Speaker 1: Helloha. This is Richie Peckner, Mali resident, just finished three
rounds with Fred Green here on the island. This is
Golf Smarter episode nine hundred and ninety six. When you
asked me what's more important where I spend my time
chipping and putting? There's a lot more variability in chipping
because you have different lives. On the putting green, you
have a pretty good lie, but there's so much when
a ball is not on a green that you have
to understand how your club interacts with the ground, what
kind of bounce you have on your wedges? Is it
into the grain? Is the down green? The other day
I was giving a chipping lesson and I said, you
have a couple options here. First look at the grass
on the green and part of it was kind of
this pale, shiny look to it, and the other one
was deep green. I said, well, the deep green is
into the grain, and then you have down green. So
where are you going to land it? Because if you
landed in the grain, it's going to kill it. You
landed down green, it's going to skid on you. How
are you going to manage this shot? And so a
big variability to just get where the ball's going to
land on the green, and the person's like, well, I
never even thought about that, And sure enough, he hits
his first one into the downgrain area, skids, goes about
fifteen tet pass. It's his next shot a little shorter,
lands into the grain, ends about ten feet short, and
he didn't miss it either one of them. But he's
not going to make it too. He's going to make
a three. So how are we going to manage that?
Speaker 2: Master your game like it's presented on TV, one shot
at a time. Their old friend, Josh Xander. This is
Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf
minds to help you lower your score and raise your
golf IQ.
Speaker 1: There's your host, Fred Green.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Golf Smarter Podcast.
Speaker 1: Josh, Oh, thank you for having me again. Fred. It's
always a pleasure.
Speaker 2: Oh it sounds so good. You got a real microphone? Yeah, baby,
let's go just in time for episode one for you, Fred, listen,
I made a list, not a long list. I made
a short list of the people I want to have
come back leading up to episode one thousand, or hovering
around episode one thousand, and you are very high on
the list, my friend, because every time you're on, my
game improves for at least two months.
Speaker 1: Well then maybe I just need to be on every
two months.
Speaker 2: Okay, no, No, I mean you're you're such a articulate
and well thought out coach that everything that comes out
of your mouth is like, oh, that's what that means.
So I love having you on ever since we first
met at a at a clinic.
Speaker 1: You were a long time ago, long time ago.
Speaker 2: So anyway, thank you for for being a regular, sure
and for sharing all your wisdom with us. But let's
have a conversation. Yeah, okay, fine. So I read recently
that different things, but one said is trying to eliminate
doubles is easier than trying to make more birdies. What's
your thought on that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's all about how you're You know,
you've got the Golf Smarter podcast how to Play Smarter,
And one of the things about trying to make birdies
as you're starting to probably take more risks than are necessary.
So I tell people, listen, if a tour player makes
half their eight footers once they're outside of eight feet,
they're missing more than they make. How often are you
hitting an approach shot in the green, say from one
even one hundred and fifty yards, and you're going after
a pin, you're going to have to get it within
ten feet to have a reasonable chance of making a birdie.
But it's pretty easy to put from twenty five or
thirty feet if you've got reasonable lag you know, lag
piting skills. So why take the risk, Because if you
try to go for a tuck pin and you end
up short sighting yourself, that's where you start making double bogies.
So stop trying to make birdies. Hit the hit the
I always like, you know, hearing what Tiger and Jack
Nicholas have say, make aggressive, swing to a conservative target,
hit the correct part of the green, the fat side
of the green as we like to call it. And
if you you know, if you happen to miss, you
might miss on the side that the that the flag's on,
and then you have your easy birdie putt. But you've
got to understand that every shot has a dispersion pattern,
and if you aim in a to a dangerous pin
and your dispersion pattern, part of that is in a
difficult place. As we start making double bogies. I like
Johnny Miller years ago called it. You got your red light,
your red light flags, your green light flags, and your yellows, right,
so you always go after the greens. Those are the
ones that are in the safe parts of the green.
You never ever go on the reds, And if you
happen to be on, you could do some yellows if
you're like, man, I'm dialed in today. That was like
Johnny Miller's may have of thinking about it. I would
take it a step further and say, if you're really
a smart golfer, like like Tiger, you would probably not
even go after the yellows. You'd have the kind of
discipline to not go after the yellows because it's so
hard to recover from a double bogie. So I use
this example. I said, listen, let's say you doubled the
first hole. Let's say you're a tour player and you
double the first hole because you went after a pin
you shouldn't have gone after. Okay, now you're two over.
Part in order for you to get back to even
just by the ninth hole, imagine the next eight holes
were four hundred and eighty yard par fours, which are
kind of short par fours for the tour players these days.
From one hundred yards away, actually, from eighty yards away,
a tour player will score two point seventy five. Okay,
so a quarter of a shot under part like on
a little part three. Right, So imagine the next eight
holes were four hundred eighty yards and you could drive
the ball in the fairway four hundred yards. Now you're
eighty yards away. Now by the ninth hole you're back
to even. So nobody drives it in the fairway four
hundred yards anyway. That shows you how horrible a double
bogue is for a tour player, right to recover from,
just to get back to even, and usually even after
nine yard trailing in the tournament anyway. So as a
weekend golfer, if you can stop, if you can start
taking some of those doubles off the off the score,
off the scorecard, just by playing smarter, not by getting
any better at golf, just being a better decision maker.
You're going to make your birdies here and there. Don't
force the birdies. Just play smart golf. Smarter.
Speaker 2: He figured it out.
Speaker 1: It takes you know, it's easy for us if you
were going to do it. Yeah, it's easy for us.
Here in an office, you know, talking about it and
not being emotional about it. But if you could manage
yourself as a human being, which is a huge skill
on the golf course, and be disciplined enough to say,
you know, even though I'd like to make a birdie
on this whole, I'm still not going to shoot for it.
I'm not going to shoot for that pen. That's just
that's just that's being super disciplined. I was listening to
Russell Henley talk about his practic sessions and he mentioned
that when he gets his track men out there, he'll
he'll set a target and then it hit five shots
ten yards right of it, five shots ten yards left
of it. Because he goes we rarely shoot a pins.
We're always shooting to one side of the green or
the other based on what the what the appropriate shot is.
