Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: This is Jim o'donald from Sun City, West Arizona, and
Speaker 2: I played Corna Bella golf course. This is Golf Smarter
Speaker 2: number ninety seventy.
Speaker 1: I'm a third generation golf pro. Our son is a
Speaker 1: fourth generation golf bro. My grandpa was a greens keeper
Speaker 1: and he built courses and was a golf pro in
Speaker 1: the Atlanta area starting one hundred years ago. His son
Speaker 1: and daughter, my dad and my aunt were always in
Speaker 1: the golf industry. My dad's first name is Rell. He
Speaker 1: worked for McGregor and then his sister, my aunt Louise,
Speaker 1: is one of the Ladies' Hall of Famers. I got
Speaker 1: my first lesson drummer when I was eighteen. I was
Speaker 1: on the back nine with her, the first time I'd
Speaker 1: ever played with her. So I'm all excited. I'm having
Speaker 1: a great time. And she hits this drive out there
Speaker 1: and at the time, she is fifty five years old,
Speaker 1: so she's still playing in the LPGA tournament at this time,
Speaker 1: the LPGA Championship. About halfway through the back nine, her
Speaker 1: drive starts at the right son of the ferry like always,
Speaker 1: and it kind of falls to the right a little
Speaker 1: bit and it goes a couple of steps into the
Speaker 1: right rough in the cart, and ancess starts driving, and
Speaker 1: I said, oh, why you didn't like that drive, did you?
Speaker 1: And she stopped the cart and she took me right
Speaker 1: in the eye. She said, I don't know, Joel, I
Speaker 1: don't care. I said, well, I thought you've been hitting
Speaker 1: that little draw all day. I thought you wanted to
Speaker 1: draw back. She said, well, I do want to draw back, Jel.
Speaker 1: It's been drawn back all day. But that would just
Speaker 1: stayed a little to the right. But I can still
Speaker 1: get three or four from there, can't I, Joel, So
Speaker 1: that drive doesn't bother me in the least. That's the
Speaker 1: main difference between players like me and players like you, Joel.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed my good missus. Players like you y'all complain
Speaker 1: about your good missus. She said, Joel, this is the
Speaker 1: main thing I learned from Bobby Jones. All par golf is, Joel,
Speaker 1: is getting your drive out there somewhere where you can
Speaker 1: swing at it, getting the next one on or around
Speaker 1: the green, and then you get down in two shots
Speaker 1: from there. I do not have to make one perfect
Speaker 1: swing to shoot par golf.
Speaker 3: It's time we learn how to appreciate our good missus
Speaker 3: with PGA Master Professional Joel Sucksist.
Speaker 1: Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf
Speaker 1: minds to help you lower your score and raise your
Speaker 1: golf IQ.
Speaker 3: Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome to the Golf Smurter Podcast. Joel.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Fred, it's an honored to be here with you.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's great to have you on because I always
Speaker 3: like getting instructors on, and it's a treat to have
Speaker 3: a PGA Master teaching professional on. What's the difference between
Speaker 3: a master professional and a PGA certified Instructor's that's a
Speaker 3: very good question, and well to start off, that's pretty
Speaker 3: good for me.
Speaker 1: I'm one for one indeed, indeed, and again I'm honored
Speaker 1: to be here because you have been doing it so long.
Speaker 1: I've checked out a few of them over the years.
Speaker 1: So it's like I said, it's nice to be one
Speaker 1: of your valued guest heres. So thank you. But there
Speaker 1: a lot of the confusion comes from the fact that
Speaker 1: people think the PGA Tour and the PJ of America
Speaker 1: are the same thing. Who are casual golfers. The PGA
Speaker 1: Tour are the two hundred famous guys that we see
Speaker 1: on TV every weekend, and we enjoy seeing them. But
Speaker 1: they're only about two hundred members of the PGA Tour.
Speaker 1: But the PGA of America has thirty thousand members, and
Speaker 1: I'm one of those thirty thousand, and we're the club pros.
Speaker 1: We're the fellas who run the shop at you know
Speaker 1: Hard Scrabble Country Club or you know Glenn Meadows golf
Speaker 1: Course down the road, un municipal golf course down the road.
Speaker 1: We're the fellows who run the shop there, who operate
Speaker 1: the business. So they are thirty thousand of us. Now,
Speaker 1: there are twenty four different types of PGA of America member,
Speaker 1: and so maybe a head pro to driving range is
Speaker 1: classified as an A two, whereas a head pro to
Speaker 1: golf course who's a PGA members classified as A one.
Speaker 1: I'm called an A six because I just give lessons
Speaker 1: all day long, every day since nineteen ninety two when
Speaker 1: I left Sea Island to go down to the Jacksonville,
Speaker 1: Prontavidre area. And then in two thousand, I had been
Speaker 1: a member for ten years and I had had some
Speaker 1: good success as a teaching pro, and I'd done a
Speaker 1: lot of studying to become a master professional, and so
Speaker 1: in two thousand I became a master professional. And that's
Speaker 1: just because I've done so much education and kind of
Speaker 1: a thesis, like a graduate level thesis, a big workbook.
Speaker 1: I presented and passed a oral test with some mucky
Speaker 1: MUCKs down in Florida, and so they called me a
Speaker 1: master professional. Since two thousand and they are about three
Speaker 1: hundred of us now I think in the United States
Speaker 1: that are master professionals, But about two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: of those master professionals run courses. They're a head pro
Speaker 1: or a general manager at a country club or a
Speaker 1: public course or a resort. But only about one hundred
Speaker 1: of US master professionals tea each full time. Like me.
Speaker 1: I think they're only about one hundred of US or
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty of US. Maybe I'm one of
Speaker 1: those hundred and one hundred and twenty mass professionals in
Speaker 1: the country who just teach. We don't run a course,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't manage the employees or run the
Speaker 1: tournaments or run the food and beverage. We just give
Speaker 1: lessons all day. And I've been doing that since nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two. Like I said, when I left Seattle, so
Speaker 1: a mass professional just has a higher level of education,
Speaker 1: certification and accomplishment. And then among PJA Master professionals, there
Speaker 1: are only about one hundred of us who actually just
Speaker 1: teach all day, just give lessons. We don't run the shop.
Speaker 1: We're thankful for the guys who run the shop so
Speaker 1: we can have a beautiful goal for us. You are
Speaker 1: in a beautiful driving range and a beautiful resort to
Speaker 1: go to because of our fellow professionals, So that gives
Speaker 1: you a little lightly. I'm just one of the guys
Speaker 1: who just teaches all day and happens to also be
Speaker 1: a mass professional.
Speaker 3: And do the master professionals also instruct PGA instructors.
Speaker 1: That's a good question too, man. I appreciate that the
Speaker 1: I have done a few classes over the years. It's
Speaker 1: some of our chapter or section meetings because the guys
Speaker 1: knew of my reputation wanted me to do that. I've
Speaker 1: also taught classes at the Professional Golf Management Program at
Speaker 1: Ohio State University, where they train college age students who
Speaker 1: want to become PGA members, and I've enjoyed doing that
Speaker 1: about once a year for about eight years or so.
Speaker 1: I taught a class up there for the professional golf
Speaker 1: management students who are burgeoning PGA members. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: quite often we'll get called upon to tell the guys,
Speaker 1: you know, the things we've learned over the years.
