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