Speaker 1: Hi, This is Alan Taylor from Fayetteville, Georgia, and I
Speaker 1: play at the Griffin City Golf Course. This is Golf
Speaker 1: Smarter number nine hundred and eighty six. What did Ben
Speaker 1: Hogan say about the more I practice, the luckier? Again,
Speaker 1: Paradoxers like drive for a show and puts for it
Speaker 1: don't really help people, right because they suggests that he
Speaker 1: the guy who has a long t shot may not
Speaker 1: be better than the guy who can quote unquote well,
Speaker 1: but with Mark Brodie's well, we realize that the guy
Speaker 1: who can hit the longest and have an unimpeded subsequent
Speaker 1: shot would score better than the guy who's shot and crooked,
Speaker 1: for example, or who's shot but in the fairway, simply
Speaker 1: because if I'm using a sandwich into the green, the
Speaker 1: chances of me getting closer to the flat would be
Speaker 1: higher than you who's using a six or five iron.
Speaker 1: And that's just basic principles of a ball flight. Because
Speaker 1: the more lost you have, more back spin, less sight spin,
Speaker 1: easier for you to send the ball where you're aiming.
Speaker 2: Here's what I teach that I've learned from listening to
Speaker 2: Golf Smarter with Singapore instructor Justin ten This is Golf Smarter,
Speaker 2: sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf minds to
Speaker 2: help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ.
Speaker 2: Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome back to the Golf
Speaker 2: Smarter podcast Justin.
Speaker 1: Hey Fret, thanks for having me back.
Speaker 2: On Absolutely you sent me a text recently and I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 2: no question, we need to discuss this. This is really
Speaker 2: awesome and it's like, here's what you said to me.
Speaker 2: With twenty years of coaching and learning from great coaches
Speaker 2: before me, I hammered out the below to to tell
Speaker 2: a PGA professional who asked you for mentorship and thought
Speaker 2: i'd share it with you as a lot of these
Speaker 2: things I learned from your podcast. Now, you and I
Speaker 2: have talked about what you gathered from Tony Manzoni in
Speaker 2: the years that we had him on, and that you've
Speaker 2: also shared with me that as a golf instructor in Singapore,
Speaker 2: you've been using Golf Smarter as a resource to learn
Speaker 2: what other teachers are talking about. And I'm so flattered
Speaker 2: by that. I really appreciate it, and I've heard other
Speaker 2: instructors say the same thing. So when you gave me
Speaker 2: this list of nine things and we'll go through all
Speaker 2: of them. I was just blown away of how impressive
Speaker 2: this was that you would use this and that you
Speaker 2: got this information from the teachers that we have on
Speaker 2: the show. Thank you.
Speaker 1: No, it's my pleasure to be able to share the
Speaker 1: material that I learned. And it's really about increasing enjoyment
Speaker 1: in the game, right. If you're talking about growing the game,
Speaker 1: who wants to play a game that's painful? So you
Speaker 1: look at the word g o lf in reverse, it's flog.
Speaker 1: No one wants to flog themselves. And I think, and
Speaker 1: I think that the approach that I use is far
Speaker 1: easier for people to gain some kind of mastery of
Speaker 1: the golf swing so that they can enjoy the game.
Speaker 1: I think these are two very different things. If you
Speaker 1: manage to hit decent enough shots for your skill level,
Speaker 1: the enjoyment of the game will come, maybe slowly, but surely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but golf. Getting better at golf learning about golf
Speaker 2: is a slow process.
Speaker 1: Indeed, learning about the game of golf the golf swing
Speaker 1: is no different from learning a new habit. And for
Speaker 1: someone to learn the game the swing effectively, we need
Speaker 1: to understand that we are teaching human beings that's point one.
Speaker 1: We are teaching human beings, not golfers. And that's something
Speaker 1: that I learned from. But Charmond and I understan what
Speaker 1: I want to get across is most coaches need to
Speaker 1: first do sect finding. You've got to be a great
Speaker 1: fact finder. You've got to understand what's the student's KPI,
Speaker 1: not your KPI. Most instructors feel that their KPI is
Speaker 1: all going to show the student in front of me
Speaker 1: how brilliant I am.
Speaker 2: But no, maybe I need to stop you for a
Speaker 2: second when you say that's.
Speaker 1: The key performance indicator.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So a lot of coaches think that the student wants
Speaker 1: to hear the latest and greatest in the world of
Speaker 1: golf swing technique golf swing technology, but actually maybe all
Speaker 1: he wants to do is to hit the ball better
Speaker 1: so they can enjoy his weekend game with his buddies.
Speaker 1: And then we also need to understand the students constraints,
Speaker 1: like what's his real ambition versus his reality? His ambition
Speaker 1: may not be scratched to be a scratch golfer, and
Speaker 1: here we are. Sometimes we see great junior in front
Speaker 1: of us with a great swing, like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: you should play college golf. Hey, maybe all he wants
Speaker 1: to do is just to get out there and the open,
Speaker 1: enjoy some fresh air, beat balls with his buddies, and
Speaker 1: that's it, Like that's his idea of fun. And when
Speaker 1: it comes to their reality, maybe a seventh year old
Speaker 1: guy is not going to fit into your idea of
Speaker 1: a great golf swing, right, And that's physical constraints. And
Speaker 1: I think once once coaches look at that as a business,
Speaker 1: do their proper fact fine, then it's easier to kind
Speaker 1: of define the problem that's in front of us. But
Speaker 1: we can define the problem that's in front of us,
Speaker 1: we can, then we're then in a better place to
Speaker 1: be able to solve it with effective techniques. Yeah, and absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think once you understand that, then it's the next
Speaker 1: step would probably be to understand that if we're teaching
Speaker 1: human beings, then there must always be room for outliers.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of coaches make the mistake of like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's going to be black and white. I think coaching
Speaker 1: is not black end. Coaching human beings is more like
Speaker 1: fifty shades of grain.
