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Speaker 2: There are six immortals in the game of golf.
Speaker 3: All the analytics tell you is the further you hit.
Speaker 2: It right, the better you are. And you know that's
Speaker 2: become the modern golf swing, a kind of bludgeoning.
Speaker 3: If you play golf, you know the deal. You take lessons,
Speaker 3: you take a tip from YouTube, you practice, you integrate,
Speaker 3: and then it works until it doesn't and you're back
Speaker 3: at square one. Simply put, you've joined the quest for
Speaker 3: the perfect swing. So if you're obsessed with breaking eighty
Speaker 3: or ninety, lasting it to eighty, or hitting it down
Speaker 3: the middle, you've come to the right place. This is
Speaker 3: golf smartest, correct and mistakes, and now here's your home.
Speaker 3: Josh Cart Today, I'm lucky enough to have Stephen Practor,
Speaker 3: who is a golf history in here with us to
Speaker 3: talk about the history of the golf swing. Stephen, thank
Speaker 3: you for taking the time to do this.
Speaker 2: I'm delighted to be on. I really appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 2: It's always fun to talk about the history of golf
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you've written several great books about it. So
Speaker 3: where do we start, Andrews.
Speaker 2: Yes, No, that's the beginning, and I would say that
Speaker 2: you have to think about the swing as something that
Speaker 2: evolves with the course conditions that you played in, with
Speaker 2: the technology that was available to you, in particular the
Speaker 2: evolution of the ball. So the first ball, the feather ball,
Speaker 2: you couldn't strike it in the way that you strike
Speaker 2: a modern ball, or it would just explode and you
Speaker 2: look like you lost a pillow fight, and feathers would
Speaker 2: be flying everywhere. It needed to be swept off the ground.
Speaker 2: But you couldn't have that downward strike that you have
Speaker 2: in the modern age. It was a very sweepy swing
Speaker 2: and in order to get distance on it, you need
Speaker 2: to have quite a long turn of the club around
Speaker 2: your body. So it was a very arms and wrist
Speaker 2: focused motion. If you look at John Daily or Brooke Henderson,
Speaker 2: who take the club all the way around in that way,
Speaker 2: that was the way the golf club was swung at
Speaker 2: the beginning, so you could get as much force on
Speaker 2: that sweepy swing. He played exclusively with long nosed wooden clubs.
Speaker 2: But I think if you're thinking about the modern golf swing,
Speaker 2: you need to start with what I would think of
Speaker 2: as the first modern ball, and that's the gutty ball,
Speaker 2: the hard rubber ball that you could you could strike
Speaker 2: that ball, you could hit it. You know. You almost
Speaker 2: never used an iron with featheries because they might burst
Speaker 2: if you were close to the green and you could
Speaker 2: ship it. Certain players they know, they well, they did go.
Speaker 2: They did get airborne, but not like the height of
Speaker 2: a ball, be like a little below quail high. They'd be,
Speaker 2: you know, flying quite low under the wind, and all
Speaker 2: from the game would be played mainly on the ground.
Speaker 2: So the Saint Andrews swing is not very closely related
Speaker 2: to the swing as it exists today. Modern swing really
Speaker 2: begins with the introduction of the gutty ball in eighteen fifty.
Speaker 2: And the thing about the gutty ball is you could
Speaker 2: hit it with irons, and so irons start right away
Speaker 2: to become the predominant club, and as a result, the
Speaker 2: swing begins to evolve. The big moment is the arrival
Speaker 2: of young Tom Morris, the first player that decided that
Speaker 2: a way to hit a golf ball was to absolutely
Speaker 2: lash at it, hit it as hard as you could,
Speaker 2: as far as you could, with every single swing. And
Speaker 2: the result of that was that he shortened the swing
Speaker 2: to generate more power and more force. And that's where
Speaker 2: the modern swing starts to evolve, and you know, fearlessness
Speaker 2: being a big part of it. You know, hazards were
Speaker 2: really really hazards in those days. There was no such
Speaker 2: thing as a bunker rake. If you got in a bunker,
Speaker 2: it was a disaster, So people were cautious. Whereas he
Speaker 2: would throw, he didn't have any game for caution at all.
Speaker 2: And that's where the thing begins to change, and it
Speaker 2: wins to epically change with the introdution of the askeoball
Speaker 2: at the turn of the century around nineteen oh two
Speaker 2: or so, were.
Speaker 3: Young Tom Morrison and Varden contemporaries of each others? Or
Speaker 3: what where did they? Because I know Varden had a
Speaker 3: big inact on how the club was swung. Yes after Morris, Yes.
