Nobody has any time, nobody really likes to practice. Nobody knows what to
practice, and there's a million people online telling people how to practice. First
of all, if you don't know what you're trying to do practicing, it
isn't gonna work. So if I said to you, Fred, you're a
new golfer, you want to learn golf, and you're like, you know,
I'm just going to try it on my own. I'm gonna go to
the range for the next month with a seven iron six hours a day.
I don't think you're going to get better at golf as fast as you would
if you took an hour lesson with two drills that you then did for maybe
ten minutes twice a week. Hi, this is Eric Amol from Traverse City,
Michigan. I play at the Grand Travers Resort, home of the Bear,
Wolverine, and Spruce golf courses. And this is episode number nine hundred
and eleven. If you don't know what to improve, practicing is inclined to
help With a new guest, Sarah Stone. This is Golf Smarter, sharing
stories, tips and insights from great golf minds to help you lower your score
and raise your golf IQ. Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome to
the Golf Smarter podcast. Sarah, Hi Fred, how are you. I'm
grace, thanks, happy to be here, Excited to get to know you
and spend some time with you. Oh, thank you so much. I'm
excited to be catching you on the end of a vacation time. So you're
nice and relaxed. It's good for you. I saw a video of you
doing a putting drill online and I'm like, oh, you're a good communicator.
I want to talk to you some more. Thank you for saying that.
I think that comes from being a teacher. For I think I've done
this twenty two years now you you lost track? Yeah, yeah, it's
twenty two years. And what was your path and why did you end up
being a golf instructor? I mean, how did you decide this is what
you wanted to do? So I went to college to play tennis and ended
up on the golf team because the tennis practices were four thirty am and four
thirty pm five days a week, and golf practice was after class at four
o'clock for two hours. So I thought maybe that might be a little bit
more doable with a social schedule and education. But and then I got the
director of the PGM program, which is a professional golf manager program. You
go to school and become a golf professional certified, and then you could get
an actual degree in marketing at bachelor's He was like, your golf pro,
you're not a tennis pro. I got your a job interview at Westchester Country
Club to go work for John Kennedy and Ryan New York, and it's yours
to lose. So I went and spent the day there, got hired,
and that kind of started my career in golf. Wow, so when did
you start playing golf? I mean, did you start when you were a
kid playing tennis and golf all the same time? So I actually it's I
sound like I grew up somewhere where there was a lot of that going on.
I grew up in a small farm town in the in the very very
southeast corner of Michigan, and I played all the sports, and I kind
of I went I picked up golf because I went to a camp that had
it as an activity and the counselor told my mom, this is always in
seventh grade, he was like, she's she's she's very special. With the
sport. I still don't remember this happening. My parents tell me it did.
As a parent, I know how these stories go. I remember these
and they're like, what are you talking about it? And so anyway,
that the guy actually asked for my autograph and he showed my mom. He
said, she's gonna be famous and I want to have her. Which so
as a kid, that's kind of like you're you're a big fish in a
really small pond and then you go somewhere and you're a small fish and big
pond. So yeah, And I didn't think it was going to be golf.
I didn't know what it was going to be if it was going to
be sports, but I knew I would be a teacher. I really felt
like I had that in me. Interesting. Interesting And have you ever played
competitively? Oh? Yes, I played. I played in college and then
I graduated. I played in the met sections the whole I think nineteen years
I was there. I actually won the player of the Year for the women
in that section in twenty twelve. Congratula. So it's nice. They have
a nice a nice thing. So I'm a little proud of that because that
was a while working full time but and for people like that I write for
which is why I enjoy talking, communicating and writing about golf. Is I
have a very busy schedule myself with my work. How can I help my
students like intentionally practice correctly so that the time that they use is valuable to
getting better. I love that you said practice correctly. Define that for me
go deeper with that. So I think practice practicing golf has just a huge
cover so many things. I think if you practice correctly means, first of
all, if you don't know what you're trying to do, practicing it isn't
gonna work. So if I said to you, Fred, you're a new
golfer, you want to learn golf, and you're like, you know,
I'm just gonna try it on my own. I'm gonna go to the range
for the next month with a seven iron six hours a day. I don't
think you're going to get better at golf as fast as you would if you
took an hour lesson with two drills that you then did for maybe ten minutes
twice a week. That's an observation. I haven't done any studies on it,
but this is something I've kind of started to put together, and my
brain is nobody has any time, nobody really likes to practice, nobody knows
what to practice, and there's a million people online telling people how to practice.
Right. Does that make sense? I think it does. I think
it's quite powerful because I see, you know, I play with guys and
we're all hacks out there. We're all struggling and trying to figure it out.
