Speaker 1: Hi, This is Fred Green of Golf Smarter with Tony
Manzoni's tenth appearance on Golf Smarter number five hundred and
ninety four from May of twenty seventeen. It was the
first of two back to back episodes and had been
two and a half years since we had last spoken
to Tony, so clearly we had a lot to discuss.
Tony's book, The Loss Fundamental, One Simple Move Better Golf
Forever is available on Amazon in paperback or kindle, and
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Take your golf game to the next level, one club
at a time with Tony Manzoni. This is golf Smarter,
sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf minds to
help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ.
There's your host, Fred Green. Welcome back to the Golf
Smarter Podcast, Tony.
Speaker 2: How are you, Fred?
Speaker 1: I am doing well and so glad to hear from
you again. It's been quite a while, but let me
let me give the audience just a taste of how
many times you've been on this podcast. The first time
back in twenty ten we were introduced, and since then
you've been on twelve different episodes two fifty one. And
take notes of this, folks, because after you hear this
conversation with Tony. You're going to want to go back
and listen to other things he has to say, because
I've had golf smarter listeners have told me that they've
traveled cross country to go get lessons with Tony. Right,
you've had people come in from New Jersey or Connecticut
or something, Tony.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a doctor come in from New York. He runs
one of the largest hospitals there, and he came in
for a two day golf instruction period, and you know,
it just kind of I was kind of I was, well,
first of all, I was flabber guests at number one,
and you know, it's a big compliment, and he's turned
out to be just a wonderful friend on top of it.
Speaker 1: Oh that's great. Oh that's great. I have a feeling
I know who you're talking about. So two fifty one,
two fifty four, two ninety one and three twenty eight,
four oh eight and four oh nine, four thirty eight
and four thirty nine, four fifty six, and four fifty seven,
now four fifty seven back in twenty fourteen. Really, you
haven't been on that long. My favorite, it's one of
my favorite titles of all time. And the question I
posted to you, Tony, if Tiger Woods called you for help,
what would you say? I loved that. That was a
great episode, So I don't really twenty fourteen was the
last time you're on. That doesn't make sense anyway. It's
great to have you back on the show. Thank you
so much.
Speaker 2: I'm very pleased, Fred. And it's been a long time. Uh.
But you know, as as as we get older, time
goes by a little faster. I mean, in a blink
of an I am in a man.
Speaker 1: So I'm not even gonna ask this time how old
you are, because I think I asked you before, which
was rude, and I'm not going to do it again.
But you've outlived a lot of your friends. Let's just
say that.
Speaker 2: My spometer has turned over a few times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you've outlived a lot of friends and a
lot of famous people that you hung out with down
in the desert, isn't it true?
Speaker 2: That's true? I mean starting out with the number one guy,
Frank Sinatra. His death was you know, it was a
catastrophe for all his fans, including myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet, But didn't you tell me once that
hanging out with Sinatra and the rat Pack down in
those days down in the desert kind of had a
negative impact on your golf career, didn't it? Your professional
touring golf?
Speaker 2: Well, when his the lady that ran his compound, her
name was Vine, and I was working at Mission Hills
Country Clubs, I had professional once I got invited. It
seemed like I got invited just about every night because
he was retired at that time, and I was opening
up that pro shop, you know, close to five point
thirty every morning, and I was leaving the Sinoptra compound
after two o'clock in the morning every evening. So yes,
everything suffered a bit, but I couldn't pass that opportunity. No,
it was just it was an incredible thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's there there are golfers who have
played on the tour who said, yes, I played on
the tour and I won once, but none of them
get to say, but I got to hang out with
Sinatra every night for way too long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was. It still feels like a Fellini film
to me, and the people I met and the unbelievable
dinners and conversation, it was just incredible.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Also, I've promoting this podcast that I've been
putting out recently as a show that I did in
nineteen eighty seven. But it's just so much fun that
I had to bring it back. Of this show Radio
Baseball Cards that's hosted by the late Don Drysdale. You
knew Drysdale as well, right, I did.
Speaker 2: I met him on a couple of occasions, and I
also knew his wife, who was involved in a lot
of golf activities, and you know, she was an Olympic
champion and unbelievable gal. But Don was a unique individual
and very nice. Obviously one of the great pitchers of
all time. And I have a baseball signed by him
that I cherish.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable. All right, Well let's talk about golf now. Enough
history on where you've been in the marks that you've left.
I had this idea, and that's why I wanted to
talk to you about taking your game to the next level,
one club at a time, right, because there are some
clubs for some people just don't work, right they Oh yeah, right,
you know.
Speaker 2: I think golf clubs, as we all know, that play
and suffer through this this challenge. Uh, some golf clubs
don't like you. I mean, I've had wedges that I
wanted to tie to my car and drive around the block.