Speaker 2: They're not contemporaries. Tommy precedes him by fifty years or thereabouts.
Speaker 2: Tommy dies in eighteen seventy five and Garden wins his
Speaker 2: first championship in eighteen ninety six, So a generation separates them.
Speaker 2: I think if you want to look for the antecedents
Speaker 2: of the modern swing, you have to start with Carnousti,
Speaker 2: because around the turn of the century, Carnousti sends hundreds
Speaker 2: and hundreds of men to the United States to be
Speaker 2: golf professionals, two hundred and fifty through the US alone,
Speaker 2: four hundred to become golf oppressionals at various other places
Speaker 2: in the world. And the Carnousti swing was a swing,
Speaker 2: and that was much more upper body turn focused, the
Speaker 2: kind of swing that you see a modern golfer making
Speaker 2: begins there and certain key teachers come to the United States,
Speaker 2: namely Stuart Maiden and Alex Smith. Stuart Maiden was the
Speaker 2: model for Bobby Jones's swing, and he also was the
Speaker 2: teacher of Alexa Stirling, who was one of the first
Speaker 2: breakthrough women golfers in the world, one of the first
Speaker 2: women to really lash at the ball in the way
Speaker 2: that a man did, cecil Leach being her contemporary in Britain.
Speaker 2: So those two men, Stuart Maiden, Alex Smith, and a
Speaker 2: lot of other Carnoustie teachers begin to take this idea
Speaker 2: of this Carnoustie swing that's more upper body turn focus,
Speaker 2: meant to deliver more power and strength to the strike
Speaker 2: of the ball. I think Stuart Maiden's basic instruction was
Speaker 2: hold your hands this way, stand up to the ball
Speaker 2: this way, and now hit the hell out of it.
Speaker 2: You know, that was one of the things they want,
Speaker 2: a strong and powerful swing. And then you mentioned Varden.
Speaker 2: So along about eighteen ninety Varden comes along and he
Speaker 2: and all the players from Jersey have a considerably more
Speaker 2: upright swing. And Varden was one of the first people
Speaker 2: to make a very very upright swing, and his swing
Speaker 2: was considered to be picture perfect in that age. And
Speaker 2: so that's another really big step along the road, is
Speaker 2: the arrival of Varden. Part of the reason that it
Speaker 2: is such a big step is that in nineteen hundred
Speaker 2: spends most of a year playing golf all over the
Speaker 2: United States. I forget the exact number of exhibitioncy but
Speaker 2: he's put on, but I think it was around one
Speaker 2: hundred exhibitions for you know, golf courses all over the
Speaker 2: United States. And that is the thing that really gets
Speaker 2: golf going in America. The first permanent club in America
Speaker 2: was founded in eighteen eighty eight, so Varden arriving becomes
Speaker 2: the basic model for Americans learning the game. Also right,
Speaker 2: and I think the other thing that is important. Americans
Speaker 2: took the game in a way different way than Scots
Speaker 2: or Englishmen ever had, or any British person. British people
Speaker 2: did not practice. Of most classic golf facilities have no
Speaker 2: practice area or have had to create a practice area
Speaker 2: somewhere within reasonable driving distance of the club because the
Speaker 2: original clubs people just didn't practice. In Britain. What they
Speaker 2: meant by practice was if they were having trouble with
Speaker 2: their mashie, they would take it out to a quiet
Speaker 2: corner of the course in the evening it hit about
Speaker 2: eight shots with to try to figure out what was
Speaker 2: going on. That was practice, as far as British were concerned,
Speaker 2: Americans practiced. They practiced assiduously, They built facilities for the
Speaker 2: purpose of practicing, and in that way Americans really begame
Speaker 2: the first significant analyzers of the swing. You know, mostly
Speaker 2: it was taught in a natural way in Scotland. Even
Speaker 2: the Carnisty players and stuff but Americans started to die
Speaker 2: it much more technically and that became quite popular across
Speaker 2: the pond in about nineteen twenty or nineteen thirty as well.
Speaker 3: Was that a cultural difference that you know, Americans started
Speaker 3: practicing like crazy too.
