Speaker 1: Hi, This is Rich Claer from Middlebury, Indiana, and I
Speaker 1: played golf at Savanas Country Club in Three Rivers, Michigan.
Speaker 1: This is Golf Smarter number.
Speaker 2: Four hundred and seventy eight, published on March three, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Golf Smarter mulligans, your second chance to gain
Speaker 3: insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
Speaker 3: Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets old. Our
Speaker 3: interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
Speaker 3: like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 1: For me was kind of hit and miss. It was elusive.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I developed an attitude that if I wasn't going to
Speaker 4: be a great striker the ball, then maybe I'll be
Speaker 4: a great putter and have a great bunker game and
Speaker 4: pitching game and have.
Speaker 1: A good attitude. You know.
Speaker 4: I had to develop my ball striking skill over time.
Speaker 4: And I've always been a good player, and I think
Speaker 4: that most golfers would look at my ball striking and say, hey.
Speaker 1: It's pretty dark good.
Speaker 4: But there's a difference between the way Fred Couples hits
Speaker 4: it and the way Bubba why And hits it. And
Speaker 4: then the way that I hit it in high school.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean, There's just a difference.
Speaker 1: So you start searching.
Speaker 4: For Hey, how do you do that? What do I
Speaker 4: need to change to be like that? I think that's
Speaker 4: for me where the spark came in coaching is being
Speaker 4: able to take in some knowledge to apply it, to
Speaker 4: learn to make a difference not only for myself, but
Speaker 4: to make a difference for the people at the club.
Speaker 4: I gave my first lesson when I was sixteen. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I played golf with the members. You're better than they are,
Speaker 4: and they say, oh, hey, can you help me with this?
Speaker 4: And I just kind of made it a challenge to
Speaker 4: deliver a result. So I would say that my attitude
Speaker 4: towards the game splintered into more of a coaching path
Speaker 4: versus a playing path at a very very young age.
Speaker 4: And there was a multitude of Factorier's associated with that.
Speaker 4: But one was struggling with my own game, being a
Speaker 4: little bit undersized and falling behind the curve, and the
Speaker 4: other was hitting balls next to a guy like Jim
Speaker 4: Ferick every day and just seeing someone that was clearly
Speaker 4: better than you were.
Speaker 2: The joy of hutting yeah, right with Jeff Ritter, this
Speaker 2: is Golf Smarter. Welcome back to the Golf Smarter Podcast.
Speaker 1: Jeff Fred. So good to be back, my friend.
Speaker 2: Oh it is so great to have you back. Man.
Speaker 2: I went through the list. This is the twelfth appearance
Speaker 2: on the Golf Smarter Podcast for you, Is it really Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 2: you've been You've been showing up here beating down my
Speaker 2: door notes the other way around. I've been beaten down
Speaker 2: your door to bring you back ever since like late
Speaker 2: twenty ten.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 4: I've always had such a great time talking to you,
Speaker 4: and thank you. I'm connecting with your listeners and we've
Speaker 4: had some big life changes the last couple of years,
Speaker 4: and it was great to, you know, to get your
Speaker 4: email and get the invitation to.
Speaker 1: Be back on the show.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you. Well, it's great to have you on
Speaker 2: because I feel like I get to brush up against greatness.
Speaker 2: Is as close as I'm going to get. Your brand
Speaker 2: is spectacular and just continues to grow. So let's just
Speaker 2: get started. What is going on with make the Turn Challenge?
Speaker 2: We will? You announced that it was coming up here
Speaker 2: on the podcast well over a year ago, and you
Speaker 2: gave us some hints to it. But now you're well
Speaker 2: into it, aren't you.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: I remember that show, and one of the things I
Speaker 4: always tell people is that when you declare what you're
Speaker 4: going to do to the world, not only helps you
Speaker 4: activate it, but it also makes you actually have to
Speaker 4: do it. So I remember putting it on that show,
Speaker 4: going gosh, I hope this whole thing can come together,
Speaker 4: And it really did in fantastic fashion because I think
Speaker 4: when we talked to you, I mean I'd only filmed
Speaker 4: like a pilot episode, and Golf was interested, and it
Speaker 4: just turned out to be something that was way bigger
Speaker 4: and better than even I could could have imagined. So basically,
Speaker 4: we filmed fifty video challenges in the areas of golf performance, mindset,
Speaker 4: fitness and nutrition, which are really the four pillars of
Speaker 4: performance that we like to coach at make the turn
Speaker 4: of what we now call MTT performance, and we submitted
Speaker 4: them to Golf Digest. They put about every single week
Speaker 4: on Tuesday is a challenge number last challenge of our series,
Speaker 4: so every single week for it, and then only put
Speaker 4: out a video on Golf DIGESV. It was actually pushed
Speaker 4: out by Condonast Magazine group and I went to AOL, Yahoo,
Speaker 4: Huffington Post, you know, everywhere the condonast magazine would push
Speaker 4: out digital content. It went and it really took off,
Speaker 4: and we found out that recently that it was the
Speaker 4: number one watch program on Golf Digest TV, if not
Speaker 4: for the whole year, at least for certain spots. The
Speaker 4: numbers were astronomical and Golf Died which was really cool.
Speaker 4: They actually let me do a weekly blog in association
Speaker 4: with each one of the videos, so there's always that
Speaker 4: story behind the story. So the tip is, you know,
Speaker 4: about one and a half to three minutes or the challenge,
Speaker 4: I should say, But then if you wanted to learn
Speaker 4: more about, you know, my inside perspective on where it
Speaker 4: came from from or what inspired me, you can actually
Speaker 4: go to a golfdis dot com.
Speaker 1: There's a blog section called the.
Speaker 4: Loop and you can go ahead and read all about it.
Speaker 1: So it's archive at golfdies dot com.
Speaker 4: Hill you have to do is click video search, make
Speaker 4: the turn, and any of your listeners can go ahead
Speaker 4: and watch them all and enjoy them.
Speaker 2: Well, Lis, it's been almost fifteen months since you were
Speaker 2: last on. Let's talk about some of the different challenges
Speaker 2: and explain what this actually means to people who've not
Speaker 2: heard about this yet.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, as a coach, you know
Speaker 4: a lot of times you're asked to create all these
Speaker 4: these how to tips or how to videos. You know,
Speaker 4: this is how you stop slicing it, this is how
Speaker 4: you stop topping and whatnot. And you know, I wanted
Speaker 4: to do something a little bit different, which really wasn't
Speaker 4: a perspective on how to do something.
Speaker 1: It was more of a.
Speaker 4: More of a nudge or a push or a means
Speaker 4: of activating people to go out and try something new.
