Speaker 1: Golf Smarter number three hundred eighty eight, published on June eleven,
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: I really don't think there's anything negative about endpoint is.
I don't think there's anything negative about vector. I just
find as a coach, as an instructor, I can get
the essentials of my experience of how to become more
efficient and more effective at performance through vector and that's
what appealed to me. After I went to the seminar,
I found wait a minute, and this started to ruminate
within me.
Speaker 4: Like Okay, what did I experience here?
Speaker 3: And then one day I was asked to give a
clinic and I go, how do I do this? And
that's what I came up with STAG, which was my
acronym for helping people get better at golf through my
clinic or through basic instructing. And the overview applies to everybody.
The actual application in certain areas will be more applicable
to others. Staggers is much about behavior and vector green reading,
but it's about different behaviors that are involved and becoming
sufficient the actual application of putting now practicing it also
works too because it gives you a behavioral background on
which too, how do I work on my putty on
a daily basis.
Speaker 1: That putt was supposed to break to the left vector
putting with John Grunt.
Speaker 2: This is Golf Smarter, sharing tips and insights from golfers
and golf professionals to help flower your score. It's worked
for your host, Fred Green.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Golf Smarter Podcast.
Speaker 4: John Oh, thanks Fred, good to be here, and thank you.
Speaker 1: So much for coming into the studio to have this
conversation because it would have been just as easy to
go walking around on the golf course. But well not today,
because there's people out there playing okay, and we could
probably maybe we'll do some video out there at some point.
Speaker 4: That'd be great, some Golf Smarter.
Speaker 5: Yeah, some video tips there.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to bring you in and the reason
I asked you to come in today is because I
had mentioned recently that you had taken me aside and
given me some lessons on vector putting. And we had
done a lot recently about aimpoint putting. And when I
told you about that, you said, now I got to
show you this. I gotta show you this.
Speaker 5: You got all excited about wanting to show me this.
Speaker 1: So that's really where I want to talk about today,
is the putting. But there's so many other topics that
are so hot right now that I don't know if
I want to do this now or we'll get in
it later. But I think everyone's like, no, no, no,
I don't want to know about the news.
Speaker 5: Well let's talk about putting.
Speaker 4: So explain to me.
Speaker 5: Is it called vector putting?
Speaker 4: Is that how we can.
Speaker 1: Refer to it and everyone would know what we're talking about?
Speaker 4: Yes, okay. There was a kernel in the Air Force.
Speaker 3: I believe his name is mister Templeton, Colonel Templeton, and
he was also a very very bright man, is often
the case for some of those gentlemen. He was one
of the early pioneers in Nassau flying I believe planes
at higher elevations at supersonic speeds, and was involved in
that process on many levels. Also an Avid golfer, and
upon retirement discovered, you know, people just you know, if
you look at the numbers, thirty two thirty six putts
is an acceptable amount and you're par seventy two.
Speaker 4: Gosh, that's that's fifty percent of the game.
Speaker 3: If we go by what you know is allowable in golf,
right and thirty six pots, et cetera, fourteen t shots.
Speaker 4: And he thought people do this pretty badly.
Speaker 3: Why And one of the things he thought was that
people just don't read greens very effectively. So he felt
that based on his mathematical background and probably trying to
figure out how a spaceship is going to go from
one place to another and amount of time it's going
to take, a matter of friction involved all the things
that are involved in space travel and travel in general.
What about a golf ball traveling across the green? Couldn't
there be some mathematical equation to that?
Speaker 1: And that's not very dissimilar to what aim point exactly.
Speaker 3: Okay, Now, I don't know how this all pans out
in the world, but I think there's a lot of
similarities on the mathematical side. I can't speak for am point,
but my guessing is is There's probably a lot of
similarities on the science side of aim point and vector
green reading, and I think both are fine. The important
thing that I've learned as an instructor is to be functional,
and I want my students and the people that come
to me, and not only them, but myself because I try.
