Speaker 1: Hello. So this is Richard Gates from Athamston Cree and
I'll play at Mouse Great Golf.
Speaker 2: This is the Golf Smarter Podcast, episode number nine seventy nine.
You know, if I'm not comfortable with something like my
grip or my setup, I'll make sure I work on
those things off the golf course. You know, once they
get on the golf course though, you have to play golf.
Speaker 3: You have to adapt because you know, if you.
Speaker 2: Work too much on the range, you're not adapting very well.
If you can put the playing part more in the
positive ratio, I think you're just going to get more
out of your game because you don't adapt on the
practice tee. Let's face it, the environment there just doesn't
allow you to adapt.
Speaker 3: When you're on the golf.
Speaker 2: Course, you're always trying to figure out Okay, different wind
direction on every hole, the win the turf, every lie
is different, every scenario you have seems to be different
than the next. So the more you play, the more
golf shots that you develop and remember in your repertoire
to the next time you go, oh wow, so oh
I had a lie like that two weeks ago. That
you have to you have to a lot to have
a lot of good recall memory to remember what this
particular lie does to the golf ball, where you don't
have that on the practice team.
Speaker 1: With this episode, we launch our twentieth year balancing Practice
and play is Essential for Golf Improvement with Steve Scott, PGA.
This is Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips and insights from
great golf minds to help you lower your score and
raise your golf IQ. Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome
to the Golf Smarter Podcast.
Speaker 3: Steve great, great to be with you, Fred, Thank.
Speaker 1: You so much. We have so many different topics we
can go talk about here. Looking at your bio, You've
done so many different things in the golf world, and
usually I would start, where do you want to start? Actually,
where would you like to go? Now, let's do it
this way. What is the Silver Club golfing society that
you founded?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, well, so I was a PGA profess I still
am a PGA professional. I was had the traditional head
professional role from two thousand and nine till the end
of twenty seventeen at a couple of clubs in New
Jersey and New York. And you know, ever since then,
I've been associated with a group called the Outpost Club,
and we created kind of a competitive version of the
Outpost Club. Basically just a bunch of golf officionados who
love the game. We basically set up really fun opportunities
for our members to go and play great places in
the world of golf, whether it's you know, the Olympic Club,
East Lake, Oakmont, I mean, kind of the creme de
la creme, if you will, of the golf world. And
so we set up kind of yeah, we set up
really you know, kind of when we do some resorts
as well. We do some international trips. We went to
the Walker Cup in Scotland last year.
Speaker 3: Fun, you know, we just we put together a lot
of fun things. Everybody in our group.
Speaker 2: The Silver Club Golfing Society is a single digit handicap
our sister society, the Outpost Club. Anybody can can join that,
but you know, you have to have a pretty passionate
love for the game. Architecturally significant courses, you know, kind
of a golf.
Speaker 3: Nerd if you will, I guess, but not too nerdy.
Speaker 1: Well, you're talking to the right group here, because anybody
who's listening to this show, I have to believe, is
a complete golf nerd because we cover so many different
topics and so many different directions and people keep listening.
So I'm like, I don't know what we're going to
talk about next, So thank you for sticking around. So
golf Nerds it is. Have you always been a fan
of golf architecture?
Speaker 2: You know, I haven't, not forever, I would say, so.
I played for professionally for six years. I played professionally
from the nineteen ninety nine to two thousand and five,
had moderate success. I played in twenty PGA Tour events
in my life, one a couple of times in the
Canadian Tour.
Speaker 3: But you know, I.
Speaker 2: Quickly realized that my game was not up to the
snuff of the.
Speaker 3: Tiger woodses of the world.
Speaker 2: So, you know, that being said, you know, I decided
to shift shift years.
Speaker 3: I got married at a pretty young young.
Speaker 2: Age to a great lady named Christy who's she's an
LPGA teaching professional herself, and you know, we've just always
been involved with the game, and so you know, the
natural progression was I, you know, I always wanted to
be in golf. I love the game of golf, I
love competing, I love kind of sharing the game with
others and so, you know, in my travels, I mean
when I was a head pro in the met PGA
section in the New York Metropolitan area, I was at
a club called Paramount Country Club and it was a
course designed by a famous architect called aw Tilling has
to build a course on the private estate of the
Paramount Pictures founder Adolph Zucker back in nineteen twenty and
it was about thirty minutes northwest of New York City
in a city called New City, New York, in Rockland County.
And you know, being in the METS section, you get
exposed to a lot of great golf courses. You know,
the greatest architects of the world. You know CB McDonald
and you know Tilling, Hass and then the you know,
even in the modern you know, anybody really who is
anything in golf? Donald Ross for example. Obviously not nobody
of these are modern, but you know, not too many
modern courses I get in the New York area, a
lot of built in the nineteen tens and.
Speaker 3: Twenties and whatnot.
