Speaker 1: For members only.
Speaker 2: Golf Smarter number three hundred and seventy seven, published on
March twenty six, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain
insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets Old. Our
interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 4: The only part of the green that's going to affect
the ball is the part the ball rolls on and
actually touches, so all the rest of it is completely ignorable.
You know where the mountains are, where the high points
on the green are. All that stuff is completely ignorable.
If the ball is not going to actually touch it.
I need to figure out what the ground is doing
when the ball is actually rolling. And once you learn
how to do it and what you're looking for or
feeling for. It's very hard to fool a person's balance,
except maybe you know, like late Friday night or late
Saturday night, after a couple of you know, their balance
isn't so good. Aside from that, very few people fall
down when they walk, so their body is constantly making
this adjustment every single step that it takes. That's kind
of usually running in the background, and we're trying to
take that idea of that sensation and kind of pull
it to the forefront and say this footstep differently than
this one. Did it go up, did it go down?
Did you feel left or right? All of these sensations
are learnable and teachable.
Speaker 2: Eliminate misreading the greens, break direction. More on ame point
with John Graham.
Speaker 1: This is Golf Smarter.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Golf Smarter for members only. John, Hello,
thank you for sticking around.
Speaker 1: This is absolut awesome.
Speaker 2: One of the last comments that you made, you were
talking about how people like they need to know, you know,
their launch angle and the spin rate, and then when
they're on their approach, you know, for their drives, and
then with their approach shots they want to know, you know,
GPS is not exacting enough. They have to do a rangefinder,
like they can get that close. And yet the part
of your scorecard that allows you twice as many shots
as anything else, they don't think it's that important.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really interesting. I think it's just a matter
of you know, what they're accustomed to, you know, a
lot of golf full swing science and information and instruction,
especially recently within the last twenty years or so at least,
since video has become much more structured and much more
specific and detailed, and that just hasn't really happened with
putting that much. And because putting isn't necessarily as difficult
a skill in terms of I don't usually hit putts
that caused me penalty shots. You know, most people will
tend to spend a little bit more time on the
detail of that because if they hit good shots toward
the green, they feel like they've done well. If they
hit good puts on the green, whether or not they
go in, they still think they've done well. So their
expectation of what good is is I think a little
bit different based on you know, whatever their skill level
is and their perception. I mean, the difference between the
worst putter ever and the best putter ever is a
much smaller difference than the best striker of the ball
and the worst striker of the ball. I mean, the
worst putter is not going to have fifty shots of
putting more than the best putter, but certainly on ball
striking they will so there's you know, I can kind
of understand some of that, some of that difference at
least time of what they want to focus on. But
when it comes down to making a living at the game,
certainly they're going to have to do both very well
and they can't ignore one of them.
Speaker 2: Is a point difficult for the average golfer. I mean,
the people who aren't making a living at the game.
Speaker 4: Is it difficult to do? Understand or learn? Which one?
Speaker 1: Do you think? Yes, start with learn and then do.
Speaker 4: I'm certainly biased. I mean I learned it and started
doing it very very quickly, and it made perfect sense,
was very logical to me. Certain other people have a
more difficult time with a three dimensional perception than others,
and the ones that struggle thinking of things in three
D will initially have a little bit of a difficult
time picturing what we're doing until we actually start doing it.
You know. It's the fundamental class that I spend most
of my time teaching is a two and a half
hour class, and more than half of it is actually
doing putting and reading the ground, reading the green, and
the first part of it is, you know, it's fair
to say, is fairly information focused, and for a lot
of people though, they'll not really be sure that they're
getting it until we actually start doing it. And then
once we start doing it, then everything starts to make
much more sense because most of the things that we
talk about don't necessarily relate to the ball or the hole.
Let's relate to just the ground itself. And they're not
used to dealing with just the ground. They're used to
dealing with their ball and the hole. And how do
I get the two together? Well, we spend an hour
or so teaching them that those two things don't necessarily
matter just yet. Let's figure out what the ground is doing.
Let's figure out how step the ground is, Let's figure
out some of these other things. And then based on that, Okay,
here's your ball, here's your hole, here's what it will do.
