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Speaker 1: Here's another two for Golf Smarter episodes number four hundred

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thirty two and four hundred thirty three from April fifteen,

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twenty fourteen.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain

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insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the

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Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets Old. Our

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interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations

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like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.

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Speaker 3: Amateur golfers miss way more than fifty percent of their

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putts on the low side of the hole. The question

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is why is that. So there's several possible explanations, but

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one is if you aim at the apex, you will

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miss low And why is that? Because the apex is

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the furthest point, or the highest point on this curved

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path toward the hole. But that usually happens somewhere near

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the middle of the putt. In order to get the

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putt to go into the hole, you've got to start

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it higher because gravity will immediately start breaking. So if

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your target is the apex, to hit the apex, you've

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got to start it higher than the apex because that

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first half of the putt. It's going to be breaking

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before it gets there. It's not like this putt goes.

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Speaker 4: Straight and then it takes a left turn at the apex.

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Speaker 3: It doesn't do that. It breaks from the instant that

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you hit it. And that's the physics of it. And

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that implies that you've got to start the putt higher

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than the apex in order to hit the line that

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you're visualizing into the hole.

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Speaker 1: Putting is overrated. An introduction to golf metrics and professor

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Mark Brody. This is Golf Smarter. Welcome to the Golf

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Smarter podcast.

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Speaker 4: Mark Fred, thanks for having me on.

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Speaker 1: It's a pleasure, Thank you very much. I just need

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to know something as we talk about this book, Every

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Shot Counts? Have you always been a troublemaker?

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Speaker 3: I don't consider myself a trouble maker, so I'd have

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to say no to that one.

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Speaker 1: Well, I have a feeling that you are turning the

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golf world on its head with this kind of information.

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Speaker 3: Well, I'm anxious for this book to come out to

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find out whether that's true or not, because I figure

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that there's people that will believe it right away, and

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there's other people that are on the other side and

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need some convincing and I'm wondering if I'll be able

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to convince them.

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Speaker 1: So, as we're recording this, the book will be coming

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out tomorrow, but as you are listening to it, it

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has been out a couple weeks. So if you want

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to pick up this book, actually you need to pick

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up this book. Every Shot Counts by Mark Brody. Yeah.

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I just think that, you know, I've talked to so

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many different instructors about, you know, the importance of putting,

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and you know, they we even did one episode of

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this show called give me ten yards ten feet closer,

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over ten yards farther every day of the week.

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Speaker 3: Oh well, that's that's true, but it's it's pretty hard

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to get to get ten feet closer on your approach shots.

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Every shot ten feet closer is is going from from

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a ninety golfer to the PGA tour sometimes.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Well, I mean the guy who that interview was somebody

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who manufactures wedges, So why do you think he would

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say that he believes his product will do that? And

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actually it's a very good product. But it's just that

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we're going to call this episode and it follows in

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your book Putting is overrated. Let's talk about this, this

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concept and what you're introducing here. It's so much I mean,

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the easiest way to explain it is like moneyball, right,

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cyber metrics for baseball. People are understand and what's happened

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with the Oakland A's and you know the movie came out,

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But how they Bill James created was it cybermetrics? Ab

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metrics aabermetrics, right, and it changed the way management approaches baseball,

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but with a lot of resistance. I see this going

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in that direction as well.

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Speaker 4: Well. I hope that's the case.

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Speaker 3: That one of the things when you look at a

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tournament on TV or where you play with your friends,

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you can see the score. That's what golf is about,

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shooting the lowest score. But it's often not so apparent

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where those score differences come from. So when one golfer

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wins a tournament by five shots, you just don't know why,

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Where did those five shots come from? And one of

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the goals of this book is to try and break

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that down and tease out using data, what separates the

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best golfers from average golfers, whether it's in the pro

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ranks or the amateur ranks.

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Speaker 1: I'd let the audience know that we're going to do

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this in two parts. The first part I'm going to

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have you explain how this works in the kind of

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information that you've gathered and what you've come up with,

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and the second part will will focus on how do

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it make it work for me? All right, okay, great,

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So just elaborate. I'm not going to interrupt much. You

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can talk as long as you want on this. Explain

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how that how you figured out that putting is really

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only about fifteen percent of what the total score or

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the importance of the score.

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Speaker 3: Well, i'd say, you know, fifteen percent refers to how

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much of the strokes that separate the best PGA Tour

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players from average PGA Tour players. That difference in score,

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about fifteen percent of it comes from putting. And if

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you're if you're looking over kind of a long period

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of time, if you look at tournament winners, it turns

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out that putting is a little bit more important than

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it explains about thirty five percent of the difference between

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the winner of a tournament and the field that they're

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playing against.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, because so often, you know, TV needs

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the drama and you'll see a guy making a putt,

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or just the other day Paula Kramer made that amazing

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seventy five foot putt. She needed to make it to

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win if she two putts, which was fine, she ties,

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but you know that kind of drama you see, but

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you don't see how it got to the point where

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she was struggling or she was behind and had to

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come from behind, and it wasn't always on the putting green.

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Speaker 3: Correct Well, certainly if you think a seventy five footer

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for eagle, you had to have some help by reaching

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that par five and two. So yeah, right, it's and

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that's one of the things strokes gain does. It quantifies

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how much of that good score came from putting versus

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how much came from the TITA greenshots.

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Speaker 1: Right, So generally, I know, personally on my scorecard, I'll

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keep track of fairways, hit greens and regulation and how

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many putts, But that really doesn't explain to me why

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I had a ninety four.

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Speaker 4: That day exactly.

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Speaker 3: I mean, each one of those traditional stats has fundamental

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fatal flaws. So if you pop up a drive one

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hundred yards into the fairway versus you hit another one

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two hundred and fifty yards in the fairway. You both

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get a check mark for a fairway hit, but one

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is a much better shot than the other, So fairways

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hit doesn't capture the difference between those clearly different shots.

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The same way when you count putts, if you sink

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a two footer, you know you miss the green, you

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chip the two feet, and you sink the two footter,

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it's a one put on that green, you say, great,

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it's a one putt. But on another green where you

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hit your approach shot to forty five feet and you

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sink a forty five footer, that's a one putt. Also,

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both of those strokes count as one putt. It looks

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like you're putting is the same, But sinking a forty

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five footer is a much better putting performance than sinking

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a two footer. So neither fairways hit nor putting really

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gives you the true story. And you can say the

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same thing about greens and regulation that if you have

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few greens and regulation, was it because you drove the

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ball poorly, or your iron shots were poor, or your

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you know, your third shot on a par five was poor.

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It doesn't really explain what's what's going wrong.

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Speaker 1: So we're going from subjective to objective information exactly. Okay,

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you know that I frequently say the one the only

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thing I hate more than a one putt bogie is

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one putt double bogie. But so let's how did you

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get to this place? Please give us some background on

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where it brought you to, how you brought it to

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the PGA, what they're doing with it, go from that.

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Speaker 3: So, so it was sort of a a fortunate confluence

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of events. I'd say that my day job is being

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an academic at Columbia Business School, where my research is

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in quantitative finance. But I'm a golfer and I have

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a passion for golf, and I realized that I could

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take my academic training and put it together with my

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golf hobby to try and answer these questions that are

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at the heart of golf. But it all boils down

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to having some data. And so some of the questions

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that I wanted to answer were where did the ten

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strokes come from that separate a ninety golfer from an

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eighty golfer? Or what's the difference between an eighty golfer

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and a pro where did those strokes come from? Or

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as you mentioned earlier, what's the value of hitting the

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ball twenty yards further. And for any of those questions,

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I didn't know the answer, I didn't know anybody else

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who knew the answer, and I didn't have the data

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to answer it. So first step was trying to get

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data to then do the analysis. And so I developed

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a program called golf Metrics that would could be used

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to collect and analyze amateur data. And unbeknownst to me,

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at the same time, the PGA Tour was starting to

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collect data with their shot Link system, and so they

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partnered with CDW and since two thousand and three, they've

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recorded every shot of every pro golfer in every one

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of the PGA Tour events, and so they have this

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massive amount of data and they wanted a way to

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use this data to better understand performance. And they thought

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their weakest stat was putting. In fact, they had three

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putting stats. One was just counting putts. They realized that

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wasn't so good. So they also had putts per green

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and regulation, which very few people understood. And they also

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had had length of putts that were hold. So every

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time you sink a twenty foot or it adds twenty

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feet to your length of putts hold. Anyway, none of

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those three putting stats really gave a good picture of

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who was the best putter.

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Speaker 4: And so at the time that I was doing.

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Speaker 3: This analysis and they very nicely gave me access to

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the PGA Tour data, they also wanted a better putting

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stat and this thing, this work led to the strokes

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gained putting stat that the PGA Tour rolled out in

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May of twenty eleven.

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Speaker 1: On the strokes gained putting, you give a great example

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about Rory McElroy. Did you expand on that for us?

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Speaker 3: Well, if he was the player of the year in

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twenty twelve, he won a bunch of tournaments, he had

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the lowest scoring average, he won, he had almost every

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tournament he was in he was in in the top ten.

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So this was just a fantastic year twenty twelve for

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Rory McElroy. And then you take a look at his

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stats and he's not in the top fifty in driving,

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he's not in the top fifteen in greens and regulation,

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and he wasn't in the top fifty in in strokes

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gain putting. So here you have the best player of

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the year who can't get the ball off the tee.

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He can't hit the green and he can't putt according

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to the stats, And there's this complete disconnect between the

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information provided by the stats and the performance that you're

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seeing on the course. And if you look at this

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through this new lens of strokes gain, you can exceed.

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You can see exactly why Rory McElroy had the twenty

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twelve that he did.

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Speaker 1: And I mean it's like, wait a minute, you just

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disproved yourself that now expand why tell me why that

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for you? That became heaven to have all this information?

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But how you can prove that he wasn't the best player,

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He just had the best year.

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Speaker 3: So in this measure called strokes gain driving, which measures

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how well he hit the ball off the tee on

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par fours and fives, he was ranked second in his

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approach shots meaning all shots starting outside of one hundred

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yards excluding driving, he was ranked second. He was ranked

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thirty fourth in a short game shots inside one hundred

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yards except for putts, and he was ranked seventy third

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and putting, so that was, you know, the weakest part

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of his game. A short game was a little you know,

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both his putting and a short game were slightly above

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tour average, but outside one hundred yards he killed it.