Let pay them back with all the skull shots that
I hit with him.
Speaker 1: So I've often said that I had a five iron
that I was allergic to. I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all kidding aside. That's why getting fitted is so important,
because then you you eliminate the blame factor.
Speaker 1: I recently was fitted for a new set of clubs,
and I really love these clubs, but there seems to
be one club that is not cooperating. I've got I'm
hitting everything where I'm pointing, I'm my target, It goes
to where I'm you know, focused on, except this one
club just takes this huge right turn every time. Is
that possibly because the set there's one club that was
not correctly made in that set? I mean, what can
I do about that?
Speaker 2: Sure? Well, often lie changes, especially if they're they're not
cast clubs, and even cast clubs, you can move them
a little bit. So yeah, that happens a lot. Or
it's you know, it's because you fear hitting the shot
with that club, which compounds the problem. And you know,
probably in most cases that's it. There's a it's so
difficult to stay in that have that feeling that you're
going to hit a good shot prior to hitting it,
and I think that's the challenge for everyone at every level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I haven't had them long enough to
fear the club, and it's a club that in previous
sets I've been you know, really excited about, Oh good,
I've got a six iron shot that I want to
make here, and now this six iron is baffling me.
I'm just wondering if maybe I should take it back
to the club fitter and say, can we test to
see if this is within its correct specs? Is that Oh?
Speaker 2: Sure, they could do that quite easily. They can check
the loft and lie on the club, and they can
also check the shaft, you know, if it's you know,
performing properly and they have they have your whole set
that to go go buy, so they can just you know,
make sure that it is matched. And this does happen,
there's no question about it. But I'm glad to hear
that you had your clubs fitted. And that's really an
important thing. You know, when you when you think of
the the top professionals have it done. We we meager
players must have it done and that's the problem. Most
people will go and buy a club right off the rack,
and then they're chagrined when it doesn't work for them.
A lot of times it's just because the club doesn't
fit right.
Speaker 1: Well, what about they if they go into the shop
and said, hey, you know what, I hit my friend's
driver and I crushed it. I want to buy that driver.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to replicate. I mean, I have a
good friend that is he's noted for those kinds of things,
and he'll go and he'll try a demo club, but
he'll want to buy that demo club, you know. And
a lot of times they said, but we can't sell
you this one, but we'll get one like it. But
he refuses to do that because psychologically, if he gets
another club that has the same name and it's supposed
to be the same thing, and hits a bad shot
with it, he's not going to say, well, that shot
was because I swung poorly or did something. He's going
to say that this isn't the same club. So there
they were, right back to that psychological thing that we
all fight. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Actually, about ten years or so ago, I remember having
a conversation on the show with Kenny Nicholson when we
were working with Edwin wi It's golf, and he said,
if you have an opportunity to swing a friends club
and you like it, try to buy that club off
your friend, because you're never going to find that exact
right club.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was no question I was going to get fitted.
I We've been advocating being fitted, you know since the
very beginning. We've talked to guys like Tom wish on Uh,
one of the you know, the great custom club makers
in the world, and getting fitted is so important. But
I always when I recommend to people to get fitted,
they're like, you know, but I'm not. I'm going to
wait till I get more consistent. I want to wait
until I feel more comfort. What do you tell people
who who have you know, who aren't don't feel like
it's necessary yet they're going to get to some place
where they're going to do that.
Speaker 2: I can tell you that's a soul I'll see to
say that I'm going to wait till I'm going to
be more consistent. You better have a lifespan of about
two hundred because the only guy I know that got
to that point was Ben Hogan everybody else mishits the ball.
And that's just the nature of the sport. Really well,
it isn't even a sport. It's a challenge. That's the
nature of it. I mean, think about it as the
little ball sitting there, not a very big target, and
we're swinging a golf club's in the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties,
depending on your speed and youth at that little creature
down there, and we're told to hit through it. But
it's really hard to hit through it without trying to
hit it. And that's it's a constant it's a constant challenge.
And say I'm going to wait till I get consistent.
It's just you know, you want to start laughing. But
a lot of people feel I've heard that said before,
and I say, you know you're going to wait a
long time. Pal. The whole thing about getting fitted is
the clubs feel good. You get a sense of oh,
the weight feels right. I feel like I could swing
this club. And it gives you confidence. It really does.
And of course if they're all somewhat the same, they
can't be exactly the same. But if they're somewhat the same,
especially the shaft, you got a much better chance to
hit your mishits can get much better.
Speaker 1: Right. Somebody recently said to me, I want to be
more consistent first, and I said, well, how do you score?
What do you generally shoot? Goes Well, you know, I
pretty much shoot in the upper eighties low nineties consistently.
And I said, well, then you are consistent. What's the problem. Well,
I have mishits during the game. I said, well, everybody
has mishits. But there are you working on the things
that you're not good at when you're practicing. Oh, I
never practice. I don't have time to prepice. Well, then
you're never going to get consistent if you don't practice.
