Speaker 1: For members only. Golf Smarter number three hundred and sixty eight,
published on January twenty nine, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: Welcome to golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain
insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets Old. Our
interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 3: The first time I ever tested this, and I didn't
really know what I was doing at the time, but
I was giving a lesson and we were talking about
what makes the ball break more and what makes the
ball break lesson the guy looks at me because you
know what, I would really like to know exactly how much. Yeah,
I know what breaks more, but what does that mean?
Does that mean three feet or two feet or twelve inches?
So I basically use the same computer software that does
the line for TV, and I just had to spit
out all these numbers, and I took it out and
tested it, and I only did basic average two percent slow.
And I went out and played eighteen holes and I
think I had eleven putts on the front and fourteen
putts on the back, and I had never ever been
below thirty putts. I never made anything outside ten feet.
I think I made two or the three putts outside
fifteen feet. I made a lot more five six seven footers,
and I remember just thinking, Wow, there's really something to this.
I don't really understand it yet, I don't really know
how to use it yet, but just the first time
I ever tried it, I could not believe how much
better my putting was, just knowing what the proper.
Speaker 4: Break was, how the aim point putting system works. With
Mark Sweety, this is Golf Smarter. Welcome back to Golf
Smarter for members only.
Speaker 1: Mark.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks Fred, and thank.
Speaker 1: You again for agreeing to come in for part two
of this, because you know, we talked about the history
of it, how you got it started, and what you
did with it. But now, like, what's in.
Speaker 3: It for me? Dude? What's in it for me? What's
in it for you?
Speaker 1: As a golfer.
Speaker 3: As a golfer, you and I are kind of the same.
You know, we're both we don't play enough golf. We're amateurs.
I didn't come from the golf industry. What's in it
for us is that you can actually learn very easily
how to actually regreens. And you know, one of the
big problems I actually my inspiration for starting all this
was I went to my instructor at the time and
I was, you know, a terrible putter, and I just said,
how do you learn to regreens? And his answer was, well,
just do it a lot and you'll get better. And
the thing that went through my head.
Speaker 1: This is the age of technology.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at the time, I was probably you know, mid thirties.
I was like, I don't have a lot of time.
I was like, if I play once a week, it's
a great week. I don't have time. And I know,
you know tour players who are forty and they still
don't understand greens. How do I ever possibly think I'm
going to get this? And it just completely, you know,
frustrated me. And you know, my technical side is when well,
that's not good enough. It can't be that difficult. It
just can't be that difficult to figure out.
Speaker 1: When you said you were in your mid thirties, you're
talking about your age or your handicap.
Speaker 3: My age. Yes, I didn't start playing golf at five
like most tour players, you know, I started golf at
the thirty or late twenties, and I was like, I
just that just doesn't work for me, don't. I don't
accept that, do you.
Speaker 1: So let's let's pursue this. How does this work? How
is this going to make me a better putter? And
then we have a long No one simple, I want detail.
We have a long time to talk about this. Let's
get into detail with.
Speaker 3: This, okay. So reading greens is very simple because there's
a few factors that completely control break, or at least
ninety seven ninety eight percent. Break is controlled by gravity.
Gravity is a consistent force everywhere in the world. Everywhere
you go, it's always the same. And so if you
understand a few basic rules, you can very very accurately
predict what the ball is going to do ahead of time.
So it's really you know, if you think about high
school physics, If you hold a ball up at your
shoulder and you drop it, how long is it takes
hit the ground? Well, it takes about a half a
second every time you do it. Everywhere in the world.
If I hold both my arms out at shoulder height
and drop two balls, they hit the ground at the
same time. There's no question whatsoever, that that's always what's
going to happen. Now, for some reason, you get on
the putting green and people say, yeah, but the ball
breaks uphill in Indio in palm desert. Well, no, it's
to think about what you're saying. If you actually think
the ball breaks uphill, what you're saying is gravity. The
force of gravity reverses.
Speaker 1: Itself in palm desert. That makes sense, and.
Speaker 3: Palm does that make sense? Or wherever you go, And
you know, it's just not possible. It's physically impossible for
gravity not to have the same effect. And you know,
some very intelligent people will say, yeah, but it's a
little bit different in certain parts of the world. Yes,
it's minutely different, but not enough for us to tell
the difference putting a ball. So anyway, long story short,
is the first thing we do is we just teach
golfers here's what controls break and believe it or not.