Speaker 2: So I'd love to know more about, like how this
Speaker 2: came about that you made this list you said that
Speaker 2: a new PGA professional asked you for mentorship, and so
Speaker 2: did you just rattle off some ideas that you had
Speaker 2: or did you go let me get back to you
Speaker 2: and you sat down and just started writing things and
Speaker 2: where were you pulling them from? And then we'll get
Speaker 2: into the list, although you've already started.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So most professionals in Singapore, Asia know that I've
Speaker 1: got a I've got it a heart drive here, it's
Speaker 1: four gigabytes SSD samsum T seven. I'm fond of telling
Speaker 1: them that this hard drive is probably worth something like
Speaker 1: US one hundred thousand, like the amount of money is
Speaker 1: spent on buying material. Ah, yeah, it's probably worth it
Speaker 1: in that region. So he said that, hey, do you
Speaker 1: do you mind if if you shared the contents of
Speaker 1: that hard drive with me? I go like, okay, but
Speaker 1: how do I sift out what's relevant and what's irrelevant
Speaker 1: for you? Because in my evolution as a coach, I've
Speaker 1: started off as a very technical instructor golfing machine stack
Speaker 1: until more to the very soft skills of coaching where
Speaker 1: you kind of understand students mental type than to anatomy
Speaker 1: a person's body type. How each how different segments of
Speaker 1: the body interact with one another, and I go like,
Speaker 1: you know what, if I just gave you the material
Speaker 1: like that, it's I'm gonna do you a big disservice
Speaker 1: because it took me years to understand the material and
Speaker 1: even longer to put them together. I believe we spoke
Speaker 1: about my performance Pentagon before. It's not just a full
Speaker 1: swing technique. It's also skill development. Then it's also how
Speaker 1: the human brain acquires skill, retains skill, and then ultimately
Speaker 1: reproduces it under pressure. So it's it's not just that,
Speaker 1: oh this is black, this is white, it's how do
Speaker 1: these different segments together? And I go like, okay, I
Speaker 1: don't want to just blow you off and say oh,
Speaker 1: you can't have it, but like, what what can I
Speaker 1: tell him that sets him in the right direction. So
Speaker 1: there was in the saw. I was in a sauna
Speaker 1: and he texted me the stuff. It's okay, let's just
Speaker 1: bang this out together. And I was quite surprised that
Speaker 1: I managed to come up with nine ten things. And
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, you know what I should I
Speaker 1: should share this with Fred and my other mentors who
Speaker 1: have been kind enough to put together an amazing roster
Speaker 1: of instructors to citing our technical knowledge of coaching.
Speaker 2: Hm hmm. Yeah. I recently heard that someone said, and
Speaker 2: it's so true, and you've just supported it, that golf
Speaker 2: really can't be taught, it has to be learned. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yes, so I tell I tell friends this. Some things
Speaker 1: are taught, something are taught, Like, it's very difficult to
Speaker 1: go teach someone how to coach, like, it's got to
Speaker 1: be in need. You're going to have the desire to
Speaker 1: want to help people improve. And for great coaches that
Speaker 1: I've learned from, they always want to be a better
Speaker 1: version of themselves, and not just that, right, they also
Speaker 1: want their students to be a better version of themselves.
Speaker 1: And you can't you can't really help people unless you
Speaker 1: are constantly on the quest of how do I make
Speaker 1: this easier for the person in front of me? How
Speaker 1: can I give them better information in an easy to
Speaker 1: understand manner. And that brings me to the second point
Speaker 1: of the list community.
Speaker 2: Well, the first one being let me just say that
Speaker 2: the first one on the list was we are teaching
Speaker 2: human beings, not golfers. So you did cover that already.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 2: Let's we'll get to number two. But let's step aside
Speaker 2: for a second for some of our sponsors, to let
Speaker 2: them let everybody know who they are. We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: All right, I'm gonna just go ahead and read this
Speaker 2: and then I'll let you elaborate on it. And it's
Speaker 2: number two on your list. Is communication is the most
Speaker 2: important skill in transmitting ideas, yet gets the least attention.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of golf coaches. When you tell them, hey,
Speaker 1: come to my seminar for the latest and greatest in
Speaker 1: three D emotion analysis ground reaction forces, they'll come. But
Speaker 1: if you say, come and learn how to communicate effectively
Speaker 1: to your students, I don't think that's quite as popular. However,
Speaker 1: if you are unable to get ideas across, how can
Speaker 1: you be effective? So that to me is a great
Speaker 1: skill that is more often than not neglected. I think
Speaker 1: you need to understand your student's worldview. Do they have
Speaker 1: any previous sports they play that we can relate to.
Speaker 1: That's extremely important and I find that once you understand
Speaker 1: those things, the learning curve deepens dramatically. And in communication
Speaker 1: of golf swing technique, I understand also that there is
Speaker 1: relative approach and an absolute approach. What does that mean,
Speaker 1: So on an absolute basis, if you're off plane, you
Speaker 1: know you're off playing, you come across the top outside
Speaker 1: and as the case maybe, but from a relative basis,
Speaker 1: you might want to tell the student, hey, you know
Speaker 1: what you're stringing, so farther the left, you need to
Speaker 1: feel that you're going to the right in almost forty
Speaker 1: five degrees. Now are they able to do that? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: they're not going to have a string path that's inside
Speaker 1: out by forty five degrees, But on a relative basis
Speaker 1: they might feel that way. And it's your job as
Speaker 1: the instructor to say, hey, I'm trying to get you
Speaker 1: to exaggerate so that your extreme into our path will
Speaker 1: cancel out your extreme out to inpath. That's basically the
Speaker 1: approach that the great John Jacobs too. And once you
Speaker 1: help students to understand that what you feel is not
Speaker 1: exactly what's happening, learning can be accelerated very, very dramatically.
Speaker 2: Well, the way i'd like to look at number two,
Speaker 2: I know that you're you've made this list for a
Speaker 2: PGA professional, and these are tips for PGA professionals with
Speaker 2: their students, but I think this is also an important
Speaker 2: tip for a student to be able to understand about
Speaker 2: their instructor. That communication is the most important skill in
Speaker 2: transmitting ideas. It gets the least attention. So for a student,
Speaker 2: if they feel like the instructor they're working with isn't
Speaker 2: communicating on a level that they understand, maybe they should.