Speaker 4: I'm usually my biggest guinea pig is.
Speaker 3: What are the things that make us better? What are
the things that we're involved in? And both aim point
and vector green reading do this. The vector I found
was more functional in that it simplified things dramatically and
gave a clearer picture of application for the individual to
apply and move forward in his game and be involved
in some basic fundamental areas which all good putters are
when they're involved in the process of putting effectively.
Speaker 1: You and I spent half hour right on a putting
green at best. I mean, you just wanted to show
it to me, and I was trying to absorb as
much as I possibly could. But I got to tell you,
the impact that it had on my next few rounds
was significant, right, And I don't want to just say
then I've forgotten. It's all done, and I'm still incorporating it.
Into every green I walk on. But I definitely saw
huge improvement immediately.
Speaker 4: I love to hear. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean it's like, is it that simple?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: Because if I got it, it's got to be simple.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Fred I, I always enjoy sitting talking with you, But
now that I'm in your layer, so to speak, in
your in your studio, I notice your vast book collection.
And I just sat down a book where a very
famous instructor said that Matt Kocher and five swings picked
up something and became the leading money when on the
PGA tour right after that took them five swings. So
sometimes things that are complicated that can be made simple
and attainable can be very effective and be life impacting
or game impacting in this point.
Speaker 4: And so yeah, I mean I think.
Speaker 3: I've tried to break it down in my way even
more functional because I'm more of a behaviorist. I'm a
believer that the vector putting was a simple The behavior
side of it was easier to apply while I was
playing golf, and and that's why I think you got
out of that thirty minutes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think it helped you.
Speaker 3: And I hope when I show people what I do
in a small clinic and or show them as an
aside in thirty minutes one on one or whatever. They
walk away and they have some similar profound experiences like
you did. I've fortunately, I've been a pretty good putter
most of my life. I say fortunate in that most
fortunate behavior is who was the There was a Raymond
Berry was a famous wide receiver. I think one of
his quotes was, when opportunity meets preparation, that's the true
definition of luck. So I say I'm I'm fortunate in
the fact that I worked really hard as a youngster
and throughout my golf career to spend more time on
the putting green, or a lot of time around the
green and the putting green. And so maybe my my
good fortune was a little bit of effort.
Speaker 4: On my part.
Speaker 3: And it's usually the case, you know, you have to
work pretty hard. But I started, I didn't know what
I was doing. I was fortunate to be around. I
thought that it was all about mechanics, but it was
a culmination of the people that I was associated with
in my life that were good players, and watching what
they do and sort of picking up on their behavior
and the things that they do were really important as
maybe as important as the mechanics, because really, and as
I showed you, mechanics are all about one simple fact.
And if you're doing that, then your mechanics are adequate.
I'm not going to say they're the best, but they're adequate,
which we'll talk about.
Speaker 4: Here in a minute.
Speaker 3: But if you're doing if you're performing a simple function
of geometry and physics, and we can see what happens
when the golf ball, then you're on the right track mechanically.
So I think mechanics can be a little overtaught when
it comes to putting, but what is undertaught is the
behavior that is involved in becoming very proficient at putting.
Speaker 5: Now you really got me.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to get into this behavior part.
Speaker 5: What did you witness? What did you see?
Speaker 1: Because you, you and I were we chatted for over
an hour before we started recording, and you were telling
me stories about when you were caddying as a kid
and you would count the posts on the on the
metal fence and you would know exactly what your distance
was based on where the ball was near that fence.
I mean, you were figuring things out early. But what
were the behavioral things that you were noticing that made impact.
Speaker 3: Well, I noticed that that that's better. Putters practiced more,
and not necessarily at long a long time, but they
had a routine that they followed, so that.
Speaker 6: A practice routine or a practice preshot routine, a practice routine,
and so that they would usually practice before they played
on the putting green, and they'd spend a few minutes
after the round on the putting green.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, yeah, Why why is that important?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: I think that that at a certain level there is
a mind body connection to what you're trying to do.