And like a friend of mine who has needs a lot of work on
his wing, and he's like, Okay, I'm starting to see a difference.
And I'm like, I watched him play and I'm like, I'm glad
that you do, because I'm seeing the exact same thing going on. You're
lifting your body, you're lifting up, you're turning your head, you have
your hands way behind the ball. I mean, I'm like, I'm not
going to give you a lesson. That's not what I do. But I've
noticed that year's wing is pretty similar like it was before your lessons. But
he's But what I love about it is that he's continuing to take lessons.
He didn't just go and take one or two lessons to go, Okay,
I got this and now I'm I'm moving on. I think that's the hard
party. I think it's I think that's the frustrating, most frustrating aspect of
being a coach. And I have a lot of friends that coach, and
we talk often about this is the expectation of improvement with very, very little
bit of time put in. And there's a great Tiger Woods video where he
talks about working with Butch, and Butch made him rehearse this move over and
over and over for hours. We're talking about the best player in the world
taking over a year working as hard as he did to change a pattern.
And then you work with wonderful people that have other kinds of jobs that are
trying to play this on the weekday thinking a motor pattern or a movement change.
Like to your point, you don't even see anything different in your buddy's
golf swing. I mean, it's so hard to change that. And so
when I say practice correctly, I'm like, well, what other area of
your game, Fred, could we improve that would actually lower your score?
Is it going to be your actual full swing? Maybe not. Maybe we
pick chipping or i'm sorry, short game shots, or teach you about how
to hit a bunker shot correctly or with a different concept like my putting drill
that you brought up. That was very nice of you to say that was
just an idea of like how would you even warm up to go play golf
on the putting green? Because I watch people do stuff. I'm like,
Fred, what are you doing? Like, I don't know, just putting
around. I'm like, what's it going to do for you? I don't
know, Like they're not even taking and information that they're getting. And my
friends think I'm obsessive because I have all my little routines that I do before
a round of golf, and I'm like, you know, in the past,
I would get to the course an hour ahead of time to get warmed
up, and now I find myself getting there like ninety minutes ahead of time
because now I want to start working more on not just hitting a bucket of
balls or just putting. I want to I want to work on the short
game for a while, and if they have a bunker that I can hit
a couple of shots out of, just to get a feel for this.
I'm spending more and more time. You know, my long day of golf
has gotten even longer. Now, have you noticed a difference in in your
scoring or you're in anything in your game by the length of time that you're
spending previous year round. Great question, I would say yes. And that's
compared to a couple of times where I was running late and I just said,
Okay, I'm just gonna take a couple of swings and do a couple
of puts and then just step up to the first tea. So I have
a better sense of what I'm doing that day or how it feels. And
I'm a little and obviously a lot looser than if I just walk up to
the first tea. And I have friends who like, I don't want to
waste any shots. I'm just going to walk up to the first tea,
And I'm like, what does that mean? Waste shots? You know?
Yeah, I think there's that. There's that fine line of expectation management.
Like if you go and you put ninety e minutes in before each of your
round and you feel like you should you should which should such a bad word,
but shoot a certain score because you did more stuff to get ready than
your buddy did, and then he just goes out and whales away at it,
and you guys come off the course shooting around the same score. And
then people get frustrated with that. It's like expectation management of sometimes, like
if there's an area of your game that you you don't like, maybe you
don't warm that up because you don't want to know that it's going to happen
again, or that you're going to see it happen again, so that when
you step into that, say we'll call it a bunker shot, you're not
like, oh my god, I tried four of these on the range and
I hit everyone into the trees, and now I got to know, you
know, like changing the mindset. And so that's why I was wondering what
happened for you is if that ninety minutes is giving you a fair expectation of
your score, you know, the time in versus the product. Yeah,
let's take a time out and I'll follow up and tell you how obsessive I
get after the round as well. We'll be back right after this, Sarah.
You know now that I'm using our coasts on each of my clubs so
I can track my shots and stuff. I'll go and after the round,
I'll sit and look at my notes. I'll look at the round and where
my problems were, and to me, I look for where did I have
trouble today? Where did I have trouble in my last round? So that's
something that I can go and work on. I don't want to just it's
like, oh, well, I'm you know, I'm putting inside of ten
feet well today, so I'm just going to keep putting inside of ten feet.
It's like, no, no, no, what happened between ten and
twenty feet? Is a distance control? Is it my line? You know?
My short game? Am I chunk of the ball? Is it checking
too quickly? Little things like that. Those are the things that I find
that I want to work on or the things that aren't working on my round.
