Speaker 1: Golf Smarter number four hundred and forty three, originally published
Speaker 1: on July first, twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2: Welcome to golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain
Speaker 2: insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
Speaker 2: Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction never gets old. Our
Speaker 2: interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
Speaker 2: like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 3: It's not just the clubhead to me, it's their hands.
Speaker 3: Very often when they're swinging, their hands are stopping at
Speaker 3: the ball, and that snaps that clubhead ahead. You'll hit
Speaker 3: behind the ball, that you can hook the ball. There's
Speaker 3: many unfortunate things that can happen on your handstop. So
Speaker 3: I want somebody to take their hands as they're hitting
Speaker 3: the ball and to swing their hands out to the
Speaker 3: target so that ensures that their hands stay forward. We
Speaker 3: don't want to hit at the ball, like you said,
Speaker 3: you want to hit through the ball. So you try
Speaker 3: to think of either hitting through the ball swinging your
Speaker 3: hands to the target. I like to have people pick
Speaker 3: a spot beyond the ball, maybe an inch or two beyond,
Speaker 3: and try to hit the ground or see their club
Speaker 3: go through the grass beyond the ball. It can help
Speaker 3: a tremendous amount in short game and long to actually
Speaker 3: see your club go through the grass pass the ball.
Speaker 4: And I've also used this opposite effect.
Speaker 3: People want to get the ball in the air, so
Speaker 3: what they do is they try to flip their hands,
Speaker 3: they stay behind the ball, they fall away. I've told people,
Speaker 3: I want you to hit this ball as low as possible,
Speaker 3: drill it five feet off the ground, and they've made
Speaker 3: perfect golf shots that go exactly the height they're supposed to,
Speaker 3: and they hit them crisply. When somebody tries to hit
Speaker 3: the ball low, they instinctively know, Okay, I've got to
Speaker 3: del off the club. I got to get my hands
Speaker 3: forward and try to hit this ball low and get
Speaker 3: my way to the left.
Speaker 4: That's how you hit a golf ball.
Speaker 1: How to take your a game from the range to
Speaker 1: the course With Ken Doherty.
Speaker 4: This is Golf Smarter.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Golf Smarter podcast. Ken. Thank you,
Speaker 1: it's great to have you back on the show. It's
Speaker 1: great to have you back on the studio. I appreciate
Speaker 1: also let people know you and I recently did a
Speaker 1: video together that's on the golf Smarter YouTube page golf
Speaker 1: Smarter TV. And even though we did it for Marine
Speaker 1: Country Club, I think everybody should be aware of this
Speaker 1: because we did it on course care and little things
Speaker 1: that you should know, and most importantly to me, how
Speaker 1: to clean up your divots on the green.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what we did applies to every golf course, every
Speaker 3: single golf course.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I mean I now since I feel like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is how you put a rake back in the bunker.
Speaker 1: You know, some people just throw them there, they're in
Speaker 1: the bunker, they're sitting on the side. No, we put
Speaker 1: it down with the handle sticking out.
Speaker 3: Well, there are different rules when it comes to that
Speaker 3: for different clubs. Some like them in, some like them out.
Speaker 3: So some like the head in with a handle out.
Speaker 3: That's how we do it, but there are different rules
Speaker 3: for there. But as far as fixing a ball mark
Speaker 3: and raking the bunker and things like that, they're pretty standard.
Speaker 1: And I still go back to my number one rule
Speaker 1: that everyone should be following, which is spend more time
Speaker 1: cleaning up divots on the green than looking for lost balls.
Speaker 4: Yeah if only, Yeah, okay, I guess so.
Speaker 1: But today I wanted to talk about taking your a game.
Speaker 1: How do we take our a game from the driving
Speaker 1: range to the golf course? And you and I were
Speaker 1: having a conversation about this once and you mentioned that
Speaker 1: it's a very different type of golf on the range
Speaker 1: because of the balls, your mindset, things like that, and
Speaker 1: I thought it was worth pursuing because there's some tidbits
Speaker 1: in there that someone's gonna be able to walk away
Speaker 1: with going, Okay, I'm going to be a better player
Speaker 1: because of that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't even know where to begin. I mean, there's
Speaker 3: so many variables when it comes to all right, let
Speaker 3: me let me throw one out on the range. The balls, yeah,
Speaker 3: well let's start with that. In most cases, they're very different.