Speaker 2: I do think it is a cultural difference. You know,
Speaker 2: Americans have a culture that's very individual, excellence focused. I
Speaker 2: will succeed on my own, whereas Britain. Golf, in particularly
Speaker 2: in Britain, is much more a team focused thing. Most
Speaker 2: people played foursomes as opposed to score play golf. The
Speaker 2: members of the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society began to
Speaker 2: get really interested in American ideas. And there's a book
Speaker 2: that's written by Joyce Weathered and Roger, her brother, called
Speaker 2: Golf from Both Sides, and part of it was a
Speaker 2: chapter about Roger having gone to America to see what
Speaker 2: Americans were doing with the golf swing and to try
Speaker 2: to understand why Americans are starting to beat the British
Speaker 2: all the time and for me and they'd never been
Speaker 2: able to do that, but now they've elevated the swing
Speaker 2: and the practice and the mentality about golf to a
Speaker 2: point where they're starting to win and Roger devotes a
Speaker 2: whole chapter to why Americans' ideas are working better than
Speaker 2: our ideas and it's just fascinating to see. And you know,
Speaker 2: once again, technology is deeply involved, because starting about eighteen
Speaker 2: eighty you could take photos that would stop in sequence,
Speaker 2: and then the breakthrough time really is in nineteen thirties,
Speaker 2: when Bobby Jones is excelling, Joyce Weather it is excelling.
Speaker 2: You can actually get a movie now that shows your
Speaker 2: swing and can stop at every certain number of seconds
Speaker 2: to show you precisely where your club is going at
Speaker 2: every moment. We haven't really gotten off that track from
Speaker 2: that moment to this, We've merely continued to perfect it
Speaker 2: to the point now where an average golfer like me
Speaker 2: can if they were that sort of person, which I'm not.
Speaker 2: I need to point out that my you know, knowledge
Speaker 2: of the swing is very strictly academic, as anyone has
Speaker 2: ever seen me play nos. But you can have TrackMan
Speaker 2: on your range, you can see where your clubs go,
Speaker 2: you can see anything you want.
Speaker 3: I've had the horrifying experience of seeing my swing on
Speaker 3: a video camera directly next to Ernie l swing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's nothing I ever want to see again. I
Speaker 3: did take a lesson where they had an indoor facility
Speaker 3: with the track man, and it was un believable. You
Speaker 3: do learn a lot just of basic stuff. I can't
Speaker 3: imagine how for somebody who's doing it all the time,
Speaker 3: who's not a pro. It's got to be just totally
Speaker 3: overwhelming all of that information.
Speaker 2: I would think, so for me, it wouldn't work for me.
Speaker 2: One of the most formative books written about golf is
Speaker 2: called Shape Your Swing. The Modern Away by Byron Nelson
Speaker 2: to test golf balls and golf equipment is called the
Speaker 2: Iron Byron because it replicates the first person who have
Speaker 2: perfected and understood the completely modern swing. Nelson got very
Speaker 2: close to the perfect swing. And of course Nelson had
Speaker 2: huge influence over the game because he helped to teach Watson,
Speaker 2: and he helped to teach Venturi, and he was a
Speaker 2: mentor to many stars in the game in terms of
Speaker 2: how their swings developed and how they moved the golf club.
Speaker 2: And then Hogan, I think, becomes the you know what
Speaker 2: I would call the final mountain of the modern swing.
Speaker 2: You know, he gets to where it's you know, very
Speaker 2: near absolute perfection.
Speaker 3: Now with Nelson. The big factor, as you were saying,
Speaker 3: was you know, you've got equipment, you've got you know,
Speaker 3: the places they're playing, and a bunch of other factors.
Speaker 3: And I know the steel shafts were really the big
Speaker 3: change for Nelson, right, he had to learn how to
Speaker 3: swing with a steel shaft as opposed to a hickory shaft.
Speaker 3: Was that not the catalyst that made this news thing?
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a huge evolutionary aspect of the modern swing
Speaker 2: because obviously a steel shaft going to produce more power,
Speaker 2: you know, have much more likely much more flex in
Speaker 2: it than a hickory cheft, which does have a fair
Speaker 2: amount of flex. But no, Nelson is the first generation
Speaker 2: of people to use one of the first to use it,
Speaker 2: because nineteen thirty, nineteen twenty nine, I believe, is when
Speaker 2: they are made legal. You know, Bobby Jones stayed with
Speaker 2: his hickory clubs, Joyce Weather had stayed with her hickory clubs.
Speaker 2: Many people did, but you know, the new generation went
Speaker 2: to the steel and Nelson was you know, that was
Speaker 2: very influential on how the swing went on to develop
Speaker 2: and the you know, more powerful dimensions of it that
Speaker 2: have continued to evolve into the modern age, where quite
Speaker 2: a lot more emphasis now is put on, you know,
Speaker 2: hitting the ball hard.
