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