Speaker 3: They're not the quality of the golf ball you use
Speaker 3: on the on the golf course. In fact, we took
Speaker 3: our yardage markers away because we have limited flight golf
Speaker 3: ballsk because we have a little shorter range, and we
Speaker 3: don't feel that are if they hit range ball, If
Speaker 3: they hit a range ball one hundred and fifty yards,
Speaker 3: a good golf ball or one that you take to
Speaker 3: the golf course will go further. So it's really not
Speaker 3: a good indication of how far they're hitting the golf ball.
Speaker 3: So I don't want I don't want that, for lack
Speaker 3: of a better phrase, that false advertisement. I don't want
Speaker 3: them thinking they're hitting at one hundred and fifty yards.
Speaker 3: They go to the golf course, take that eight iron
Speaker 3: or seven iron, and now they're hitting at one hundred
Speaker 3: and sixty hundred and sixty five yards, don't I don't
Speaker 3: think the range should be used for yardage anyways. I
Speaker 3: think that should be used for hitting the ball straight
Speaker 3: and working the ball and working some of those kinks.
Speaker 1: Out well, I would tend to I don't know if
Speaker 1: I'm gonna disagree with you on this, but where are
Speaker 1: you going to learn how far you hit each club?
Speaker 1: It's really hard to do on the golf course because
Speaker 1: you need to know. It's one of the things that
Speaker 1: I'm having with my right now is like he's really
Speaker 1: complaining he's not very good, and I said, well, learn
Speaker 1: how far you hit each club? You don't know. You're
Speaker 1: asking me if I had a five iron here. I
Speaker 1: don't know how far do you hit a five iron?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you can do some of that on
Speaker 3: the range, but to be exact and know exactly how
Speaker 3: you hit it. I will tell somebody to go out
Speaker 3: in the late evening when nobody's around, and if you're
Speaker 3: not quite sure how far your clubs go, or how
Speaker 3: far your seven iron goes, or whatever the club you're
Speaker 3: you're looking to find out, take three or four golf
Speaker 3: balls from certain distances and hit them to the green
Speaker 3: using you know, your GPS or whatever device you have
Speaker 3: to see how far. And then you'll know for sure
Speaker 3: because it's on the golf course, it's actual yardage, it's
Speaker 3: the real ball, and so on.
Speaker 1: That's fine for country clubs.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right, you're right. It's not an easy task.
Speaker 4: You're right.
Speaker 1: No, So is there a way? Well, should we basically
Speaker 1: assume that every course is using low compression golf balls
Speaker 1: on the range? Not necessarily, So how do we find
Speaker 1: so we need to find that out before we even
Speaker 1: start hitting balls from them.
Speaker 3: Well, it's not just low compression. I don't think a
Speaker 3: lot of people use the the limited flight golf.
Speaker 4: Balls as we do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I meant limited flight.
Speaker 3: But there's also range ball differences from from your average
Speaker 3: golf balls. Some some country clubs use brand new titleists
Speaker 3: or brand new callaways for their range balls. They might
Speaker 3: have a stripe around them, but they're actual golf balls.
Speaker 3: To me, that's realistic. But how many of those practice
Speaker 3: on the Yeah, if they say practice, you know they're
Speaker 3: they're they're not the quality of a golf ball you're
Speaker 3: gonna be playing on the golf course.
Speaker 1: So how are we able to compute that? When we're like, Okay, good,
Speaker 1: I'm hitting these limited range, limited flight balls. I'm hitting
Speaker 1: at one hundred and fifty yards with my six iron.
Speaker 1: How do I say, okay, So that means with my
Speaker 1: pro V one X, my pro V one, my Dixon
Speaker 1: Earth Dixon wind ball, how much more is that gonna fly?
Speaker 1: How do we figure that out?
Speaker 3: How do we I don't think you can do it exactly.
Speaker 3: And let's just say you've got a bucket of brand
Speaker 3: new range balls. Well, then you can have some idea,
Speaker 3: maybe calculate ten percent or whatever.
Speaker 4: You're not going to get exact.
Speaker 3: But the problem with with with most ranges is you've
Speaker 3: got some old golf balls, you've got some new golf balls.
Speaker 3: They're not going to fly the same. I've hit two
Speaker 3: shots that I thought that were the same. One falls
Speaker 3: out of the sky and the other one sails. That's
Speaker 3: too inconsistent for me to to be concerned about how
Speaker 3: far that ball's going.
Speaker 4: Hmm.