And you know, you want to talk about getting consistent,
You want to talk about getting better, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's right. And and really we learn
more about our game when we mishit the ball then
we hit than when we really you know, hit it pure.
When you you know generally when you drive it down
the middle and you just clocked it, uh, you're just
you know, you look and you get so excited, but
you don't get a lot of feedback because you're kind
of in that zone where you're not really thinking about
how to do it when you hit a poor shot.
And this is a I all the golf teams have
had through all the years with the young guys, I
tell them, listen, don't let when you hit a poor
shot your first thought is anger. What you should do
is watch that ball and blueprint in your in your
mind of what what's the spin on it is? The
spinning right, left, whatever? Or you did you hit it
thin or did you hit it fat? And and then
then there there's a there's a remedy for those things.
But if you don't, if you kind of black out
and just get mad, you know you, that's the time
when you learn. And that's why turing pros are so
darn good, because they get they they when they know
when they hit a ball and they block it, they
know what they've done and they can make a quick cure.
But they're they're really conscious of what happened. They're not.
They don't just bluster and slam the club on the
ground and so forth.
Speaker 1: My favorite is when somebody says, you know they're having
a problem, Oh, well, I know what I did wrong.
It's really how do you know that? Have you ever
had a lesson? Have you ever had anyone tell you
what your issue is. No, but I just know I've
watched a lot of TV, so yeah, I know what
I'm doing wrong. Oh okay, well we'll let it go
at that. The other thing about being fitted for clubs
and having clubs in your hands that you feel have
been not custom made, but customized for you is your
level of confidence when you're playing. I know that I've
only been playing with these clubs now for just under
two months, and my last round I walked out there,
I had so much confidence when I walked off the
range that I was able to carry through the round,
that I had one double bogie in the round and
I just you know, I shot an eighty and I
was just ecstatic. But it felt great the entire time.
So the amount of confidence.
Speaker 2: Sure, that's a wonderful feeling, you know, because the game
is a field game, and it's wonderful when when you
have something in your hands that feels right. And there's
lots of times where you'll have a golf club that
doesn't feel right, and I promise you don't beat your head,
you know, beat yourself over the head trying to make
it feel good. Get it, get another one, you know
I told you about the three what I had for
so long, and I just you know, just plagued me.
And instead of replacing it like I should have immediately,
I fought the darn thing and it just wasn't for me.
And and so I suffered with a lot of bad shots,
whether it was psychological or the club was really too
heavy or whatever. Uh. And that's the best advice I
can have anybody. If you have a putter or whatever
that you feel like you can't putt with, get another one.
I mean, you know, that's okay. I mean even the
touring pros do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the touring pros seem to change their grip
on their putter a lot too.
Speaker 2: Well, that's you know, that's probably you know, when you're
putting for a million dollars, it's a little different than
when you're putting for two dollars. So what happens is
that we started getting too involved in the action. Uh,
and we we we acquire a little bit of a
hint a flitch like they call it the yip, where
you where you're you're too involved with impact, especially with
the putter or you're putting the ball is just a
matter of swinging the putter back and forth in a rhythm.
But they've made so much about it, so you know
with all these claw grips and this grip and that grip,
and the big grips now are very popular because the
hands are taken out of it a bit. But I
think the big grips take away the feel of the
head and that was very important. If you look at
the putters of the past and some of the great
guys that put it, they had very small grips because
they wanted to feel the way to the clubheads. So
you know, it's it's all relative. But right now that
seems to be the thing. You see, the grips on
most of the putters are pretty large.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they're thick grips. I love having the thick
grip on my putter just because it keeps me from
squeezing too tightly. It allows me to loosen my hands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very true. You know, you can use more
of a shoulder armstroke opposed to you know, more of
a pop in our handstroke. You look at you know,
some of the great putters where you know they hinge
the putter back and through, like Billy Casper and people
like that. And and today's world you get Seneca who
kind of pop putts everything. But you know, you know,
when I teach, I have a lot of juniors I
teach that have done very well, and I don't emphasize
a lot of technique and putting. I really want them
to have a natural feel and to train them if
anything on distance control, their eyes will eventually get used
to work what square is. But when you start talking
about putting and how to do it too much, I
think you, uh, you get people too conscious of the
stroke during putting the ball and what are we doing
when we're playing. We're rolling the ball on the surface.
