Speaker 1: Hi, This is Oscar and OsO from Westminster, California. I
played mild Square golf course. This is Golf Smarter number
one thousand and eight.
Speaker 2: Ultimately, golf is about making a movement consistently enough so
you can plan your next movement. If you are trying
to guess what your next swing is going to be,
because you're trying to work through the permutations of the
ninth variable on the backswing, you're not going to be good.
But someone like him who simplifies it and makes it one.
Think Tony's another one. You know, block your arm against
your chest and turn. Okay, that's easy enough to repeat
doing that For the average golfer, they start to hit
the same shot over and over and now there's scorers
start to drop because they're not thinking swing thoughts.
Speaker 1: They're not playing.
Speaker 2: Golf swing on the golf course because they've got a method.
You know, if someone went to gym and said, hey,
this works for me, I love that. It's all about
playing better golf. It's not about a certain method. It's
not about which instructor is the best. It's about how
to get people to play better golf.
Speaker 1: The future of simulator golf to grow the game with
Jason Chambers of the Onyx Golf Academy. This is Golf Smarter,
sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf minds to
help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ.
Speaker 2: Here's your host, Fred Green.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Golf Smarter Podcast. Jason, Hi, Fred, how
are you. I'm doing great today. I'm glad that you're
here because I want to. I want to talk to
you about a couple of different things that you're involved in.
But the first I got to get right to it.
You you registered on my website to be a potential guest.
I was hoping that's what you were trying to do,
and then you wrote me this beautiful letter and I got, oh,
this is something I want to talk about. You work
in Orange care On in California, at a place called
the Onyx Golf Academy. Yes, sir, and I went online
and looked it up and it's all golf simulators. This
is not green grass golf.
Speaker 2: No, sir.
Speaker 1: How's business in Orange County.
Speaker 2: It's great, which is.
Speaker 1: Amazing because Orange County is a twelve month of year
golf place.
Speaker 2: It is, but there's we're not growing anymore land, so
all of the golf courses here are full of the time.
So people who don't have the ability to be at
a private club, or even some who are at private clubs,
they need a place to play in practice, you know.
And people in Orange County are notorious for being really
comfortable at sixty eight, sixty nine, and seventy degrees, but
outside of that it gets a little little dicey. So
our owner built a facility that's the second to none.
He spent probably too much money on it, at least
that's what he tells me. But it do we you know,
we've got TrackMan facility. Everything is is is done to
the nth degree, so we have the best equipment, we
have a great environment. We've got bays that are wide
enough where you don't have to worry about hitting the
ceiling or hitting the in the sidewalls, which in some
I Betty and I feel a little nervous. But yes,
it is indoor golf, and for someone who grew up
loving the game of golf and had a lot of
experiences traveling around playing golf, it is a different experience.
Speaker 1: Let's call it simulator golf as opposed to indoor golf.
Simulator golf really explains indoor golf as what does that
mean other than miniature golf. But let's in Orange County,
and I know, in Orange County right next to Los
Angeles County and in Los Angeles golf is if you're
not a member of a private club, you live in
the Los Angeles Greater Loss Angela's area, you're going to
have to travel at least an hour to find a
public golf course. There's very few, and the ones that
are there, if they're city run, they're you know, they're
not in great shape. I've played Rancho Park a couple
of times in Los Angeles and it's a great track,
but it's not in great shape now.
Speaker 2: And that's that's the hard part. Is you get, you know,
you either get a really good track that's in bad shape,
or you get, you know, here's one hundred and ninety
five dollars for your eighteen hole round at the Muni
And yeah, you know, there's a lot of people in
Orange County who can afford that, but there's a lot
who can't, and they want to have you know, they
also have families, they have jobs, they have all those
other things that.
Speaker 1: Get in the way of golf.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean golf is golf takes up five to
six hours, so you know, I think the niche that
that simulator golf is taking is you can play eighteen
holes with your friends, have a couple of beers, and
play a pebble beach in under a couple hours.
Speaker 1: And not have any gooseboop under your shoes.
Speaker 2: You know, they don't allow them to pebble. I don't think,
but yeah, no, it's uh so it's a different experience.
You know. As an instructor, there's a lot of things
where I have to kind of manage people's expectations because
when you're indoors, you have a perfect lie. You have
you know, you don't have any wind, you don't have
any there's no consequences, you know, it's kind of like
being on the range, but even less consequences, you don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no uneven lies.