Speaker 1: It's a real tough one because that's the first place
Speaker 1: in the uh in the golf course where you definitely
Speaker 1: see a difference. Like I was hitting that one a
Speaker 1: you know, like all day long, I can hit it,
Speaker 1: so I know that for me, what I'll what I'll
Speaker 1: tend to do is with a bucket that has mixed
Speaker 1: balls of old and new, and you eats pretty obvious
Speaker 1: which they are a lot older and which ones are
Speaker 1: a lot newer, just by the shining, because they don't
Speaker 1: really clean them that well, just get the dirt off
Speaker 1: of it. But if it's if it's a beat up ball,
Speaker 1: I'll use that for my short game. I'll just use
Speaker 1: that to work on my stroke for the pitching and
Speaker 1: the chipping, which I do a lot of. Like I
Speaker 1: have one driving range over here Indian Valley that it's
Speaker 1: a line of mats, and what I do is just
Speaker 1: hit over the mat. It's like, Okay, I want to
Speaker 1: hit that mat. Now, I want to hit that because
Speaker 1: there's no one else there. I want to hit the
Speaker 1: third mat. Now, I want to hit the fourth mat,
Speaker 1: you know, and see if I can get it to
Speaker 1: bounce on each mat from thing to think. So I
Speaker 1: take you a much.
Speaker 3: Better way to practice, actually because you want to You
Speaker 3: want to practice how far you hit the golf ball.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of people that are they look at
Speaker 3: the flag stick, and then there's others that are very
Speaker 3: good at chipping and pitching and they pick at location
Speaker 3: to land the ball. And picking a location to land
Speaker 3: the ball and having a lamb. There is very important.
Speaker 1: Target oriented golf. So let let's talk about that. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that I'm doing something right. The thing that's
Speaker 1: hard to figure out then is how long is it
Speaker 1: going to roll? You know, depending on But when we
Speaker 1: talked to Dave Stockton a while ago, he said that
Speaker 1: it's for him, it's all about is it a low
Speaker 1: shot or is it a high shot?
Speaker 3: And that's how I describe them as well. If I'm
Speaker 3: teaching that, you know, people get confused with different shots
Speaker 3: and chip pitch, whatever you call them. It's a high
Speaker 3: ball or a low ball, and you know, the low
Speaker 3: ball is the one you want to hit as much
Speaker 3: as you can, and the green's going to tell you
Speaker 3: or the surrounding area is going to tell you whether
Speaker 3: you need to hit a high ball, and I think
Speaker 3: you should be hitting the high ball only when forced.
Speaker 4: Two.
Speaker 1: You're a big proponent of keeping the ball on the
Speaker 1: ground as long as possible.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, Not only do I believe people are
Speaker 3: more consistent that way, but they eliminate disaster too. You
Speaker 3: take a bigger swing and try to hit it up
Speaker 3: in the air and you miss it slightly, and you
Speaker 3: could hit it right over the green or put the
Speaker 3: club in the ground and leave it right in front
Speaker 3: of you, where if you try to hit it low
Speaker 3: it's more of a short putting type of stroke, or
Speaker 3: certainly below the waist, your inconsistency is much less, and
Speaker 3: obviously you can almost eliminate the disastrous shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I've definitely taken to that idea and really
Speaker 1: worked on do I need to hit a high shot
Speaker 1: or a low shot here? Okay, there's a you know,
Speaker 1: there's a sprinkler head there if I just need to
Speaker 1: get over that, all right, So I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: go a little higher, obviously, but I just want to
Speaker 1: get over it, or there's a bunker in the way,
Speaker 1: or the pin is close to the side of the
Speaker 1: green I'm on. Obviously, you don't want the ball to
Speaker 1: roll a lot. You want to just kind of let
Speaker 1: it land softly and stop.
Speaker 3: There are some people that are one club chip pitchers
Speaker 3: and they use just their sandwedge or whatever it is, and.
Speaker 4: If they're good at it, God bless them. Good good.
Speaker 3: But if you know, if you are struggling or you
Speaker 3: occasionally miss one pretty badly, you probably shouldn't be using
Speaker 3: that unless you're forced to.
Speaker 1: Actually, there's a video that I put on our members
Speaker 1: site from Tony Manzoni a great tip about keeping it
Speaker 1: on the ground that when you're on the fringe or
Speaker 1: just off the fringe on the green. He has this
Speaker 1: tip and I've been using it and I cannot believe
Speaker 1: how close I've been getting to the pin with these.