Speaker 3: They read a good article about about Nelson changing and
Speaker 3: I think one of the things he said was that
Speaker 3: with the Hickory clubs you had to rotate the head
Speaker 3: open and then rotate it back again closed, and that
Speaker 3: that was not he could be much more vertical right
Speaker 3: with these or maybe vertical is not the right word,
Speaker 3: but less of that action with his hands.
Speaker 2: Well, it's much the modern swing just got much more
Speaker 2: focused on rotating around an axis and not have movement
Speaker 2: of your head or your body or whatever, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. Percy Boomer put out a book called
Speaker 2: on Learning Golf, which is, you know, a very esoteric book,
Speaker 2: and I think it was published in the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 2: but I'd have to look it up to remember. But
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of what is taught in the
Speaker 2: modern game comes from the intellectual ideas that Boomer puts
Speaker 2: forth in that book, and a lot of it has
Speaker 2: to do with connection between mind and body. So the
Speaker 2: mental aspects of the swing start to get introduced into it.
Speaker 2: And you know, that's another hugely influential book that people
Speaker 2: like Tommy Armor and other people who wrote great instructional
Speaker 2: books were heavily influenced by that. Ernest Jones and some
Speaker 2: of the other great teachers.
Speaker 3: As reading where you know, Nicholas said he never even
Speaker 3: hit a shot of the practice range that he didn't
Speaker 3: visualized before. Do you know at all? When that kind
Speaker 3: of mind body visualization, the whole mental approach to the
Speaker 3: game became a formal thing that people were, you know,
Speaker 3: or not even formal, but just you know, who are
Speaker 3: the first players that were really trying to take a
Speaker 3: mental approach to the game rather than than just playing
Speaker 3: the way you play.
Speaker 2: I would say two things about that. One is there's
Speaker 2: always been a thread of that in golf instruction from
Speaker 2: the earliest days, because every book from the beginning would
Speaker 2: have a chapter on the mental approach that you have
Speaker 2: to take to a metal round, stroke play round as
Speaker 2: opposed to the mental approach you take to a match
Speaker 2: play round. So probably around nineteen fifty nineteen sixty, you know,
Speaker 2: Nicholas and those people you know are you know, there's
Speaker 2: this long evolution of how you get better and better
Speaker 2: and better, and of course the mental dimension then enters
Speaker 2: into that more and more I've just been reading Golfer's
Speaker 2: Gold by Tony Lima right, which is published in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty four about his entry onto the tour, and one
Speaker 2: of his chapters is about how the turning point from
Speaker 2: him as a golfer was learning to be in control
Speaker 2: of his mind. That's when he realized everybody can swing,
Speaker 2: everybody can putt. It's the guys who have control of
Speaker 2: their mind and their emotions and are able to withstand
Speaker 2: the psychological and emotional pressure of going low. Those are
Speaker 2: the guys who win. I think it's really something that
Speaker 2: really starts to emerge in the fifties and sixties, as
Speaker 2: Americans continue to think more deeply about the swing the game.
Speaker 2: You know, teachers are always building on the generation that
Speaker 2: came before them. I don't know when golf is not
Speaker 2: a game of perfect came out, but it's always been
Speaker 2: under the surface. It's not like a totally new idea.
Speaker 3: No, It's like somebody like Nicholas was doing that way back,
Speaker 3: you know, way back when. Okay, so we were talking
Speaker 3: about Nelson. He developed kind of the one piece takeaway, right, Yes,
Speaker 3: was not also one of his innovations.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think that's always been a part
Speaker 2: of the modern swing, say from even before him, Jones
Speaker 2: and those guys, they were going back you know pretty
Speaker 2: you know one Piec I would say, you know, straight
Speaker 2: left arms been a kind of a concept that's been
Speaker 2: there for a long time. I just think, you know, Nelson,
Speaker 2: you know, was basically focusing more on body rotation and
Speaker 2: stillness in every other way. He says, you have to
Speaker 2: think of yourself swinging out from under your head, you know,
Speaker 2: so that you keeping your head in the same spot
Speaker 2: and your shoulders are coming under your chin and then
Speaker 2: your head is pulled up by them as you're swinging
Speaker 2: out from under your head. A lot of us who
Speaker 2: struggle with the swinging too fast on the down swing.