Speaker 2: But yeah, over time you start to develop a love
for you know, what makes golf cool. It's kind of
like being a wine enthusiast, for example, and you start
to understand what makes wine good and certain years and
vintages are better than others, and so, you know, you
start to get into that world in the golf world,
and it's kind of cool to understand the history of
some of some places. And I live in Winston Salem,
North Carolina now, and so I belonged to a course
called the Old Town Club. It was built in nineteen
thirty nine, really the last golf course in the Golden
Age of architecture. And it was built by Perry Maxwell,
who built mainly courses in Oklahoma, Texas, like you know,
Colonial Country Club and you know places Prairie Dunes in.
Speaker 3: Kansas. But he built Old Town.
Speaker 2: And it was really because of the connection with Clifford
Roberts from Augusta National, the gentleman.
Speaker 3: He was working with the R. J.
Speaker 2: Reynolds Company, and he had a connection with you know,
the founder, the head of R. J. Reynolds and said,
you know, who should I get to build a golf
course here in Winston Salem, North Carolina. He said, oh,
Perry Maxwell. He's been doing some work at Augusta, you know,
in the mid to late in mid to late nineteen thirties,
and so it just kind of worked out. And so anyway,
it's kind of the routing of the golf course is unbelievable.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: So over time, I guess, make a long story short,
I have become a golf architecture, you know, really just
an enthusiast and a lover of you know, what makes
golf courses cool?
Speaker 3: I mean the routing.
Speaker 2: Why did the architect pick the way he did to
lay the golf course on the land that he did
that he had to work with, and it's really genius
in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3: And back then they didn't have.
Speaker 2: All the technology they do now at their disposals, So
it makes it even more astounding that they built the
golf courses the way they did back then.
Speaker 1: It really does when you think about what they have
available to him today and what they didn't have available
but still were able to make some courses that are
as challenging today as they were when they first open,
and probably even more.
Speaker 3: So, oh no doubt.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, they just didn't have the earth
moving equipment which made the golf courses much more natural.
Back then, they had to picture the best properties because
they weren't able to move as much earth and which
makes the golf, which makes golf better because it doesn't
it's not artificial. It's very natural looking. And I think
that's what the architects that are building golf courses nowadays
are really doing. So yeah, just there's so much love
for you know, the architect and the canvas that he
uses with the land that he has offered and or
she is offered. And so it's been pretty it's been
pretty neat to experience. I've probably you know, been to
or played two thirds of the country's top one hundred
golf courses. So very fortunate in that respect. At only
forty seven years of age, I've gotten around to a
lot of great places.
Speaker 3: So a lot more to go, but.
Speaker 2: I've had a lot of great experiences, you know, through
the Silver Club, through the Outpost Club, to be able
to you know, see and experience and enjoy so many
of these these world's great golf greatest golf courses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I played last week. I went and visited a
friend in Maui, Hawaii, excuse me, and uh we played
a course, the Dunes at Maui Lani, which was designed
by the late Robin Nelson and Robin was on the
show multiple times. He grew up in the area where
I live now, Marine County, California, and he was one
of those architects that was like, let's just take the
land as it is and not do a lot of movement.
And this course is like the only link style course
in Mali, and it was tough, but it was really
beautiful the way he was able to just let the
let the ground, let the land take what the hole
was going to do, and made it incredibly challenging. It's
definitely it's kind of like going on a group tour
to a country where you don't speak the language, and
you just like, I need a local with me. Luckily
my friend lived there and played multiple times, and it's
like needed to guide me through this course because if
I didn't know where I was going, that little booklet
that explained where I was would not have helped at all. Right, right,
using the land the way it is in today, you know,
with having all that earth mover equipment and not needing
it was really spectacular.
Speaker 2: Need to experience those courses, and there's so many courses
being built right now that are so remote and they're
becoming so popular. I mean, Bandon Dunes is very hard
to get to, and that's you know, relatively new. I
mean there's there's courses. There's one being built in the
Orange Groves of central Florida, in the middle of nowhere,
south of Seabring, Florida, on a sandy ridge called High Grove.
It's going to be starting to be built. That one
is very very interesting. Gil Hans is building that one.
So anyway, there's just a lot of very remote places
being built now that are it's really interesting where they're
finding this land and the perfect property.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've played Bandon Dunes a couple of times. Luckily,
you know, I'm on the west coast, so it's not
as difficult to get to, but it's still difficult. Yeah,
you get too, but it's become I guess it's like
fret Boy Disneyland. It's like just guys wanting to spend
days doing nothing but golf and talking about it and playing.
But it's an absolute joy. Have you been out to
Bandon Nuts.
Speaker 3: I have, I have. I was there yea in twenty
just about a year ago.
Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, yeah, awesome. So I want to talk about
your time as a not just a teaching professional, but
as a playing profession because you also wrote a book,
Hey Tiger, you need to Move Your Mark Back, which
is such an amazing title. Give me a brief overview
as a taste.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, well, it really goes back to my experiences
playing in the nineteen ninety six US Amateur finals against
the great Tiger Woods.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was pretty serendipitous event for me. I mean,
three hundred and twelve players start the US Amateur and
to think you could be in the final two, let
alone your opponent is arguably the greatest player who's ever lived, right,
so even at that time, at that time, he was
going for history. The day that we played was he
was going for three straight US Amateur championships. Nobody in
the history of golf had ever won three straight US Amateurs.