Speaker 2: It's okay, leave a teacher, right, I mean, you're not
Speaker 2: committed to this person, you know by marriage.
Speaker 1: I think as an instructor, you want to be able
Speaker 1: to communicate complicated ideas in a manner that a seven
Speaker 1: year old can understand. It need not be complicated, and
Speaker 1: most students don't really want to know things like ground
Speaker 1: reaction forces. Again goes back to the point number one,
Speaker 1: what's their key performance indicator. They're not there to learn
Speaker 1: how to be a golf coach. They're not there to
Speaker 1: be certified in ground reaction forces. That's the instructor's job,
Speaker 1: and the instructor's job when the student is in front
Speaker 1: of them, is to make what my mentor, Jim Hardy said,
Speaker 1: make the next ball better. That's that's our job. That's
Speaker 1: how we imagine. But I don't think students are going
Speaker 1: to give me five stars because like, wow, Justin knows
Speaker 1: everything every new ones there can be in in the
Speaker 1: golf grip. But you help him hit his next shot better.
Speaker 1: That's all he cares about, and that's what he will
Speaker 1: be telling his weekend foursome about.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, let's move on to number three, which I was
Speaker 2: gonna go, oh, that's something we talk about on the show. Well,
Speaker 2: this is your list is based on what we talk
Speaker 2: about on the show.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And then, and I say this a lot, is that
Speaker 2: you know, hitting a golf ball is not the same
Speaker 2: as playing golf. And the way you write it here
Speaker 2: is there's the golf swing and there's the game of golf.
Speaker 2: Great instructors know when to teach which one. Yeah, excellent point.
Speaker 1: So the golf swing makes a golf shot, and you're
Speaker 1: making enough golf shots, that's the game of golf. So
Speaker 1: maybe for beginners it's really about the golf shot, the
Speaker 1: golf swing, so you work on things like that. But
Speaker 1: for a good player, I'm talking about guys with five
Speaker 1: handicaps and below, is it really the golf shot or
Speaker 1: are there other parts of his golf game that needs addressing, Strategy,
Speaker 1: maybe fitness, Maybe it's this mental approach. So earlier we
Speaker 1: talked about surfing, there's the surfer, there's the surf board,
Speaker 1: and there's the waves. So what's outside of our control
Speaker 1: would be the waves. And sometimes good golfers need to understand, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know, my technique is of a sufficiently proficient level,
Speaker 1: got decent equipment that's fitted to me. But hey, if
Speaker 1: we're talking about a thirty mile gale win, then is
Speaker 1: this really a day for shooting sixty six? Well, if
Speaker 1: you could, or credit to you, right, But sometimes it's
Speaker 1: expectations and the outcome. And once you understand that, then
Speaker 1: you know, I suppose there is more acceptance and it
Speaker 1: won't be so hard on yourself. You probably enjoy the
Speaker 1: game more and that ironically could lead to a better score.
Speaker 1: And as an instructor, again all goes back to point
Speaker 1: number one. What does the human being in front of
Speaker 1: you want. Some guys just are interested in having a
Speaker 1: pretty string. That's fine, we can do that. Some people
Speaker 1: are interested in the golf score, that's fine, we can
Speaker 1: work on that. Whatever you want, what's your kpi? We
Speaker 1: will work together to achieve that. There is no right
Speaker 1: or wrong. It's what the guy in front of you
Speaker 1: paying for the lesson once but Keviat sometimes you got
Speaker 1: to set expectations right. You've got to make sure that
Speaker 1: his demands are realistic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a show that we recently did about
Speaker 2: the teacher who uses the bell chart, the bell curve
Speaker 2: of PGA that every golfer has on their scorecard, and
Speaker 2: that is poor rounds, good rounds, average rounds right PGA.
Speaker 2: And so you can you know, if you're a seventy shooter,
Speaker 2: you can say to yourself, well, listen, I shot a
Speaker 2: seventy nine today or an eighty one. Okay, that's a
Speaker 2: poor round for me. I would love to be in
Speaker 2: that position. For me, that would be a good round.
Speaker 2: But for me eighty two eighty five, that's an average round, right,
Speaker 2: And a good round would be you know, just above
Speaker 2: eighty or just below that, and I'd be happy that.
Speaker 2: But we have to accept that, we have to understand
Speaker 2: that it happens on any day you're out there to
Speaker 2: every golfer at every level.
Speaker 1: Some days you get a good waste and some days
Speaker 1: mediocre ifts. And golf is such a great metaphor for life,
Speaker 1: for we have great days, we have not so good days,
Speaker 1: and some days is outright bad.
Speaker 2: Oh, justin I'm having so much fun with this. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Let's move on to number four of this list of yours,
Speaker 2: and that is the game of golf must be taught
Speaker 2: using a data driven approach. I'd like some explanation on
Speaker 2: that one.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the buzzword right now, right with artificial intelligence,
Speaker 1: but it's it's basically making. It's going back again to
Speaker 1: point one, that finding. So you've got the guy's KPI,
Speaker 1: But is your diagnosis of his swing law accurate or not?
Speaker 1: Like people talk of all your stings outside in okay,
Speaker 1: for a twenty four handicap, but you don't really need
Speaker 1: camera to see that. You can tell from his movement pattern.
Speaker 1: You can tell from the big old slice or the
Speaker 1: pull he's hitten. But what about for a zero handicap
Speaker 1: a scratch player, do you really know whether it's in
Speaker 1: three degrees into out or is it six? And the
Speaker 1: face to path is it three one point five? We
Speaker 1: don't know until you put him in front of track
Speaker 1: man of some Rada device. So things like that you
Speaker 1: want to be making. You want to make sure that
Speaker 1: as an instructor, you're truly working on cause and effect
Speaker 1: and not spurious correlation. And if your instructor is just guessing,
Speaker 1: then maybe the solution that has come up coming up
Speaker 1: with is just guess work, and one day it works
Speaker 1: because of luck, next day it doesn't work. As an instructor,
Speaker 1: you want to be effective, meaning to say that everything
Speaker 1: you work on produces a correct result. Again, I quote
Speaker 1: Jim Hardy. It says that if the next ball is
Speaker 1: not better, then either the student is not doing it
Speaker 1: correctly or you gave the wrong diagnosis. The only way
Speaker 1: to ensure a correct diagnosis is to make sure you've
Speaker 1: got the tools to provide the facts. Why guess when
Speaker 1: you can measure when you go to a physician. Imagine
Speaker 1: the physicians say, oh, let me guess what you have.
