Speaker 1: Hey, it's Fred. You know I regularly get asked about
Speaker 1: my all time favorite episodes, and this one comes to
Speaker 1: mind because our guest is Dave Stockton. Over thirty years
Speaker 1: as a touring professional, Dave won eleven times on the
Speaker 1: PGA Tour, including two PGA Championships in nineteen seventy and
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six. After that, he joined the Champions Tour
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two and won fourteen times through nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety seven, including two Senior PGA Championships and the US
Speaker 1: Senior Open. Later, he went on to become one of
Speaker 1: the most sought after short game instructors in the world.
Speaker 1: So in this episode we tried something different as it
Speaker 1: was two complete episodes in one conversation that was presented
Speaker 1: at one time to Golf Smarter members behind our paywall
Speaker 1: and has never been shared publicly before. I know you'll
Speaker 1: agree with me that there's a lot of really helpful
Speaker 1: insights and instruction from one of the best. So here's
Speaker 1: Golf Smarter episode's number four hundred thirty and four hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty one from April one, twenty fourteen.
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
Speaker 2: interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
Speaker 2: like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 3: I was never the most gifted physically, but I'm going
Speaker 3: to beat you mentally. If seventy five or six was
Speaker 3: the best I could do, has certainly made the sixty seven.
Speaker 3: I was going to need to shoot the next day
Speaker 3: to make the cut a much more viable approach rather
Speaker 3: than getting all mad and happy about it. It's like
Speaker 3: the two things with Rory, the one I alluded to
Speaker 3: for he won the opening where I basically had him
Speaker 3: use monitoring how he played the secondment, which is his
Speaker 3: PGA Atkiwa where I saw in the leak before. And
Speaker 3: he had a terrible year so far, up and down.
Speaker 3: He wasn't consistent, he hadn't defended a US opened very
Speaker 3: well at the Olympic Club in San Francisco and miss
Speaker 3: and cuts. As we were leaving Actor in the week
Speaker 3: before and I said, I want you to do me
Speaker 3: a favor, and he looked right at me, which he
Speaker 3: always does, and I said to him, I am getting
Speaker 3: really tired of turning on a TV and telling whether
Speaker 3: you burdied or both be the last hole. And I
Speaker 3: don't know why you're giving your opponents an opportunity to
Speaker 3: get you. I said, you got to forget the bad shots,
Speaker 3: and he did.
Speaker 1: Own your game. How to use your mind to play
Speaker 1: winning golf with Dave Stockton. This is Golf Smarter, and
Speaker 1: now we bring you the full unedited seventy minute interview
Speaker 1: with Dave Stockton, including about five minutes before we actually
Speaker 1: started the show. Dave, let me give you little background here.
Speaker 1: The purpose of Golf Smarter. The way I started it was,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not a golf professional. I'm not a
Speaker 1: PGA instructor, just a guy who likes to play on
Speaker 1: the weekends and I like to ask a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: But when I started doing this show, my thought was
Speaker 1: that if you have a strong mental game and you
Speaker 1: understand strategy, you're going to lower your scores a lot
Speaker 1: faster than if you were just trying to work on
Speaker 1: your swing mechanics.
Speaker 3: Wow, boy, you you're You're way ahead of a whole
Speaker 3: lot of people. As far as.
Speaker 1: I'm concerned, so it's so I've developed this following, which
Speaker 1: amazing because it's unlike radio, it's worldwide, and we've built
Speaker 1: this community on this whole concept and it's worked very well.
Speaker 1: According to you know, iTunes and Google online, it's the
Speaker 1: most popular golf podcast. So wow, I must have done
Speaker 1: something right.
Speaker 3: It's amazing because what you're doing is not not normal
Speaker 3: really because so many people they get so wrapped up
Speaker 3: on the physical part of it. Do you let me
Speaker 3: ask you a question if you talk to Deborah Graham, no,
Speaker 3: John for John Stabler.
Speaker 1: No, I'm always looking for new people to talk to
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: Well. There it was interesting because Golf World ran an
Speaker 3: article about the brain in November, and Ritella and Julie
Speaker 3: Ellian and Coop and there were three or four and
Speaker 3: they ended the whole thing by saying, you know, they
Speaker 3: got a track man for the for the metal game,
Speaker 3: for the physical game, but they don't have anything for
Speaker 3: the brain, right, and John Stabler and Deborah Graham actually do.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can be fifty foot away from somebody
Speaker 3: and you can tell exactly when they make their decision
Speaker 3: to hit a shot or if they changed their mind.
Speaker 3: You can you can literally read it and know immediately
Speaker 3: this person is not not confident, or this person is
Speaker 3: not hasn't pictured what they're trying to do. It blows
Speaker 3: you away. I mean, she was a psychologist that I
Speaker 3: used at the Ryder Cup at Kiowa and in ninety
Speaker 3: one to profile my players so i'd get them to
Speaker 3: play better.
Speaker 1: That was such a fascinating story. I love that. I
Speaker 1: didn't mind the name dropping. It added credibility to the book.
Speaker 1: But I but there were parts of it, like I
Speaker 1: was even while I was reading it, and we'll get
Speaker 1: into this when we do the interview, but there were
Speaker 1: two paragraphs in there that I said to my wife,
Speaker 1: I said, I can do at least a half hour
Speaker 1: on just these two paragraphs alone, right, because the nuance
Speaker 1: of what you were talking about, and I'm not going
Speaker 1: to tell you what it is because we'll do it
Speaker 1: during the show, but the nuance was like, we can
Speaker 1: pick into that so much, and I'd have so many
Speaker 1: questions about that. So yeah, I love that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: To me, that's what makes the most sense.
Speaker 3: That's interesting because most people they have no clue. And
Speaker 3: the reason is funny. I wrote the Putting Book and
Speaker 3: I thought, well, okay, that's because everybody consider themselves bad putters,
Speaker 3: and everybody thinks I know how to teach putting, so
Speaker 3: this will be a natural. And then I realized, after
Speaker 3: I work with the people, how many people were not
Speaker 3: good chippers. So we did the Chipping book, and as
Speaker 3: I'm doing that, I'm coming to realize this last book
Speaker 3: and on your Game is basically the most important one,
Speaker 3: because if I have somebody really good that I'm going
Speaker 3: to get paid to have them played better, I am
Speaker 3: literally going to have them call Debra and have him
Speaker 3: take her test because I want to find out and
Speaker 3: I want them to see how, you know, how mentally
Speaker 3: they're weak in different places and it makes all the
Speaker 3: difference in the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually have. There was another woman in Florida.
Speaker 1: I'm blanking on her name right now, but I did
Speaker 1: do a show with her and we talked about the
Speaker 1: four different personality styles right of golfers and how to
Speaker 1: figure out how to play with them. And I think
Speaker 1: the thing that I learned mostly from her was you
Speaker 1: never conduct business on the golf course. You learn if
Speaker 1: you want to do business with that person by the
Speaker 1: way that person plays golf. Sure, yeah, I thought that
Speaker 1: was absolutely fascinating and really valuable.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, no, no doubt.
Speaker 1: Have you have you noticed lately on the tour where
Speaker 1: they talk about strokes gained putting this new stat that
Speaker 1: they're talking about and strokes gained driving. Right, So the
Speaker 1: guy who came up with golf metrics, Mark Brodie, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was just on the show two weeks ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's written the book. I you know, again, I
Speaker 3: have not gotten into that, so I don't you know,
Speaker 3: and I don't I know they've changed it in everything,
Speaker 3: but I you know, And it was interesting to hear
Speaker 3: him say that. You know, he basically thinks the other
Speaker 3: part of the game is more important, So it was
Speaker 3: kind of surprising.
Speaker 1: Well, what I found out from him was that what
Speaker 1: he was saying is they everyone beats themselves up on putts,
Speaker 1: and I know that like if I three putt, I
Speaker 1: carry that with me, right, that if I start putting poorly,
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how the rest of my game is going,
Speaker 1: that that will impact my mood for that day. And
Speaker 1: yet what he's saying is actually putting you know, you
Speaker 1: should look at the rest of your game because putting
Speaker 1: only accounts for about twenty seven percent of your scoring.
Speaker 1: The way the way he had it, so it was fascinating.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So all right, so this is how we'll do it.
Speaker 1: I'll say, Welcome to the Golf Smarter Podcast, Dave. You
Speaker 1: say hi, Fred, and then we'll see where it goes
Speaker 1: from there.
Speaker 3: You got it, Fred, that's fine.
Speaker 1: Okay, here we go. Welcome to the Golf Smarter Podcast, Dave.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Fred, good to be with you.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much. I loved reading your book.
Speaker 1: It didn't take me a long time, but I consumed
Speaker 1: every word of the new book Own Your Game, and
Speaker 1: it spoke to me in so many ways. Is because
Speaker 1: I'm a big believer in the mental game and strategy,
Speaker 1: not necessarily course management, but strategy. And I love the
Speaker 1: way that you actually discussed strategy as a very different
Speaker 1: approach than just talking about the metal game.
Speaker 3: Right. I mean, the people you talk about routines, and
Speaker 3: everybody thinks their routine is okay, what's happening just before
Speaker 3: the ball? And I tried to explain in the book.
Speaker 3: You know, you play a hole like the twelfth hole
Speaker 3: in Augusta under the pressure of playing in the Masters,
Speaker 3: your routine starts to minute you the second you drop
Speaker 3: the ball. The hole on eleven, because immediately you're looking
Speaker 3: to see what the trees behind twelve are doing, because
Speaker 3: once you get up on the twelfth p it's blocked
Speaker 3: by a giant grand stan of people and you really
Speaker 3: can't tell. So you're automatically already starting to think about
Speaker 3: the next hole. You're shetting, and as a good golfer
Speaker 3: will do, or most of the time, you know the eleventh
Speaker 3: hole is buying you anyway, so you might will start
Speaker 3: getting your mind and your routine ready to go on
Speaker 3: the next one. It's not and it's not just your
Speaker 3: physical routine. And for me, the metal side.