I've asked that question to just about every student I've
ever had, and everybody from new golfers, the tour players,
and maybe one in two hundred people will give you
a fairly close answer, maybe one to two hundred, and
tour players even at tour player level. You say, what
causes break? They don't really know. I mean they know, Yeah,
it's slope and it's gravity, but that's that's where it ends.
There's nothing more specific than that. And that's not enough information.
I need to know more information. Yes, I know, if
their slope, the ball may or may not break. It
may break a little, it might break a lot. But
that's not good enough. I need to know from I
have a ten foot putt, is a break one inch
or or thirty six inches? How do I know that?
And so what we do is we just start off
in the beginning, Well, what causes break? Well, if the
ball is tilted to the side, then it's going to
fall to the side. So literally, just imagine taking a
ball and tilting it to the left. What's it going
to do. It's going to roll to the left.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, what does that mean? Well, how do
you mean tilt a ball to the left.
Speaker 3: Well, imagine if you put a ball on a table, okay,
and you just tilt the table to the left, the
ball is going to roll to the left.
Speaker 1: Okay, not the ball, but the where the ball is sitting.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, yeah, the ground that the surface of the
ball is touching and it's tilted to the side, then
the ball will roll off to the side. Okay, And
that's it. That's what break is. Break It fundamentally is
just the ball falling sideways. So you can tilt the
ball forward or backwards, like if you're going straight up
the hill or straight down a hill, in which case
it might go faster or slower. But it's not breaking,
is it. It's it's it's rolling straight. The minute I
tilt the ball or the surface to the left or
to the right, it will the ball will fall to
the side.
Speaker 1: But how do you determine how much? Okay?
Speaker 3: So that's the next piece. So the first part is
why does the ball break break being defined? Has the
ball falling sideways or laterally? Well, it falls the side
because it's tilted to the side. Well, how much tilt
there is and how long the ball is rolling determines
exactly how much break there is. Okay. So if you
tilt the ball forty five degrees to the left and
let it roll for two seconds, it's going to break
x amount. And that's just math. It's just pure your physics,
you know, high school physics. A ball rolling down an
inclined plane will roll a certain distance or break a
certain amount. So now that sounds complicated, but the way
it actually works as a golfer is very simple. There's
three things I have to know to exactly predict break.
I have to know how long the putt is, five, ten,
fifteen feet, whatever, how the length of the putt. I
have to know how steep the slope is that I'm
putting across. And then finally I have to know what
angle I'm putting across the slope. And you can do
all those in five to ten seconds. Literally, just distance
is easy. I walk up to the putt, it's fifteen feet, okay,
no problem. Now what do I have to do? I
have to find the true direction of the slope. I
have to estimate how steep it is, which is actually
much easier than people think. And then I simply look
at the ball and see what angle it's rolling. Is
it rolling straight up the slope or is a rolling
ninety degrees directly across the slope. And then those three
things translate into a specific break amount. So, for example,
I'm ten feet across an average slope, it's going to
be six inches fifteen feet It's going to break twelve inches.
It's just pure math.
Speaker 1: Well, what is that formula that you said six inches?
Speaker 3: Well, the formula, the formula, the actual formula is very complicated,
but you, as a player, you don't need to know that.
So what we do is we give you basically a
chart where you just look up. It looks like a
clock face. Roughly, you just say, here's my ball. I'm
putting twenty feet across this slope at at ninety degrees,
so directly across the slope. If it's a flat slope,
it'll break seven inches. If it's an average slope, it'll
break seventeen inches. And you're literally just looking up the number.
You're not doing any math yourself at all. It's just
pre printed. It's like me saying, here's a chart. If
you drop the ball from three feet, it'll take x
amount of time. If you drop it from ten feet,
it'll break y amount of time. It's just a look up.
So the skill as a golfer is finding slope. It's
really just all about finding slope. Because if I can
find the slope, in other words, which way is it
pointing and how steep it is, then the break is
just plug in play. It's very very straightforward if you
can find slope. So the biggest thing we teach is
here's how you find slope.
Speaker 1: And then you come across a long putt with multiple breaks.
Speaker 3: Then you just break it up into pieces. So if
I have a double breaking putt, I'll break it up
into let's say two to three pieces and just read
each piece and add them up. And even that, I
mean I could, I could. You know, I could read
a seventy foot putt in thirty to forty seconds, I
mean down to the inch, no matter, no matter how
many slopes are involved.