Speaker 2: That's because we swinging so fast that our arms are
Speaker 2: lifting our head up before our shoulder ever gets to
Speaker 2: our gin, you know what I mean. And we're just
Speaker 2: getting way out in front of it. And I like
Speaker 2: to focus on that concept of swinging out from under
Speaker 2: your head. I just think that's one of his more
Speaker 2: revolutionary ideas that he had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's I mean, as I'm setting your listening, you said,
Speaker 3: I'm like, that's actually a great swing thought, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: and there aren't a lot of great swing thoughts because
Speaker 3: they're usually so technical, and that's a real feel kind
Speaker 3: of thing, you know, which I think, at least for
Speaker 3: me a lot easier to process as a player.
Speaker 2: One of my favorite things I recite to myself is
Speaker 2: from the very first and what I would call pure
Speaker 2: instructional book that was written in eighteen eighty six by
Speaker 2: Horace Hutchinson, and it just is you should keep your
Speaker 2: eye fixedly on the ball from the moment your club
Speaker 2: is lifted until the moment the ball is actually struck.
Speaker 2: And I think that's about as pure and clean as
Speaker 2: it can be stated. And I particularly like the use
Speaker 2: of the word fixedly. You should keep your eye fixedly
Speaker 2: on the ball. And in a lot of ways, that
Speaker 2: is telling you the very same thing that Nelson is
Speaker 2: trying to tell you about the modern swing. He's expressing
Speaker 2: it as swing out from under your head, so, in
Speaker 2: other words, don't let your head move, And Hutchington is
Speaker 2: expressing it as keep your eye fixedly on the ball
Speaker 2: until you actually strike it, keep your head still, keep
Speaker 2: your eye fixedly on the ball, go back slowly with
Speaker 2: your club, don't press right.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's it's interesting too, I mean about the you know,
Speaker 3: the pressing aspect of it. I would think if you're
Speaker 3: a five or maybe an eight handicapper below, that's great advice,
Speaker 3: go ahead and kill it.
Speaker 2: But for the rest, no, I mean for me, I'm
Speaker 2: a I am a don't press guy. Still, I still
Speaker 2: think of that as sound advice for about ninety percent
Speaker 2: of amateur players, you know, but if you seek to
Speaker 2: be a pro golfer, that's a different matter. And you
Speaker 2: know that was the first thing Tommy tossed out, which
Speaker 2: don't press. No, I mean I'm gonna press on every swing,
Speaker 2: not just some swings, all of them. And you know,
Speaker 2: he would do things that people would never think of,
Speaker 2: Like if you played a certain hole at Musselburgh, you
Speaker 2: know there was a road that ran alongside it on
Speaker 2: the left hand side of the hole. Most people thought
Speaker 2: of it as the worst thing that could possibly happen
Speaker 2: to your ball would be that it would get in
Speaker 2: the road, because it could be in an unspeakable lie
Speaker 2: from which you would have real difficulty extricating it. Tommy's
Speaker 2: idea was hit the ball onto the road, because if
Speaker 2: it hits the road, it's going to run like it
Speaker 2: stole something, It'll just go forever and who cares what
Speaker 2: lie it's in at the end of that. And you know,
Speaker 2: I don't see that big of a stretch between that
Speaker 2: concept and the concept of Bryce and De'shambo. Who is
Speaker 2: I'm just going to knock this ball into outer space
Speaker 2: and wherever it lands all play from.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the ideas exist for a very long time
Speaker 2: and they get iterated on I guess is all I'm saying,
Speaker 2: you know, because that's what's Tommy's idea. I'm just going
Speaker 2: to hit this ball as far as I can every time,
Speaker 2: and we'll see what happens. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And it's funny too, you know, because you know, I
Speaker 3: just only think of this because I interviewed somebody about
Speaker 3: Arnold Palmer the other day. I mean that was really
Speaker 3: Palmer's approach was just hit the hell out of it,
Speaker 3: find it, hit the hell out of it again. And
Speaker 3: then contrasting that to Nicholas and there somebody was saying
Speaker 3: that he would always have something in reserve so that
Speaker 3: when it was time to break somebody's back and he
Speaker 3: was in the right position, he would just go for it.
Speaker 3: So it's interesting that idea of you know, just going
Speaker 3: for it all the time, which I think, like you said,
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what Bryson does that these guys today
Speaker 3: and all the analytics tell you tell them right that
Speaker 3: the big advantage is the further you hit it.