Until they start putting all the pieces together. For some people,
it's a little bit difficult to perceive how they kind
of fit together. And I, you know, and you know,
I've been teaching it for about four years, and the
way that we teach it, the version that we teach
it now is the sixth version of since I started
doing it. So when I started doing it four years ago,
the way that we used to teach its significantly changed,
and the way that we teach it now in an
attempt to make it much more understandable, much more easy,
much faster, a whole bunch of these other things that
people were we're looking for, you know, in the beginning,
it was a little bit more i would say, a
little bit more technical. Well, I mean a lot more
technical than it is now, and it would really appeal
to the engineers and the doctors and the you know,
people that were used to dealing with that kind of idea.
You know, over the course of the last four years,
we've continually refined it and continually improved it to make
it faster, easier to understand, easier to do all of
those things. And the way that we teach it now,
I think is about as simple as you can get
so far that we've been able to figure out based
on what variables you need to figure out, you know, here,
here's what they are, here's how you figure them out.
Here's the answer. And it doesn't get any more simple
than that, Yeah, it really doesn't.
Speaker 2: Here's here's I'm going to take a little side thing here.
Can you describe any explain what stemp is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sure, stemp is a frictional component of the grass.
The term stimp comes from a gentleman whose name was
Stimp or maybe Stimp something. The stimp was part of
his name, and he came up with this device that
he called a Stimp meter, again part of his name,
that when placed at a certain height, it would roll
down this ramp and assuming the service was perfectly flat,
it would roll a certain distance. And whatever that distance is,
let's say it's six feet or ten feet, that that
number would represent the frictional component of the grass itself.
So if the ball rolled shorter, that would be a
green that was had a lot more friction in it.
The ball didn't travel very far, what would typically be
called a slower green. If the ball rolled much much further,
that would be a grass with a lot less friction
on it, or shorter grass, or however you want to
describe it, and that would be called a faster green.
So it's just the frictional component of the of the
grass itself. It's resistance to roll, if you want to
picture it that way.
Speaker 2: When we're on the practice putting green before around, how
much credibility should we give that practice green as to
what we're going to be taking out too or around,
and what the practice green does versus what's going to
be happening on the greens.
Speaker 4: Well, generally speaking, the folks that work in the maintenance
area of a golf course will tend to mow the
greens with the same machine, or at least they won't
specifically change the mower blade for one green versus another,
because that's an incredible amount of extra work to do. So,
assuming that the greens were built around the same time,
they'll be nearly identical. Now, if it was a the
old course and the putt and green didn't fit in
the original design and they built it later, maybe they
could be different, but the superintent and the maintenance crew
usually try to make them as close together as possible
to make the experience match. As certainly there have been
occasions where they haven't matched, or you might have a
green that will be a different stimp in the morning
than in the afternoon, then again in the evening, which
is depending on wind or rain or other environmental factors.
That's certainly something that does occur. But relative to the
actual green and the putt and green, generally they tend
to be sane, just because it's a lot easier on
the crew to make them the same, trying to make
them different.
Speaker 2: You mentioned wind and rain, and I can completely understand
when a ball's in flight how the wind will have
an impact on it. But how much impact can a
wind have on a putt? A and multiple questions I'm
going to throw out here, and I apologize because I
don't like doing that.
Speaker 4: But what.
Speaker 1: How long does the putt?
Speaker 2: You know, generally is you know, longer put's gonna have
there's gonna be more impact from the wind.
Speaker 1: And how much wind?
Speaker 2: What kind of wind speed are we talking about that's
going to have an impact on a putt?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Great questions. So the first one being how much
effect does wind have? If the wind is fast enough
at ground level, it has a major impact, A major,
major impact. A certainly as the ball is rolling for
longer distance and longer time, assuming a consistent wind amount
and direction, it'll have more of an impact just because
of the amount of time it's affecting the ball. The
third one being how much. I can't remember exactly what
the number is. I know Marx told it to me
a few times, I can't remember if it's twenty.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is about numbers.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, I know, I know. It's it's such
a hard thing to measure because wind is not a
constant force, sure, and the wind that we feel at
eye level versus tree top level versus ground level is
also different. So trying to actually measure what the actual
wind that's hitting the ball is relative to our head,
they're not going to be the same, and so we're
trying to constantly make an estimation based on what we're
dealing with. One rule of thumb that we've been using
this that works pretty well. If if you're approaching the
green and the wind is strong enough to get the
bottom of the actual flag that's on the flag stick horizontal,
the wind at ground level will be moving the ball
hm hm, So if there's any droop in the flag.