Speaker 1: Is so important to it, absolutely, And I love the
Speaker 1: line here strategies about tilting the odds in your favor
Speaker 1: as much as you can exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's like going by a certain hole I
Speaker 3: keep picking on on Augusta. But you know you watch
Speaker 3: different courses. Well, let's say the let's say the Phoenix
Speaker 3: open that has the sixteenth toll with a million people
Speaker 3: sitting around yelling at you. You know you better, you
Speaker 3: better realize what the wind's doing and the conditions as
Speaker 3: you go down fifteen, because when you get inside that enclosure,
Speaker 3: you can't tell. And you know, so many people are
Speaker 3: affected by the next shot they're going to hit or
Speaker 3: the last shot they did hit that they're you know,
Speaker 3: they're not getting the whole idea, they're not getting the
Speaker 3: whole thing that could make it an easy day for them.
Speaker 3: They just have these series of blips that I don't
Speaker 3: they're not conscious of, and they don't they don't gain
Speaker 3: the perspective you know, when we all have when we
Speaker 3: have our days, we all play good. It happens so
Speaker 3: so easily that there's not a whole lot of thought,
Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden you get going bad.
Speaker 3: And if you don't have the wherewithal the get get
Speaker 3: it behind you and get get it turned around. Uh,
Speaker 3: you're in trouble. I mean, one of the things I
Speaker 3: asked when I'm working with people, I said, Okay, if
Speaker 3: you're only going to be given six one puts today,
Speaker 3: what is your reaction when you're over the first twelve
Speaker 3: holes and you make one? I'm thirteen so now, but
Speaker 3: you don't know you're going to make the next five
Speaker 3: no matter if they're two foot or fifty, you're going
Speaker 3: to make all of them. What was your reaction? Was it? Well,
Speaker 3: I'm a that that figures I've getting that I found
Speaker 3: an acorn or you know, something kind of negative and
Speaker 3: said instead of being in meaning it saying oh boy,
Speaker 3: here we go. Now I got it, Here we go
Speaker 3: and it's I don't know it. To me, it's fun
Speaker 3: and I'm glad to hear you, you know, talk about
Speaker 3: what you're doing out there, because you're you've tapped to
Speaker 3: exactly what I think is the key to having people
Speaker 3: play a lot better, a lot faster, and much easier
Speaker 3: on themselves.
Speaker 1: When you say play a lot faster, you know, you
Speaker 1: talked a lot about pre shot routine, and I think
Speaker 1: we can do There were two paragraphs in the book
Speaker 1: that talk about pre shot routine that to me, we
Speaker 1: can do the entire episode on. And I'm just going
Speaker 1: to pick your brain on that because I feel like
Speaker 1: I have a good pre shot routine, but after reading
Speaker 1: your book, I feel like it's a very mechanical pre
Speaker 1: shot routine and I do the same things over and over,
Speaker 1: but I'm not thinking about or noticing the same things.
Speaker 3: Well, did you remember my little story about January in there?
Speaker 1: Please tell it? Because I've read the book. Not everybody has, Okay,
Speaker 1: but did you remember it, the January story about January.
Speaker 3: Before I talked about January stopping me as I was
Speaker 3: going off the first team playing with he and Arnold Palmer.
Speaker 1: Oh right, Oh, I thought you meant the month.
Speaker 3: Yes. Yes, it was probably one of the most unbelievable
Speaker 3: things to me because I had never I've been on
Speaker 3: twury a year and a half. Of course I didn't
Speaker 3: I didn't make the cuts most of the time, and
Speaker 3: I was you know, I'd never met Arnold until that
Speaker 3: faithful day at the LA Open at Ranchell. And He's
Speaker 3: got me by seven, He's got January by four. January's
Speaker 3: and third, and I'm in fifth, and I get introduced
Speaker 3: to him, and you know, Heat's off and everybody roars.
Speaker 3: And then January' is the PGA champion. Heat's off. Everybody roars.
Speaker 3: It's my turn. And as January hits, I'm looking at
Speaker 3: my feet and my toes are just bouncing up down
Speaker 3: because I'm nervous as heck. But uh, and I'm heavy enough.
Speaker 3: I looked at my my shoes aren't moving. I'm going
Speaker 3: that's good. Nobody can tell I'm petrified. So I get
Speaker 3: my ball, stays on the tee. I give it a
Speaker 3: whack right down the middle, and I grabbed the tea
Speaker 3: and I'm not a foot away from have to grabbing
Speaker 3: my tea on a dead run to catch Arnold. I
Speaker 3: hear this voice, goes son Son and basically it's January
Speaker 3: and asked me. He said, what do you see out there?
Speaker 3: And I said, well, I see twenty thousand people. He said, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: watch Arnold. Arnold's now got us by fifty yards because
Speaker 3: January walks really slow. And he said, I just want
Speaker 3: to let you know that you have a problem today.
Speaker 3: And I said, what's that. He says, well, now Arnold's
Speaker 3: almost to where my ball is, and they're both like
Speaker 3: forty yards behind and pass me, and he says, you
Speaker 3: notice how far we're by you. I said, yes, sir,
Speaker 3: And he says, well, we're going to do that all
Speaker 3: day except when we can't putt like you, so we're
Speaker 3: going to be even. He said, but the problem you have.
Speaker 3: And now now Palmer's at his ball looking back at us,
Speaker 3: and we're still fifty yards for me to get to
Speaker 3: my ball, taking these little bitty steps, and he he
Speaker 3: looks to me, he says, you know the problem you
Speaker 3: have is if you go Arnold's pace, this is my pace.
Speaker 3: We're walking right now, and you're going to see me
Speaker 3: walking up your backside all day. And he said, but
Speaker 3: on the other side, Arnold can't hit till you hit Kenny.
Speaker 3: And I said no, sir. He said, well, you go
Speaker 3: my face and it's going to be very difficult on
Speaker 3: mister Palmer today. And I go, that's different. And so
Speaker 3: the second and we all parted. One. We go to
Speaker 3: the second hall and I can't walk that slow. In fact,
Speaker 3: I was sore and taking a little step. So I
Speaker 3: went to the left. Then I crossed to the right
Speaker 3: and there was nobody there, but I just made this
Speaker 3: big X and I came back to my ball. January
Speaker 3: walked by and he winked at me, and so we
Speaker 3: all parted the second. The third hole is a part
Speaker 3: of three. I only walked to one side and the
Speaker 3: fourth hole of my wife Kathy walks up and she says,
Speaker 3: what are you doing? And I said well, and I
Speaker 3: pulled her under the rose, put my arm around her,
Speaker 3: and I said, mister January said this about you know
Speaker 3: my pace of play. He knows I play fast, he
Speaker 3: knows I don't take practice swings, and he said, and
Speaker 3: he just said that I'm going to get derailed by
Speaker 3: him walking out of my backside, and I ought to
Speaker 3: think about my pace of play. I had never in
Speaker 3: two and a half years or two years on tour,
Speaker 3: I ever thought about playing slower faster. And consequently she said,
Speaker 3: what sounds like I'm a good idea to me. I'm
Speaker 3: on the eighteenth tee, I am. I walked twenty miles,
Speaker 3: I am dead tired. I'm five under for the day
Speaker 3: and I've picked up five shots on Palmer. I'm within
Speaker 3: two shots he Birdi's the last hole to win the tournament.
Speaker 3: I finished fourth, and I really learned something well. I
Speaker 3: passed the same same thing on to McElroy insomuch as
Speaker 3: when he blew the Masters, and I met him three
Speaker 3: weeks later for the first time because his caddie wanted
Speaker 3: me to work with him. And his opening question to
Speaker 3: me at Charlotte, my son Ronnie was with me. He says,
Speaker 3: what what do you What did you see me at
Speaker 3: the Masters? And I said yeah, he said, what'd you think?
Speaker 3: I said, I thought you had a terrible pairing and
Speaker 3: he looks at me like I had four eyes you know,
Speaker 3: I said, well, I saw you pair with Cabrera, and
Speaker 3: Cabret is the world's nicest guy, but unfortunately he plays
Speaker 3: just as fast as you. And I said, you ask
Speaker 3: me what I saw. I saw two guys that played
Speaker 3: stand around and wait and wait, and it was their
Speaker 3: turn to hit. They hurt. They hit really fast because
Speaker 3: you're both fast players, and they'd walk fast. Now they
Speaker 3: got to stand around there and wait and wait to
Speaker 3: wait again. And basically I said, you had no rhythm.
Speaker 3: I mean it was almost you should have realized that
Speaker 3: you were the last ones out and nobody you know,
Speaker 3: you can't. You can't go through the in front of you,
Speaker 3: so you might as well just take your time. Well,
Speaker 3: he bought into that. We looked at his putting physically.
Speaker 3: There was nothing wrong. In fact, he had great routine
Speaker 3: and stuff as far as the physical part of it,
Speaker 3: and I see him it wentworth three weeks later in
Speaker 3: London and then comes up to Congressional where I won
Speaker 3: my second PGA, and that was the US Open, and
Speaker 3: again or the lesson lasted maybe a minute or two.
Speaker 3: Everything looked fine, so I wasn't going to tell him
Speaker 3: anything else. We'd go to the last round the seventh
Speaker 3: to ten toll. The part three, he had two hundred
Speaker 3: yard shower. I'd be hitting the seven wood and he's
Speaker 3: hitting the seven aron hit at about six inches and
Speaker 3: then it gave him a five or six shot lead
Speaker 3: at that point. But the eleventh toll congressionals are really tough.
Speaker 3: Part four, water down the right, big trap on the left,
Speaker 3: and Rory walked off. But within a minute he was
Speaker 3: back up on the green with his putter, just one
Speaker 3: putting with his left hand, no ball, just you know,
Speaker 3: making him looking or the eighteenth green, enjoying the people
Speaker 3: and his kame must have been there seven eight minutes
Speaker 3: since Caddy finally walked up. Whatstled at him? He went
Speaker 3: back down. He hit the t shirt and I thought,
Speaker 3: this kid learns pretty fast, because he didn't want to
Speaker 3: stand down there on that tee like he did at
Speaker 3: the Masters, and stood there and let the pressure build.
Speaker 3: And so what would you know. It's a long answer
Speaker 3: to your question, but basically, that one thing that January
Speaker 3: did for me made me aware of the surroundings around me,
Speaker 3: whether I was going to play slower that day or
Speaker 3: faster that day, and it changes. It's not anything consistent
Speaker 3: but you got to do something that's going to make
Speaker 3: you feel comfortable.