Speaker 1: Nobody would stay in that triage if the physician says,
Speaker 1: I'm going to guess what's the cause of your problem?
Speaker 1: But instead, physicians have a defined list, They have instruments
Speaker 1: they can use to verify your condition. And it must
Speaker 1: be the same when it comes to golf instruction. And
Speaker 1: that brings me to the next part of the golf swing.
Speaker 1: The golf swing it nive number five. The golf swing
Speaker 1: is not a beauty contest. Just look at Jim Fury.
Speaker 1: Let me give you. Let me give you some statistics.
Speaker 1: Jim shot fifty eight and fifty nine into separate PGA
Speaker 1: Tour events. He has career earnings of seventy one and
Speaker 1: a half million dollars. Let's take that in. Let us
Speaker 1: just pause and dig that in. I know of a
Speaker 1: lot of professional golfers who would want to do that,
Speaker 1: who would want to achieve that. So your swing system,
Speaker 1: as a coach, it's got to be robust enough to
Speaker 1: explain why esthetically displeasing swings can produce a concert in ballfler.
Speaker 1: It may not look the way you want it to look,
Speaker 1: it may not look to your definition of beauty, but
Speaker 1: we still need to understand why that works. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about having a robust string system. So it's not
Speaker 1: just about looking at the golf swing from a certain perspective.
Speaker 1: You need to be able to understand all the different
Speaker 1: systems out there so that your swing system can explain anomally.
Speaker 1: Actually it's not really an anomaly. If a swing can
Speaker 1: produce consistently low scores, it behooves the instructor understand why
Speaker 1: it works. And if you don't understand why, it's because
Speaker 1: your string system and you're understand standing is lacking. It's
Speaker 1: not complete. And the great instructors that I know, like
Speaker 1: Butch Harmon, Thought Harmon, Peek Cowen, they don't. When you
Speaker 1: look at all of their students, all of their swings
Speaker 1: look sally different. You can't you can't shoebox them and say, hey,
Speaker 1: that's Butch Harmon's guy. Those are those guys are Peak
Speaker 1: Cowvin's guy. Because what every human is built differently proportionally. Sure,
Speaker 1: we have we have generally we have one hit, we
Speaker 1: have two arms, we've got two legs, but the proportions
Speaker 1: of them in relation to one another differs. And because
Speaker 1: they differ, by design, all the swings should look different.
Speaker 2: And that's another very important point for golfers to understand
Speaker 2: that the golf swing is not a beauty contest that
Speaker 2: you don't have have to try to swing like fill
Speaker 2: in the blank here, Adam. Your body has your own
Speaker 2: yeah right, your your body has its own limitations. You
Speaker 2: may not work that hard at your body, you know,
Speaker 2: to be a have a golfer's body, and you may
Speaker 2: but don't have expectations of what it's supposed to look like.
Speaker 2: And you know, like every for the years that I've
Speaker 2: been pretty much in my whole life recording people or
Speaker 2: even taking photographs. There's so many people go, I hate
Speaker 2: the way I sound I when I hear a recording
Speaker 2: of myself. Well that's what you sound like. Well that's
Speaker 2: what your golf swing looks like. I hate my photo.
Speaker 2: I hate the way I look in this picture. That's
Speaker 2: because that's what you look like. I'm sorry, And that's
Speaker 2: what your golf swing looks like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, you know, at some level, I think we
Speaker 1: should celebrate our differences rather than I would be something
Speaker 1: that we are really not. You know, if golf, if
Speaker 1: the golf sing is the be all and end all
Speaker 1: of the game of golf, then Adam Scott should have
Speaker 1: a career that's close to Tiger Woods. What because I
Speaker 1: think when he came out his golf swing looked almost
Speaker 1: like a replica of Tiger Woods sing. But we know
Speaker 1: that his career his great career, but it's never mentioned
Speaker 1: at the same in the same conversation as Tiger Woods.
Speaker 1: So the game of golf is more than just the
Speaker 1: golf swing. We need to remember that.
Speaker 2: So what separates those two guys?
Speaker 1: What from your perspective, Obviously it's a mental approach to
Speaker 1: the game of golf, Like, that's something that's very intangible, right,
Speaker 1: we don't know how they think, especially under pressure. That
Speaker 1: is something that you can't really see when you're looking
Speaker 1: at a telecast. I mean, what's the stories that's going
Speaker 1: through in their hits. We don't know, and no one's
Speaker 1: going to let you into their mental space. But all
Speaker 1: we can see is golf enteredy Like, oh, his off
Speaker 1: plane on plane, it's got ten planes. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's difficult, right, And the commentators on the broadcast certainly
Speaker 1: don't help me, and they say, oh, he came over
Speaker 1: the top, Like goes back to fact finding, like, really,
Speaker 1: do we really know for sure that he came over
Speaker 1: the top, because I'm fond of saying this, right, what
Speaker 1: does how many degrees? There's one minute on the watch
Speaker 1: phase represent it's six degrees. Can you really tell what's
Speaker 1: six degrees with your naked eye? It's really really difficult,
Speaker 1: And six degrees can make or break your golf shot.
Speaker 1: Is the difference. It can be the difference between a
Speaker 1: push draw or a.
Speaker 2: Hook from your perspective. Watching his career go by, Tiger
Speaker 2: has made many swing changes when he comes out again
Speaker 2: and says, Okay, I'm going to start playing now. But
Speaker 2: I've made these swing changes. I'm doing this. Do you
Speaker 2: see the difference? Do you see that there is a
Speaker 2: big change.
