Speaker 1: For members only. Golf Smarter number three hundred and seventy
published on February twelve, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: Welcome to golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain
insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets Old. Our
interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 3: Knowledge is confidence. And if you stand over a shot
and don't have the knowledge of how to hit that shot, well,
how much confidence are you going to have? And without confidence,
good luck to you. So golf is all about confidence
and rouston confidence.
Speaker 1: Oh, I can't tell you how much better I do
when I walk up to a bunker blod Oh I
love the shot. Yeah, when I walk in going yeah,
I own this one. The outcome always seems.
Speaker 3: To look at the levels of fear on the range
or at the bunker. At the range, probably not that bad,
hitting balls down there, not that bad. Go play golf,
different story, now, tournament yet another level. I think the
tension rises and fear rises with every one of them,
and those that can conquer that trust or knowledge or
fear in those areas will do better. If you're scared
to death when you go to the golf course, it
makes it very difficult. Look at the tour, they're all
really really good players. What separates somebody from number ninety
to number ten? I think it's the mental part. They've
all got the shots. They're all really good potters who
can stand up there with their guts spilling out and
still make that potter that shot that separates the top
from the bottom. I think.
Speaker 1: More difficult shots we never practice. Part two with Ken Doherty.
Speaker 3: This is Golf Smarter.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Golf Smarter for members only.
Speaker 3: Ken, thank you.
Speaker 1: Let's continue our conversation about the shots that we don't practice. Okay,
you can be Santa Claus. You got a bag full
of shots right now. Let's pull them out and say,
you know what, I've never seen anybody practice this shot,
and I see him blow it on the course every
single time because they don't think about it. Came up
across one the other day my ball, I snap hooked
the left and now I'm over in a corner. There's
a there's a bunker right in front of me, there's
a tree, on the left of me, a bunker on
the right, and I'm on a dog leg left and
I've got to get the ball to just kind of
go around the corner here.
Speaker 3: You need to hook it.
Speaker 1: I need to hook it now, I don't. I don't
have a draw in the way I hit the ball
all right, and I am I have a slice. Oh,
I have a slice. But so this playing lesson that
I had, he gave me instruction. Here, point your feet
out that way, but turn your club ahead in So
let's let's do the kind of shot that you need
to get around a corner that you've seen done. You know,
how do they do that?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: I'd say it's hard enough for me just to get
my club head square head impact, let alone, you know,
change the position of the club.
Speaker 3: So we'll talk about well, first of all, to hook
the ball, the club face needs to be in a
closed position, okay, at impact cloths close, meaning the toe
is turned or pushed towards the target. Okay, So the
toe is leading the way to the ball as opposed
to as supposed to square, which would be heel and
toe are lined up and hitting the ball when they
are lined up and the toe being back a little
bit for a slice or an open face.
Speaker 1: Do most people lie the club face down at a
closed angle without even knowing.
Speaker 3: It, Yes, because they pay too much attention, usually to
the top edge of the club instead of the bottom edge.
If you if you spend a lot of time looking
at the top edge, you'll end up closing the club
face a little bit, because if you're looking down at
your club, the top edge actually flares out to the
right a little bit and it looks like it's open.
It's but the leading edge, which is the bottom edge,
is what you need to be concerned with and need
to look at, because that's the true aim of your club.
So a lot of people that that tend to look
down and see that open. And having the angle of
the club too, the seven aren or whatever it is,
also makes it look like it might be a little open,
and because of that people tend to shut the face
down close it put turn the toe in uh, and
so the top line looks square or straight to where
they want to go, but in reality it's aiming left.
And if they looked at the bottom edge of that club,
the leading edge, they would see that.
Speaker 1: And when the when it is closed like that, slightly
closed like that is there is the ball flight going
to be which directions the ball flight?
Speaker 3: Ball is going to go left and it's going to
go lower because not only are you turning the club
to aim left, but you're delofting the club as well.