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He was just phenomenal from outside one hundred yards. So

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he gained most of his strokes outside one hundred yards

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and strokes gained and kind of clearly shows where he

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was getting his advantage on the field.

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Speaker 1: So the age old addict of drive for show, putt

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for doe doesn't really hold up, does it.

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Speaker 4: Well not in this case.

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Speaker 3: I mean, he gained eighty five percent of his strokes

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on the field came outside one hundred yards and fifteen

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percent came from inside one hundred yards. But you know,

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it's it's it's different for different golfers, and when you

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average over the top ten twenty thirty forty golfers on tour,

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you'll find that kind of similar result. But within there,

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you look at a particular golfer and there's definitely there's

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definitely variation.

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Speaker 4: So it's it's true that.

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Speaker 3: Luke Donald is one, you know, has one of the

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best putting and one of the best short games in

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the world, and you can see that. You can see

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Steve Stricker has one of the best short games in

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the in the world. So everybody's a little bit different,

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but more often than not, it's it's the long game

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that separates the best pros from the average pros.

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Speaker 1: So the big drives really do make a.

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Speaker 4: Difference, absolutely.

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Speaker 3: And uh, you take a look at some of the

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you know, the best drivers in the game, and they

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would be like Bubba Watson or Dustin Johnson, and they

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hit the ball really far and they hit it pretty straight.

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So when you look at fairways hit, they're certainly down

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on the list, but they're straighter.

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Speaker 4: Than than than us, than us by far.

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Speaker 3: What's you know, I'm hitting the ball two thirty or

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two forty and I'm hitting you know, fifty percent of

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my fairways. They're hitting at three twenty and they're hitting

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sixty percent of their fairwys or something like that.

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Speaker 1: That's why we hate those guys.

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Speaker 4: Oh, I think that's why we love to watch them, right.

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Speaker 1: Right, exactly your example of Jason Day, I think everyone

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can relate to. And how does that compute?

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Speaker 3: And please give the example, right, if you pop the

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ball up and hit one hundred yards in the fairway

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counts as a fairway hit. You hit it three twenty

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in the fairway counts as a fairway hit. So they

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both look they both look the same but when you

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measure it on strokes gained. I unfortunately picked on Jason

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Day because it was such an unusual example. When at

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Kapalua on the I believe it was the eleventh hole.

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You know, he he hit a fat drive. I think

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he was trying to drive the green or something. He

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swung so hard, but he hit it, hit so fat

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that it went just over one hundred yards, and in

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strokes gained, you can see he lost about seven tenths

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of a stroke on the field with that with that drive.

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So the key is, in order to compare driving with

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appro shots, with sand shots, with putting, you need a

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common scale. You can't measure drives in yards with putts

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that are measured in strokes. So what strokes gain does

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is allow you to put all of these different shots

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on a common footing, so you can compare not only

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who's the best driver, but how does driving compare with

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a pro shots, short game shots and putting.

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Speaker 1: I need actually for the stats freaks out there, it

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was the thirteenth hole in twenty eleven.

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Speaker 4: Oh thank you, Okay.

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Speaker 1: Not a problem, because I dog eared that page as well.

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In all this, you know, going in background of all this,

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the dynamic programming. I thought was really fascinating explanation to

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help us get there. And as a professor of business,

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you must love that stuff.

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Speaker 4: Oh absolutely.

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Speaker 3: It's you can use this idea of you know, what's

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the quickest way to get to a goal? And it

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happens all the time in everyday life. And whenever you

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get into a car and you want to drive somewhere,

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you can press a button and it will tell you

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the shortest route to get to your destination. That's one

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example of how do you make multiple decisions in a

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way that satisfies an objective, in this case getting to

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your destination fast. But there's other examples in you know,

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finance and investing. When you want to improve your investing

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performance so that you have enough money to retire, on

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what's the best way to invest over time so that

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you have an adequate amount in your retirement account. And

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the connection with golf is what's the quickest way to

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get to the hole? And the way you do that

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is you measure not in terms of yards or feet,

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but you measure in terms of strokes. And the reason

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for that is one yard more on your drive isn't

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worth the same as getting a putt three feet closer

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to the hole, so not all three three foot gains

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are the same. But if you measure it in terms

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of strokes, then you can compare drives, approach shots, and puts.

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Speaker 1: But you need a tremendous amount of data to be

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able to it would be Is it hard to do

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it for yourself to figure this out?

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Speaker 4: No, it's not.

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Speaker 3: I mean you need a tremendous amount of data to

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figure out what the benchmark is or what you're comparing against.

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So in the example of Jason Day where he hit

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this unusually short te shot for himself, what you need

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to know is what was the PGA Tour average score

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on the tee and then what's the PGA Tour average

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score from his position in the fairway. And it turns

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out that on that shot he was four strokes away

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from the hole when he started.

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Speaker 1: And he was because it was a par four.

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Speaker 4: It was a it was an.

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Speaker 3: Average par four, so some par fours it would be

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more or less than that, but it was an average

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par four, and at the end of the shot, the

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PGA to were average from that position would be three

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point seven strokes. So he took one swing and he

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only got point three strokes closer to the hole, which meant,

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you know, he lost point seven And so you might

353
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not follow the math. But you know, if a PGA

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Tour player hits one hundred yard drive, you know, with

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a driver on a long par four, on a.

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Speaker 1: Par four, it's not funny. We all do this, we

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all do that.

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Speaker 3: So the funny part is Jason Day smiled after this,

359
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he laughed. Whereas the guys in my forest and after

360
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a shot like that are about to break their club

361
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over their knee. He shook it off and ended up

362
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up paring the hole. And that's That's one of the

363
00:21:02,920 --> 00:21:05,599
things that I'm so impressed with these PGA Tour pros,

364
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which is they not only hit better shots, but their

365
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mental game is better. They can forget about the bad

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shots or laugh them off better. They practice better, they

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probably eat better, they work out better.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but they're constantly traveling, they have to be in

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a different bed, they have different food all the time.

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It's not an easy life to be able to perform

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at that level when you have all these different factors

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weighing down on you.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think they do it all all the more

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impressive what they do. They're playing different courses. I have

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trouble enough playing you know, the same course over and

376
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over again. They're playing a different course every week. It's

377
00:21:43,599 --> 00:21:46,519
it's just amazing how how good they are. And those

378
00:21:46,559 --> 00:21:50,720
courses that they're playing aren't like our course. The greens

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00:21:50,720 --> 00:21:52,880
are much harder, the rough is much thicker, and of

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course the holes are much longer.

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Speaker 1: I kind of get it once you start getting the decimals.

382
00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:06,480
I'm like, how did you get that? That's where I

383
00:22:06,519 --> 00:22:11,160
get lost. I'm not a math guy ever. I'm a

384
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recording engineer, and maybe I should be a math guy

385
00:22:14,200 --> 00:22:17,640
by doing that, But that's where I get lost. But

386
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that's what I loved about being able to read the book,

387
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because you really did give a lot of graphs and images,

388
00:22:24,200 --> 00:22:28,960
and you explain like a college professor. You explain it

389
00:22:29,039 --> 00:22:31,680
quite well. And that's what I really enjoyed about this book.

390
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:35,119
Speaker 3: Well, well, I appreciate that, But one of the things

391
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I hope the readers will find is that this is simple.

392
00:22:41,319 --> 00:22:46,160
It's at the heart, it's just subtracting two numbers and

393
00:22:47,079 --> 00:22:50,519
to give you, to give you an idea if you

394
00:22:50,599 --> 00:22:54,240
knew nothing about strokes gain and I said, if you

395
00:22:55,880 --> 00:22:59,640
missed the two footer. How many strokes do you think

396
00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:01,640
you low lost? What would your answer be?

397
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:03,200
Speaker 1: Two?

398
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:08,359
Speaker 3: If you if you two putt from two feet, how

399
00:23:08,480 --> 00:23:10,440
much do you think you would lose to most of

400
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:12,640
your fellow competitors if you had a two putt from

401
00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:13,240
two feet?

402
00:23:13,759 --> 00:23:16,480
Speaker 1: Oh to Mike, bet one one.

403
00:23:16,319 --> 00:23:18,880
Speaker 3: You would lose one. Right, That's exactly what strokes gain

404
00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:21,559
tells you. Oh you lost, you lost a stroke if

405
00:23:21,559 --> 00:23:22,440
you missed a two footer.

406
00:23:23,759 --> 00:23:26,519
Speaker 4: Okay, that's not that hard. So how about a thing

407
00:23:26,599 --> 00:23:27,200
it was for me?

408
00:23:29,039 --> 00:23:34,359
Speaker 1: I didn't ask the questions failed, Sorry, professor after class?

409
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:39,279
Speaker 3: Oh, so about how about a thirty footer? So the

410
00:23:39,279 --> 00:23:43,759
PGA Tour average from thirty actually thirty three feet is

411
00:23:43,799 --> 00:23:46,240
two putts, but.

412
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Speaker 1: For us, So.

413
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:50,039
Speaker 3: For us it's a little bit more. But suppose you're

414
00:23:50,039 --> 00:23:52,759
a PGA Tour player and you sink a thirty three

415
00:23:52,799 --> 00:23:56,319
footer one putt from thirty three feet, how much did

416
00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:58,240
you gain versus your competitors?

417
00:23:58,359 --> 00:23:58,599
Speaker 1: One?

418
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:03,039
Speaker 4: Exactly what happens If you three putted from thirty three.

419
00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:07,400
Speaker 3: Feet one less, you lose, you lose, you lose one.

420
00:24:07,839 --> 00:24:13,000
And if you two putt, yeah, zero, Zero's that's all

421
00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:13,559
there is to it.

422
00:24:13,599 --> 00:24:15,079
Speaker 4: That's not that hard, is it. No?

423
00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:19,960
Speaker 3: But the difference is if you one putt from two feet,

424
00:24:20,279 --> 00:24:23,400
you gain or lose zero. If you one putt from

425
00:24:23,559 --> 00:24:26,960
thirty three feet you gain a stroke. So both are

426
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:30,000
one putts, but one is better than the other. One

427
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:33,160
is gaining on the field, the others staying even with

428
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:33,640
the field.