Speaker 3: Now you mentioned there's a one, A two, and you're
Speaker 3: in a six. Is there a three, four and five?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Indeed, when I became a member in nineteen ninety, a
Speaker 1: PGA member in nineteen ninety, I was working at Sea
Speaker 1: Island at the time, and I think there were nine
Speaker 1: different class A card members, nine different types. A one
Speaker 1: was a head pro to golf course. A two is
Speaker 1: a head pro to driving range. A three was I
Speaker 1: think a tour player. A PGA tour player in fact
Speaker 1: is a three in fact okay, and so that's that.
Speaker 1: And then a four I think was like a past
Speaker 1: president of the association. A five was something else. So
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety there were six or about nine classifications,
Speaker 1: you know, because you're doing different work, so they decided
Speaker 1: to kept different classifications. And then now that it's up
Speaker 1: to a twenty four. Oh so now see, if you
Speaker 1: work at Golf Galaxy, you can still be a PGA member.
Speaker 1: In the old days, if you weren't a head pro
Speaker 1: to golf course or driving range, green grass, and you
Speaker 1: went to work at Walmart and even if you sold
Speaker 1: golf equipment there, you couldn't be called a PGA member anymore.
Speaker 1: You left the golf industry in their mind. So they've
Speaker 1: done a lot of improvising in my lifetime where now
Speaker 1: you're up to a twenty four, and in fact, it's
Speaker 1: kind of cute. A twenty four is a PG member
Speaker 1: who cannot be classified as one of the first twenty
Speaker 1: three classifications, so he's just you know, you might be
Speaker 1: a golf course architect, you might be a college golf coach.
Speaker 1: You might be a club repair guy all day long. Again,
Speaker 1: you might work at an off course store, so all
Speaker 1: these possibilities. Now you can still be a PG member
Speaker 1: and do all these things that older people would say
Speaker 1: that's not the traditional golf pro at a golf course,
Speaker 1: But you can still be a PGA member now, and
Speaker 1: so it's been pretty interesting to watch. So, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: all the way up to a twenty four.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Is there a B level or is it just.
Speaker 1: A that's a great question again, Fred, the B level
Speaker 1: of B, it doesn't go past B A B one.
Speaker 1: Let's say a B one is an associate and apprentice.
Speaker 1: So let's say you're you're they pro at Uh, what's Martin?
Speaker 1: Isn't that Martine where you live? Martin Martin and so
Speaker 1: and what's that. There's a nice club out there that's
Speaker 1: had some USGA championships.
Speaker 3: The Olympic Club.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, yeah, Harding Park. Let's say it's Olympic Club
Speaker 1: in fact that Yeah, So the head pro at Olympic Club,
Speaker 1: who's a PJ member, he has an assistant pro who's
Speaker 1: called an apprentice or an associate, and he's a he's
Speaker 1: actually becoming a member, right, he's going through his apprenticeship.
Speaker 1: He's learning, so he is called an associate. He would
Speaker 1: be called and let's say he works in the shop,
Speaker 1: he would be called a B one okay, and then
Speaker 1: when he gets his membership, he would be called if
Speaker 1: he stay, because if he becomes the head probably is
Speaker 1: called an A one. So B one is basically a
Speaker 1: PGA apprentice associate.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: They're learning with ropes and that goes from B one
Speaker 1: I think through BE twenty four. So if you're an
Speaker 1: assistant pro and you haven't gotten your membership yet, you're
Speaker 1: a B eight, you're bait because you're not quite a
Speaker 1: member yet, so you're b you're considered as an apprentice
Speaker 1: slavish associate.
Speaker 3: So I guess as a podcaster, I'm like Z ten.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a good question. I think there might be
Speaker 1: a classification.
Speaker 3: There is one for media classification.
Speaker 1: Yeah, executive. You could be a pg member in executive management,
Speaker 1: where the people who run like a local golf association,
Speaker 1: like the California Golf Association, you know, something like that,
Speaker 1: the people who run your amateur tournaments in San Francisco area.
Speaker 1: That a PGA member if he wanted to transition from
Speaker 1: being in the green grass world, he could run the
Speaker 1: local golf association in your city, and some of them
Speaker 1: do that. So yeah, and I bet you could be
Speaker 1: a broadcaster.
Speaker 3: Okay, well maybe, but I do help at the first T. Indeed,
Speaker 3: I kind of coach at the first T and maybe
Speaker 3: I can get myself up from a Z to an X.
Speaker 1: Indeed, I tell you I was at the playing ability
Speaker 1: test on Wednesday here locally. What is that nineteen eighteen
Speaker 1: men and one lady trying to become a PGA member
Speaker 1: in the sense that they were trying to pass the
Speaker 1: playing ability test and at three or four of them
Speaker 1: were over the age of fifty.
Speaker 3: Good for us.
Speaker 1: It's not always just the college age guys that are
Speaker 1: getting in the business.
Speaker 3: Great, great, all right, So there's so much to talk
Speaker 3: about golf instruction. If that's what you're focused on doing
Speaker 3: every day, is instructing amateur golfers recreational golfers, then I'm
Speaker 3: going to want to get deep into that because I'm
Speaker 3: sure you see a lot of the same thing over
Speaker 3: and over and over again.
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 3: This is an audio podcast. You can't not here, Okay.
Speaker 1: So you'd like to know what some of the same
Speaker 1: thing is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we'll do that after this, yes, sir, after this,
Speaker 3: all right, Joel, let's get into it. Let's talk about
Speaker 3: golf instruction. This is really what it's all about here.
Speaker 3: And you know what people are doing when they walk
Speaker 3: in and how they've changed when they walk out. What
Speaker 3: do you see on a regular.
Speaker 1: Basis, Well, what I have found over the years, Fred,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, is that you and I and
Speaker 1: the guy who shoots a hundred actually played just like Bryson.
Speaker 3: Oh well, that's good to know.
Speaker 1: And Tiger Woods, believe it or not. And what I
Speaker 1: mean that is we're all fighting the same battle. All
Speaker 1: of us have a personal bell curve, all right, I
Speaker 1: say our bell curve stands for PGA poor good average,
Speaker 1: all of us. All of us, sixty percent of our
Speaker 1: rounds are average. According to U. Tucker's statistician a lawyer
Speaker 1: or girl who's just majored in math in college. It's
Speaker 1: a fact everybody has sixty percent of their rounds begin
Speaker 1: average and twenty percent of their rounds being on the
Speaker 1: good side of their bell curve and twenty percent of
Speaker 1: their rounds being on the poor side of their bell curve.
Speaker 1: So I call that your personal PGA. Belkerk poor good
Speaker 1: average is what PGA stands for in this scenario. And
Speaker 1: what I've found is that there are three things that
Speaker 1: really determine where you fall in each and every round
Speaker 1: on your personal bell curve. Whether you are Tiger Bryson,
Speaker 1: Fred or Joel or missus Kerfluffle at.
Speaker 3: The club, be nice to missus Kerfluffel.
Speaker 1: Indeed, absolutely, mister A.