I mean one hundreds be played one hundred and twenty
four years now, I guess. So it's pretty amazing what
he did that day and how it all turned out.
But you know, just to make it to the finals
against him as a miraculous feat in itself. But I
was five up. There's the thirty six. The finals of
the US Amateur are thirty six holes. We went thirty
eight holes, so two playoff holes on top of the
regulation time. But I was five up after eighteen holes
and shot two under par in the second eighteen I
played very well, but he just played lights out. He
shot seven under, and so we tied and went to
the second playoff hole where he beat me. But the
epic moment of the match, and where the book is entitled, is,
you know, basically, I'm two up with three to play.
So if I win this particular holes, the thirty fourth
hole of the match. If I win this hole, I
win the match and I take away his history moment.
And so we both hit our drives down the fairway.
I hit my approach into the green side bunker and
his wedge approach he drove it fifty three yards past
me exactly, and his wedge approach went about six feet
from the hole. So I hit a bunker shot out.
Wasn't the greatest bunker shot, but not the worst. I
had about ten feet for park, so I had to
make my putt for par to force him to make
his to win the hole outright. Well, his ballmarker was
right in my line of putt, and so, like any
golfer does any day playing golf, Hey, would you just
move that butt ballmarker over one putter head so we
can have a free roll. And so he does, and
I went up there and I made my putt, and
you know, it was very nervous and as you can
imagine in a moment like that, and hit the best
putt I could ever dead center the hole. Walking off
to the side of the green, and I had noticed
that he had put his ball down in the wrong spot,
and so basically I just turned my head to the
side and I saw it out of the corner of
my eye. I said, hey, Tiger, you got to you
got to move your mark back. And he he had forgotten.
And so if he would have played from the wrong spot,
he would have lost the hole. That is, that's the
rule in match play golf, and so the match would
have been over at that point. I would have won
three up with two to holes to play, and uh,
and that would have that would have been pretty been
pretty crazy to win the US Amateur. But to win
it on a technicality like that, Uh, you know, it's
not necessarily golf. It's the first rule of the game
is to play with integrity. And you know, I asked
him to move the mark over, so I should be
the one to remind him move it back as well.
And there have been instances in golf where, you know,
the second part of that two part transaction did not
take place, and people do it those things on purpose sadly.
But for me and what I learned in the game
as a youngster, that moment was it was something it
was a reflex action for me. If you look back
on the YouTube video that's out there now, I mean
it's you know, it was just a it was a
reflex action. Like it was something I learned in the game.
It was kind of burned into my idea at golf DNA,
and so that's just what you do as a golfer.
You remind your opponent to move his mark back, You
help your opponent find their golf ball. You it's you're
kind of your own police out there in a way.
There's no referee blowing whistles or throwing flags, and so
golf is that gentleman's sport, gentlewoman's sport, and so you
you just do the right thing. And that's really what
that moment and that whole entire book was all about.
Speaker 1: Well, congratulations on making it that far and congratulations are
your integrity, But I'm curious to know even in nineteen
ninety six, did Tiger have the intimidation factor that he
was known for when he made it to the tour
and just dominated the tour. When you walk out there
and you're like, I'm playing Tiger Woods. The guy has
just won the last two Amateur Championships going for his
thirds the last round. Was he intimidating or was he
just a great guy to play with?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: And many more options than that.
Speaker 2: He was very intimidating, for sure. I mean, given the
sheer length that he drove the golf ball in itself,
I think was very intimidating. But luckily for me, about
nine months prior to this, I was paired with him
in a collegiate event. He played for Stanford and I
played for the University of Florida, And that was a
really good break because that day, that first time I
played with him, I was very intimidated.
Speaker 3: I was watching what he was doing.
Speaker 2: He was hitting shots that were just otherworldly, and so
really I made it a point and I shot in
that day, by the way, and he shot a seventy
The very first time we played wow. And so it
was definitely he threw me off my game. I was
I was not sharp, I was not focused on what
I needed to focus on. So the game plan going
into that US Amateur Final was to not watch him
hit a shot. And that's very difficult because he's very impressive.
He's amazing to watch. If any of your listeners, I'm sure,
have ever seen him hit a golf ball in person,
the sound of his golf ball certainly I couldn't get
away from that. But I just didn't want to get
caught up in his world. And so that was kind
of that was the game plan that day that my
girlfriend Christy now my wife for over twenty five years now,
who was cadding for me, which is another wrinkle in
the whole day because not many females actually caddied back then.
We'll get to that, but you know, yeah, he was
definitely intimidating, but and I had it. But I had
a game plan to kind of, you know, get out
of that intimidation factor.