Yeah. I think our coast has been a huge game changer for information
for the student and for the teacher or their coach, because I mean,
oftentimes we'll get people come up like I just couldn't hit my driver today,
and I'm like, okay, Fred, let's go through your round. And
then we're looking at the data that you're getting is measured in a way that
you might not take the time to do yourself, and it helps us as
a team figure out where do you need to end your time? Right?
You know, that's that's really really good information to be able to have now
instead of how many fairways did you hit, how many greens did you hit?
And how many puts did you have? Like that's archaic now it doesn't
it doesn't matter anymore. I mean, how far are you putting your first
put from? That's better information for me instead of I had thirty six puts.
Okay, that doesn't really help me, you know exactly, you know,
and I know that the amount of puts that I have and around definitely
impacts my scoring. And so if I have, you know, I'm trying
to get my puts to thirty to thirty two thirty three puts around, and
if I can get there, I'm going to have obviously better scores. And
I'm doing thirty four to thirty eight puts in around, which definitely happens as
well. So that kind of information always helps. It's interesting you you brought
this up in during the conversation so far, and it's something that I actually
wrote down of something I wanted to discuss with you today, and that is
what frustrates you about the state of golf instruction today. Oh boy, here's
a can of worms that can open up that might be bigger than worms.
No, it's interesting. So I just drove seven hours home from upstate New
York, and I got the opportunity to catch up with some friends in the
business, particularly teachers, and we always talk about this when we get some
time. But there's a couple of things. One the idea of the thirty
minute fix or the hour that everything is done. I mean, doctor's offices
aren't run that way. Dennis's offices aren't run that way. It's the idea
that Fred can come to me in thirty minutes, Like, I get this
all the time. Can I just get a quick cutting lesson with you at
two o'clock? I'm like for half an hour, and I wish that could
be a more expensive less and then a two hour on the golf course with
Fred. You know. So the time is number one, that there's a
time required for the skill to get better from the teacher to coach. If
the message is good in the information is understood, then the lesson should end,
if that makes sense. The second frustrating part, I think is the
understanding that there are teachers out there who spend their entire like career studying this
information, just like a doctor, a surgeon, an engineer, a writer,
an artist, and I don't know if the perception of what we do
is put on the same level as that. I think sometimes when you're at
a country club, this is the other You know, what's the difference between
the kid behind the counter that's twenty seven years old and then someone like myself
who's made this their career. Some people don't see a difference in the lesson,
do you know what I mean? It's kind of like, oh,
all golf pros teach golf, they run tournaments, they fold shirts. It's
like, yeah, but there are a few of who's election a lot of
us that made this our our work, not just our job. And I
think that's that trying to change that perception. I think is also very frustrating.
Is their passion being lost by golf instructors. Are they losing their passion
because of the frustration they're having with the demands from their clientele. Yeah,
I don't think there's I think the frustration that's going on is there's a lot
of people who are learning and playing golf. There's a lot of information out
there. I mean, you can google bunker shots and you could be gone
for three days on down the rabbit hole of that, I think. I
think the biggest frustration that my friends and I share with each other is just
the understanding of time and work and what the expectation management, I really think
is what circles back to. But in the business, I think, I
think what you're going to see is so many of us are constantly talking about
how to change that because we're changing human behavior as golf professionals. So we're
like, how else can we make this better for us, you know,
like time and money? Yeah, in quality, But I don't think people
are frustrated and losing passion. I think they're trying to figure out a way
to make it still fun for themselves, at least the people I am getting
to spend time with. Oh, that's interesting, Yeah, and make it
get some reward out of it as well, because again I think the concept
of giving a half hour lesson should be more expensive than a two hour on
course lesson. I think that's really an interesting concept. Because I'm of the
hundreds of golf instructors that I've talked to over the years, it seems like
you'll hear more of people going, oh, I'm playing in a charity tournament
this weekend, so fix my game. You know, when's the last time?
When's the last time you played? About six months ago. And one
of my favorite lines is somebody said when came in for a lesson, he
goes, so, how long have you been playing? I've been playing most
of my life, like forty five years. And he goes, and how
often do you play? Goes? Yeah, once a month, goes,
So you've been playing for six months? Right, yeah, exactly, exactly.