Speaker 1: I love that story. And please, any question I ask
Speaker 1: you can take as long as you'd like to answer.
Speaker 1: And I have no issue with that, No problem, okay.
Speaker 1: And you know I tend to be a fast walker
Speaker 1: when I play, but my preshot routine is very deliberate,
Speaker 1: and my putting routine is very deliberate. Maybe that slows
Speaker 1: me down, that changes my rhythm based on the rest
Speaker 1: of my life, which is fairly quick. Is that am
Speaker 1: I working against myself by doing that?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, we don't have a method. I say, Wade, Ronnie
Speaker 3: or Dave Junior, myself, Stock and golf. We use our
Speaker 3: eyes and our job looking at you is to make
Speaker 3: you comfortable. Well, what I tell you would be something different.
Speaker 3: I'd tell your neighbor or if you're a for handicap
Speaker 3: and they're at thirty, you're gonna tell them something different
Speaker 3: because and yet everybody is into this mechanical thing. But
Speaker 3: I'm here to tell you. I mean, I've I played
Speaker 3: golf too many years, over forty years on a two
Speaker 3: tour combined, and I have never seen anybody yet the
Speaker 3: normal routine is people slow down, I'll never forget watching
Speaker 3: Faldo beat beat Scott Holk and a playoff on ten
Speaker 3: in Augusta when Scott's got a two foot putt to
Speaker 3: win and he backed off and then came back in.
Speaker 3: I'm screaming at the TV because I knew he was
Speaker 3: gonna miss him. Another one at the Masters with Ed
Speaker 3: Snead had a three shot lead with three holes to go,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden it looked like his body
Speaker 3: had been taken over by an alien the last three
Speaker 3: because his routine went twice as long as what had
Speaker 3: been doing. And just because you want to throw a
Speaker 3: dart in the center of a bullseye, if I make
Speaker 3: you stand there and stare at this thing and slow down,
Speaker 3: it isn't gonna work as good. He can't. And that's
Speaker 3: why what we call what we do the signature approach
Speaker 3: is first lesson whether you're your Michaelson or Mceilroy or
Speaker 3: the girl next door, I'm gonna have you sign your signature.
Speaker 3: There's no right or wrong way, but you're certainly going
Speaker 3: to have a reasonable pace to signing your own signature.
Speaker 3: Some people, like Billy Casper, would be very deliberate. Other
Speaker 3: people are going to be very very fast. Okay, but
Speaker 3: you're gonna be comfortable with what you do. But now
Speaker 3: I'm gonna throw you out of your comfort zone because
Speaker 3: I'm gonna have you. I want you to give it
Speaker 3: to me again, only this time, I want you to
Speaker 3: look at your signature. I want you to picture what's
Speaker 3: there and right below it, I want you to duplicate
Speaker 3: that same signature. But you've got to do it slowly.
Speaker 3: You got no chance. I can't do the D and Dave.
Speaker 3: I can literally not do my first and if I
Speaker 3: go slow, I can't do it. And that's because if
Speaker 3: it's something that should be in your subconscious and yet
Speaker 3: you try to do it. You can. If you practice
Speaker 3: and you hit a zillion balls, yeah, you get to
Speaker 3: a proficient level, but you'll never be great at what
Speaker 3: you're doing. And because it's a constantly changing thing. And
Speaker 3: so yeah, I mean I again. You'd have to watch
Speaker 3: you and say, Okay, what's the normal routine would Fred
Speaker 3: feel comfortable with? And then I would want it to
Speaker 3: be slightly faster rather than slightly slower because when you
Speaker 3: take more time and I ask people, do you take
Speaker 3: practice strokes? Can you put red?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: I do. Well. Do you do you play pool at all?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: I do, okay, and I relate pool shooting to being
Speaker 3: a good cutter. So do I? Oh my god, why don't.
Speaker 3: I'm willing to bet you that you don't stand a
Speaker 3: foot to the side of your cue ball and practice
Speaker 3: your stroke you're going to make before you step behind it.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: And I don't stand to the side of my golf
Speaker 1: ball either. I stand behind it, looking at the line,
Speaker 1: feeling like what my stroke will be there?
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, that's that's what Annica Sorenstan had to do
Speaker 3: because she'd bound and the termine she had to have
Speaker 3: a stroke. Uh. Just talk work with Mike Wheer. He
Speaker 3: feels the same way. He has to have that practice stroke. Uh.
Speaker 3: But I find it humorous that most people shoot pool
Speaker 3: just put the custick up behind it and now they
Speaker 3: leave it still. No, they go it back and fourth.
Speaker 3: But the average person takes their practice stroke up by
Speaker 3: the ball, okay, not behind it. If you're gonna take
Speaker 3: a practice stroke, you should be at right angles to
Speaker 3: your line, looking straight over the ball toward the hole
Speaker 3: to feel what you're doing. If that's what you need
Speaker 3: to do, I have a hard time believing people need
Speaker 3: to do that. But a lot of people do it.
Speaker 3: But the ones that come up beside the ball parallel
Speaker 3: to it, take a couple of strokes, put the club
Speaker 3: behind the ball, look at the hall briefly, then look down,
Speaker 3: set their feet. They're looking basically at the ball. And
Speaker 3: yet that'd be just the same amount as smart. So
Speaker 3: that would use to throw a dart at something. You're
Speaker 3: focusing on the number or the bullseye that you're going
Speaker 3: to try to put the dart into. You're not looking
Speaker 3: at your hand, and it literally blows me away that people.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'll the first thing I'll do is I'll
Speaker 3: not let people take a practice stroke. Get up closer
Speaker 3: to the ball, set their right foot if their right
Speaker 3: hand is set their right foot, put the putter on
Speaker 3: the ground. Now look at the hole. Now set your feet,
Speaker 3: which means bringing your left foot up online and look
Speaker 3: at the hole. Get self comfortable. And I ask them,
Speaker 3: and I'm holding onto their head, I said, you see
Speaker 3: your line, You see where the ball's going in yep, Okay,
Speaker 3: I won't let them come back. I said, go ahead
Speaker 3: and stroke it. You can't imagine how many times these
Speaker 3: people without even looking down at the ball, since they're
Speaker 3: looking out at the target, same thing they would be
Speaker 3: if they were throwing a dart. You cannot believe how
Speaker 3: fast these people improve. And that the other thing, like
Speaker 3: Hope missing that two footer to lose the masters. I mean,
Speaker 3: if he just set his right foot, put the club down, now,
Speaker 3: look at the hole and set his feet. There's no
Speaker 3: reason to ever think that this line's not right because
Speaker 3: you line yourself up with your eyes. But if you
Speaker 3: take practice strokes and come in, there is all types
Speaker 3: of things that you go flying through your mind and
Speaker 3: keep you unsettled instead of being settled in what you're
Speaker 3: trying to do.
Speaker 1: I have noticed that putting on the practice putting green
Speaker 1: is not the same routine and is generally more successful.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, well there's a reason. There's a reason why
Speaker 3: you're you're your is more successful. That's why you make
Speaker 3: the second butt you try after you miss the first one,
Speaker 3: because that's so much time this first one. You're with
Speaker 3: it and you pull the other ball up. You don't
Speaker 3: take nearly asmuns of the time, and you'll probably make
Speaker 3: it again. The two words two words we don't we
Speaker 3: do not want to use. The first is the word try.
Speaker 3: We want you to feel it. Second word we don't
Speaker 3: want to use is hit. I mean to me, if
Speaker 3: you tell me I'm going to try to hit this
Speaker 3: ball in the hole, that constant puts in my mind
Speaker 3: the thought of putting a nail against a wall and
Speaker 3: beating it with a hammer. Okay, I'm hitting that sucker
Speaker 3: right into the wall, whereas to me, putting would be
Speaker 3: like making a paint brush and making one stripe down
Speaker 3: the wall with a paintbrush. I want to feel. I
Speaker 3: want to feel the stroke. I don't want to hit it.
Speaker 3: I want to feel the role. So we substitute roll
Speaker 3: for hit, and we substitute feel for try, and it
Speaker 3: makes a huge psychological difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I also noticed in one part of the
Speaker 1: book where you talked about how professionals hit through the
Speaker 1: ball where amateurs hit at the ball.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, very definitely. I mean you want. I mean
Speaker 3: you'll practice and practice, and everybody's practice swing is really
Speaker 3: pretty good, especially if they're not a ball there, but
Speaker 3: you put a ball there and all of a sudden
Speaker 3: they focus on that ball. They might as well get
Speaker 3: them an ax at the top of the swing, Whereas
Speaker 3: in reality, you want to go through the ball, You
Speaker 3: want to go go to a draw finish, go to
Speaker 3: a fade finish. All of a sudden, the club went
Speaker 3: through where the ball was without you thinking about it,
Speaker 3: and as much more natural, and you'll get much more
Speaker 3: you get a lot more power doing them.
Speaker 1: So explain to me a little further what you mean
Speaker 1: by through the ball I'm picturing.
Speaker 3: I'm picturing that. Let's say it's the driver. I'm picturing
Speaker 3: about the first twelve to sixteen inches through the ball
Speaker 3: where that driver is gonna go. I mean, there's gonna
Speaker 3: be no reaction to the ball. I'm powering this driver
Speaker 3: right on through that area. In other words, it's not
Speaker 3: at it, it's not hit down, it's you know, obviously
Speaker 3: most people would realize the woods you're sweeping the ball
Speaker 3: off rather than hitting down like you would be within
Speaker 3: an iron. But both of them, the follow through is
Speaker 3: highly important. How how important is why can't a quarterback
Speaker 3: throw a football off his foot as good as one is?
Speaker 3: They say he steps into it, or what's the most
Speaker 3: important thing on the free throw? It's the follow through.
Speaker 3: It's not our preparation before and how we take it back,
Speaker 3: but it's how good. Our follow through is that makes
Speaker 3: the thing have the correct line. So the follow through
Speaker 3: is really really important in golf.
Speaker 1: M And you just use the word picture. And I
Speaker 1: noticed during the throughout the book that you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: you have a stellar resume, your your career has been
Speaker 1: fantastic on the tour and Ryder Cup champion and Ryder
Speaker 1: Cup Captain and Champions Tour, phenomenal, amazing, And I appreciate
Speaker 1: your time talking to me about this, but you kept
Speaker 1: talking about seeing and picture. You know what your swing is.