Oh yes, yes, oh okay, So you're turning that seven
iron into an eight or and or excuse me, a
six or a five iron right by closing it. And
the opposite, if you're going to open the face, you're
instead of that seven iron, it would become an eight
iron or a nine iron.
Speaker 1: So how is it that you are there guides on
your club, on your grip on what should you be
lining up to know that you make sure that you
have the leading edge square when you're setting up.
Speaker 3: It's a good question, and it's different for you know,
there's a few different ways some people might use their
grip and but you got to make sure your grips
are on properly. I mean, if your grips are off
or you know, off a little bit, well, then your
face is always going to be off. So you know,
if you can guarantee your grips are aligned properly, then sure,
that's one way to line up the angles and the
lines with your grip, and so.
Speaker 1: What are you looking for on your grip?
Speaker 3: Well, grips are differently, are different. You got some that
have arrows or almost triangles. There's lines, I mean, there's
the name on the grip itself. They can line up
directly down the middle of the shaft. But again, I
think that's a little shake your way. I think it's
a shakier way to line up your club. I literally
would look at the bottom edge, and I think most
of us can look at that leading edge and tell
with some degree of accuracy that the club is perpendicular
to the target line. I think the biggest mistake is there.
They do one of two things. They either look at
the top edge and think that it's open, so they
close it. I think the bigger problem is is that
people the slicers do that so that they don't slice
as much, so they're creating another error to fix the
first err instead of actually making the proper swing mechanic changes.
You'll see that you'll see that club face close a
lot more for that reason, because, believe me, if that
club face is closed all the time and you're hooking
the ball or pulling it you're gonna you're gonna change,
You're gonna change you that that club face or your
stance or something. Most people don't change their their their
swing or they're yeah, exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because they're like, I'm just I'm I'm
hooking the ball all day long, I don't know. And
then they start playing with their swing and doing that
in the middle of a round too right making correction,
and most of the time.
Speaker 3: It is yeah, they they have a very strong grip
where they're right in their left hand or one of
the two are are turned too much to the right
for a right handed golfer.
Speaker 1: And it could be as simple as you just are
not lining the club up properly on a dress.
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely, But there's so many factors of going you know,
going left or right. First, you're gonna look at the grip.
Is the is the grip weak? If it's weak, you
get you're you're likely to go to the right. If
it's strong, you're likely to go to the left, not guaranteed.
Speaker 1: You have to de find that now a strong grip
versus a week and listen, these are terms we hear
a lot, but no one ever asked it to find them.
So I'm gonna play dumb here because I am.
Speaker 3: So let's just say a neutral grip is if you
put your hands down in front of you and you applaud.
They're facing each other and you applaud. Okay, that's a
neutral grip. So if you took your grip your hands
and put them on the grip and your palms are
basically still facing each other, that's a pretty neutral grip. Now,
the back of your hand is facing away from the
target of your right hand excuse me for right hand golfer,
and the back of your left hand for a right
handed golfer follow me, is facing the target or or
at least parallel to the target line. Okay. Now, if
you turn those though, where your left hand starts to
face right of the target, so you've turned it to
the right, you've rotated your left hand to the right
of the grip. Okay, okay, in a from where you're
standing a clockwise position.
Speaker 1: Almost on the top of the griping.
Speaker 3: So now the back if you're rotating. Let's just say,
if you went to a stream them ount with your
left hand and turn it your the back of your
hand would be facing the ball right okay, right, so
we're back in right hand, the left hand, the.
Speaker 1: Back of the left hand, yes, okay, okay, now so
it's underneath then, well.
Speaker 3: You're you're we're talking about your left hand now, okay.
If a neutral grip is one where the back of
your left hand is facing the target or target line.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm getting up here. You got We're gonna we're
gonna go over here and grab a club while we're
doing this, and I'll keep an eye on make sure
we're recording, so you can stand here. So I'm grabbing
her practice just the prectice club. So so okay, now
we're here. We've got so.