The nice thing too, is there's data now for us to turn the
people and say your track man numbers say this, or your our cost numbers,
tell us this story so you can help. You can help the students
see it, see it better, I think than before they'd have to really
trust you and be like you're wrong or you're right. Now we can say
here's the actual like piece of paper with the data on it, and this
is what it's telling both of us. That's that's not biased, right,
right? And do people understand the data? Sometimes when I you know,
a couple of times I'll go and have an actual lesson. Most of the
time I'm just talking about it. But when I have a lesson and they'll
explain something or if I'm watching someone take a lesson online. I'll watch a
video on YouTube or something, and it seems like the instructors giving information that
the person doesn't have a clue of what they're talking about. But they're sitting
there nodding their head, going yeah, sure, right, but they can't
translate it. So as soon as they go home and hopefully they go and
practice what they've been taught, but they're like, and I forgot what that
meant. So my theory on that is the teacher or the coach. I
think this we crossed into a little bit of coach is being more curious,
like instead of oh, this person has an open club face and they come
across it and down and so the ball starts to the left and goes to
the right, and they don't prefer that result to happen. So they have
these ideas in their head about why it happens, and the teacher has ideas
in their heads and how to change it. But if you don't speak the
same language, I think that's why they go home and go I don't know
what they said. They just said something about like maybe put the ball more
back in my stance or something. I don't know. Why. So that's
where I try to change it with my students, because we talked about this
as coaches, were like, how do you not give the same lesson over
and over to Fred Green on Thursday at eleven? And I'm like, well,
if you're doing that, you're not doing your job, because if Fred
Green's coming back with the same issue each time, you haven't done a good
enough I think this, you haven't done a good enough job explaining to Fred
why this is happening and how to change it. Well, then your question
would also be to Fred Green, did you practice this since our last lesson?
Well? No, I played a couple of times. No. I
didn't ask you if you've played. I asked if you've practiced. Yeah,
well I hit a bucket of balls before I before my round. Did you
pract Like there's a there's a big disconnect between warming up and practicing. For
sure, I would agree with that, But I think a lot of what
I've seen in my career is people just don't understand what they're trying to do
with what they have in their hand. Like doesn't mean about the practicing.
It's like, if you if you can explain it in a way that would
would resonate with the student the person with using some physics and geometry, simply
explain to them that they can make adjustments faster than just repeating and creating a
new pattern. If that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, all right,
another time out. I'm gonna throw a line of question at you when we
come back that I hope stumps you, but I'm sure that you'll find a
way to answer it. We'll be right back after this, all right,
Sarah, where what do you if you can define this, what generally do
you see are common issues with let's say a twenty to twenty five handicap.
I would stay to see where I'm going with this. I know, I
wonder who we're talking about. I would say the twenty to twenty two handicappers
would be and I know that this is always what people say is short game
work thirty to fifty yards and then general putting concepts speak control, learning how
to read a green and then knowing how to like start the ball online.
Those would lower the handicap faster than full swing practice. I would say,
a majority of the time, twenty to twenty two handy, you guys don't
have a wild miss that's costing you like six to ten shots off the tea
every time there's usually some little thing in there that would be a little bit
finer of a detail to polish than something in full swing. But okay,
so what was your question? Yeah, no, and short game putting.
What I was going to say is that I've always believed, and that's really
the basis of how I started this show of Golf Smarter, is that if
you understand core strategy right and you understand how to navigate your way around a
golf course, you can probably lower your scores quicker than if you're just working
on your swing mechanics right. But I've also found that short game and putting
is huge to helping you bring down your index a bit. So let's go
to a fifteen to twenty handicap. Are we in the same issues here of
short game and putting or do we have other issues that people who have now
they're they're getting into the nineties right on a regular basis, I would say
no, that now that group could be something different where they might have a
wildly different miss than they're used to seeing. That creates a spin out.
So someone who hits blocks all day all a sudden hits a snap hook on
the tenth te and doesn't know how to adjust for the snap hook and then
just kind of tries to work around it for a while. Like the better
players that I work with, the high level amateurs don't seem to understand how
to play a ball opposite of the mist that they have. So maybe they
hear a drawer of the golf ball and then a hook gets introduced somewhere in
the round and they have no idea how to fix it. So then you
teach them how to fade it, if that makes sense. So adding maybe
another tool to their tool kit of playing to adjust for the miss that sneaks
up, that just creates the whole spin out. M interesting. So for
somebody who has a natural fade to their ball, how difficult is it to
teach them to have the variety of shots. I mean, we're talking about
a twenty to twenty five handicap fifteen to twenty. I still I'm hitting its
trade and I have a natural fade. I've never been able to figure out
how to get a nice tight draw going, although I do occasional have a
snap hook where I've even been keeping track lately, it's like, Okay,
what shots. Did I just lose a ball on right? And it always
seems to be the driver with that snap hook right and just pull it way
too hard. What does it take to learn how to adjust it so you
can, you know, use your natural fade if you have it, or
I need to hit a draw here, I'm going to go do that.