Speaker 1: I take the eight iron and I use it like
Speaker 1: a putter, but I stand it on the toe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, toe down, absolutely, and just use.
Speaker 1: A putting motion.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, people are like, how'd you do that? It's like,
Speaker 1: it's not that hard. And what's funny to watch when
Speaker 1: I show people when I learned with this is putting
Speaker 1: it on the toe. It makes them very uncomfortable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people do not like to do that. Yeah, my friends
Speaker 1: don't at least.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I saw somebody using that method thirty years ago and
Speaker 3: he was very consistent with it. Now, it's not one
Speaker 3: where you want to you're going to hit it a
Speaker 3: long chip. I think that most of the time you're
Speaker 3: going to use that method, you're fairly close because the
Speaker 3: ball doesn't come off hot. It comes off kind of dead,
Speaker 3: which is kind of nice. The ball doesn't get away
Speaker 3: from you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it feels like a putter roll. Yeah, once
Speaker 1: it gets going. And I've never done it where the
Speaker 1: ball was in the air. And when I say in
Speaker 1: the air about six inches off the ground, I've never
Speaker 1: done it where the ball is in the air from
Speaker 1: more than four maybe.
Speaker 4: Five feet exactly.
Speaker 1: And I have a friend who likes to use his
Speaker 1: hybrid to do that and just get over.
Speaker 4: But that ball, that's perfect. When you're immediately around the green,
Speaker 4: around that fringe area, right.
Speaker 1: The ball explodes off the face of the hybrid.
Speaker 4: Well, that's true.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a very different stroke than a putting
Speaker 1: stroke at that point because it just it goes really
Speaker 1: fast and I'm really good at going in other directions.
Speaker 1: So back to the driving range and the difference between.
Speaker 1: All right, so we started with balls, so there's really
Speaker 1: no way of knowing you know, what kind of balls
Speaker 1: they use. You can ask, but you're really not going
Speaker 1: to be able to send. So you're just saying, and
Speaker 1: even the older balls in these buckets that have lost
Speaker 1: a lot of the dimples that are worn out, are
Speaker 1: you going to be able to tell if you you're
Speaker 1: hitting the ball straight that day?
Speaker 3: I mean, it's going to be less curvature with a
Speaker 3: ball that doesn't have any dimples. So it's you know,
Speaker 3: I a lot of times ago it depends on the
Speaker 3: golf balls. But if they're not very good to me,
Speaker 3: that's just stretching an exercise more than practice.
Speaker 1: So work on your short game with those bat absolutely, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, so just no way to know. So and
Speaker 1: I'm surprised that you took away the yardage things. I would.
Speaker 4: Well think about it.
Speaker 3: If I've got range balls that are fifteen anywhere from
Speaker 3: ten to fifteen percent less plus, we're hitting a little uphill.
Speaker 1: Right, you're hitting up hills.
Speaker 3: You've got somebody who normally hits a seven iron, and
Speaker 3: I'll just throw a figure out there. One hundred and
Speaker 3: forty five yards and now they're hitting it one hundred
Speaker 3: and thirty five yards and coming to me wondering, you know,
Speaker 3: or they're misjudging when they're going to the golf course
Speaker 3: and vice versa. It's just it's not a good representation
Speaker 3: of what they're actually doing. So I don't want to
Speaker 3: give them any false advertisement and believe it or not.
Speaker 3: I you know, out of five hundred golfers over there,
Speaker 3: well more than that, five hundred memberships and eight or
Speaker 3: nine hundred golfers, I had two people ask me about
Speaker 3: where they were.
Speaker 4: No one else, really, two people.
Speaker 1: That's it really, So it's not that big of an issue. Now,
Speaker 1: what is the issue that comes back to you? What
Speaker 1: are the members come back to you with this? I'm
Speaker 1: having an issue with the driving range.
Speaker 4: Well, it's what we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 3: Is I hit the ball great on the driving range,
Speaker 3: but I can't take it to the golf course.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, before we get there, how about the
Speaker 1: difference between hitting off of mats versus hitting off of grass.
Speaker 3: Mats are very forgiving, and again it's not a true
Speaker 3: test of compression, and where you're hitting on the ground,
Speaker 3: you can hit behind the ball on a mat and
Speaker 3: get away with it right.