Speaker 1: It like one of one of the lines that I
Speaker 1: pulled from the book, it's not how you hit the shot,
Speaker 1: it's how you use your mind to picture them.
Speaker 3: Yes, yep, it's to me, it's the difference between somebody
Speaker 3: that hits one over in the trees and now you've
Speaker 3: got a tree in front of you, at a big tree,
Speaker 3: and so you're looking at the hall you're it's on
Speaker 3: the left or right side, wherever it might be. The
Speaker 3: tree tells you, Okay, I'm gonna go up over the
Speaker 3: right side, or I'm going to go under the left,
Speaker 3: or I'm gonna do this because of how the ball's
Speaker 3: gonna roll the fair away and you picture the shot
Speaker 3: and you hit it. Oh well, the same next day
Speaker 3: you make him the same hole and drive it thirty
Speaker 3: yards further dead down the middle. The pin could be
Speaker 3: right in the middle of the green and your miss
Speaker 3: is about to occur. Because you're so proud of this
Speaker 3: fantastic t shot you hit that you don't give the
Speaker 3: picturing element to what the ball, what you're going to
Speaker 3: do to this ball. You did it really good when
Speaker 3: you're behind the tree, and it forced you to do it.
Speaker 3: But are you smart enough in picturing the middle side
Speaker 3: of the game to be able to picture something when
Speaker 3: there's no obvious trouble the pins in the middle. It's
Speaker 3: the simple a shot. But in reality, you know, you
Speaker 3: gotta think, Okay, do I leave it short? If I
Speaker 3: don't make it, am I gonna leave it short or long?
Speaker 3: You know, I love to watch people practice on a range.
Speaker 3: So say we're in Texas and it's kind of a
Speaker 3: cloudy day and fluffy white clouds going through the sky.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm trying to go over a cloud or
Speaker 3: keep it under another one. I'm trying to do it
Speaker 3: all these things picturing, because that then I've got it.
Speaker 3: Most people go out to the rains. All they're doing
Speaker 3: is hitting the ball, and as soon as the ball
Speaker 3: struck they're reaching for the next ball, and they don't
Speaker 3: even watch the ball roll out, when in reality, when
Speaker 3: you practice, you should hit it and the ball goes
Speaker 3: up in the air, you should be holding your finish
Speaker 3: until the ball's coming it starts its downward flight. Then
Speaker 3: you can cut in your club halfway and then once
Speaker 3: the ball hits the ground and you can trol your
Speaker 3: club and move on to the next shot. But you've
Speaker 3: had four or five seconds to pick up information about
Speaker 3: what that shot you just hit. Whereas most people, I mean,
Speaker 3: how many, well do you watch it as soon as
Speaker 3: they hit the ball and they don't like it, they're
Speaker 3: reaching for the next ball, and that they don't learn
Speaker 3: anything from the last one, and pretty soon here that's
Speaker 3: a lot when you you'll go in cycles like the
Speaker 3: ocean waves come in, you get it for a while
Speaker 3: and then it leaves you. That's why you know when
Speaker 3: you're out there practicing you do well in it. I
Speaker 3: would move on to something else, but you know, there's
Speaker 3: a lot to be said for the routines people used
Speaker 3: to practice, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: But the routines that use for practice are not necessarily
Speaker 1: the routine routines that use when they're on the course.
Speaker 3: There are. They almost never are. They almost never are,
Speaker 3: because that's why my dad when he was taught me,
Speaker 3: I mean, I never got the put with more than
Speaker 3: two balls in the long game. He used to have
Speaker 3: me hit five balls, little piles of five balls, let's
Speaker 3: say with the nine iron, and then that's the nine er,
Speaker 3: And he might be might have me hit a five iron,
Speaker 3: might have me hit a four wood, might me have
Speaker 3: me hit a wedge. But if he saw three shots
Speaker 3: come out and they're all high draws, he would say,
Speaker 3: let's see it, let's see a low fade, or let's
Speaker 3: see something else to make me do the imagery work
Speaker 3: to be able to picture the shot and feel it
Speaker 3: of the shot I was going to hit, rather than
Speaker 3: just one after another hitting the same shot. And we
Speaker 3: can get really good doing that on the range, but
Speaker 3: it ain't going to help you on the on the
Speaker 3: golf course because the range generally is dead at your
Speaker 3: first shot. Now you got a ball three inches above
Speaker 3: your feet or below your feet, whatever it might be.
Speaker 3: And all that practice you warmed up, but all that
Speaker 3: practice didn't do you a whole heck of a lot
Speaker 3: of good because you weren't picturing stuff.
Speaker 1: And to you, that is the key is picturing what
Speaker 1: the shot is before you take it.
Speaker 3: Well before that, I mean you get out of your cart.
Speaker 3: Most people will go to the closest side of the
Speaker 3: tee to where the cart is because I know we're
Speaker 3: all in fantastic physical shape. Most kind of go to
Speaker 3: the short side instead of if the t is ten
Speaker 3: yards wide, the optics on the left side looking down
Speaker 3: the fairway are totally different than looking on the right
Speaker 3: side of the tee. Every step you take the left
Speaker 3: makes your optic go to the right. So consequently, did
Speaker 3: the T cause call you to tee off on the
Speaker 3: right side or left side? For starters? Okay, and how
Speaker 3: do you want the ball? It's the ball going to
Speaker 3: come You want to picture the line you want the
Speaker 3: ball to end, but is going to come in with
Speaker 3: a fade or a draw, all these different things that
Speaker 3: come into it. And if you do it right and
Speaker 3: you learn to do it, it just happens naturally. But
Speaker 3: you almost never ever have a shot you're not comfortable
Speaker 3: with hitting. Instead of the normal person gets up there
Speaker 3: and they see the shot and they go, oh, yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: I can carry it over that water. I can do this,
Speaker 3: I can do that, but they don't picture. I mean,
Speaker 3: I had a guy last summer. They got up on
Speaker 3: a part three. There's a lake on the left. I'm
Speaker 3: going to say it's one hundred and eighty yards, and
Speaker 3: I knew right where this ball was going. He took
Speaker 3: two or three really good practice swings, and everything got
Speaker 3: up made of just a terrible swing at it. It
Speaker 3: barely didn't get it, almost didn't get to the water.
Speaker 3: I mean he had a maybe fifty yards something like that.
Speaker 3: He said, they do me a favorite, hit me another ball,
Speaker 3: and so he gets the ball tea that starts to
Speaker 3: take practice and he said, no, I don't want to
Speaker 3: practice swing. I said, I want you to stand behind
Speaker 3: the ball and I want you to look at that pin.
Speaker 3: That's where you're aiming. And then he said, yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: aiming at the pin. I said, how do you see
Speaker 3: it getting to that pin? He said, well, I'm an
Speaker 3: aim It just left. I said, how am I just left?
Speaker 3: He said, its full four or five feet. I said,
Speaker 3: see that trap, that's about fifteen yards left of it.
Speaker 3: I want you to aim right in the center of
Speaker 3: that bunker. And because I'm picturing you're gonna fade it
Speaker 3: that much, he hits a shot. He hit it. I'm
Speaker 3: going in the air. I say, action, we've made a
Speaker 3: hole in one. He said, though, and I said, well
Speaker 3: you may have us now. He put it about two
Speaker 3: and a half feet in the hole.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you're finishing the story because in the
Speaker 1: book you just ask I saw it. It was like
Speaker 1: it stood out to me. I was screaming at the
Speaker 1: book where you say, have you ever seen a hole
Speaker 1: in one? He said no, and you and in the
Speaker 1: book you say you're about to and then you don't
Speaker 1: give the results.
Speaker 3: No, no, and he didn't exactly did I did that
Speaker 3: on purpose? I mean, it's funny. And that happened in Chicago.
Speaker 3: I had two inches in Chicago. One of my first
Speaker 3: years on tour, I was doing a corporate outing and
Speaker 3: I don't know why. I was on a little bitty
Speaker 3: par three to start the Dave. This guy gets up
Speaker 3: and it was all Carrie one hundred and twenty five
Speaker 3: arts and I watched him swing and he was okay
Speaker 3: but not great. Cold, you know, morning, and I said,
Speaker 3: what are you hit and he said, I'm going to
Speaker 3: hit a nine air. I said, why don't you hit
Speaker 3: an eight? Depends right on the front of the green.
Speaker 3: I said, you got a little bit over one twenty
Speaker 3: five to the hall. He said, no, I can get
Speaker 3: a nine there. I said, now watch you and he says, no,
Speaker 3: I know I hit a nine. I said, I'll tell
Speaker 3: you what I'll do. I said, you take you hit
Speaker 3: an eight for me, and if you don't like it,
Speaker 3: then I'll let you hit the nine, get a free shot.
Speaker 3: He hold it. He hold it with the eight there
Speaker 3: and I said, okay, now you want to try the
Speaker 3: nine for me and see if you can do? Is
Speaker 3: this is good? He was so excited, you know, But
Speaker 3: that's again it's you know, people, I don't want to
Speaker 3: just blindly spendions billions of hours hitting balls without you know,
Speaker 3: jumping in. And that's why I was exciting to listen
Speaker 3: to you say you've had a lot of the psychological
Speaker 3: psychology type people out there that work on the middle
Speaker 3: side of this game, because I promise you and I'm
Speaker 3: dealing with a lot of pros and I'm talking about
Speaker 3: in the top fifty in the world on the Men's
Speaker 3: Tour in the top fifteen in the win on the
Speaker 3: LPG eight, and you end up working with them in
Speaker 3: their mental side. That's where they can make the biggest rides.
Speaker 3: And if they can make the biggest strides there the
Speaker 3: average you know, it really jumps for the for the normal,
Speaker 3: you know, and a normal amateur doing that.
Speaker 1: I find it fascinating that so many of these young
Speaker 1: guns that are coming up. You know, the people on
Speaker 1: the tour seem to be younger and younger every year,
Speaker 1: but they hit the ball a ton, but they don't
Speaker 1: necessarily have the mental game or the mental capacity to
Speaker 1: play that quality of golf, do they?