Speaker 4: So from a golf performance based perspective, you know, we
Speaker 4: had drills associated with your perfect rhythm. From a mindset perspective,
Speaker 4: we had awareness exercises that we talked about in the
Speaker 4: past with the paper clips, which were designed to help
Speaker 4: you become more aware of when your attitude stinks, you know,
Speaker 4: and maybe that's going to help you on the golf
Speaker 4: course or off. For the nutrition challenges, when we had
Speaker 4: that called mind Over Menu, which was basically, you know,
Speaker 4: you get off the eighteenth hole and you go to
Speaker 4: the clubhouse and you're you're hungry and you're going to
Speaker 4: eat something. You know what can you actually order on
Speaker 4: the menu or what can you swap out on the
Speaker 4: menu to help you maintain your health goals, your weight
Speaker 4: loss goals, or you know, things that are important to
Speaker 4: you that you sometimes fall off the rails with just
Speaker 4: because you're starving.
Speaker 1: You're craving those carbs and whatnot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, give me, give me a load of fried
Speaker 2: food and some alcohol.
Speaker 1: You know, that's kind of.
Speaker 4: What happens, you because when people are on the course spread,
Speaker 4: they don't they don't drink enough water, they don't snack
Speaker 4: throughout their round, They get tired, they get thirsty, and
Speaker 4: all a sudden they hit the clubhouse and it's like, man,
Speaker 4: how fast can I get a pitcher of beer in
Speaker 4: amount of nachos? And you know, and I'm a guy,
Speaker 4: you know, and I like watching sports, and I like
Speaker 4: my occasional beer, and I like my occasional you know,
Speaker 4: nachos and whatnot. But the thing is is that people
Speaker 4: just you know, they they set themselves up to fail
Speaker 4: where those experiences happen way too often, you know.
Speaker 1: So we like to get people.
Speaker 4: To you know, set aside a day or two which
Speaker 4: is your cheap day, you know, sort of on a
Speaker 4: Saturday or Sunday, that's your golf day and that's sort
Speaker 4: of what you want to do.
Speaker 1: Hey, that's fine.
Speaker 4: But you know, if you're active and you're out there,
Speaker 4: and if you're traveling with your with your company, or
Speaker 4: you're with your family, or you know, you're just a
Speaker 4: busy guy or woman, and you know, life gets in
Speaker 4: the way. You know when to make sure that the
Speaker 4: choice that you're making don't get you spiraling down to
Speaker 4: the point where you're you're sluggish and you're you're unhappy,
Speaker 4: and you're gaining weight and poor energy, and you don't
Speaker 4: sleep well and you got inflammation.
Speaker 1: And on and on and on.
Speaker 4: So you know, the the Challenge series was kind of
Speaker 4: using golf as a tool for positive activation in the
Speaker 4: game or out, and every lesson was designed to to
Speaker 4: be there to help you learn something about yourself, to
Speaker 4: help you have more fun with the game, but also
Speaker 4: to uh to really give you some tools that we
Speaker 4: think can really help your lifestyle in every endeavor, even
Speaker 4: when you're not on the golf course.
Speaker 2: Well, that's part of the reason why I've always loved
Speaker 2: to talk to you, because it's not just swing mechanics
Speaker 2: with you.
Speaker 4: No, it's not, you know, And the thing is that
Speaker 4: with our with our brand, you know, I'm sort of
Speaker 4: the the chief ambassador behind the movement so to speak.
Speaker 4: You know, I conjured up the the concept a few
Speaker 4: years ago. But you know, everything that I do comes
Speaker 4: from me really just wanting to create a brand that
Speaker 4: that keeps me on point and makes me want to
Speaker 4: be the best I can be.
Speaker 1: And you know, I had a.
Speaker 4: History in fitness, not as a coach, but as a
Speaker 4: participant where my life was really transformed by some some
Speaker 4: key people. So fitness became part of you know, my
Speaker 4: life and what I like to infuse into my coaching.
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm.
Speaker 4: Married, you know, a nutrition coach, you know, so the
Speaker 4: nutrition component, you know, became part of my lifestyle. And
Speaker 4: then spend a lot of time with the fantastic friend
Speaker 4: of mine. His name is Chris Doris. He's a Fortune
Speaker 4: one hundred and five hundred leadership coach. He's worked with
Speaker 4: PGA tour players and whatnot, and you know, all of
Speaker 4: these mindset topics that we've gone over over the years
Speaker 4: have come from Chris. So, you know, make the term
Speaker 4: became you know, golf performance, which is my especialty mindset, fitness,
Speaker 4: you know, and nutrition. But we always like to say,
Speaker 4: you know, however good you think you can be, you know,
Speaker 4: we believe that through.
Speaker 1: Good coaching, you know, maybe you can be even a
Speaker 1: little bit better.
Speaker 4: So we're all about raising the bar, increasing expectations, and
Speaker 4: then creating a strategy to take concepts that are inherently
Speaker 4: complex and make them simple and doable and sustainable and
Speaker 4: really get you excited about prospects for you on the
Speaker 4: golf course.
Speaker 2: Raw, it's fabulous. So what is the future now that
Speaker 2: you've been doing this for fifties seventy weeks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well it's it's exciting. So it's not the end
Speaker 4: of the line at all. So Golf Die Just is
Speaker 4: really excited about the success of the series and this
Speaker 4: first series, I mean it was it was a hard one, Fred,
Speaker 4: because you know golf digests, you know, they've never filmed
Speaker 4: fifty of anything for one one problem. If you go
Speaker 4: to Golf Die Just TV, they have a lot of
Speaker 4: different really great series that they that they run, but
Speaker 4: a lot of them are you know, ten episodes or
Speaker 4: fifteen episodes, and it's just you know, it's it's a
Speaker 4: cost issue.
Speaker 1: It just takes a lot of Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, video is expensive.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it takes a lot of time, it takes a
Speaker 4: lot of money. It's difficult to get locations for extended periods.
Speaker 4: So you know what I did is I said, hey,
Speaker 4: this is what I want to do. I know it's ambitious,
Speaker 4: but if I if I can pull it off, will.
Speaker 1: You run it? Of course they said yes. So this
Speaker 1: first one was sort of all on me.
Speaker 4: I hired the video crew, I wrote all the challenges,
Speaker 4: I secured all the locations, was able to define some
Speaker 4: sponsors to help some for what we did, so we
Speaker 4: kind of went big and yeah. So now Golf Digest
Speaker 4: they're excited about talking about, you know, creating an offshoot
Speaker 4: of the video challenge series and doing something else that's
Speaker 4: still within the the MTT genre. So it's all about
Speaker 4: building the brand and you know, sort of being that
Speaker 4: lightning rod for personal activation. So that's the first thing
Speaker 4: which is exciting. So I guess I got to get
Speaker 4: working on what's going to be next there. And then
Speaker 4: the other thing that you and I talked about was
Speaker 4: the fact that we recently became.