Speaker 3: You've got you've got a basic basically a neutral rip
in which his his palms are facing each other, the
back of his hand is facing away from each other,
perpendicular to the or exactly actually actually parallel to the
target line. Okay, So if you had a video camera
on the back of your left hand, it's facing the target,
they can see the target. Okay, Now, if you want
to if if you want to weaken your grip, let's
let's we're going to start over from what we said earlier.
If you want to weak in your grip. Okay, you
want to take that that camera that's on the back
of your left hand and aim it to the left
of the target. So you're that's right, You're going to
turn it to the left. Your hand on the grip
is going to turn to the left. That's a weaker grip.
And if you have a weaker grip, you're probably at
least to start with, you're probably going to be more
appt to slice the ball.
Speaker 1: Sure, okay, so with the weaker rip, the ball is
going to go.
Speaker 3: It's going to go to the right for a right
handed golf for a weak grip, because and let's go
to the extreme. Let's take that that left hand and
let's turn it. So now now the back of your
hand is facing your body, I mean your your feet.
Look at how much that's turned. Well, you think you're
gonna be able to rotate that club very easily through impact? No, exactly,
Your club is more apt, your hands are more apt
to go back to a neutral position. And now look
at the club face is wide open to the right
and okay, aiming to the right. So there are tweaks
you can do with a grip. Most of the time
we strengthen them a little bit, meaning move it in
the opposite of the direction we just talked about. But
very often if we get back to where we were
in hooking the ball. If if I've got a hooker,
the first thing I'm looking at is the grip. And
then more often than that, that person has their they
have a very strong grip, which means both of their
hands are rotated to the right. So if they rotate
both of their hands to the right clockwise, that's correct,
that's usually a that's usually somebody if if they're hooking
the ball, that's probably what they've done at least with
the right hand, and a lot of times with both hands. Okay, Now,
when you change that grip back over and that's it's
a hard thing for people to do because there's a
strength in that strong grip for them, they feel like
they're in control with that strong grip, and when you
weaken it, it feels just as it sounds weak, and
it will more often well it's either going to straighten
their golf ball out and sometimes make them no, go
to the right. But I think because they're going to
the right because they're just not used to and it's
hard to do on radio a little bit. You need
to rotate your hands through the golf swing, so your
hands on the backswing are rotating in a clockwise position
and on the downswing through impact a counterclockwise position. Correct. Yep,
that's for the right handed golfer, all right. If you've
got a strong grip, you're not going to be able
to rotate your hands counterclockwise through impact because you'll hit
it through your feet. You'll hit it so far left
because your grip is so strong, it's going to close
that face too much. So when you change a grip,
they're so used to hanging on as I call it,
and not rotating their hands that then they push or
slice it off to the right. So when you make
that change in the grip, you have to make the
change in the swing. The grip change is an easy thing,
I know it is. The grip change is easy at least,
you know, you just change it on the grip. I mean,
the feeling isn't good, but it's an easy change. The
change to now rotate your hands through impact is a
little bit more difficult because most in most cases, they've
never done it. They couldn't do it. That's how they
hit the ball as straight as they could is because
the grip's so strong that they hang on for dear
life I call it. They don't rotate their hands because
they have to somehow keep that cluffe square and not closed.
Speaker 1: So let's try to go back to that shot of
needing to hook the ball, okay, and how to hook
the ball and how to hook the ball, and you know,
you're hitting under trees. You're hitting, you know, and you've
just got to get out of trouble just to get
yourself back onto the fairway. And that's what you're trying
to do. You're not trying to get to the green.
You're not trying to be a hero. You're trying to
just get yourself back into play so that maybe you
can be on in three as opposed to trying to
be a hero and being on in four or five.
Speaker 3: Now you want to know how to hook the ball, though,
not just get out of trouble, but to actually go
around that tree.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah, okay, let's do that.