And we realize that all putting services aren't the same,
and so there's a cult.
Speaker 4: There's a variety of reasons.
Speaker 3: Like when I played professionally overseas or when I was
playing on tour, that was a common behavior among the
guys that were scoring lower.
Speaker 4: I go, oh, okay, that's what I've always done.
Speaker 3: But why you know, and well, you know, one of
the things is we would I when I always say
playing in Canada, for example, we would play one week,
say in.
Speaker 4: Surrel outside of.
Speaker 3: Quebec, and the greens would be you'd have eight different
speeds on eight sixteen. You know, eighteen different greens.
Speaker 4: Really, Yeah, it's just the way the green is that.
Speaker 3: Possibly I would like to know that too, you know,
I would try to figure this out. Maybe greens were
watered differently on certain holes, or maybe the grass would
grow at you know, grain was growing differently on certain holes.
Speaker 1: I used to ask all the time. So, if I'm
going to practice on the putting green, is this pretty
much representative?
Speaker 3: Well at the rest of the course the mine. I'm
in a provincial area of Canada that does not.
Speaker 1: We mowed the grass with the same equipment, and we
watered the same way and it's all maintained, right, Yeah,
of course it can be the same.
Speaker 3: But and I think as a standard and we're talking
early eighties here now mid eighties, and I played in
Africa too, and you'd think that. But in more provincial
areas where you know, maybe the mowers weren't set at
the right place. All mowers aren't set at the right
right you know, So one guy in the front nine,
he's doing six holes on the guy doing those six
holes that may not quite be quite set the same way,
and you know, maybe they have different growing conditions on
different greens with less shade and more shade and so
now and I you know, I spent a long time
in my other part of my life working with superintendents
in the yardage business, the golf course measurement and graphic business.
Speaker 4: And I learned that right now.
Speaker 1: You're going to make me do this, give it a brief.
You got to share with people what it is briefly
because they know who you are.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, they don't know who you.
Speaker 4: Are, okay.
Speaker 3: Well, I was playing professional golf in the early eighties
and I was very good early at taking notes at playing.
Speaker 4: You know, I didn't hit it as far.
Speaker 3: I didn't do a lot of things, but I felt
that being organized, even though I wasn't. My brothers were
better boy Scouts than me, but I felt that being
prepared was a big part of the equation. I was
a John Wooden fan growing up, being a UCLA guy. Again,
the behavioral aspect is huge, and.
Speaker 5: That is all pre GPS pre.
Speaker 3: GPS and you know, my day, in my day growing up,
it was pretty much, you know, a cypress tree at
one point fifty or a plaque in the fairway maybe,
And so what did you do? I just got well,
because what happened was I started making yardage books and
then for my other mini tour players to support myself
while I was playing many tours, and out of that
became one of the common denominators, which is legal in
the rules of golf, is a sprinklerhead is a static point.
So it's okay that that is that. Everybody knows what
the number is. It's not a secret. So you and
I can talk about the yardage from that sprinkler head.
I may not ask you what club you hit, because
that's completely different, really different. But we can things that
are common knowledge, like a tree or a rock or
a sprinkler head. And so what happened in the early days,
and this goes back a little bit, but in the
early early days of yardage, there was a caddy for
Jack Nicholas, who actually I think started cattying for Palmer first,
but he was good at graphics.
Speaker 4: His name was Gorgeous George. He had a graphic background.
Speaker 3: He started making yardage books for tour players, and those
are pretty common when I first started playing in the
early eighties as a professional. But he took a lot
of yardages from sprinkler heads. What pros would do later,
they'd go out and they'd get name plates and they'd
drill them or screw them onto these sprinkler heads for yardage.
And when I came along in the mid eighties looking
to make doing yardage books, the company at the time
was very big in golf started PGA Wes some mother
fides called Landmark Land Company asked me to do a
yardage book for the tour finals in nineteen eighty seven.