429
00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:37,440
Speaker 1: Now that we've kind of gotten an overview of strokes

430
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:42,799
gain putting strokes gained, how the golf metrics kind of work.

431
00:24:43,079 --> 00:24:44,759
But you've got to look at the book to get

432
00:24:44,799 --> 00:24:48,920
a full explanation for yourself. I want to figure out

433
00:24:49,279 --> 00:24:53,799
how we can make this work for us. And you know,

434
00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:56,880
yes there's tons of statistics from the tour, and yes

435
00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:00,079
it's fun to watch and see how they're using it.

436
00:25:00,279 --> 00:25:04,559
But on a Saturday, for ourselves, that doesn't help much, right,

437
00:25:04,759 --> 00:25:08,480
because we really cannot compare ourselves to the pros.

438
00:25:09,559 --> 00:25:10,039
Speaker 4: That's right.

439
00:25:10,079 --> 00:25:13,279
Speaker 3: You can use the same idea to compare yourself to

440
00:25:13,599 --> 00:25:16,319
a scratch golfer, or if your goal is to get

441
00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:19,519
from ninety to eighty, you can compare yourself to an

442
00:25:19,519 --> 00:25:23,960
eighty golfer. And this way of thinking, the strokes gained

443
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:28,839
approach to measuring golf will will show where you're gaining

444
00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:31,799
or losing strokes to any player. So if your goal

445
00:25:31,839 --> 00:25:35,480
is to drop ten strokes, it will tell you where

446
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:36,720
you're losing ten strokes to.

447
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:40,359
Speaker 4: Your competitor or to your goal.

448
00:25:41,839 --> 00:25:45,200
Speaker 1: How is this impacted this information, Haws? This impacted your game?

449
00:25:46,839 --> 00:25:50,839
Speaker 3: Well, one of the things that I thought, I'm a

450
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:53,480
thoughtful guy, and I'm doing all this analysis. It should

451
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:58,119
be obvious to me, and it wasn't. So I will

452
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:01,519
keep track of all my shots and enter it into

453
00:26:01,519 --> 00:26:04,480
this golf metrics program and I'll get reports out, and

454
00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:07,880
you know, I'd play, you know, two or three rounds

455
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:10,680
and I'll remember some good shots and try and forget

456
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:13,279
some bad shots. But at the end, when I get

457
00:26:13,279 --> 00:26:16,640
a report, it says I'm two shots worse this month

458
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:20,160
than last month in my short game, and I go, really,

459
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:22,839
I thought I was paying attention. But when you have

460
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:26,200
a report staring you in the face where you're messing up,

461
00:26:26,519 --> 00:26:29,160
I say, okay, I've got to go to the short

462
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:32,200
game area and practice. Or if it's putting or if

463
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:35,359
it's my iron shots, it will tell me. And it's

464
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:38,680
just hard to ignore when you have the facts in

465
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:41,279
front of your face. And so I've gone out and

466
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:44,000
you know one you know, one week, I'll work on

467
00:26:44,039 --> 00:26:46,880
my short game because it needs it. The next week

468
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:49,039
or two weeks after that, I'll work on my putting.

469
00:26:49,079 --> 00:26:53,119
And so it really does to help to know where

470
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:57,119
your your individual strengths and weaknesses are because it's hard

471
00:26:57,160 --> 00:26:59,359
to remember. It's hard to remember all the shots that

472
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:02,839
you that you hit and they all matter, they all

473
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:05,279
add up, and sometimes a couple of shots that you

474
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:08,160
forgot about can really impact your score.

475
00:27:11,319 --> 00:27:13,759
Speaker 1: How do we how are we able to keep track?

476
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:16,359
What's the method you use to keep track of this

477
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:19,880
information so that you can analyze it later? What's the

478
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:21,720
best How would you advise us to do that?

479
00:27:22,599 --> 00:27:24,599
Speaker 3: Well, one of the things that you can do is

480
00:27:24,799 --> 00:27:29,680
just say, you know, look at the average golfer and

481
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:34,440
where do they gain or lose strokes. So, if, for instance,

482
00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:36,480
you want to work on your putting and you're trying

483
00:27:36,519 --> 00:27:38,759
to decide should I work on my short puts or

484
00:27:38,759 --> 00:27:40,839
should I work on my medium length puts or should

485
00:27:40,839 --> 00:27:43,279
I work on my long puts? Of course you should

486
00:27:43,279 --> 00:27:45,680
work on everything, but which do you think is the

487
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:48,000
most critical putt distance?

488
00:27:48,039 --> 00:27:50,480
Speaker 4: If you had to pick a particular.

489
00:27:50,599 --> 00:27:54,200
Speaker 3: Foot four feet, eight feet twelve feet twenty five feet.

490
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:58,279
Where do you think the average golfer loses more strokes

491
00:27:58,319 --> 00:28:00,599
to a scratch golfer.

492
00:28:00,880 --> 00:28:06,880
Speaker 1: I read the book, I would say that it's the

493
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:08,240
five to ten foot range.

494
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:11,880
Speaker 3: Five to ten feet, Yeah, so for amateur go that's

495
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:16,480
pretty close. For amateur golfers, it's four feet. There's nothing

496
00:28:16,559 --> 00:28:19,440
magical about four feet if you want to say three

497
00:28:19,519 --> 00:28:23,119
to five feet, three to six or seven or eight feet.

498
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:27,000
But what was surprising to me is how short the

499
00:28:27,079 --> 00:28:30,279
putts were that were the most critical, were the ones

500
00:28:30,319 --> 00:28:35,079
that most separated average golfers from scratch golfers. And there's

501
00:28:35,079 --> 00:28:38,200
two reasons for that. One is pretty simple, which is

502
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:41,599
you have more four footers than you have ten footers.

503
00:28:42,839 --> 00:28:47,240
And the other is that there's a skill difference between

504
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:50,359
good putters and poor putters in the four foot range.

505
00:28:51,039 --> 00:28:53,200
So you may have a lot more one footers, but

506
00:28:53,319 --> 00:28:56,640
if everybody sinks their one footers, it doesn't matter. But

507
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:59,799
not everybody sinks all their four footers, And so it

508
00:28:59,839 --> 00:29:01,240
has these two characteristics.

509
00:29:01,279 --> 00:29:02,200
Speaker 4: There's a lot of.

510
00:29:02,079 --> 00:29:05,279
Speaker 3: Them, and there's a lot to be gained from becoming

511
00:29:05,279 --> 00:29:05,920
better at them.

512
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:09,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, and really, how many how many opportunities do we

513
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,079
have to make one footers because most of the time

514
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:16,000
you get one foot inside and people go, you're good, right, yeah, absolutely,

515
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:18,839
So you don't even know. I have a friend that

516
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:20,759
I do I won't I won't let him pick it up,

517
00:29:20,799 --> 00:29:23,319
and he's like, come on, i'd let you pick I said, yeah,

518
00:29:23,359 --> 00:29:24,119
but you may miss it.

519
00:29:25,559 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's it's the it's the three, four and

520
00:29:28,559 --> 00:29:30,799
five footers that you that you pick up that can

521
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:35,079
really give you a warped impression of what what your

522
00:29:35,119 --> 00:29:37,480
score really is. So you know, you're playing in a

523
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:39,640
tournament you're not used to playing in a tournament, in

524
00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:43,720
a you know, club championship or a weekend match, and

525
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:46,880
all of a sudden, people are taking tens on a

526
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:49,559
hole because they can't pick up after a double bogie,

527
00:29:49,799 --> 00:29:52,880
or they can't pick up when they've got five feet.

528
00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:59,079
Speaker 1: Left right right. And I'll tell you one of the

529
00:29:59,079 --> 00:30:01,039
things that I walked away from this book that I

530
00:30:01,039 --> 00:30:04,599
think was very helpful for me is that I've noticed

531
00:30:04,759 --> 00:30:08,039
that if I'm having a poor day of putting, if

532
00:30:08,079 --> 00:30:11,759
I have multiple three putts in a round, that will

533
00:30:11,759 --> 00:30:16,880
affect every shot that I take. It will affect my

534
00:30:17,039 --> 00:30:20,119
attitude for the whole I'll just beat myself up. I

535
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:24,799
may be hitting fairways and then greens and regulation I'm

536
00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:28,119
stroking the ball well, but my putting game that will

537
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:30,599
impact how I feel during the day.

538
00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 4: So I'd say a couple of things. One is that.

539
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 3: It's also true probably if you hit a drive out

540
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:39,880
of bounds, that that's going to affect your attitude.

541
00:30:40,319 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 4: So it's not just putting.

542
00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:45,119
Speaker 3: But one way to look at it that I find

543
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:48,519
helps me a little bit is if I miss innate

544
00:30:48,559 --> 00:30:53,160
foot putts, the first reaction is I lost a stroke.

545
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:55,559
It was a birdie putt. I really wanted to get

546
00:30:55,559 --> 00:30:58,599
that birdie and I missed it. But when you miss

547
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:02,359
innate footer, you're not losing a stroke. You're only losing

548
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:06,640
about a half a stroke. Because nobody sinks all of

549
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:09,279
their eight footers, and the pros only sink about half

550
00:31:09,319 --> 00:31:13,319
of the eight footers. So in fact, and of course

551
00:31:13,599 --> 00:31:16,640
amateur golfer sink sink less than that, So if you

552
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:19,160
miss an eight footer, you're only giving up a fraction

553
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:21,680
miss stroke, and you should think not about, oh, I

554
00:31:21,759 --> 00:31:24,599
just missed that eight footer, but over the course of

555
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:28,200
the round, you would hope to sink close to half

556
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:30,920
your eight footers. But you just can't beat yourself up

557
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:35,799
over one missputt. It's counterproductive because first of all, it's

558
00:31:35,839 --> 00:31:38,119
not true. You're not losing a full stroke, and as

559
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:41,559
you said, you don't want that to impact the next shot.

560
00:31:41,839 --> 00:31:48,279
Why should you have one missputt then lead to throwing

561
00:31:48,279 --> 00:31:49,559
away more strokes after that?

562
00:31:49,559 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 4: That doesn't make sense. Easier said than done.

563
00:31:52,119 --> 00:31:56,079
Speaker 1: Of course, of course, and now I can see that

564
00:31:55,079 --> 00:31:59,240
you know that it's my approach shots where I probably

565
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:01,119
lose more stroke in anything.