Speaker 3: Okay, Now, a couple of things need to happen. Number One,
always face your club in the direction you want to
end up. So let's just say that that you wanted
to you want to start your ball ten yards right
of the tree, have your club aim ten yards right
of the tree. Okay, so that's your starting point. You
wanted to hook though, So what you've got to do
is turn your feet or turn your body rotate that
so that you have a closed position in your feet,
meaning your left foot's out in front of your right.
So if I draw, it's kind of again it's tough
to describe on radio a little bit. I'm not to
use your word.
Speaker 1: I know I'm used to use your words.
Speaker 3: You're actually if I drew a line in the sand
or on the turf, if I drew a line through
your toes, they are now going to go right of
where your club is aimed. So your club is aimed
let's say at point A, and point B is actually
right of point a, sou Point A is where your
club face is facing. Point B is where your face
your your feet would be lined up, which is right.
So it's going to look like you have a club
closed club face as you're standing. Okay, but remember to
always have your club face face the target, okay, or
the direction you want to go. What I don't want
you to feel like is that Okay, I've got to
snap my hands and close them or or hook have
my wrist turn much more than they actually do during
the swing. If you keep your club face closed to
your stance, your ball is going to turn left if
you swing on your stance line. Okay, so your stance
is going to be to the right of your intended target. Okay,
your swing is actually going to be on that line
with the club face facing back where you want to go. Okay, okay, Yeah.
What that's going to make that ball do is start
out on the line that you're you're aiming, and then
curve to the position that your club face is aiming.
Speaker 1: And we're taking a full swing here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep, I mean, I guess how far you want
to go? You can take a full swing.
Speaker 1: We say we have the distance, you know, I mean,
our distance is obviously going to be different than what
we're accustomed to with that club because you're adding all that.
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's gonna go a little lower. I think,
like I said earlier, it's gonna you're gonna deloff that
club a little bit. So you're going to turn that
seven iron into a six iron or a five iron.
So your ball is going to go off a little lower,
So you've got to be careful that. If there's any
branches or anything, you've got any elevation you've got to
worry about. You better pay attention to that because your
ball will come out a little lower. Uh uh And
where are we going with that?
Speaker 1: Well, just that we're both lost. They are we want
the ball? Are we going to get the distance that
we that we intended? Are you with me? Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, There's going to be subtle differences.
I wouldn't worry too much about that.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: The big thing is having it go where you want it. Distance,
if it's ten yards off, I don't think in this
situation's a big deal. I think it's a much more
difficult task to actually make that ball turn to the left,
you know, start start where you're aiming, which is going
to be to the right, and have it curve around
the corner where your club face is aiming. That's that's
the more difficult thing to do, not so much distance,
but the actually shape the ball in the in the
direction you want to shape it. A lot of people
will still hit it dead straight. They're aimed right in
the club, you know, and just the opposite.
Speaker 1: And why why do they why are they with all that?
Are they still hitting it dead straight?
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, are they set up properly? One? Okay?
And I think it's for the average golfer. Anyways, they
look down at that closed club, that closed club face,
and can they really pull the trigger and trust that
it's going to go over there? And we go back
to the practice.
Speaker 1: Exactly what I was going to say, it's practice exactly.
Speaker 3: We go back to the practice. You know, I can
explain this on paper all day long or somehow on
on radio, but unless you get out there and actually
practice it, because there's hand eye coordination and there's you know, again,
what you feel a lot of times can be very
different of what what you're thinking or reading. So you
have to you have to experiment a little bit and
be at least within the toleration of what we're talking
about and having your feet aim to the right and
cluff face close. See what it feels like to feel
like you're purposely trying to swing out to the right
of the target and right and the left of the target,
and keep the face closed and watch where the ball goes,
See where the ball's going on the range by experimenting
a little bit. But if you if you, if you
have some idea of how to produce a draw or
a hook, you got a fighting chance, right.
Speaker 1: Uh. It reminds me of doctor Glenn Albaugh, who's been
on the show a couple of times, wrote the book
Winning the Battle Within Mental about the mental game, and
he was good friends with Bill Walsh, and he likes
to quote Bill Walsh as saying, if you're surprised at
the outcome, then you weren't prepared and prepared. So it's
you know, it's all about.