And there's a guy who's like mister methodical and he
plays really smart golf. He's not the most talented guy
out there. He's got a heck of a golf swing,
but he's not the most powerful. And what he's your
ranked top ten in the world now, I mean he's
crazy good, but just super smart. So you get these two,
you get these two talented players next to each other
and one makes a smart decision and one makes an
aggressive decision. You can call it it not so golf
smarter decision. Then you know that might be the difference
between you know, you're you're winning the tournament or you're
missing the cut. Just decision making. So that's a huge
part of it. And it's a skill that I think
people think, I got to get better golf. I gotta
get I got a hit as straighter I go, I
gotta chip it better, I get. Yeah, all that stuff
is true, but hey, I got to be a better
decision maker. And then hold yourself accountable, Like after the round,
think to yourself if you could take like five minutes
after round and you know, take the emotion out of
and say where could I have saved shots? What just
my decision making? What could I have done to you know,
save save shots? Could I have saved shots on one
or two or three whatever the holes that you quote
unquote messed up on? It is like what could I
have done differently? There? Just decision making, not talent wise,
not better technique, just what could I have done? And
and you might save yourself quite a few shots there
so there's a long answer to a short, short question.
Speaker 2: It's okay. I love the long answers because you get
into stuff that you you don't even know you were
going to get there, and you do. I because I'll
never forget that. You once explained that if you if
you shoot over the green, if you miss the green behind,
you're getting double bogie. Never forget that.
Speaker 1: Right, it's the worst place to miss the green. I mean,
I'm sure that the story has been told by me
on your podcast. But my golf coach in college, wal
the Goodwin Rest in peace. He said, you know, if
you don't know what to do, please miss short because
you can always chip up a hill, you can always
hit a bunker shop. But you're over at green. You're
in somebody's backyard, a cart path, a flower bed, a downhill,
lie going to a green that runs away from you.
It's just it's just it's where it's where scores go
to die behind the greens.
Speaker 2: So the most common question for teachers with students when
a student comes in, you know, what are you looking for?
The question is always either greater distance or more consistency? Right,
I mean, after this many interviews, I've heard this numerous
times from a variety of coaches. Yeah, they either want
more consistency or greater distance, and they're not willing to
do the physical workout that require is required to get
greater distance. You don't get it from a ball, you
don't get it from a club. You get it from
your body.
Speaker 1: Right, The most important piece of equipment is you? Is you? Yeah,
you can get I mean you can definitely get. You
can get clubs that fits you better and clubs that
you can swing faster. But there's a certain point where
there's a diminsion return there. And I used to have
a fitness professional's name is Chris Thompson come in and
help me with my junior clinics, and and he would
look at everybody and say, Okay, what's the most important
piece of equipment? And they'd be like driver, putter, chip,
you know, wedge. He's like, no, it's you, it's you.
And then how are you? How are you feeding that
piece of equipment during around? Are you? Are you hydrating it?
Are you nourishing it? You know all that kind of stuff.
It's it's like we we kind of gloss over that
pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So on the consistency part, how many teachers when
someone says I want more consistent, how many futures say,
all right, then we have to improve your decision making, right,
you got to be a better to be a more
consistent golfer, You've got to you know, and if you
want that to be reflecting your scorecard, then you've got
to make better decisions. It's not about hitting the ball, right.
Do coaches ever say that there maybe on a playing lesson.
Speaker 1: But well, yeah, sometimes I'll put it to the The
answer is, I'm sure there are plenty of coaches out
there that do performance coaches and you know, all around
good good golf instructors who are literally coaching their students
to be better players. So one of the things I
say to people when they first come and see me,
and I'm kind of trying to figure out what they want,
because really it's about what they want, not about what
I want. Yeah, so I want to find that out.
But if they want to be a better scorer, right,
we have to talk about the decision making. I said, listen,
what if we I'll ask my question like what's your
what's your index and CAAMA ten, your average score whatever.
Somewhere in the mid mid eighties, and I said, okay,
what if we were doing a reality show? And I said, okay,
a year from now, you and I have to go
on TV and you have to break eighty and you're
counting every shot. How are we going to approach this?
My reputation is on the line as a coach. You
don't want to embarrass yourself in front of the world. Right,
You've got to break eighty and you're ten right now.
But a year from now, let's say we get you
down to like a five or six and you can
go break break eighty, Like, well, how would we go
about that? How do we How would we spend our time?
Would be would be would we be out here trying
to make your five iron and go straight every time?
Where would we spend our time? Would be on the
golf course? You know, how would we actually go about this? Now?
The pressure's on, right performance? How are we going to perform? Right?
So one of the biggest things how you manage yourself
as a human being on the golf course. Because you
might have all the skills, and I think we've talked
about this before, but it's like, how are you able
to access your skills when you know when at times
when when it comes time to perform, you know what
kind of st date of mind you're going to put
yourself in. Are you nervous? Of course you're nervous. How
do you manage your nerves? Are you doing breathing exercises?
You know? How do you how do you recover from
a bad break mentally? Right? How do you stay in
the present. I like to tell people, and forgive me
if I'm repeating myself, but I think that you should
you should play golf more like how we watch golf
on TV. You watch golf on TV, You're like, Okay,
let's watch Adam Scott hit his drive on number three. Now,
let's go watch you know, John Ram chip it on twelve.
Let's go watch Jordan Speeth Putt's ball on fourteen. Right,
So we're going from individual shot to individual shots. So
I read shots like its own little adventure, right, and
you get immersed in, oh, this is a left right
downhill Pitt. He's going to have to hit it softly,
and you know the grain's going this way, and so
we're all into that shot. We're present to that moment.
We're not saying, oh god, I double buggie the last time.
I can't believe I three putted it. Now, it's all
this influence is happening on this, on this current shot
because you're carrying all this bag. You're not carrying the
baggage when you see, oh, Adam Scott is hitting his
drive on three, is he going to try to cut
the corner? What's he going to do? What's the wind doing?
Your present to that moment. And the more you can
play golf like that, like a series of individual golf
shots without any emotional baggage, you know, from what's happened
before or what you're afraid might happen in the future,
which is also not being in the present right. You know.
So when we talk about that reality show, it's like,
we need to get this person to be a performer,
to be somebody who access their skills, somebody who can
stay in the present, somebody who, yeah, we're going to
work on your skills. We're going to make sure that
you don't you don't chip it, you don't scull your chips,
and you know, blade your bunker shots or leave it.
You know, we got to do all that work too,
but ultimately we have to access it because what good
is having it. If you don't access this, access access it.
And that's about how you manage yourself as a human being.
So I think we would fail on the reality show
if we didn't address that. And you know what, these days,
there's so many people who specialize in all these different
parts of the game. Right. You have like re Accessing
House and and and Pian Nielsen and and Lynn marry
On people like that who are awesome at helping people
access their their skills right, their mental skills, their performance skills.