Speaker 3: I mean, now I'm really intrigued here. Let's talk about
Speaker 3: what the commonality is because to always noticed, I've always
Speaker 3: kind of noticed that it's like any given day you
Speaker 3: can go ten strokes either direction, and I guess the
Speaker 3: lower you go that narrows down dramatically. The higher number
Speaker 3: you have on a regular basis that that could go
Speaker 3: beyond ten strokes. But yeah, any day.
Speaker 1: Right, and that's what I'm saying. You go out, you
Speaker 1: don't know where you're going to fall that day on
Speaker 1: your PGA bell curve, but I guarantee it. You know,
Speaker 1: Bryson's personal bell curve is maybe let's say sixty five
Speaker 1: to the good, this poor would be seventy four, and
Speaker 1: his average would be sixty nine. But I'm going to
Speaker 1: say I have the same bell curve in the sense
Speaker 1: that it's sixty percent average, twenty percent good, twenty percent
Speaker 1: four mine. If I go out right now today, the
Speaker 1: way I'm playing this season, if I played poorly, I'd
Speaker 1: shoot on a normal course, normal weather, about eight eighty
Speaker 1: or eighty one is poor, and then my good would
Speaker 1: be like seventy, you know, seventy seventy one. My average
Speaker 1: would be seventy four, seventy five or seventy six, something
Speaker 1: like that, and it would be silly. But from some
Speaker 1: guys who are in my position, they go out and
Speaker 1: they shoot seventy five and they say I had a
Speaker 1: terrible day, when maybe if we really looked at the
Speaker 1: at God's video on their real scores on their personal
Speaker 1: PJ bell curve seventy five, maybe it might be to
Speaker 1: the good side of their belt curve. So I would
Speaker 1: say that PJ master pro who doesn't really honestly know
Speaker 1: himself is deceived, or he's arrogant or something. And so
Speaker 1: I like all students, whether they're a club pro that
Speaker 1: I teach, or a mini TOURU thare I teach, or
Speaker 1: a guy who's just starting out to understand. Look, you
Speaker 1: have a personal bell curve. Let's just try to get
Speaker 1: your belt curve to inch down like an inch worm
Speaker 1: and gradually get all three of those scores. You're poor,
Speaker 1: you're good on your average a little lower, you know,
Speaker 1: by just populating the good side of your bell curve
Speaker 1: a little more often, so that side of the bell
Speaker 1: curve fattens up a little bit. The poor side of
Speaker 1: the bell curve goes a little farther away now on
Speaker 1: your bell curve. And there are three things that I've
Speaker 1: found this is how we all play, just like Bryson
Speaker 1: and Tiger and Rory. There are three things I've found
Speaker 1: that really determine in each round were you're going to
Speaker 1: fall on your bell curve. So I can say those
Speaker 1: three things, pread.
Speaker 3: Do you think please?
Speaker 1: Okay, there are three things that create big holes at
Speaker 1: any level of play. When I first start teaching down
Speaker 1: full time down in Jacksonville pant of Bedre area, these
Speaker 1: guys be hitting a grate on the video, I'm thinking, man,
Speaker 1: this guy's hitting it great. You know, he shoots ninety
Speaker 1: ninety five and he's hitting a grate warming up. And
Speaker 1: I get him on my eight star video and said, wow,
Speaker 1: you know, mister Jones, that looks fantastic. You're hitting it
Speaker 1: great the less he's his goal. I love your lessons.
Speaker 1: I am hitting great, joy I said, yeah, mister joneson
Speaker 1: I'm hitting it better than me. I mean, what are
Speaker 1: you shooting? He says, Oh, Joe, I'm still shooting about
Speaker 1: ninety I'm still shoot about forty five in my nine
Speaker 1: hole league, you know, But I mean, I love your lessons,
Speaker 1: jo All, I'm hitting it great, and so I'm he
Speaker 1: and I are excited. Glad he likes the lessons. Glad
Speaker 1: he's hitting it better. But it confounded me. It's like,
Speaker 1: why are these people, some of them hitting it better
Speaker 1: than me, and they're shooting ninety and I'm shooting low
Speaker 1: to mid seventies. And so I started doing a lot
Speaker 1: more playing lessons at the Beautiful Horses down in that
Speaker 1: area in Jacksonville in front of your driven What I
Speaker 1: found out, this is how I found it out. They
Speaker 1: have six or seven holes that he says, Oh, man,
Speaker 1: I'm having six or seven holes like a tour player. Baby,
Speaker 1: I'm about even one, two, three over, man, I'm going.
Speaker 1: And then I have two or three holes like a
Speaker 1: blind man. You know, I make a trip on a
Speaker 1: double on a double and I shoot my forty five.
Speaker 3: You know what I like to call that?
Speaker 1: What's that friend?
Speaker 3: Ray Ray Golf? Yeah, sometimes I play like Ray Floyd.
Speaker 3: Sometimes at play like Ray Charles.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure you've heard this lament before. Oh this
Speaker 1: is thirty years ago, and I'm really confounded. So I
Speaker 1: started doing a lot more playing lessons, and this is
Speaker 1: what I found those big holes. They have a drive
Speaker 1: out of play, they missagreeing with a pitch, or they
Speaker 1: three five or do they do all of them my
Speaker 1: moth and but on the other holes. So that's why
Speaker 1: they play six holes one over and three holes eight over,
Speaker 1: which equals nine over for nine holes. And I'm like man,
Speaker 1: and so I started quantifying this thirty thirty five years ago,
Speaker 1: and I've been quantifying it ever since. And I've constantly
Speaker 1: whittled down the kind of stats I keep depending on
Speaker 1: the level of the person and the level of what
Speaker 1: I'm learning, as I continue to teach every day and
Speaker 1: try to be humble and and open minded just at
Speaker 1: whatever facts the student and I are learning about their
Speaker 1: game and what I'm learning about golf in general. And
Speaker 1: it's really a lot of fun to show that to people,
Speaker 1: to say, yeah, you and Tiger played just the same game.
Speaker 1: You're fighting the same battle. I could show you all
Speaker 1: kinds of tour player scorecards because I had to find
Speaker 1: stats a lot different than pretty much everybody else in
Speaker 1: the industry. And I can show you how Bryson he
Speaker 1: didn't I called these three things bozo shots, by the way,
Speaker 1: so I could show you how Bryson did not have
Speaker 1: a bozo shot at the US Open this year until
Speaker 1: the sixteenth old of the third round on Saturday. He
Speaker 1: missed the green of the pitch, and then he pitched
Speaker 1: on a two buttted cru his double. But he up
Speaker 1: until then, he had not hit a drive out of play,
Speaker 1: He had not had a three butt on those crazy
Speaker 1: Pinehurst greens, and he had not missed a pitch green
Speaker 1: with a pitch on those crazy greens where guys are
Speaker 1: missing pitches all day long. Bryson was a bad man
Speaker 1: that weekend four days, and a big part of it,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you. The reasoning won is the same reason
Speaker 1: a guy will shoot ninety four and have his best ever,
Speaker 1: all right, is because he had fewer bozo shots than
Speaker 1: he normally does. And that's why that ninety four shooter
Speaker 1: got to the good side of his bell curve. Bryson
Speaker 1: got to the good side of his bell curve, just
Speaker 1: like the ninety four shooter. Bryson did it at Pinehurst
Speaker 1: during the US Open that weekend, and he wins by
Speaker 1: a stroke. You know, so I can figure and where
Speaker 1: the stats would be the same. The traditional stats or
Speaker 1: even some of the more modern stats that are being kept,
Speaker 1: would say all these two guys played the same like
Speaker 1: Bryce in that weekend. It strokes game was twenty third
Speaker 1: in the field. So but in the way I keep,
Speaker 1: the way I describe the reality, he only had one
Speaker 1: zero bozo shots the first day, zero bozo shots, the
Speaker 1: second day, one bozo shot. The third day. He had
Speaker 1: five boso shots the last round, but was still able
Speaker 1: to win by one.