This again, this is a rule of thumb. This is
not science. This is just an idea that that we've
been working with to kind of help people that if
the if the flag starts to get horizontal the bottom
of it, the wind at ground level will be moving
the ball.
Speaker 1: Now the bottom of the flag, the.
Speaker 4: Bottom of the actual flag.
Speaker 2: Right. Oh, that that's really an excellent point I never
even thought of that. Look, you know, it's like, oh good, okay.
You know, like when you're on your approach shot, you're
looking for the flag so you.
Speaker 1: Know where you're headed.
Speaker 2: But never thought of, you know, and you obviously looking
at the flag in the tree tops on your ball flight,
but looking at that flag as you're approaching the green
as what kind of impact it's going to have on
your pott.
Speaker 1: I've never considered that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I mean if for a normal pott that's
you know, from let's say, directly across the slope on
a slope that's not very steep we'll call average, which
we would say is one a two percent slope, a
fairly average slope amount. If the wind is going, you know,
directly across the path of the pot, and it's that
minimum distance that it's going to start moving the ball.
For a green that's a stimp of let's say ten,
it'll actually make the ball break the opposite way. Wow,
it's a major, major, fat much It's a much greater
impact than grain ever thought it wanted to have, assuming
that it's fast enough. But when it's fast enough, it
has a dramatic impact. But it's really hard to predict
because it's not usually a constant force. We don't really
know exactly how windy it is, but it will certainly
affect your chips. They'll roll out like a down wind
ship will roll out much more. You know, downwind pots
have to hit them a lot softer because the wind
will do the rest. I mean, it'll it'll do it'll
do a number on it.
Speaker 1: Mmm mmm.
Speaker 2: How Now let's get back to utilizing aame point and
determining the break amount.
Speaker 4: Right, So the to get an actual break amount, you
know that, Well, we have to start, at least for
the simplest of putts. We we have to start with
the assumption that the slope between the ball and the
hole is the same. Now, that may only apply to
a certain number of putts that a person runs across
during a day, but we in the initial class, we
start with that assumption. Now we can we can teach
people how to predict break on all though the ones
with changing slopes and double brakes and all that. But
we start with the general assumption of just a flat,
tilted surface, and we go through the process of teaching them. Okay,
here's how you figure out what the angle is. If
you can figure out where the fall line is between
the ball and the hole. You know, based on where
that is, where is my ball relative to that? So
that's one of our steps. The next one would be okay,
based on how we either perceive slope, either by sight
or again by feel, we tend to do more field
based things. If you picture someone standing on a slope,
if it had no slope, their shin and foot would
be about a ninety degree angle or so, and as
a slope gets steeper, that angle between their ankle gets less.
So we don't necessarily use an ankle or an angle
reference of how my shin and my foot relate to
each other, but based on how those two are coming together,
will feel pressure in different places in the foot, whether
it be more even or more toward the heel and
more toward the toe, all depending on what type of
slope that we're dealing with. We start to acquire a feel,
an actual quantifiable feel for this feeling feels like this
slope is this amount, and then we measure it and
see how we do when we're practicing. So we actually
start to train a field based event for how steep
the ground actually is, and then you know, we need
to figure out our distance from the hole. Again, we
can do that by sight, or if we want to
pace it off, we can do that too. And then now,
based on those things, we look up the expected break
amount based on those inputs in the aim chart that
we provide during the class, and then we hit it
and see what happens. And based on what occurs, we say, okay,
well you know, did the ball start online, did it
go the distance that we're recommending for these numbers. If
it did both of those things and it didn't go in,
then we can go back and measure each of the
pieces that we just determined, see which ones we got right,
which ones we got wrong, and then if any change
is needed, we'd make that change and then readjust the answer.
And it was that reason, the ability to figure out
why I got something wrong, that I got involved, and
why I enjoyed teaching it. I mean, I'll be more
than happy to win a class, to purposely do one
wrong because everybody wants to see a breakdown, and then
to go back and say, okay, well, clearly what I
did here was wrong. Let's go back and measure it all,
see what I got wrong, relook up the expected to
break them out, hit it again and then watch it
go in and then they're like, oh, that's pretty cool.
So even though even though you can do it wrong,
you can figure out why you got it wrong. There's
no more you know, looking at your coach and you
hit one that goes way to the right slice and
you're like, well, that felt just like my last wing.
