot and more it makes it more of a
less emotional. It kind of takes or takes emotions out of golf shots.
So kind of having a game plan set forward and being able to hit one
shot at a time and focus on that one shot and just like seeing where
it goes and they're kind of moving on. That's where breaking eighty is a
lot more effectives than is the technical stuff. Because we look at a study
based on MT that they did about golf scores. It's ninety five minus two
times a number of greens, so meaning that if you shoot if you hit
say eight greens regulation, that's sixteen. The ninety five sixteen would equal seventy
nine. So you really need to hit eight greens regulation to really shoot,
like have a good chance of breaking eighty. Wow. Wow, that's an
interesting way to look at it, and I think that's where I think people
shoot like eighty five, Like, oh I hit nine ten eleven greens regulation.
I'm like, okay, sounds great. So what do you do do
you how many times you three hut in the round and golf and how many
times do you can't chip the ball in the green? From twenty five yards
right, and you're you're hitting the green in regulation except the flags in the
back, and you're barely getting it's barely making it over the fringe into the
into the green and the very start of the green. It's like your placement
on the green may not be that good. And then you're not practicing your
lag putting. You just pick exactly, You just go out there and practice.
You're eighteen to twenty foot puts. Why are you? Yeah, exactly?
And people pact their eighteen They don't mean practice those pots, honestly,
Like they don't be practice putting whatsoever. If you talk about the average golfers,
they're practicing very little in short game, very little on putting, and
spending eighty percent of their their time nipes and the time on the driving range.
And they think they're getting better and they just it's funny. I'll see
players get a golf shot, they hit one bad shot, then they're folks
on fixing their golf swing. Then they spend a whole hour and fixing their
golf swing. Hit one shot at the very end like oh I'm fixed,
I'm solved, good to go, and yeah, this freaking hanks your wheel
and they spend seventy percent of the time a driving, rain hitting driver.
Yeah, it's like it's kind of humorous. Um, So tell me about
the property that you work at. Codadakaza Golf and Racquet Club. I'm sure
racket includes a lot of pickleball these days, but it's kind of taking over.
I was at the PGA show this year and they had racquetball and they
had pickleball going on a court and lessons and it's like, wait, I
thought, this is a golf show and you got pickleball going on it.
It's that hot. But tell me about this property and how long you've been
there and what kind of services and amenities that they offer. Yeah, so
I've been there for about two and a half years now and we were a
thirty six whole property. It's two amazing golf courses, um North course in
the South course that sits in the in the kind of the bottom of Codadakaza.
It's like a city outsource of like Mission Viejo or ranch of Santa marc
Rita where a real Housewives of Orange County started. But it's a phenomenal track.
It's a massive we have a huge driving range, two great practice screens.
We have gym and tennis and pool and it's just a it's a phenomenal
facility and I'm able to from a teaching perspective like we've got. When I
first started there, we didn't really have much going on as far as you
know, there's not much teaching going on at the facility. And we actually
increase our revenues by over four hundred percent in my two years of being there.
Actually a first year we did by three hundred and a little over three
hundred percent in my very first year. And now we have a team up
four other instructors that support the academy. We have about one hundred and ten
juniors that are in the monthly programs. We see about three hundred kids during
the summertime. We have about safety, adults and programming right now that are
members and we I mean, are the facilities just gracious for us and that
they trust us to to build this academy, And I mean in the world
of golf course all the time. Now it's like our golf courses. We
have access to the golf course, which is nice and luckily have two golf
courses and when one's kind of booked up, we kind of can utilize the
other one, which is nice and I mean and there, I mean,
we have a one golf course that's a little bit longer. It's like seventy
one hundred yards and seventy five rating from the tips and huge undulated greens,
and the other courses it's about sixty nine hundred and a little bit more narrow
and smaller greens. So it's kind of a different challenge. Kind yeah,
different challenges which has been it's really cool to teach, Yeah, I bet,
I bet. Is it a private club, Yeah, private facility,
so we were it's an invited club and it's a it's ah, so we
have other properties around obviously the country and it's uh, we're so we're able
to kind of access some other golf courses in Orange County or San Diego or
Alla as well. So do you have students from the outside of the club
that you work with or are you just keeping it to the people who are
members. Yeah, so I teach um people at our members at the property.