Speaker 1: Partners with the Golf Channel.
Speaker 4: So the Golf Channel has decided to get into the
Speaker 4: Golf instruction slash growing the game business so to speak,
Speaker 4: you know, And they're not doing it by trying to
Speaker 4: create a standardized, you know, methodology on how to coach.
Speaker 1: But what they've done is they've identified.
Speaker 4: Some key coaches and some key locations throughout North America
Speaker 4: that they want to partner with, being business with and
Speaker 4: try and grow the game with. So coming Masters Week,
Speaker 4: people that watch Golf Channel programming are going to start
Speaker 4: seeing a rollout of a new initiative called Golf Channel Academy.
Speaker 4: And they had a show called Golf Channel Academy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say, that's not a new initiative
Speaker 2: that's been around for a while.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that's that's the TV show.
Speaker 4: But the Golf Channel Academy now is the actual hands
Speaker 4: on academy experience that people throughout North America can can
Speaker 4: engage in. So right now, I think they've got about
Speaker 4: forty locations by Master's Week, I think they're going to
Speaker 4: have about fifty locations. As you look globally, in the
Speaker 4: next five years, they're projected to do as high as
Speaker 4: one hundred and fifty locations.
Speaker 2: But base these are This isn't like an online initiative
Speaker 2: or an app initiative. This is a physical presence. Sign
Speaker 2: up and go go to the golf the academy itself.
Speaker 1: That's right, you know, So basically.
Speaker 2: That's a good brand to put the name on. That'll
Speaker 2: get a lot of interest.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, so basically, our our MTT Performance Academy here in
Speaker 4: Pebble Beach is a Golf Channel academy, So it is
Speaker 4: a brand within a brand concept. The Golf Channel is
Speaker 4: going to help us with marketing and distribution. We have
Speaker 4: a territory right now which hits most of northern California,
Speaker 4: so people that are in our region are going to
Speaker 4: start learning more about MTT at Poppy Hills, learning more
Speaker 4: about our staff, and we're going to have the interest
Speaker 4: in support of the Golf Channel to be able to
Speaker 4: create a product that's honestly better than we could do
Speaker 4: with our own resources. You know, it takes it takes
Speaker 4: a lot to do something really special, and the Golf
Speaker 4: Channel wants to do something special, so they're trying to help,
Speaker 4: you know, good coaches and great locations elevate their game,
Speaker 4: so to speak, with the Golf Channel and NBC style resourcing.
Speaker 4: So it's a pretty bold move. There's a gentleman named
Speaker 4: Todd Wilson who's the CEO of Golf Channel Academy, and his.
Speaker 1: Sort of history and business comes from NASCAR.
Speaker 4: He's actually the CFO of NASCAR and operates within a brand,
Speaker 4: within a brand strategy where franchises have territories throughout North America.
Speaker 4: So basically we're doing the same thing with golf instruction here.
Speaker 4: So the great thing is is that, you know, what
Speaker 4: we're doing is just going to keep getting better. You'll
Speaker 4: start seeing me more involved with Golf Channel programming. I've
Speaker 4: already done a bunch of videos that have already appeared
Speaker 4: on shows like Less and Team Live.
Speaker 1: Might have an.
Speaker 4: Opportunity here soon, hopefully to host one of those programs.
Speaker 4: The Golf Channels launching a new digital magazine this spring
Speaker 4: as well, and I was lucky enough to get the
Speaker 4: cover of that first digital issue.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so.
Speaker 2: It helps to be handsome, I.
Speaker 1: Tell you what I mean.
Speaker 4: I've really been so fortunate to just get a great
Speaker 4: response from dies in Golf Channel, and you know, it's
Speaker 4: kind of like the whole you know, twenty year overnight
Speaker 4: success for it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I remember my sure, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: none of this would have happened if you didn't meet Kate.
Speaker 1: She will definitely tell you that. For sure.
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you that too.
Speaker 1: Every idea that I think is mine obviously comes from her.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: My first article in Golf Diedist was April of twenty fourteen,
Speaker 4: and no, excuse me, April two thousand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, April and April of.
Speaker 4: Two thousand was my first Artiflin Golf Dinist. And it
Speaker 4: was just a little one pager. It was at the
Speaker 4: back of the magazine, you know.
Speaker 2: But what was it about.
Speaker 1: It was a pitching story.
Speaker 2: Of course, I knew you would remember. You always remember
Speaker 2: your first Yeah it was it.
Speaker 4: Was a picture, Yeah, absolutely, it was a picture.
Speaker 1: It was a pitching story.
Speaker 4: And it was just all about, you know, being able
Speaker 4: to better control distance and rhythm and get some predictable
Speaker 4: length out of your shots inside of one hundred yards.
Speaker 4: But you know, I had worked as a coach for
Speaker 4: the Golf Digest schools.
Speaker 1: About two years prior.
Speaker 4: And the thing is is that you know, when you
Speaker 4: work for the Golf Digest schools, it doesn't mean at
Speaker 4: all that you're going to get in Golf Digest magazine.
Speaker 4: That's just not how they how they do it right.
Speaker 4: So you could work for the Golf Digist schools forever
Speaker 4: and never get in the magazine. But I really wanted
Speaker 4: to do that. So I had written like forty story
Speaker 4: you know, ideas down, you know, with a short paragraph
Speaker 4: sentence or two on what the story was about. And
Speaker 4: I sent them to GoF Digest and I didn't hear
Speaker 4: anything back. And then I called and I didn't hear back.
Speaker 4: And then I said, Hey, I'm gonna come up and
Speaker 4: visit you guys, you know, knock on the door and
Speaker 4: you know, poke around a little bit. So I went
Speaker 4: up there and really, just through you know, persistence, I
Speaker 4: got them to cave and pick one and that story
Speaker 4: went in. And of course, you know when you get
Speaker 4: your first magazine story, you go out to like, you know,
Speaker 4: the grocery store, and then you show up with no grocery,
Speaker 4: you know, the checkout line and you got like twenty magazines,
Speaker 4: you know, and the lady behind the checkout counter is like, oh,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 1: Would you happen to be in this magazine?
Speaker 4: And you're like, oh yeah, maybe, uh I think so possibly.
Speaker 4: Then you like flip to the back and You're like,
Speaker 4: there it is, but I'm but anyway, that was that
Speaker 4: was how the whole thing, the whole thing started, and
Speaker 4: you know, I just kind of realized that, you know,
Speaker 4: you got to you gotta be persistent, and just because
Speaker 4: someone says no, it doesn't mean that it's not good
Speaker 4: or valuable. So I never got discouraged when I sent
Speaker 4: something out and nothing came back. I just did it
Speaker 4: because I loved it, and I kept on spreading it
Speaker 4: around and making relationships. So it's really just kind of
Speaker 4: cool to, you know, talk about this with you and
Speaker 4: think back to the first story and then you know,
Speaker 4: back then, if you would have told me that, you know,
Speaker 4: later in my career, I'd be spending you know, fifty
Speaker 4: consecutive weeks on golf Digest dot com and be doing
Speaker 4: series with success that we did, and then have these
Speaker 4: other opportunities and then you know, moving to go you know,
Speaker 4: the Golf Channel and NBC. I mean, you know, I'm
Speaker 4: a lucky guy and it's just so fun to be
Speaker 4: able to get up every day and do stuff like this.