Why did it go to the right And there could
be you know, some amount of answers to that, And
with putting, there never has been an answer why didn't
it do that? Or you know, was it the Indio,
you know, the Valley of India, or was it the
Vegas Strip or was it the mountains or the Raised
Creek or the water or downtown Phoenix or whatever. A
whole bunch of myths that have been kind of generated
to kind of help explain what they didn't measure before,
to help them predict what the ball was going to do.
We can say, well, this is why I did this.
We can we can go out and figure out just
measure it all and figure it out. And that's that's
really why I got involved. But it's it's it's simply
those those skills, actual the skill development that the golfer
has to do. Can I determine what direction the ground
is going based on that? Can I determine where my
ball is relative to that? Can I determine how steep
the ground is between the ball and the hole, and
then how far away? That's obviously the most intuitive one.
And then based on those things and a certain stimp amount,
just look at the answer and try to hit it.
See if we can do it.
Speaker 1: That's always the case. Let's see if we can do it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you have any preference when you're working with people
on the type of grip that they have, whether they
use an anchored butter our favorite topic these days, an
anchored putter, or you know, if they have a fat grip,
or where their hands are, or the type if they're
using a blade or a mallet. Does any of that
have any effect on how we use aim point?
Speaker 4: No, No, it certainly has an effect on their ability
to do the other skills, which are starting it online
and hitting it at a speed that they're trying to
hit it at relative to what we do, which is,
you know, just one small little niche of can we
choose an appropriate target their ability to hold a putter?
You know, with their feet doesn't really matter, as you know,
whether they holding their hands or belly putters or long putters.
Choosing the target is completely separate from all that. Now,
if a player comes to us and says, okay, this
is great, but I can't hit any of my putts
where this target is. What good does this do me? Well,
you know, that's a whole other topic that you know,
a putting instructor or their normal coach or or one
of us will get into. But most of the time
that we're spending teaching is initially just on the on
the targeting piece, choosing the right target.
Speaker 2: So you're you're making a basic assumption that they're going
to get the ball on the proper line from the start.
Speaker 4: Well, not necessarily making that assumption, but we're telling them
that if they do, this is what will happen. And
then if they don't, then their normal teachers should say, Okay,
it's not that you're actually choosing I should say this.
It's not that you're actually putting it poorly, but you've
been choosing the wrong target all along, Or it's not
that you're choosing the right target and you're hitting it poorly.
Now they can actually define when they miss. Did I
hit the putt online or not? Did I choose the
right target or not? And they can much more or
clearly define what skills are lacking based on that. If
we never know if the target's right or not, how
do we ever know if we hit a good part.
So once you know that we can prove that the
target is correct. Now you can see, Okay, did this
player actually start it there? Yes or no? Did the
player hit it the appropriate speed? Yes or no? And
they can actually start to specifically see where practice relative
to their putting skills is. Is it Okay, I do
have a good stroke, but I've been choosing the wrong
target because now with the right target, I make a
lot more. Or you know, do I need to work
on my speed because one time I hit it a
foot shore and the time I hit it five feet long?
But the ball starts online okay? Or is the ball
never starting online? Either? In either case, it gives a
much more direction as to where to focus their time.
Speaker 1: I find this so interesting.
Speaker 2: How long did take for you once you started studying
aame point to see an impact on your score a results?
Speaker 4: That's a good question. I was I was a pretty
good putter before this and this really more kind of
helped me understand why I was a good putter. You know,
I would I would play in a scramble with my
buddies or even a pro scramble or whatever, where you
actually all get to kind of choose the line from
the same place, and it kind of helped explain why
my lines were very different than a lot of other
people's lines. And but I would say, you know, I
would tend to be a little bit more on the
obsessive side of something that I that I really am
involved in. So I would spend the majority of my
practice time when I first learned it, with no ball,
no putter, nothing, just going out onto the green and
practicing the actual skills of reading the ground. You know,
can I determine what direction the ground is going? It's
this way? Measure it? See how I did?
Speaker 1: Yeah, how can you do that without a ball?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? I don't need a ball to know which the
way the ground's going. I just walk right out there
and say, okay, I think this is uphill. I actually
measure the ground itself. Is this uphill? Yes or no?
And then move on or I'll say I'll go to
another spot. Of the ground and say I think this
is uphill and I think it's tilted on a two
percent grade. Measure them both. See how I did when you.
Speaker 1: Say measure them both, and what do you use to
do that.