Speaker 1: How good have you become at putting since you've started this?
Speaker 3: Well, the first time I ever tested this, and I
didn't really know what I was doing at the time,
but I was giving a lesson and we were talking about, well,
what makes the ball break more? And what breaks the
makes the ball break lesson? He looked, the guy looks
at me and goes, you know what I would really
like to know exactly how much? Like, Yeah, I know
what breaks more? But what does that mean? Does that
mean feet or two feet or twelve inches? So I
basically used the same computer software that does the line
for TV, and I just had it spit out all
these numbers, and I took it out and tested it,
and I only did one slope, So I just did
a basic average two and a half. I think it's
a two percent slope. And I went out and played
eighteen holes, and I think I had eleven puts on
the front and fourteen puts on the back. And I
had never ever, ever been below thirty putts, and I
never made anything outside ten feet. I think I made
two or three puts outside fifteen feet, made a lot
more five six seven footers, And I remember just thinking, Wow,
there's really something to this. I don't really understand it yet.
I don't really know how to use it yet. But
just the first time I ever tried it, I could
not believe how much better my putting was. Just knowing
what the proper brake was. How much should this ball break? Well,
if you ask most people, they just go, I don't know,
you know, I'll just look at it and take my
best gass. Well, there's actually a very very clear formula.
And I don't like to use the word formulacause you're math,
but there's a very clear relationship between slope and break,
and so if you understand the slope. The brake is
very simple because I basically just you know, the software
will the physics engine will tell you what the break is.
This pre printed chart we have to I'll just tell
you this putt will break twenty inches, this put will
break six Ince is based on how long the putt is,
how much slope, and finally what angle you're putting across
the slope.
Speaker 1: Are there no other X factors involved? I would think
that there are numerous. Well, there are factors involved actors.
Speaker 3: So green speed is very important, so you have to.
Speaker 1: Do right first.
Speaker 3: One important so as green speed gets faster, the ball
breaks more. So for example, if I asked you, why
does a plot break more at stimp twelve then doesn't
stamp eight? What would you say? Because this.
Speaker 1: It's moving faster.
Speaker 3: The ball's moving faster.
Speaker 1: Right, do that again?
Speaker 3: What so the green ball, a putt on a fast green,
breaks more than a putt on a slow green. Okay
A right, So part of you know our education is
well why is that? Yes, we all kind of experienced that,
but why.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to answer.
Speaker 3: I'm going to let you do that the answer is simple,
because the ball is rolling for longer the ball, putt
takes more time. So anything that increases the time of
a putt increases the break. So what increases time green
speed changes the time of a putt. The length of
the putt changes the time of the putt. How hard
you hit the putt changes the time of a putt.
But it's all really boils down to time. So you're
just you're tilting the ball sideways and you're rolling it
for a certain amount of time, and that equals break. Okay,
so how do we use that. We set the green speed.
Let's say it's running ten today, okay, so our green
speed's ten. The only the biggest other factor is really wind.
I mean, yes, there's pitch marks and potential imperfections to green,
but there's nothing you can do about that anyway. It's
completely out of your control. So what we do is say,
here's how much the ball should break. The imperfections you
can't control them anyway, and in my experiences, they rarely
really cause you to miss a putt. They might deflect
the ball a little bit, but it's not enough that
you can really get worked up about it.
Speaker 1: And when I learned this method, this system, what do
you call it a method or a system.
Speaker 3: I call it.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you what.
Speaker 3: I've called it both before. Yeah, it's it's it's a method,
but it's also really a curriculum. I mean, there there's
a that says here A plus B plus C equals break.
But but it's you know, any point is more than
just the method it's teaching you. It's really it's a curriculum,
like any subject in school's a curriculum. How much do
you want to know about green reading? We can do
everything from very basics. Here's how much you know a
ten foot putt breaks to really understanding you know, the
underlying geometry or break, which gets you know, kind of
PhD level. But you can take it as far as
you want to take it, you know, like like you know,
like finance or like geometry or like you know, art history,
whatever it is. You can go as deep as you want.
But you really only need a couple hours to have
a really pretty fundamental understanding of break and to be
able to use it as a player.
Speaker 1: And how do you use it as a player? I mean,
do you do you when you're on the course, how
do you use it?