And you know, if you just keep it simple like that,
you take these little kids, you give them a putter
and a ball, and you see them putt terrific because
their mind isn't clogged up with all this technique. I
think that's that's it's been so overdone and there's so
many things you can buy where you're putting. Take the
putter straight back, and good lord, the greatest putters in
the world didn't take it straight back. Some of them
cut the putts, some of them block hook the putt,
and George Lowell, Gosh Maxwell I've seen so many guys
cut cut putts, but that was their natural way of
doing it, and they didn't question it. It's like, you know,
it's like Jim Furick with his golf swing. You know,
if you wanted to break that down and say, well
that that's not on plane, well it is on playing
when he hits the ball. So I'm I'm a you know,
as I teach, and I've been teaching a long time
at every level from turning professional to twenty five handicappers.
The less you say the better, the more more they
can the more they can see it and feel it
based on words you give them, the better, the more
technical you get. Most people can't handle that, you know,
And I think most people do their best when they
see it more than when they're told how it's supposed
to happen. I know, as a kid that I caddied,
I learned to play golf watching the people hit the
ball that I caddied for not to be said about that.
Speaker 1: What did you mean when you said cut putting.
Speaker 2: Well, there's there's I'm trying to think of the guy.
But he was a great putter on tour and he
literally cut across the ball. He swung from out to end,
so he put side spin on it. That would literally
make the ball. The spin would be going from left
to right. And you know, we've heard many times you
get get a range ball and get the stripe straight
so that when you put it, the stripe doesn't wobble.
You know, that's that's an effective tool to practice. But
who's the I'm trying to think of the guy that
was the greatest putter of all time where he hooded
the putter going back and then hit from into out
like you're hooking a ball, and he won a million
tournaments because he was such a great putter. My point
here is this, you gotta do it the way it feels.
And once you get away from the natural feel of
your putting stroke and now you start trying to manufacture it,
you're gonna get in a lot of trouble. All this
stuff about well, don't let your wrist hinge or it
has to be a flat wrist rough impact. No it doesn't, No,
it doesn't. In fact, a lot of times when you're
trying to push that thing through with the wrist stained flat,
you blockade it all the time. I mean, there's been
putters Bobby Jones, Arnold Palm. There has been all kinds
of ways of doing it, and you gotta find the
thing that feels comfortable to you, whether it's grip, stance, alignment,
what feels comfortable to you, and then just roll the
ball on the surface just to get to where you
can roll the ball and get away from all this
other stuff. And first of all, you won't get the
yips doing that. But boy, when you start overthinking in putting,
and look at Ben Hogan, that's what he did, and
you know, it's just it's a shame to see it.
I have young boys I train and they start saying, Coach,
I can't putt, which is just ridiculous. I said, you
mean you can't roll the ball on a flat surface,
and they looked at me like, well, what do you mean.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, he can, but not into a hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, but you know, it's honestly, I think the
less you emphasize putting, the better you'll put The more
you talk about it and think about it, I think
it puts a block. I think that's where all that
stuff comes from. I think with Hogan, he hit it
so close in his later years and he felt like
he should be rewarded for that. You know, like a
dog with a good boy, he goes outside and does
his business. When he comes in, he wants a cookie.
But in golf there is no cookie. You still got
to get the ball in the hole, whether it's a
five foot putter a f f foot putt. And and
I think that's what happened with Hogan because he made
statements that said, you know, the pudgeon shouldn't be so important,
you should get points just for getting it close to
the hole. Well that was his frustration coming up because
he did hit it so close and and and unfortunately
he did have the yips. He couldn't pull a putter
back on a short clut.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's so interesting.
Speaker 2: I mean I watched him at the Olympic Club, the
only time I had the pleasure of seeing him play golf.
And and at the Olympic Club he played in the
I think it was the Open, And I mean he
hit every fairway, every green, and I don't think he
had more than a twelve foot putt all day, and
the only plus he made were kick ins. But when
he got that four or five foot he couldn't his
pant leg would be shaken. He couldn't pull the putter back. Wow,
you think about that. This is this is a guy
that could hit a go in a motel and hit
a two arm right down the hallway and not hit
either side of the wall. I mean that's what he
could do. I mean that that's now, that's a genius.
So now you walk up to him and say, Ben,
you mean to tell me that you can't take this
putterback and roll the ball on the green? What? What?
What do you? What are you thinking about? See? But
you know, of course you couldn't do that. But I
mean that's the that's the silliness of putting. And now
look at all the look at all the apparatuses you
can buy to put better.
Speaker 1: I've never heard anybody describe, uh using the analogy if
it is an analogy or not true? About hitting a
two iron down a hallway in a hotel room and
not hitting the walls. Is that actually a story that
happened or is that.
Speaker 2: Just from what you know? You hear all kinds of
stories about him, just like you do Mo Norman. But
he actually had a bet that he could do it,
and he did. Right off the carpet. The guy could
he could not only control the flight of the ball,
but the trajectory of the ball. He was. It was magical.