Speaker 4: There's a couple of different devices that I've used over
the years. I first started with a device called a breakmaster,
which is a little gray box about the size of
a cup on the green and at the time they
were a little bit more reasonably priced than they are now.
They're roughly over one hundred and twenty five dollars or
not or so now, but they will give you you
just kind of place it on the ground and it
will point in the direction of downhill, and it will
then also give you an amount of how steep the
ground is in an angle degrees. So I would originally
start with that where I would just go stand on
the ground face where I think was uphill, put the
little device right between my feet, and if it pointed
at me, I had the direction on the ground right.
Another device that I've used are similar ones that I
would have on my phone, which are significantly cheaper, you know,
for like a dollar, and I would just put my
phone on the ground and that would do the same thing.
Another device that we use is an actual level that
you get at the hardware store that will measure the
ground that way, and I tend to use that one
a little bit more often because it's a little bit longer,
which I think kind of evens out some of the
inconsistencies in the turf, gives me a little bit more
appropriate answer. But it's just actually practicing the skills of
can I figure out what direction is the ground and
how steep is it? And so I would. It took
me about a month, I would say, to do that
to a level that I thought was accurate enough before
I went out actually tried it on the course. I
don't generally play all that often anyway, so it was
easy for me to not play for a while and just.
Speaker 1: Practice well a golf instructor.
Speaker 2: Golf instructors don't get to play very often, no, especially with.
Speaker 4: Four kids under ten, less than most people.
Speaker 2: You're lucky you're a golf instructor. That would have been
gone from your life. You bring up the word golf,
your wife would be going, uh No, I don't think so,
but I'm working.
Speaker 4: So it was easier for me to practice for a
little while first, before I actually started using it, and
I think I think that's actually it was a big benefit.
I think it's more difficult to to go out on
the course and try to use it without having a
real good foundation of the accuracy of your skill set.
So I would certainly recommend that if you know the
people that are learning it, that are really really into it,
you know, to spend a good amount of time working
on the slope, direction, and amount piece and continually do it.
I continually do it like every class that I teach.
Before I go to teach it, I have to set
up the green and kind of measure some things, and
I'll walk out on the green and continually test myself
because I'm looking for specific numbers, so specific places that
will measure a certain amount, and I'll go walk over
to them and say, Okay, I think this is the
one I'm looking for measure and see how I did.
And so I'm constantly doing that process while while I'm
getting ready for the class and while I'm teaching and
things that ature, so that when I go play, it's
just part of what I do.
Speaker 2: But you said you started out as a good putter.
Does this make you a great putter.
Speaker 4: I make a lot. I'm not gonna lie to you.
I don't know what a great putter is. You know,
I don't play enough to be a what I would
consider a great putter because of time. Yeah, I mean
for the amount that I play, I'm a good putter.
Speaker 1: And will a poor putter.
Speaker 2: Somebody who just is you know, will will three put
ten times in a round or more? Is it?
Speaker 1: Are they going to see? Uh?
Speaker 2: Is this going to have an impact on their scoring
an loved amount of time?
Speaker 4: Yeah, for certainly. I mean the first thing that they're
gonna generally notice this at least have been in my
experience teaching it is that the number of three pots
usually decreases first above everything else, mainly because they've they've
chosen a target that is more appropriate than maybe what
they've chosen before. And the thing that most people don't
necessarily equate with the target is the target has kind
of a speed assumption based in it. You know, if
I've got some pot that's let's say, going to break
three or four feet, it's you know what we would
call it, you know, a fast downhill or something like that.
If I instead of choosing a four foot aim I
choose a one foot aim, the speed difference I would
have to hit those two to have any chance of
making them is so dramatically different that if I make
a mistake with the one that I aimed way too
close and I miss, now, I'm also six feet by
the hole, where if I choose a line that's significantly higher,
most people automatically start to say, well, goush, I've got
to hit this so soft now because it needs to
break that much. They've kind of learned intrinsically that that
relationship exists. You know that more break usually equals slower,
and they'll start to get their their miss is much
closer so that they can two putt first. In terms
of just some general relationships, and again kind of rules
of thumbs, a little bit of math. If if a
player underreads a putt by a foot but still has
the appropriate speed that we would they would put it
about a foot past the hole, they're going to miss
the hole by two feet. If they overread it by
a foot again with the appropriate speed, they missed the
hole by six inches. So if if they make a
mistake that's higher than their normal mistake, they're close to
their misses are going to be significantly closer.
