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