Speaker 1: Okay, girlfriend caddy, then wife Caddy. Did she caddy for
you on the tour too.
Speaker 2: A little bit? Yes, yeah, she definitely, you know, not
full time. I mean I never had my PGA Tour card.
But but I've played a bunch of events and she's
caddied for me in both the Majors that I played
and the Masters in the US Open.
Speaker 3: She's caddied for me in lots of events.
Speaker 2: The very last PGA Tour event I played, I mean
forty seven now, so I played the Windham Championship on
the PGA Tour in twenty nineteen through the Carolinas PGA
section where I reside now, and she caddied for me
there too, So might.
Speaker 3: Be my last PG event. I hope not.
Speaker 2: I've got a chance to qualify for the PGA Championship
this next year, which is exciting, so I still compete.
Speaker 3: I'm still into the game.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's pretty neat to having somebody who knows
you and knows your game so well you'll be right
with with your step for step, well, yeah.
Speaker 1: You'd always hope that whoever's caddying for you that they
know your game, especially at that level. But there's also
an element of husband, wife energy, even boyfriend girlfriend energy
that can I can imagine. I mean, like, I can't
even play golf with my wife, you know, She's like, oh,
I you know, I play golf, and I'm like, you
haven't picked up a club in five years. Well, we
can go play nine holes. I said, well, I'm not
going until you hit a bucket a ball. Now, I'm
not going to do that. It's like, okay, forget it.
We're just you go for a hike, I'll go play golf.
We'll be We'll all be fine. But how do you
avoid I mean, there's a couple of topics here, but
I want to talk about you and your wife. Your
wife caddying for you. How do you avoid that kind
of tension that is natural for a couple.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's we just we get along so well. I mean,
like I said earlier, she's an LPG teaching professional herself,
so she's into the game. She understands. She's not just
you know, a wife that just goes shopping every day.
I mean, she understands, you know, everything that I go
through competitively. She played competitively at Florida Southern College and
you know, high school before that, and she didn't really
have any aspiration to turn professional. But yeah, it's uh,
you know, it could be trying at times if you
miss a whole bunch of cuts in a row and
you're not making a lot of money, and and you're
in all these strange cities, and you know sometimes you
know hotel rooms and you don't want to be in
and yeah, asking, oh.
Speaker 1: Gosh, what's the point that you say to her, yeah,
I'm going to get a different caddy next. How do
you do that? I mean, how do you tell her
that you're fired?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's it's it's more you realize it
mutually when if you're not making you know, me as
the golfer, I'm not out there holding enough putts and
hitting enough good shots. I'm not making checks. So somebody's
got to make some guaranteed money. So that's probably what
it turned out to at some point. I'm trying to
remember exactly when that happened, but it definitely happened.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it does. I'm sorry. I kind of find
that funny. Yeah, and baffling as well. But congratulations. I mean,
I'm glad that you were able to make it work. Wow,
let's see, there's so much talk about you. You then
have done a lot of golf media as.
Speaker 3: Well, Right, I have, I have, I.
Speaker 1: Because you're blessed with that incredible voice.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you, Yeah, maybe, uh fortunate in a
lot of ways. But you know, I measured in communications
in college, so I always kind of had a plan
when I missed a cut. When I played the Canadian Tour,
for example, and they were the Golf Channel was covering events,
I would I would work as an encourse reporter a
few times over the weekend, which was fun. I wanted
to get my foot into the door. I always I
always had a love for it. I mean, I'm a
golf nut. I watch golf all the time, probably too much,
but I've always kind of had that love for all
the everything that goes on in covering a golf event. So,
you know, as a head professional in the mets section
back in I guess it was twenty seventeen, well, twenty
sixteen is when I kind of got my first breaks.
The USGA event, the US Girls Junior was at a
club not too far away from where I was a
pro at, just over the border in New Jersey at
Ridgewood Country Club, and they needed another person to cover
the semi final match, and I knew somebody that got
me involved with it, and so I worked that and
I guess they liked what I did and so the
next year I did three events for Fox when they
had the eight events that they covered for the U S.
G A, and and then you know, I did that
for I did that for a couple of years. But
really I kind of saw it because as a head
pro in the in the summer, in a July for example,
you're kind of in the heat of the of the
golf season right there. And you know, I really had
the love for the broadcasting side, and I and I
my club was very kind that the owner of the
club was very kind to let me go and you know,
spend three weeks essentially in the middle of the golf
season doing covering these events.
Speaker 3: And I had this love for it.
Speaker 2: I had this passion for it, and so yeah, that
that kind of led me to you know, shifting gears
a little bit in my career and and opening up
the you know, additional opportunities to do broadcasting and and
nowadays really for the last three plus years, I've been
either an analyst in the booth or an en course
broadcaster for ESPN and PGA two or live and so
I've been doing several events for them every year, and
so that's been a ton of fun and that platform
has blown up.