I mean, I think of it as the way that I explain it to
people is it's like a recipe for something that maybe you make at home,
like a Caker brownie mix or something. You know, there's there's pieces that
have to be there for this ball flight to happen, and if they're not
there, it's not going to happen. Oh, So fades are typically the
direction the club is traveling is more left for a righty than the face is
open or so what's happening with you is you're proud be swinging a little left
with a little bit of an open face, and then when the face squares
to the little left, it goes really far left but feels amazing and looks
great. It's just nowhere near where you wanted it to go. And then
when it curves slightly into the right, that means your face is just opening
a little bit because your brain's going Fred, We're trying to actually hit it
over here, so we have to adjust something. So to teach you how
to hit a tight draw would probably just be more of a whiteboard conversation about
the ball flight laws and then which pieces in your recipe or what ingredients aren't
there to make that happen. And then there's the playing golf with it,
which I think is the hardest part is understanding it. But then, like
you're all, if you play, if you play at the same golf course,
which is amazing. If you remember at a club and you get to
play it all the time, it's great, but you're always gonna have scar
tissue on certain holes. So no matter how much we work on trying to
get you to hit a draw, if you have a pole shot that happens
on like say the twelfth hole at your club every Saturday during the club championship,
I don't think I can get that to go away forever because you have
history with that hole. Does that make sense? Oh yeah, oh it
absolutely makes sense. But it's also the time where it's like, Okay,
every time I play this hole, I hit it in the water. Okay,
So I'm not going to hit that club anymore on this hole. I'm
gonna change club. I'm gonna try to change my strategy, even if it's
just a bit, But I got to get into a different mindset on this
hole and stop thinking about it. Yeah, well, like going back to
your your snap hook or your slice or I think it goes back to I
think for you or for most people, it's just well, what's actually happening
and what do you believe is happening, because sometimes those don't actually line up
at all. M Right, Like if your ball always falls slightly to the
right, you're gonna aim a little left all the time, and then progressively
as the round goes on, that's probably going to continue to happen. And
then for you, Fred, your club face finally gets squared of the direction
that you're aimed and now you're nowhere near where you wanted to go. I'm
glad that's usually the no. Because I listened to this like twelve hours a
day. I'm like, all right, well, let's talk about where the
where the spill started, like when when did the oil leak happen? And
then how do we get back to fixing that? Right? Right? So
let's move down to these handicapped players and what it is that is missing in
their game generally when they're at that level, Like if we go down to
a ten to a fifteen, right, yeah, I think ten to fifteens,
there's probably a skill they just don't know how to do, like maybe
hit a short bunker shot, maybe hit a high lofted shot out of the
out of like a like a thirty yard shot over a bunker. Maybe they
don't strategize correctly, you know, with recovery shot. I think that's usually
the pat that might be the range for those sorts of things. Of like,
let's teach you another skill to get yourself back into play faster than three
shots down the rough with your hybrid because you think you're supposed to use that
there. They don't. Do you do you prefer giving on course lessons as
opposed to range lessons. It's not a matter of preference. It's probably a
matter of opportunity. Our club is fairly busy, and you know, sometimes
I feel the higher the handicap, the more they want to be on the
golf course, and I feel like they're not the ones that benefit from on
course as much as if they don't know how to move a ball forward and
have a repeatable pattern that they can have some sort of idea about what's going
to happen. It's not very much fun to get them on the golf course
right right, But a higher like a lower handicap like a five or a
ten or lower, that could be strategy of what side the tea box are
you're putting your tea in to suit the shape of the hole and the shot
that you want to hit, you know, stuff like that, And do
you find that makes a difference depending on web side of the tea box that
you're you're on. Oh yeah, if you think of putting you know,
right to left breaking pots, we aim more right so the ball curves back
towards the hole. The same idea would be with the tea box. So
if you hit a little fade, I'd put you all the way on the
right side of the tea box and have you aim down left center, and
then your ball would curve back into play instead of out of play. Sure,
sure, sure, it's kind of like bowling. I just remember exactly
right, if you if if you've got that that tenpin sitting in the far
right corner, you're not gonna line up on the far right corner. You're
going to go onto the opposite side and make a bigger angle, give yourself
more opportunity there. Yeah, bowling, I haven't, I haven't thought of
it. That's a great analogy actually for that. That'll help me teach the
people who probably understand bowling. Thank you, Fred, Welcome, You're welcome.
I'm gonna yeah, let's take another time out. Too much fun.