Speaker 1: You can hit the ground first exactly and you're going
Speaker 1: to get a good stroke off against Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah again, I much prefer as most players probably prefer
Speaker 3: to be off the grass because there's a true test
Speaker 3: versus the mats, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: And some mats are very different. I mean, you guys
Speaker 1: have really nice cushiony mats that I mean they don't
Speaker 1: even the bottom of the bottom of your clubs don't
Speaker 1: turn green on those.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, yeah, And I'll tell you what, if you
Speaker 3: want to give a lesson and have it be successful,
Speaker 3: put them on the mats.
Speaker 1: Oh that was it. We'll get to the lesson in
Speaker 1: a minute, all right. So let's let's see how we
Speaker 1: can take our a game from the course, from the
Speaker 1: from the range to the course. How do we take
Speaker 1: our a game when we just leaving the range going oh,
Speaker 1: I feel great today, and then it just doesn't pan out.
Speaker 3: Well. Most people that hit driving range balls don't have
Speaker 3: a care in the world. They're free, they let it fly,
Speaker 3: there's no penalty, there's no score. They've got a whole
Speaker 3: bucket of golf balls to hit, and they swing freely,
Speaker 3: and I mean mind. And when you go to the
Speaker 3: golf course, that's a very different scenario there. It's one ball,
Speaker 3: one hole, one score, and so on. So we tend
Speaker 3: to get a little bit tighter, we tend to steer
Speaker 3: a little bit course. On the golf course. Our mind
Speaker 3: is cluttered with information, mechanics and so on, and that
Speaker 3: is not conducive to hitting a good golf ball or
Speaker 3: playing good golf. You've got to be able to go
Speaker 3: to the golf course and be free. I'm sure there's
Speaker 3: some of you with either played a golf course that
Speaker 3: is wide open and you can just swing for the fences,
Speaker 3: and those are the days that you hit it really good.
Speaker 3: And then there's a golf course that you play very
Speaker 3: tight and you don't swing the same. You try to
Speaker 3: steer it or you get a little afraid to let
Speaker 3: it go, and you won't hit it as good. And
Speaker 3: you need to be able to go to that tight
Speaker 3: golf course or that tight hole and be loose and
Speaker 3: let it fly. And that's a tough thing to do.
Speaker 1: Would you recommend if you feel that tension, if you
Speaker 1: know well, you know the other thing at the driving
Speaker 1: range is that you have multiple swings. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, I just took three swings and one
Speaker 1: of them was worked. I'm ready to go.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know it's like get three in a row.
Speaker 4: You don't get a second serve, do you know?
Speaker 1: You know I'm a second swing all American is what
Speaker 1: we will.
Speaker 3: Well, you can go back, we can go right into
Speaker 3: how many times do you take a second put or
Speaker 3: second swing and you hit it very well. That's because
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean anything, So you're relaxed and you let
Speaker 3: it fly, and that should give you some information about
Speaker 3: what you should do. On the first one, we do
Speaker 3: get too tense and swing too tightly and steer it,
Speaker 3: and we're much freer on the second one when it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter. And I've told people it seems kind of strange,
Speaker 3: but you don't play well because you care too much.
Speaker 3: If you didn't care, you would play well better.
Speaker 1: And it's is that, like people say, play like a
Speaker 1: little kid.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely. When you're young, you're fearless and you let
Speaker 3: it fly. And when we're old, our mind moves a
Speaker 3: lot more, and different experiences make us think differently as
Speaker 3: we go on, and it makes a big difference.
Speaker 1: Well, a couple of shows back Jim Waldron of Balance
Speaker 1: Point Golf School, and I hate to be name dropping,
Speaker 1: but this is my show, so I will. But Jim
Speaker 1: talked about on putting and this was a huge one
Speaker 1: for me. He says, the keys to putting are confidence
Speaker 1: and positive indifference. And I think that's basically what you're saying,
Speaker 1: the positive indifference.
Speaker 4: Like Okay, I'm good, that's interesting, and if.
Speaker 1: It doesn't go in, I'm okay, Yeah, I'll let it go,
Speaker 1: you know, just pull back and let it's okay and
Speaker 1: stop overthinking it and worrying about something.
Speaker 3: But life for life for death on the golf course
Speaker 3: and it's not at the range around the putting green.
Speaker 3: It makes a big difference. Tension and what our minds
Speaker 3: go through makes a big difference. And there's a whole
Speaker 3: different mindset on that golf course than there is at
Speaker 3: the rain in practicing.
Speaker 1: Stop playing for money.
Speaker 3: Or be able to put your mind in the right
Speaker 3: place while you're playing for money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, so you're saying, there's so much. It's
Speaker 1: such a mental element there is.