And I was doing this yardage book and he said, oh,
by the way, and this is at PGA West, all
my little riveted tags have fallen off my sprinklerhead.
Speaker 4: Can you help me out?
Speaker 3: And I at that point any sort of money come
in my way was a bonus, and so I said, okay,
I'll figure something out. And at that point I started
figuring out sprinkler markers and how to attach them to
sprinkler heads. And so the issues are being cost efficient,
being visible and.
Speaker 4: Can they last?
Speaker 3: And you know, so I did that and quickly that
led into a business for the which I just sold
after twenty six years called grun Guide manufacturing sprinkler markers
for golf courses. Awesome, so Braill Brifley, So I've measured
golf courses for years and years and years, using a
variety of different ways of doing it, laser technology, GPS
and all sorts of things. And so I've been involved
in the irrigation and the maintenance and with superintendents. So
my discussion to the superintendents about greens maintenance and that thing
is always fascinating me, and it has led. And I've
always taught during this time too, pretty much. So I've
always coached.
Speaker 1: All right, John, behavior, let's get back to it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So ultimately that you know, my background has been
about a lot about about things that are maybe not
so obvious to golfers. And a lot of my time
was spent in the presence of some really great golfers.
And I was fortunate to have just enough game to
kind of be let in the room, so to speak.
Maybe not long enough time, but enough time that I
can still call friends and acquaintances, guys that are still
playing professionally and women still playing professionally. Having I had
a coaching stint in college at my alma mater, UCLA,
and and that experience along with and I did some
other fortunate too, in that I grew up in southern
California or just California in general, which is sort of.
Speaker 4: Especially as a younger man. It's probably still today.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of really talented people at teaching
that had some wonderful successful experience at golf. So, you know,
one of my first lessons was from Jerry Barber. And
to say, at fourteen, and this is in the early seventies,
this man was only ten or so years away from
being a leading money winner on the PGA now maybe
a Varden Trophy winner on the PGA Tour, multiple winner
on the PGA Tour, winner of a major on the
PGA Tour. And to be able to call him up
and say, hey, mister Barber, can you give me a
golf lesson?
Speaker 4: Or to go to oh gosh, Little Poison. Paul Runyon.
Speaker 3: I took several lessons from mister Runyon, another short game
specialist guy, although he taught the long game too, and
he produced. You know, there's a lot of great guys
that were had a relationship.
Speaker 4: So I had this experience.
Speaker 3: Of being with people that that not only walked the walk,
but talked to talk. They did what they preached that
they they experienced at firsthand at a high level, and
I sought them out just because that's the way I was,
you know, and maybe to my detriment sometimes, uh, you know,
but because you can't do everything.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: But I look back on it now and and and
it was uh, I think it was worth my while.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So now, how does that bring us back to vector
putting and what you've learned to teach us vectory?
Speaker 3: Because you know, I I I first came across aim
point through some very smart people and watch some guys
on tour performing it, mostly the caddies, the the the h.
In the beginning, it seemed like aame point was h.
The pros would be just they would know just enough
to be dangerous, but their caddies were a little better
and and and uh, which is okay when you have
that relationship with a caddy and you trust and everything else.
But I took some time looking at the aim point
and I found it for myself to be a little
bit more complicated that I wanted to deal with. I
didn't find it to be insufficient. I just found it
to be a little bit more complicated. And I was
approached by a gentleman that was involved in vector punting,
went to a seminar, and I found the similarities quite striking.
Speaker 4: Striking, but I found and.
Speaker 1: I appreciate how gracious you're being about not saying anything
negative about aim point, But I know, I.
Speaker 3: Know, I don't think there is. I really don't think
there's anything negative about am point is. I don't think
there's anything negative about vector greene. I just find as
a coach, as an instructor, I can get the essentials
of my experience of how to become more efficient and
more effective at performance through vector Okay, And that's what
appealed to me. After I went to the seminar, I
found Wait a minute, and this started to ruminate within me,
like Okay.