Speaker 4: I mean right now, I mean, I'm working, I'm talking
Speaker 4: to Fred Green, you know, and I love it. You know,
Speaker 4: so I'm happy to be here, and you know, hopefully
Speaker 4: we can give some awesome stuff to your listeners today
Speaker 4: and get him excited about you know everything.
Speaker 2: Well, it's you know, it's one thing to you know,
Speaker 2: spend all that time, and you said you're lucky, and
Speaker 2: there's no question there's luck involved with this, but you
Speaker 2: you know, it's the ten thousand hours thing too. You've
Speaker 2: worked very, very hard at it, and I'm sure that
Speaker 2: you're the envy of many golf instructors, but you have
Speaker 2: this innate sense of how to make it work. And
Speaker 2: a lot of people are just you know, they're golf
Speaker 2: instructors and because they were good at golf when they
Speaker 2: were a kid, but they don't have the business sense
Speaker 2: or the marketing sense that you have. So congratulations again.
Speaker 2: I can't be more excited for you.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I was talking to one of my clients.
Speaker 4: One of my clients is a gentleman who works for
Speaker 4: for Apple Computer and we I just had this amazing day,
Speaker 4: Fred I got to tour Apple.
Speaker 1: Can you believe that I got to go up there?
Speaker 2: Come on, you're not even a geek, You're just a
Speaker 2: golf I just golf.
Speaker 4: But I've been a stockholders, but I got to tour Apple.
Speaker 4: You know, this this gentleman I have been friends for
Speaker 4: a few years and he just he's just the kind
Speaker 4: of guy that you know, some people are the early adopters.
Speaker 4: You know, they they drink the kool aid. They get
Speaker 4: exactly who you are and what you kind of stand
Speaker 4: for and what you're going for the moment that you
Speaker 4: know you start talking to him.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: So he's all about everything that we do with our
Speaker 4: with our brand here, and you know, we were having lunch,
Speaker 4: and you know, he understands that it's it's a challenge
Speaker 4: to be in this kind of a kind of a business.
Speaker 4: It's a challenge to grow and to evolve and to
Speaker 4: develop and adapt. And you know we started, you know,
Speaker 4: talking about the app put in and all the things
Speaker 4: that I've done, and I've I've driven my car cross
Speaker 4: country fifteen times, Fred, you know, moving from you know,
Speaker 4: Arizona to Palm Springs and then up to northern California
Speaker 4: and then going out to New Jersey and then working
Speaker 4: on Long Island, then back out to California. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's just back and forth and back and forth. And
Speaker 4: you know the thing is is that sometimes, you know,
Speaker 4: when you're when you're young, and I still think I'm young.
Speaker 1: I'm turning forty three.
Speaker 4: Uh you are forty three, but well, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, when you're when you're when you're really young,
Speaker 4: and when you get out of college, you're like, hey,
Speaker 4: this is the way life.
Speaker 1: Is going to be. You know, I'm gonna maybe I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make a bunch of money. I'm gonna live here,
Speaker 1: you know. And the thing is that, you know, life
Speaker 1: is is a lot more.
Speaker 4: Uh more challenging, and sometimes things don't happen the way
Speaker 4: you think they would, and you know the way that
Speaker 4: I thought it would happen. Honestly, when I got that
Speaker 4: first article in Golf Digest, I thought that, well, you know,
Speaker 4: Jim Flick was in Golf Digest and he was a
Speaker 4: hero of mine, and Peter Costas was in Golf Died.
Speaker 4: I just figured that if you were in Golf Digest,
Speaker 4: then you were going to be the director of construction
Speaker 4: at the world's greatest resort, and you were going to
Speaker 4: charge X for a lesson and you would be jam.
Speaker 1: Packed for months in advance, and hey, the world's your oyster.
Speaker 4: You're hitting golf balls and you're you're making people happy,
Speaker 4: and you know, the business changed a little bit and
Speaker 4: all of a sudden just because I had one story
Speaker 4: cuff digest that didn't that didn't that didn't happen. You know,
Speaker 4: So you work and you push, and you know, it's
Speaker 4: all about trying to find this this tipping point, right.
Speaker 4: You know, it's like this bucket of beans, and it's
Speaker 4: like I'm going to try and get this bucket of
Speaker 4: beans to grow one bean at a time. Then hopefully
Speaker 4: one day it's just going to fall over and then
Speaker 4: I'm going to have this you know, this career that
Speaker 4: you know I've created in my in my head, and
Speaker 4: you know, obviously it's a it's a challenge, right. So anyway,
Speaker 4: so this gentleman said to me, said, you know, so
Speaker 4: why do you continue pushing the way you push? Why
Speaker 4: do you continue trying to be creative and innovative? And
Speaker 4: you know, why are you trying to build this thing
Speaker 4: which is so big and so robust when maybe some
Speaker 4: of your counterparts are are content, you know, just putting
Speaker 4: teas in the ground and you know, teaching one person
Speaker 4: at a time and whatnot. And I said, you know
Speaker 4: what I said, I realized not too long ago that
Speaker 4: I am a lucky person. And I realized that, you know,
Speaker 4: depending on you know, how six desciful things are from
Speaker 4: day to day. I firmly believe that, you know, worst
Speaker 4: case scenario, will always be able to pay for my rent. Right,
Speaker 4: so I'm not going to be homeless, right might not
Speaker 4: live in the house I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: Live in, but I'm not gonna be homeless.
Speaker 4: And I always also believe that, you know, I've got
Speaker 4: friends in my life that I think will will always
Speaker 4: support me no matter what. And I'm lucky to be
Speaker 4: married to a woman who takes care of me and
Speaker 4: cares for me deally. So if I have all those
Speaker 4: things right, then I really had everything that anyone would need.
Speaker 4: And if that's the case, then why in the world
Speaker 4: would I get up in the morning and not try
Speaker 4: for anything less than exactly what it is that I.
Speaker 1: Want, you know, out of my life in my career,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 4: So it's all about just you know, being authentic and
Speaker 4: going big and knowing that, you know, I got so
Speaker 4: many hours in a day like the next guy does,
Speaker 4: but you know, why not just spend those hours kind
Speaker 4: of going for it, you know, as opposed to doing
Speaker 4: something something less, you know. So that that was my answer,
Speaker 4: and I think that's the thing that keeps me thinking
Speaker 4: big and you know, trying to be bold and trying
Speaker 4: to create some things that are exciting.