I believe me when I tell you it was magical
watching him play. That Olympic Club is really hard courses,
you know, And then they had it set up for
the Open, and he made it look like you know,
toy Land. It was just he just went around that
golf course and just diced it. And in fact, I
was a very low handicapped player. I was in the
plus area, and when I saw him play, I realized
I really don't know how to play golf. And because
it was watching a master, you know, do a painting
or something, I felt I was happy to see it,
but I was very insecure. When I got in my car,
I can say that.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting and painful. Well, I think that take
this idea of taking your game to the next level
one club at a time, which I suggested, but I
do want to cover it. I think starting at the
putter is a great place to start with that. So
I'm going to toss out these club names and give
me a thought or a tip on what you can
do to take your game to the next level with
that specific club and let's start with the putter.
Speaker 2: You know, again, with the putter. What I teach I
teach people to hold the putter comfortably and any way
they really want to hold it within reason. And I
work on I work on distance control, whether it's a
five foot putt or a twenty foot putt or a
fifty foot put I don't tell them to get it
into a circle around the green. I tell them to
try to roll it into the hole on all putts,
because I think that's a natural feeling. Where you're saying,
put it in a three foot circle. Now you bring
it into another another situation that you have to deal with.
So in putting, teaching them to roll the ball. In fact,
in fact, one of the great pro said, if I
were going to teach putting today, and this is this
is the fellow that helped Jack Nicholas putt, he said,
I would put somebody on the green with no holes,
and I would teach him to roll the ball distances,
teach him how to roll the ball and not not
hit it and skid it, but roll it. And I
believe that quite a bit. HM.
Speaker 1: So I actually want to go to a different club
that I saw a video tip that you did that,
I've used ever since, and I'm going to go to
the eight iron for using it around the fringe to
get the ball onto the green using your eight iron
club cutter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Paul Runyon was was the first guy that really
did this where he would take the take an eight
iron or a seven iron or a five iron, whatever,
depending on the distance you had to cover. Uh, and
he would take the heel of the club off the
ground so that he could get the shaft in the
same alignment as your putter, and he put his hands
on it on the lens in some cases if he
had a fib and he'd slide his hands down near
the medal so that he was replicating standing up with
his putter. And then he used a putting type stroke,
now not exactly the club had to come up a
little bit, but he used more of a one lever
stroke opposed to cocking the wrist or doing anything like that.
And the idea was is to find out how far
on the green you had to land the ball and
then let it release to the hole. So if you
were up close you'd be hitting an eight iron, nine iron,
or even maybe a pitching wedge, you wouldn't use this
on a with a sandwich. It's too much loft, But
that's a much simpler way to chip. Most people will
pull out their sand wedge or pitching wedge and then
use it all around the green when they're chipping. I'm
not talking about pitching the ball. I'm talking about chipping it.
And that's a much more difficult shot. Much more difficult.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. I mean I was telling you that
this eighty that I shot the other day, I only
had I had six one putts on the front nine.
I was one over par. After nine, I only had
one birdie. But that means I was coming up short
on my approach shots, but I was getting it close
to the hole. And a lot of times I've been
using that eight iron chip and it's it. Once you
learn to control that, once you feel comfortable with it,
it's a great shot to have in your bag.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because you know, when you're chipping, you're not
trying to impart backspin. You want the ball to release
the hole and quicker you can get it on the green,
the better. When you have a more lofted club, you
have to lift the club a bit and hit down
on the ball a bit and that brings them into
a lot of areas of getting tight with the hands
and either sculling it or hitting way behind it. They
call it chilly dip, but both of them are hideous,
especially the skull. Like the guy said one time, how
far do you hit the bus? So I hit my
sand wedge about one hundred and fifty yards just really,
he says, yeah, from a greenside bunker. You know, that's
that happens. That happens with these clubs that are constructed
that way. You have to be a little bit more
accurate in your stroke or with a putty of stroke.
Even if you hit a little thin it doesn't really
affect anything, and you know the ball will roll just
about the same as you did if you hit a pure.
Speaker 1: I've noticed a lot of people will take a lob
wedge or a high lofted club if they're five, ten,
fifteen yards off the green, Well, let's just keep it
at ten yards off the green and in. But they're
trying to get the ball to land, land softly and
then trickle up. But isn't the goal shouldn't you try
to get the ball onto the flat surface as soon
as possible and let it release let it roll as
long as it you know, can or do you want
to try to drop it in?
Speaker 2: No? No, absolutely, when you're when you're doing those kinds
of things, you you've got to you've got grain to
deal with. Uh. Sometimes you know you have a set
the green goes up, or you'll have a second lever. Uh.
Your your your target is way too small when you
do those kinds of things, and sometimes you impart back
spin on it where you pinch it a little bit
and you get too much backspin. So you want to
get all that out of there. You want to just
get that ball on the green and let it release
to the hole. It's just an easier shot. I mean,
that's that's the bottom line. Because the nerves do the
nerves do get get in, especially if you got that
ball a little bit of tight grass. It's it's much
better to take an eight or nine r or seven iron.