566
00:32:02,079 --> 00:32:05,559
Speaker 4: And that's true for everybody.

567
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 3: It's high handicappers, low handicappers and NPGA tour pros.

568
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:12,279
Speaker 4: And I think one of.

569
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 3: The reasons it's so hard to put your finger on

570
00:32:16,079 --> 00:32:20,400
that is that proximity to the hole is measured in feet,

571
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:24,079
and if you could put your average approach shot three

572
00:32:24,079 --> 00:32:28,039
feet closer, it just doesn't sound like much. If your

573
00:32:28,079 --> 00:32:31,160
proximity is thirty feet and you improve it to twenty

574
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:33,880
seven feet, you say, so what I was going to

575
00:32:34,119 --> 00:32:36,240
two putt from thirty feet, I'll two putt from twenty

576
00:32:36,279 --> 00:32:39,640
seven feet. It just doesn't sound like it's that big

577
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:42,720
a deal. And that's just the wrong way to think

578
00:32:42,759 --> 00:32:46,759
about it. And what I found in crunching the numbers

579
00:32:46,839 --> 00:32:50,640
is that it's the shots that are in the rough,

580
00:32:50,799 --> 00:32:53,440
just off the green that three feet closer they're now

581
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:56,839
on the green that matters. The ten footers that become

582
00:32:56,920 --> 00:33:00,680
seven footers matter, the five footers that become two footers,

583
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:04,200
they all matter. And so if you put your shots

584
00:33:04,279 --> 00:33:06,680
on average three feet closer to the whole, you pick

585
00:33:06,759 --> 00:33:10,880
up a lot of strokes on the field or on

586
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:13,519
your competitors, or just on your your own score. So

587
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:19,599
approach shots are really really important. And so you know,

588
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:24,400
the long term plan is make you know, for amateurs,

589
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:26,039
if you can get better in one hundred to one

590
00:33:26,119 --> 00:33:29,519
hundred and fifty yard range, that's the that's the area

591
00:33:29,519 --> 00:33:32,400
that's most correlated with amateur scores.

592
00:33:38,559 --> 00:33:42,960
Speaker 1: Putting so much of it. You know it is important,

593
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:46,440
it isn't important, but so many shots. It's so obvious

594
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:49,680
that we're missing so many losing so many shots there

595
00:33:49,759 --> 00:33:53,359
because you're in this confined area and you're not making

596
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:59,759
a lot of progress. Do most amateurs versus pros come

597
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:02,559
come up short of the hole in their putting and

598
00:34:02,799 --> 00:34:04,519
does that have a significant impact?

599
00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:06,759
Speaker 4: Oh? Absolutely so.

600
00:34:06,799 --> 00:34:11,639
Speaker 3: I think one of the easiest ways for amateurs to

601
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:15,960
improve is to focus more on the distance to the

602
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:19,119
hole rather than the break. And I'm not saying you

603
00:34:19,119 --> 00:34:21,440
shouldn't think about the break. What I'm saying is that

604
00:34:21,519 --> 00:34:24,760
not all twenty footers are created equal. And even if

605
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:26,840
you're pacing off your putts and you say I have

606
00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:30,159
a twenty foot putt, you still want to look at well,

607
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:33,000
is it twenty foot in steeply uphill or is it

608
00:34:33,079 --> 00:34:38,320
twenty feet and slightly downhill? That matters a huge amount

609
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:41,599
in how hard you need to stroke the putt. And

610
00:34:42,280 --> 00:34:46,360
what you'll see between the best PGA Tour putters and

611
00:34:47,039 --> 00:34:53,159
average PGA Tour putters is the better putters are slightly

612
00:34:53,199 --> 00:34:56,320
more aggressive, and of course they have better distance control.

613
00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:58,719
And anybody can take a ten footer and make sure

614
00:34:58,719 --> 00:35:00,760
that they get it to the hole, But the key

615
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:04,559
is not ramming them eight feet by. So you want

616
00:35:04,559 --> 00:35:06,719
to get it to the hole, but but not too

617
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:10,880
far by. So distance control on putting is one of

618
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:15,239
the easiest ways that amateurs I think can lower their score.

619
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:19,320
But it's not just pacing off your putts. It's also

620
00:35:19,519 --> 00:35:21,800
being very aware of how steep the green is.

621
00:35:23,079 --> 00:35:25,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was something here that kind of blew my

622
00:35:25,599 --> 00:35:30,079
mind when I saw and maybe maybe it's an error

623
00:35:30,119 --> 00:35:33,159
in the printing or something, but it talked about downhill putts.

624
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:36,239
The steeper, the green, the farther the target should be

625
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:37,360
beyond the hole.

626
00:35:38,519 --> 00:35:39,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's absolutely right.

627
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:41,559
Speaker 1: And I think really because I would think if it's

628
00:35:41,559 --> 00:35:43,880
a downhill putt, you want to like aim so it

629
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:46,119
comes up all with short so you can let the hill,

630
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:47,360
let gravity take over.

631
00:35:49,119 --> 00:35:54,119
Speaker 3: So that's very surprising, and I think I can I

632
00:35:54,119 --> 00:35:58,159
can explain the intuition behind it, which is on on

633
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:02,000
downhill putts, it's harder to control distance. So I talk

634
00:36:02,039 --> 00:36:05,400
about shot patterns in the book, and just like you

635
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:07,920
have shot patterns on your t shots your putts, you

636
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:11,119
can imagine a shot pattern for your putts. And so

637
00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:15,239
since downhill puts are tougher than uphill putts, the shot

638
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:18,400
pattern is bigger, okay for a downhill putt than an

639
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:22,960
equivalent distance uphill putt. So if your shot pattern is bigger,

640
00:36:23,679 --> 00:36:26,199
that means to get it to the hole, you've got

641
00:36:26,199 --> 00:36:28,519
to be a little bit more aggressive. You've got to

642
00:36:28,559 --> 00:36:30,960
set the target a little bit further beyond the hole

643
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:33,719
in order to make sure you don't come up short.

644
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:35,440
Speaker 4: Another way to.

645
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:37,440
Speaker 3: Think about it, which maybe is even easier. If you

646
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:40,639
have a ten foot uphill putt, you can be pretty

647
00:36:40,679 --> 00:36:42,480
firm with it and it's not going to roll too

648
00:36:42,519 --> 00:36:46,960
far by. But on a ten foot downhill putt, to

649
00:36:47,159 --> 00:36:49,199
make sure that you get that putt to the hole,

650
00:36:49,280 --> 00:36:53,320
you've got to be comfortable in letting it go to

651
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:56,400
two and a half feet by again in order to

652
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:57,920
give it a chance to go in the hole. And

653
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:01,760
it's much more important on ten footers to give it

654
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:04,199
a chance to go in the hole then to lag

655
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:06,239
it to the hole to make sure you don't three putts.

656
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:09,079
So you know, from a ten foot range, you ought

657
00:37:09,079 --> 00:37:11,000
to be thinking how can I make this putt? Not

658
00:37:11,079 --> 00:37:12,960
how can I avoid a three putt?

659
00:37:13,199 --> 00:37:18,119
Speaker 1: Oh? Absolutely, but aiming past the hole, meaning if I'm

660
00:37:18,199 --> 00:37:21,000
aiming past the hole. Maybe I'm unique in this, but

661
00:37:21,119 --> 00:37:23,119
if I'm aiming past the hole, I'm going to hit

662
00:37:23,159 --> 00:37:25,320
it harder than if I was aiming at the hole.

663
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:28,119
Speaker 3: Well, you want that if you're aiming at the hole,

664
00:37:28,159 --> 00:37:30,280
you'd leave fifty percent of your put short and that

665
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:32,400
would be a disaster on time.

666
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 1: I'm talking about downhill. I'm talking about downhill.

667
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:38,199
Speaker 3: Even downhill right, if you aim at the hole, you

668
00:37:38,199 --> 00:37:40,360
don't want to leave fifty percent of them short. So

669
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:42,519
I actually don't think about it in terms of how

670
00:37:42,559 --> 00:37:44,960
far beyond the hole I'm aiming. I think about it

671
00:37:45,079 --> 00:37:48,159
as if I have a ten foot downhill putt, I

672
00:37:48,199 --> 00:37:50,280
want to hit this hard enough so at least nine

673
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:53,239
out of ten get to the hole. I don't want

674
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:55,960
to leave any more than ten percent of those puts short,

675
00:37:56,159 --> 00:37:58,199
so I want to be I don't think if you know,

676
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:00,400
as my target won two three feet pet on the whole,

677
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:02,920
I think of I want to get nine out of

678
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:06,000
ten of these putts to the hole and how hard

679
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:07,960
do I have to hit it to make sure that's

680
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:11,199
the case. And what you'll find with many amateurs, and

681
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:14,199
you know, worse putters more so than good putters, is

682
00:38:15,039 --> 00:38:18,719
they can leave thirty forty of their ten foot or

683
00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:21,400
short and that's really giving up strokes.

684
00:38:21,599 --> 00:38:27,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're familiar with aim point, I am, yeah.

685
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:32,159
And we did a couple episodes on aim point with

686
00:38:32,159 --> 00:38:39,280
with Mark Sweeney last year. Is is that what you

687
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:40,559
use is that accurate?

688
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:45,320
Speaker 4: So I don't use am point, but I know what

689
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:46,280
it's about and I.

690
00:38:48,039 --> 00:38:50,559
Speaker 3: Know how they come up with the the aim point charts,

691
00:38:50,559 --> 00:38:53,000
and I have my own system where I can kind

692
00:38:53,039 --> 00:38:56,800
of replicate their their results. What I what I really

693
00:38:56,880 --> 00:39:01,119
like about the aim point way of thinking is that

694
00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:09,159
it focuses on how much putts break depending on where

695
00:39:09,199 --> 00:39:12,360
the putt starts relative to the fall line. So clearly,

696
00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:14,480
if you have a straight downhill or straight up hill putt,

697
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:17,840
there's there's no break. Side hill putts break a lot,

698
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:21,360
but downhill side hill putts break a lot more than

699
00:39:21,599 --> 00:39:25,440
uphill side hill putts. And so if you imagine where

700
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:29,239
your putt starts relative to a clock face or relative

701
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:32,719
to the fall line, it really helps you with what

702
00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:35,000
line should you should you start this put on.