Speaker 3: So the process is this, you have a putt. First
question is how long is the putt. You can determine
that just walking up to it. Some people walk their
putts off, which is fine, but just you need to
have some pretty good estimation of how long the putt is.
So you do that walking up to the putt. And
then my process is is, let's say have a twenty
foot putt, you walk up to it, and you find
the slope using your feel. So we use very very
little vision in our Green rating. Use vision for how
long the putt is, and you use vision for seeing
what angle you're putting across the slope. But finding this
slope itself is ninety nine percent feel based. So we're
actually a lot of times when we train people as
we shut down their eyes, we make them close their
eyes and find slope only using their sense of feel
and their sense of balance. And when you do that
to somebody, they usually find it correctly every single time.
The hard part was with using your vision is that
vision is interpretive of slope, so it's trying to figure
out slope based on the horizon and buildings and trees
and vertical references, and it's not accurate. So if you've
ever been into a funhouse. You know how easy it
is to trick yourself and fall on your face because
they take everything and they skew the angles and you
really can't quite figure out what's up and what's down.
So we just take out of the equation. We say
we're not going to look for slope, We're going to
feel slope. And once you've done that, you're ninety percent
done with your read.
Speaker 1: And so when you're saying now, I'm still I want
to define that when you say feel is like not
with their hands. They're not crawling around on the ground,
are they.
Speaker 3: It's just walking. When you walk, your body is automatically
adjusting the slope constantly, otherwise you'd fall on your face.
Speaker 1: Right, And you're doing this with your eyes closed.
Speaker 3: A lot of times we train with your eyes closed.
I mean when you're actually playing, you you know you
don't do it with your eyes closed, But we want
to activate your sense of feel because your body has
a built in. You know, on your iPhone there's an
accelerometer which basically tells it if it's tilted left, right,
up or down. Well, he has that built in, so
you learn it when you're an infant and your mom
puts you down and sits you in a sitting position.
You fall in your face or you're fall in the
back of your head, and your body learns how to
keep itself upright. Well. When we're walking around during the day,
we're always walking on tilted surfaces, whether it's your driveway
or the golf course or a staircase, whatever, your body
is constantly adjusting to an uneven surface. And it's very, very,
very highly developed, and it's largely conscious because we do
it so much. But we can use that same that
same sense to find slope on a golf green. So
we teach you is to learn by basically feeling. You're
in your feet and you in your your sense of
balance where is the slope. So if you stand across
the slope, you can sense that. If you know your
right foot's high and your left pots slow, you can
feel that as you turn your body, your feet will
become level. One's not higher than the other. And if
your feet or level, it means you're facing directly into
the slope. So we just teach you how to walk
in and align your body straight up the slope. And
it's like I said, it's ninety five percent feel We
actually have a training exercise for students where will We'll
have them close their eyes and do the entire read
and hit the butt with their eyes clows and their
reeds are as good or better than if their eyes
are open. Wow.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you figure out how long? You figure out
the slope through feel, and that's it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, so you're basically you're basically just pointing your
toe up the slope. The biggest part is you have
to you have to estimate how steep the slope is,
and so let's just say flat, average or steep. Once
you do that, you simply look at your ball and
that will show you what angles. It's a little bit
harder to describe on verbally, but you can. You can
determine very simply if your if your chest is pointing
straight up the slope and the ball is across your
right shoulder, that's a ninety degree angle. Okay, So your
your toes are facing straight up, and as the ball
comes across your shoulders, the angle gets bigger and bigger.
So if it's straight across my shoulder, it's ninety degrees
across the slope. And then I simply just look up
the brake So if I have that twenty foot putt
and I think it's an average slope, and I look
across and I see the ball at my right shoulder,
that ball two feet on a stem of ten, I
expect to you know, if it's a stim pate it's
a foot and half, it's different. And then then it
just frees you up to focus on speed. So what
we want to do is we want to make the
read portion of the of the of putting very short
and efficient walk up. It's a very logical process. How
much should this ball break, Well it should break two feet? Okay, fine,
line up to two feet and now it's all about
feel and all about controlling speed.
Speaker 1: And when you took this idea to the USGA initially,
well you were focused on television.
Speaker 3: Yes, Well, when I went to the USGA, it was
about the that pomp pile of app which they said
no to, which is fine. I wasn't expecting them to
approve that. Then for the for television I had to
go to PGA Tour because the network said we'll use
it if the PGA Tour vouches for it. So six
months or work with the PJA Tour, just giving them
demonstrations until they signed off on it, and then I
had to go back to the us GA because after
we developed this system for normal golfers to use, which
relies to some degree on this chart I'm talking about,
we had to get approval for the chart. So I
had to go back to the USJA and submit that
and see if it was conforming, which it is, and
then that's kind of the last time I talked to him.