Let's see if we can make this work. We'll be right back. Well,
I truly hope you enjoyed last week's episode with Jim Waldron because, as
we've discussed so many times, Jim has been featured on Golf Smarter since our
earliest days. That's because he's such a knowledgeable and insightful teacher, especially when
it comes to our focus to game improvement, which is the mind body connection.
Well, this week on Golf Smarter, Mulligan's is the first of two
episodes with Jim from February twenty twelve, and this one's called make Sure You're
Ready to take the Next shot. For the average golfer, they need more
distance and so the shot shape that I teach most of my average golfer students
a slight draw with all of their clubs, starting around at five or six
iron all the way through driver, and the longer the club, the more
of a draw. So they might draw it somewhere between five and ten yards
with their driver, and maybe they only draw it one to two yards with
a six iron if they have cavity back game improvement clauds, which most of
my students do these days. Starting right around a seven iron, they're going
to go with the splint shape I'm teaching them. The ball won't draw the
pretty or maybe very little and basically go straight from about a seven iron through
a lobwitch. If they play with forage blades, it'll still draw a little
bit, maybe not a lobwacher, a sandwich. It was starting around a
pitching body. They might get a little baby one yard draw if they play
with forage blades because they curve the ball more easier. Game improvement clubs are
designed not to curve the ball. That's episode two hundred and twenty seven,
the first of two conversations featuring our own Yoda of yips Jim Waldron from balance
point golf dot Com on our sister podcast, Golf Smarter Mulligans being released this
Friday morning, So if you're a fan of Golf Smarter's content, then don't
miss the chance to get two episodes every week. That's Golf Smarter, the
longest running golf podcast, and golf Smarter Mulligans, episodes from our archives that
revisits the best of Golf Smarter. They're both available for free from wherever you're
listening right now. All right, Sarah, So now we've gone through these
the various handicap levels and what it takes to get them to improve bit by
bit, because it's not a quick process. I mean, it takes a
while to go from a fifteen to a ten. It takes a long time
to do that. So who do you find is easier to teach to get
to that next level? The guy who's the nut I'm sorry, the person
who is a high handicapper and just trying to get to the next level,
just trying to break ninety, or the skill golfer who's six and wants to
get to a three, which is a huge leap in consistency. What have
you found so you can do more for the person who has the higher the
handicap goes, the more you can do for them. I think the gains
are more significant. Right, You teach a thirty six handicap or how to
put better and they could go down to an eighteen pretty quickly. Maybe right?
But why I had this conversation with single digit people, I'm like,
what are we doing? How are we measuring your success this year? They're
like, why, I'm a five and I want to be two. I'm
like, okay, well that's really really hard to do. Let's just start
with the idea that moving someone that has the lower the handicap, to move
them a number two is significantly harder. So I don't know that I have
a preference because we don't. We don't really measure the success in our teaching
based on handicap lowering or raising, which would be a nice way to do
it. But I always like to work with people who are interested in learning,
whether it's a seven year old all the way up to a ninety something
year old, I would I would always want to work with someone who's open
minded, so that would not be relative to handicap. That might be just
relative to the person itself. Interesting. That's my favorite type of student is
an open minded student, curious, I'm into this being curious thing. Yeah,
so am I. That's why I'm still doing this podcast after nine hundred
plus episodes. I'm still curious, like, how do we do that?
How do we do that? So let's see. I once heard somebody say,
and I'd love your hit on this, trying to eliminate doubles is easier
than trying to make more birdies. I mean that would be based on handicap
as well, going back to the kind of the flow that we're going with,
Like you know, twenty handicapped birds. I mean, I don't A
twenty handicapper is not going to have very many opportunities to make a birdie.
Then maybe a five handicapper would have a tremendous amount of opportunity. So yeah,
I would say that that might very skill level based, doesn't I mean
what you I don't know if you would agree with that, but I kind
of feel like the variability there, the opportunity because sometimes putting for a bogey
as a thirty six handicapper for the first time ever on a hole that you
hit it or a water feels the same as trying to make a birdie.
To shoot sixty five to a single digit. You know the value of that
emotional experience, right, I've never done that, but never shot at sixty
five? What's I guess shot sixty seven seven? Tournament? Yeah, just
fun golf, not tournament now, just golf at the Bears Club down in
Jupiter, Florida. But was pretty happy with that. I think tournament.