Speaker 2: When when I have a student who's struggling, I'm like,
you're look, even if you hit this great, you're only
going to hit this eight feet, so you know, you
you don't have you know, there's no consequences. But that said,
you can make it a laboratory where you can work
on what people need to feel and need to pay
attention to where they're not worried about the consequences, you know.
And and so there's pluses and minuses to that.
Speaker 1: M M are there areas in Orange County that have
like nine hole courses, executive you know, part three and
part four courses.
Speaker 2: There's a few around here. And in fact, when I
do playing lessons, I enjoy taking people to those, like
more executive courses. Oh okay, I wish we had hundreds
more of those, in a lot less you know, championship
quote unquote golf courses, because most of the people playing
golf shouldn't be playing championship golf courses. They should be
out there enjoying. The one here is called OsO Creek,
and it you know, there's I think they have fourteen
par threes and four par fours, but they have some
of the best green complexes in the area. So when
I want to show someone how to play golf, we
go there. We'll drop a couple of balls around the
around the greens and let them learn how to put
the ball in the hole. You know. And you know,
I grew up in in Minnesota. I cat it at
Hazeltem but there's a little par three course right next
to hazelteen that I got. That was the one I
got to play a lot. There's a public, little little
golf course. They just redid it a couple of years ago,
but I loved that because you can go out there
in an hour ninety minutes and play golf with your
friends and be done off doing something else already. So
you know, it's I think that that niche is is
tough because it's tough to get the volume in to
make money, but it's it's something that if we can,
if we had a perfect world, we have practice short
game areas and more short courses.
Speaker 1: Right. I frequently will say that there's a huge difference
between hitting balls and playing golf.
Speaker 2: Oh, most definitely. Right.
Speaker 1: So, but when you're playing simulator golf, are you playing
golf or you hitting balls?
Speaker 2: Yes? And no?
Speaker 1: All right, because.
Speaker 2: Again you can you can make you can your decision making. Okay,
I've got some junior students where you know, we'll use
the track Man performance range and it cycles up different
lengths between let's say fifty and one hundred and fifty yards,
and we can talk about target selection, and we can
talk about hey, there's a lot of room over there,
don't you know. You normally hit it to the left.
Let's aim a little bit further right where all the
room is and you can make make your mistake and
still be in good shape. So you can train yourself
with lower consequences to do the to do the right
decision and get into the process of making the decision.
Speaker 1: You know what we call that?
Speaker 2: What's up? You know what we call that? Yeah? There
you go, there you go. I mean, that's you know.
One of the things that I've always enjoyed listened to
yours is is that you do bring on guests who
really help out all levels of golfers. You know, it's
not focused on just beginners or just two or place,
but everybody can learn from that, that kind of thinking,
you know, and you've done a really good job with that.
So thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: Oh that's very kind. I really appreciate that. But you know,
doing as many shows as I've done now and with
my attention issues, I can't talk about the same topic
every week. I love mixing it up, and that's you know,
you do it long enough, mixing it up becomes an asset.
Speaker 2: It does. Yeah, I couldn't teach the same players every week.
I enjoy new golfers because it's like a new puzzle.
You know, if you if you're featuring the same person
every week over and over, you kind of know what's
going to happening before you get there. So I understand
exactly what you're saying with that.
Speaker 1: In the simulator golf at Onyx, do you guys have
some of the courses that are local so somebody may
get to practice a local course or are they just
getting to play, you know, like the big name golf courses.
Speaker 2: So with track Man they don't do that. There are
other softwares out there. I worked with golf Tech and
they had they were with skytrack and you could actually
pick up almost a golf course and say, hey, oh
you're struggling with a third hole over here at Codo,
we'll we'll we'll pop that up and oh look at this,
it looks just like it does, so you could practice
their te shot. You could practice. I think that's a
huge advantage, is what you just suggested, being able to
play your golf course or the upcoming golf course you're
going to play, to be able to try shots out
so you eventually can get in there and say, Okay,
I know I can hit this te shot, I know
what I need to do to do it before you
get there.
Speaker 1: So and I'm sure that you get a lot of
people coming in for a lesson that say, you know what,
I'm playing at a charity tournament this week next week,
and I haven't hit a ball in a year and
a half, and I just make me better so I
cannot embarrass myself. It would be great if you can
have them hit like, okay, let's play the course that
you're playing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I like that about Skytrack, but track Man
is they're more proprietary, and they do they have all
of the big name courses. I mean, there's a lot
of beautiful stuff, but it's not as easy to go into,
you know, the local golf course to pick it out.