Speaker 3: Isn't that what we probably run into every day on
the golf course. You know, they can't believe what just happened,
and and and you have to wonder why they think
that they haven't exactly practiced it or prepared for that.
Speaker 1: At all at all. And and but and then, which
is always so amusing, is that they think they can
pull the shot off. Yeah, all right, I'm not a
big fan of link style courses. I tend to have
a real difficult time with the ball below my feet,
the ball above my feet, the ball below my feed,
the ball above my feet, and you know, give me trees, please, yeah,
give me some trees.
Speaker 3: Well, any I think any type golf course and any
type grass takes practice. If you're going from the from
the north or northeast where I came from, and you're
playing bent all the time, and you go to to
South Florida, which I did, and you start playing playing bermuda,
it's an extremely different grass. I don't care if you're
in the rough. The fairway, especially the greens are much
more difficult to put in Bermuda with the grain and
and the sponge nish of of that of that grass.
I think the other is is when you go to Florida,
you've got a golf course that in all likelihood that
is surrounded with water and bunkers. And it's that type
of golf course in Florida because that's what they have
to offer down there, a lot of water, a lot
of sand. You go up north and you're you maybe
cut through woods, and it's a very different in the desert.
You you've got uh desert on either side and if
you're off the fairway. So I think it takes a
little bit to get used to the different types of
grass and golf course design. Like links as you said,
and I think a lot of that is the mental part.
It's the visual part. A shot is a shot, and
if you can, I guess it's a little different when
you're talking uphill and downhill. Yes, we can talk about
how to hit those particular shots, but I think a
lot of people are intimidated by the sight of things.
And if they just took a two hundred yard shot
as a two hundred yard shot, they're all the same.
They may look different because you've got this daunting task
in front of you, that the water going down the
right side, and the bunkers here and all the trouble
out there, but really a two hundred yard shot is
two hundred yards. The visuals different, which is frightening sometimes.
Speaker 1: And that's where the architect comes in, and that's the
way they love to create those distractions. Yeah, I mean,
I can't tell you how many times I've had an
architect on I love talking to architects because they are
average golfers who like to mess with average golfers, right,
and they put these distractions. Why do you think there's
so much water on part threes or there's bunkers surrounding
the green on a part three? Because they put these
distractions and it's to mess with your head.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you're saying it's well, let's just say if
you had a let's go one hundred and fifty yards,
it could be two hundred and you've got flat surface,
no water, no bunkers around green out there. You think
you're going to hit that shot easier than an island green,
You bet your life you will. You're going to be
a lot more relaxed as we talked about earlier. You're
not gonna be as intimidated. You'll let it happen. There's
not as much fear and all that adds up to
the chances of you hitting a good or bat shot.
Speaker 1: So back to the uneven lies. Ball below your feet,
ball above your feet. I know it's hard enough for
me to swing a golf club. It's hard enough for
me to hit a ball consistently. It's just sitting there
and I still have trouble hitting it. But now I've
got to choke up on it. Now it feels completely different. Well,
you laughing at me can.
Speaker 3: Because we're going to go back to the practice, you know,
And I mean that's part of it. It's it's uncommon,
it's unfamiliar. It's it's very different. So you know, anything
we walk into I mean, if you knowledge is confidence
in life, and if you stand over a shot and
you don't have the knowledge of how to hit that shot, well,
how much confidence are you going to have? And without confidence,
good luck to you?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: So golf is all about confidence and confidence.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how much better I do when
I walk up to a bunker golf. Oh I love
this shot right as like, oh God, I'm not in
the mood for a bunker to day, right, but just
when I walk in, going yeah, I own this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The outcome always seems to.
Speaker 3: Look at the levels, Look at the levels of fear
on the range or at the bunker. At the range,
probably not that bad, hitting balls down there, not that bad.
Go play golf. Different story, now, tournament yet another level.