That was that was a while ago. I was probably
five years ago. M hm.
Speaker 1: And so now you have to you developed a curriculum
yes on this and what was the next process from there?
Speaker 3: Uh? Then it was just perfecting it. I mean, you know,
how I teach now is different from how I taught
it a couple of years ago. We've learned more efficient
and easier ways to get the read. So there's a
number of ways to get a read on a putt.
And what we've done is basically, we've taught thousands and
thousands and thousands of people. We've learned what works best
and what is more difficult, and basically all the things
that tend to be more difficult to learn or to
use as a player, we just got rid of them
and so it's the simplest possible way to get a read.
And that's what we currently teach.
Speaker 1: And who are you teaching?
Speaker 3: All sorts of golfers. I teach everything from PGA Tour
players and LPGA players down to high handicaps. Juniors. Lots
and lots of juniors learned this very very quickly. On
the LPGA, we've probably got about thirty girls who've gone
through it. Were probably fifteen or so guys who have
gone through it. Scott mcchaern was the first PGA Tour
player to use a point. He started three years ago.
He was way ahead of the curve and he and
his caddy both went through the process and he started
using it and within six months he went from I
think one hundred and seventy eighth and putting to fourteenth,
and then the next two years he was top ten
putts gained and currently this year he's been injured, so
he statistically doesn't show up, but if you look at
his individual scorecard, he's ranked first in putts game.
Speaker 1: Well that's testimony right there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So he was the first person on the PGA Tour,
and then Stacy Lewis was the second, was the first
person on the LPGA and Stacy went from thirty something
in the world to who she was second this year
and I think she's pretty dark, so I think she's
only three points behind Yanni. And she started about eighteen
months ago and she went I don't know where she
wasn't the money, but she's ranked second and putting on
the LPGA first and top tens first, and you know
all kinds of things, rollocks player of the Year. And
this was a girl who had a good stroke, had
good speed, hit the ball very very well, and really
all you had to do is just clean up or
read a little bit and say here, here is the
correct place to be aiming these putts. And she's just
killed it out there.
Speaker 1: So once you start figuring out where the brakes are
and what that's gonna do, it's really all a matter
of your speed development.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it's it's a matter of being able to
start the ball online and really controlling speed. So we
see when once people learn the aim, usually their misses
are speed misses. You know, our aims are based on
a certain speech we'll call it a foot by the whole.
So basically, if you miss, the ball would go twelve
inches past the hole. So if they hit it firmer
than that probably going to go over the top edge.
If you diet in the hole, it could miss a
little bit low. Although slower speeds tend to work better
than faster speeds, but it's really controlling the speed of
the putt.
Speaker 1: And why are slower better than faster.
Speaker 3: Because slower the ball tends to be coming in higher
and softer, and it'll fall in the sides of the hole.
So the slower the ball, the wider the hole is. Effectively,
as you hit the ball firmer and firmer, you can
go over the sides and it's not going to go in.
It's just going too fast to drop in.
Speaker 1: I see that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So if I hit a ball five feet past
the hole, which I know we don't want to, but
we've all done it, the effective width of the hole
is half an inch. So if I don't roll the
ball right over the center of the hole, it'll just
it'll bounce out.
Speaker 1: And there are many people who claim to be putting gurus,
putting experts, putting instructors.
Speaker 3: Have they received this A lot of them have received
it very well, because a lot of a lot of
my instructors. I have about one hundred and twenty certified
instructors around the world, and a lot of them are
are very good putting teachers. So for instance, Craig Farnsworth, renowned,
you know, putting guru. And what people like Craig have
realized is they teach the stroke, and they teach a
lot of times putter fitting and mechanics, but green reading
is really the foundation for that. You have to be
able to teach green reading to have a all around
great putter. So I can have the best stroke in
the world, and I can have the best speed control
in the world, but if I don't know what the
right target is, I'm not going to make putts. You
have to have to start with a good read and
then build everything else around that. So at a lot
of them are really really come on board. David Orr
was one of the very first guys, and he's a
great putting instructor, has been working with Justin Rose and
a lot of really top players lately, and he was
I think the first or second person I ever taught
that I ever certified. But they just realized it's just
part of the It's part of the a putting puzzle.