Speaker 1: Yes, there is a big change. And when you talk
Speaker 1: about successful swing changes, I think it. Throughout the history
Speaker 1: of golf, probably only two guys have made swing changes
Speaker 1: successfully and come out on the other side better. The
Speaker 1: first one was Nick Foudo with his book with David Letbetter,
Speaker 1: and the second one would be Tiger Woods. But if
Speaker 1: you look through the history of quote unquote swing changes,
Speaker 1: they are not going to find many successful examples. So
Speaker 1: it's almost like this, right, Imagine I'm a missionin star chef.
Speaker 1: I's got this great recipe for cheesecake. Call it, and
Speaker 1: then suddenly I tell your friend I want to improve
Speaker 1: the recipe. I'm going to revamp the whole thing. Does
Speaker 1: it make sense? You'd be going like, justin, You've got
Speaker 1: the winning formula for cheesecake. Look at the lines outside
Speaker 1: your shot. Now you want to change the recipe. You could.
Speaker 1: I could come up with a better recipe, but what
Speaker 1: is the probability of that? That's a very high bar decline.
Speaker 1: So instead of just looking at a better golf game
Speaker 1: as Okay, if I improve my swing, I'm going to
Speaker 1: shoot lower scores, take a more holistic view, and I
Speaker 1: clean up my diet. What skills am I lacking? For example,
Speaker 1: around the green strategically? Am I making mistakes that cost
Speaker 1: me in the long run?
Speaker 2: All right, here we go with number six of nine,
Speaker 2: and then I love this one. The scorecard only records scores,
Speaker 2: not swing technique. And it follows up to what we
Speaker 2: were just talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. At the end of the day, when you
Speaker 1: meet your buddies at the clubhouse after your run and
Speaker 1: when we go how did you play? We are only
Speaker 1: interested in all I shot two under paw ten over par.
Speaker 1: That's all we care about.
Speaker 2: He's not.
Speaker 1: No one's going to hang around and say, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: oh you used that left sided swing today. How was
Speaker 1: it all today? I use the center swing today? Or
Speaker 1: last week I used the right sided string didn't work
Speaker 1: so well? Oh I switched coaches. No one's interested in that.
Speaker 1: All we care about is, hey, Fred, you shot two
Speaker 1: underpart you beat me by two holes. Here's your money.
Speaker 1: That's all we care about. And on Twitter it's the
Speaker 1: same thing. No one really, there is no column for
Speaker 1: oh okay, just then use the swing technique today. He
Speaker 1: should he should have a score of six underpart doesn't
Speaker 1: work that way, and it again goes back to what
Speaker 1: are we trying to do. If your aim is to
Speaker 1: have lower scores, then you've got to do proper fact finding.
Speaker 1: Where am I losing scores? But if your aim is
Speaker 1: playing golf swing, then you know we will help you
Speaker 1: beautify your swing. But that the caveat is that may
Speaker 1: not lead to lower scores.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. I kind of threw someone back recently.
Speaker 2: I was playing with them, and I've played with this
Speaker 2: person many many times. But one time I hit the
Speaker 2: ball and he said, oh, that was a great swing.
Speaker 2: And I got him off guard because I said, you know,
Speaker 2: you've seen my swing a lot. What was different about that?
Speaker 2: Why are you now saying that was a great swing?
Speaker 1: What did I do?
Speaker 2: But please tell me? He had nothing to say. He
Speaker 2: was like, I just nice and fluid there. Okay, great,
Speaker 2: But you know, but when someone says that to you,
Speaker 2: ask them why. Maybe you're gonna learn something. Maybe you're
Speaker 2: gonna learn.
Speaker 1: Something rather than a quick, jerky, unsynchronized sing. But great
Speaker 1: golf shots. That's the opposite. I guess it's also a maturity.
Speaker 1: Sure that when I started teaching golf gosh way banging
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, I'm like, you know what if
Speaker 1: every one of my students sung the same way flat
Speaker 1: letters I love golfing machine like I would have, I
Speaker 1: would be a happy coach. But being is on, I
Speaker 1: realized that that's just one part of effective coaching.
Speaker 2: And it brings us to number seven, which is interesting
Speaker 2: because you you advise this teacher to tell his students
Speaker 2: beware of false sayings like drive for show and put
Speaker 2: for dough. Yeah, and the list goes on and on
Speaker 2: and on about things like that. My my ley'st favorite
Speaker 2: is I'd rather be lucky than good. Not me, I'd
Speaker 2: rather be good and have occasional luck. Thank you.
Speaker 1: What would it Ben Hogan say about the hotter the
Speaker 1: more I practice, the luckier again? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Paradoxas like drive for show and put for don't don't
Speaker 1: really help people because it suggests that, hey, the guy
Speaker 1: who can hit a long who has a long t
Speaker 1: shot may not be better than the guy who can
Speaker 1: quote unquote well. But with Mark Brodie's well, we realize
Speaker 1: that the guy who can hit the longest and have
Speaker 1: an unimpeded subsequent shot would score better than the guy
Speaker 1: who's start and crooked, for example, or who's stopt but
Speaker 1: in the fair way, because simply because if I'm using
Speaker 1: a sandwich into the green, the chances of me getting
Speaker 1: closer to the flag would be higher than you who's
Speaker 1: using a six or five iron. And that's just just
Speaker 1: just the basic principles of a ball flight. Because the
Speaker 1: more loft you have, more backspin, less sight spin, easier
Speaker 1: for you to send the ball where you're aiming. So
Speaker 1: we could be really careful with paradoxes like that. Another
Speaker 1: one is all drive the hips for power. Now, the
Speaker 1: technology that we have these days, it's like, yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what hip rotation speeds on the LPGA Tour, it's
Speaker 1: higher than the PGA Tour one or simply because the
Speaker 1: men have stronger upper body, and that's really where steel
Speaker 1: is generated from. Case in point, I've played with the
Speaker 1: military vets who've lost one or two legs, but you know,
Speaker 1: you strap them onto a special golf cart. These guys
Speaker 1: can still hit the ball, get the ball out there
Speaker 1: a decently long way. It's arm speed isn't it. But again,
Speaker 1: you don't want the yeah. You don't want to just
Speaker 1: say or just have strong arms. Sorry. Ideally, again we
Speaker 1: look at the golfing. It's not black and white. It's
Speaker 1: always sifty shades of gray. It's more I call taking
Speaker 1: a neutral, balanced approach. The game of a decent girls
Speaker 1: wing is not too much arms and not too much body.