Speaker 3: And there was a gentleman that came about a year
Speaker 3: ago at our club and he had a laptop computer,
Speaker 3: and he hooked me and another member up to this
Speaker 3: device where he put something on our head and it
Speaker 3: measured electrodes and all this stuff. And this program he
Speaker 3: had made a certain sound when you were thinking too much,
Speaker 3: when you were swinging the club, and it was a
Speaker 3: it was a tone, a long tone, and then it
Speaker 3: would change to a different tone if your mind was clear.
Speaker 3: And the member got it and it had the tone
Speaker 3: that was you could tell he was thinking a lot
Speaker 3: swinging the whole bit, and he had a very hard time,
Speaker 3: took a long time to get out of that tone
Speaker 3: and to clear his mind. And I was able to
Speaker 3: do it pretty quickly. And the reason why is because
Speaker 3: I don't think of mechanics when I play golf.
Speaker 4: I pick a target. So I was on the range.
Speaker 3: I picked home at the end of the range, a
Speaker 3: specific window, and I looked at it, studied it, and
Speaker 3: I swung at it.
Speaker 4: So my mind was free. It was clear.
Speaker 3: And you know, there's many ways of you know, there's
Speaker 3: books out there and so on, but this actually measured
Speaker 3: something in your head that had your mind scrambled over
Speaker 3: mechanics or it was clear and let you be free.
Speaker 4: And I believe in that.
Speaker 3: I really do that if you are too cluttered with
Speaker 3: mechanics and stress and so on, and all the thoughts
Speaker 3: are at the front of your mind, I think you're
Speaker 3: going to struggle.
Speaker 1: Then let's talk about the pre shot routine and how
Speaker 1: that can help you clear your mind.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, pre shot routines are very good because it's familiarity.
Speaker 3: So when you're familiar with your surroundings, you have more confidence.
Speaker 3: So that's one of the reasons why good players always
Speaker 3: have a.
Speaker 4: Pre shot routine.
Speaker 3: So if it's in the masters or hitting range balls,
Speaker 3: they have a familiarity with every single movement. A lot
Speaker 3: of the average golfers don't do that. They don't have
Speaker 3: the same movements every time. Uh, so there's less familiarity.
Speaker 3: So preshot routines I think are very important because it's
Speaker 3: a set arrangement and they do not deviate no matter
Speaker 3: the golf course, right or situation.
Speaker 1: Right. A lot of the a lot of the range
Speaker 1: activity is a lot of sweep and swing and sweep
Speaker 1: and swing and sweep and swing.
Speaker 3: Right, we become machine guns. Yeah right, Yeah, there's no
Speaker 3: there's not much quality there. It's more what do you
Speaker 3: learn from that.
Speaker 1: I mean, how what where's the takeaway on that that
Speaker 1: you're feeling looser, that you've gotten your swings in and
Speaker 1: you're ready to go.
Speaker 3: It's exercise, that's you know, that to me is what
Speaker 3: it is mostly. And you go back to what Jack
Speaker 3: Jack Nicholas said he never hit a shot even on
Speaker 3: the range that he didn't make countract a purpose absolutely
Speaker 3: every single swing. I don't know many people that do that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: including yours, true, you know, I you know, I get
Speaker 3: up and just start swinging before you know, you go,
Speaker 3: whoa slow down, you know, think about this walk away,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I've also noticed for myself, I've been struggling
Speaker 1: with three putts lately, and the third putt being inside
Speaker 1: of five feet and that just kills me that I'm
Speaker 1: that I'm doing that. But I've recognized that that's because
Speaker 1: I walk up to it go yeah, I got it,
Speaker 1: and I just like, if I go it's a good. No,
Speaker 1: it's not good, but you know you got to put
Speaker 1: it all right, fine, so I'll just go ahead. And
Speaker 1: of course I missed, you know, a half inch to
Speaker 1: the right, but I've gone back to Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do my even on this short one, I'm going to
Speaker 1: do my pre shot routine. And I had twenty eight
Speaker 1: putts the other day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know dif versus thirty eight. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And when you struggle in an area like you might
Speaker 3: struggle in those short puts, we tend to get more tense,
Speaker 3: but we tend to rush them too.
Speaker 4: Right things get them over quickly.
Speaker 3: So by you doing going into your pre shot routine
Speaker 3: and taking that deep breath and taking your time, I'll
Speaker 3: guarantee it helped.