703
00:39:35,199 --> 00:39:36,840
Speaker 4: So I think it's.

704
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:42,679
Speaker 3: Really critical for golfers not to think in terms of

705
00:39:42,840 --> 00:39:45,840
just how much does this break, but where's the fall

706
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:48,840
line and where is my putts starting relative to the

707
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:52,079
fall line, because that will ultimately tell you how much

708
00:39:52,079 --> 00:39:53,000
break you need to play.

709
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:57,239
Speaker 1: Another version, vector putting putting those.

710
00:39:57,119 --> 00:40:04,760
Speaker 3: Angles well, vector victor putting is is basically identical to

711
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:08,280
aim point. There it's it's it's the same and they

712
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:11,320
have the same charts and they use the same Uh,

713
00:40:11,519 --> 00:40:14,360
it's actually the same number. So vector putting is actually

714
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:15,960
no different than aame point.

715
00:40:16,199 --> 00:40:18,199
Speaker 1: But one of the things that I noticed in your

716
00:40:18,199 --> 00:40:21,639
book that blew my mind is that if you're you know,

717
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:24,159
I generally look for the apex, people go, oh, just

718
00:40:24,360 --> 00:40:26,159
you know, one cup outside, and I'm like, no, I

719
00:40:26,159 --> 00:40:27,880
don't look at the cup. I'm looking at where the

720
00:40:27,880 --> 00:40:29,400
break would be and then where it's going to make

721
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:32,840
the turn. But your stats are saying that you've got

722
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:37,039
to aim above the apex there or it's going to

723
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:38,280
fall below the hole.

724
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:42,519
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's uh, blew me away, Absolutely true. And you

725
00:40:42,559 --> 00:40:46,159
look at the data and this is not new to

726
00:40:46,199 --> 00:40:48,559
this book. It's it's it's been around for a while

727
00:40:48,599 --> 00:40:53,679
and it hasn't changed. Amateur golfers miss way more than

728
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:55,719
fifty percent of their putts on the low side of

729
00:40:55,760 --> 00:41:00,039
the hole. So the question is why is that. So

730
00:41:00,079 --> 00:41:04,000
there's several possible explanations, but one is if you aim

731
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:05,480
at the apex, you will miss low.

732
00:41:05,519 --> 00:41:06,599
Speaker 4: And why is that?

733
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 3: Because the apex is where you know, it's the furthest

734
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:14,880
point or the highest point on this curved path toward

735
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:18,559
the hole. But that usually happens in the somewhere near

736
00:41:18,599 --> 00:41:21,760
the middle of the putt. In order to get the

737
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:24,079
putt to go into the hole, you've got to start

738
00:41:24,079 --> 00:41:28,119
it higher because gravity will immediately start pulling the putt down.

739
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:33,039
It will immediately start braking. So to hit the if

740
00:41:33,039 --> 00:41:35,440
your target is the apex, to hit the apex, you've

741
00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:38,320
got to start it higher than the apex because that

742
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:41,920
first half of the putt it's going to be breaking.

743
00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:42,440
Speaker 4: Before it gets there.

744
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:45,000
Speaker 3: It's not like this putt goes straight and then it

745
00:41:45,039 --> 00:41:47,880
takes a left turn at the apex. It doesn't do that.

746
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,480
It breaks from the instant that you hit it. And

747
00:41:51,679 --> 00:41:55,039
that's the physics of it. And that implies that you've

748
00:41:55,039 --> 00:41:57,800
got to start the putt higher than the apex in

749
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:01,440
order to hit the line that you visualizing into the hole.

750
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:04,679
Speaker 1: That's what made Paula Kramer's seventy five foot are so

751
00:42:05,039 --> 00:42:08,119
amazing because the amount of break that that thing had

752
00:42:08,639 --> 00:42:10,360
was just remarkable.

753
00:42:10,559 --> 00:42:12,639
Speaker 4: And it had some speed going into the hole.

754
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:15,320
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean the hole a fairly got it

755
00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:16,880
to the top of the hill there and then you

756
00:42:16,920 --> 00:42:19,719
saw it turn and just take off.

757
00:42:19,559 --> 00:42:21,599
Speaker 3: If the hole hadn't been there, that would have been

758
00:42:21,639 --> 00:42:23,760
ten feet by and there's probably nothing she could have

759
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:27,760
done about it. But that's also an example where you

760
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:29,280
don't want to lag that one up to the hole.

761
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:31,840
She gave it a chance to go in, and sure enough,

762
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:35,320
it was really an exciting, an exciting end too.

763
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: That tournament amazing, it was so amazing. Let's talk about

764
00:42:41,519 --> 00:42:48,599
strategy and how we can be more strategic in our

765
00:42:48,639 --> 00:42:51,159
game by using this information.

766
00:42:52,199 --> 00:42:55,360
Speaker 3: So one, we already talked about strategy in putting in

767
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:58,800
terms of how conservative or aggressive you want to be,

768
00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:01,559
and it turns out that amateur golfers tend to be

769
00:43:01,679 --> 00:43:04,840
too conservative in their in their putting, but when you

770
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:08,360
move off the green, it's generally the opposite. That amateurs

771
00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:11,480
tend to be too aggressive in their in their shot selection.

772
00:43:11,599 --> 00:43:15,599
And by that I mean that they don't they don't

773
00:43:15,639 --> 00:43:18,360
pay enough heed to the to the hazards that are

774
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:22,360
out there. You've got to give the hazards, uh plenty

775
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:24,559
of respect, and most amateurs.

776
00:43:24,119 --> 00:43:26,000
Speaker 1: Don't give me an example.

777
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:29,559
Speaker 3: So the example that I have in the book, and

778
00:43:29,559 --> 00:43:31,800
there's other examples, but the example I have in the

779
00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:34,000
book is where you have out of bounds on one

780
00:43:34,039 --> 00:43:37,400
side of a hole and the other side is just

781
00:43:37,559 --> 00:43:40,840
rough or not as as much of a penalty, and

782
00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:43,239
so you know if you hit the ball out of bounds,

783
00:43:44,039 --> 00:43:47,039
your strokes gained is minus two, right, because you're going

784
00:43:47,119 --> 00:43:50,519
to tee it up hitting three from the same spot,

785
00:43:50,559 --> 00:43:53,239
So you basically have used two shots and you haven't

786
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:56,199
made any progress to the hole, so out of bounds

787
00:43:56,199 --> 00:43:57,360
you will lose two shots.

788
00:43:58,079 --> 00:44:00,400
Speaker 4: That's a huge penalty.

789
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:04,239
Speaker 3: If you hit it in the rough, you have somewhere

790
00:44:04,239 --> 00:44:07,280
between a tenth and a quarter of a shot penalty

791
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:09,400
for hitting the ball in the rough rather than the fairway,

792
00:44:10,159 --> 00:44:12,639
So you're trading off a huge penalty for going out

793
00:44:12,639 --> 00:44:16,039
of bounds with a small penalty for hitting in the rough.

794
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:17,239
Speaker 4: What does that tell.

795
00:44:17,079 --> 00:44:20,039
Speaker 3: You you should do, which is you should shade the

796
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:24,000
t shot your target toward the rough and away from

797
00:44:24,039 --> 00:44:26,840
this huge hazard which is out of bounds.

798
00:44:27,039 --> 00:44:30,320
Speaker 4: And most golfers realize that.

799
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:34,920
Speaker 3: Intuitively, but they don't take into an account nearly enough,

800
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:37,360
and they hit way more balls out of bounds than

801
00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:41,159
they should. So even with the same swing, I don't

802
00:44:41,199 --> 00:44:43,119
have to change anything about your swing. You don't have

803
00:44:43,159 --> 00:44:45,800
to go to a pro for a lesson. If you

804
00:44:46,079 --> 00:44:49,360
just take a more conservative, conservative line off the tee

805
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:53,079
when there's these hazards in play, you can shave a

806
00:44:53,159 --> 00:44:55,480
lot of strokes off.

807
00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:57,679
Speaker 1: Your score, and when can we be aggressive off the

808
00:44:57,679 --> 00:44:59,440
tee versus being more conservative?

809
00:45:00,559 --> 00:45:04,440
Speaker 3: Well, if you're if you're too conservative. So I've heard

810
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:08,039
this strategy of you know, it's a long part four,

811
00:45:09,079 --> 00:45:13,480
let's instead of hitting a driver, let's take a five iron.

812
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:16,079
Then you hit another five iron, then you'll be one

813
00:45:16,119 --> 00:45:18,960
hundred yards away and then take a wedge from there

814
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:21,079
and you're going to do it worse to bogie. So

815
00:45:21,159 --> 00:45:23,960
that's an example of being way too conservative because you

816
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:26,320
can look at the data and do the analysis and

817
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:29,199
you find out that on a long part four, if

818
00:45:29,199 --> 00:45:32,480
you give up that many yards with a five iron,

819
00:45:33,159 --> 00:45:36,199
you'll be losing a ton of strokes. It's just not

820
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:41,559
worth giving up fifty sixty yards by hitting an iron

821
00:45:41,599 --> 00:45:46,000
instead of a driver. And amateurs often aren't that much

822
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:48,119
more accurate with the shorter clubs than they are with

823
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:52,039
the longer clubs. So you know, the expression goes, it's

824
00:45:52,079 --> 00:45:54,280
better to be long and crooked than short and crooked.

825
00:45:54,719 --> 00:46:04,119
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So here's something that I do strategically,

826
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:07,679
and maybe you can clarify if I'm doing this the

827
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:09,880
right way or if there's a better way to do it.

828
00:46:10,519 --> 00:46:14,440
Let's say, so on a par five, what I try

829
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:16,920
to do is, you know, on a part four, I'm

830
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:19,239
just going to drive the ball either with my driver

831
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:21,920
or my my three wood. But on a par five,

832
00:46:22,039 --> 00:46:23,800
what I'm going to try to do is get my

833
00:46:23,920 --> 00:46:28,159
second shot into a space where I'm the most comfortable,

834
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:30,559
which is probably either one hundred or one hundred and

835
00:46:30,559 --> 00:46:32,800
twenty five yards, okay, or ninety or one hundred and

836
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:34,360
twenty five yards. So let's say so, let's say that

837
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:37,039
one hundred and twenty five yards is my nine iron, okay.