Just putchip it.
Speaker 1: It's so much simpler, right, Is there a rule of
thumb to how much a ball will release depending on
which club that you use, Like if you're using the
eight iron versus a pitching wedge and you're just you're
chipping it up on the green.
Speaker 2: Sure, I mean, let's just say that. Let's say we're
gonna land the ball a yard or two under the green.
If you land the ball a yard or two on
the green with a seven iron, the ball is gonna
release a lot farther than it does a nine iron
unless you're unless you're unless you're hitting it harder. But
if you're consistent in your stroke, so the less loft
you have, the more it's going to release. So you don't,
I mean, I don't just use the eight iron when
I chip because if I have a if the pins
way back and I'm in the front of the green,
I'll take a five iron and do the same thing
because I know that my target is still going to
be where I want the ball on land. It's going
to be the same as if it was an eight
iron or a nine iron, but the ball's gonna release
farther because I have less less low.
Speaker 1: So it's really about where you want the ball to land,
and then you decide which club to use from there exactly,
And how do you pick the area of where you
wanted to land? What are you looking for?
Speaker 2: For me? You know, for me, it's unless the pin
is really I mean, the cop is real close for me,
it's about a couple of yards on the green, four
or five feet and then let it release. But again,
my target might get a little closer to me if
it's a short a short ship. But again my target,
my landing target is always close to me, opposed to
if I had a sandwidge or a lob wedge in
my hand.
Speaker 1: All right, now, let's go back to our wedges, back
to this one club at a time. Let's go I
guess with your lob wedge. If I carry, I carry
a sixty degree, a fifty seven degree, and then a
fifty two and a pitching wedge, which is what about
a forty eight? So I carry I like to carry
a bunch of wedges with me, as opposed to carrying
a lot of hybrids or fairway woods. So the lob wedge,
what can you do? What will that help you do
to get your game to the next level? And what
should you be practicing? Which with a high lofted club.
Speaker 2: Like that, Well, the lobbledge is strictly for hitting the
ball high and soft. So it's a shot where you
want to you know, you're above the green or I
excuse me, below the green, and you need to throw
it up there, but you don't want it to release.
That's what the lobledge is for. Because of the loft,
you can go at it with a little bit of
speed and the ball will just go higher. And that's
shots you should practice a lot because there are times
you need it. But I I know so many people
that overdo it when they have a much simpler shot
where it doesn't call for that kind of shot, but
they still do it. In fact, Phil Nicholson is one
of the guys that does that. But you know he's
like a wizard. But you can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's not compare ourselves to what Phil Nicholson can do,
because well you can't.
Speaker 2: Even guys on tour can't do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: But you know, when you're in and around the green,
which is the scoring area, whether you're pitching the ball on,
you want to do it the simplest way, the way
that even if you mishit, it doesn't become a catastrophe.
When you start lifting that club up and bringing it
down on the ball in a more steeper angle, it
brings in the mishit is going to be It could
be horrendous, or you line drive it over the green
into a lake or something like that, where when you're
using a more level to the ground stroke, if you
hit a little bit thin or a little bit fat,
you don't lose. It doesn't hurt you. And that's what
I when I play. Even when I played well, after
being around Paul Ryning and listening to him, my game
improved dramatically. Even when I would miss a lot of greens,
I could get it up and down a lot easier
than I had in the past, because I was one
of these guys that wore out my sandwich. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well turning. I think the best thing I ever
heard about that was trying to turn three shots into two.
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, that's that's the whole name of the game.
And everybody misses greens. Everyone does. As I tell my boys,
if you hit ten balls, seven of them better be
with the short clubs, the scoring clubs, because the driver okay, yes,
the drivers. It's built for one thing, to get the
ball in play with a fairly good distance. But it's
not a long drive club as it's been you know television,
that's all they talk about is, well, yeah I hit
that four hundred yards and three fifty and whatever. They
don't tell you at the ground as hard as the highway.
They said, you get four four hundred yards a roll.
They don't tell you any of that stuff. But it's
too much emphasis on that and not enough emphasis on,
you know, distance control, taking the right club. Ken Venture
used to tell me, when you got a seven iron
to the green, take a six iron out and hit it.
You're going to be surprised because if you really, if
you kept the chart of every time you hit a
ball to the green, were you short or long, ninety
percent of the time you're short.
Speaker 1: You're short.
Speaker 2: So yeah, absolutely, So it was a you know, and
there's something I followed and it improved my game. I
got the ball a lot closer to the hole by
doing that. And he got that from Hogan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, club up. That's like this club up on your
approach shots, no question, Like when I'm talking about the
three shots to two. If you're you're the point is
you want to chip up to the green and get
it close enough where you can one putt. Where I
play with people, if you're pitching doing a pick shot
from thirty yards or twenty yards in there, if you
get it on the green, they're like, hey, great, shot.