I think I was only I think I've only ever been two underparts. Nothing
to you, but yeah, it's it's amazing to watch on you know,
the pros on television, and it's also very frustrating because it's like, I
just want to see them screw up. It's like I love when they have
bad holes, like, yeah, they play like we do, because this
you know, like yeah, well just you're gonna have to have a bogie
on this one, or you didn't have any bogies this this round. It's
like, how do you do that? Right? I don't. I don't
get well. And I think that that's hard because we watch golf. Yeah,
we watch golf recreational for fun, and then we only see the good
shots. You know. The only time they pan in on someone about to
do something, they're they're going to do something amazing or it's going to be
the worst thing you've ever seen in your life. There's no in between on
TV. You know, it's a well so you you watch it and it's
crazy and they I think people forget their like emotional people too. You know,
this is their job and they're gonna screw up. I mean, look
at what Lucas Glover has done in the last two weeks. I mean,
back to back events. Amazing. He's forty four, I think, and
he's overcome some serious stuff with his putting and then to come and do what
he did, it's it's really neat to see and you want to root for
it because they're humans. Yeah. Well, I've been rooting big time for
him the last couple of weeks, mainly because he's using a lab Golf putter
themez won putter and I've been using a lab Golf putter for a while and
Sam Han from Lab Golf has been on the show multiple times, and so
when I see more and more people playing with that putter on TV, it's
like it's only going to be demanding for him, and I'm just so excited
for him. So yeah, and that he did have you know, they
all they keep talking about his putting yips, But they're not talking about the
putter, except of course if if it's a you know, a major name
brand, then they'll bring up. And he's playing the new tailor made.
He's playing with the new Scottie Cameron. Yeah, you know, check out
that Lab Golf putter, folks, it's working for them. Adam Scott's using
it too, and there's a couple more guys out there. Now that's some
good street cred for that, for the Lab, the Lab Golf for sure.
Seeing that back to back victory from someone who struggled with some putting professionally,
that's awesome. Yeah, it's really cool. You know, we talked
about shooting low scores, and a couple of weeks ago, Bryson shot that
fifty eight and in his press conference he talked about when he was young,
they would play from the front tis just to try to shoot sixty and I
thought that wasn't He says, once you get comfortable doing it that way,
then you start moving back and you know you can do it. So I
emailed a friend of mine who I'm We're very competitive. We play very closely
together. You know, one or two strokes were always tied by the seventeenth
hole. It's crazy. And I asked him, do you think you could
shoot par if you played from the front tees And he's like, well,
which course, which teas? And I'm like, that sounds like a no.
If you have to ask questions like that, that sounds like a no.
But I'm I want to challenge him. It's like, you know,
let's go out and play the front ties and see how low if we can
shoot par. I think he'd be too embarrassed. I think people would like,
well, there's, oh my god, the ego thing. It's like,
wait a minute, that's just give it a shot and see what happens.
Yeah, but people are looking, why are you guys playing from there?
It's because we want to have low scores. I play from the white
tees regularly, and that's because I don't feel like I need to make golf
harder than it already is. Golf's hard enough. Why do I have to
keep moving back? I would say that that's probably the biggest, most frustrating
part of the coaching standpoint is everyone's playing the wrong tees for how far they
hit their tea shot in their perception of their total yardage off the tea and
what is mathematically they're able to do with their golf sowing usually aren't close.
You know, I hit it two eighty. I'm like, you don't hit
it two eighty unless you hit a sprinkler head and then you know your superintendent
has it, you know. But yeah, I mean the Bryson thing was
very good for golf because it helped kind of gave it a narrative to continue
to have the conversations with your junior golfers and then your everyday golfers, even
not not necessarily every day, but the ones that are these the guys that
are trying to play or women they're trying to play in a mid am.
Maybe you know, they played college golf and then they got into the workforce
and now they remember at a club and they want to get back to playing
competitively. It's like Bryson, that's a good conversation for people to have.
Now it's like, oh, maybe we should put our kids all the way
up on the family teas until they break part three times and then move them
back to the forward tees and then moving back, moving back, moving back.
But it's hard to talk parents and kids and doing stuff like that.
Yeah, you know. Yeah, the ego thing, it's good. It's
good. It's good to feel comfortable. Well, yeah, that would be
the point. The only way to play good golf that I've found is when
you're comfortable and confident. Confidence it makes all the difference in the world.
If you're shaking when you're standing over a put you ain't gonna make it,
yeah, or you might. You might hit it poorly and I'll go in,
but it's probably not going to be your most confident looking putt exactly.
Or or the guy who's like, yeah, I hit my drive two eighty.
No, you may have hit your drive two eighty once downhill hitting the
card path. I mean, you don't hit the your drives two eighty.