Speaker 2: When people like you are growing up and you're loving
Speaker 2: golf and doing this thing, their their vision of doing
Speaker 2: something great is on the tour. It doesn't sound like
Speaker 2: that was your thought ever. It sounds like the teaching
Speaker 2: part was always where you were headed. Well, or I
Speaker 2: may be misreading this, No, I mean it was.
Speaker 4: Sort of by default. I mean I grew up idolizing
Speaker 4: Jack Nicholas. You know, Jack was my hair. I remember
Speaker 4: watching him win the eighty six Masters, and its just
Speaker 4: beside myself with excitement, you know.
Speaker 1: And then I would go out to the practice Punny Green.
Speaker 4: My dad was a club pro, so I was on
Speaker 4: the golf course every single day, loving and chipping and
Speaker 4: pitching and playing golf. And you know, Jim Furick was
Speaker 4: a junior member at our club and on my high
Speaker 4: school golf team. In fact, I just reconnected with him
Speaker 4: down here at the at and T for the first
Speaker 4: time in a long time. But I mean, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: you want to you want to be a tour pro.
Speaker 4: But the thing is is that you know, when you're
Speaker 4: in high school and you're hitting balls next to Jim
Speaker 4: Furick and and he is who he is and you
Speaker 4: are who you are, and it's just not quite lining up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well he wasn't the way he was in high
Speaker 2: school the way he is in high school, and you
Speaker 2: had to be standing there going how are you able
Speaker 2: to get the ball where it goes with that swing?
Speaker 4: Well, it wasn't so much that, it was just I
Speaker 4: mean he was playing. He was playing in you know
Speaker 4: these A J G A tournaments, you know, so he
Speaker 4: was like a little mini tour pro.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know where I grew up. I grew
Speaker 1: up in a small town.
Speaker 4: I grew up in Amish Country, Pennsylvania, right and in Lancaster, PA.
Speaker 4: You know, if you're going to play in a golf tournament,
Speaker 4: you know, you and your friends, you know, get in
Speaker 4: a car or someone who you know who's old enough
Speaker 4: to drive, they pick you up and you drive an
Speaker 4: hour at most, and then you play a municipal course
Speaker 4: and you know, after you're done, you know, you get
Speaker 4: yourself a sandwich, you know, and a drink, and then
Speaker 4: you get the car and you go back home and
Speaker 4: mom and dad say, hey, how'd you play? And You're like,
Speaker 4: I shot whatever.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: Jim Furick was was going to the airport and getting
Speaker 4: on airplanes and flying to places like Sea Island and
Speaker 4: Sawgrass and you know, playing in these these tournaments which
Speaker 4: were like like tour events, you know, and he was
Speaker 4: winning them.
Speaker 1: And I remember, so.
Speaker 2: That put a perspective on the whole thing for you
Speaker 2: of I'm not in that league.
Speaker 4: It was just it was just a whole different, different thing.
Speaker 4: And he was, you know, I was a little bit undersized,
Speaker 4: you know, growing up. I mean some people would say
Speaker 4: I'm undersized now, but I mean but when I was
Speaker 4: in high school.
Speaker 1: I mean, Fred, when I when I when.
Speaker 4: I turned sixteen, Fred, I couldn't see over the steering
Speaker 4: wheel of the car that my parents bought me, you know,
Speaker 4: for my sixteenth birthday.
Speaker 1: They bought me in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 4: Four, subrew gl which is no you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: pickup truck, you know, suv monster.
Speaker 2: No, it's no deep dish pizza, no, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: Right, you know.
Speaker 4: And I had my license, Fred, I had my license
Speaker 4: for thirty minutes and I and I wrecked my car,
Speaker 4: well all four tires, and I ripped off the bunker,
Speaker 4: the bumper.
Speaker 1: Rather the bunker, I mean.
Speaker 4: So, I mean, I had, you know, some some challenges
Speaker 4: where you know, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm
Speaker 4: never going to grow and you know, parents taking you
Speaker 4: the doctor and the chronologist, and he's like, he's going
Speaker 4: to grow.
Speaker 1: I don't worry about it.
Speaker 4: But anyway, so I had this Jim Furrit character who
Speaker 4: was full grown, you know, winning tournaments nationally, you know,
Speaker 4: hitting the ball, shaving shaving, you know, I guess, you know.
Speaker 1: The the gap just looked really, really wide.
Speaker 4: And you know, I'd struggled with my game a little
Speaker 4: bit at the end of high school, and but I
Speaker 4: was at the same time, I had such a strong
Speaker 4: desire to play great and and that's when you start
Speaker 4: reading books and watching videos and asking your parents.
Speaker 1: For for more golf lessons. My dad was a pro.
Speaker 2: But yeah, but you.
Speaker 4: Know, we used to you know, get in the car
Speaker 4: and drive to you know, the best coach in town.
Speaker 4: And sometimes we would get on an ever plane and
Speaker 4: we would travel out to a place like Scottsdale, and
Speaker 4: I would be lucky enough to have Dad buy me
Speaker 4: a lesson from someone like.
Speaker 1: A Jim Flick, you know.
Speaker 4: So, I mean, you know, I always had this strong
Speaker 4: desire to play well. And you know that's where I
Speaker 4: think you start reading about the how associated with the what.
Speaker 4: You know, most most people, like you know, Jim Feerick
Speaker 4: was always kind of able to make a move that
Speaker 4: gave him what what he wan it. I'm not saying
Speaker 4: he didn't practice hard, but you know, some people just
Speaker 4: have that natural sequence of motion that lets him hammer it.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know the Ben Hogan's and the Lee Trevino's.
Speaker 4: I mean you know they didn't start off, you know,
Speaker 4: hitting at like thirty handicappers. You know, there was something
Speaker 4: about them, you know, just like a kid can sometimes
Speaker 4: step up and hit a home run in baseball. I mean,
Speaker 4: they understood how to put the club head on the
Speaker 4: ball to create a certain feel and sound and you know, kablamb,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. And they hone that over time.
Speaker 4: But you know, for me, you know, it was kind
Speaker 4: of hit and miss. It was elusive. You know, I
Speaker 4: developed an attitude that you know, if I wasn't going
Speaker 4: to be a great striker of the ball, then maybe
Speaker 4: I'll be a great putter and have a great bunker
Speaker 4: game and pitching game and have a good attitude. And
Speaker 4: you know, I had to develop my ball striking skill
Speaker 4: over time. And I've always been a good player, and
Speaker 4: I think that most golfers would look at my ball
Speaker 4: striking and say.
Speaker 1: Hey, it's pretty dark good.