So I do think that's something that for instruction at least,
it's really helpful to be able to walk people through that.
But we can work on, you know, select shot selection
and then picking the right targets on just about any
golf course. Because I've played a lot of golf courses
and we know that that you're you're gonna have to
make a different selection every time you go.
Speaker 1: Have you had a chance to see TGL this past year.
Speaker 2: I watched the first couple of weeks, but being on
the West Coast, I've listened to it on XM radio
on the way home because by the time it's it's
on there, they go on at six o'clock East Coast,
and you know that's three four.
Speaker 1: It's been four o'clock West Coast, or even three o'clock
one of them with three o'clock.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I mean it's it's kind of like watching
Red Sox baseball. I don't get a chance to do
any of that because it's it's it's over by the
time I'm done with work. So you know, I've listened
to it. I think it's a unique product. I don't
know if it has the the standing that that golf will,
but you know, I've been wrong about things before as well.
Speaker 1: Personally, I think it has a tremendous amount of potential
to grow the game. And you know, when you talk
about growing the game, everyone does it on you know,
the discussion is green grass and as you said, we're
running out of land here. But also with the new
generation of golfers, they don't like they're not going to
watch four days of golf over the weekend right on TV,
but give them two hours on Monday night of some
you know, high level golfers playing simulators that they can
relate to. I think I think TGL has a tremendous
amount of I think the opportunity to grow the game
through that and places like Onyx, like your simulator shop,
right combined, I think people can walk and go, wait
a minute, we can do this socially. We can you know,
we don't have to spend all day and we can
suck and it's okay. We're not slowing the people behind
us right right. You know, to talk about pace of
play issues which are top of mind for so many
people these days. You're not going to have that in
simulator golf. No.
Speaker 2: And I think you're right. I think it will bring
the game to some some different people. I think the
other benefit is, you know, when I was a caddied
Azel team, we did corporate outings and so you'd rent
the course out and it's you get it for the
whole day. You can have corporate outings. If they build
some more TGL stadiums, you know, oh look, Tiger played here.
You can hit the same shots from the same spot
in the same holes. And you know, it could also
be like a cocktail party, so a corporation could come
in there and they could start to do that. You
could do it for birthday parties and things like that.
Speaker 1: I think Top Golf kind of showed that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean Top Golf is it got people
into a different way of thinking. You know now that
the PGA separates you know, off course and on course
when they do statistics. You know, I'm an off course
of course, but you know Top golf was that was
the first one where they got people to start thinking, oh,
I'm gonna go play golf. Well, these are people you
wouldn't ever see it at a golf up, they wouldn't
spend time. But date night it's a great time to
go out, and it gets people into playing golf.
Speaker 1: And will you know, I heard somebody make a very
compelling argument about that. It's like, you know, you see
a lot of people going to bowling alleys, but how
many of them are buying bowling balls?
Speaker 2: Correct? Right?
Speaker 1: So that's kind of like the top golf concept is
like you see a lot of people going to having
a lot of fun at top golf. But they give
you clubs just like they give you bowling balls. Are
they going out and saying, you know, I really want
to pursue this. It's probably a small fraction, but it
you know, it's not it's not changing the face of
the game.
Speaker 2: No. And I think their numbers have started to level off.
I mean Gallaway just sent them out for for purchase,
so you know, I think, you know, it's just like
indoor golf or like the simulator golf. Thank you, we're
gonna we're going to hit a point where it saturates
and then there will be on the next thing. As
as someone who loves the game of golf, there's always
going to be green grass golf though. I mean, there's
there's nothing better than being on the golf course, new experience,
being outside. I mean that's what it was meant to be, absolutely,
but you know, to get experiences where you could still
play golf and still enjoy time with your friends. I
think that the simulator golf that is happening right now
is a really really good.
Speaker 1: Alternative and it's getting better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, much better, much better. They're they're even working on
places right now where you can work on short game
shots you know, you know and and you know, building
bunkers and things like that. I mean the TGL is
a great example of that. You know, they've they've got granted,
they've got that green that spins around and has the
you know, has bunkers in it and you can play
it there. But I mean if even that the three
different t's, you know, where you have the fair way,
the rough and the and the bunker, it gives you
all of the shots you see on the golf course. Right,
So is is it the same as golf? Not at all,
But it's a really cool version of it that I
think you're right for. This generation is going to bring
some more people in, which is what we always talk about.