And that's something like we talked about Arcos earlier. It's like I'm finding out
it's like, oh, I guess all right, well I'm not averaging as
far as I thought I was off the tee. Okay, I'd better adjust
that. Well, that's what it is. I think also for anyone listening
that plays, it's like it's an average your yardage total carry, you know,
like how far you hit it in the air. It's not your best
seven iron you've ever hit in your entire life on the driving range that flew
in the air one hundred and sixty yards, it's you might actually hit someone
twenty five. So you have to start looking at you're talking about scoring,
It's like how far does your ball travel in the air, not how far
does it go completely until it comes to a stop. That's a big difference
as well. Oh no, you just burst a bubble. I'm sorry.
This has been awesome, Sarah. Now you work at a private course in
the DC area. Do you give lessons to only members or do you also
all out able to reach out to you? So I'm happy to have people
reach out for help, maybe some online stuff. They keep me fairly busy
there at this facility. We have a very large membership group, and I'm
into my third year right now, and so trying to find time to help
people outside of that club right now is not it's not really in the cards,
but doing stuff on my own or general questions or even some online coach
now stuff I'm happy to help help with, and I'm going to be doing
a lot more with with some golf dot Com stuff. So you'll see some
stuff coming through via email and on their than their website for sure. Yeah,
that's find and I have a nice Instagram, my Instagram account, which
is it's actually was designed to help people like yourself, who'd be like,
I can't remember what you said the other day. I'm like, well,
here's the drill. It's on my Instagram account, go find it. Because
it was just like constantly just sending the same information at like twelve people.
So that one Stone Golf Sense, and that has a lot of stuff on
their books about out golf, maybe different little ideas on how to fix something,
how to hold the club differently to help the ball flight. There's just
a lot of content on there related to understanding golf that might help some of
the people listening as well. Awesome. So that's Stone Golf Sense, Yeah,
on Instagram. Yeah, that would probably the easiest place to find me
for help or yeah, if you're in this area, I'm happy to,
like I said, if there's time. Sometimes we have some slow, slow
months here depending on the weather. Yeah, right, that's when we're not
coming out to play golf. Oh, Sarah, this has been a lot
of fun, and thanks so much for your insights and sharing your history with
us. I really enjoyed it, and I really enjoy your work online too,
so keep up the great work. Thank you, Fred, Thanks for
the opportunity to get to know you and spend some time with you. Two
great questions, and I really enjoyed having to think through some of these answers.
Now back in episode nine hundred, finally got to meet my wife Joanne
and hear all about the book she just wrote and published. She's doing a
lot of bookstore, library and book club talks lately and this coming week is
no different. So if you've read the book By Accident, a memoir of
Letting Go, which also has a lot about me in our relationship in there,
I'd like to update you on some upcoming talks that she's doing, and
if you're in the area, please come by say hi to both of us.
Love to meet you. On Thursday, September seventh, this is twenty
twenty three, we'll be at Zibbie's Bookstore in Santa Monica, and then we'll
be in Annie Bloom's Books in Portland, Oregon on September twenty first, then
back to California for an appearance at Murphy's Library up in the Gold Country of
Northern California and Murphy's California on September twenty eight. In October, will be
in Baltimore, Virginia and Washington, DC, where she's going to be speaking
to various book clubs. She's been doing that a lot too, and appearing
on a lot of podcasts. If I didn't mention your city and you're interested
in learning more, please visit Joanne dash Green. That's jo A n n
E dash g r e e n E Joan Dashgreen dot com to get the
full story. I do want to welcome this week's Golf Smarter Ambassador, Eric
Amil of Traver's City, Michigan. Like so many of the Golf Smarter Ambassadors
before him, Eric chose to receive a link to Tony Manzoni's Lost Fundamental video
as his free thank you gift. And what about you, We'd all like
to hear where you live, play and listen to Golf Smarter. Send me
an email and you two can receive a free gift of your choice just for
participating. Gifts include Tony Manzoni's video, a box of Odin X one balls
with a Golf Smarter logo, or a glove and glove storage compartment from Red
Rooster golf dot com. I'm going to leave a link in the show notes
and today's blog post so you can look up all of those items. Please
write to me and I'll get back to you with some instructions of what to
do and what to say. Of course, send your request to golf Smarter
Podcast at gmail dot com, or click on the Hey Fred button at golf
smarter dot com, and please follow us at golf Smarter on YouTube, TikTok,
Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter to see our ongoing posts of
videos and articles. For the last three months, we've been putting up four
videos every week and we're going to continue to do that for another full year
to give exposure to these incredible instructors that we have and let you follow and
get a hint of what's coming up on future episodes. If you have any
questions, comments, or suggestions for upcoming episodes, please click on the Hey
Fred button when you visit goulfsmarter dot com.