838
00:46:37,360 --> 00:46:40,599
So so to me, it's like that's the club I'm

839
00:46:40,639 --> 00:46:43,559
most confident with. That's the club that I'm the most

840
00:46:43,559 --> 00:46:46,559
comfortable and feel that I can, you know, give myself

841
00:46:46,599 --> 00:46:50,159
a great opportunity to get close to the pin. So

842
00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:53,599
if my drive leaves me two hundred and fifty out

843
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:57,000
and my playing partner his ball lands right next to me,

844
00:46:57,679 --> 00:47:01,599
my playing partner will take his three wood and hit

845
00:47:01,639 --> 00:47:05,239
it as hard and far as he can and lay

846
00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:11,199
and comes up thirty yards short. And he's not that

847
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:13,920
good at thirty yards in, so he'll get from thirty

848
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:16,880
yards and then he'll take two more shots to get

849
00:47:16,920 --> 00:47:20,280
onto the green. And then he may have to do

850
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:22,199
you know, we'll just say he gets two putts, so

851
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:25,800
he bogies the hole. Where for me, at twoin fifty,

852
00:47:26,079 --> 00:47:29,119
I'll take my nine iron and hit it twice because

853
00:47:29,199 --> 00:47:31,719
I know I cannot reach the green at two hundred

854
00:47:31,719 --> 00:47:34,480
and fifty yards away, so I'll hit one hundred and

855
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:37,280
twenty five yards, and if all goes well, I'll take

856
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:40,400
out the rangefinder and say, oh perfect, I'm one hundred

857
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:42,800
and twenty five yards to the pin. And then I

858
00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:46,320
hit that third shot and I'm within let's call it

859
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:49,079
the ten foot range, and I'm a very happy guy,

860
00:47:49,119 --> 00:47:53,960
and hopefully I can get that birdie. Is that statistically?

861
00:47:54,119 --> 00:47:56,039
Is that the way to approach that?

862
00:47:57,480 --> 00:47:58,960
Speaker 4: So if.

863
00:48:00,239 --> 00:48:04,360
Speaker 3: You are this anomalous golfer that is better from one

864
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:07,280
hundred and twenty yards than thirty yards, you should follow

865
00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:10,760
your strategy. What I found and looking at amateur data,

866
00:48:10,880 --> 00:48:15,320
is there are very few golfers that are better from

867
00:48:15,559 --> 00:48:17,519
one hundred or one hundred and twenty yards than they

868
00:48:17,559 --> 00:48:22,400
are from thirty. Almost everybody would be better off hitting

869
00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:25,920
the ball closer. I didn't say everybody, I said almost everybody.

870
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:29,239
So if you have the chip yips, if you hit

871
00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:31,840
a thirty yard shot fat one time and you scull

872
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:35,079
it over the green the next time. Then that tells

873
00:48:35,119 --> 00:48:37,320
me two things. One is, yeah, you don't want to

874
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:40,440
hit to thirty yards. You want to lay back to

875
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:42,679
where you've got a full swing or you've got a

876
00:48:42,679 --> 00:48:45,360
comfortable swing. And the second thing it tells me is

877
00:48:45,559 --> 00:48:47,800
you ought to get a lesson because you should be

878
00:48:48,599 --> 00:48:50,800
much better from thirty yards than one hundred or one

879
00:48:50,840 --> 00:48:54,239
hundred and twenty yards. Every tour pro is better from

880
00:48:54,280 --> 00:48:56,960
thirty yards than one and one hundred and twenty yards.

881
00:48:57,400 --> 00:49:00,119
Almost every amateur that I look at is better or

882
00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:02,159
from thirty yards than they are from one hundred to

883
00:49:02,199 --> 00:49:05,719
one hundred and twenty yards. The data is crystal clear

884
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:10,000
when you took when you talk about averages, if you

885
00:49:10,079 --> 00:49:14,320
talk about most ninety golfers or most eighty golfers. But

886
00:49:14,519 --> 00:49:19,519
there there are exceptions, and if you're if you're the exception,

887
00:49:20,079 --> 00:49:22,559
then that that points out that you're losing a ton

888
00:49:22,599 --> 00:49:26,400
of strokes by not improving your short game, and you've

889
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:28,800
got to go take a lesson and work on it

890
00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:31,000
and get better, because that would be an easy way

891
00:49:31,039 --> 00:49:33,239
for you to drop strokes off your score.

892
00:49:33,719 --> 00:49:37,719
Speaker 1: But as an amateur who doesn't get a tremendous amount

893
00:49:37,760 --> 00:49:40,960
of time to practice, I find that taking full strokes,

894
00:49:41,559 --> 00:49:43,719
I have more confidence with my full strokes than I

895
00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:47,800
do taking you know, short strokes, as a thirty yard

896
00:49:47,800 --> 00:49:50,960
shot would be versus pulling out a wedge from sixty

897
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:53,440
five yards solo sewage.

898
00:49:54,320 --> 00:49:57,039
Speaker 3: So let's let's change your example slightly. Unless you take

899
00:49:57,039 --> 00:49:59,559
it a par four and you hit a drive, and

900
00:49:59,599 --> 00:50:01,400
you hit your second shot, and you come up thirty

901
00:50:01,480 --> 00:50:03,599
yards short in the fairway, and I give you this

902
00:50:03,639 --> 00:50:08,360
free option, you can pick up the ball, walk sixty

903
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:10,880
yards back and now you have a ninety or one

904
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:13,159
hundred yard shot from the fairway. Would you do that

905
00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:16,280
if I allowed you to do that for free?

906
00:50:16,599 --> 00:50:16,960
Speaker 1: Yes?

907
00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:23,639
Speaker 5: Okay, then I think, yeah, I actually, I actually I've

908
00:50:23,639 --> 00:50:26,119
been working a lot on my short game lately, but

909
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:30,039
I think that, Yeah, I think that I'd like do

910
00:50:30,079 --> 00:50:30,559
you thank you?

911
00:50:31,039 --> 00:50:31,840
Speaker 1: I think I would do that.

912
00:50:33,079 --> 00:50:38,599
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, you again, you are not a typical amateur golfer.

913
00:50:38,199 --> 00:50:41,400
Speaker 1: Because no, I'm not. I don't think I am.

914
00:50:42,559 --> 00:50:49,599
Speaker 3: So if you take a look at how often golfers

915
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:54,079
hit the green, amateur golfers hit the green from one

916
00:50:54,159 --> 00:50:58,679
hundred yards or so it's typically much less than.

917
00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:06,400
Speaker 4: Fifty percent, say, whereas.

918
00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:09,360
Speaker 3: From thirty yards it's a lot more than fifty percent.

919
00:51:10,119 --> 00:51:12,800
And I think, you know, many people have in their mind, Oh,

920
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:15,159
I'm one hundred yards away, it's just a wedge or

921
00:51:15,199 --> 00:51:16,960
a nine iron, I'll put it on the green. Nine

922
00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:20,880
out of ten times, amateur golfers from one hundred yards

923
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:23,480
put the ball on the green less than half the time.

924
00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:26,199
And so you also got to tell me that from

925
00:51:26,320 --> 00:51:28,480
thirty yards they must put the ball on the green

926
00:51:28,559 --> 00:51:31,000
less than half the time. Also, otherwise it's not it's

927
00:51:31,039 --> 00:51:33,039
not worth it, or it would be worth it to

928
00:51:33,480 --> 00:51:36,639
walk the uh to walk back you know, pick up

929
00:51:36,639 --> 00:51:39,239
your ball and walk walk backwards. And I just don't

930
00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:40,639
see that in the data.

931
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:43,159
Speaker 4: Thirty yards is a little chip shot.

932
00:51:43,199 --> 00:51:45,440
Speaker 3: You can you can if there's no bunker in between,

933
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:47,159
you could take out a putter.

934
00:51:48,480 --> 00:51:50,639
Speaker 1: All right, let's call it forty yards. Then thirty yards

935
00:51:50,679 --> 00:51:53,480
maybe would be the right example. But I can't. I

936
00:51:53,559 --> 00:51:56,559
can remember so many times going, oh my god, it

937
00:51:56,639 --> 00:52:01,480
took me two shots to get yeah, four hundred and

938
00:52:01,519 --> 00:52:04,320
fifty yards, and it took me four shots to get

939
00:52:04,679 --> 00:52:06,760
the next forty You know.

940
00:52:06,719 --> 00:52:07,199
Speaker 4: That's right.

941
00:52:07,360 --> 00:52:09,559
Speaker 3: So if again, if that's the case, one of the

942
00:52:09,559 --> 00:52:13,519
things that this strokes Gained analysis would show is that

943
00:52:13,559 --> 00:52:17,119
you're incredibly weak and you're throwing away strokes from forty yards.

944
00:52:17,199 --> 00:52:21,239
You better go practice that area of your game because

945
00:52:22,079 --> 00:52:23,320
it shouldn't be that hard.

946
00:52:23,400 --> 00:52:25,079
Speaker 4: It's not that hard of a shot.

947
00:52:25,239 --> 00:52:28,920
Speaker 3: And for most people, even most amateurs, it's not that

948
00:52:29,039 --> 00:52:33,159
hard of a shot, meaning it's not harder from forty

949
00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:37,280
yards than it is from one hundred yards. So again,

950
00:52:37,599 --> 00:52:42,039
I know people that are like that, but they're in

951
00:52:42,039 --> 00:52:46,719
the minority. And like I said, that's the If that's

952
00:52:46,719 --> 00:52:48,920
true of you, then it's an easy place.

953
00:52:48,679 --> 00:52:52,599
Speaker 1: To focus on what I need to practice.

954
00:52:53,239 --> 00:52:55,679
Speaker 4: Yeah, to improve your game? Yeah, to lower your score.

955
00:52:55,880 --> 00:53:00,679
Speaker 1: You weren't really laughing at me, were you, Mark, Yes,

956
00:53:00,719 --> 00:53:04,159
you are, Okay, I'm curious.

957
00:53:04,639 --> 00:53:06,039
Speaker 4: Maybe that's not the right way to say it.

958
00:53:06,039 --> 00:53:09,119
Speaker 3: It's it's it's then obvious that that's where you should

959
00:53:09,159 --> 00:53:11,880
work on, right, right, Right, that's probably a better way

960
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:12,239
to say it.