Speaker 2: Better you are. Yeah, and I and you know that's
Speaker 2: become the modern golf swing. I think Gil Hans described
Speaker 2: it as a kind of bludgeoning, which I thought was
Speaker 2: really spot on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to get to this bludgeoning, so we go kind
Speaker 3: of Hogan Nelson era. Yes, the next development is what Nicholas.
Speaker 2: Yes, definitely Nicholas, you know, elevated the game power and distance.
Speaker 2: He was one of you know, he was the longest
Speaker 2: player of his age by a million miles. The other
Speaker 2: thing is Nick Nicholas is one of the very first
Speaker 2: players a yardage book, long before yardage books were a
Speaker 2: common thing, and so Nicholas had a holistic approach to
Speaker 2: preparing for a tournament. Strength and power would be the
Speaker 2: biggest thing. And I think Nicholas was one of the
Speaker 2: first times that the longest player on tour was the
Speaker 2: most dominant player. There have always been long players, but
Speaker 2: they weren't always as dominant as Nicholas was able to become.
Speaker 3: Right, right, Was he the first great non really self
Speaker 3: taught player, you know, because I know he had Jack
Speaker 3: Krout and Hogan and Nelson and Snead all taught themselves really.
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, I'm trying to think of whether I can
Speaker 2: think of a player who was very care carefully taught
Speaker 2: by someone other than themselves that became as well. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 2: in the women's game, Glenna Collette became one of the
Speaker 2: great golfers in history, and she was a complete creation
Speaker 2: of Alex Smith. She took lessons with Alex Smith for
Speaker 2: multiple years and then she she's the most dominant American
Speaker 2: woman player in history. And so I would say, you know,
Speaker 2: and that's nineteen twenties. So I'm sure that there are
Speaker 2: others that are carefully taught that are not coming to
Speaker 2: our minds before Nicholas, because you know, obviously Glenna. You know,
Speaker 2: basically Glenna was a prodigious driver even as a child.
Speaker 2: Just she just was had a great movement, natural movement
Speaker 2: for the ball. I think she was like seventy pounds.
Speaker 2: She hit her first drive one hundred and twenty five
Speaker 2: yards when she was like fifteen or something, and just
Speaker 2: brew everybody's minds, and this was the Hickory Club. So
Speaker 2: that's a long way with the Hickory when you're a
Speaker 2: tirty little thing. And she then played in some local tournaments,
Speaker 2: went to go see Alexa Sterling play, inspired by Alexa,
Speaker 2: decides she's going to be a golfer. She plays in
Speaker 2: a tournament. A very famous golf writer named Dicky Martin
Speaker 2: watches her and he comes up to her afterwards and says,
Speaker 2: you know, sees it. She can hit the ball a mile,
Speaker 2: but she's got no game. You know, she doesn't know
Speaker 2: how to play golf at all. And he asked her,
Speaker 2: what do you think of your game? So I can
Speaker 2: hit it far, but I can't do anything else. And
Speaker 2: she goes, I got a guy that could teach you,
Speaker 2: And so she gets connected with Alex Smith. And I
Speaker 2: think probably there are a lot of stories in the
Speaker 2: early history of American golf that would line up with
Speaker 2: that one, in both men's and women's golf. Certainly, Alexa
Speaker 2: Sterling completely taught by Stuart Maiden every bit of the way,
Speaker 2: and Glenna taught by Alex Sabith every bit of the way.
Speaker 2: So you know, I'm sure there are people in the
Speaker 2: men's game that suit that same thing. I just their
Speaker 2: names aren't springing immediately to mind, because most of my
Speaker 2: study has been in Britain, where nobody practiced or even studied.
Speaker 3: I read that Nelson would hit a couple, you know,
Speaker 3: hit maybe twelve to warm up before he played, didn't
Speaker 3: practice after he finished, and that he really felt he
Speaker 3: had locked in that swing. I mean, is that accurate
Speaker 3: or that.
Speaker 2: Is completely accurate? And you know the thing is practice
Speaker 2: at the Hogan level was not something that was known
Speaker 2: in Hogan's age. Most people were in more nearer to
Speaker 2: the Byron Nelson camp where they they practiced. You know,
Speaker 2: they warmed up extensively before around, they practiced on the
Speaker 2: days when they weren't playing, but they didn't practice eight
Speaker 2: hours a day, ten hours a day, right, Hogan practice
Speaker 2: You know that mentality, which is I would say is
Speaker 2: pretty commonplace now is the level of practice that Hogan
Speaker 2: puts it up?
Speaker 3: Now, what follows Nicholas? What's the next big development?