I think all of those the tension rises and fear
rises with every one of them, and those that can
conquer that trust or knowledge or fear in those areas
will do better. If you're scared to death when you
go to the golf course, it makes it very difficult
and very often you look at the tour, I mean,
you got guys that they're all really really good players.
What separates somebody from, you know, from number ninety to
number ten. I think it's the mental part, I really do.
They've all got the shots. They're all really good potters
who can stand up there with their guts spilling out
and still make that potter, that shot that separates the
top from the bottom. I think, Well, that's.
Speaker 1: What amazes me about all these young young guns coming
up into the tour who you you know, it's like
they don't have that kind of uh mature wherewithal to
to you know, they have cockiness, they have confidence, Yeah,
but when you talk about the mental game, that's a
whole different Yeah.
Speaker 3: But cockiness and what's really happening within two very different things.
I think cockiness sometimes is an outward you know, and
I think that confidence is with it is inward. I
think that's very of two very different things. And you're right,
you've got a lot of cockiness. But what's happening behind
the scenes, which means, you know, what's happening between the ears,
it could be very different than what that person is
outwardly showing.
Speaker 1: And we've seen that with some young players the last
couple of years who just collapse on on well, anybody
can collapse on Sunday because it's Sunday. You know that
that's just what's gonna happen. But you see these young
ones who just the pressure, the mental pressure sure changes everything.
Uh and it just surprised.
Speaker 3: Hasn't gotten a I don't care. If you're out there
in a two dollars bet with your buddies and you
got a three foot putt, you're gonna feel pressure.
Speaker 1: You're n easy to start rocking.
Speaker 3: And it doesn't make any sense. You know, it's for
for two dollars and it's not going to change our
lives in the a bit. And sometimes it's for no money.
It's just the want of making that putt. And it's
crazy how we allow our minds to travel in places
that you know they shouldn't be in a golf course.
Speaker 1: That's what I like to talk about, having a mental mulligan. Okay,
where you know mulligans aren't legal. You're not allowed to
like you know, I'll just drop another ball and hit
it again. But you can step away from the.
Speaker 3: Ball, good luck, regroup. That's time to do.
Speaker 1: It is very hard to do, but you're allowed to
do it. And it doesn't count in your scorecard. Right,
Maybe you're gonna take a little extra time and your
friends are going come on, and you're gonna feel And that's.
Speaker 3: Probably why a lot of people don't do it, is
they feel like, okay, I gotta you know, slow play,
I'm holding people up whatever. And and but certainly once
you take that swing, you're gonna wish you had.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well or just like you. So you get yourself
all set up, you step up to the ball and
you feel a rock under your foot. Now thinking about
is the rock? And so like, oh, this is going
to change everything, and all this noise is going on
in your head and it's it shows up in the shot.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, And you need to get to a place
on the golf course that isn't isn't thinking about all
the mechanics. And I said that earlier about being uh,
I think you need to be analytical on the range
and free spirited on the golf course. And think about this.
We've all driven down the highway and you could drive
for twenty minutes and your mind's going everywhere, and all
of a sudden it comes to you, let oh, wow,
how did I get here? How did I get here?
I mean, I haven't thought about driving or staying in
my lane for the last twenty minutes, and yet I've
done it perfectly.
Speaker 1: Have you ever driven a stick shift?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: How many times? Were getting third year? And do you
even know how you did that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Exactly. It's like, that's the place you need to
go when you're playing golf. You have to be in
And I've read some things about this, but the right
side of your brain is really where you need to be.
I certainly am not going to go into detail about
that because I don't know enough about it. But you've
got to be in that zone. You've heard the word
people being in the zone. And and I played played
basketball earlier in life. Is I when I was shooting, well, boy,
I'll tell you what. That hoop looked so big. I
never thought about it. That thing was so so easy.
And when you're putting, well, it's the same thing. And
that's where I was going. It's uh, you're not thinking
about your backswing and I'm gonna miss it's a different place.