Speaker 4: But there's a difference between the way Fred Couples hits
Speaker 4: it and the way Bubba Watson hits it, you know,
Speaker 4: and then the way that I hit it in high school.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 4: There's just a difference, right, so you start searching for
Speaker 4: you know, hey, how do you do that? You know,
Speaker 4: what do I need to change to be like that?
Speaker 4: And I think that's for me where the spark came
Speaker 4: in coaching is being able to take in some knowledge
Speaker 4: to apply it, to learn to make a difference not
Speaker 4: only for myself, but to make a difference for the
Speaker 4: people at the club.
Speaker 1: I gave my first lesson when I was sixteen. Wow,
Speaker 1: just you know, you plague off.
Speaker 4: With the members, you know, and you're better than they are,
Speaker 4: and they say, oh, hey, can you help me with this?
Speaker 4: And I just kind of, you know, made it a
Speaker 4: challenge to deliver a result. So I would say that
Speaker 4: my attitude towards the game splintered into more of a
Speaker 4: coaching path versus a playing path at a very very
Speaker 4: young age. And there was a multitude factors associated with that.
Speaker 4: But one was, you know, struggling with my own game.
Speaker 4: One was being a little bit undersized and falling behind
Speaker 4: the curve, and then the other was hitting balls next to
Speaker 4: a guy like Jim Ferrick every day and just seeing
Speaker 4: someone that was clearly better than you were.
Speaker 2: Your history, what you're doing, your initiative all absolutely fascinating
Speaker 2: to me, and I'm so glad we got the update.
Speaker 2: But to what you said just a moment ago, well, hey,
Speaker 2: can you help me with this. Can we talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about putting absolutely good enough? So we all
Speaker 2: know hopefully we all know distance and direction right? The
Speaker 2: most important part of that is distance. Most people think
Speaker 2: the beginners. I love talking to people who are just
Speaker 2: starting to play golf and you asked them the question
Speaker 2: distance and direction, and they oh, direction, you got it right.
Speaker 2: And then but yeah, you put it seventeen feet past
Speaker 2: the hole, but right, versus putting it twelve inches outside
Speaker 2: the hole. But it's whole high. Right, So I'm assuming
Speaker 2: this is correct distance and direction.
Speaker 1: Ye distance direction, and then green reading would be the.
Speaker 2: Think through and green reading. Okay, so let's I want
Speaker 2: to pick those apart from it. I my game's gotten better,
Speaker 2: my putting's gotten worse, and so and sometimes it's distance
Speaker 2: and sometimes it's direction. I feel like I'm a decent
Speaker 2: green reader that I'm pretty good with. I mean, people
Speaker 2: are like, wow, that was a good read. But it's
Speaker 2: either coming up short or it's going just your dude,
Speaker 2: just to the right or the left. It's nothing, you know,
Speaker 2: it's not consistent right or left. It's if it was,
Speaker 2: that would help, but it's not. Let's talk about this
Speaker 2: the distance part. I need some distance drills.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I mean distance with any shot. I mean,
Speaker 4: it really comes down to number one, the quality of
Speaker 4: your contact.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: So I mean, if you're hitting the ball all over
Speaker 4: the potter face, you're not going to have any predictability
Speaker 4: in your distance. And then from there it comes from
Speaker 4: I would say at the start understanding that the correlation
Speaker 4: correlation between swing size and rhythm associated with getting the
Speaker 4: ball to roll in particular distance.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So for example, I.
Speaker 4: Had a junior golfer out here the other day and
Speaker 4: his distance control was all over the place, you know,
Speaker 4: So we used to start kind of going back to basics, saying,
Speaker 4: you know, and putting. We're trying to create a stroke.
Speaker 4: A way to imagine a stroke is to imagine a
Speaker 4: pendulum on a Grandfather clock. And one of the things
Speaker 4: about a pendulum is that it swings back and through
Speaker 4: an even amount on both sides. So I just go
Speaker 4: ahead and I hold the putter between my fingers and
Speaker 4: I get it swinging back and forth right. And as
Speaker 4: it's swinging back and forth, you know, I'll start creating
Speaker 4: a cadence. Sometimes I'll say one to two, sometimes I'll
Speaker 4: say TikTok. Other times I'll say it back through. And
Speaker 4: I'm trying to get this student, you know, whether it's
Speaker 4: a junior golfer or someone who is advanced in years
Speaker 4: and has played the game for a long time, to
Speaker 4: kind of get reconnected with a pendulum swing.
Speaker 1: And a pendulum rhythm.
Speaker 4: And then what I'll do is I'll keep on making
Speaker 4: those audible sounds one to TikTok, back through, but I'll
Speaker 4: start to shift the size the pendulum is swinging, you know.
Speaker 4: So I'll go one, two, and I'll make the putter
Speaker 4: swing within a small arc, and then I'll go TikTok,
Speaker 4: and I'll make it swing in a bigger arc, and
Speaker 4: I'll say it back through, and I'll make it swing
Speaker 4: on a bigger arc yet. And the thing I'm trying
Speaker 4: to get across is that, regardless of swing size, the
Speaker 4: rhythm is the constant.
Speaker 1: It's always the same.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So once we can do that, you know, we'll just
Speaker 4: try and make some strokes where you know, I'll have
Speaker 4: the student put a ball any distance they want. I'll see,
Speaker 4: go ahead and put it about about ten feet, it
Speaker 4: doesn't really matter. They put it ten feet, and i
Speaker 4: want them to feel a stroke that's in rhythm, you know. One, two,
Speaker 4: hold the finish, see how far the ball goes. And
Speaker 4: then I'll say, okay, now let's go ahead and put
Speaker 4: the next ball one putter length longer than the first ball.
Speaker 4: So the only thing to change is the size. But
Speaker 4: we're going to try and feel that same beat, that
Speaker 4: same rhythm. So we'll try and create these little rungs
Speaker 4: of the ladder that start close and then go farther away.
Speaker 4: And then once we do that, we might put a
Speaker 4: ball a longer distance and then work the ladder back
Speaker 4: towards us. But it's all about just trying to get
Speaker 4: sort of tuned into what is going to produce distance aa,
Speaker 4: b C, so.
Speaker 1: On and so forth.
Speaker 4: From there, what we might do is you have them
Speaker 4: grab their phone and go ahead and find a free
Speaker 4: electronic metronome app.
Speaker 1: Right, there's a ton of them out there, right, So
Speaker 1: you find an app.