Speaker 3: Because he had that miracle shot on the from the
Speaker 3: bunker on eighteen right.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yep, he had his drive out of play there
Speaker 1: on eighteen. That was one of his three drives out
Speaker 1: of play that day, but he hacked it out off
Speaker 1: the route up around the green and then got up
Speaker 1: and down beautifully historically, So those are the three things
Speaker 1: they're really for even Bryson Tiger, Rory Joel Fred and
Speaker 1: mister and missus Kirk Fluffel at the club, those are
Speaker 1: the three things that really dictate where you're going to
Speaker 1: be that particular day on your personal unique Dja Belker Wow.
Speaker 3: So I would look at it as you know, the
Speaker 3: guy he has a great swing, it's working well, but
Speaker 3: he's not working on a short game. He's just working
Speaker 3: on the full swing, and he doesn't have the feel
Speaker 3: or the touch to like what may be the hardest
Speaker 3: shot in golf actually is like thirty yards out right
Speaker 3: to the flag.
Speaker 1: Exactly. There's so so that's the negative part of those
Speaker 1: three shots. The bad thing when all of us do
Speaker 1: it is and I can show that tour players do it,
Speaker 1: you know, and I've kept track of that over the
Speaker 1: years on certain famous twil player rounds. And you know,
Speaker 1: a drive out of play missing a green with a pitch,
Speaker 1: which I call a three pitch quote unquote, just to
Speaker 1: make it sound nice and derogatory like a three putt.
Speaker 1: So a drive out to play a dupe a three
Speaker 1: pitch and a three putt. So the converse of that
Speaker 1: is when we do get the drive in play, when
Speaker 1: we do get the pitch on the green, and when
Speaker 1: we do two putt. So the beautiful skill there that
Speaker 1: the best players have gotten better at than the rest
Speaker 1: of us is being able to get a drive in play,
Speaker 1: being able to get a pitch on the green, and
Speaker 1: being able to hit your first put the perfect distance
Speaker 1: so that your second putt is a short putt, you know,
Speaker 1: a little tapping right right. And that's what we need
Speaker 1: to get good at. We need to get learn how
Speaker 1: to get good drive and play, how to get a
Speaker 1: pitch on the green, and how to get that first
Speaker 1: butt the perfect.
Speaker 3: Distance for a golfer. To understand your concept of PGA poor,
Speaker 3: good and average in relation to their scores, and they're
Speaker 3: what they generally shoot. I would think that once you
Speaker 3: understand that, the mental game changes dramatically, right, because when
Speaker 3: you are having those three holes where you're eight over,
Speaker 3: you're beating yourself up pretty good and will probably impact
Speaker 3: the rest of your round.
Speaker 1: Exactly. Oh okay, absolutely and so and that's why a
Speaker 1: big thing with my teaching I call my teaching golf success,
Speaker 1: because I really want everybody to learn what they're doing right,
Speaker 1: even more so than what they're doing wrong. And so
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time teaching my students, this
Speaker 1: is what you're doing, This is what you're doing right.
Speaker 1: It's like a lawn, you know, if you get if
Speaker 1: you've got, don't come help me with my lawn. I
Speaker 1: got a weed problem, I say, well, really, you don't
Speaker 1: have a weed problem, you have a grass problem. If
Speaker 1: you've got more grass, like a golf fairway, you get
Speaker 1: all this grass, there's just no room for the weeds.
Speaker 1: So I want to help you learn how to get
Speaker 1: that drive in play. Let's get the good stuff going.
Speaker 1: What are you doing right on those drives you get
Speaker 1: in play? What are you doing right on those pitches
Speaker 1: where you hit the green. What are you doing right
Speaker 1: on those putts where you've hit the first put the
Speaker 1: perfect distance. So absolutely, you've got to learn what you're
Speaker 1: doing right, I feel, and let's make that grow and
Speaker 1: blossom and then there just won't be any room for
Speaker 1: the weeds.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: And And do you spend time, especially in teaching lessons,
Speaker 3: do you work with a person on their mental approach
Speaker 3: and how they're keep them from beating themselves up getting
Speaker 3: in the her own way? As Joe parent would.
Speaker 1: Say, Yeah, indeed, indeed, And what I'd do absolutely, I'll
Speaker 1: tell people the story I first got this, a beautifully
Speaker 1: learned lesson on this when I was eighteen years of age.
Speaker 1: I had just turned eighteen. I was away from my
Speaker 1: golf side of the family. I'm a third generation golf pro.
Speaker 1: Our son is a fourth generation golf pro.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: My grandpa was a greens keeper and he built courses
Speaker 1: and was a golf pro in the Atlanta area starting
Speaker 1: one hundred years ago. His son and daughter, my dad
Speaker 1: and my aunt were always in the golf industry. My
Speaker 1: dad's first name is Rell. He passed away about thirty
Speaker 1: years ago. He worked for McGregor from nineteen forty eight
Speaker 1: to nineteen seventy four, and then his sister. My Aunt
Speaker 1: Louise is one of the Ladies Hall of Famers, one
Speaker 1: of the founders, and she there were only three ladies
Speaker 1: who won more tournaments than my Aunt Louise on the
Speaker 1: latest tour, and I was playing with her. I got
Speaker 1: my first lesson from her when I was eighteen down
Speaker 1: at Saffaire Valley, North Carolina. I was on the nine
Speaker 1: with her, the first time I'd ever played with her.
Speaker 1: So I'm all excited. I'm having a great time. And
Speaker 1: she hits this drive out there and at the time
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, so she is fifty five years old,
Speaker 1: so she's still playing in the LPGA tournament at this time,
Speaker 1: the LPGA Championship. She could still play pretty well at
Speaker 1: age fifty five. About halfway through the back nine, her
Speaker 1: drive starts at the right center of the ferry like always,
Speaker 1: and it kind of falls to the right a little
Speaker 1: bit and it goes a couple of steps into the
Speaker 1: right rough and so we hop in the cart and
Speaker 1: recoll her Aunt Sis in our family, and ant Sis
Speaker 1: starts driving and I said to her, I said, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: an Sis, you didn't like that drive, did you? And
Speaker 1: she stopped the cart and she looked at me, looked
Speaker 1: me right in the eye. She said, I said, well,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with that drive? Why did she goes? I
Speaker 1: don't know, Joean, I don't care. I said, well, I
Speaker 1: thought you've been hitting that little draw all day. I
Speaker 1: thought you wanted to draw back. She said, well I did.