Speaker 1: It's enough arms and enough body, not too steep, not
Speaker 1: too shallow. It's basically the Goldilocks approach. And as an instructor,
Speaker 1: once you understand how to balance out the different components
Speaker 1: in the swim, your student's next ball can indeed be better.
Speaker 1: It's not some pipe dream. But again, to get to
Speaker 1: that level, back to what we say about it's not
Speaker 1: a one size fits all approach. You need to understand
Speaker 1: all the various techniques. And when you look at a
Speaker 1: student swing in front of you, it's almost like click,
Speaker 1: click here does this? It goes here? Oh, and hang on,
Speaker 1: he's also doing this. It's like a decision tree that
Speaker 1: finally spits out this is what you're going to do
Speaker 1: for him. It's knowing all the techniques, seeing enough things,
Speaker 1: being able to apply an effective solution there and then okay,
Speaker 1: you got this, do that, and that's what keeps students
Speaker 1: a coming back for more and be telling their friends
Speaker 1: that's the best advertisement you can have.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and also leads us up to number eight. For
Speaker 2: an instructor, you must be a master of anatomy to
Speaker 2: understand anatomical cause and effect, things like the explain that place.
Speaker 1: So if you don't understand how the body works, it's
Speaker 1: very difficult to create a quote unquote certain look. Like
Speaker 1: for example, if if a student is early extending and
Speaker 1: then you look at his grip, like, yeah, of course
Speaker 1: it's early extending. It's got a weak grip. His face
Speaker 1: is way open at the top. To close the face,
Speaker 1: he's going to extend his trail arm right, so that's
Speaker 1: going to cause his body to live, his hips to
Speaker 1: extend forward towards the ball, Like that's a no brainer.
Speaker 1: Not that that that type of string is wrong. Jack
Speaker 1: Nicholas had had more vertical forces in his string. You
Speaker 1: could see his hips go towards the ball on the
Speaker 1: downswing compared to see a surgery here, compared to say
Speaker 1: Gary Woodland. Now, if you understand how the body works,
Speaker 1: then as an instructor, you could say, hey, you know
Speaker 1: you want more and more rotary string. You're going to
Speaker 1: stand further away from the ball, that more forward flexion
Speaker 1: of the trunk, You're going to have maybe perhaps a
Speaker 1: stronger grip because your brain knows my face is a
Speaker 1: bit shut at the top. I've got to rotate a
Speaker 1: bit more. I can't release the club with my by
Speaker 1: extending my right arm. Your brain understands all that. I mean,
Speaker 1: you give the student a queue to strengthen, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to have you hit a little fad David Duval.
Speaker 1: Then you can create changes down the timeline of the swing.
Speaker 1: But if you don't understand how the body works in
Speaker 1: relation to one another, good luck trying to create a
Speaker 1: certain look. So, for example, if you want your student
Speaker 1: to have more more rotary look at at the point
Speaker 1: of impact, you don't. You don't fix the elements that
Speaker 1: encourages that. You're not going You're never going to get
Speaker 1: him to have that look. You're never going to get
Speaker 1: him more to have his tosso more open and impact.
Speaker 1: I mean, why would he when his club phase is
Speaker 1: way open and you want to get him to open
Speaker 1: up even more. Well, that's like trying to help him
Speaker 1: ingrain as fortier the push lines, so cause and effect
Speaker 1: not spurious correlation.
Speaker 2: Okay, we're going to do one more segment here, and
Speaker 2: because not only do we have your ninth point of
Speaker 2: your list, but I wanted to throw something at you
Speaker 2: that that was motivated by you sending me this list.
Speaker 2: And we'll talk about that in a minute, but let's
Speaker 2: go to your last one here, and number nine is
Speaker 2: you must be a master of the mind and body connection.
Speaker 2: As desire creates intentions which create forces on the club
Speaker 2: expressed in the motion of the swing. Yeah, please break that.
Speaker 1: Im intentions create sources on the club expressing the motion
Speaker 1: of the swing. What does that mean? If your student
Speaker 1: thinks that the golf club as a specula used to
Speaker 1: lift the ball up in the air, he is always
Speaker 1: going to be on his trail foot trying to hoist
Speaker 1: the ball up. Certainly you could work for a shorter
Speaker 1: club like the Sandwich, but good luck if you're trying
Speaker 1: to use a fairy wood off the deck. So by
Speaker 1: understanding a student's intentions with what they're trying to do
Speaker 1: with a particular club or a particular shot, you can
Speaker 1: you can quickly change that intention and once you explain
Speaker 1: to them, Hey, look, the street spot of the club
Speaker 1: is on the fourth or fifth groove of the seven iron,
Speaker 1: and we're trying to use the seven iron to hit
Speaker 1: slightly down on the ball. And when you get that
Speaker 1: across to them, his intentions would then force him or
Speaker 1: her to shift their way onto the lead side in
Speaker 1: order to get that fourth and fifth line on the
Speaker 1: face of the ball. Voila. We create saffnin, we create
Speaker 1: a lower ball flight, and you explain, hey, the ball,
Speaker 1: the ball is going to take off based on the a,
Speaker 1: the dynamic love that you're creating, and the angle of
Speaker 1: this of the golf club.
Speaker 2: Oh my, I think I just realized why I've been
Speaker 2: struggling with my six iron rightly, and that's because I'm
Speaker 2: hitting it way too low on the club on the
Speaker 2: club face. I'm not getting it up, I'm not hitting
Speaker 2: it in the direction I'm aiming, and I need to
Speaker 2: come down a little more and hit it higher up
Speaker 2: on the club face. My interpreting that correct.