I need to read greens, I need to start the
ball on line, and I need to control speed. And
you need all three of those to be great.
Speaker 1: When you get to these uh, you you have these
certified instructors. When they come to you and realize that
you're just a guy. You're not a pg A pro,
You're You're just a guy with this idea of and
a curriculum. Uh do you do you get any resistance
on that? Like, wait a minute, why are you teaching me?
Speaker 3: Yes? I in the since in the beginning, it was
a it washing uphill battle because I was not from
the golf industry. I didn't know people in the industry.
I was, you know, nobody knew who I was. And
I luckily had some some very good people who kind
of took me under their wing and helped me along.
Brian Mogg was the first instructor to really see it
and say this is really cool. You need to do
more with it. Uh. And then Mike Adams very shortly
after that said the same thing. And so you know,
I'm in this business largely because of those two guys,
Mike and Brian magg Because I didn't even know where
to start. I mean, I wasn't part of the golf industry,
and that was a very hard thing to break into.
So the first few years it was very difficult. But there,
you know, there's some really great instructors out there who
are very open minded, and I just kind of started
working with them. And then after you know, they got
into it and saw how well it worked, and then
after players started getting into it, then more and more
instructors starting to starting to call and say, hey, this
is just something I need to learn.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The beauty of word of mouth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I don't do any advertising. One hundred
percent of what I do as word of mouth, whether
it's from players or instructors or or just you know,
golf clubs calling and saying, hey, I've got members who
really want to learn this. It's one hundred percent word
of mouth.
Speaker 1: Amazing, amazing. Are some greens that you've you've brought this
to more difficult than others? So some golf courses.
Speaker 3: I used to think that, and I don't anymore. I
used to think there were some that were harder than others.
And you know, back when I first started, because I
didn't really understand all the pieces as well. But probably
in the last eighteen months or so, we've got the
process so refined that it just makes no difference, to
make absolutely no difference what the green looks like. I
think typically the hardest greens tend to be the flattest greens. Really, yeah,
where your eyes just completely start to fail and you
really have to be in your sense of feel because
you won't see the slope when it gets really flat.
You just won't see it, and you really have to
be tuned into your feel. So we spend a lot
more time training that. When there's a lot of slope,
it's obvious where it is. Speed is harder, but the
break is a piece of cake when it's deep. But
as it gets flatter and flatter, your eyes become more
and more useless to find what you're looking for.
Speaker 1: So how do we find your certified instructors? They're all
over the world.
Speaker 3: Right, Oh, I've got instructors and I think about twenty
one countries now and then over the world, and you
can find them on a point golf dot com. There's
a listing in air for instructors. Go I you know,
I highly recommend a lot of them are very good
golf pros. In addition to being green reading instructors. They're
great at at full swing, at putting mechanics, They've got
a big range of skills. So I definitely recommend finding
one in your area. I mean, I travel around a lot,
but you know, I'm only in any particular state maybe
once a year. But the local instructor, uh, they're they're
always available, and it's it's a very simple thing to learn.
It only takes a typical clinic is two hours, but
it's really only about an hour of learning and about
an hour of just practicing it so that when you
go out on course the next time you can, you
can do it comfortably.
Speaker 1: Has any instructor failed, I mean, what's that process?
Speaker 3: The certification is pretty strenuous. It's it's it's a closed system,
meaning it's it's not an open enrollment system. It's very
very particular about instructors because my theory is to have
fewer instructions actors who are very very high quality. Rather
than just saying, oh, there's ten thousand people out there
who can do this, just go find one. I want
to make sure that that you know, my group of
structures are the best in the world at green reading.
So with fewer instructors, we can spend a lot more
time one on one developing them. And nobody has failed certification,
although there have been a few that are how do
I put this on? They're not certified anymore of that.
Speaker 1: And what would what would make you revoke their certification?
Speaker 3: The biggest reasons are they just not teaching the ain
point system. So what happens with some people is I've
been doing this for almost ten years and there's lots
of things that I purposely don't teach because they're either
very difficult, or they fail in certain situations, or the
students just don't understand them. And sometimes in the beginning,
when you get in structures, they go, oh, yeah, that's
all cool, but I really want to do it this way,
you know, something totally different, which I know doesn't work
or doesn't work as well because we've already know it
with three hundred other students, and just occasionally an instructor
just they're just insist on kind of putting their own
stamp on it. Sometimes that's helpful. Sometimes they actually come
up with good ideas, and sometimes they really kind of
go in the wrong direction. And you know, I've had
not very often, but I did have a situation where
somebody did the school and one of these students called
me and said, I just didn't get any of it.