Speaker 1: I do want to draw back. Jel's been drawn back
Speaker 1: all day, but that one just stayed a little to
Speaker 1: the right. But I can still get three or four
Speaker 1: from there, can't I, Joel? And I said yes, ma'am, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And she said, Joel, So that drive doesn't bother me
Speaker 1: in the least. She said, Joel, that's the main difference
Speaker 1: between players like me and players like you, Joel. At
Speaker 1: this time, I was about a seven handicap. I was
Speaker 1: eighteen years old, break eady on a good day, she says, Joel,
Speaker 1: I enjoy my goodnesses. Players like you y'all complain about
Speaker 1: your good misses. She said, Joel, this is the main
Speaker 1: thing I learned from Bobby Jones in Atlanta, playing with
Speaker 1: him all the time at East Lake and other places.
Speaker 1: Old Man Parr Joel all par golf is Joel is
Speaker 1: getting your drive out there somewhere where you can swing
Speaker 1: at it, getting the next one ho or around the green,
Speaker 1: and then you get down in two shots from there, Joel,
Speaker 1: I do not have to make one swing to shoot
Speaker 1: for golf, I said, Okay. Then she started driving the
Speaker 1: card again, and so, Fred, I've been trying to essentially
Speaker 1: learn the relevance of that lesson I learned that day
Speaker 1: when I was eighteen years of age at South Valley,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, from my Hall of Fame aunt that. Of course,
Speaker 1: my logical reaction is, well, why am I trying to
Speaker 1: make my swing perfect? If I'm shooting around eighty, there
Speaker 1: must be something I'm missing. She's the LPGA Hall of Famer.
Speaker 1: I'm the eighteen year old seven handicap. I don't understand
Speaker 1: what she's saying, but I think I should probably seek
Speaker 1: to understand it because it works for her and Bobby Jones.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a totally different paradigm in terms of
Speaker 1: the mental game of Fred, which is why I like
Speaker 1: golf smarter, you know, And I tuned into your podcast
Speaker 1: off and on over the years, the last ten, fifteen
Speaker 1: years or twenty years you've done. So it's like I
Speaker 1: like golf smarter and harder both. And so that's the
Speaker 1: mindset of a Hall of Fame player Bobby Jones, Louise
Speaker 1: Suggs and others. So yeah, I work on it in
Speaker 1: the lessons tremendously with people to help them enjoy their
Speaker 1: good misses. Be like the Hall of Famer. Enjoy your
Speaker 1: good misses. Don't be like the other ninety shooters you
Speaker 1: play with. And when the ninety shooter hits it a
Speaker 1: little thin out into the two steps into the right
Speaker 1: rough about one ninety or two hundred, and he gripes
Speaker 1: about it, don't you be like him? Just shake your
Speaker 1: head and think the Hall of Famers would enjoy that
Speaker 1: good miss. The ninety guys who are staying ninety shooters
Speaker 1: for ten, twenty, thirty, forty fifty years, they're gonna cripe
Speaker 1: about that good miss and they're not going to improve.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's an amazing lesson because there is no perfect
Speaker 4: in golf, and striving for perfection is just like and
Speaker 4: yourself over the head with a bat.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just you're not going to get there.
Speaker 3: You have to accept what it gives you, right, And
Speaker 3: that's why we keep going out. I mean, so many people.
Speaker 3: They'll go to the driving range for the first time,
Speaker 3: or they're with a friend, or they're doing something and
Speaker 3: they get one swing it all and that's all it takes, right,
Speaker 3: It's just one swing where it works, and you go, oh,
Speaker 3: I love this game and you're and then it's a
Speaker 3: constant search for the rest of your life to do
Speaker 3: it again. And even if you do it, you're like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I want to do it again. Guy once said to me,
Speaker 3: you know I want for Christmas this year, and I said,
Speaker 3: what's that and he said, two good swings in a row.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, Yeah, So I still think it's fun to
Speaker 1: strive for that perfection. Oh sure, And of course we
Speaker 1: all agree that. You know, I don't want to try
Speaker 1: to hit it bad, you know, but what ansists taught
Speaker 1: me that day, and again, like I said, this created her.
Speaker 1: It was a big part of creating her Hall of
Speaker 1: Fame career. And she learned it from Bobby Jones, which
Speaker 1: helped it. You know, he got a lot more chilled
Speaker 1: out on his missus and that helped him start winning majors.
Speaker 1: Was to still keep trying for perfection, but understand golf,
Speaker 1: real golf well enough to understand what is golf success
Speaker 1: for each of the five shots in golf and then
Speaker 1: accept it and say, sweet, I can play par golf
Speaker 1: with that, maybe if I missed it well enough and
Speaker 1: to be able to recognize that, to be hip enough
Speaker 1: to your own self, your own golf game and golf
Speaker 1: in general, to say, sweet, can I give you a
Speaker 1: couple examples of that?
Speaker 3: Please?
Speaker 1: So in my newly published book here that you said
Speaker 1: I could mention.
Speaker 3: Here, please do and tell us the title It's.
Speaker 1: A golf success before every round, and Fred, you can
Speaker 1: see here. Since you and I are on video and
Speaker 1: most everybody else is on audio, they won't see it, obviously.
Speaker 1: But there's a three colored chart there at the back
Speaker 1: of the book that everyone who's read the book has said,
Speaker 1: this is so helpful, Joel, that the yellow is what
Speaker 1: the shot actually did. In the middle column there what
Speaker 1: the ball actually did. The green is the golf success
Speaker 1: that the Hall of Famer's mindset their reaction to that shot.
Speaker 1: The red is the average guy's reaction to the shot.
Speaker 1: All right, So, and I like to say, they're only
Speaker 1: five shots in golf, essentially, drive, approach, pitch, chip put,
Speaker 1: so a drive it goes in. Here's the ball result, Fred,
Speaker 1: So this is the yellow column. On this particular example,
Speaker 1: he goes into the edge of the left of two
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty yard from the tee. The average guy
Speaker 1: in his old golf paradigm. He says, Man, I'm mad.
Speaker 1: I should have been in a fair way at two
Speaker 1: hunred and forty and fifty yards. But in the fellow's
Speaker 1: new golf paradigm. If he reads my book, you know
Speaker 1: many of my students have adopted this paradigm. Not all
Speaker 1: of them have. Ah, life is real, right, But the
Speaker 1: guys who are improving the most, of the girls whore
Speaker 1: improving the most, the juniors I teacher improved most have
Speaker 1: adopted this new golf paradigm. Now, the same ball result,
Speaker 1: it's in the edge of the left roof two hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty yards from the team. Now in the new
Speaker 1: golf paradigm. Instead of being mad, that should have been
Speaker 1: two fifteen, here's the new golf paradigm. Sweet, I have
Speaker 1: another drive in play. I know I hit it on
Speaker 1: the heel a little bit and gotten the left ruff
Speaker 1: a little bit. That's a fact. It's also a fact, baby,
Speaker 1: this is a drive in play, and it is not
Speaker 1: gonna tend to put me towards the poor side of
Speaker 1: my bell crew. Sweet baby, I got another drive in play.
Speaker 3: Just because you're not on the in the fairway doesn't
Speaker 3: mean you're not in play, right, I've got a ball
Speaker 3: in play. I didn't lose it. It's not underwater. I'm
Speaker 3: just I'm just enamored with learned to enjoy the good misses.