And you have other people who are amazing and helping
people technique. And then you have the you know, the
the uh you know what do you call the Swiss
Army knives coaches that kind of help a little bit
with everything, which is what I feel like I can.
I can help people with all parts of the game.
I do not claim to be the biggest expert on
explosive power, the biggest expert on putting. There are there
are putting specialists there, they're power specialists. But you know,
depending on what you feel you need, you can you can.
I think I think of myself when I'm coaching, It's
like I can help you with every part of the game.
But if there's somebody else who can do something that
that helps that, I'm like no ego involved in, Like, hey,
let's get that person on our team. If that person's
going to help us, you know, win the prize on
the reality show, let's call that person up and bring
them in because it's just like, just like it takes
a village to raise raise a kid, and we have
two of them, so we know we've got a big
village around us helping us. I think same thing with
with golfers. I think that there are a lot of
resources out there, so let's get that. Let's get that
sports psychologist, let's get that team. Just because you're not
on the tour doesn't mean you can't have a team
of people who can help you. And I feel like
I feel like we can all kind of chip in
to help you get to where you want to be.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned a minute ago about how we should
be playing to the green, red light, yellow light, green light,
to the fat part of the green, and then just
getting your two put in. But in our practice sessions,
should we spend more time because of being amateur golfers
who probably don't have our our distances dialed in the
way we should, and so we think we hit the
ball farther than we do, so we end up coming
up short a lot, right, We're chipping up to get
close to try to part of the whole lag putting
versus short chips chips around the green. Where should more
time be spent working? What is going to be more
valuable to us in the long run?
Speaker 1: So you know the answer to every golf question, right,
It is as Mike Adam says, it depends. That's the
answer every golf right. So I don't know if are
you a really good lag putter but a poor chipper
spend more time chipping and vice versa. Right, So they're
both important skills. You want to try to get them
to be a two shot deal instead of a three
shot deal in both cases. Right. So one of my
other mentors, Mike Lebove, you know we were talking about
years ago, is probably in the early nineties we were
talking about this. He's like, you know what a single
digit golfer is? And then maybe I've mentioned this on
the show again, So I repeat my stories.
Speaker 2: But a single day, okay, I do it more than
you do.
Speaker 1: A single digit golfer. Somebody who drives their ball in
the property at a reasonable distance, so you're not out
of play with your t shot gets the second shot
somewhere around the green, and as a disaster free short game,
So no skulls, no chunks, no three putts you know
or few or three putts that somebody can play golf,
you know reasonably in play, reasonably somewhere around the green.
You don't have to hit ten to twelve greens around
to be a single digit golfer. You can hit four
or five greens around if you have a reasonable short
game and you don't get penalty strokes and drive it
out of play. It's really not that tough of a formula.
And then but when you add the fact that we're
human beings playing golf and we get upset, and we
get we have to manage ourselves and all kind of
stuff get it gets more difficult. But I definitely want
all my students to understand how to make solid con
attacked on short game shots and how to be able
to read lies. Reading lies is a huge skill. What
every lie tells a story, So what story is this?
Why telling you? So the other day I'm teaching this
little ten year old, this whole ten year old girl
who was in from Korea. It was really she's awesome
and she would We were talking about uneven lies and
weird lies around the greens, and I said, you know,
every lie tells a story. So I said, hey, this
golf ball is talking to you right now. So I said,
I'm the golf ball. I'm talking. Boy. There's so much
grass around me right now, it's going to be really
hard to get this club to hit me. That player
better firm up their wrists so this club doesn't get
twisted by this grass. It's all around me, and I
better come in that club better come in steeper, because
if it doesn't come in steeper, it's not going to
get to the bottom of me, and I'm not going
to get up in the air. So that kind of
sounds kind of stupid, ridiculous. She's laughing as I'm saying
this to her, But I'm like, this ball is talking
to you. It's telling you what needs to happen here.
And if you don't understand how to read a lie,
you can make what you think is a good swing
and hit a horrible golf shot. So being a good
player is about being able to analyze the lie, understand
how the club needs to be working in order to
be efficient out of that lie, and then how it
affects your distance control and so on and so on
and so on. So that's that comes with some education
from your coach, but a lot of experimentation. The great
short game players they compete with their friends and they
put balls in. Remember when Noda and Tiger were at
Stanford and they used to have short game contests and
just give themselves the worst possible lies and see who
could who could get themselves out of it and put
some put some money on it. That's how you really
get good at it. I had a chance to play
a Serendifitaucy.
Speaker 2: That wasn't college students putting money on No.
Speaker 1: I think it was push ups or sit ups. I
don't think they were putting money on it. This is
a story, right, So I think that that kind of stuff.
Like when you ask me, you know what's more important?
Where sh I spend my time chipping and putting? I
think there's a lot more variability in chipping because you
have different lies. On the putting green, you have a
pretty good lie. So you do have to read grain,
you have to read break, you have to understand speed
and all that kind of stuff, But there's so much
when a ball is not on a green that you
have to understand how your club interacts with the ground,
what kind of bounce you have on your wedges? You know,
is it into the grain? Is the down grain is
you know? The other day I was giving a chipping
lesson and I said, you have a couple options here.
First look at the grass on the green, and part
of it was kind of this pale, shiny look to it,
and the other one was deep green. I said, well,
the deep green is into the grain, and then you
have down green. So where are you going to land it?
Because if you land it in the grain is going
to kill it. If you land it down grain, it's
going to skid on you. How are you going to
manage this shot? Right? And so a big variability to
just get just once the ball where the ball is
going to land on the green. So and the person's like,
well even thought about that, And sure enough he hits
his first one into the down grain area, skids and
goes about fifteen feet pass hits his next shot a
little shorter, lands into the grain, ends about ten feet short,
and he didn't miss hit either one of them, but
he's not going to make a two. He's going to
make a three, So how are we going to manage that?
You know? So those kinds of things, and that's that
maybe is different than somebody saying I need a chipping
lesson because I tend to scull the chunk of my chips.
You know, like, yeah, okay, that's part of it. But
how are we going to turn three shots into two
and occasionally turn two shots into one? Which is kind
of cool. I was at a conference one time and
Matt Coocher's got a great short game, was hitting some
chips and he kind of looks over at us. He goes,
he goes, from where I'm chipping right here, guys on
the guys I'm competing competing against will make it more
than they'll make a three. They usually make a two,
but they'll make it more often than they'll take three
shots to get in the hole. So that's what he's
competing against. You think he's not going to take care
about what's you know, what kind of lie had? House
clubs can interact. I mean, the other thing he did,
which I thought was really cool was between every wed
shot he hit, he took a tea out of his
pocket and he cleaned out the grooves. He never hit
a shot without perfectly cleaning groups. Okay, we're like, oh,
I'm gonna chip chip for half an hour and you
never cleaned your club once. Yeah, So how do you
expect to really have your brain understand trajectory, spin all
that kind of stuff if you've got variability on your
club face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm kind of obsessed about cleaning my clubs after
every shot for the last year or so. Well, prior
to that, my short game I felt good about. I
felt good about getting close to the hole, chipping up
on the green, But in the last year it's disappeared.