Speaker 2: I'm going to stop you and ask you to define
under and over on that.
Speaker 4: So let's say the actual break for this particular putt
is a two foot break, or at least a two
foot aim, it will be a better way to say it.
And the golfer aims instead of at two feet, they
aim but at one foot, so they've underread the break
by a foot. Okay, if they hit that putt and
start it right at a foot out, they're going to
miss the whole two feet low if instead of choosing
the correct aim, which was two feet ly, instead they
aimed three feet out. So now they've overread it by
a foot. If they hit the same put with the
same speed, they only missed the whole by six inches.
Speaker 2: So you always want to overread just to touch.
Speaker 4: If you're gonna make a mistake.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're gonna make a mistake, yeah, right, right, right right?
And what is it that you see?
Speaker 2: Is there a consistent element that you notice for those
folks who do three putt a lot? Is there something
that you like? Yeah, oh, I'm finding this correlation between
all these bad putters.
Speaker 4: Generally, most people three pub because their touch is no
good because their speed is bad. Their their perception of.
Speaker 1: Is that a depth perception thing?
Speaker 4: I don't believe.
Speaker 1: So it's just touch, just practice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't even know if it's just practice, but
it's it's it's if they have the general idea in
their head that downhill putts are faster, they're already right
off the bad in big trouble. If I said to someone, okay,
let's say from here, I want this pott to roll
five seconds, or I want this put to roll three seconds,
their perception of the amount of effort required to do
that immediately changes. If I don't give them any information
at all and just say I want this ball to
go to the hole, They've got to now make some
kind of internal you know, adjustment based on their previous
experience to say, okay, well, this amount of steepness looks
like this. It feels like I'm going to hit it
this hard. There's a whole lot more guessing involved, if
you will, than if I was to say this someone, okay,
if and we could do this too, you know, if
we wanted to teach touch a little bit. You know,
we we have the amount of time each put should roll.
So as an idea to say to someone, Okay, I
want you to hit two pots, one that rolls three seconds,
the one that rolls five. Immediately they're going to do
something different, and then we not get a right But
they're going to hit the five second one differently than
they're going to hit the three second one.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm just flabbergasted. Does anybody ever consider the length
of time in their putt? I mean, you know, yeah,
I've got a twenty foot putt here, I've got a
ten foot putt here, But it's like you never say
I've got a four second putt here, do you?
Speaker 1: And is that a value to do that?
Speaker 4: Well, that's what we're trying to figure out. We were
trying to figure out if if there's better ways to
teach touch than just distance or just a speed equivalent.
Is time an option for learning to control touch. We're
just on the kind of on the fairly early beginnings
of at least testing that, so we don't really have
a good answer as to whether or not it's all
that useful. But as a general concept, I think it's
very very useful to try and get people to understand
that downhill pots should take more time than uphill pots,
things of that nature. Should you know, everyone should know
that whether or not a twenty foot put takes five
and a ten foot pot takes three. We're still trying
to figure out how much value that has, and it
may it may turn out to be, you know, individually,
some people really benefit from it, other people just don't
get it. It could go either way. We're, like I said,
we're just kind of getting started with that.
Speaker 2: Any courses that you've you've tested, been too taught on
that you just cannot figure out the breaks and and
the putts.
Speaker 4: No, really, there's there's no there's only there's only so
many things that can happen. I mean, the there's there's
a certain amount of steepness that the ground will generally have,
you know, aside from tiers and large areas, there is
generally going to be a minimum amount to get water
to move off of it. So we'll start with that
assumption right off the bat. There's very few flat actually
flat areas because the water will sit in and you know,
the the slope direction, uh, you know, can only be
a certain way. It's there. There's I mean, once you
understand really what you're looking for, the only the only
part of the green that's going to affect the ball
is the part the ball rolls on and actually touches,
So all the rest of it is completely ignorable. You know,
where the mountains are, where the high points on the
green are. All that stuff is completely ignorable if the
ball is not going to actually touch it. You know,
I need to figure out what the ground is doing
when the ball is actually rolling. And you know, once
once you learn how to do it and what you're
what you're looking for or feeling for, it's you know,
it's very hard to fool a person's balance, except maybe
you know, like late Friday night or late Saturday night
after a couple of drinks, you know, their balance isn't
so good. Aside from that, very few people fall down
when they walk, so their body is constantly making this
adjustment every single step that it takes. That's kind of
usually running in the background, and we're trying to take
that idea of that sensation and kind of pull it
to the forefront and say, you know, this footstep differently
than this one. Did it go up, did it go down?