Speaker 1: It'll help you create a Hall of Fame career maybe, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And so driving play people ask me what do you
Speaker 1: mean by driving place? And it's pretty much what you
Speaker 1: said there, Fred. Basically, like my aunt said, I can
Speaker 1: swing at it. I don't have to bend it around
Speaker 1: trees or slice it or hook it around or over trees,
Speaker 1: or take a company shot that drives in play. You know,
Speaker 1: if left rough, Joan Carner told me forty years ago,
Speaker 1: because I've got to know some of those other Hall
Speaker 1: of famers that my aunt has befriended over the last
Speaker 1: sixty seventy years. And Ms Carner told me a long
Speaker 1: time ago. She said, lay up so I can have
Speaker 1: a forearn from the fairway. Oh way, I'd rather have
Speaker 1: an eight or nine iron from the rough. Than a
Speaker 1: forearm from the fairway all day long, you know. And
Speaker 1: missus Carner understands this. She's breaking her age now in
Speaker 1: major championships.
Speaker 3: Amazing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's a drive and play is you have
Speaker 1: a swing at it and you don't have to bend
Speaker 1: it or hooked it around trees. If you have to
Speaker 1: bend or hooked around trees or take a puny shop
Speaker 1: or go under some limbs, you have to change your
Speaker 1: approach shot, then that drives out of play right right.
Speaker 3: And with those out of play, what we like to
Speaker 3: say here is never follow a bad shot with a
Speaker 3: stupid shot.
Speaker 1: Exactly right exactly.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, well, you know, yeah, I'm in the trees,
Speaker 3: but I can see the flag from here. No no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: you're looking at double bogie. Easy, Just put it back
Speaker 3: in the fairway, go for the bogie and be happy,
Speaker 3: right yep, or as your aunt would say, no, no,
Speaker 3: it's a good mess. We can we can still part
Speaker 3: of the hole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's uh. I'll tell you another example. Another
Speaker 1: way I teach this to people. I have people play
Speaker 1: a scramble, either two or three or four players. Just
Speaker 1: played one Aaron Woods here a few weeks ago to
Speaker 1: historic public course here in Cincinnati where a lot of
Speaker 1: the McGregor guys played back in thirties, forty fifties and sixties,
Speaker 1: when they'd come into the McGregor factory on Spring Grove Avenue,
Speaker 1: a few minutes away from Shearon Woods. And it was
Speaker 1: very interesting. Fred, I could show you this, you know,
Speaker 1: if we had the little charts, I could show you.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Those guys' full swings. We used about as
Speaker 1: many as these guys full swings as we used of mine.
Speaker 1: And we actually used about the same number of their
Speaker 1: short game shots as we used of mine. All right,
Speaker 1: and these guys are ten to fourteen handicaps. And so
Speaker 1: I asked each of them afterwards when I showed them
Speaker 1: the chart that I kept unbeknownst to them. I didn't
Speaker 1: want them to be self conscious about it that I
Speaker 1: was keeping this, but I showed them. I said, look,
Speaker 1: why is it that your good shots are just as
Speaker 1: good as mine? But you guys shoot eighty to one
Speaker 1: hundred and I shoot seventy to eighty. And these guys
Speaker 1: are pretty smart. They're all students of mine. A couple
Speaker 1: of them picked up on a pretty guick. They said,
Speaker 1: Oh it's my when I hit it poorly, my misses
Speaker 1: are not as good as yours, jal I said, exactly.
Speaker 1: And you're you're not going to improve in golf as
Speaker 1: quickly as you could and as enjoyably as you could
Speaker 1: if you don't start enjoying your good misses. That's the key.
Speaker 1: Such a huge aspect of what my aunt taught me
Speaker 1: that day forty six years ago, and what the good
Speaker 1: players have learned. They enjoy their good misses rather than
Speaker 1: griping about them.
Speaker 3: Attitude, it's about your attitude, right, and attention and attention.
Speaker 3: Like you, you in a place that you're not comfortable with,
Speaker 3: you're going to add tension to you, to your shoulders,
Speaker 3: to your neck, to your arms, to your body, to
Speaker 3: your swing right, and just if you just can breathe
Speaker 3: through it, relax and just you know, accept what happened
Speaker 3: and move forward, you can shoot lower scores. Indeed, and
Speaker 3: I think I think that's what's I've tried to accomplish
Speaker 3: all along in doing this podcast is getting advice from
Speaker 3: people like you and getting insights that really helped me go, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm good here, and I've been able to you know,
Speaker 3: bring my index down and have more fun playing.
Speaker 1: Indeed, and again that's that's absolutely a huge part of
Speaker 1: the middle game. And I say, it's not, you know,
Speaker 1: blowing smoke up somebody's fanny. You're trying to just put
Speaker 1: on rose colored glasses or the power positive thinking. I say, no,
Speaker 1: this is based on facts. I have thousands of scorecards
Speaker 1: that I started keeping thirty and forty years ago that
Speaker 1: where I was trying to determine what causes me to
Speaker 1: have a good score, what causes me to have a
Speaker 1: bad score. And then when I started teaching in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty seven and then full time in ninety two, I
Speaker 1: kept keeping scorecards. Facts. These are facts. It's true, it's
Speaker 1: mental game, but it's not just blowing smoke up each
Speaker 1: other's vand and you're trying to stay positive and all
Speaker 1: this stuff. You know, it's hey, man, if that drives
Speaker 1: in the right rough, it really is not going to
Speaker 1: hurt your score unless you mentally, like you're alluding to threat,
Speaker 1: you mentally allow it to start cranking your angstuff and
Speaker 1: you get all gripe because you didn't make a perfect swing.
Speaker 1: When the Hall of Famer would tell you, I don't
Speaker 1: need one perfect swing to shoot far.
Speaker 3: Wow. That is a lesson that we all need to
Speaker 3: walk away with. You had mentioned in an email to
Speaker 3: me as we communicated back and forth setting this up,
Speaker 3: that you said that ninety nine point nine percent of
Speaker 3: golfers don't really know that they have the solution. What
Speaker 3: does that means?
Speaker 1: Thank you for asking. It's because they have the solution
Speaker 1: right there in their game itself. I say, you know
Speaker 1: a great educator on the near West side of Chicago,
Speaker 1: in the poverty stricken there in the near West side
Speaker 1: of Chicago where I live in Chicago, in nineteen tenth grade,
Speaker 1: in the bad neighborhoods, that she was known as a
Speaker 1: great educator. She helped a lot of kids get out
Speaker 1: of poverty. She said, my job is to draw it
Speaker 1: out of the students. I think it's in there. It's
Speaker 1: not to pour stuff into them foreign to them. I
Speaker 1: just need to help them find it. The student and
Speaker 1: I together are working to find what's in them that
Speaker 1: that's good, that's workable and passable. Let's draw it out
Speaker 1: and let's make that blossom. So players keep a scorecard,
Speaker 1: is what I'm saying. And if they keep a simple
Speaker 1: three line scorecard, I can show you this is mine
Speaker 1: right there from this morning. You know, I keep the
Speaker 1: simple three line scorecard there of my score and then
Speaker 1: three pitch and three putt and do and just just
Speaker 1: mark it down, total it up at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. That particular round, I shot three over, and
Speaker 1: I didn't have any three pitches and I didn't have
Speaker 1: any three putts or any drives out of put So
Speaker 1: I shot three over, which is, you know, about one
Speaker 1: or two above my average for ninemals.