Speaker 2: And I would say after that, as Tiger, you know,
Speaker 2: Tiger comes along. Tiger is the next of the immortals.
Speaker 2: The way I look at it, there are six immortals
Speaker 2: in the game of golf, The first one is young Tommy,
Speaker 2: the second one is Harry Varden. The third one is
Speaker 2: Bobby Jones, then Ben Hogan, then Jack Nicholas, and then
Speaker 2: Tiger Woods. And those, to my mind, are the six
Speaker 2: generations of the game that what you would think of
Speaker 2: as the modern game. Pro golfer needs to be an
Speaker 2: athlete who is as fit as a football player or
Speaker 2: as fit as a baseball player or whatever.
Speaker 3: Right. I remember reading an article about Nicholas and probably
Speaker 3: like you know, seventy seven and Sports Illustrated, and you know,
Speaker 3: the thing was always, you know, instead of his fitness,
Speaker 3: it was, you know, how much he weighed, right, And
Speaker 3: I remember he was going at a celery soup diet
Speaker 3: and that was the big development. You know, they're like
Speaker 3: Jack's going on the celery soup diet. He's lost fifteen
Speaker 3: pounds already. And then I met somebody had who had
Speaker 3: been within fifteen feet of Tiger and he said, you know,
Speaker 3: you know you saw him at Stanford and he's a
Speaker 3: skinny kid. He said, he is built like an NFL safety.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a relatively new idea. There's a thread that's
Speaker 2: never been part of golf, you know, to be physically
Speaker 2: trained in that way for the game. It's you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know of any other person in history. Maybe
Speaker 2: Frank Stranahan was probably the first one, really the amateur player.
Speaker 2: Frank Stranahan was a muscle builder and worked out at
Speaker 2: that level. But it's been very rare occurrences, and nobody
Speaker 2: had the influence to make it widespread the way that
Speaker 2: Tiger did. So, you know, but Tiger changed the world
Speaker 2: in that way.
Speaker 3: For sure historically. I mean even when I was, you know,
Speaker 3: in high school in the early eighties, if you played baseball,
Speaker 3: you were told not to left because it would make you,
Speaker 3: you know, construct your ability to move. And I know
Speaker 3: it's all Bay said the same thing. How much do
Speaker 3: you think that you know, because you and I and
Speaker 3: every other amateur out there don't have a nutritionist, we
Speaker 3: don't have a stretching coach, we don't have a strength coach,
Speaker 3: and we don't have personal swing coach. How much of
Speaker 3: the modern swing when when you're watching Bryce on Rory
Speaker 3: and you see that swing and you know, and you think,
Speaker 3: oh wow, should I be swinging the club that way?
Speaker 3: It seems to me that is a theory that is
Speaker 3: being taught by a lot of people that is absolutely
Speaker 3: unachievable for somebody who doesn't have all that kind of
Speaker 3: physical training.
Speaker 2: I would agree with that one hundred percent. That I
Speaker 2: would say makes complete sense. The gap between the modern
Speaker 2: professional golfer and even the very high level amateurs has
Speaker 2: never been wider in the history of golf than it
Speaker 2: is right now. You know, there are very very few,
Speaker 2: even high level amateur golfers that can generate the kind
Speaker 2: of swing speed and distance a Rory mcelroory or Bison
Speaker 2: to Shamba where somebody can generate. So I think there's
Speaker 2: a growing gap in between those and the wider that
Speaker 2: gap becomes less applicable. What a pro is doing with
Speaker 2: their swing in the men's game is to what maybe you,
Speaker 2: the person on the weekend, should be thinking about for
Speaker 2: your own game. I would say that that seems it
Speaker 2: certainly seems true to me. If I'm watching golf of
Speaker 2: the idea of trying to learn anything, I would watch
Speaker 2: the LPGA just because I think the shot choices that
Speaker 2: they face, the distances that they hit the ball are
Speaker 2: so much more in line with the distance that a
Speaker 2: person like me is hitting the ball. Well, I mean,
Speaker 2: at least they're in the same universe, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. And I don't know if other players feel
Speaker 2: that way or not, but I don't feel, you know,
Speaker 2: that most people could. I mean, there's you know, a
Speaker 2: very high level amateur, you know, somebody who's excellent, like
Speaker 2: a four or three or two. You know, probably they,
Speaker 2: you know, should aspire to do what those players do.
Speaker 2: But I would think any anybody who's not single digit
Speaker 2: probably doesn't have much to apply on what a pro does.