I chunk, I skull it, I double hit it right,
it'll hit it and then hit it again while it's
still in the air, and I've been just frustrated. My
confidence is shot there. Walking up to the ball, I'm like, oh, no,
as opposed to I love this shot right right, and
then boy, this is not where I want to go.
But I saw a video on YouTube. But it was
Phil Mickelson, who is a phenomenal instructor as far as
his videos and how he explains things, and he was
talking about making sure that your lead hand for right
hand golf, it's your left hand, the wrist doesn't break,
and you keep it the arm and the hand out.
I don't know if I'm explaining this properly, but I
watched him do it, and I went in my you know,
I have a short game practice area in my yard,
and it was working. And you know, he says, here,
if you want to get more height on it, put
it in the front.
Speaker 1: Of your stands. He likes forward and back. He doesn't
like anything in the middle. He's like, are you trying
to hit it lower? You're trying to hit it out.
Make a decision right.
Speaker 2: Right, but don't break the risks. Keep your hand, your wrist,
your left your lead risk firm and don't break your wrist.
And it was working. Now I haven't had a chance
to get to the course with it, but I'm practicing
it a lot. Right.
Speaker 1: You agree, you know the answer every question? Right? It depends, Yeah,
it depends what your mistake is. Right. So I go
into every lesson with a very kind of with no
preconceived notions. I just want to see what the person's doing. Yeah,
And once I understand what the person's doing, It may
it may need to be more of a firm lead
hand and don't break down your wrist. But maybe something
totally different. It could be swinging on a plane that's
so incorrect that they're low points in the wrong place.
They could have a pressure shift issue where they're not
moving to their lead leg. I mean, there's so many
different variables. So I just I did a talk years
ago for the Northern California PGA where I said, when
I was talking about how I go through a lesson,
I said, the first thing I do is well, I interviewed,
get information, but then I observe and I just wait.
I wait to see exactly what this person needs before
I give them any piece of advice. And it might
only be waiting five seconds. I might not need that longer.
I might need a few shots to be able to
see what's going on and then help them understand why
the shot is happening and then what they need to
do in order to get the correct contact. And that's
different from player to player. If I have somebody who's
got so much lead arm lack of breakdown, so to speak,
where they cannot get the ball up in the air
even with their sixty because there's so little offt on it.
I might actually tell them to break their wrists earlier,
which would be heresy if you're talking about Phil Michaelson's thinking.
But we might be both trying to get them to
the same place. But you got to understand when you
watch it video Phil Nicholson saying how he does it,
he doesn't get a chance to see what you currently do.
You're in front of me, and I get to see
what you currently doing and say, oh, that Phil Nicholson
thing is perfect for you. Or if you do more
of that Phil Nicholson thing, your ball is going to
go racing across the green because you're not going to
have any loft on your wedge anymore because you're leading
so much with your lead arm. So again I go
back to it, it depends on what the player needs.
And I think if Phil was here, you totally agree
with me on that. I mean, Phil's a very bright,
you know, very very thoughtful person. And ultimately, what you
want to do is you want to present the club
in a way that helps it interact correctly with the
ground and produces the trajectory and role profile that you're
looking for for that particular shot, and then what do
you need to do to do that? And in some
cases you may need more of what Phil's talking about.
In some cases you may need something something different. I
got I don't know what the best word is, but
I got a lot of grief on the internet when
I actually said the exact opposite. I said, I try
to get my lead wrist into a little bit more extension,
a little bit more cupping position. Especially if I'm trying
to get this ball up in the air a little
bit more, I need more loft. If I did the opposite,
it would take off. But if I'm looking to get
it more up in the air and I've got the
bounce sliding, I can do that and get some softness
on my shot right. And they're like, oh, you got
to have your lead rest or like what Phil Micholson's
saying or whatever, you know, more forward leaning your shaft
and more downward strike. And I'm like, I'm really good
at hitting this high soft pitch shot with a little
bit more extension where the shaft is leaning backwards. So
what I tell people's listen, when I set up to
hit a short game shot, I present a certain amount
of loft. I'd like to have at the moment of
the strike, and then I want to make sure my
club is stable enough and returns to that loft to
produce the trajectory and role I'm looking for for that
particular shot. So it's interesting you hear a lot of
I'll share a story with you. I was playing at
Olympic Club and I short sided myself, you know, because
I went for a pin that I should know, or
actually I wasn't trying to go for that pin. I
just overhooked the golf ball. It's just not a good
golf shot. And I ended up short sighted myself, which happens.
And I hit this beautiful, high soft pitch to about
two feet and the guy was playing with said, oh,
you got such soft hands, and I said, thank you.
And my hands were so opposite of soft. My hands
were on their like a vice because I wanted to
make sure that the ninety degrees aloft because I laid
the lowboage wide open, was going to be there at
the moment of impact through the rough, So my hands
were anything but soft. The ball came off super soft, fluffy,
like a landed like a deflated beach ball, as they
like to say, right butterfly with sore wings. It was
a beautiful high soft shot. I'll brag about it, but
my hands were not soft. My forms were super strong.
I'm very pressurized to stabilize that club face to the
position I needed to produce the exact trajectory I was
looking for to hit that shot. And I guarantee you
I did not have a lot of forward leaning the
shaft because if I did, it wouldn't have been a
high soft shot. So again, it goes back to it
depends on what you're trying to do with the shot.
Speaker 2: All right, here's another line that I read recently. I
love you, know, like when I see something, I'll pull
it out and hold it off, and I'll go through
it on almost every interview, but you're the one that
I really love to ask these questions. So this line said,
for amateurs, assume a mishit shot travels closer to ten
percent shorter, so that one hundred and fifty yard shot
goes just shy of one hundred and forty yards when
there's trouble short budget. Accordingly, so we think, oh, I've
got one hundred and fifty yards that's going to be
my seven iron, right, Because one time I hit my
seven iron one hundred and forty nine yards, so I'm
going to pull it out and not even considering that
I'm maybe in the rough on that, you know, and
it's wet and it's against grain. Talk about decision making
on club.