Speaker 3: No, I mean it's different. Mcelroyal, come on here once
Speaker 3: in a while. I mean. Another girl I'm working with
Speaker 3: is is Lydia Coe, which I started with her last
Speaker 3: summer and I just laughed. She shows up here at
Speaker 3: Redlands and I congratulators. She had played twelve pro tournaments
Speaker 3: and she'd won three of them as a fifteen year
Speaker 3: old amateur. And I'm coming for a lesson. I'm going
Speaker 3: this out. I said, I'm not, but it certainly you're
Speaker 3: not going to take me very long. And she's just
Speaker 3: a delight. But you know, most of the people you get,
Speaker 3: you know, they're not wired that way. It just takes
Speaker 3: longer for them to be able to figure out. But
Speaker 3: I'm here to tell you that the caddies today are
Speaker 3: in better shape than the players were when I played.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was working with McElroy last week down
Speaker 3: in West Palm Beach and we started nine o'clock and
Speaker 3: he got I had him bend down to line up
Speaker 3: this putt to go through his routine because I'm in
Speaker 3: at the other again, you cause you well can imagine
Speaker 3: now I'm not necessarily into watching what he you know,
Speaker 3: the mechanical aspect. I want to see his routine. Well,
Speaker 3: he goes to bend down. He had a hell of
Speaker 3: a time getting down. I said, what's the matter. He
Speaker 3: looked at me, he says, oh, he said, this is
Speaker 3: one of my training mornings. He said, I started five
Speaker 3: forty five, so he had had two and a half
Speaker 3: hours of lifting weights and doing all this stuff. And
Speaker 3: then so we worked for two hours and go and
Speaker 3: to eat lunch, and I don't know, it's like a
Speaker 3: chicken wrap and the cottage cheese and fresh fruit. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, well I'm having a cheeseburger. You know, sees
Speaker 3: I wonder why this kid's in better shape than I am,
Speaker 3: you know, and they just I mean from the stretching
Speaker 3: to the I mean, it's it's amazing how they treat
Speaker 3: their body. I mean, in my day I'm a coach,
Speaker 3: could I drink around a golf course. Now they're you know,
Speaker 3: they're you know, they they they they treated like it's
Speaker 3: a million dollar business, which is exactly what it is.
Speaker 3: I mean when I played, I mean, you made a
Speaker 3: lot of your money playing corporate outings. They're betting money
Speaker 3: on the side because the purses weren't that big, and
Speaker 3: these kids, it's well worth their time to invest in
Speaker 3: a turn and invest in all these other things. And
Speaker 3: you know, I'm lucky enough with a lot of people
Speaker 3: who've invested in having a short game coach.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and apparently with a tremendous amount of success
Speaker 1: when they when they come to Stockton Golf.
Speaker 3: Well, it's been I tell you what for it's been
Speaker 3: a hoot. I mean, started it heasy, and I can't
Speaker 3: remember one thing after another, but I had rotator cuff
Speaker 3: surgery in September nine, which basically is that that ended
Speaker 3: my playing, although my swing is a heck a lot
Speaker 3: better because I can't raise my left shoulder up anymore.
Speaker 3: And within nine months I had the other shoulder done,
Speaker 3: so I had both shoulders done, and we you know,
Speaker 3: I wasn't gonna sit still, so you know, it started
Speaker 3: with Michelle Lee briefly and then went to Michelson, and
Speaker 3: then the phone never stopped ringing. I mean, I looked
Speaker 3: here on the wall where I'm sitting, I'm looking at
Speaker 3: the Grand Slam in four years, two by Michelson, two
Speaker 3: by McElroy, and I got all four of the flags
Speaker 3: from the four majors. Wow, and Ronnie and Junior and myself.
Speaker 3: We have one hundred and twenty wins and counting worldwide
Speaker 3: in four years. It's just, you know, it's it's mind
Speaker 3: boggling to me. You know how much success and how
Speaker 3: fast you can have it if you just give somebody
Speaker 3: a mental picture. I mean, I could list the guys.
Speaker 3: Michelson won. We worked with him Thursday and Friday, and
Speaker 3: he won the Tour Championship the next week. Michelle Wee
Speaker 3: we worked with her Thursday and Friday two weeks prior
Speaker 3: to that, and she went to Solheim Cup. In Chicago,
Speaker 3: and she had an unbelievable time. Adam Scott, who Mickleson
Speaker 3: wanted me to help, thought he had the worst stroke
Speaker 3: in the world, won the very next week after David
Speaker 3: worked with him at the Players Championship using a short putter,
Speaker 3: by the way, and Justin Rose, I mean David Start
Speaker 3: helped him at Colonial. All he did was win two
Speaker 3: out of three and if he hadn't blown Hartford, he
Speaker 3: would have won three out of three. So it doesn't
Speaker 3: take that long. It's not and we're in the easy part,
Speaker 3: let's face it. I mean the short game. You're moving
Speaker 3: the putter maybe a foot, so there's not at least
Speaker 3: your hands are only going afoot. It's a very simple
Speaker 3: thing to do, and you can be helping quite a
Speaker 3: few people at one time because you're not getting immersed
Speaker 3: in the long game.
Speaker 1: But it's not that simple, or they wouldn't be coming
Speaker 1: to you and having such success. And these are people
Speaker 1: who are at the very peak of the game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they just had the wrong teacher to start with.
Speaker 3: I mean, my dad in the forties, I mean he
Speaker 3: learned from Alex Morrison, who was a brilliant teacher in
Speaker 3: the thirties, and he taught Henry Piccard, who won the
Speaker 3: Masters in thirty eight, won the PGA in thirty nine.
Speaker 3: And I did not know who had taught my dad
Speaker 3: until I was inducted into the California got all of fame,
Speaker 3: I don't know, five years ago or something. And you
Speaker 3: know the guy that I introduced was another tom self
Speaker 3: was going to introduce me. He was another one of theirs.
Speaker 3: Five guys my dad, taw All went on tour. I
Speaker 3: was the only one that made it, but all five
Speaker 3: of us went out. And he started talking about Alex Morrison. Well,
Speaker 3: when I'm writing the first book with Matt Rudy, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm subconscious cutting I. He started talking about Alex Morrison.
Speaker 3: He said, well, yeah, he wrote a book. Well, my
Speaker 3: dad never let me read GoF books, so I wouldn't
Speaker 3: know one than another. But he had a book in
Speaker 3: nineteen forty called Better Golf Without Practice, and it showed
Speaker 3: a guy sitting in an armchair thinking about what he
Speaker 3: wanted to do. He's sitting in a chair, no clubs
Speaker 3: in his hand, nothing, you know. And so Matt Rudi
Speaker 3: gets me an original copy of this book. But seventy
Speaker 3: years prior to this us writing the Putting book in
Speaker 3: seventy and I read the I look at the book.
Speaker 3: The long game is worth about two percent. That's how
Speaker 3: much has changed the short game. I'd say it's ninety
Speaker 3: five percent viable. It explains why I use loft on
Speaker 3: a putter, explains why I ford press, explains why my
Speaker 3: left hands my direction hand. It explains why I put
Speaker 3: the putter ahead of the ball when I addressed the ball.
Speaker 3: All these different things that I learned in the late forties.
Speaker 3: That you know, something I went sixty some years, never
Speaker 3: never had change, never had well nineteen forty. This book's
Speaker 3: out right. Tell me if there's something else that's been
Speaker 3: devised for the stroke in seventy years. I mean, the
Speaker 3: agronomy is better, okay, the grasses are much better, easier
Speaker 3: to put their smoother, no matter, you know, the clubs themselves,
Speaker 3: especially like the groove faces on the on the putters.
Speaker 3: Now you can just unbelievable, you know, bigger grips if
Speaker 3: you want it now, for softer feel with your hands,
Speaker 3: all these things. But there's never been and there never
Speaker 3: will be, a new stroke developed because it's too individualistic
Speaker 3: and so for somebody for a teacher that says, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna teach all my students to put this way.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna. I'm laughing. I mean, I was at
Speaker 3: the match play this year and I had Castagno from Spain.
Speaker 3: Gonzo he petted with the claw. I had Molinari, who's
Speaker 3: putting conventional. I had Stephen Gallagher who came and he
Speaker 3: just beaten McElroy a couple of months agoing to buy.
Speaker 3: He was putting left hand low. And I had Kevin Stadler,
Speaker 3: who was using the long putter. I got five putters,
Speaker 3: I got five different types of strokes and everyone I'm successful.
Speaker 3: So to me, that says, and that's why we're successful
Speaker 3: is that we fit the people with what feels comfortable.
Speaker 3: Inn I mean, I'm watching Gallagher. He shot sixty two
Speaker 3: when he won and beat Macawy and third ground and
Speaker 3: she sixty two made everything, made ten birdies, and I'm
Speaker 3: watching him. He's cross handed, and I'm going I know
Speaker 3: he wasn't cross handed here, So I go back in
Speaker 3: my phone and I pick it up and no, here
Speaker 3: he is putting conventional. So he came over U la open.
Speaker 3: I guess it was la and no, it was at
Speaker 3: Phoenix and so I'm there and I said to him,
Speaker 3: I said, what are you doing? He said, it's unbelievable
Speaker 3: because you explained the left hand led, and I just
Speaker 3: I had much better feel of it with the left
Speaker 3: hand being low. And I'm going, how cool was that?
Speaker 3: I mean, that was really good. And well, you know
Speaker 3: If and Fred, they're all different. I mean, one of
Speaker 3: the biggest things. Usually I get the one eighty to
Speaker 3: two hundred putters, you know, in the ranking. A few
Speaker 3: years ago now, Matt Coocher came and he asked the
Speaker 3: three of us. We were doing an exhibition down at
Speaker 3: the Vintage, and he asked me if I'd look at
Speaker 3: his game or we would look at his game, and
Speaker 3: we said sure. I said, I don't understand why you
Speaker 3: need to help you. All you did last year was
Speaker 3: you were leading money and you won the Barclays and
Speaker 3: you were fifth and putting, so there can't be that
Speaker 3: much wrong except he putted left hand low, and I
Speaker 3: know he flipped his hand, and so I asked him,
Speaker 3: I said, what's your direction?
Speaker 1: Hand?
Speaker 3: He says left. I said, make me a one handed stroke. Well,
Speaker 3: the left hand never broke down and so I said, okay,
Speaker 3: now this is what you do. You're telling me your
Speaker 3: left hands your direction hand, but you're flipping it. You're
Speaker 3: just letting your right hand just flip this thing up.