Speaker 4: And then what we might do is we might go
Speaker 4: ahead and start at a very low beats per minute,
Speaker 4: like fifty beats a minute, right, so at a pace
Speaker 4: that you would never put at. So you turn on
Speaker 4: this metronome and you start hearing this beat just like
Speaker 4: you would if you were playing a piano or in
Speaker 4: a guitar lesson with someone right now. Obviously, musicians they
Speaker 4: have to play to a beat in a rhythm, and
Speaker 4: that's what makes a band sound enjoyable to listen to
Speaker 4: versus like a big train wreck. And what we'll have
Speaker 4: them do is start to hear this metronome beat, and
Speaker 4: then we'll start to try and roll putts where they
Speaker 4: match the backswing and follow through to the beat of
Speaker 4: the metronome. And the reason I like to start at
Speaker 4: a very very slow pace is number one so that
Speaker 4: they can match the beat easily, but also so that
Speaker 4: they can start to feel what it's like to be
Speaker 4: held back, you know what I mean, to be at
Speaker 4: an uncomfortably lethargic pace.
Speaker 1: From there, what.
Speaker 4: We'll do is we'll take that metronome and we'll zip
Speaker 4: it up to a ridiculously high number, something well over
Speaker 4: one hundred beats permitted.
Speaker 1: And now it's going, you know.
Speaker 4: Tick, And now they have to match the beat of
Speaker 4: something that's really really fast, and of course they feel
Speaker 4: like they're being pulled forward to an uncomfortable degree. And
Speaker 4: once they can do that, then we try and find
Speaker 4: a rhythm that's really comfortable for them, somewhere between.
Speaker 1: The slow in the fast. Let's say around you know,
Speaker 1: seventy nine eighty beats a minute. Everyone's different, you know,
Speaker 1: if you look at golfers and their golf swings, if
Speaker 1: you think about a slow rhythm like a Larry Mize,
Speaker 1: you know, versus a fast rhythm like a Nick Price.
Speaker 4: I mean, everyone in their lives, they move and they
Speaker 4: talk and they act at different speeds. So the rhythm
Speaker 4: that's going to be perfect for you is something that's
Speaker 4: totally unique. But once you find that rhythm where you're like, hey,
Speaker 4: this feels good. Now, all of a sudden, I'll have
Speaker 4: them putt right around the green to the beat of
Speaker 4: a metronome. And just like a musician would play guitar
Speaker 4: or play piano or play the drums to the beat
Speaker 4: of a metronome as well. So now they get really
Speaker 4: tuned into the fact that there's a size to a stroke,
Speaker 4: which should be relatively even, but there's definitely a rhythm
Speaker 4: that's unique to them that needs to be the constant
Speaker 4: or the glue between the short, the medium, and the
Speaker 4: long strokes.
Speaker 2: Does that rhythm going very slow to very fast? Does
Speaker 2: that also dictate how far the ball is going to go?
Speaker 2: I mean, like, if you're going really slowly fifty beats,
Speaker 2: is the ball going to generally you're going to hit
Speaker 2: that harder, it's going to go farther, and then with
Speaker 2: a with a quick rhythm, it's going to be a
Speaker 2: shorter putt. Or are you always trying to find your
Speaker 2: rhythm for the distance.
Speaker 4: Well, your rhythm is going to be constant whether it's
Speaker 4: short meter or long, right, So that's that's yeah, that's
Speaker 4: the idea. But the thing is that when you change
Speaker 4: the size of the swing within that rhythm. Obviously the
Speaker 4: overall speed is different, right, but.
Speaker 2: Staying at your staying at your comfort zone rhythm.
Speaker 1: Exactly, So obviously good.
Speaker 4: If you're making a bigger stroke, right, the stroke's going
Speaker 4: to have to move faster to fit within that same beat.
Speaker 1: Right. So obviously it's going to have an effect on distance.
Speaker 4: But you know, most people when they're out there for it,
Speaker 4: it's just that they're not really working on anything, and
Speaker 4: that's and that's the problem.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: So with putting, you know, when people come out and
Speaker 4: they say, you know what's most important, I say, well,
Speaker 4: it's got to be this, because, as you pointed out,
Speaker 4: you know, you can miss it a few inches right
Speaker 4: or left, but then you can also miss it, you know,
Speaker 4: a number of feet short or long. And I found
Speaker 4: that even the worst aimers in the world, you know,
Speaker 4: if I show them where the hole is and I say,
Speaker 4: go ahead and roll me a putt, they don't put
Speaker 4: it ninety degrees to the left. You know, they kind
Speaker 4: of aim in the vicinity. They might not read the green,
Speaker 4: but they're pointing in the general direction of the hole.
Speaker 4: But that's the same person I've seen them put it
Speaker 4: fifteen feet past right, So the error of fifteen feet
Speaker 4: is a lot more to their detriment than you know,
Speaker 4: even a foot or two right or left.
Speaker 1: So if you have good pace.
Speaker 4: And even reasonable aim, then you're going to be in
Speaker 4: a good position to you know, have a short second
Speaker 4: putt and all of a sudden you have a lot
Speaker 4: of two putts, you eliminate three putts and you start,
Speaker 4: you know, shaving those those strokes. The next thing that
Speaker 4: I teach after distance is is how to read a green,
Speaker 4: because if you don't know how to read a green,
Speaker 4: it doesn't do you any good to be able to
Speaker 4: start the ball on a straight line with proper path
Speaker 4: in face relationships, you know. So the third thing I
Speaker 4: actually teaches is direction ohe green?
Speaker 2: Oh so green and green reading is second for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so if you think about it, you know, Dave.
Speaker 4: Pel's who was my first boss, and I did a
Speaker 4: lot of research and basically said the average golfer underreads
Speaker 4: putts by up to seventy five per So, you know,
Speaker 4: imagine if you were in a a cold weather climate.
Speaker 4: Let's say you live in Green Bay, Wisconsin, right, and
Speaker 4: you love golf, So every day you you set up
Speaker 4: in front of your TV and you say, I make
Speaker 4: a hundred perfect strokes in my putting track, right, And
Speaker 4: the putting track is designed to give you a reasonable
Speaker 4: path and face that would move the ball on your
Speaker 4: intended line. And let's say you do that for for
Speaker 4: six straight months, so you hone this perfect stroke. Opening day,
Speaker 4: you go out to your home course and on the
Speaker 4: very first put you underread the putt by seventy five percent.
Speaker 4: The only way you can possibly make that putt is
Speaker 4: if you take your perfect stroke and you alter it
Speaker 4: to push the ball or pull the ball to a
Speaker 4: higher line by path or face manipulation. So basically, if
Speaker 4: you can't read a green, there's no point in even
Speaker 4: trying to create a reasonable.
Speaker 1: Path and face because it's just gonna be a big
Speaker 1: waste of time.