Speaker 1: Selection, Yeah, it's a tricky thing. I think a lot
of it is being able to assess the lie. I
think a lot of it is managing your ego. I
think a lot of it is being organized. When I
say organized, there are so many devices out there where
you can measure your distances now that you don't. It
doesn't take a lot of money to know how far
your ball goes these days. And back when I was
playing professionally in the early nineties, I was working on
my distance wedges with you know, I'd gone to the
Dave Pel school and it was helping me measure everything.
And I literally went out with one of my teammates
from Stanford and we went out and measured our yardages.
And we went to the hardware store and got one
of those wheels where we'd wheel out and get foot
by foot and then put down owls at every five yards,
and then one of us would be out there charting
it as we hit. Now you can you got a
little device you put behind your ball and say, oh,
that one's sixty three yards. I mean, you need to
know how far you hit the golf ball. And you
need to be honest with yourself. Okay, I'm practicing it's
seventy degrees and sunny, it's not going to be the
same when it's fifty degrees and you know, thicker air, foggy, whatever,
dense or air, it's not going to go as far.
So and windy conditions. You need to take all that,
all that stuff into account. What's the lie? Is the
grass growing with me? Is a grain grown against me?
Is do I have a clean access to the back
of the ball. There's all this stuff. It's like, yeah,
my seven ar might go one to fifty, but in
which condition does it going one to fifty? Right? So
you need to be smart about that, and then you
need to make good decisions if there is trouble in front.
You know, what's what's your You know, you've got to
count for the fact that you might miss it a
little bit, and you can't account for a disaster shot.
There's no strategy that allows you to account for a
disastrous shot right, like total chunking or sculling is like,
you can't plan for that. But if I hit a
reasonable shot and it's not going to go quite my
usual distance, am I still going to be? Okay? You
have to take that, take that into account. But in
the back of my mind, I always go back to
what we talked about earlier today, which is if you
flush one and it goes over the green, that's a
double at best, right, So you need to you need
to be careful with that. So I don't know if
there's a great answer, but just know that you're not
You're not a machine. You're not perfect. You're not going
to hit every ball on the button. You're not going
to hit it always like how far your best shot
would go. So just know that. Just be smart about it,
don't you know, put your ego aside and say, you
know what, what's the club that's going to get me,
get me to where I need to be and help
me score reasonably on this hole and not put myself
in harm's way by just making again a decision that's
ego based. Worried about how come you know, worry about score?
What will they think of me? All that stuff that interferes.
It's like nobody needs to know you hit a seven
ar and when when people think you should have hit
an eight iron their cyc who cares?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely absolutely. And there's so many products out there
now that you know, from Schatscope, Arco's Game Golf, all
these different things that if you are willing to take
the time after your round, it's going to tell you
a lot of information about how you did and give
you insights into what you possibly should be working on
and where your errors are. Are you a fan do
you advocate that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think that's great. Any information that can help
you make better decisions, I'm in Yeah, yep, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Another line I read recently, Instead of focusing on the
twenty two percent of your game that isn't going right
that day, take the glass half full approach, appreciate the
seventy eight percent of your game that is working for you,
and have the awareness to play towards your strengths for
that day because every round is different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I agree with that, but I do
also think that you need to be aware of where
your weaknesses are. And I'll go back to before all
these great apps we have now to chart all of
our stats. I used to do it all with pencil
and paper when I was playing college and professional. And
what I would do is I would look at where
I thought were the deficiencies after I took the statistics,
and then I'd go to my coach. At that point,
it was Rick Roads up at San Francisco Golf Club,
So Rick, you know, I'm struggling with this part of
my game, and then we'd focus on that. So I'd
come to my coach prepared with what my weaknesses were,
and those were evident based on what the statistics statistics
told me. And for whatever reason, I don't know how
this can be. And I'm like, Okay, if I'm going
to play professional golf, if I want to win a
professional tournament, if I could average sixty eight for four
days and she's sixty under par, I'm going to be
in the mix. And then I would see basically what
the anatomy of a sixty eight was. And it wasn't
anything crazy, right, it was just being reasonable in all
these different categories. And now we've got it to the
point where it's even you know, more sophisticated, with all
the all the great apps and tools that we have
to be able to measure everything and depending on what
you are, whether you're you know, somebody's just trying to
break a ninety or break eighty, your break one hundred.
There's just reasonable expectations in each part of your game
that you can refer to and then go to your
coach armed with that, like, hey, coach, you know, I
not just what my last round was, but if you
look at my last ten or fifteen rounds, there's a
trend here, you know, there's a trend that you know,
I'm my chips are averaging twelve feet from the hole. Well,
it's probably gonna be a two putt. What if we
got that? What if we get that to seven or
eight and all of a sudden some of those become
up and downs, you know. And so if you get
a little bit better in every category, you're going to
improve just improving your skill set. It's like what I
tell like almost all golfers, but especially juniors, I'm like,
what can you do today that makes you just a
little better than you were yesterday? What kind of decisions
can make what how's your practice going to be a
little bit better today just to make you better than
you were yesterday? And just keep comparing yourself to yourself
and keep making your weaknesses less weak. You know, it's
nice to have strengths. We have to maintain those, but
really come armed to a lesson with an understanding of
where you should spend your time. So the you know,
if you're taking an hour lesson the coaches and trying
to figure it out for the first twenty minutes, what's
going on. It's like, let's get to work.
Speaker 2: So let's get to finding the right coach. What elements
are we looking for in the process of finding a coach?
And that doesn't mean like, oh, there's a guy who
teaches nearby here, I'm just going to go to him, right.
I'm sure that you have to go shopping. You've got
to do your research, just like you do with any
retail product. This is a service and you want the
best person who's going to serve you in that service.
Speaker 1: I think I think there's a lot of ways to
find out about the coach these days beforehand. Just google
them right, find out you know what they what they do.
You know, there's a lot of social media out there.
I've got Instagram, YouTube, things like that. I mean, coaches
are out there for you to kind of see what
their style is, things like we're doing right now, like
like podcasting, and you hear what kind of philosophy the
coach might have and see if there's a match there.
And then the best way is just go go take
a lesson, and you may not need to ever see
them again, but just just go take a lesson. See
if the communication is what you what you like. I
think there's also a knowis on the player to hold
the coach accountable to what they're actually looking to do.
I learned early on in my coaching career not to
have expectations for where I wanted my students to go.