961
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:16,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly, And this is and to me, that's

962
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:19,239
the point of this book is to figure out what

963
00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:22,800
do I need to work on to drop those ten strokes?

964
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:23,320
Speaker 4: Where?

965
00:53:23,360 --> 00:53:25,480
Speaker 1: Where are those ten strokes? Going, are they where they

966
00:53:25,559 --> 00:53:31,400
coming from exactly? And it's and statistically is it mostly

967
00:53:32,039 --> 00:53:32,840
approach shots?

968
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:37,440
Speaker 3: It's mostly shots outside of one hundred yards And if

969
00:53:37,480 --> 00:53:40,039
you want to break that down even more, it's mostly

970
00:53:40,079 --> 00:53:46,119
the approach shots, so full swinging iron shots for most people,

971
00:53:46,199 --> 00:53:47,880
or if you're short hit or sometimes one hundred and

972
00:53:47,920 --> 00:53:51,159
fifty yards shot is a hybrid or a seven wood

973
00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:52,519
or a five wood, and.

974
00:53:54,320 --> 00:53:56,519
Speaker 4: Those you know, getting the.

975
00:53:56,599 --> 00:53:58,760
Speaker 3: Where of those balls on the green, getting those balls

976
00:53:58,800 --> 00:54:00,559
that are on the green a little bit of the

977
00:54:00,559 --> 00:54:03,360
hole is where you can you can save a lot

978
00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:03,880
of shots.

979
00:54:04,480 --> 00:54:07,000
Speaker 1: I think the thing that when when you know, when

980
00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:09,000
I talked about someone, we're two hundred and fifty yards

981
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:10,360
out and they're just going to hit it as hard

982
00:54:10,360 --> 00:54:14,239
and far as they can. I don't think that they

983
00:54:14,280 --> 00:54:18,800
necessarily take into account all the trouble that they could

984
00:54:18,840 --> 00:54:22,039
get into, you know, how aggressive they should be. Do

985
00:54:22,119 --> 00:54:24,079
I really need to hit the ball as far as

986
00:54:24,079 --> 00:54:29,400
I can here because I'm I'm opening the door for problems.

987
00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:31,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, you want to hit the ball as far

988
00:54:31,400 --> 00:54:35,400
as you can, taking into account the hazards. So you

989
00:54:35,440 --> 00:54:39,239
don't want to hit the ball, you know, three hundred

990
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:41,480
yards if that's where the fairway gets the narrowest, that

991
00:54:41,519 --> 00:54:44,199
brings fairway bunkers into player, that brings water out of

992
00:54:44,239 --> 00:54:48,119
bounds into play for sure. So it's not just you know,

993
00:54:48,280 --> 00:54:50,840
bomb and gouge or grip it and rip it. You've

994
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:55,800
got to pay attention to the hazards. And you know,

995
00:54:55,880 --> 00:54:59,079
going back again to the you know, the forty yard

996
00:54:59,119 --> 00:55:02,480
fat shot. You know, one of the things that I

997
00:55:03,239 --> 00:55:07,760
recommend amateurs do is take a look at their awful shots.

998
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:10,800
So in around you'll have one of those where you

999
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:15,039
hit it fat, you skull it, you know, the ball

1000
00:55:15,119 --> 00:55:19,800
goes nowhere, or you miss a two footter. You can

1001
00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:25,519
identify those shots that really lose a lot to your

1002
00:55:25,519 --> 00:55:30,639
score and then see whether that's better or worse than

1003
00:55:30,679 --> 00:55:34,679
the average golfer for your handicap level, for your average score,

1004
00:55:35,159 --> 00:55:37,840
and then identify those areas where you need to improve.

1005
00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:41,480
And many golfers if they got out of a bunker

1006
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:45,360
in one shot, if when they're in the hay or

1007
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:47,599
in the woods, they get out of trouble in one shot,

1008
00:55:47,719 --> 00:55:51,559
rather than trying to pull off the miraculous rescue and

1009
00:55:51,639 --> 00:55:53,800
then hitting it out of bounds, you know, falling up

1010
00:55:53,800 --> 00:55:56,840
a bad shot with a worse shot. Reducing the number

1011
00:55:56,880 --> 00:56:02,159
of awful shots is another kind of easy way to

1012
00:56:02,920 --> 00:56:05,920
shave strokes off your game, or at least give you

1013
00:56:05,960 --> 00:56:07,599
an idea of what you need to practice.

1014
00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:16,400
Speaker 1: One of my all time favorite lines that I continue

1015
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:19,039
to tell myself never follow a bad shot with a

1016
00:56:19,079 --> 00:56:20,000
stupid shot.

1017
00:56:20,719 --> 00:56:21,840
Speaker 4: I like that. That's great.

1018
00:56:22,239 --> 00:56:23,639
Speaker 3: I thought you're going to say, bad shot with the

1019
00:56:23,639 --> 00:56:26,599
bad shot, but that's very good. Never follow a bad

1020
00:56:26,639 --> 00:56:28,920
shot with a stupid shot is great advice.

1021
00:56:29,679 --> 00:56:32,880
Speaker 1: Put in the book and talk about golf smarter. Don't

1022
00:56:32,880 --> 00:56:39,559
care about me. Talk about two ingredients to making your decision.

1023
00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:44,239
Things are the factors? What are the main things statistically speaking,

1024
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:46,559
what are the main things we should be thinking about

1025
00:56:46,599 --> 00:56:48,800
when we're trying to decide which club to hit?

1026
00:56:50,559 --> 00:56:54,719
Speaker 3: So which club to hit? The first thing is you

1027
00:56:54,760 --> 00:57:00,480
want to know your club distances? And yeah, it's absolutely critical.

1028
00:57:00,480 --> 00:57:04,079
And if that also means when you're sixty yards away,

1029
00:57:04,920 --> 00:57:07,920
what is my sixty yard swing if it's not a

1030
00:57:07,960 --> 00:57:12,239
full swing? What is my forty yard swing if it's

1031
00:57:12,280 --> 00:57:15,639
not a full swing. And it's also you know not

1032
00:57:16,159 --> 00:57:19,519
only your club distances, but it's your carry distance. So

1033
00:57:20,199 --> 00:57:22,000
depending on where you play, if you get a lot

1034
00:57:22,000 --> 00:57:25,840
of roller or not. Then a two hundred yard shot

1035
00:57:25,960 --> 00:57:29,440
may be one hundred and ninety yards of carry, or

1036
00:57:29,480 --> 00:57:31,519
it may be one hundred and seventy yards of carry.

1037
00:57:31,639 --> 00:57:33,599
You know, one with ten yards of roll, the other

1038
00:57:33,639 --> 00:57:35,199
with thirty yards a roll. And if you have a

1039
00:57:35,239 --> 00:57:38,440
hazard to clear and it's two hundred yards away, a

1040
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:40,840
lot of amateurs will say, oh, I'll take out my

1041
00:57:40,920 --> 00:57:44,000
two ten club, But that may not be right because

1042
00:57:44,039 --> 00:57:46,639
you need to keep track of not only your club distances,

1043
00:57:46,679 --> 00:57:48,280
but what are your carry distances.

1044
00:57:50,199 --> 00:57:52,039
Speaker 1: And plus they think they have a two to ten

1045
00:57:52,079 --> 00:57:53,719
club and it really is one hundred and eighty five.

1046
00:57:54,400 --> 00:57:56,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's so many people that you know, how far

1047
00:57:56,519 --> 00:57:58,360
did I hit that drive? It must have been two

1048
00:57:58,400 --> 00:58:01,119
fifty two sixty And when you look at it and

1049
00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:04,400
you know plot it, it's you know, to ten. And

1050
00:58:04,480 --> 00:58:09,360
so many people hit the ball shorter than they think

1051
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:12,320
they do for a number of reasons. So knowing your

1052
00:58:12,360 --> 00:58:16,000
club distances is certainly a good place to start. But

1053
00:58:16,079 --> 00:58:20,760
when it's a question of strategy, I think of, you know,

1054
00:58:20,840 --> 00:58:24,039
the main ingredients are what does your shot pattern look like?

1055
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:29,440
By that, I mean not how well does my best

1056
00:58:29,480 --> 00:58:33,519
shot go? But if I hit ten or twenty or

1057
00:58:33,519 --> 00:58:37,599
fifty shots. What would that distribution of shots look like

1058
00:58:37,679 --> 00:58:41,880
if I plotted it on this particular hole. And you

1059
00:58:42,000 --> 00:58:44,679
need to think about your target as moving around your

1060
00:58:44,679 --> 00:58:48,760
shot pattern, and so one ingredient is what your shot pattern,

1061
00:58:49,360 --> 00:58:52,280
what is your likely miss going to be? The other

1062
00:58:52,440 --> 00:58:55,280
ingredient is what are the features of the hole and

1063
00:58:55,320 --> 00:58:57,320
where are the hazards? You know, how wide is the

1064
00:58:57,360 --> 00:58:59,760
fair way, where are the bunkers, where's the water, where's

1065
00:58:59,760 --> 00:59:02,280
the of bounds? And you want to put those two

1066
00:59:02,519 --> 00:59:05,039
ingredients together, your shot pattern with the features of the

1067
00:59:05,079 --> 00:59:08,599
hole in order to decide how aggressive or how conservative

1068
00:59:08,639 --> 00:59:11,719
you should be. And clearly, if it's a long part

1069
00:59:11,800 --> 00:59:14,320
four and it's wide open, you can grip it and

1070
00:59:14,440 --> 00:59:17,159
rip it. But on other holes you need to be

1071
00:59:17,639 --> 00:59:20,400
more more conservative to make sure you don't have one

1072
00:59:20,440 --> 00:59:22,880
of those awful shots that go out of bounds.

1073
00:59:24,599 --> 00:59:27,239
Speaker 1: I'm sure that you're you've been witnessed to this, You've

1074
00:59:27,440 --> 00:59:30,639
a thousand times because we all have. And I'm curious

1075
00:59:30,639 --> 00:59:33,880
to what your reaction to it is. Maybe not verbally

1076
00:59:34,039 --> 00:59:36,400
to yourself, but you may say something when you walk

1077
00:59:36,480 --> 00:59:38,559
up to a t box and your partner says, I

1078
00:59:38,639 --> 00:59:40,679
hit it in the water here every time.