Speaker 1: Right right right, I mean, how much does it cost
for let's just say a foursome to come in and
play for two hours at onyx.
Speaker 2: So we we rented, We rent the bay by the hour.
We don't rent per person, so oh wow, Green Speeds
you know, we charge we charge I think seventy dollars
for average bay per hour, so it's not it's not cheap.
Speaker 1: So you can play Pebble Beach for seventy bucks and
have a foresome playing right, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's right. Go there, you go when
you do that. Now, you know, we've got towers of
beer and we've got you know, a small restaurant, so
you know, people.
Speaker 1: Can enjoy their time, right, And they're not drivers carts
into the water.
Speaker 2: What's that.
Speaker 1: They're not driving golf carts into the water.
Speaker 2: Not yet. No one's a lot of cart in our facility.
It was just good. We're walking only while standing only,
I should say.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, but I'm sure it's very comfortable for
your your group to be sitting there. You'd probably have
nice lounges and bar service. And it really answers a
lot of questions I think.
Speaker 2: I you know, yeah, Jonathan who built it, he did
a great job. You know, each little station has its
own little bar with with with four seats, so the
bays are widening up to four seats with a bar
so you can look out over your your friends you can.
And it's also our way that we got safety, so
we didn't have people wandering in there. We were like, okay,
we'll put you just have to stay behind the bar
so nobody gets hit. Because that's the other thing withindoor
golf is where do you go. You gotta have you know,
you got to have a lot of things like that
where you think about it. But no, he did a
great job building our facility, and it's you know, you
go in there on a Wednesday night when it's raining,
and you know it's it's gorgeous.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, in Orange County, Yeah, it's rain three.
Speaker 2: Days a year. Okay, it threatens to rain. We all
go inside anyways, So.
Speaker 1: That's right. Oh my god, it's sixty one degrees. Get
my parka.
Speaker 2: If it's if it's not sixty eight, sixty nine or seventy,
there's a problem. It's either too cold or too hot.
Speaker 1: Then about a year or so ago, I went to
uh I was at New York for a wedding and
it was at the Brooklyn Bowl. I don't know if
you're familiar with this place, but it was a bar
concert venue with six lanes of bowling. Oh wow, right,
and it was so much fun. We went and here
we are in suiting time for this nice wedding and
we're there's this band just ripping it to shreds over
on a stage over to the left, but we're bowling,
and then over here there's people playing you know, there's
casino games going on, so they're playing cards, and then
there's the bar is full and people are having a blast.
And recently that Baff and Beyond closed up over in
an area near me, and I looked at it and went,
concert venue, bowling alley, golf simulators, ping pong tables, come on.
I think we've got an idea. I think putting bowling
and golf simulators in one place and then also making
it a music venue, bar, restaurant type of thing. I
think has I think it's only my idea, and we'll
never get past this.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you. At some point someone was like, hey,
you'll just hit a ball into a screen and it'll
project it. Nobody would have thought that was an idea
that would go with either, and now it's a major
part of the industry.
Speaker 1: I just let's get into your golf instruction and your
thoughts and your methods. I mean, you've heard a lot
of the instructors that we've had on Golf Smart, and
again I appreciate that very much. The thing about this
program that's shocked me more than anything is the amount
of instructors that use this as continuing education because they
get they get to hear, you know, so many different
instructors and talk about their methods.
Speaker 2: Well, I think what your what your program is really
good at is? You know? Butch Harmon is on the
golf channel all the time. You know, there's there's a
lot of these same names you're hearing there, and they're
they're kind of saying the same thing. And you've brought
instructors on who are completely diametrically opposed to each other,
but they offer people a different solution because no matter
what system you teach, it doesn't work for everyone, right,
you know.
Speaker 1: And and now even the knock on on Ben Hogan's book, right.
Speaker 2: No, I mean there's you know, everybody wants to knock
on somebody else's instruction. And frankly, I've used myself as
a guinea pig and to try different systems. And you know,
I I will admit, as much as I hate too,
I watch some YouTube golf, which can kill people, but
I use it as entertainment and learning because it gets
new ideas. It talks about how to teach different people
different things. It gives people different feels. Some of it
I think is wrong, but most of it. If your
problem matches what they're talking about is really good. The
problem is most people don't know what their actual problem is.