Speaker 4: What did I experience here? What just happened? Wait a minute?
Speaker 3: And then I and then one day I was asked
to give a clinic, and I go, how do I
do this? And that's what I came up with STAG,
which was my acronym for basically helping people get better
at golf through through my clinic or through basic constructing.
And the overview applies to everybody. The actual application in
certain areas will be more applicable to others some people.
STAG is more of a as much about behavior and
vector green reading as, but it's about different behaviors.
Speaker 4: That are involved in becoming becoming sufficient.
Speaker 3: At the actual application of putting now practicing. It also
works too because it gives you a behavioral background on
which to how do I work on my putting on
a daily basis? And some days certain aspect applications of
STAG may be more important than others, but they all apply,
and they are all basically, you know, four basic areas
of putting that are essential to becoming a better pus.
Speaker 1: What STAG is, Yeah, that's what I'm I'm guessing that
STAG is an acronym absolutely, okay. Yeah, and it stands
for speed two.
Speaker 4: Feet and straight, aim and green reading.
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's speed two feet two feet and straight
and straight okay, and then aim and green reading. Right,
all right, let's start it speed. I'm gonna break this down.
Speaker 3: Yeah, great, and so so speed really is And you know,
it's funny. I I was always a pretty effective putter,
but I've I've sometimes surprisingly longer distance.
Speaker 4: Uh, struggled with my speed?
Speaker 5: Yeah, everyone does.
Speaker 3: And I've spent again, I've spent. I was fortunate to
spend some time and still do. I can call him
an acquaintance and maybe even a friend I named doctor
Craig Farnsworth. He's an optometrist that teaches putting instructing and if.
Speaker 4: You ever he he's a name point instructor, and he's
an ame point instructor.
Speaker 3: But he's also very smart man, and and he's on
an automical down autometrist down at the poem right And
one of my one of my main as an overall instructor,
one of my main approaches to every lesson, and I
almost especially with almost every student, I tell him right
up front, I said, the quality of relationship you build
to your target is almost always directly proportioned to the
quality of golf shot you hit. Say that again, the
quality of the relationship you developed to your target is
almost always proportionate to the quality of golf shot you're
going to hit.
Speaker 5: Okay, exciting.
Speaker 3: What you mean by that, Well, you know, it has
a little bit of my background as a golf guy
that measured golf courses, but it's also a little bit
of what I found that I did to become a
better player. Like I said, as a kid, I measured
the posts that were located along the fairways and what
the distance was between each post, and I could tell
after a while that if things were level and the
actual if I could see a post at that distance
and look at the post left to me, that that
decrease in distance going away from me measured one hundred
yards one hundred and eighty yards, two hundred yards, and
I could count the post and say, oh, that is
two hundred yards.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 3: I'm building myself a better relationship when I notice where
the pin is in the green, and what the colors
of the trees are around the green, and where that
bunker is. Like there's some great course designers that try
to trick you a little bit. They'll put bunkers, say
thirty forty yards in front of the green, and so
when you look at the flag, you see just the
top of it and you think, oh, that green's way
far away from me, or that's greens just over the bunker, right,
But it's really not.
Speaker 4: It's an extra forty yards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were talking about that, and we were talking
about the course Peacock Gap right here in Marien County
and on number ten eleven twelve, the par five, there
are these bunkers that are kind of blocking the green,
but it looks like it's you know, if you're coming
in our long approach shot, but what you don't realize
that there's probably fifteen to twenty yards between the bunker
and the green, and that's very Yeah.
Speaker 3: There's a there's a famous a golf architect. I think
it was Aw.
Speaker 4: Tillian Hast Tillingham Till Tillian Hast. I think it's Aw,
but I could be wrong on that.
Speaker 3: Butter Tillian has designed several golf courses and a lot
of them are some tremendous golf courses. He grew up
in I think a part of Scotland and he was
the greens keeper originally at a very famous course.