Speaker 3: I said, I don't understand that. Well, five days later
Speaker 3: I samitely open. Now his putter's got three more degrees
Speaker 3: a lot, and the putter is probably six inches longer.
Speaker 3: And if stuff is left arm. By the next week,
Speaker 3: the putter came out behind his left arm, you know,
Speaker 3: and he's gone from two degrees a lot to eight
Speaker 3: degrees because he's ford pressed his hand and in the
Speaker 3: present styl of he uses now in what I'm trying
Speaker 3: to reiterate is again, it's not my method, it's what
Speaker 3: method makes you feel comfortable. And basically the parameters again
Speaker 3: are we We don't care. They They asked me if
Speaker 3: I think along putter or something should be banned and
Speaker 3: all this stuff. He said, I don't care, you know,
Speaker 3: in my own opinion, because basically, I want you to visualize.
Speaker 3: No matter what your method is going to be, you
Speaker 3: got to be able to see what you're doing. But
Speaker 3: most people that do the mechanical method don't have a
Speaker 3: metal method. That's worth of darn.
Speaker 1: So what do you think of the long putters.
Speaker 3: I'll be glad. I'll be glad when they ban it,
Speaker 3: only because when I grew up, you know, Tiddley Winks
Speaker 3: is probably more popular than golf. And we truly have
Speaker 3: athletes now. Dustin Johnson McElroy is just a phenomenal physical specimen.
Speaker 3: This Nicholas Cole Stark's another guy who worked with in Belgium,
Speaker 3: is just unbelievable. They're athletes, and I just don't think
Speaker 3: you should have an arm anchored to your body as
Speaker 3: long as they want. I don't care if they use
Speaker 3: a putter ten feet long, provided is not anchored to
Speaker 3: a body part that's not moving. I can see where Coocher.
Speaker 3: Probably a lot of people are gonna do like Coucher does,
Speaker 3: because's on your arm, it's susceptible to you know, making mistakes.
Speaker 3: But I personally just don't like the looks of the
Speaker 3: one on the chest. I mean, I'm you gotta understand
Speaker 3: where I came from. I came out of the when
Speaker 3: they made a ruling for one person person. That's one
Speaker 3: of the most tournaments temporarily on our tour. Sam Snead,
Speaker 3: you know they outlawed his croquette because they look goofy. Well,
Speaker 3: I mean that they got under that saying you can't
Speaker 3: step across your line when your putts. And now, you know,
Speaker 3: I think sites that will may come back. I would think,
Speaker 3: I don't know, I mean, people are going to figure
Speaker 3: out a way to do it. I just don't think
Speaker 3: it would be anchored.
Speaker 1: And what about the equipment today. I mean, obviously, if
Speaker 1: you grew up with Tiddley wings being more popular than golf,
Speaker 1: the golf clubs were very different. Technology was not what
Speaker 1: it is today. Has has all this technology change helped
Speaker 1: the average golfer?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Let alone the game?
Speaker 3: Well, let's say, I mean we start out, I always
Speaker 3: use foot Joys shoes. Okay, now I'm with Nike my
Speaker 3: foot Joys shoes, the leather shoes. I used to wear
Speaker 3: a weight about two and a half pounds between the
Speaker 3: two shoes. My Nike with the two shoes. Now that
Speaker 3: I'd play in their less than eight ounces, yeah, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: just I mean it's mind boggling what it is. And
Speaker 3: the equipment, I mean each part. You know, Carson had
Speaker 3: the first you know, the things which they had to
Speaker 3: be great clubs because they looked so bad, yet they
Speaker 3: felt so good to everybody. I mean, Carson was way
Speaker 3: ahead of the game. So now they have, you know,
Speaker 3: the composite heads. I mean, I was the third one,
Speaker 3: I think, to start using metal woods when Taylor made
Speaker 3: started with him, and I thought, well, I'm gonna use
Speaker 3: them to they ban them, because I know they're gonna
Speaker 3: ban them because somebody's gonna get killed. I mean, you're
Speaker 3: never gonna You're never gonna see an aluminum baseball bat
Speaker 3: in the big leagues, I'll promise you or else the pitcher,
Speaker 3: they're gonna be pictured behind cages because the ball comes
Speaker 3: off it's so fast. And I think this has tremendously
Speaker 3: helped the average person because in the old days, I
Speaker 3: mean we'd play the clubs, I mean, did pick up
Speaker 3: weight if it was if it was raining, you literally
Speaker 3: your club would get heavier. I mean it's you know,
Speaker 3: it's not the same, but it's it. You know, we've
Speaker 3: gained from you know, the technology to put people on
Speaker 3: the moon, and they now have you know, they know
Speaker 3: whether the bigger heads are better. They know they're finding
Speaker 3: Now the loft makes sense because you're you can tell
Speaker 3: from the track man that you're watching, you know how
Speaker 3: much spin you're putting on the ball relative to your
Speaker 3: flight pattern. I mean there's so much stuff. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's in I think that's one reason why for the
Speaker 3: average game. I just gave a women's clinic today for
Speaker 3: the ladies here, and I just grabbed their different wedges,
Speaker 3: and it's amazing to me. I think putter is highly important.
Speaker 3: I think the sand wedges are important, and I think
Speaker 3: drivers are very important as you especially clubs, And I
Speaker 3: mean I'm grabbing these ladies wedges. Some are some of
Speaker 3: them are very very light. Almost everybody in the grip
Speaker 3: was either old and slick or you know, just didn't
Speaker 3: feel right. And here's these ladies, some of them in
Speaker 3: their sixties, a couple in their and I can hand
Speaker 3: them my wedge. It's obviously too heavy for them, but
Speaker 3: they can get out with my wedge better than theirs.
Speaker 3: So there's there's for the people out there, and that's
Speaker 3: why we need to have good professionals and have you
Speaker 3: have it. Hopefully wherever you're at, have an opportunity to
Speaker 3: get to a fitting center that the people understand and
Speaker 3: aren't just trying to sell you clubs, but literally fit
Speaker 3: something that and I don't want to get off the
Speaker 3: first tea or on the first hold. I wanted something
Speaker 3: to work on about fourteen or fifteen. When you get tired,
Speaker 3: I want the club to still work for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's another thing that I try to advocate as
Speaker 1: much as you know from what I've learned that buying
Speaker 1: clubs off the rack is not to your advantage just
Speaker 1: because your friend hits it well. But getting fitted, especially
Speaker 1: with this technology today, getting fitted is the right way
Speaker 1: to go.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, there's there's there's no question, and I do
Speaker 3: not try to even think I'm an expert when it
Speaker 3: comes to the club fitting. I am with putter. I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm here to tell you I've you know, I
Speaker 3: was with Tailor Made for a long time and now
Speaker 3: I've been with Nike for just almost a year now,
Speaker 3: and I am really large into putting loft on a
Speaker 3: putter because it lets you ford press your hands. And
Speaker 3: I've had some of the most unbelievable statistics when somebody
Speaker 3: measures how soon my ball stops bouncing and skidding, generally
Speaker 3: it's with under an inch. My ball has got it's rolling,
Speaker 3: It's already rolling because of the loft and being able
Speaker 3: to ford press my hands, and yet I'm in the minority.
Speaker 3: Most putters are made with two degrees one to two
Speaker 3: degrees aloft. And they tell you, well, if you know,
Speaker 3: if you you know, if you get more off that
Speaker 3: you're gonna chip it. Well, not if you put your
Speaker 3: hands ahead. And any of your listeners can go out
Speaker 3: there and they can put there, they can put again
Speaker 3: the stripe on the wall with a paint brush. What
Speaker 3: do you want leading coming down the wall? Do you
Speaker 3: want the brush leading or do you want the butter
Speaker 3: and the handle of the handle of the brush leading?
Speaker 3: You want to handle the brush because that way you control,
Speaker 3: you control the field as you come down the wall.
Speaker 3: And that's why you want your hands ahead. And if
Speaker 3: you don't have loft time I played against Lee Elder
Speaker 3: for years and he had negative loft, so he set
Speaker 3: his hands back, very similar to what Zach Johnson does.
Speaker 3: And again Zach Johnson will be a poster cow for
Speaker 3: there's no right way to do this. You gotta fit
Speaker 3: your eyes, you gotta you know, the speed you play's
Speaker 3: got to fit you. Your clubs have to fit you. Uh,
Speaker 3: And everybody's different, Yes we.
Speaker 1: Are and that's why everybody's looking for an answer and
Speaker 1: there isn't an answer. Clearly, that's what you're saying. No,
Speaker 1: it's what makes you comfortable, exactly. It's it's about confidence, Yeah, exactly. Confidence.
Speaker 1: So interesting. So I'm curious about something you were talking about.
Speaker 1: Your dad was a teaching professional and you grew up
Speaker 1: in that environment. Your two sons are teaching professionals, and
Speaker 1: you right in the middle here you were the tour professional.
Speaker 1: Is it was it harder for you growing up with
Speaker 1: a teaching professional dad, or was it harder for your
Speaker 1: children growing up growing up with a touring dad, tour
Speaker 1: professional dad? And when I say harder, I'm saying growing
Speaker 1: up in the Gulf world.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, first of all, my dad when he
Speaker 3: came up, there was no tour. In fact, my right
Speaker 3: here on the wall, my most favorite pictures my dad
Speaker 3: standing with Walter Hagen. When Dad had an exhibition with
Speaker 3: Walter Hagen in nineteen thirty seven. We are the first
Speaker 3: all Americans of Southern cal in the same sport. We
Speaker 3: both won the pack ten individual titles. But there are
Speaker 3: I have changed. I mean World War Two, my dad
Speaker 3: ran a bomb plan and when he got through in
Speaker 3: nineteen forty four, he went into the sporting his business.
Speaker 3: He still kept his PGA card and he would still
Speaker 3: teach the kids around and you know all that the
Speaker 3: five of us I said went out on tour. He
Speaker 3: taught all that, but he's basically working in the sporting store.
Speaker 3: My life was such that, you know, I wasn't kidding
Speaker 3: about the Tidley Winks, but I mean I played basketball
Speaker 3: and baseball till I broke my back when I was
Speaker 3: fifteen and I became a I couldn't do the other sports.