It's like I left myself a thirty five foot putt.
That's not a great shot. I mean, yeah, I'm on
the green, but a big deal. I Mean, the point
was I wanted to get. I wanted to get within
five feet of the hole.
Speaker 2: Well, i'll give you a good example of that. I've
got a lot of young boys that can hit it
the long ways, okay, and we they'll get on a
par five and they can reach it with a three
wood in some cases, I mean I mean power five
that's like five fifty or five seventy five. And I
tell them, look, the trajectory of that ball coming in
is either gonna if you mishit it you're gonna get
You're gonna bury it in the lip of the of
the green side bunkers, or if it hits the green,
it's going to the back of the green or maybe
even over. So you're always going to be looking at
a forty or fifty foot putt that you've got to
get down in two and a lot of times you
three putt it and now you say God the green
and chew and I've made a five. Okay. It's much
simpler if you can hit something up there in your
scoring range, like sixty seventy yards. Now you can take
your sandwich and throw it up there and you can
get it close and you're gonna make a lot of
birdies that way. But again, you hear that the announcers
talk about these guys, Well, Bob, you know, he's got
a seven iron. It's two hundred and twenty five yards,
and so you know, these kids, that's what they're trying
to do. It's just it's insane. I think that the
broadcasters of golf, some of them, not all of them,
but some of them, have hurt the game so much because,
first of all, we don't get the ball that the
pros play with. Believe me when I tell you that
that ball is custom made to their swing. So they
got a hot ball, and that's why. That's why a
guy like you got the one of the masters and
he's got eight aron out and he's hit close to
two hundred yards. Come on, I mean, yeah, come on,
that's not possible unless that club is jacked up or
the ball jacked up. Interesting, and that's that's the that's
the reality of it. I mean, it's these guys, aren't
these guys aren't any stronger than Ben Holgen or guys
like that. But the but the ball and the club
they're using is is they're they're juiced up, no question
about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well yeah, they seem to be talking about spending
a whole lot more time talking about distance and how
they boom it and not the wizardry of the short game.
And I think that that these you know, since the
Tiger effect has come in and and courses have gotten
longer and longer and longer. Uh, they're playing into you know,
by making the courses longer, just playing into their hands,
make it tougher on the short game, and let's see
what they can do with it.
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, I mean when when when they play some
of these real tough courses in the New York area
and the Midwest, Uh, they don't tear them up. You
don't see twenty under power any of that time. But
they set the golf the golf courses are set up
for scoring. They get in there and they cross cut
those fairways. The fairways are faster than some of the
greens that the guys in the thirties and forties and
fifties played on. And they just get make the golf
course fast and it's great for television because there's the
zillion birdies and so forth. But what they've done is
they've taken the shot making out of the game, even
the ball. You know, it's hard to move the ball
left to right or right to left now purposely, I
should say. And so you know, it's a shame. I
think it's a shame in a way because they've made
a lot of great golf courses that were tremendous courses
to play, and they've kind of made them obsolete because
of what they've done with the equipment.
Speaker 1: Well, and the other thing that kind of makes me
crazy is there customize these courses for a tournament that
may happen once a year at best, or once every
five or six years, and so that means they're customizing
the course for a point one of the amount of
golfers that are going to play that course, but it
gets TV exposure.
Speaker 2: So that's one of the things that irritates me more.
You know, I have a lot of clients that belong
to very posh golf courses, and these courses are all
everyone's looking to get more members. So what do they do, Well,
we've got to get a younger group and you know
that the membership's three or four hundred thousand dollars. Not
too many young people that have that kind of money
to throw around, but that's what they get in their heads.
So now they put a set up what they call
the championship teas, and they're so far back on the whole.
The average guy out there is in the late sixties
and early seventies and they can't hit it out of
their shadow. So what are they doing? You know, instead
of setting up teas for your membership, if you've got
a lot of guys that are seventy, you're upteas and
especially the ladies sees should should correspond to the distance
that they those people hit the ball so that they're
in the game. You know, many years ago I did
the mixed team Championship, and when we were figuring this
thing out, we went we looked at the two averages
of ladies and men, and the ladies needed a seventy
five yard advantage off the tee because we had to
take in consideration the second shot, not just the first shot,
of course, So if man, if the average guy hit
it a drive and eight iron, we wanted the same
for the gals. You can't get it exact, but we
wanted to be close. You go on golf courses today
and you'll see the men's tees and you see the
ladies sees maybe ten fifteen yards maybe twenty years forward.
That's just insane. And you got these gals out there,
they're beating driver three wood with no chance of getting here,
and they're hitting five round on the third shot on
the par four. That takes the fun out of the game.