1079
00:59:41,880 --> 00:59:45,159
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, when when when that happens, you got to

1080
00:59:45,199 --> 00:59:49,280
say you got to step back and say, well, what

1081
00:59:49,320 --> 00:59:51,679
can I do differently to to avoid that?

1082
00:59:51,920 --> 00:59:53,679
Speaker 1: And and they pull out the same club that they

1083
00:59:53,760 --> 00:59:54,719
always use in.

1084
00:59:54,639 --> 00:59:59,199
Speaker 3: The right there's there's there's another manifestation of that. That's

1085
00:59:59,239 --> 01:00:01,360
one of the you the fun things that I've gotten

1086
01:00:01,400 --> 01:00:04,480
to do playing with some club pros and some PGA

1087
01:00:04,599 --> 01:00:08,159
tour pros, and you can see them from one hundred

1088
01:00:08,159 --> 01:00:12,400
and fifty yards and sometimes they'll hit a club that's

1089
01:00:12,559 --> 01:00:15,159
two or three clubs different than they did on the

1090
01:00:15,239 --> 01:00:18,519
last shot from one hundred and fifty yards, whereas most

1091
01:00:18,599 --> 01:00:21,679
of my friends that I play with one hundred and

1092
01:00:21,679 --> 01:00:24,159
fifty yards is a seven iron. It could be downhill,

1093
01:00:24,159 --> 01:00:26,519
it could be uphill, it could be downwind into the wind,

1094
01:00:27,400 --> 01:00:31,400
and they might change from a seven iron maybe to

1095
01:00:31,559 --> 01:00:33,679
a six or maybe to an eight, but they wouldn't

1096
01:00:33,719 --> 01:00:38,559
think about changing more than that. And the good players

1097
01:00:38,960 --> 01:00:42,840
know how to adjust, you know more, and they typically

1098
01:00:43,400 --> 01:00:46,840
take all those factors into account and they're willing to move,

1099
01:00:47,320 --> 01:00:49,480
you know, one, two or three clubs away from their

1100
01:00:49,880 --> 01:00:51,360
normal club from that distance.

1101
01:00:52,400 --> 01:00:56,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, I played band in Dunes last year, and luckily

1102
01:00:56,360 --> 01:00:58,480
we had caddies because there were shots where it was

1103
01:00:58,519 --> 01:01:01,239
a four club win right in our face. So you know,

1104
01:01:01,320 --> 01:01:03,920
it's like usually i'd hit a nine iron here, pull

1105
01:01:03,960 --> 01:01:07,320
out your you know, your three wood, you may reach it.

1106
01:01:07,840 --> 01:01:09,840
Speaker 3: And if you didn't have that county there, you'd say, ah,

1107
01:01:09,960 --> 01:01:11,719
nine iron, there's a lot of win in my face.

1108
01:01:11,800 --> 01:01:13,280
Speaker 4: Maybe you go to a seven right.

1109
01:01:13,440 --> 01:01:18,039
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe exactly, and it's uphill and it's uphill right?

1110
01:01:20,880 --> 01:01:24,800
Speaker 1: What is? What is the This to me is interesting

1111
01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:27,199
because I live next to a country club that I'm

1112
01:01:27,239 --> 01:01:33,199
not a member of, and I like playing different courses

1113
01:01:33,519 --> 01:01:38,960
a lot. But country club players, I think that their

1114
01:01:39,039 --> 01:01:43,840
handicap may be not representative of their game because they

1115
01:01:43,920 --> 01:01:46,639
get so comfortable with this course, so confident they just

1116
01:01:46,840 --> 01:01:48,719
know what to do. But if you take them out

1117
01:01:48,760 --> 01:01:53,280
to another course that they're not familiar with, their game changes.

1118
01:01:54,079 --> 01:01:54,920
Speaker 4: Oh absolutely.

1119
01:01:54,960 --> 01:01:59,280
Speaker 3: I think it takes you know, at least two rounds

1120
01:01:59,280 --> 01:02:03,800
and maybe more in order to learn a course. And

1121
01:02:05,280 --> 01:02:07,199
one of the fun things I've I've gotten to do

1122
01:02:07,320 --> 01:02:10,119
is go out with the PGA Tour pros on the uh,

1123
01:02:10,679 --> 01:02:13,960
you know, the Monday or Tuesday of a tournament where

1124
01:02:14,519 --> 01:02:19,400
they're preparing for the tournament, and they and their caddies

1125
01:02:19,480 --> 01:02:22,800
will map out the course, see what's changed from last year,

1126
01:02:23,239 --> 01:02:26,239
and they really develop a strategy to attack the course.

1127
01:02:26,280 --> 01:02:28,119
Speaker 4: Whereas I remember.

1128
01:02:27,760 --> 01:02:30,760
Speaker 3: It, you know, playing at Bend and Dune's, you know,

1129
01:02:30,880 --> 01:02:33,440
with with the caddy and I didn't know where to

1130
01:02:33,480 --> 01:02:35,239
hit it or what club to hit. And he goes, ah,

1131
01:02:35,320 --> 01:02:38,440
you know, just stame there, which so I did, and

1132
01:02:38,679 --> 01:02:40,559
you know, I took out you know, he saw I

1133
01:02:40,599 --> 01:02:42,519
had a driver in my hand, and I hit it

1134
01:02:42,599 --> 01:02:45,519
exactly where he said and it went into the trees.

1135
01:02:46,079 --> 01:02:48,719
Because he looked at me and said, oh, he's not

1136
01:02:48,760 --> 01:02:50,320
going to hit the ball more than two hundred and

1137
01:02:50,320 --> 01:02:51,800
thirty yards. And I hit it two hundred and fifty

1138
01:02:51,840 --> 01:02:54,079
yards into the trees. And I was so mad because

1139
01:02:54,079 --> 01:02:56,480
they hit a perfect shot and now I'm in the woods.

1140
01:02:58,440 --> 01:03:01,280
And that's a case of just not knowing the course

1141
01:03:02,039 --> 01:03:06,440
and that can really add up two three four shots easily.

1142
01:03:06,880 --> 01:03:12,960
So having a yardage book, mapping out the course pros

1143
01:03:13,159 --> 01:03:15,840
do it because it's their livelihood if you're just playing

1144
01:03:15,840 --> 01:03:18,840
another course for fun. That's why when I go to

1145
01:03:18,880 --> 01:03:21,039
a place like Banded Nun's, I would much rather play

1146
01:03:21,079 --> 01:03:24,000
the same course five times than to play five different courses.

1147
01:03:27,000 --> 01:03:31,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, I sometimes I find it to be an advantage

1148
01:03:31,880 --> 01:03:34,840
of you know, just tell me my target line here.

1149
01:03:34,920 --> 01:03:37,280
I've never played this course. Just tell me which direction

1150
01:03:37,360 --> 01:03:40,159
you know, and and you know, if I don't want

1151
01:03:40,199 --> 01:03:41,320
to go all the way, I don't want to be

1152
01:03:41,360 --> 01:03:45,360
too aggressive. That I don't have these preconceived notions of

1153
01:03:45,360 --> 01:03:47,199
what has happened in the past, so I can just

1154
01:03:48,000 --> 01:03:49,079
relax a little more.

1155
01:03:50,039 --> 01:03:53,360
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, I think that's that's the goal, which is

1156
01:03:54,360 --> 01:03:57,159
you you approach each shot with what's my target?

1157
01:03:57,400 --> 01:03:58,239
Speaker 4: What do I need to do?

1158
01:03:58,280 --> 01:04:00,920
Speaker 3: And you just get up and that's your entire focus

1159
01:04:01,000 --> 01:04:04,280
is hitting the shot you know in that in that direction,

1160
01:04:04,440 --> 01:04:09,519
with with that club, and having having a good caddy,

1161
01:04:10,360 --> 01:04:12,039
which you can get at a lot of courses, is

1162
01:04:12,480 --> 01:04:15,239
really helpful when you're playing, you know, a new course

1163
01:04:15,280 --> 01:04:17,280
that you're not you're not familiar with.

1164
01:04:19,000 --> 01:04:23,360
Speaker 1: Well, Mark, this has been a graduate level education. I

1165
01:04:23,480 --> 01:04:29,280
truly appreciate your time. The book. This is Mark Brody.

1166
01:04:29,320 --> 01:04:32,159
It's b R O A d I E. The website

1167
01:04:32,280 --> 01:04:34,760
is every Shot Counts dot com. Just give you a

1168
01:04:34,760 --> 01:04:38,440
little more about the book and the book. Every Shot

1169
01:04:38,480 --> 01:04:41,800
Counts using the revolutionary strokes gained approach to improve your

1170
01:04:41,800 --> 01:04:46,159
golf performance and strategy. It's available, and it is an

1171
01:04:46,199 --> 01:04:49,519
important book to have in your library because it's going

1172
01:04:49,599 --> 01:04:52,679
to change the way you think about your game. And

1173
01:04:53,119 --> 01:04:56,760
it's a necessary change in your thought process because they're

1174
01:04:56,760 --> 01:04:59,519
doing it on the tour too. And if we if

1175
01:04:59,559 --> 01:05:01,280
we buy balls, if they play in the tour, if

1176
01:05:01,320 --> 01:05:04,199
we buy equipment they play in the tour, then you

1177
01:05:04,199 --> 01:05:06,239
should be thinking like tour players.

1178
01:05:06,599 --> 01:05:09,840
Speaker 4: Do you agree? Oh? Absolutely agree that.

1179
01:05:11,320 --> 01:05:13,679
Speaker 3: As I mentioned, the PGA's war players not only hit

1180
01:05:13,719 --> 01:05:16,039
better shots, but they but they think better. And I

1181
01:05:16,079 --> 01:05:18,920
hope that this book gives you a little bit of

1182
01:05:18,920 --> 01:05:21,519
a clue or insight into into how they think.

1183
01:05:21,599 --> 01:05:24,519
Speaker 4: And uh, it's it's meant for the average golfer. It's

1184
01:05:24,519 --> 01:05:26,360
not meant for the graduate student of golf.

1185
01:05:26,440 --> 01:05:29,360
Speaker 3: So I think anybody can can read this and get

1186
01:05:29,400 --> 01:05:31,400
a little bit of value and hopefully a little bit

1187
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of fun and a couple of good stories out of it.