So you go on there and you watch about how
to hit a big draw from this guy and you're
already hitting a slinging slab hook. Well, that's not going
to make you better. So I think, you know, just
random instruction stuff. I do it. I post stuff on line.
But you've got to be careful with what you pay
attention to. And the benefit of having a good instructor
is having someone who's right there in front of you
and is going through his mental checklist to say, this
is really what's important. I'm doing triage on my swing evaluation.
Every time I meet with somebody, I'm doing triage. What
is the most important thing that's going to make this
golfer better? You know? And I wouldn't say I have
one system, but my system is that I want to
find out what's going to make you better, and depending
upon whether you want to be a development golfer or
you wanted just a quick fix, then we find something,
you know, that works for you. I mean, we're in
a service industry, We're not you know, this is not academ.
Speaker 1: Yet right right, Are there any instructors on YouTube that
you were like, this guy's good. I like this one.
Speaker 2: It eight cycles through. You know, I I don't. I
don't like to pick and pick one because then it
eliminates everybody else. Okay, you know, you know there's this guy,
Jason Chambers. He's really good on YouTube. But you know,
you know, I've learned a lot from people, from different people,
and some of it is, you know, meant for one
type of body. Some of it's meant for way more
athletic people. I mean, the modern golf swing hurts a
lot of people, you know. And everybody's need for chasing
speed hurts a lot of people because they don't have
the body to do it. You know, I don't have
the body to swing one hundred and thirty miles an hour.
I've got one student who's a fitness trainer, and he can.
He can ramp it up, and he's got the muscles
and he's got the ability to support that speed. But
if I got someone who a woman who's in her
late fifties to try and go for one hundred and
twenty mile hour swing speed, she will break. So it's
finding what what person you know what that person needs
and what they can do, and and being honest with them.
I think, you know, that's the biggest thing I've had
students tell me, Hey, you know, my younger instructor wouldn't
communicate with me what what was really necessary because they
were afraid they were defend me. And I'm like, look,
I don't want to be your friend. I want to
tell you what you need to do and and and
do it, you know, and and if it hurts your feelings,
I'm sorry, but you need to fix this, So, you know,
I think that was one of the coolest things I
listened to podcast was Martin Chuck one time, and man,
I'd love to have a beer with that guy because
everything he you know, he's not He's not lying to you.
Sometimes he's a little rough around the edges, but I
think it's what people needs to hear sometimes.
Speaker 1: Great guy, great guy. Have you had him on here
multiple times? Okay, and fingers crossed, Well, i'm record yet,
so I won't say anything and could have already played.
Who knows how this works, but yeah, Martin's a great guy.
So when you say the modern swing hurts a lot
of people, how do you define the modern swing.
Speaker 2: I think everybody who's trying to get loaded and lagged
and moving from right to left. I mean, I've spent
a lot of time with you know, Stack un Tilt,
Jim Venetos and Tony. You know, I do think that
that it's a left side based game. When you start
moving people around who aren't very athletic, bad things happen,
you know. And I'd rather have someone strike the ball
solid than hint it as far as they can every
ten one out of ten times because they're moving around
trying to coordinate this movement that if you're not spending
four or five days a week, it's not worth it.
So you know, taking the club up, dropping inside, being
able to just to slide the right, get the right
sway and then rotate out all it within a second.
Let's make it simpler. Let's make it simpler for people.
Mm hmmm mm hmm.
Speaker 1: But they got to practice it said, Isn't that the
biggest problem with the modern golfer is that they get
a lesson and forget it.
Speaker 2: You know, and and the ones who like I got
I have a woman right now who she she's took
a lesson about three weeks ago and then she looked
at me and said, well, can we take the next
lesson sooner? And I said how soon? She said, you
have time in two hours. And I'm like, no, let's not.