Speaker 3: Okay, so that's on the good that's on the average.
Speaker 1: Yeah, average side of jewels average part of Joel's PJA
Speaker 1: Bell curve. And so so I'm saying every player has
Speaker 1: that because they're shooting the scores. If they would only
Speaker 1: keep that and then total it up at the end
Speaker 1: and say, oh man, I shot forty one, that's about
Speaker 1: average for me, but I had two Boso shots. Without those,
Speaker 1: I just shot thirty nine. Then I'd be on the
Speaker 1: good side of my bell curve. So I shot thirty
Speaker 1: nine good enough shots today that were good enough to
Speaker 1: shoot thirty nine. I just had two bozo shots that
Speaker 1: randed up to forty one. So if you had a
Speaker 1: baseball game where the score was thirty nine to two,
Speaker 1: you would say that one team creamed the other team. Right,
Speaker 1: you had a football game where the score was thirty
Speaker 1: nine to two, you'd say, oh, they creamed them. And
Speaker 1: that's how I'd want you to look at that. See, man,
Speaker 1: I had thirty nine good enough shots today. To shoot
Speaker 1: thirty nine, I'd be on the good side of my
Speaker 1: bell curve. The two extra boso shots. He's ran up
Speaker 1: to forty one. I'm getting so good. I'm gaining on it.
Speaker 1: My bell curve is getting the lower gradually.
Speaker 3: So that's what everybody is gradual, right, I mean they
Speaker 3: moving the bell curve. Has got to be gradual and
Speaker 3: don't have too high expectations and definitely don't think, okay,
Speaker 3: so if I shot throughout a number eighty five last
Speaker 3: week this week, I can definitely shoot in eighty four.
Speaker 3: Don't do that to yourself, right.
Speaker 1: Exactly. So that's why I say every golfer has it
Speaker 1: in them right there in their round. If they would
Speaker 1: keep this simple scorecard and so and then if a student,
Speaker 1: if and when a student starts doing that with me
Speaker 1: and they start putting it on a simple spreadsheet, I
Speaker 1: call that their golf mirror. You know, Fred, You know,
Speaker 1: you and I we were cool when we were kids
Speaker 1: because we had hair down to hear baby, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: down to the middle of our chest. We were cool
Speaker 1: as can be baby, in the sixties and seventies. But
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised when I look in the mirror right
Speaker 1: now and I find out that I don't have the
Speaker 1: longest hair in class anymore, you know. I mean, because
Speaker 1: I've been looking at the mirror every day the last
Speaker 1: fifty sixty years. But golfers get surprised when they shoot
Speaker 1: the different scores because they're not looking in their own
Speaker 1: personal mirror and they're frustrating stuff. And I say, hey, baby,
Speaker 1: don't be surprised if you shoot eighty six, if that's
Speaker 1: you know, come on, get real, you know, like I'm saying,
Speaker 1: I'm the PJA master teacher, big chie schmuck o here.
Speaker 1: But man, if I shoot seventy four or five, I
Speaker 1: gotta admit that that's about average for me, you know.
Speaker 1: And if I said, oh, that's a terrible day, I
Speaker 1: should shoot sixty eight, then I'm either deceived or I'm
Speaker 1: just really arrogant and deceitful to what I'm saying to
Speaker 1: other people, and we want to be real and honest
Speaker 1: and have fun and be into it for the intrinsic
Speaker 1: nature of golf and an enjoyment of the self satisfaction
Speaker 1: of I'm getting better myself. I love the challenge. There's
Speaker 1: no defense in golf. I'm not playing Fred. He does
Speaker 1: not block my shot on the fourth hold and run
Speaker 1: up to it and block my shot. You know, we're
Speaker 1: playing ourself in the course. So I call that the
Speaker 1: golf mirror. And I've seen people improve ten to fifteen
Speaker 1: twenty shots in a year on their golf mirror without
Speaker 1: having to do a lot of work on their full
Speaker 1: swing quite often because quite often their mistake is a
Speaker 1: three pitch or a three put that's really run their
Speaker 1: score up. And getting a drive and play isn't that
Speaker 1: hard for people once they get interested in it, like
Speaker 1: you said, give their attention to it.
Speaker 3: It's one of my favorite parts about golf is that
Speaker 3: it's an individual game that you play in a group.
Speaker 1: That's a good way to put it. I've never put that.
Speaker 3: Think it really is. You're in your own world, you're
Speaker 3: doing your own thing, but you're socializing at the same time.
Speaker 3: But you know, and it's not a team effort, although
Speaker 3: you know, you talk about Bryson and his bell curve
Speaker 3: and he's I don't know if you've noticed what he's
Speaker 3: been doing on YouTube lately, but this break fifty, which
Speaker 3: I absolutely love the concept of it. Right, And and
Speaker 3: a friend of mine who I play with regularly, and
Speaker 3: we're very evenly matched, and we're always like, how many
Speaker 3: strokes you give me? It's like, why am I giving
Speaker 3: you strokes? You belong to this country club and I'm
Speaker 3: coming here, so you have an advantage, and it's a
Speaker 3: two stroke different way. Let's just you know, So I
Speaker 3: suggested to him, wait a minute, let's move up to
Speaker 3: the next set of teas and try to shoot par.
Speaker 3: We'll do a scramble, we'll play best ball and combine
Speaker 3: our efforts. Now make it a team sport, right, We'll
Speaker 3: combine our efforts and try to shoot par. And if
Speaker 3: we shoot par next time, let's try to break.
Speaker 1: Seventy exactly, move back to set.
Speaker 3: Maybe No, I'll stay forward. I like moving forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the result I call it K through twelve for golf.
Speaker 1: I have people. I love the Operation thirty six program.
Speaker 1: I've been doing it for thirty years with people and
Speaker 1: I'm glad those nice young PJ pros in the Trianglaria
Speaker 1: of North Carolina turned it into a company, you know,
Speaker 1: about ten or fifteen years ago. So I have all
Speaker 1: my students start at twenty five if they want to
Speaker 1: do it, if they're open minded to it, start twenty
Speaker 1: five yards. Let's see if you can break thirty six.
Speaker 1: Let's go. If you can break thirty six from twenty
Speaker 1: five yards for nine holes, let's go back to fifty yards.
Speaker 1: I've played two hundred rounds from twenty five yards the
Speaker 1: last few years. Bread Wow, because I love just keep
Speaker 1: reminding myself, I'm trying to shoot a score here by
Speaker 1: hitting my pitch, chipping put the perfect distance. And I
Speaker 1: know this will help me when I play it, you know,
Speaker 1: thirty two hundred yards, thirty four hundred yards for nine holes.
Speaker 1: And believe or not, fred, I have these big, young, strapping,
Speaker 1: you know, tough yuppie boys, twenty five thirty years old.
Speaker 1: A bunch of them love this. They love playing from
Speaker 1: twenty five yards. Say yeah, baby, let's get they break it,
Speaker 1: and then they get to fifty and they get yeah,
Speaker 1: and then maybe they miss it at fifty or you know,
Speaker 1: like Oh, I can't believe that, and that helps them. See.
