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