Did you feel left or right? All of these sensations
are learnable and teachable, and then applicable.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: Now, I know that Mark Sweeney had talked about the
poems down in La Quinta as being the toughest, toughest
greens he'd ever dealt with, because I was down at
the Palms recently and met JD over there, and he
and doctor Craig Farnsworth, who also teaches aim Point It
teaches at that course, and JD was telling me that
Mark said that this is the you know, because there's
no pot over ten feet that doesn't have a double break.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, there's certainly greens that are harder to
read than others, at least in terms of the exact amount.
But if you get the direction of the break wrong,
I mean, that's a mistake I haven't made in years now, hmm,
that you think it's going to go right, it actually
goes the other way, that the whole idea should go
completely go away almost almost exclusive.
Speaker 1: Well that's huge in itself, yeah for a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 4: You know, knowing that it was going to go four
inches versus eight or whatever, that's you know, we'll all
make those mistakes, and especially you know, the hardest pots
to read. And this is the same as it always
has been. Are the ones that are the flattest looking,
flattest feeling, flattest actual surfaces that it's hard to perceive
the fall line and the slope of Mount Well because
theyre tend to be flat. Or ones that are a
little bit kind of crown is what we call. It
is kind of like a high spot that runs off
to a lows so you know, very subtle crowns, or
you know, constantly changing undulations, which you might see much
more over in Europe than you do here. Again there,
it's it's all doable. It's just you know, how accurately
can I do it in the amount of time necessary
to still play golf with people that will enjoy it.
You know, if it takes you more than twenty seconds
to read a straightforward putt, you know you're you're you're
doing it incorrectly. Certainly, more putts take more times, there
is more challenging.
Speaker 2: But I think that's just an amazing thing to think about.
The hardest puts to read are the flat ones. Yeah,
that's really really interesting.
Speaker 4: The hardest punts to make are the steeper ones. But
the hardest ones to read, right, I mean the steeper
sloped ones or the or the ones that are downhill
that are that are significally they're much more sensitive to
error in terms of our speed or direction, so they're
much much more difficult to make. But I can I mean,
if you think about it in terms of the variance
between the target that would be okay and the one
that's not. You know, a steeper pot that has an
incredible amount of break is going to be very sensitive
to the speed that you hit it, the amount of
time that it rolls for as to when and how
much the break occurs. That that that actual two target
is very very small. A flatter pot because there's not
going to be too much break in general anyways, the
margin for error in my skills is a little bit greater,
but getting an exact number of accuracy is harder because
it's hard to perceive exactly where I am, if that
makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so I know that aim Point offers once
you have your lessons, you've you've taken the clar and
been certified as an.
Speaker 1: Aim Point student.
Speaker 2: They have an iPhone app that people can use, but
they should not, and we really want to warn people,
at least what Mark was telling me, don't get the
app unless you've been taught.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it doesn't. It won't make much sense. There's I mean,
is the.
Speaker 2: App that is it helpful? Do you find it helpful
for a lot of people?
Speaker 4: The app is is helpful after you know what you're
looking at.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: It's basically just a big digital, blown up version of
the chart, So it has many more answers that are
kind of filled in where you don't have to extrapolate
so much and.
Speaker 2: Don't get a bubble level on your smartphone and lay
that out on the green.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That kind of could screw you up too, or would it?
I mean, if you were like, hang on a second,
I can tell you how steepid is. Let me just
take out my phone here and lay it down. Yeah,
well it's about four degrees there, it's yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, it would certainly give you some information, whether
or not you know what to do with it. How
to translate that into something useful as a whole other,
whole other thing.
Speaker 2: How can people get in touch with you if they
want to have you teach them?
Speaker 1: Do you do individual or do you mostly do clinics?
Speaker 4: I do I do both. I'll be in like I said,
I'll be in Phoenix next weekend doing some individual and
sem groups. So depending on well, you know.
Speaker 1: We say next weekend.