We I do a little bit of outside. It's more of like a
recommended person too that comes and sees us. Our juniors were able to kind
of utilize um the city and be able to have other kids a part of
the part of our academy. So that's part. It's really cool too to
have at the property there. But whenever wherever we have we have ton Sie.
We do everything in group settings. Most of our coaching is done in
groups and we see more people. It's we think it's more effective for so
we're able to kind of coach more people essentially for the amount of time number
there. Awesome. Well, dude, it was great to talk to you.
Congratulations again on the award and for being recognized. That's pretty amazing,
and also for having two daughters, because that's going to take a lot of
your time in your life. But I really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks so
much for joining us. Thanks right, I appreciate it. So this week
I received this great email from Golf Smarter ambassador Eric Emil, who found a
video on social media that shows Gary Player, a golfer who competed in one
hundred and sixty five worldwide tournaments, describing a move that was taught to him
by Ben Hogan in nineteen fifty seven. Yet Player admits that he didn't realize
its value until he was seventy years old. Now. The reason are excited
to me is that it's exactly what Tony Manzoni told us over and over and
over about keeping your left bicep attached to your chest. Obviously I can't play
the video here, but I can share what he said. This I only
lent when I was seventy years old, when all those majors one hundred and
sixty five tournaments, eighteen majors, nine on both to us trigging the wrong
way. And he found this out when I was seventeen, and its suddenly
twigged on me what the greatest player of the world had ever seen, Ben
Hogan did and but he wouldn't tell you, but he mentioned it Jimmy,
though I was too damp dumb to understand what he was saying. When you
go back and you're there, I always always talked straight back, straight back.
Now, when you're playing under pressure, you can be there. What's
the difference thee there there? If you're that far out, when you're playing
tournaments, you're intro, you've got to be able to swing the exact same
way, and even then it's tough. So now if you go back when
your left arm across your chest. Why there see that You've been the same
every single time. So when Gary player refers to the position of the left
arm and you hear a slapping sound, that's showing how much room there was
between his left arm and his chest. And when he says there, there,
there, he's referring to the position of his left arm in relation to
his chest. It's so good. I mean, we all know how great
a teacher Tony was, but as with anything in golf, it's really not
validated till you see or hear it from a PGA Tour player, let alone
someone who won eighteen worldwide majors. Now if you go to today's blog post,
you'll see that video link. I want to give thanks to Ken Greenberg,
who plays at Waters Creek in Dallas, Texas, and he is our
newest Golf Smarter Ambassador. Ken chose Tony Manzoni's video of the Lost Fundamental as
his gift for leaving a voicemail, which is all it's required to gain your
official designation as being a Golf Smarter Ambassador. You know you two are eligible
to win one of three great prizes just by sharing with us where you live
and where you play Now. You can select Tony's video or a glove and
glove storage compartment from Red Rooster golf dot com, that unique glove subscription service
that offers many styles of gloves in twenty six sizes for both men and women.
Or you can even choose a box of X one balls with a Golf
Smarter logo from Oden Golf, the golf brand that sponsors and pays everyday golfers.
These tour quality balls are a fraction of what you usually pay, and
when you use the code golf Smarter at check out, you'll receive an additional
twenty percent off. Their link is also in today's show notes. So send
me an email and I'll get back to you as quickly as I can with
some instructions of what to do and to say. Just right to Golf Smarter
Podcast at gmail dot com, but the subject golf Smarter Ambassador or I want
to do a show open and you're going to be on your way, So
I'd like to make another request that you leave a review about either Golf Smarter
or Golf Smarter Mulligans or both from wherever you listen to the show. You
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you can choose one of those three great gifts that we give to our
friends who open the show. Thank you for your continued support, and as
a matter of fact, here's what your reviews can do for us. Just
this past week, golf Smarter was placed by feedspot dot com in their top
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