Speaker 3: So the only way I was going to be able
Speaker 3: for to go to college to get a golf scholarship. Well,
Speaker 3: Dad would let me you know, when work, I started
Speaker 3: working on my game, saying, working on my game. The
Speaker 3: most tournaments I ever played in a summer as a
Speaker 3: junior was three, and that was seventeen. I was trying
Speaker 3: to get my scholarship to go to Southern cal And
Speaker 3: I played in the National Junior and I played in
Speaker 3: the Hurst Championship and the Arrowhead which is my hometown tournament.
Speaker 3: And it was the only three tournaments I got to play,
Speaker 3: and they wanted me. I went to USC as a
Speaker 3: pre law major. I was going to be a lawyer
Speaker 3: because my grandfather, who lived in Tucson, was a mining attorney,
Speaker 3: and that's what my parents wanted me to be. They
Speaker 3: had no desire to push me toward golf, and a
Speaker 3: year at SC convinced me that I was going to
Speaker 3: be hard pressed the last four years, let alone seven,
Speaker 3: And in the end, I wanted to try this, you know,
Speaker 3: this type of lifestyle and see if I was good
Speaker 3: at it. When you get to the kids. Junior played
Speaker 3: on tour almost ten years, and I think he would
Speaker 3: have made it. He was close. I mean two different
Speaker 3: times we both led tournaments. I was leading the Tournament
Speaker 3: Players Championship on the Champions Tour when he was leading
Speaker 3: Hartford and he finished second third. Norman beat him the
Speaker 3: one year. But Ronnie had always had a bad back
Speaker 3: and never really played, and so consequently Ronnie's been teaching
Speaker 3: over twenty years. But David played to ten years. And
Speaker 3: it was real estate a few years ago. And then
Speaker 3: when I went into this rotator cuff surgery and O nine,
Speaker 3: Junior is looking around for what to do, and he'd
Speaker 3: getting ready to go back to tour school, and I thought,
Speaker 3: I thought Kathy, his mother was going to kill him,
Speaker 3: and he started the teaching and David has always been
Speaker 3: good with people, and so it's come full circle, but
Speaker 3: from a whole different perspective. I mean, David's first child, Serena,
Speaker 3: was a twin and complicated pregnancy. She was premature, born
Speaker 3: just over two pounds ten ounces, and right now she's
Speaker 3: a volleyball star at almost sixteen. So it nailed him
Speaker 3: from being out on tour. And that's one thing about boy.
Speaker 3: Kathy and I were lucky, is that we traveled the
Speaker 3: entire time together. The kids had always come out during
Speaker 3: the summertime. I would have said it was easier for
Speaker 3: them to make it with me being a pro because he,
Speaker 3: you know, while Junior is when he's playing the Mini Tour,
Speaker 3: the Nike Tour, he was ready to come home. I said, no,
Speaker 3: he's back East, and I said, I tell you what,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna call you back. And what I did. I've
Speaker 3: never got anybody else sins on AUGUSTA, but I got
Speaker 3: Junior on. Junior played thirty six holes on August and
Speaker 3: he won the very next week.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: So it's just it's it's the mental stuff that you
Speaker 3: get into. I mean, it's I mean I'll tell you
Speaker 3: a quick story.
Speaker 1: Tell me stories.
Speaker 3: I don't have many quick stories. But Byron Nelson and
Speaker 3: I are having lunch together and he literally told me
Speaker 3: that in forty five, I asked him about when he
Speaker 3: won eleven in a row, which is an unbelievable feet
Speaker 3: and he actually won eighteen out of thirty five events entered,
Speaker 3: so he won more than half the time. And I
Speaker 3: asked him what he was thinking about. He got a
Speaker 3: big smile, he said, said, basically, I found something before
Speaker 3: I went to the West Coast swing that felt comfortable
Speaker 3: to me, and that was the swing thought I used
Speaker 3: for the entire year, the only swing thought. Well, I'm
Speaker 3: here to tell you your listeners out there, most people
Speaker 3: have they can't even remember the swing thoughts they had
Speaker 3: the previous month.
Speaker 1: You know who had the previous hole.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So because tips generally don't last very long,
Speaker 3: they have a very short shelf life.
Speaker 1: Are you surprised that that Ronnie went into golf instruction
Speaker 1: as well, since he had struggling with his back and
Speaker 1: couldn't play. Are you surprised that both of you boys
Speaker 1: did this?
Speaker 3: Well? Not well? First of all, if I hadn't been
Speaker 3: a pro goffer, Ronnie would have been something else. I
Speaker 3: don't know. I mean, he basically got his pilot's license.
Speaker 3: The reason he's good in teaching is that he was
Speaker 3: a psychology major at the University of Redlands here, but
Speaker 3: his was a different course and he went to see
Speaker 3: he got mug sophomore year going back to Trinity Row
Speaker 3: and he came out transfer to the u of R
Speaker 3: and he actually had Division III, ended up leading the
Speaker 3: nation and scoring two time All American here, And I mean,
Speaker 3: just to it fit his you know, he could live
Speaker 3: at home and we worked out really good. But Ronnie
Speaker 3: can fix anything. I mean, he guy dives. Uh, he's
Speaker 3: you know, like I say, he's got pilot's license and
Speaker 3: all this stuff. So yeah, I am surprised he did
Speaker 3: that because just because he could do anything, really and
Speaker 3: just because golf was easy. The only hard part for
Speaker 3: Ronnie is that Ronnie is left handed. And I explained
Speaker 3: to Ronnie when I opened the closet door and showed
Speaker 3: him the five thousand clubs sitting in the closet, none
Speaker 3: of which were left handed, that if he was going
Speaker 3: to play, he was gonna have to use to learn
Speaker 3: to use these. So he's completely amidexterous, And you know,
Speaker 3: I just I did not suspect that he would end
Speaker 3: up being the golfer because I knew he was going
Speaker 3: to find something else because everything he touches turns the gold.
Speaker 3: He's good at almost anything.
Speaker 1: Spoken like a proud papa. Yep, and I understand it completely.
Speaker 1: Now you're listed is sixteenth on the America's list of
Speaker 1: top instructors. You're a competitive person. Does that frustrate you
Speaker 1: who are like, no, I want to be fifteen, I
Speaker 1: want to get up to ten. I want to I
Speaker 1: want to get into single digits or.
Speaker 3: Do you I think I think I'm pushing my luck
Speaker 3: because I'm a short game instructor that you know most
Speaker 3: of those people, you know, this is how they make
Speaker 3: a living. I mean, yeah, I guess I'm making a
Speaker 3: very good living doing what I'm doing. But it's not
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to build my name up or anything.
Speaker 3: I last year, I think I was thirteenth two years ago.
Speaker 3: Whatever it was, it was the largest largest first time
Speaker 3: jump onto a survey that they've ever had of somebody
Speaker 3: that had never been ranked before. So no, I'm very
Speaker 3: proud that it's there. I'm glad you know, I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm number one in California and only because Jim Flick
Speaker 3: passed away unfortunately. But you know that's I think that's more.
Speaker 3: That's kind of incredible, just you know, being a short
Speaker 3: game known as a short game instructor. I'm very prideful
Speaker 3: of that. I mean, I think that's phenomenal. I have
Speaker 3: no I'm not setting my goal, you know, Okay, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna try to get in the top ten next year.
Speaker 3: I can't change anything I'm doing. I couldn't handle more people.
Speaker 3: I mean, I had a week here a month ago
Speaker 3: where I had nyon Joy, I had Gallagher from Scotland.
Speaker 3: I had Francesco Molinari from Italy. I had Cole Starts
Speaker 3: in Belgium. I had Johnny Vegas from Venzuela. I told
Speaker 3: my wife Cathy, I said, how cool the five days
Speaker 3: has this been. I mean, let's face it. I mean
Speaker 3: it keeps me young. I mean two weeks from now,
Speaker 3: I'll be down in Augusta and I'll be walking in
Speaker 3: out of the clubhouse, talking with guys and everything and
Speaker 3: feeling not anywhere, feeling nearly as old as a seventy
Speaker 3: two year old than I am and feeling relevant because
Speaker 3: I know that I can pass on stuff that's going
Speaker 3: to help them.
Speaker 1: Oh that's fabulous. Feeling relevant is what a great way
Speaker 1: to put it. That's that will make you want to
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's good. No, it it's great. And you never
Speaker 3: know what's coming. And since I don't teach the same
Speaker 3: thing to everybody, I mean, every everything is like it.
Speaker 3: It's like an open book and I'm still learning. It's
Speaker 3: it's neat.
Speaker 1: And clearly very passionate about what you're doing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a need for what we're doing. I think
Speaker 3: we've opened up a lot of eyes and I you know,
Speaker 3: and the success is there. I mean, nobody can argue
Speaker 3: with what we've had, you know. And the best thing
Speaker 3: I like about it is we don't have an approach
Speaker 3: other than the fact it's a lot more metal than
Speaker 3: most people realize. Hence this last book.
Speaker 1: Well, and the book is called Own Your Game, How
Speaker 1: to Use your Mind to play Winning Golf, And it's
Speaker 1: going to be listed in in our golfers Mart on
Speaker 1: our website. And as a matter of fact, I'll put
Speaker 1: all three of your books available in our in our
Speaker 1: store on our website at Golfsmarter dot com. The books
Speaker 1: are Unconscious Putting and Unconscious along with Own Your Game,
Speaker 1: the brand new one which I just loved. Why do
Speaker 1: you call them unconscious putting and unconscious scoring?
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's just again, we don't want you
Speaker 3: to try. I mean, you you do your signature and
Speaker 3: you don't think about anything, and it's beautiful, pretty close
Speaker 3: to the same every time. But now you try to
Speaker 3: do it, and I promise you it's gonna feel terrible,
Speaker 3: it's gonna look terrible, and you're not gonna enjoy the process.
Speaker 3: So it's that's the whole purpose. I mean, we want
Speaker 3: you just let it go. There's a whole I mean,
Speaker 3: how many things do you think about when you're throwing
Speaker 3: a dart at a bullseye? I mean you're thinking about
Speaker 3: where your weight is, or you're thinking about where your
Speaker 3: eyes are looking. Are you thinking about your left shoulder
Speaker 3: going up or down or whatever? I mean, you're not
Speaker 3: thinking of that.