Speaker 1: And tell me about your pre shot routine. Walk us
Speaker 1: through it.
Speaker 4: Boy, that's why I stink. I don't I don't you know.
Speaker 3: I probably have a pre shot routine, but I don't
Speaker 3: think about it. It's not conscious. I probably do the
Speaker 3: same thing every single time.
Speaker 1: But do you teach a pre shot routine?
Speaker 4: Depends on who it is. It depends on who it is.
Speaker 3: If I see somebody who's in a big hurry, I
Speaker 3: will start to tell them, Okay, I want you to go.
Speaker 3: I want you to back away from the ball. I
Speaker 3: want you to look at your target. I want you
Speaker 3: to step into it and try to develop that pre
Speaker 3: shot routine. But most lessons, no, I don't know of
Speaker 3: many lessons that are that you teach a pre shot routine.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, depends on what your goal is.
Speaker 3: If you've got somebody that's you know, later on in life,
Speaker 3: I think that they've played golf for a long time,
Speaker 3: and you know, if you want to get to a
Speaker 3: certain level in golf playing very well and you start
Speaker 3: out young, I think it's good to start with a
Speaker 3: pre shat routine.
Speaker 1: Of the players that are at the country club that
Speaker 1: you're at, do you think people mostly go to the
Speaker 1: range play, go to the range play? Or are there
Speaker 1: people you see a significant number, a noticeable number of
Speaker 1: people who go to the range go home? I mean
Speaker 1: they just come there just to be working on the
Speaker 1: range or is it always just a warm up to
Speaker 1: get out there.
Speaker 3: Well, the mornings, that's when you see people just coming
Speaker 3: up to warm up and hit balls to go play.
Speaker 3: It's the afternoon that you see people will come out
Speaker 3: just to practice and camp out over that basket of
Speaker 3: golf balls. That doesn't usually happen in the morning. So
Speaker 3: there's two different you know, two different times of the
Speaker 3: day when I see people out on the range in
Speaker 3: the afternoon, they're out there practicing and they're there for
Speaker 3: a purpose. When I see people in the morning, they're
Speaker 3: just loosening up to go play. Now, there might be
Speaker 3: some that are working on something specific, but for the
Speaker 3: most part, they're just getting warmed up for the day.
Speaker 1: When we talked about on the preshot routine, the word
Speaker 1: that comes up a lot in mechanics and things is tempo.
Speaker 1: But the pre shot routine has its own tempo, right,
Speaker 1: has its own rhythm. I guess this is a rhythm
Speaker 1: versus a tempo, and getting into a solid rhythm, a
Speaker 1: solid tempo all the way across can really help.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think everybody has.
Speaker 3: I I'll watch somebody's golf swing and how they are,
Speaker 3: and I'll and I'll actually be able to tell whether
Speaker 3: they're a type, a personality or something like that. And
Speaker 3: I think that if you are, if that blood rushes
Speaker 3: through your veins very quickly, that's not really conducive to
Speaker 3: a very smooth tempo in your golf swing. It's going
Speaker 3: to be very aggressive and very hard, and your pre
Speaker 3: shot might be might be quick if you probably don't
Speaker 3: even have a pre shot because you can't wait to
Speaker 3: get to hit the ball. Those are the people that
Speaker 3: I think would be would benefit from developing some sort
Speaker 3: of a pre shot routine to slow them down to
Speaker 3: take the deep breath. They need it more than anybody.
Speaker 3: Other people are very relaxed and their swing you can
Speaker 3: see with their swing tempo that they're kind of a
Speaker 3: late back person and the blood runs through their veins
Speaker 3: kind of slowly, if you know what I mean. But
Speaker 3: I think the pre shot to routine's more important for
Speaker 3: some than others.
Speaker 1: Well, it helps, It definitely does help. So one of
Speaker 1: the things that you know, I've been doing the show now,
Speaker 1: I'm in the ninth year of doing it, and I
Speaker 1: talk to a lot of people, and I've really developed
Speaker 1: a very strong I feel like I've developed a strong
Speaker 1: mental game and I understand corese strategy, which has really
Speaker 1: helped my game lately. But one of the things that
Speaker 1: I haven't done a lot of over these years is
Speaker 1: take lessons. And you give me a lesson recently, I
Speaker 1: can't let me publicly thank you because I can't believe
Speaker 1: what a change my game has had in the last
Speaker 1: two months. I mean, the day after we had this lesson.
Speaker 4: Your mind was spending when we had that lesson, because it.