Speaker 1: Yes, So what would be quite helpful for a lot
Speaker 1: of golfers. And this is one of my most popular
Speaker 1: Instagram clips. I actually drew a smiley face and a
Speaker 1: dot on the fourth and fifth group, And all I
Speaker 1: told students was, let's make the dot touch the center
Speaker 1: of the ball, so that that kind of freed them
Speaker 1: up from all the competing thoughts in their head. I'm
Speaker 1: going to keep my left arm straight, keep the hit center. Now,
Speaker 1: if all you're trying to do is to get the
Speaker 1: dot on the ball, you know what, You're going to
Speaker 1: have a fairly centered base of your neck. You're going
Speaker 1: to have your center of gravity favoring your your lead side.
Speaker 1: You're going to have your shoulders kind of your trail
Speaker 1: shoulders slightly tilting down towards the ball, so that at
Speaker 1: the as your club face is approaching the ball, it's
Speaker 1: doing so on downward angle of the ta. And guess what,
Speaker 1: you're going to have some some difits after you hit
Speaker 1: the shot, which is probably one of the most satisfying
Speaker 1: things you could do when blame golf on the golf course.
Speaker 2: M oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: The other extension of the mind body connection is helping
Speaker 1: students understand besides intention, it's also helping them understand how
Speaker 1: your body makes changes. So it's not just telling that, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what you're going to this is your your
Speaker 1: swing error, but it's also okay, this is your string error.
Speaker 1: This is how I would change it, how I would
Speaker 1: change it for you. Maybe you go to the top
Speaker 1: of the swing. This is what it feels like even
Speaker 1: though it feels wrong. Look, I'm taking a picture of
Speaker 1: your correct position at the top of the backswing. This
Speaker 1: is what it looks like. They go, wow, okay, it's
Speaker 1: very different like what I feel and what actually happens
Speaker 1: totally different. And something I learned from doctor Scotland was
Speaker 1: reactive neural muscular training. So a lot of the weekend
Speaker 1: golfers that I teach don't really have that mind body
Speaker 1: connection of like, oh, okay, this is what a position
Speaker 1: feels like. So for example, if I'm getting them to
Speaker 1: have a quote unquote shallower shaft plane on the down swing,
Speaker 1: I would say, hey, I'm going to steepen the shaft dramatically,
Speaker 1: but I want you to resist against that. So if
Speaker 1: I pull the shaft towards me when I'm standing in
Speaker 1: front of them, they start to resist and make the
Speaker 1: chaff stay on a flatter angle. That's going to activate
Speaker 1: all the correct muscle and I normally do five second
Speaker 1: counts for five repetitions for twenty five seconds after that,
Speaker 1: they're like, well I can I can start to feel
Speaker 1: that my muscles are a bit achy. I said, that's activation.
Speaker 1: And when we start making store golf swings as a
Speaker 1: form of correction, that muscle burn is reset enough so
Speaker 1: that they can go, okay, I'm going to use those muscles.
Speaker 1: So that's that's another aspect of the mind body connection.
Speaker 2: Awesome, Well, that is an amazing list, and again I'm
Speaker 2: quite flattered that you use a lot of what we've
Speaker 2: talked about here on Golf Smarter over now in our
Speaker 2: twentieth year and you've been able to use it and
Speaker 2: with to be a mentor to other PGA professionals, not
Speaker 2: just not just your students. But after I received this list,
Speaker 2: I thought, I'm going to give something a try that
Speaker 2: I've not tried before. I'm going to go to chat
Speaker 2: GBT and I'm going to use Ai and ask Ai,
Speaker 2: what are the top ten golf tips that we've learned
Speaker 2: from the Golf Smarter podcast. And this is what was
Speaker 2: fed back And we don't need to go into these deep,
Speaker 2: but I want to run these by you and get
Speaker 2: your reaction to one or two or going deeper if
Speaker 2: you want, and it said. The Golf Smarter podcast offers
Speaker 2: practical advice for improving your game. Here are ten key
Speaker 2: tips gleaned from their episodes. Number one, you were just
Speaker 2: talking about this center your contact. Focus on striking the
Speaker 2: ball in the center of the club face for better consistency.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and that's all.
Speaker 2: That's pretty good.
Speaker 1: All the ball cans about the club face that just
Speaker 1: struck me. Was it on was it on plan? Was
Speaker 1: it on path? In relation? Is it zero nowt am
Speaker 1: I being struck with the center of the face, center
Speaker 1: of percussion, that's all it cares about. Like, it doesn't
Speaker 1: care who's on the other end of the golf club.
Speaker 1: It doesn't care the age, the gender, golf balls. Like
Speaker 1: a computer, what program is being fed into me? That's
Speaker 1: all that matters, right, It's all that matters.
Speaker 2: Number two, Understand your swing mechanics, simplify your approach and
Speaker 2: avoid overthinking.
Speaker 1: That's very true, like TGA professionals on the last hour
Speaker 1: of a major when they're going to make a birdie
Speaker 1: that there is really no time to think about anything else.
Speaker 1: And those guys who don't have a simplified approach always
Speaker 1: tend to get in trouble because they start worrying about
Speaker 1: things that should not be Oh, now suddenly they see
Speaker 1: the water. Now suddenly they're thinking about They start projecting
Speaker 1: themselves way in the future, that things that could go.
Speaker 1: That's no place in the game of golf.
Speaker 2: Right. Number three Short game mastery prioritize distance control and
Speaker 2: solid contact for putting and chipping.
Speaker 1: To go wrong with that the short game. The short
Speaker 1: game is about landing your ball on the spot. And
Speaker 1: this is what makes the short game comparatively more difficult
Speaker 1: than the long game. Long game is I just want
Speaker 1: to get the ball somewhere the game.