Speaker 3: What one of my kids caddied in the Western Amateur
Speaker 3: It was played at a local club, and he caddied
Speaker 3: for a kid who was like the Division III champion,
Speaker 3: and they had maybe ten caddies from the local club,
Speaker 3: and then all the other caddies were just brought in
Speaker 3: and he said, the biggest problem for everybody was that
Speaker 3: they couldn't even follow the ball the way these guys
Speaker 3: were hitting it, and you had to, like the first
Speaker 3: round was all just adjusting how far they hit their drives.
Speaker 3: And these are kids, you know, who've been on that
Speaker 3: course a thousand times, and he's like, you know, they've
Speaker 3: never seen anyone hit a ball, even from these championship
Speaker 3: or tournament teas He's like they would hit the ball
Speaker 3: and you just go, I don't know where the hell
Speaker 3: that thing went. It went so far. They're just playing
Speaker 3: a completely different sport. I have one last question for you,
Speaker 3: and thank you for this. This has been a great interview,
Speaker 3: not in terms of influence or anything, but who is
Speaker 3: who has your favorite swing of anybody who's ever played
Speaker 3: the game.
Speaker 2: Joyce weathered by a long shot, and anybody who's interested
Speaker 2: can google Joyce Weather It's swinging. They will show her
Speaker 2: hitting various types of clubs, irons, and woods. I've just
Speaker 2: published my latest book is called Matchless Joyce Weathered, Glenniclette
Speaker 2: and the Rise of Women's Golf. And Joyce played in
Speaker 2: one hundred and sixty six matches in her lifetime that
Speaker 2: were prominent matches, so not a ton of golf, because
Speaker 2: she retired early and often and just didn't have much
Speaker 2: use for it once she felt she'd proved what was necessary.
Speaker 2: Of the one hundred and sixty six matches she competed
Speaker 2: and she won one hundred and fifty two of those.
Speaker 2: She have two others, so she had one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty four times she was either one or was or
Speaker 2: halved and twelve times that she lost career wise, so
Speaker 2: winning percentage wise, that's ninety one percent, which nobody can
Speaker 2: even get in that stratosphere. And she Jones twice from
Speaker 2: the men's tea, and both times she was within a
Speaker 2: couple strokes of him. Both times he said he was
Speaker 2: in awe because, as he put it, somebody asked him, after,
Speaker 2: have you ever played a better woman golfer? And his
Speaker 2: exact response was, I have never played any golfer, man
Speaker 2: or woman, amateur or professional, who made me feel so
Speaker 2: completely outclassed. It was impossible to believe that miss Weatherward
Speaker 2: would ever miss a shot, and she never did. And
Speaker 2: so I think of her swing as the most perfect,
Speaker 2: as perfect as can be developed. I would say, the
Speaker 2: other swings I think of as very near perfection or
Speaker 2: at perfection would be Mickey Wright, Bobby Jones himself, and
Speaker 2: you know, and Hogan and Nelson. You know, those are
Speaker 2: some of the other ones I think of as as
Speaker 2: perfect as perfect can be. But you know, Joyce has
Speaker 2: got as good a swing as there is, and she
Speaker 2: was able to repeat it over and over and over
Speaker 2: under pressure. And she's playing with Hickory Cubs, and she's
Speaker 2: playing from the men's Tea almost exclusively all her life,
Speaker 2: a golfer of exceptional ability.
Speaker 3: Got it. I'm going to go look up that swing
Speaker 3: right after we get off. Now, when does your book
Speaker 3: come out? And repeat the title again so people know
Speaker 3: about it?
Speaker 2: Sure. The new one is called Matchless Joyce whether it
Speaker 2: Glenna Collette and the Rise of Women's Golf, and it's
Speaker 2: already published. It can be purchased online from Amazon or
Speaker 2: Barnes and Noble online. And the other two books are
Speaker 2: Monarcha of the Green, which is about young Tom Morris.
Speaker 2: It's called Pioneer of Modern Golf where the discussion that
Speaker 2: we had today begins. And the second one is called
Speaker 2: The Long Golden Afternoon, which explains to you how golf
Speaker 2: left Scotland and moved around the world and evolved into
Speaker 2: the modern game you know today through the great players
Speaker 2: who made that occur, which is always how the game changes.
Speaker 2: Somebody comes along like Tiger, lists the game up on
Speaker 2: his or her shoulders, moves it into a new age
Speaker 2: and all we go.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for taking the time to do this, Steven,
Speaker 3: this is really terrific.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed it very much. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: My pleasure,