Speaker 4: Now, if Fred you can find the proper line through
Speaker 4: understanding how to read a green, and then you can
Speaker 4: roll the ball at a desired pace, Now, starting the
Speaker 4: ball on that line becomes the most important thing, and
Speaker 4: that's where spending some time training path and face in
Speaker 4: starting line would be really, really helpful. But I think
Speaker 4: that when people learn how to put they're always trying
Speaker 4: to create this perfect looking stroke, when in reality, it
Speaker 4: all starts with creating a smooth with roll and then
Speaker 4: being able to judge slope in a reasonable way so
Speaker 4: you know where to start the ball, and then from
Speaker 4: there start honing those little nuances and path and face
Speaker 4: to close the deal.
Speaker 2: Fabulous, awesome, thank you, thank you. It really helps. I'm
Speaker 2: going to get off the phone with you because I
Speaker 2: want to go start working on it right. Well, and
Speaker 2: that's you know, that's and that's just my opinion, right, No,
Speaker 2: that's okay, I trust your opinion, but.
Speaker 1: That's you know, I used to spend a lot of time.
Speaker 4: Working on my path and my face, right, And the
Speaker 4: more I focused on those things, the less putts I made.
Speaker 4: Because I wasn't connected with putting a smooth, beautiful turf
Speaker 4: hugging role.
Speaker 1: On my golf ball. I wasn't connected with.
Speaker 4: The challenge associated with solving the problem of judging slope
Speaker 4: and grain and all these things that make you know, uh,
Speaker 4: golf golf fun. You know, all I was focused on was,
Speaker 4: you know, what does my swing path look like?
Speaker 1: What does my putter face look like?
Speaker 4: And I was standing in these little devices all the
Speaker 4: day along, just going back and forth and back and forth,
Speaker 4: and I would go out and I would hit the
Speaker 4: worst looking putt you've ever you've ever seen, you know,
Speaker 4: and that became really frustrating.
Speaker 1: So, you know, the way that I teach putting.
Speaker 4: Was really born a lot from my own frustration and
Speaker 4: putting and understanding that you know, all great putters they
Speaker 4: roll the ball nicely. The ball doesn't hop up in
Speaker 4: the air, it doesn't skid, it doesn't do all these
Speaker 4: weird things, you know.
Speaker 1: My balls.
Speaker 4: You know, I was spending all this time working on
Speaker 4: my stroke, you know, directional mechanics, and then I would
Speaker 4: put these balls, you know, and they would roll towards
Speaker 4: the hole like like a like a drunk lumbering down
Speaker 4: Main Street, and like in that ball wants to go
Speaker 4: anywhere but the hole. And it wasn't until I start
Speaker 4: to soften my hands on the grip and become less
Speaker 4: rigid with my mechanics and start to feel some rhythm
Speaker 4: and some flow that my ball started to behave the
Speaker 4: way that I wanted it to behave. You know, I
Speaker 4: was also a big fan of Ben Crenshawn. Have you
Speaker 4: ever seen Ben Crenshaw roll a ball in person?
Speaker 1: I mean it.
Speaker 4: It is a work of art. You know what he
Speaker 4: does just rolling a ball ten feet across the grass,
Speaker 4: you know, And my ball wasn't doing that, you know.
Speaker 4: So it wasn't until I started focusing on rhythm and
Speaker 4: roll and just trying to make the ball behave in
Speaker 4: a more beautiful way that I started to make putts
Speaker 4: and get back into the joy of putting. And yeah,
Speaker 4: I've worked on path and face since, but it's never
Speaker 4: been my number one priority as it relates to making putts.
Speaker 1: Are enjoying putting?
Speaker 4: Now people have really bad path and face mechanics and
Speaker 4: they can't start the ball anywhere near their intended line
Speaker 4: and do the need.
Speaker 1: To work on it?
Speaker 4: Of course you do, right, But for me that's number three.
Speaker 4: In the years past, it used to be number one,
Speaker 4: and I gotten.
Speaker 2: Away from that fabulous. Well, you gave us the name
Speaker 2: of the show today too, the Joy of putting.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it. Listen. You mentioned that
Speaker 2: your first published article was a piece on chipping. Was
Speaker 2: how about sharing the tip from the article?
Speaker 1: Well, it was all about so.
Speaker 4: One of the things I learned when I worked for
Speaker 4: Dave Peal's was that it's one game made up of
Speaker 4: many games, right. And the thing is is that in golf,
Speaker 4: I mean, there's a lot of different attitudes that you
Speaker 4: have for different shots. And Dave would always say that
Speaker 4: you have a power game, which is basically how hard
Speaker 4: and how far can you hit the ball, and then
Speaker 4: you had a finesse game, which was hitting a short soft,
Speaker 4: and you had a putting game, and then you had
Speaker 4: a mental game. So all these games together, if you
Speaker 4: were fairly proficient, would lead up to having one great
Speaker 4: round of golf possibly. And thinking about the finesse game
Speaker 4: is that the finesse game has different from the power
Speaker 4: game and the putting game. And the biggest difference that
Speaker 4: we talked about in the story was the dissociation between
Speaker 4: your hips and your shoulders that you would normally have
Speaker 4: in the wind up and strike for power based golf shot.
Speaker 4: So basically, when you turn your shoulders back right and
Speaker 4: then you'll let your hips wind up in a power shot,
Speaker 4: there's a difference between those two, right, and then as
Speaker 4: you transition from the backswing into the downswing and that
Speaker 4: gap increases, you generate a little bit more ability to
Speaker 4: create a massive swat into the back of the golf ball, right.
Speaker 4: So being that in a finesse shot, it's more of
Speaker 4: a rhythm may swing.
Speaker 1: We tried to eliminate.
Speaker 4: Some of this disassociation as a means of taking away
Speaker 4: some of that explosive power. So basically, the tip that
Speaker 4: I rode for Golf Died just back in April of
Speaker 4: two thousand was a direct ripoff from my time at
Speaker 4: the day of Pallas Short Game School.
Speaker 1: So Dave, if you're listening to this, you get full
Speaker 1: credit for this and a lot of other stuff that
Speaker 1: I've written.
Speaker 4: But anyway, basically about when you turn back and then
Speaker 4: you turn through, we're trying to keep the upper and
Speaker 4: lower halves your body moving more in unison. Right, So
Speaker 4: as I turned my chest away from the target, I
Speaker 4: want my belt buckle to turn away reasonably to a
Speaker 4: similar degree. And as I was turning into impacting the
Speaker 4: fall through, I was trying to feel like those two
Speaker 4: parts of my body were staying more together. And that's
Speaker 4: what Dave used to call a finesse turn. So basically,
Speaker 4: like putting is stroke size and rhythm, with pitching, we
Speaker 4: would try and make it swing size, rhythm, and then
Speaker 4: of course club selection, we would try and eliminate the
Speaker 4: component of trying to disassociate the shoulders from the hips
Speaker 4: to create that powerful X Factor style wind up in
Speaker 4: delivery that you might have with a big driver. A
Speaker 4: powerful shop in the fairway