I have no idea what's going on, and a really
good player, and I went and taught this player afterwards,
and you know, thirty or forty minutes they understood it.
And that just shows that the instructor wasn't really doing
their job. And again, it's pretty rare for that to happen,
but when it does happen, we cleaned it out pretty fast.
Speaker 1: Wow, good for you.
Speaker 3: You know, any points of brand like any other brand,
and you know you have to you really really have
to be vigilant about keeping quality high to make sure
that everybody who takes it at any point class is
getting the same uh the curriculum. Basically, you know, if
you take a class from me or any other instructor,
should really be learning the same stuff.
Speaker 1: How about architects. I always find it fascinating talking to
architects because you know, they're not golf professionals like the
two of us. They're guys who are you know, They
on paper, they do stuff on paper, and generally they're
not great golfers, so they understand the pains of what
it is, you know, what they're designing and how to
mess with people's heads. How have they responded to this?
Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting. I really don't work much with architects.
I've done a few redesigned jobs on greens where we
basically can take a green and help them reshape it
for faster green speed. So they tend to be older courses,
you know, maybe an old Donald Ross design where they
were designed for stimp seven and they're running them at
thirteen now. But architects are fascinating because they a lot
of them understand how to fool your eyes, and they
understand how to flame a steep slope and a subtle
slope so that you really can't visually figure out what's
going on. Sometimes it's accidental, but but the better ones
understand those optical illusions and they'll purposely build those in.
And I love those because every time I see an
optical illusion, I'm just you know, dying to figure out, Okay,
why do I see the ball going right and the
ball actually goes hard left? Like what is that that illusion?
How do they create those angles to trick me? And
they do it on purpose, There's no question they do
it on purpose. Oh yeah, hear them, you know, really
out there bragging about it, but you see it. And
what I love about that is, you know our system.
It doesn't matter what the optics look like. If you
follow the system, it'll give you the right read. But
it's really cool sometimes to put that. Every person you
ask says, well, this is the right edge putt and
they hit it and it goes two feet to the right.
You know, just just absolutely visually cannot get the read
right visually because the architect has done such a good
job disguising through slope.
Speaker 1: What have you learned about golf course design or green
design through this process?
Speaker 3: Uh, the biggest thing I've learned is that you have
to have slope. You got to get water off. So
any any architect or any superintendents. Superintendents are actually really
good at finding slope because they understand that. They understand
the water has to move off the green of the
grass diyes. So what I've understand is there's a range
of slopes you want to put on a green. It's
got to be at least one percent to get water off,
but anything more than four percent is unpinnable. So if
you have a seven thousand square foot green. The question is, well,
how many pin positions do I want? If it's too steep,
then I don't have a lot of pins. If it's
too flat, it's boring. So there's got to be some
healthy mix of flat areas and steep areas. So if
you look at somewhere like Augusta, you know they've got
flat areas and they've got steep areas, And if you're
not in the right section of the green, it can
be very difficult. But once you're in the correct section
of the green, it's perfectly fair. In other words, the
putting is is they're fair putts, meaning they're not they're
not too steep, but they're not too difficult. It really
puts a high premium aunt approach shots. So the interesting
thing I found is, Okay, well, what do you want
this grew to do? What do you want to reward?
What do you want to punish? How much do you
want to punish somebody for being in the wrong area?
And that's just a designer's job. You know, what do
I want to do with this? What do I want
to force them to do? I do they need to
hit it within ten feet? Like the top right at
the sixteenth green at the Gussa. When they get that
top right pin, if you're not within ten feet, the
ball goes all the way to the bottom. The kid's
punishing for not having a good approach shot. But if
you hit it inside ten feet's an easy putt.
Speaker 1: Amazing. So I'm reviewing your website and there's a lot
of things that I would just love a little explanation.
You have products on here. What are the products that
Aimpoint offers.
Speaker 3: Well, the main products are green Reading curriculum, so basically
just teaching golfers how to read greens. Also got the
TV product which is really just geared towards the networks
for existing students. I have an iPhone app which is
really makes the most sense for people who have taken
a class. If you haven't taking a class, it's not
as you won't use it properly most likely, so it's
really there to support people have already gone through a
name Point class to help them learn faster.