It works. I need you to practice what we just
talked about. You know, it's just not about getting more information,
but you know that it's you've got to practice. I mean, yeah,
I was. I grew up, you know, and all I
wanted to do was to play golf and went to
Florida and became a PGA professional and then decided I
had to grow up and get a real job. And
because I was frustrated with golfers who wouldn't practice, and
I couldn't understand why they wouldn't practice, because it's like
during a lesson they were doing great and they knew
what they were supposed to do.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: Then I went and got a real job in a
different field. And then it became really difficult to find
five hours a week to practice. You know, you have
to start to talk about kids a job. You know,
pretty soon you're not if you play once a month,
you're lucky if you hit balls twice a month. And
then so it changed how I saw golf instruction it's
not about finding the perfect swing. You know, those guys
we see on TV, they're freaks.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows that absolutely.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if I would even want to
teach one of those guys or coach one of those guys,
because it's I enjoy seeing someone who's shooting ninety five
ninety six send me a text that says, hey, I
shot eighty four, yes yesterday. You know, to me, that's
that's like better than winning the Major. No, it doesn't
pay as well, but you know, it's that happens more
often when you when you work with regular people and
you acknowledge where they are and you help them find
a better version of themselves.
Speaker 1: Boy, but can you imagine if you'd coach somebody that
want to major what it would do to your business?
Come on, man, it would.
Speaker 2: But you know, I listened to how Don't Who was it?
I was listening. I flew to Virginia this weekend and
I was listening to coaching podcasts, and this instructor said, hey,
I had six tour players and it was like having
six little prima donnas. And he's limited the number of
tour players he works with. You know, because you want
to teach people, but you can't just you can't be
the back and call of somebody you know who needs
you once but then you're like, oh, by the way,
you're fired, you know. I like to see people. A
lot of people grow. My goal will be to help
as many people as possible play better golf. What that
means to them is up to them.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I've really learned about doing
this show for so many years with so many different guests,
is that you can try to teach golf, but for
the golfer, they really have to learn golf, and it's
it's something you don't I mean, you could be told
and I have been been told over and over and
over again, but maybe it was ten fifteen years later
that I'm like, oh, that's what they meant. Like the
nuances that happened with golf, It's like, oh, I get
it now, So you really have to learn it through
your own experience, definitely.
Speaker 2: I mean some of the best the best times during
my lessons are when a student will say, oh, I
just felt this before we see the number on the
track mat, or before the ball flies, oh I felt
the face open, or I felt this, or now I
can feel when I'm not supposed to be doing, and
for them to feel the difference is huge because you know,
most people have no clue, myself included, when that club
gets beyond waist high, no one is aware of where
it is. Now. Tour pros have good feeling about where
it is, but you know, your your perception goes away
once your eye is lose it. So for some for
a student to pick up the feeling, to me, that's learning.
I mean, I can talk till them blue in the
face about where we need to have this club at
this position, but if someone doesn't feel it, I'm not
doing my job. So all can all sometimes confuse students
because I'll give them seven different feels for the same thing.
But I'm trying to get there to connect them to
that idea, you know. I mean, I'm trying to connect
you to to what does rotation feel like?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I'll go stand in the corner of our bay and
say turn your body until you see me, you know,
or you know, some people it's it's verbal, some people
it's physical. Some people have to move them into position,
you know, and then they're like, oh, that's all it is,
So that the learning part is so great for me
because each person's different, and you know, I've had lessons
where I really didn't want to be there anymore because
they were difficult and wouldn't listen. But there's also ones
where people are just like they get it and they
just love the feeling and they don't want to leave
because they want to just keep hitting balls. And I'm like, well,
if you just keep doing this, that same result will come,
you know, and please move out so I can take
my next lesson.
Speaker 1: But your time is up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, I to me, that's you're one
hundred percent right. People have You can't just indoctrinate people.
So we go we talk about YouTube learning. You know,
it's that's ideas, that's golf instruct you're selling their ideas,
is really what YouTube instructors are. And you've got to
have it. Even through skill list or some of these
other apps where you do online lessons, you have to
have a communication with someone so you know they get it.
If they don't get it, it can be the best
information in the world. But if they don't understand it,
or they don't understand they'll reply it. That's no good.
That's no good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the people that kind of you brought
up a moment ago is Jim Venetus and he's got
his own method he does and it's and it's almost heretical.
I mean, it's almost is that the right word. It's
it's unique. It's not what other people are teaching. Although
he is staying on the left side pretty much the
whole time. Is what Tony Manzoni is advocating is rotating
around your left side there, correct. I think that their
methods are very, very different.
Speaker 2: And it's like Tony talked about with stack and tilt.
I mean, there's a lot of similarities. But you know,
Jim is all about getting this the shallow swing plane
to strike the ball the same way every time. But
both of them are eliminating moving to the right side.