Speaker 3: If anybody has seen that.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've got four different channels, and I think
they'll there will be a fifth one this year with
an international feed that's fully staffed with a you know,
a host and an analyst and an en course reporter.
So yeah, there's only going to be more coverage of
the tour. So it's very exciting for me. I love,
you know, being out there in the you know, in
the mix, or learning about what the players are working
on with their coaches, or and then explaining that to
the viewer in a way that's not over their head
but in a way that you can, you know, it's
easily digestible and understandable, whether you're a twenty handicap or
a pro. I try to give all sorts of knowledge
levels and information during my during my coverage of an event.
Speaker 1: So what makes golf unique and interesting on television is
the unique perspective that en course reporters and in the
booth people can bring to the game. Do you try
to find a niche for yourself as a broadcaster on
your perspective? Are you just talk well no, I for sure, No.
Speaker 2: I think every every analyst out there, which I am.
I'm you know, the host is kind of the one
that brings you in and out of commercial and kind
of sets up the analyst for you know, the color
of what's going on out there, getting inside the player's heads.
And you know, for me as a PGA professional since
two thousand and seven, shot, I'm going on, you know,
almost twenty you know, nearly twenty years of being a
PGA professional, and all the thousands of lessons that I've given,
I try to relay, you know, what the players are doing,
you know, in their golf swings or you know, try
to help them identify, help the viewer kind of easily
identify what sort of changes Like Exander Schafflee, for example,
you know, for this last year and the great play
he had and two major championship victories, you know, what
did he do with his instructor, Chris Como in strengthening
in the club face at the top of the swing
that really helped him succeed in a greater level in
twenty twenty four. I mean, those are the things that
I love passing on to the viewers who maybe don't
quite get all the inside knowledge. That's the fun part
for me. And you know, definitely my PGA professional side.
I bring that to bear for sure. You know, I'm
not a major champion. I'm not a Ryder Cup captain.
You know, I'm not you know, probably not going to
be in the eighteenth tower for a major network. But
you know, somebody like me can serve a very good
role in you know, passing along really pertinent information, timely information,
and being succynct with your thoughts, those things. If you
marry those things as an analyst, I think you'll nail it.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about the state of the game from
your perspective. How are we doing and where are we going?
Speaker 2: Yeah, our question, that's a loaded question right there. You know,
I don't think anybody really knows other than Jay Monahan
and those few people that are in those closed door
meetings right now, there hasn't been much to leak out
with which what going on between the Live Tour and
the PGA tour. You know, your guess is kind of
as good as mine on that one. But I think
they're getting closer to something, you know, by some accounts.
But you know, there's a lot of there's a lot
of little things that everybody's trying to iron out, but
the golf world needs to get back together more than
just a few times during the major championship seasons.
Speaker 3: You know, we need to we need to.
Speaker 2: Get the best players on the same golf course, you know,
a dozen times a year, and that would I think
that would be a win. I don't think it's going
to be every week because I think there's you know,
the Live Tour could continue in its team format.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know if the PGA Tour will
ever go to a team format. I think that there's
just a lot of.
Speaker 1: Things that you know, the two team events that the
presidents and Ryder country.
Speaker 2: True, well, that's a bigger team. And then you know,
we have this TGL Golf that's going to be starting
up in early January. That's this indoor you know, golf
simulator sort of league, which is very interesting to me
to see how that will all kind of shake itself out.
Speaker 3: I you know, some people are very skeptical about it
right now.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to keep an open mind, but I think
that that's a you know, we've got four person teams
of PGA Tour players and we're going to see We're
going to see a team aspect of some sort, you know,
through PGA tour players. So I think that's going to
be a very interesting addition to our Monday and Tuesday
night lineups the first quarter of the year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, a decade or so, maybe even a
little more than that ago, when someone started a thing
called Twitch where people were just watching somebody play a
video game, and it's like, that's a dumb idea that exploded, right,
So watching people play video games has been proven to work,
so watching people play simulators may have some legs to it.
I mean, I just.
Speaker 3: We're going to see, We're going to see.
Speaker 2: I think it's going to be it's a very interesting
concept and there's tremendous funds behind it. They built a
state of the art stadium, indoor golf stadium, if you will,
that nobody has ever seen before, so you know, a
screen that's you know, twenty times the size of a
movie theater screen or something like that. So it's it's
going to be very unlike anything we've ever seen. Its
gonna be very very interesting. It's almost like they're hitting
shots into an Imax theater or something. It's it's gonna
be really interesting to see how it all plays.
Speaker 3: Out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a place down in la I think it's
Cosm is the name of it or something, But it's
it's like a movie theater but for sports, and it
has this gigantic screen that it makes you feel like
your courts are at courtside an NBA game or you're
sitting in the end zone at a football game, and
it's kind of like a bar, and do people go
to and watch. I can see how this could really
be attractive in many markets.
Speaker 2: So it's a it's a very interesting concept, and yeah,
we'll see how it all shakes out.