I really want to meet them for what they want
to do. I had a student when I was teaching
back back for golf died just in New Jersey. He
just wanted to have a beautiful swing. He was a
wonderfully dressed person, hair, perfect cologne. I mean, he was
a model looking guy and he wanted an Adam Scott
model looking swing. And when I met him, he was
a four, and when I left New Jersey two years later,
I think he was an eight. But his golf swing
looked beautiful and he was happy as a clam We
never touched his short game. We just made a swing
beautiful now that would not have been my I can't
tell you how many times I told him his name
is Tom. I won't say his last name, is it Tom?
We need to work on your short game. Is you
finished runner up in his club championship? You know before
I met him, and he couldn't sniff it afterwards and
I couldn't. I could not convince him to work on
his short game, putting, chipping, pitching, because he just wanted
a beautiful sweat, and he ended up I met his expectations.
He had a beautiful sweat if I would have. You know,
I don't want to make my students unhappy. But that's
not a typical student. A typical student might be might
might say something different, like you might. I don't know
what your current index is, Fred, but I'm sure you're
a very curious person. You love to learn, and you
probably like, what can I do, Josh to make my
What are you? What is your index? Thees days?
Speaker 2: Ten?
Speaker 1: Ten? I would love to be a seven year from now.
What What can I do? Right? You know? Closer play closer?
T's well, that's that's part of it too. Hey, I'm
I no longer like playing the tips. I've done that,
I've been there, done that. I go one up from
the tips now. But uh but yeah, so so when
I say that the student, yeah, I would say the
student needs to hold the coach accountable. What I what
I mean by that? And I've talked about this for years.
I never will say anything to a student that doesn't
either improve the quality of the contact or the shot.
I don't do anything for for for decoration when it
comes to teaching. This one case, what Tom was like,
I learned my lesson on that, and if that's the
person who's coming for lesson, it's not a fit. I
want to I want to make my students better, but
I want to meet I want them to get out
of it what they want to get out of it.
But I think they're One of the things I asked
my students when they come see me, is do you
want to understand why something is happening or do you
just want me to tell you what to do? Because
I'm always willing to defend my point of view when
I see something. This is why your ball is doing this,
this is how to fix it, and the reason it's doing.
This is because of X, Y or Z, and when
we do this, it will it will go away. And
trust me on this, but this is this is this
is how it's going to work. And I'm confident in
my abilities to be able to diagnose just about anything
out there. We have great tools. Now, I've got thirty
years of experience. I know how this is going to happen.
Some people say, you know what, thanks for letting me
know that. I just want to get right to it.
I don't want to understand it. My ideal student, if
I had to, if I had to create one, would
be somebody who's super curious, somebody wants to know the why,
somebody who down the road wants to fire me because
I have armed them with all the things they need
to know to be able to be their own best coach.
That would be kind of the ideal the ideal student.
And that doesn't mean that student won't stay with me
for years, because we enjoy each other's companies and we
can always get better at different parts of the game.
But base, if I have a student who's been with
me for a long time and they're hitting certain shots
and I'll ask them questions that This is one thing
I learned from Rick Rhads years ago, the Socratic method. Well, Josh,
I'm hitting this, Well, why do you think that's happening?
You know, why is your go in this direction? Why
is your ball flight start? Why is the ball starting
this direction? Why is it spitting too much? So ask
a lot of questions because I know they already know
the answers. I just need to get them in touch
with it because I've taught this to them and they
need to be able to when they're on the golf
trip with their pals in South Carolina, to be able to,
you know, hit a few shots and go, oh, I'm
back to this thing. I need to I need to
adjust my grip, or I need to adjust the ball position,
or my stance position, or how I'm shifting my weight.
Because I know how to fix this now, because Josh
has armed me with the skills to be able to
do that. And that's when the student goes, hey, I'm
I can fly now, right. I I don't necessarily need
my coach, and almost to the point, like a Bubba
Watson who never had a coach, like Bubba Watson can
fix his ball flight. He knows what to do. He
doesn't need he doesn't necessarily need a coach to tell
him why. I definitely needed a coach to tell me
why I did not have that instruction when I was younger.
My coach was not armed with that information. He was
the most wonderful person mentor supportive person that didn't have
the technical skills. And then I had some amazing mentors
that helped me understand the technical skills. And I want
to pass that along to my students so they can
become their own coach and halfway through around when they're struggling,
then they can turn it around, or after the round
they can they can figure it out. And that learning
process just makes you that much stronger of a player,
because you're like, hey, I can go anywhere anytime, and
if I'm struggling, I know how to get out of it.
And if you're the if you're the student who always
needs to call the coach because you don't know what
to do, then the coach probably didn't do their job
in my opinion. So I have kiddingly say I'm trying
to get myself fired here, but I kind of I
kind of am is that I don't want to hold
anything back I want to I want to make sure
you understand and then and then I'm going to arm
you with some skills to be able to fix yourself
because golf is always I was explaining this to a
student the other day. Golf is always a matter of
tweaking things. And for those who us, those of us
who are old enough to remember there were dials on
a radio to tune in the station without the static, right,
a lot of kids have no idea what that is.
That's what we're always doing. We're always just tweaking little
things to get that contact that much sweeter, that ballflight,
to just curve that much more. It's always a matter
of tweaking things. And there's no such thing as oh,
I got it, and now I don't have to worry
about it anymore, because we're not machines. We're human beings,
and we change and it's it's a constant. You've got
to love the process of going through the process, and
if you're not, if that's not fun for you, then
you're probably in the wrong sport, because that's what it is.
All you have to do is go to a tour
event and follow a tour player through their week, whether
it's going to the fitness trailer when its managing what
they eat how they eat during the round, whether it's
you know, adjusting to the green speeds of that particular week,
or the conditions are, you know, where the ball's not
flying as far because maybe you're a pebble beach and
it's foggy and it's windy and constantly tweaking things, and
maybe the ball position has to go back a little
bit because you need to flight your ball a little
bit lower, and how that affects how the ball is
going to curve, and you're constantly doing this, and then
the next week you're in a different place and all
of a sudden, the greens are different, and the weather's different,
the altitude is different, and you're constantly tweaking and these
are outside elements. And then that doesn't even bring the
fact that, oh, you know, you tweaked your back a
little bit, you know, walking down the stairs the other day,
and so now your body is not quite feeling it
quite so that little that feel that you had two
weeks ago is not quite there anymore. Now we need
a different feel to produce the same ball flight that
you had before. Right, So there's always that kind of
tweaking and adjusting and monitoring and dialing in what you're
looking to do to be the best golfer you can
be on that particular day, and then you wake up
the next day and you do it again and enjoy
the process of doing that again. Whether you're a fifteen
twenty handicapper or trying to make a living doing this,
it's your human being trying to constantly adjust that. And
part of the coach's job is to help people understand
your ball. Like I was saying, the lie tells a story.