You know, they're eliminating some of the movement for the
average golfer. Someone like like Jim is a great instructor
if you can deal with this personality, you know, the
the this is the only way mentality, you know, And
but the information he has is is gold if you
follow that, because you know, you go out there and
someone who's never hit a draw before in their life,
they set up like that he wants them to, and
they start hitting flush draws sold, you know, and and
and golf becomes fun. I mean the ultimately, golf is
about making a movement consistently enough so you can plan
your next movement. If you are trying to guess what
your next swing is going to be because you're trying
to work through the permutations of the ninth variable on
the backswing, you're not gonna be good. But you know,
someone like like him who simplifies it and makes it
one thing. Tony's another one. You know, lock your arm
against your chest and turn. Okay, that's easy enough to repeat.
So doing that, for the average golfer, they start to
hit the same shot over and over, and now there'scors
start to drop because they're not thinking swing thoughts. They're
not playing golf swing on the golf course because they've
got a method. So, you know, for all the people
who go out there and talk about Jim and his
you know, indoctrination of his method, I think it's a
great way for someone to learn if they're willing to
commit to it. You know, they could come to me too.
But you know, if you know, if someone went to
Jim and said Hey, this works for me. I love
that because it's all about playing better golf. It's not
about a certain method. It's not about which instructor is
the best. It's about how to get people to play
better golf.
Speaker 1: So tell me about your basic fundamentals of instruction. I
mean your email you said you have three basic fundamentals.
Speaker 2: Yep, there's three fundamentals. And you know, I did some
reading and it came from Macrogrady, which is you know,
I don't think I could ever do that because I
don't have that kind of mind, but the information is
incredible that he shared with the world. You've only got
to do three things. You got to control your low point,
which is your strike. If you don't control your low point,
you can't really plan anything else.
Speaker 1: And that's the moty can chuck. What's a Martin Chuck thing?
Is like I got a secret for you. It's like, Martin,
we all know what the secret is. It's controlling that
low point. That's the easiest thing to.
Speaker 2: Do, you know, and you know if you and the
best best exercise I've seen to do that is to
get in a bunk or draw a line and practice
hitting on the problem. The left side of the line
for right hand to golfer. Yeah, you know, it's as
simple as that. And if you strike the ball solid,
then all of a sudden, now you've got to figure
out where it's going, you know. And so then we
get into the club path and the club face. That's
the one that most people who can strike it solid,
that's where they get stuck because they don't understand the relationship.
So if you can educate someone about what they need
to be doing, you know, they won't make the wrong thing.
A lot of people, Hey, I'm slicing the ball, so
I'm going to turn harder left. Well, what that's going
to do is make the club slide across the ball
more and spin it more. That way, you've got to
almost you know, you've got to go see gym and
make it start to the right, you know. And people's
minds don't get that. And when you can get them
to control their low point and control their path, the
only thing left then is how far do you hit it?
So you do those three things, you control the direction,
the distance, and in the contact. There's no perfect way
to do it. I mean, you know, you look at
some all the swings on tour there's there's a lot
of different ways to do it, but those are the fundamentals.
Now how you apply them, yeah, we can, you can.
We can talk all you want about different methods of
doing that.
Speaker 1: And that's where playing lessons is incredibly valuable.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, I love playing lessons. I think I love
to be able to see what someone does on the
golf course. Whether you're at a driving range, you know,
at a nice country club driving range where the grass
is perfect and green. You're always in a in a
lab environment, or you know, if you're in a simulator
golf facility like I am, so your swings are always
generic and you're building fundamentals. But when you get someone
on the golf course and you can show them how
to hit a downhill line or a ball above their feet,
and they start to understand the physics of it. Now,
it's like, oh, things start clicking in their mind and
you can almost see it. When you show someone how
to hit you know, you can hit a nice, simple,
little pitch shot. You don't have to pull out the
lob wedge and throw it forty feet in the air
to make it. You know, to hit a pitch shot,
you can just hit a nice, nice little pitching wedge
that flies maybe you know, chest high, and still does
the same thing, you know, showing people how to manage
the golf course. I love that. That's the one that,
you know, I'm trying to convince my own or to
have a night where we're just gonna have you know,
indoor playing lessons. So we're gonna have everybody in a
different golf course and I'm gonna walk around and just
talk to people. What's the decision here? There's no consequences,
but if they can start making decisions the right way
when they get to the golf course, now that'll be
in the back of their head. I'm making a decision
and they can commit. When you can commit and you
can have a simple swing, you can start to lower
your scores.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. It's interesting because when you're getting into the third
your third fundamental here I wrote down mechanics versus decision
making on a you know, playing lesson, and that goes
back to the difference between hitting balls and playing golf, right.