Speaker 1: Well, you said your guess is as good as mine.
I don't think so, Steve. I think you're you're in it.
You talk to him, what's the buzz on the on
the on the grass? I mean what you've talked to players.
You get their sense of what's going on, and clearly
you're saying they're as confused as all of us because
the doors are closed in the cons are not public. Yeah,
what's the sense you get on both sides of And
I don't know if you talk to live players as well.
Speaker 2: No, I really haven't, honestly, you know, I really think
the meetings have been extremely tight lipped. I mean not
even the golf insiders that have more insight than I do.
I mean, nobody's really shared anything. So it's you know,
it's like I guess J Monahan said, you can't negotiate
out in public the way they're doing it and what
they have to do, all the little things, because the
social media world will run rampant. I mean, they just can't.
They can't let any little thing leak out, and so
it's you know, hopefully it will have I don't. I'm
not seeing it's going to happen for the season of
twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just getting too close. We have two
months to go.
Speaker 2: I just don't think they're going to be able to
get enough things in order and in place, so it
might be an a year or so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, who knows how far along they are and those
those meetings and what's going on, because it's amazing that
nothing's got leaked at this point. You'd think you'd get
something out there to find out what's going on. Huh,
don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'd love to know, but we'll deal with it at
the time. So let's let's talk about playing golf all right,
You're you're teaching pro, playing pro, You've seen a lot
of things. What do you feel is the state of
golf instruction these days?
Speaker 2: I think the state of golf instruction is is great.
I mean, I think the the you know, there's there's
so many avenues for the quote unquote average player or
any player to consume golf instruction out there through the
world of YouTube, through social media platforms that so many
of these teachers have and utilize. I think the so
so that's wonderful. I think as a student you have
to be very cautious though, because every teacher has their
own concepts, their own ideas, their own thoughts about what
the swing should be. And there are so many different
ways to play golf. You can grip the club conventionally.
You can grip the club, you know, cross handed, you
can grip. You can put your right foot back when
you make a back, I mean you can. You can
set up left and may hit a fade. You can
set up right and hit a draw, you know, as
a right I mean.
Speaker 3: You can. There's so many ways to put I mean,
there's so many ways.
Speaker 2: To get the ball into the hole. I think what
you have to do as a player with all of
this instruction is you have to find out what works
for you and then just stick along those lines because
you know, if you are if you are somebody who
who consumes golfing information and golf instruction out there, you
can get confused. I mean, you know the pages of
Golf Digest or Golf Magazine. I mean they've they very
often put you know, in consecutive.
Speaker 3: Pages on there on their in their magazine.
Speaker 2: They have you know, in the past, they've put you know,
conflicting ways to do this or do that. But there
are just so many ways to do it. And so
you know, the more information you seek out as a
as a as a student can be good, but it
can also be you know, not so great because but
you do have uh you know, the world of AI is.
Speaker 3: Out there right now with golf instruction. Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, you don't even need a golf teacher in
some ways if you don't want one. I mean, you
can just video your swing and you know, the AI
will you know, tell you if your left arm is
too high, if your club face is too open. Uh,
there's it's very interesting what is out there. But I mean,
then you have all the launch monitors like track Man
and flight scope and all of those things that help
tell you everything about your your swinging. It's almost information overload,
and so you have to really be selective, I think
as a student in what you seek out, because you
can get confused. You can there are there's there's so
much information out there where twenty twenty five years ago
there was not, and so you know you have to
get you have to kind of pin down and maybe
you need some you know, get your local PGA professional too.
You know, if you're a member at a club or
if you're at a public club or whatever, it doesn't matter.
Seek out somebody who's you know, who you feel is knowledgeable,
or somebody in your area you feel like is knowledgeable
as a teacher or a golf professional, and you know,
ask them what they think too. They'll probably have a
different answer than I will. But I think the best
and the best lesson I ever got, the best understanding, was,
you know, find a golf teacher who you really connect with,
or a method you really connect with, and really dive
into that. And you know, don't jump here, jump there,
look for all these because you can get lost in
the abyss of swing thoughts and swing instruction out there too.
I think that that's a there's a lot of cautionary
tales out there, you know, whether it's the professional ranks
or just the average club player.
Speaker 1: There is so much information. Like just recently, a few
weeks ago, a few episodes ago, we had g hay
Lee with sports Box AI. Right, we talked to her
and learned about how AI can monitor your swing and
give you suggestions, and you know, you find someone that
works for you and you stick with it. But I
found and as a recreational golfer, not a competitive golfer,
but I found that it works for me for a
couple of rounds and then it's gone, it doesn't work,
and it's like, now what do I do? I tweak here,
I tweak there. There's always there's always something going on
that you've got to figure out. What am I? You know,
how do I continue with that? Stay without without overdue?
I don't know what the answer to that is.
Speaker 2: Well, look, we're in the we're in the instant gratification
world here right, we have Amazon and we can go
on our phone right now and press a button and
you know, something can be at our door in an hour.