Your ball flight tells a story, right, there's a reason why.
And so one of my close friends, Jeff Ritter, who's
a great teacher. You may have spoken to him. I
love when he tells somebody who hit a shot, he goes,
that's perfect. What do you mean that was perfect? I
just sliced it forty years And that's the perfect way
to slice the ball forty yards. If you want to
slice it forty yards, that's perfect way to do it.
So there, what you just did is the reason why
that ball flight did what you did. We did what
it did. So now how do you work back from
the ball flight? What did you what did the ball
flight tell you that the club was doing, and what
did you do to make the club do something to
make the ball flight? Do that. That's that's golf, and
enjoy the process of doing that.
Speaker 2: Josh, smell bad. My clothes are wrinkled. My my glove
shoes look very used. But I want a beautiful swing.
Speaker 1: You know what a beautiful swing is? Please the one
that produces the ball flight you want.
Speaker 2: Josh, Yes, I want a beautiful swing.
Speaker 1: You know what I may have told this story. That's ok.
I'm looking for a functional swing. Aunctional swing is the
one that produces the shot that you're trying to produce. Beautiful.
You got a beautiful swing and not hit the ball
very well if it doesn't fit you. We've talked about
biomechanical fits and matchups and stuff before in your show,
and you could have a a swing that totally does
not suit you, and it may look pretty because you've
made all the angles look right, and you cannot hit
the ball solidly. You can't get your ball flight. It's
like good thing. Nobody told Matt Wolfe that he needed
a beautiful swing, or Leecher Vino he needed a beautiful swing.
Or you know Bruce Letski or you know, I'm dating
myself with some of these references. But you are there,
are you know? You start if you look, if you
look at the old guy, the old school guys, it
wasn't about the swing because they didn't have picture, they
didn't have video. Right, you want it back in the
Hogan days, if you wanted a beautiful swe if you
want to look at your swing, you had to film it,
send it to the lab in two weeks later you
could make an adjustment.
Speaker 2: Right, and you can't go slow motion lotion.
Speaker 1: So now because we have all this, you know, video,
and we got so many other great tools beyond video,
three D in sports boxes is an incredible tool now
for instructors. I use it all the time. It's just
it's fabulous to understand all these different basically three D
using video that gives you instant feedback on how much
your your body is turning, rotating, lifting. I mean, just
like every possible thing you want to know is there.
But I go back to what I was saying before,
how much of that is relevant to you either hitting
it more solidly or producing the proper ball flight. That's
where the coach comes in the coach is the guide
that helps you understand that information. It's the shirtpa that
keeps you from going down rabbit holes that you shouldn't
be going down rabbit holes. We were talking about this
before we came on the air here. One of my
most important jobs is to keep you on the proper road,
because think about how hard it is to build new
motor patterns. And if you're going down a rabbit hole
of trying to do something that doesn't fit what you
need to do, you're spending so much time and effort
going down the wrong road, and now you've got to
come all the way back and start again and try
to do something different, and you just put all these
repetitions into something that doesn't work for you. So part
of the coach's job is to what's the word I'm
looking for, is to is to make keep you on path,
streamline the process, make it as efficient as possible. So
you're doing you're working extremely intelligently to get to where
you want to go. And if you're not getting the
proper information or you're doing something because you saw this
really cool video on YouTube that I don't know, Ludva
Goldberg is doing this. So I got to do that
because man, is it was awesome and I agree this
swing's awesome, But why does it work for him? And
does it apply to you? Maybe not? You know, if
Matt Wolf would have watched Oberg swing and try to
do that, maybe Matt Wolf wouldn't finish second in the
US Open to Bryson at wing Foot. You know, it's like,
you need to do what's right, what's right for you,
and you need oftentimes you need a coach who understands
that to be able to make sure, Hey, this is
I feel like I'm the I'm the person who can
just save you a lot of time or a qualified
coach as a person who could help you save a
lot of time not going down the wrong path because
it needs to apply to you and it needs and
a great litmus test is as far as holding your
coach accountable. Ask the coach when they ask you to
do something, be polite, but just ask them is this
going to make my contact more solid? Or is this
going to help my ball flight? And if not, why
am I doing it? Because there's no reason to do
it if it's not doing one of those two things.
One of my mentors, Jim Hardy, The tagline for his
company is next ball better. The next ball needs to
be better. If you're doing the things that the coach
told you to do, that that are gonna help make
that next ball better. And if you're going down the
wrong road, if you're trying to you know, bow your
wrist because John rom Bose's wrist and he was the
number one player in the world, and so was Dustin
with a Bode wrist. Well, does a Bode risk help
you hit the next ball better? Does it fit your biomechanics?
Because for some people it's magic and for other people
it's tragic. So you just got to make sure you
understand what that is for you. And that's part of
what you need to hold your count, your coach accountable for.
So it's it's a you can this. There's so much
information available for us, and it's all good information, but
the question is is applicable to you? And that's that's
I think where you need some kind of a helper,
some kind of a coach to help you understand that.
If I was if I was learning a different sport,
I definitely would find a coach that would help me
understand how can I get to where I want to
go and what's the what's the closest point, you know,
the distance between those two lines that I can get
me there the most efficiently. And you know I have
limited amount of time and how do I spend it?
And that's that's how I would go. So when I'm
taking a lesson, like I tell people, I'm the hardest
person to take a lesson because I'm going to hold
the coach accountable because i know the minute they tell
me one thing to do, I'm like, well, I've already
done the math in my head. If I do that
one thing, I know what's going to happen to my
impact because I you know, I've been there, done that.
I've been doing it for the last thirty years, playing
for the last forty eight. I'm going on half a
century of golf knowledge in year, and so you tell
me to do something, I kind of know what's going
to be coming out on the outcome. It is not
and I'm going to hold you accountable for that. So
I'm like, I'm not going to bow my wrist or
I'm not going to cut my wrist, or I'm not
going to tuck my elbow. I'm gonna you know that
doesn't whatever, because because I know what that's to do
to my ball fleight and my quality my contact. So
that's how I approach every lesson. I help my students
understand what they need to do to make them the
best version of themselves and try to make that as
efficient as possible for you.
Speaker 2: Like sportsbox AI, I do, okay. So for those fans
who are interested in more information on that. G Haylee
was featured on this on the podcast back in October
first of last year, episode nine hundred and sixty seven.