I know that when I look at my scorecard the
days that I have, you know, some tough holes, it
really is mostly decision making a lot of it. And
my short game can.
Speaker 2: Be Sometimes I will always look at that all the
shots that I didn't hit solid and be like, oh,
I could have done this so much better. But it's
like putting. I mean putting is is you got to
you got to know where you're going. You've got to
be able to hit the ball somewhat solid, and you
got to figure out the distance. You know, you can
hit it solid, know where you're going, but if you
can't control the distance, you're in trouble. You know, it's
decision making on what you need to do. And that's
what's so beautiful about golf is you know you never
make the same I play the same course every week,
but you know one we call be forty yards behind
or forty yards in front of where I was last week.
That's not the same golf.
Speaker 1: Course, right, you know.
Speaker 2: And I think another fun exercise for people to do
is to go play their forward tees.
Speaker 1: And just do it anyway. It's you know, stop playing
the blues and you are an eighteen index, don't do it.
Speaker 2: You know, we play I play with a group of
guys who are all between you know, my handicap, and
we got a couple of lower handicap guys and a
bunch of guys around ten to fifteen, and they all
pick a game. I think when when it comes my
turn to pick the game, I think I'm going to
play you know, red, red and white tea's. We're all
gonna play gross score and see what happens. And because
everybody looks it, looks down on that, but you still
got to put it in the hole from from a
par four. Yeah, you might reach a par five in
two that you don't normally reach, but you're still going
to have to hit two solid shots.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you. I recently played with a buddy of
mine who has trouble hitting the ball anywhere beyond one
hundred and fifty yards. And I'm being generous, and so
the last time we played, I said, you know what,
let's try this today. You play the front tees and
I'll play our regular tees. I'll play the whites, you
play the reds. And he looked at me, like really,
and I'm like, just let's just try it and see
what happens. Okay. Well, I'm telling you it was amazing
because usually when he plays the same tees as I do,
it takes him two, maybe sometimes three shots to get
to my drive and that slows everything down. But by
him playing from the forward tees, he was hitting his
second shot basically from the same place I was, and
that made it much more fun for both of us.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you're not sitting there waiting for him and
feeling bad, and he's enjoying the round of golf.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: I mean, unless you're making money this game, play the
t's that you're supposed to be on, you know, and
you know you don't need to just because you can.
You don't need to go to the back teas. Go
play the forward ts someday and see how much fun
it is and how much pressure it is actually, because
if you walk in there and you don't shoot below
your handicap from the forward tes, there's pressure. So making
birdie putts, getting comfortable making more birdies or pars, or
even making more bogies. If you shoot double bogie all
the time, you know, making a bogie pot, get used
to it, and then you step back maybe for half
the holes. You know, you start building your game up,
but enjoy the game.
Speaker 1: Good for you.
Speaker 2: The best golf course, I think, well, the second best
golf course I've ever played is one called Winter Park
nine in Orlando, and you would go there and you
would just put your ball in the rack and you
go out and play. And when I lived there in
the nineties, they hadn't redone it. And then they had
someone and I can't remember it wasn't Gil Hants, but
it was someone at that level who redid that nine holes.
And it's in the middle of town, and it was
a lot like Scottish golf. You go out there as
it was an executive course. There was a par five,
there's a couple of short furs and a bunch of
par threes. But you just would go out and play golf,
you know. And at the time, I was working at
Lake Nona Country Club, you know, so I was I
had the ability to play some really cool places. But
you go out there and that was fun to play,
all right. I enjoyed that.
Speaker 1: Let everybody know how to get in touch with you,
how to see your YouTube videos, if you're on social media,
what's the best way to learn more from you.
Speaker 2: My my YouTube is coach Jason and Onyx and my
Instagram was coach Jason and Onyx. So nyx, yes, and
my I've also got I think for the Love of
Golf California is a secondary YouTube channel that has some
of my lessons on it. So hey, people can people
can email me as well or even even call me.
I don't know if you want to pass that out man. Yeah,
I mean I love just having people text me. My
number is nine four nine five one nine five six
five seven. I will respond to anyone. I'll answer questions.
We can talk about golf swing. I mean, this has
been great just chatting golf with you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It's been great chatting golf with
you too, Jason.
Speaker 2: Thank you,