It's uh. And and I think I kind of relate
that driving down the highway to uh where you need
to find yourself on the golf course. I find it best.
I had this. I had this thing hooked up to
my head and the whole thing I look like Frankenstein.
But they were measuring my brain waves. Who was some
some guy that had this device. He was working for
some company and he wanted to measure my brain waves
as I was hitting the golf ball, because most most
good players hit front while they're in the right side
of their brain. So I thought, okay, let me try it. Uh.
And initially I was in the left side, which means
I'm thinking too much, okay, And I was able to
and there was noises coming from this computer, and then
graphics that showed me, you know, that I was on
the right side and so on. But it was pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: When I when I UH focused on a specific target
as I talked about earlier, and I didn't even know
if this was going to happen. Honestly, I got up
there and said, okay, I'm just gonna do what I
normally do. I got up there and I picked there
was a window at the end of the range up
at the up on this house, in the corner of
this house, one little pain and I and I focused
on that, and I thought about that and you know,
I've heard it called my your third eye where you're
you're you're you've got that vision in your head when
you look down to the golf ball. You don't look,
you don't see the golf ball. You're still seeing that
target that you're trying to swing at. And then you
swing at that vision in your head. Then thing was
going nuts that I was in the right side of
my brain. So it kind of confirmed at least for
me that I I think I'm on the right track
when I'm not playing golf that I'm not thinking about,
you know, is my right hand going this on the
backswing er up here? I'm actually target oriented and it's
a better place mentally to be.
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with the four levels of conscious competence?
Speaker 3: No, you will enlighten me.
Speaker 1: I will try because it's always confusing to me, but
I'm going to try to do it here. So you
want to get to a level of unconscious competence.
Speaker 3: Okay, we're talking the same language.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and you're starting at a level of unconscious incompetence,
so you don't know what you're doing and you don't
know how you got there. Then you get to when
you start golf as older like myself. You get to
conscious incompetence, so I know how bad I am, and
then wait, there's unconscious incompetence, conscious conscious incompetence, unconscious conscious incompetence,
and then unconscious competence.
Speaker 3: I mean something like that, something like that.
Speaker 1: But you want to get to a point where you
don't have to think about it. That's getting in that zone.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, we're talking about the same thing a little differently,
but yeah, that's if you can find a place or
place there or try to get closer to that. There's
too many people that are on that golf course thinking
of everything.
Speaker 1: But that too much thinking going on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's the there's the phrase, uh, paralysis by analysis. Yeah,
you know, and I think that's that's true. I mean,
shoot a basket. Are you thinking about how far your
arm's going back or at the speed of which it's
going Not at all. You're you're just looking at something
and shooting at it. But you're see.
Speaker 1: No, here's an interesting I've always found that fascinating because
with that, with throwing a baseball, shooting a basket, you're
not looking at the ball. You're looking at your target, right,
So the ball is not your target.
Speaker 3: No, but no, I've got something to say about that.
But I've got something to say about that. Somebody asked
me one time, you see the ball when you hit it?
And I thought about it for a second. I said,
do you know what? I'm looking at it? But I
don't see it because I've got my target in my head.
That's the visual I have. So yes, and no, I'm
not literally looking at my target, but it's in my head.
That's the visual I have in my head. So the
ball is the same, but the ball is not the target. No,
it shouldn't be. I haven't heard one instructor say hit
at the ball. They say hit through the ball, hit
at your target, swing at your target.
Speaker 1: And how many people that's to them? Even on their
practice swings, you can see, oh that's the end of
their swing.
Speaker 3: Oh god. Yeah. Yeah, it's like a bit well and
in part because it's a fear. It's like the bomb's
going to go off as soon as they hit the
ball because they have no trust, they already anticipate missing.
Speaker 1: It unconscious in companies, Yeah, exactly. So I don't even
know if we've we've done this, Where have we gone here? Well,
you know, I wanted to talk about the you know,
ball below your feet, ball above your feet and different,
and I have a feeling whatever I asked you didn't
say practice.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean the ball ball below your feet.