Speaker 4: I think it was. I don't think it's Royal County
down but anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well he it is Aw tilling.
Speaker 3: Hasty and anyway, he's very famous for putting these bunkers
out in front of greens. And so this visual perception,
in my opinion, really enhances your ability to hit a
good golf shot because our brain is an amazing effective machine.
Speaker 1: Speak for yourself, okay exactly.
Speaker 3: But but when we try to override it, we sometimes
get in the way. Golf is notorious for that, correct,
So so when I build that better relationship to the target.
I'm programming my brain in a way to act in
a more efficient way.
Speaker 1: So familiarity of the golf course is key to this. Well,
not only familiarity, but familiarity with the moment. Explain that, Well,
you know, I may have driven, you know, you may
have played your home course one hundred times, two hundred times,
three hundred times.
Speaker 4: But.
Speaker 3: Y'all a sudden you're faced with a golf shot. And
the golf shot requires not the familiarity to the whole
golf course shot, but the whole golf course, but that
golf shot. So in this moment, what am I capable
of doing?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 3: You know, when you break it down into every golf
shot has an essential like there's several elements. What are
the actual elements of this shot that the pragmatic issues
like distance like uphill, downhill, and those things are very straightforward.
But the things that aren't so obvious is how do
I get my body to adapt to this moment to
hit this golf shot? And how do I get more
in tune with what the actual yardage is? Is it
slightly uphills, it slightly downhill? Do I really know that?
Do I feel that. Am I sensing that? Am my
programming that into this shot? And if I can really
see that and feel that in a more real way,
like I see that like for example, some flags are
higher than others. You know, most flags round about seven feet,
I think, but some courses they might be a little different.
So we're tricked, right, We're tricked. If I have more
efficient information on how to make my shot, you know,
then I'm like you mentioned, Oh, if he would just
give me the pin placement on that grain, then I
can hit a better shot, you know. So that helps
me make a better decision about what my shot. Because
when I'm a as a golf pro and my caddying
and I are standing there looking at our yardage book,
we're we're looking at numbers saying, the first thing we
do is get rid of the worst shot. So what
club or what shot approach here? What approach to the
shot eliminates the highest penalty for failure because it's not
about how many great shots I had in around a
golf It's more about efficient shots, you see what I'm saying.
So if I have good information, which is a good yardage,
and I can feel that and apply that to the moment,
then I'm more more efficient at producing what I need
to do in that moment. It's not a question of
knowing where the course is and I like that area,
but and and and if I do that effectively time
and time again, I get better results. Which brings us
back to the with the stag And that's what speed
is a good way of that. If I can if
I can understand the speed of this green, if I
understand the speed of this this green in particular, which
generally today is pretty similar with all golf courses.
Speaker 4: But you know, where am I uphill or my downhill?
Am I on a side hill? You know? Do I
have grain working against me? What's my friction going to be?
You know?
Speaker 5: Wind?
Speaker 3: Wind can be a factor sometimes usually pretty strong one
to do that, but yeah, it can be a factor.
Subtle ones can just be a factor in my stability.
Speaker 4: To hit the putt.
Speaker 1: Time of the day when because the condition of the
green is radically different than right.
Speaker 3: Especial especially on Bermuda greens where you have grain. You know,
later in the afternoon you've got a little more grain
than you maybe had in the morning. Big factor, right,
And so all these things are important in the speed
and the friction that. So speed is one of those
things of building a better relationship to the target, and
stagging itself is just building that better relationship to the
target and how I do that.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we've gotten through the S and STAG. We've
got TAG left, but we're out of time. So what
we're going to do? Can you stick around?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 1: Okay, So we're going to do a members only episode.
We'll pick it up at tea okay for Stag and
we'll we'll talk in more depth and I'm going to
pick it apart as best I can with you and
we'll do the rest there. So we will continue the
conversation with John Grunn on the upcoming episode.
Speaker 5: John, I appreciate you.
Speaker 4: Yes,