The impact AI is already having on the revolutionizing golf training,
and it was all about sportsbox AI.
Speaker 1: It's an amazing tool, and it needs to be used correctly,
and it needs to be filtered by somebody who knows,
who understands the information. So I think it's I think
it's it's amazing with what you can do now with
that technology and not have to like strap yourself up
into the I remember when I first did three D
and I had all these things, you know, attached to me,
and I felt like I was at an outer space.
You know. It's like with all this stuff and they're like, okay,
go ahead and swing. I'm like are you kidding me?
And like you're swing, you're you're really inefficiated swing. I would,
I can't swing with all this stuff off. Now you
don't have to just you can just do your thing.
You do it anywhere on the golf course and the range.
It's it's it's a fantastic tool. GA's company is doing
awesome of that.
Speaker 2: That's great, that's good for I'm happy for them. And
how do you feel about using golf simulators for giving instruction?
Speaker 1: Do you? I don't. I teach everything outside. I don't
have an indoor facility. I'm not saying I'm I'm against.
If I had the ability to have indoor an outdoor,
I would. I'd love to have that. I just don't
at the facility where I am, so everything I do
is is outdoors. I think you have to be careful
if you're only doing indoor lessons, because you're you're hitting
off a perfectly flat lie. It's not it's not necessarily
it's a it's a good way to kind of work
on some fundamentals, but it doesn't it's not it's not
real life, but it's range. It's it's the range off
of a mat and even more control than that, there's
not even any win there's it's like golf is a
variable game and there's zero variety when you go indoors
with four walls hitting into a into a you know,
a screen and so yeah, you might have a different whatever,
you know, different pictures on the screen they get into.
But so there's some use to it, and and boy
is it efficient in the sense that like you know,
if you if you had one of those in your
house or nearby where you just go practice and you're
not worry about weather and worry about you know, it's
there's a ton of advantages to it. But just realize
you're not really learning golf. You're learning some technique about
your golf swing, and you're getting some good feedback because
you get spin rates and path and face and a
lot of track man type stuff information. But if you
wonder why you do that and then you go to
the golf course and you can't produce, it's because you're
practicing that. You're not practicing golf. You're practicing how to
swing your practice. So there's a place for it.
Speaker 2: The decision making has been pulled away from it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some you could say some of the simulation type
stuff can give you different looks and win conditions, and
so you have to do some of the thinking. But
it's did you.
Speaker 2: Get a chance to watch TGL at all?
Speaker 1: I haven't had a chance to really. I think I
saw it once just for a couple of minutes, so
I really haven't had a chance to to do it.
Speaker 2: I personally think that there's a big future in growing
the game through simulator golf because you know this, this
new generation of golfers are used to things being quicker, shorter.
Speaker 1: There's no doubt about that. That's definitely. You know, I've
in my career, I've I've kind of had the the
old school that I grew up with, and now this
new school that's that's kind of happening, is growing the
game of golf and more people out there, whether it's
out at top golf, hit balls, you know, into fun,
fun looking targets out there with music and drinks, and
if that brings more people to the game, great. Simulators
bring more people to the game. Great. Just to understand
that they're kind of like different sport. Yeah, but that's okay,
that's fine. Yeah, it's just whatever, as they say, whatever
whatever makes you, you know, happy, entertained, engaged. It's there's,
you know, to each his own kind of thing, right
if you. I mean, I understand that golf is it
takes time. It takes you know, you've got to drive
to course, you you know. But there's there's in this
day and age that I'm talking as a human being
slash parent, the ability to get away from your technology,
be in a beautiful place, breathe fresh air, get some exercise, socialize,
communicate all those things. There's a lot there that I
think people need to understand that for your mental happiness,
your state of mind, your I don't think we were
necessarily designed to be indoors in front of a screen
as much as we are now. That's my personal opinion.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm laughing because I love it. It's like
the old guys are now going, hey, kids, get back
on my lawn.
Speaker 1: Get back on my lawn. Yeah, I mean, come back
on the grass. I literally learned how to play golf.
I dug a hole in my front yard which was
not very big, and I put a tennis can in there,
and I got my whiffle balls and I hooked it
and sliced it around the avocado tree in our front yard.
And I could do that for hours. And I was
Tom Watson, and I was Jack Nicholas, and I was
you know, I was Calvin Peete and I was I
was just I was truly playing and learning at the
same time. And I didn't even realize I was learning, right,
because I was having so much fun just curving this
wiffle ball and hitting it high and making it spin
on the crab grass in my front yard. And just
you know, we had turtles. I would hit it around
the turtle. I mean, it was true, it was true play.
I was abusing turtles. I was hooking and and and
and those those their shells don't don't get hurt by
a whiffle ball landing on top of it. So so
I mean, I just like when you when you talk
to me about a hitting a ball, hitting hitting hitting
ball into a stream, you know, hitting balls into screens,
you know, that's that's if it grows a game, great,
I would my advice would be at least spend some
time out there with your friends and be a full place,
spending some time away from your screen. The screen will
be there when you get home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, kids, get back on my laune. So tell people
how to follow you, how to get in touch with you,
where to watch you got going on?
Speaker 1: I'm on I'm on Instagram and and YouTube, and you
can take online lessons with me on the skill is
st app. I have a lot of I have a
video library you can access on the skill stapp. So
that's where you can find me. If you're not local
to the San Francisco Bay area, I teach it. I
teach golf at Stanford. That's where I hang my shingle,
so to speak. And uh but definitely trying to reach
more people through through online, through the through the skill stap.
So that's where you can find me and a lot
of my information. You can you know, you can take
lessons remotely with me through that and so anywhere you
are in the world, I would love to I would
love to help you. And uh it because.
Speaker 2: Where I mean, is it Josh Sander Golf? Is it Xander?
Speaker 1: Oh? So my website, Yeah, my website is Xander Golf
C A, N Z A, N D E, R G O,
l F golf dot com and everything. You can find
everything there. And then if you just search for me
on skill so you can find me there. As far
as being able to work with me remotely, and if
you're in town, come see me at Stanford, Northern California.
Speaker 2: Josh always enjoy it. I just love just dropping in
a quarter and letting you rid. This is it. This
is the podcast of Grip It and Rip It. Just
let you go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I want to congratulate you on doing a fantastic,
fantastic job and the fact that you're about to turn
a thousand with your with your episodes is an amazing accomplishment.
And I always enjoy my time with you. And you're
a you're a great question asker and uh, and you
make it very easy to be on the other side
of the of the mic and uh and and uh.
Someday we got to get out there and play some golf.
Mm hmm