Speaker 2: But as we're recording this in the beginning of March,
and this is a podcast and somebody is now listening
to it in July, it doesn't help them.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, so the weekend of March tenth and eleventh,
that's coming up here. But in anyway, yes, I do
teach individuals and groups. The easiest way to reach me
is through email at John at John Graham golf dot com.
You can also tweet me. I'm a I'm a Twitter addict. Really,
Oh yeah, I'm I'm I've got real real If.
Speaker 1: You aren't familiar with podcasts, but you're all over.
Speaker 4: Twitter, I'm all over Twitter. I am all over it.
Speaker 1: What do you use really?
Speaker 2: What do you use it for? For for putting information
out or for absorbing information?
Speaker 4: I use it in every way that is imaginable. I
mainly use it to generate business. To be honest, really,
I would say ninety five percent of every clinic I've
ever taught has come from a contact through Twitter.
Speaker 1: That's very interesting.
Speaker 4: So I so, I mean I use it as you know,
both a content providing elements so that will hopefully generate
interests and then people will contact me say hey, that's
pretty neat. I want to learn about it more, and
then set up a class and know that nature. I mean,
there's it's for me. It's replaced news. I mean I
get information significantly faster. I mean, this is a funny story.
I remember I was. I was actually on my computer
the night that Tiger Woods had is incident where he
hit the fire hydrant, right, and within twenty minutes of
somebody tweeting about that, someone had already said, yeah, Ellen
came out smashed the thing with a nine iron and
he ran out the door and hit the fire hydrant.
I mean, someone in the neighborhood just told the whole story.
But if you are even hit the television was it
was really really interesting. I mean, you hear about earthquakes
the second thing happened. It's bizarre. It's a completely different
level of news that is, you know, instantaneous and unedited,
which certainly has dangers in its own right.
Speaker 1: Sure, but.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean I have older children, but they've said,
you know, who are tech very tech savvy, and they
have said, why do you read a newspaper it's yesterday's news,
you know, and if something is that important, it's going.
Speaker 1: To find me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh I find that so interesting. All right, Well, so
what is your Twitter handle?
Speaker 4: My Twitter handle is John Graham gallf same thing on Facebook.
You can find me there, John Graham Golf YouTube, John
Graham Golf. There's a pattern developing there.
Speaker 1: Yes, there is. And what do you have on YouTube?
Speaker 4: I have a couple of videos of ain Point of
different different things that we cover. I also have some
videos on some full swing information about some impact physics,
about deeplaying, things like that. Most most of my videos
tend to be more either visual illusions or optical things
like that, or factually based information that. Again I prefer
the I prefer things that I can prove and and
golf doesn't really have a lot of those things in it,
So I seek out which which ones there are, and
then I'm happy to share what I can find.
Speaker 2: Will do me a favor, favor, why don't you email
me links to two of your favorite aim Point YouTube
videos and I will put those on our blog. Since
we're doing two episodes, I'll associate one with each episode
and I'll put them on the golf Smarter blog in
the show notes and that so people can take a
peek at that and go find more of your stuff.
We'll definitely feature that as well.
Speaker 1: Absolutely sounds great.
Speaker 4: Thank you. I'll be happy to Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Great, great. Well, this has been absolutely fascinating. Thank you
very much for your time, and I wish all the
luck of the world because you're gonna need to be
very busy.
Speaker 1: You have four kids, You've.
Speaker 2: Got to make a lot of money. How many girls
you got, I'm sorry, how many girl daughters do you have?
Speaker 4: Just one? I have three older boys and a baby girl.
Speaker 1: Oh the princess, yes, oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I just recently saw oh, a teenage girl, I guess
driving down and uh in a convertible Volkswagen, And the
first thing that came to my mind was.
Speaker 1: But daddy, I want a convertible. Okay, princess, no problem.
Speaker 2: You're stuck, man, and you got to put all the
boys through college and then you got to have a wedding.
Oh man, you get back to work. What are you
doing sitting at home?
Speaker 1: Exactly where are you based?
Speaker 4: What part of them? For Rochester, New York?
Speaker 2: Okay, so yeah, you've you've got to get to a
place where you can do twelve months a year worth
of UH.
Speaker 1: Worth of teaching, or you travel a lot. Yeah. Oh man,
well this has been great. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Best of luck to you and and we'll we'll stay
in touch and hopefully if anybody has any questions that
will email me. I can send a rival to you,
but you already gave your email address.
Speaker 4: Yes, thank you, appreciate it. Thanks again for having me