Speaker 1: But what about shooting a free throw? Yeah, well, I'm
Speaker 1: sure that there's things that you're gonna be thinking about.
Speaker 3: Well, they're better concentrated on the front of the rim
Speaker 3: and you're follow through. I mean, let's face at the
Speaker 3: Mayor Brothers years ago in the eighties and the Olympics.
Speaker 3: I was a little kid. I was not a little kid.
Speaker 3: I'm watching them stand there outside the starting gee with
Speaker 3: their eyes closed, and you can see him running the
Speaker 3: course in their minds. You can see him going the
Speaker 3: tight turns in long slooping, sloping turn to the left maybe,
Speaker 3: and you can just see him going through this in
Speaker 3: their mind and they step up and they do it,
Speaker 3: just like the person that has this shot under the
Speaker 3: trees that you've got to do something too, versus the
Speaker 3: poor devil that stands in the middle of the fairway
Speaker 3: and has no clue and I'm so proud of this
Speaker 3: wonderful tea shot. He's just it and he doesn't realize
Speaker 3: the disaster that's going to happen.
Speaker 1: Did you always use visualization even before it became, you know,
Speaker 1: popular to do so or to talk about it. Did
Speaker 1: you know that you were doing that before it was instructed?
Speaker 3: Well, just by the way my dad taught me, mm hmm.
Speaker 3: You see that tree there, Okay, I want you to
Speaker 3: hit it just under the top of that tree. Or
Speaker 3: he'd have me go out and I'd do this with
Speaker 3: my kids. I'd have him take every other club out
Speaker 3: of their banks, so instead of having a you know, three,
Speaker 3: four five six seventy eighty nine, they'd have a three
Speaker 3: five seven nine. You'd be surprised how good you get
Speaker 3: when you got like thirty yard increments or fifteen twenty
Speaker 3: yard increments between two clubs. You have to learn how
Speaker 3: to hit different shots.
Speaker 1: I loved one of the things that you also mentioned
Speaker 1: in the book about taking two clubs with you to
Speaker 1: the ball before you know, before your shot. Don't just say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's one hundred and fifty yards, I'm just going to
Speaker 1: take out my six iron or whatever. Take take two clubs.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean I worked with one of the LPGA
Speaker 3: girls yesterday and I know she's going to be better
Speaker 3: of it. I said, what do you ask your caddy?
Speaker 3: I mean, your caddy's standing there. You know, I'm assuming,
Speaker 3: hopefully I know what you do because everybody else does it.
Speaker 3: Let's say you think it's the same he says, one
Speaker 3: hundred and fify yards, I'll say, you're gonna got a
Speaker 3: seven arn kids a day it wedge. But let's pretend
Speaker 3: my school, so we're hitting seven. Are you put your
Speaker 3: hand on your seven you get it halfway out of
Speaker 3: the bag and you turn to your caddy and say,
Speaker 3: what do you think seven? Well, since you've already started
Speaker 3: the club coming out of the bag, what's the caddy
Speaker 3: gonna say? He knows it should be an eight, so
Speaker 3: he'd say just yeah, nice and smooth, fine, okay, which
Speaker 3: tells you then, hum, he doesn't think I have to
Speaker 3: hit this very big, or he says, now go ahead,
Speaker 3: just hit a good one. That'll be good, meaning you
Speaker 3: better nail this thing, because I was thinking six iron.
Speaker 3: So what I do is I go past it. And
Speaker 3: the way my dad taught me was that every club
Speaker 3: I have, it's between two clubs. So in fact, he
Speaker 3: would do a drill. We'd go out on a course
Speaker 3: and he'd make me hit two or three clubs to
Speaker 3: one pin, and I'd have to hit different shots. And
Speaker 3: I got the creativity to come that way. So consequently,
Speaker 3: what I told the girl yesterday is basically I want you,
Speaker 3: and I brought the caddy over. I said, she's not
Speaker 3: going to ask you what you think seven aron. The
Speaker 3: new question is going to be you're gonna tell her
Speaker 3: of the yard? If you're gonna tell her one point
Speaker 3: fifty she's gonna ask you, what two clubs do you think?
Speaker 3: So you're either gonna say six seven or you're gonna
Speaker 3: say seven eight. Now she's quietly thinking seven eight, okay.
Speaker 3: He says, uh, six seven okay, perfect, it's a seven
Speaker 3: are even though she thought seven eight and he thought
Speaker 3: six seven. But it's already let her know that he's
Speaker 3: thinking this whole plan slightly longer than she thinks. Now
Speaker 3: you may both come up with the same club seven eight.
Speaker 3: That's fine. It's up to her to decide or him
Speaker 3: to decide when you hit the shot, how high it's
Speaker 3: gonna go, where it's gonna land. You know, this sort
Speaker 3: of thing, But it makes it. It's just another step
Speaker 3: in the process of giving you a chance to hit
Speaker 3: the correct shot at something right right.
Speaker 1: So you told a great story about your interaction with
Speaker 1: January when you're a young man on the tour bright,
Speaker 1: But can you tell me what do you think is
Speaker 1: the best advice you've ever received as a golfer, Not
Speaker 1: as an instructor, not as a touring player, but as
Speaker 1: a golfer. What's the best advice you've ever received?
Speaker 3: Probably the way I've lived my life. I told people
Speaker 3: I've gone through life with basically not having anything bad
Speaker 3: happen to me, although I've had some health problems, you know,
Speaker 3: recently with my shoulders and stuff. But even breaking my
Speaker 3: back was a good positive thing because it kept me
Speaker 3: out of Vietnam. Now, they had five hundred some kids
Speaker 3: went in here in nineteen sixty seven, and only two
Speaker 3: of us out of five hundred were four f And consequently,
Speaker 3: I would guess that my feelings were the fact that
Speaker 3: I was never the most gifted physically, but I'm going
Speaker 3: to beat you mentally, and so you never give up.
Speaker 3: If seventy five or six was the best I could do,
Speaker 3: it certainly made the sixty seven. I was going to
Speaker 3: need to shoot the next day to make the cut
Speaker 3: a much more viable approach rather than getting all mad
Speaker 3: and huffy about it because he just you know. It's
Speaker 3: like the two things with Rory, the one I alluded
Speaker 3: to where he won the Open, where I basically had him.
Speaker 3: He was monitoring how he played the secondman one, which
Speaker 3: is his PGA at Kiowa, where I saw in the
Speaker 3: week before, and he had a terrible year so far.
Speaker 3: He'd been up and down. His girlfriend, who's now a
Speaker 3: fiance was an Aki, the tennis player. Uh me, he
Speaker 3: just he wasn't consistent. He missed, he hadn't defended his
Speaker 3: US opened very well at Olympic Club in San Francisco.
Speaker 3: He missed and cuts me as we were leaving Akron
Speaker 3: the week before, I'm leaving to go play Minnesota, and
Speaker 3: he's so I'm getting on Wednesday, and I said, I
Speaker 3: want you to do me a favor. And he looks
Speaker 3: right at me, which he always does, and I said
Speaker 3: to him, I said, you know, I am getting really
Speaker 3: tired of turning on a TV and telling whether you
Speaker 3: burdy or bowie the last hole. And I don't know
Speaker 3: why you're giving these people, your opponents, an opportunity.
Speaker 1: To get you.
Speaker 3: I said, you just you just have to, uh you
Speaker 3: got to forget the bad shots, and he did. I
Speaker 3: mean literally, he won the PGA QUBA by eight shots.
Speaker 3: He won both these majors by eight but it was
Speaker 3: it was kind of neat from the fact that he
Speaker 3: shot seventy six in the second round. Seventy six is
Speaker 3: still one by eight eight. Yeah, So I mean there's
Speaker 3: you know, there's again. I'll go back and back to that,
Speaker 3: but that's basically I guess if he asked my blessing.
Speaker 3: I learned one of the cutest things for me. I
Speaker 3: was fishing in Seattle and this older gentleman. I went
Speaker 3: out on this boat with him. He had an old boat,
Speaker 3: had both kids with me. I'd been going for years
Speaker 3: and these fancy cabin cruiser and couldn't catch a salmon.
Speaker 3: This guy caught five in the first hour fishing this thing,
Speaker 3: and he's got the lure's name. It's really cute. So
Speaker 3: I left the kids overnight. I went to Plague, went back,
Speaker 3: played the pro am, came back out where in the
Speaker 3: boat and his name was Mike Hunt. And he turned
Speaker 3: to me and he says, how old do you think
Speaker 3: I am. I'm looking at him. He's Norwegian, big hands.
Speaker 3: I said, I don't know, Mike. You got to be
Speaker 3: sixty eight or nine. Somebody says, yeah, I'm seventy nine.
Speaker 3: Said I don't look at do And I said no.
Speaker 3: He says, you know why, I said no, not exactly.
Speaker 3: He said, if God didn't count, the day's just spent fishing.
Speaker 3: And I'm thinking about that. I'm thinking and because he
Speaker 3: is getting toward, you know, September is getting toward the
Speaker 3: end of the year, you're starting to lose patience. It's
Speaker 3: not quite heading season. It was like a twilight zone
Speaker 3: for me. And I went out to play an ever
Speaker 3: at this tournament, and if I hadn't invited Bobby Cole,
Speaker 3: I would have won it. I finished second, but I
Speaker 3: spent the entire four days thinking about how God didn't
Speaker 3: count the days I spent golfing, and I couldn't believe
Speaker 3: how relaxed that made me instead of getting all tensed
Speaker 3: up and everything else. You know, so I'm always finding
Speaker 3: stuff like that. Well, Fred, I've got to be running here.
Speaker 3: This has been an enjoyable time.
Speaker 1: Oh Davey, thank you for saying that, because it's been
Speaker 1: amazing for me too. I really enjoyed speaking to you
Speaker 1: and wish you best of luck in the world. And
Speaker 1: let everyone know it's Stockton Goolf dot com if you
Speaker 1: want to get lessons with Dave or either of his sons,
Speaker 1: and the book Own Your Game by Dave Stockton and
Speaker 1: the other two books Unconscious Putting, Unconscious Scoring. Dave, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Okay, good Bred, Let's do it again.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll hold you to that one
Speaker 3: Okay, you got it.