You're going to have to do some things like bend
your knees a little bit more. I I some people
I've heard say, well, I'm going to bend bend over
from the waist a little bit more. I don't agree.
I think you need to bend your knees a little
bit more. Uh. The hardest thing with the ball below
your feet is to stay in that spine angle through impact,
we tend to come up.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, and you're going to scull the ball, top
the ball, and you know you're going to miss it
in some form of fashion. So you've got to really
almost feel like you're you're going down lower than you
want to or like the feel of. Because our tendency
is to come up. The ball's likely for a right
hander to go to the right. But I've also seen
a lot of people pull it because from that pass position,
they don't rotate very well through the ball. They don't
rotate their hips very well, so they tend to pull
the ball, so you've got to be a little bit careful.
I'm not going to tell everybody, well, you're going to
slice it, not necessarily. If you don't rotate from that
bent knee position, you could pull.
Speaker 1: It too interesting, And then there's the whole element of oh,
ball below your feet, the ball is going to go.
Speaker 3: To the right. Yes, that's all what I just said exactly.
But I think ball above your feet going to left
is more common the ball below your feet going to
the right. I think you can pull that ball just
as easily because it's much more difficult to rotate from
that position. Being probably bent over a little bit too much,
as some people do, and the knees bent too much,
it's more difficult to get those hips rotated through the ball,
so you could pull it. Also, I think when the
ball's above your feet, you're almost definitely going to go
to the left or draw left, and you need to
aim to the right to accommodate that.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, listen, I can go over fairway bunkers, chipping
around the green, chipping from tall grass from the short grass, uh,
hitting out of a divot, hitting on hard pan. There's
and plus I'm just fascinated to hear from you about you.
You seem to have all your your history of your base,
growing up everything in the East, and now you're playing
West Coast golf. How different that is for you. And
we're going to have to cover that more often. So
now that we're neighbors, I'm going to have to just
drag you in here a lot.
Speaker 3: I hope you look forward to. It was fun, good, good.
Speaker 1: And I again encourage anyone to look Ken up at
Marine Country Club. It's Ken Doherty. He is the head
head golf professional, golf professional, not a teaching pro. No,
you're the goal professional. You're running the business exactly.
Speaker 3: Being a head golf professional at a at a country club,
a private country club is a business. You're running merchandise
and tournaments and instruction is a part of that puzzle.
And it's not just an instructor. You've got to run.
There's a lot going on there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and somebody else is making sure you're probably overseeing,
but they're making sure that the shop is being run,
that's sold, and you got the right merchandise. Then you've
got the tournaments, and then you've got the events, and
then you got the people who were, and plus with
country clubs, you've got people who are in your face
a lot, winning changes and doing things. There's more than
just teaching here, and you've got to do that as well.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you've got If you've got four hundred members, you
probably have four hundred bosses. It's awful. I've been very
fortunate to be able to have a way about handling
that I and I actually welcome if somebody I don't know,
I don't have all the answers. Yeah, you know, so
somebody coming in and saying, hey, what about this. You know,
if you go to go to a seminar, if you
walk away with one or two things, you've done pretty good.
And you know, somebody can throw fifty ideas at me.
It doesn't mean I'm going to use them. But it's
great to hear that stuff and you can get some
good ideas. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: A friend of mine one said, look, when we were
looking at colleges for our kids, it doesn't matter where
you send your good to college. If they get ten
percent of what their teachers have to learn, they're going
to get a great education. You just can't get it
all in. You can't get it all well. Listen, buddy,
I really appreciate your time. This has been a lot
of fun for me and again I'm hoping we get
to do this a lot more and.
Speaker 3: One pleasure to thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, and again, if you have any questions for Ken,
I want to get in contact, please write to me.
Go ahead and click on the Heyfred button at golf
smarter dot com and Ken. We'll be happy to answer
any questions you have. Ken, thanks so much for your time.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Fred