Speaker 1: Come on, man, there's some grandmas who can break thirty
Speaker 1: six from fifty yards. Man, you missed the green with
Speaker 1: a pitch four times and nine holes and your three
Speaker 1: butted five times. That's why you didn't break thirty six.
Speaker 1: Now let's go back to three thousand yards. But you're
Speaker 1: still going to be the same thing wherever you go.
Speaker 1: There you are. You're still gonna be the short short
Speaker 1: game player from thirty two hundred yards as you are
Speaker 1: from fifty. So it has been so much fun, Fred, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm with you, man, be open minded. I'm a leftover hippie,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, we don't have to do what
Speaker 1: the authority figure tells us all the time, you know, rebellions, authority, trust,
Speaker 1: no one over thirty, you know all that stuff. Let's
Speaker 1: live a little. It's recreation and so yeah, man, it
Speaker 1: is so much fun to show people this and say,
Speaker 1: let's get gradual about this, you know, let's gradually improve.
Speaker 1: It's K through twelve for golf. Is what a friend
Speaker 1: asked me one time. He said, what do you call that, Joel?
Speaker 1: That gradual progression? So you don't get mad at the
Speaker 1: ninth grader, I mean the second grader. He's getting all
Speaker 1: the right answers in second grade math class. And then
Speaker 1: he said, sweet, let's throw him in the ninth grade
Speaker 1: algebra Trigg class. And then we get mad at him
Speaker 1: because he didn't get all the right answers. No, but
Speaker 1: all those ninth graders who are getting all the right
Speaker 1: answers in algebra Trigg class at one time, we're a
Speaker 1: second grader. So let's have an objective measure, just like
Speaker 1: traditional Western schooling. Let's do the easier stuff first, and
Speaker 1: when you master that, let's go the next. Let's go
Speaker 1: to the next. And so so I love that, and
Speaker 1: I believe it or not. Like I said, there are
Speaker 1: a bunch of young strong you know, disc golf players
Speaker 1: and soccer players and baseball players and big strong guy.
Speaker 1: Hey this is cool man, I like this. I'm getting there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay again. The book is called Golf Success Before
Speaker 3: Every Round by Joel Suggs. You can find it on Amazon. Correct, great,
Speaker 3: find it online. And you also have a YouTube channel, yes,
Speaker 3: that people can see more from your stuff. And Joel,
Speaker 3: you're gonna have to come back because I want to
Speaker 3: know more about your family. History. I'm really intrigued about
Speaker 3: hearing from your son all the way back for four
Speaker 3: generations of golf instruction. That sounds fascinating to me, and
Speaker 3: I think it's worthy of more time here on Golf Smarter.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate you coming on. Thanks so much for
Speaker 3: coming on back.
Speaker 1: Thank you Gret for having me. Like I said, and
Speaker 1: Georgia go out over the years, off and on. Great
Speaker 1: to be with your person.
Speaker 3: Oh he is somebody we will get back on the
Speaker 3: show again. There's too much to learn from him to
Speaker 3: let it go as simple as that, and great stories
Speaker 3: about his family, too unbelievable. So this episode, and this
Speaker 3: is what I love about being able to do podcasts
Speaker 3: these days. It didn't happen like that when I was
Speaker 3: first starting out. But I prepared this episode last week
Speaker 3: because right now I'm visiting an old friend who lives
Speaker 3: in Hawaii on the island of Maui. Actually, Richie's the
Speaker 3: guy who got me hooked playing golf in the late
Speaker 3: nineteen nineties. Not sure if I'm gonna be able to
Speaker 3: get some interviews while there, but I am trying to
Speaker 3: secure one. Next week, I'll let you know which three
Speaker 3: courses we ended up playing now. As I mentioned last week,
Speaker 3: I want you to keep your ears open because we're
Speaker 3: just an episode or two away from securing all the
Speaker 3: details and announcing our next Golf Smarter adventure. This time,
Speaker 3: we've got openings for three foursomes to meet in Alabama
Speaker 3: and play five courses on the legendary Robert Trent Jones
Speaker 3: Trail during the last weekend of March twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: I really hope you can join me and other Golf
Speaker 3: Smarter listeners because I've always wanted to play the trail,
Speaker 3: and when the Golf Smarter Listeners get together to play golf,
Speaker 3: we have a blast. Details on all of it coming soon.
Speaker 3: This Friday in Golf Smarter Mulligans will get the first
Speaker 3: of two conversations with Bob Foreman. The first one is
Speaker 3: called your Posture Could be the Key to fixing your game.
Speaker 2: Part of the assessment that I do on golfer is
Speaker 2: there is a balance element, and you'd be surprised how
Speaker 2: many I would say close to eighty five ninety percent
Speaker 2: really have some issues with balance. And when you're moving
Speaker 2: your body parts in different directions all at the same time,
Speaker 2: I mean, balance becomes a vital component as you're trying
Speaker 2: to shift your weight from your trail leg to your
Speaker 2: target leg. I mean, if you have a balance issue
Speaker 2: that's going to play havoc with your swing and your
Speaker 2: playing performance. You know, we don't practice it. The second
Speaker 2: issue is that a lot of us tend to lose strength,
Speaker 2: especially in the lower body. That correlates to the inability
Speaker 2: to maintain balance and such. So it's important to make
Speaker 2: sure that you do get checked balance. And even if
Speaker 2: you don't, I mean, just to practice it. Just try
Speaker 2: to balance on one leg and see if you have
Speaker 2: a tougher time trying to balance on your right leg
Speaker 2: versus your left leg. You'd be surprised how many people
Speaker 2: are good on one side but terrible on the other.
Speaker 2: You just need to work on it to make sure
Speaker 2: that you're kind of balancing out your balance sort of.
Speaker 3: Speak originally from November twenty twelve, episode three hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty nine has even more insights that I know you'll
Speaker 3: find interesting. I want to thank this week's Golf Smarter Ambassador,
Speaker 3: Jim O'Donnell from Sun City, West Arizona. Now. Jim received
Speaker 3: all three of our gifts, including a glove and glove
Speaker 3: storage compartment from Red Rooster Golf, a box of the
Speaker 3: mind blowing Flight Path golf tees, and a link to
Speaker 3: Tony Manzoni's video of a loss Fundamental. I'd like you
Speaker 3: to get all three gifts as well. Just write an
Speaker 3: honest review and send me what you wrote and where
Speaker 3: you posted it. Once we confirm that your review is public,
Speaker 3: I'll email you with the instructions on how to receive
Speaker 3: your gifts. Or if you'd like, you can introduce an
Speaker 3: upcoming episode and tell all your playing partners that you
Speaker 3: were on your favorite golf podcast. If you have any
Speaker 3: questions comments, want to open a future episode with where
Speaker 3: you're from, where you play and the episode number, or
Speaker 3: you've submitted a review on your favorite podcast platform, or
Speaker 3: maybe you have a suggestion for an upcoming episode, Please
Speaker 3: write to golf smarterpodcast at gmail dot com or click
Speaker 3: on the Heyfred button when you visit golfsmarter dot com