Speaker 1: And how long does the class take?
Speaker 3: Typically two hours? Okay, two hours is plenty of time
in a big class. If I have a one on
one student, I can usually get them to double breaks
in about forty five minutes. Believe it or not. Not
that difficult. And then and then we'll be developing more products,
you know, throughout the year.
Speaker 1: And why is there a putter recommended on aim point?
Speaker 3: Very good question. So, so I partner with Adele Golf
because they make custom putters that are designed to aim
where you think they're aimed. So what they do is
they design the putter to match your optics. Okay, so
you might get a putter off the shelf and you
think you think you aim at straight and you actually
aim at five degrees left, but aim at five degrees left. Well,
what a Dell does is they say, okay, based on
how you say it up and what your personalized optics
look like, we're going to configure the putter that is
pointing where you think it's pointing. And what your putter
might be is completely different than what my putter might
look like. So they go through a fitting process where
they figure out exactly what combination of head shape and
hozzle and lie and lines will will get you aiming
the putter straight. Because once you aim the putter at
your target, then you can make a pure stroke. You
don't have to make compensations. The second thing they do,
which is really cool, is they change the waiting of
your putter so that you can have the best speed control.
So me, for instance, I like to feel weight in
my hands, and if I have a putter head that's
too light, I really struggle with speed. But once I
get the correct weighting, whether it's in the head or
the shaft or even the under the grip of the putter,
it's much more easy to control speed.
Speaker 1: Wow, you know I never even thought of that. Is
that your putter? You know you should be I guess
you should be fitted for your putter, just like you
should be fitted for all your golf clubs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I the more I do this, the
more important I think equipment is because I can take
I can take any golfer and give them three different
putters and one of the lame left, one the lime right,
and one the lame straight. Well, if you're aiming left
and where you think all the time, what do you
have to do to make a putt? You have to
either hit it really hard, or you have to push
it up the hill, or you have to open the face,
and it forces all these compensations which aren't necessarily good
for you. But if I know where I'm and imagine
if you're staying in the fair way and you were
aimed forty yards left of the pin, Okay, well what
do you have to do. You've got to you know,
hit a big slice or you've got a block, or
you've got to do something with your swing versus if
you really lined up correctly at the pin. So I
don't teach full swing at all, but I know a
lot of full swing instructors say, you know, alignment is
so critically important to your full swing. Well, it's the
same way with putting. Okay, if I'm not pointing my
putter where I want to hit it, then then I've
got to manipulate the face or manipulate the speed to
try to make the putt.
Speaker 1: And you use the what is it? Adele adele el
is awesome and and that has also impacted your your putting.
Speaker 3: Oh oh hugely. I had a putter before that I
couldn't name at all, but I didn't know it. I
had my putter and I got this putter and it was,
you know, three or four degrees left all the time.
I was like, well, no, wonder you know, I struggle
with this. So I went through the fitting process and
they gave me a putter that aim straight and then
fitted me for the waiting so that the weight of
the putter felt right to my brain so I could
control speed. And it's just a world of difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to talk to you more when we
get off on that one, because maybe we should bring
them on the show too.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's really they're really really good stuff, really
cool putters and beautiful. They're all handmade and customized and
it's a it's a real special piece of equipment. Wow.
Speaker 1: Fabulous. Well, I'm just so impressed with your success and
I'm really happy for you. It's awesome. There's been some
amazing things said about aim Point. You know, you haven't
quotes listed here on the website. My favorite, you know
is it would what Golf Channel says, it's the best
kept secret in golf. And I guess they were trying
to keep you a secret for a while because they
wanted it all to themselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, they they had a they had a good run.
Like I said, they got their their first Emmy and
they they did a good job. They took they took
a risk with with the with aim Point. Well, before
anybody else did, and luckily, you know, it paid off
for them. So I've always had a lot of gratitude
for Golf Channel for kind of going out on a limb.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, I really.
Speaker 3: Believed possible and they and they did it anyway, amazing.
Speaker 1: Well Mark, congratulations and thanks again so much for for
so much of your time. And I wish you all
the luck in the world because you, like I said,
you got seventy five children and you got to put
them all through college, so this is definitely going to
help great.
Speaker 3: Thanks a lot, Bred