It is an unfair challenge. It's an unfair challenge.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that was the whole point of play
it forward, right exactly.
Speaker 2: If you want to give people back into the game,
they've got to be able to I'm not saying make
the golf courses easy. I'm just saying make them fair
for the for the person that's playing right. And you
can't do it exact, but you can do a lot
better job that's being done. I can tell you that.
And if and if Joe Blower his wife can every
now and then get in the low eighties and and
hit the green in regulation changes everything in their mindset.
But if it's if they're out there and they're shooting
in the hundreds and it's arduous. They're not going to
want to do this all the time now, so it
just takes it deflaces everybody. You know, we all have
an ego.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and let's not even call them the ladies teath
Let's just call them the forward teas.
Speaker 2: Right forward.
Speaker 1: Sure, you know it's like I don't I don't like
like I'm usually the long driver when when I'm playing
with my group, but it doesn't mean I'm scoring better
than anybody else. I can hit the ball farther, but
not with my irons as much. And I think the
whole kind of played forward is that, like the pros,
you should have an eight iron or less for your
second shot.
Speaker 2: So absolutely up. Let's just say you're a short hitter. Okay,
so a short hitter, you should probably be hitting a
drive and maybe a five iron rescue club or six
iron rescue club. But when you can't reach the green
in two on any part four, then you're hitting too
far back that the tea isn't right for you. You've
got to move up. And the golf courses, they talk
about it all the time, but no one really scientifically
goes on that golf course and measure the golf course
out and then charts. Okay, this is where mister and
missus Jones are going to hit the golf ball and
then intelligently put team teas down and make those teas
not afterthoughts, make them actually a team ground for mister
and missus Jones. And I promise you if they would
do that, you see more people smiling when they came
off the golf course instead of frustrating or just feeding
like I'm old. I know in my own case, I
was a very long hitter of the golf ball and
not a big guy, but I always could really clock it.
Now that I'm eight oer, which I can't believe, but
I am, I can't hit it that anymore. So you
know my best drive is two thirty two forty sometimes.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's still pretty good.
Speaker 2: I still hit it out there, pretty good for an
old guy. But still, you know, when I go on
and play with my students, you know, I feel like
I should put a tap of a dress on or
something because they're popping at fifty sixty seventy yards past
me with no problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the age of their great grandfather exactly.
Speaker 2: So if I can't, I can't compete with that because
they're longer with their iron, they're longer with they would
come on. So I have to play up. And there's
nothing wrong with that. For god, I mean, that's that's
what I'm saying. Instead of building championship teas to bring
more people at your golf course, set your golf course
up so people can play it. It's still a challenge,
but if you have a good day, you get a
good scorer. For some people, even when they have a
good day, they can't get a good score because of
the distance factor.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's very It really is obsessed me, especially for the gals.
They honestly, I think they're No one wants to say it,
but they're kind of an afterthought when they come to
the designing of the golf course or the placing of
the teas, and so they're just an afterthought. It's it's wrong,
It really is.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I had a thought and no, I lost it.
I was gonna say something about, well, we.
Speaker 2: Were talking about it's me I get on tangents.
Speaker 1: Oh we both do, don't we both?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: Oh, no, I remember. What I was going to say
is that how many times I've played with gentlemen who
are in their seventies who can't hit the ball more
than a hundred fifty yards, except they're playing bogie golf
because they hit it dead straight and they can put
you know, So it's not about the big hits. Just
keep it in the fairway and getting the close there's.
Speaker 2: No question about it. But those people to play a
lot of golf, and either they're blessed or they practice
a short game a lot. But I mean, the average
lady and man don't put that much time into practice.
They'll take a lesson here or there. I'm just I'm
an advocate of it isn't so much a play up,
but to set the golf course up to accommodate what
your general membership is. Not the one guy that colocks
it or not the one guy that can hit it
one hundred yards, but that middle range group, and you'd
make your golf course make everybody happier. Yeah, And unfortunately,
unfortunately the way they set the tour up, it's the
opposite of that. It's all it's all predicated on distance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what, we have so many more clubs
that I'd like to cover about, you know, taking that
to the next level, like the sand wedge, your long irons,
your hybrids, your fairway drivers or fairway metals or fairway woods,
whatever you want to call them, and your driver. So
can we do as we have done many times? Can
we do part two of this for next week's episode?
Speaker 2: Sure? I'd love to. Uh, you got to put a
module on me at times because.
Speaker 1: No, no, instead of the muzzle, I'm just gonna let
you go longer. We're just gonna go on longer. That's
all all right. So that's great. We're gonna do part
two on this and continue this conversation of how you
can take your game to the next level, one club
at a time with Tony Manzoni. Tony, thanks so much
for your cooperation on this.
Speaker 2: It's always my pleasure.