Speaker 3: Depending on where we live.
Speaker 2: And you know, with this instant gratification world doesn't necessarily
exist in golf, it really doesn't. Being proficient at the
game of golf it is a it's a process. I mean,
it's a you you have to have a very long
term mindset. If you want to be good at golf,
you have to put lots of hours into it. And
if you don't, then you know, you can be an
average player and have fun playing the game and you know,
shoot in the eighties or ninety or hunters or whatever
you shoot, but you know, to really be proficient, you know.
For me, I've been a golf professional for you know,
since i was what twenty two years old, so for
last twenty five years, you know, I've I've studied the game.
Speaker 3: I've I've perfected my own game.
Speaker 2: I've hit tens of thousands of golf balls, and I've
basically developed a golf swing and putting strokes that you know,
they're pretty repeatable by this point, because I understand what
makes Mike swing tick. And so I try not to
stray too far from from those things that I've learned
over time, trying.
Speaker 3: Not to go too down too many rabbit holes.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this about golf instruction. Is there
I don't want to say too much. Where is the
balance in instruction on swing mechanics and course management, because
you know, we call the show golf Smarter. Yeah, and
that doesn't necessarily mean work on you know, hit two
hundred balls a day, you know, over and over and
over with no instruction, just hitting the balls, going oh,
look at the ball flight, Look at the ball flight. Look.
But then you get out on the golf course and
you're not hitting off of a mat, you're not hitting
off of sandy grass, and you're not hitting off of
an uneven line, you're not hitting out of a you know,
course management being able to met to me is playing
golf versus hitting balls. Where do you find that balance?
And as an instructor, for you, how do you maintain
that balance and where do you what do you emphasize? Well?
Speaker 2: I think for me as a I still play tournaments,
and so the closer I get to a tournament, the
more I want to play golf, the more I want
to be on the golf course. If there's something I'm
working on in my swing, I'll spend a you know,
if I have let's say, you know, five hours a
week to work on my game and plus maybe a
round of golf. You know, I will, I will make
sure that you know, if I'm not comfortable with something
like my grip or or my setup, I'll make sure
I work on those things off the golf course. And
then you know, once they get on the golf course though,
you have to, you have to play golf.
Speaker 3: You have to.
Speaker 2: You have to adapt because you know, if you work
too much on the range, you have the flat lies,
like you said, and you have you're you're not adapting
very well. And so the best the more that you
can play, honestly, if you if you have if you
can put put the the playing part more in the
uh in the the positive ratio of the practicing to playing,
I think you're just going to get more out of
your game because you don't adapt on the on the
practice tea. Let's face it, because you the the the
environment there just doesn't allow you to adapt. When you're
on the golf course, You're you're right, you're always trying
to figure out Okay, different wind direction on every whole.
Speaker 3: Uh, you know, the wind.
Speaker 2: The turf, every lie is different, Uh, every scenario you
have seems to be different than the next. So the
more you play, the more golf shots that you develop
and remember in your repertoire to where the next time
you go out you said, oh, I had a lie
like that, you know two weeks ago that you have
to you have to a lot to have a lot
of good recall memory like that, to remember what this
particular lie does to the golf ball, for example, where
you don't have that on the practice tee. So you know,
if it was me, the best year I ever had
playing golf was was that I can remember it was
nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 3: That year I played against Tiger.
Speaker 2: I played so much that year I can't remember even
practicing a lot. I just went out on the golf
course and played and played and played, and that was me.
Some people are very different. Bryson de Shamba, he says
when he's home, he doesn't play golf.
Speaker 3: He practices golf, and that's it.
Speaker 2: And so it just depends on your mindset and how
you're you're kind of wired. But as a general rule,
you are going to learn a heck of a lot
more about yourself and about your game when you can
devote more time on the course and less time on
the practice team.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can see that so as a not as
a golf instructor, but as a golfer, which I'm assuming
the way you're talking, you've been playing most of your life.
You started out as a kid. Yep, what do you
what stands out to you as the best advice you've
ever received as a golfer?
Speaker 3: Best advice?
Speaker 2: That's uh, I think I had.
Speaker 3: I had a great instructor. I was very fortunate.
Speaker 2: I met a gentleman by the name of Ray Daily
when I was ten years old and he gave me
lessons for about three years. He was a he was
a you know, one of the old pros. He wore
the sans a belt, slacks, and he had played on
the tour back in the fifties. And uh, he taught me.
He didn't charge me a penny for the lessons he
he caught. He taught me by the way, which was
unbelievable that would ever happened to it. But his name
was Ray Daily, lived in Pompino Beach, Florida, and was
just a huge impact for me. And the one lesson
that he gave me that I'll never forget as long
as I live, and it's the simplest thing for dialing
in your golf swing. You know, as you turn and
you go back to the top of the swing and
then you come down your right hip. If you're a
right handed golfer, your right hip and your hands have
to get to the point of impact at the same time.