Speaker 2: I need to get it to a spot, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: your target gets with each consistent with each sequential shot
Speaker 2: from tee to green, your target gets smaller and smaller
Speaker 2: and smaller. The first one is is wide, and then
Speaker 2: you gotta get it on the green and then you
Speaker 2: got to put in the whole it goes there. Number
Speaker 2: four Strategic course management. Play smarter by assessing risks and
Speaker 2: planning each shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, if all you have in your bag
Speaker 1: is a fade, why try to hit a draw on
Speaker 1: the last stow just doesn't mix in. Don't be something
Speaker 1: that you are not At the same time, or at
Speaker 1: least that you haven't I haven't practiced, and at the
Speaker 1: same time, also make sure that you're not you're not
Speaker 1: losing strokes by making in effective decisions off the tea
Speaker 1: and into greens. Those things, in my mind, don't cost you.
Speaker 2: Anything, especially on your scorecard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and don't play the hero shot back to the ego.
Speaker 2: If you don't have it, just because you saw it
Speaker 2: on TV doesn't mean you can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, doesn't doesn't mean that you're gonna thread a three
Speaker 1: iron through the trees just because you did it once.
Speaker 2: Number five mental game. Manage tension and stay present to
Speaker 2: enhance focus.
Speaker 1: And go wrong with it. Yeah. Yeah, it's like driving right.
Speaker 1: Once you get to a certain proficiency in driving a car,
Speaker 1: you don't really think about like, wow, I gotta turn
Speaker 1: the steering wheel twenty five degrees stuff like that. I
Speaker 1: think if people play golf the way they drove a car,
Speaker 1: they enjoy the game far far better. The problem with
Speaker 1: golf isn't balls there You think that, hey, because the
Speaker 1: ball is not moving, I've got time to run through
Speaker 1: a checklist and I can bend the ball to my
Speaker 1: will well just because it doesn't move. But in other spots,
Speaker 1: because the ball.
Speaker 2: But if it moves, you freak out.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, but you know in other sports, right, it's
Speaker 1: us reacting to a moving ball. When golf, the ball
Speaker 1: not moving creates a lot of problems for golfers.
Speaker 2: Number six practice efficiently use drills tailored to your weaknesses.
Speaker 1: Of course, I think a lot of us don't really.
Speaker 1: Unless you're a golf professional, you don't really have time
Speaker 1: to spend like five hours on the range trying to
Speaker 1: work something up. I think these days, if you work
Speaker 1: with a competing golf professional, he should be able to
Speaker 1: give you a drill that meets your needs. Then that
Speaker 1: solves your problems fairly quickly. And once you understand the
Speaker 1: process of a moto program change, then you know the path.
Speaker 1: The path may not be shot, but it will be
Speaker 1: very clear.
Speaker 2: This one, I'm kind of again go back to flattery.
Speaker 2: It's like, oh, we really talk about it this much
Speaker 2: that it's that AI is picking it up. Number seven
Speaker 2: Embrace flow state. Relax into rhythm for more consistent performance. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Relax into a rhythm, Yeah correct.
Speaker 1: I think I think when people understand flowstick, it's basically
Speaker 1: us enjoying the task that we're involved in and not
Speaker 1: thinking about externality like driving, Like right now when we're
Speaker 1: talking to each I'm not thinking about outcomes. Then you
Speaker 1: can really stay in the floor. How that relates to
Speaker 1: golf with remember the twelve year old kid that was
Speaker 1: telling you about playing shooting is doing it. There was
Speaker 1: no expectations he was he was really enjoying the activity
Speaker 1: he was in. But then after shooting twenty nine at
Speaker 1: the front night, he's like, oh, I've got Grandeo's ideas
Speaker 1: of being the first twelve year old in Singapore to
Speaker 1: shoot a fifty eight in competition, and you and I
Speaker 1: can know that really doesn't It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1: Then now you're you're trying to do something that's the
Speaker 1: opposite of being in a flow state where you let
Speaker 1: things happen.
Speaker 2: Number eight no ball flight laws. Learn how adjustments affect trajectory.
Speaker 1: Yes, once you understand the true ball flight laws that
Speaker 1: space is the primary determinant of where a ball takes off,
Speaker 1: then it's easy to correct or adjust your soon to
Speaker 1: produce the intended ball flight for the situation I had.
Speaker 2: And we're just kind of talking about this with that
Speaker 2: twelve year old kid. Number nine avoid perfectionism, focus on progress,
Speaker 2: not flawless execution.
Speaker 1: You know. Interestingly enough, I had another point on my
Speaker 1: list that I came up with. It's basically, don't let
Speaker 1: perfect be the enemy of good color relate to do
Speaker 1: that Barto's principle, right, the eighty twenty rule. Sometimes good
Speaker 1: enough is good enough. It need not be perfect.
Speaker 2: And the last point that AI suggests that they learned
Speaker 2: from Golf Smarter podcast number ten, fitness and flexibility. Stay
Speaker 2: physically prepared to avoid injuries and improve mobility.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's true in this modern day and each However,
Speaker 1: some people will say, hey, back in the sixties seventies,
Speaker 1: golfers didn't really look like athletes, but they still shot
Speaker 1: low score.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, but there were also in those days the
Speaker 2: golfers that were succeeding were older. You have a lot
Speaker 2: more younger golfers succeeding at a very high level right now. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Interesting you point out this.
Speaker 2: And I think that has a lot to do with physicality.
Speaker 1: Another point I would like to bring up is I
Speaker 1: think golfers back had less injuries than the modern athlete.
Speaker 1: Jack Nicholas said that one key reason for his success
Speaker 1: was that he was never injured during his career. The
Speaker 1: only he at fifty eight or fifty nine he had
Speaker 1: his first hip replacement, but that was like at the
Speaker 1: tail end of his career, but at his prime he
Speaker 1: never missed any major due to injury. I thought that
Speaker 1: was telling from the greatest golf of all time.
Speaker 2: Justin Thank you so much for sharing that list, Thank
Speaker 2: you for staying in touch. Thank you for sharing your
Speaker 2: wisdom and your instruction. I really appreciate it and really
Speaker 2: enjoy having these conversations with you.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for having me back on for
Speaker 1: always happy to share