And if you can do that, you'll time the strike
up very well. So he always told me, said, Steve,
hip in hand together. And so that's kind of the thought.
You know, if your arms, if your hands out race
your hips, you're not going to hit it well. If
your hips out race your hands, you're not going to
hit it that well. But it's that marriage of the
lower body and the upper body in just a simple phrase,
hip in hand together.
Speaker 3: I thought that was the best lesson I ever.
Speaker 1: Got, interesting because that's mechanics, that swing mechanics, right.
Speaker 3: But it's simple though.
Speaker 1: It is it is, but it's and it's effective and
it's in your head right. Like some of the best
advice that we've ever had on the show may have
come from a listener who knows where at the beginning is,
but we say never follow a bad shot with a
stupid shot, right. So now we're going back. We're going
back to course management and playing golf versus hitting a ball.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: So I'm just so fascinated. I love that question, and
it always kind of throws people when I ask him that, like,
what's the best advice? So let me ask him this
as an instructor, what's the best advice you've ever received.
Speaker 2: As an instructor? I also learned as an instructor. I
learned from the great Bob Tosky founded the Golf Digest
schools with Jim Flick. And you know, Bob is still
He's still live and kicking. And I was almost one
hundred years old, Bob is and but he taught me,
this was probably about twenty years ago, that as a
right handed golfer, you know, your left arm, or your
lead arm as a golfer, is the master arm, and
your left hand, your lead hand, is the master hand.
You have to really understand that that that side of
your body needs to be controlling the club face more
than the right side or your trailing side of your
of your your body.
Speaker 3: And once I learned.
Speaker 2: That my golf ball behaved a lot better, I understood,
I understood how to grip the club better, which controlled
the club face better, which in turn controlled my golf
ball better. So it really all stemmed from, you know,
the left arm and the lead arm being the master arm.
Speaker 1: Fascinating Steve Scott s c O t TPGA dot com
right yep. And then on social media find you at
Steve Scott PGA.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, s S Scott PGA on on Instagram and
the X. And you know, there's a really neat, neat
thing though that you know, if as we're as we're going,
can I can I just add this? So there's a
really as you know, in the broadcasting world. And so
we've got you know, the Silver Club Golfing Society, and
I'm doing a lot of broadcasting with ESPN. One of
the other great things that I'm doing is I'm involved
with it with a group called Whole nineteen. It's a
it's a really it's a neat new venture if you will.
There's a gentleman by the name of Mac Barnhardt and
a lady by the name of Rose Lanham have have
created this kind of a speaker's form, if you will,
called Speakers for Good and this Whole nineteen part of it.
Speaker 3: So Mac and Bros.
Speaker 2: They're involved with a lot of a lot of great
people in the game, from Lucas Glover to Joey D
who is the great fitness trainer for a lot of
the PGA two players in the in the Jupiter Palm
Beach area.
Speaker 1: Who we just had on re there we go.
Speaker 3: See as Joey D's you know, he's on our podcasts.
He's famous, right, But you know.
Speaker 2: And so and so what we're doing, we're creating it,
you know, with with the likes of myself and others,
creating really neat opportunities for for you know, companies, corporations
within whether it's PGA tour events or whatnot, to have
a really kind of unique, you know, kind of boutique experience,
if you will. Let's say, for example, there was a
small group of people involved in a in a company
and they wanted to have an inside look of you know,
what were the players going through, and so like I
could walk around with a small group of people during
nine holes of a PGA Tour event and give them,
uh the insight to what what is going on in
the PGA Tour players heads, for example, and kind of
give them the the inside track. You know, you have
all these pro ams on Wednesday at a PGA Tour
event and the players get to interact sometimes with the
the golf professional out there, depending on how outgoing or
they are or not. But you know, they don't always
get all the inside information out there to what they're
doing when they're doing it. And so you know what this,
what our Whole nineteen group can offer is kind of
just a neat kind of inside the experience in a way,
kind of an elevated VIP experience if you will to
you know, go and you know, really you know, get
involved with these corporations and these companies who want to
be involved with golf, and you know, we could have
a day and they could get trained by Joey d
We could you know, I could go play golf with them.
Speaker 3: We could I could fix their.
Speaker 2: Slice, and then we could go out to a tour
event you know, in the area and and you know
watch and get the inside scoop of what the players
are doing.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 2: There's lots of cool opportunities that are being created with
with Whole nineteen.
Speaker 3: So I just wanted to share that with you as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, and how do we find that?
Speaker 2: And you'd be able to find that on playersfourgod dot
com and look through there and and reach out to
Rose and and we can get some good information on
the whole nineteen and uh and get involved with that
awesome Steve.
Speaker 1: It's really been fascinating to talk to you, hear your story.
Thank you for sharing some incredible stories and some incredible
insights and lessons. Thanks so much.
Speaker 3: No, it's really really great to be with you, Fred.
Speaker 2: And yeah, just sharing all the fun information and the
fun anything golf.
Speaker 3: I can talk all day about