Speaker 1: Well, I said, I mentioned to you we were doing
Speaker 1: something else was going on, and I mentioned, I said,
Speaker 1: I'm really playing the best golf of my life right now,
Speaker 1: but I'm struggling with my long irons. I'm either chunking
Speaker 1: the ball or hitting it way right. And he said,
Speaker 1: come on, let me take a look. And within four
Speaker 1: or five swings you saw exactly what was going on.
Speaker 1: And I've been developed that. And so the day after
Speaker 1: this lesson, we spent an hour together. I went out
Speaker 1: on the course and I probably lost ten balls and
Speaker 1: shot in the high nineties. And I hadn't shot in
Speaker 1: the nineties in a while. I've been playing consistently in
Speaker 1: the eighties, which was great, and the next five rounds
Speaker 1: I couldn't break ninety. I was really struggling. And then
Speaker 1: it clicked. Something happened. And this last month, the month
Speaker 1: of June, we've had great weather. I've played six times,
Speaker 1: which is a tremendous amount of golf for me, and
Speaker 1: I had one round at eighty nine, one at eighty five,
Speaker 1: and everything below that. And this week I played, of
Speaker 1: course San Geronimo, which I don't think I've ever had
Speaker 1: lower than an eighty nine in that course, and I
Speaker 1: shot an eighty.
Speaker 4: Good for you, so thank.
Speaker 3: You' notly you worked hard at it.
Speaker 4: All I did was the range.
Speaker 1: I've never gone to the range just to hit balls
Speaker 1: real since that. But I understood what you were having
Speaker 1: me do. So when I see the ballflight not doing
Speaker 1: what I was hoping it, I.
Speaker 3: Now I now know why you need to leave in
Speaker 3: knowing the why. You absolutely need to know if your
Speaker 3: ball's curving or moving in a certain direction, you've got
Speaker 3: to know why it's doing that and what it's going
Speaker 3: to take you physically or mentally to make it change.
Speaker 3: And a lot of people they don't know that, and
Speaker 3: then they try. I always say, people tend to reach
Speaker 3: down in the grab bag and let me try this,
Speaker 3: let me try that, and very often it's not even
Speaker 3: close to what they should be doing or changing. So
Speaker 3: I always believe that if if you want to improve yourself,
Speaker 3: you need to go to your instructor and find out
Speaker 3: why is my ball going to the right mechanically, the law,
Speaker 3: the ball flight laws, whatever it is, and when it
Speaker 3: does that, what do I need to do to fix
Speaker 3: it on the next shot, or at least minimize it.
Speaker 4: And there's a lot of people that don't know that.
Speaker 1: Well, there's so many people on the golf course that
Speaker 1: just continue to do the same thing over and over
Speaker 1: and can't.
Speaker 3: Figure they they play their mistakes or their faults. If
Speaker 3: they keep slicing it, they just aim farther left and
Speaker 3: they play their game.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, they make the adjustments. And there's some people
Speaker 1: that have a quality game with all these flaws, but
Speaker 1: they've learned how to work it. So you just kind
Speaker 1: of step back and keep your mouth shut and going yeah.
Speaker 3: And they're so used to playing their game that when
Speaker 3: you do make a change, like if you know the
Speaker 3: lesson we gave you, it can be very difficult to
Speaker 3: make that change because they feel like, hey, I'm playing
Speaker 3: okay the way I am. But when you make a change,
Speaker 3: invariably or very often, you can go backwards first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, Well look at the tour. I mean,
Speaker 1: how many names can we give you guys who made
Speaker 1: swing changes and disappeared for a while. Yeah, hopefully they
Speaker 1: come back. Very few have ye, not all do, that's correct,
Speaker 1: and yeah, and then they just disappear and it's kind
Speaker 1: of scary. But one of the things that I also
Speaker 1: learned from you, and I think that gets missed is
Speaker 1: we were talking about when you're on the range, hitting
Speaker 1: the ball, hitting the ball. Hitting the ball is the goal.
Speaker 1: Really hitting the ball or hitting through the ball is
Speaker 1: the full swing. Ball is only the middle part of
Speaker 1: the full swing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I gave a lesson this morning and
Speaker 3: that was one of the things we talked about. This
Speaker 3: person was hitting at the ball. So you do things
Speaker 3: to have them swing. It's not just the clubhead. To me,
Speaker 3: it's their hands. Very often when they're swinging, their hands
Speaker 3: are stopping at the ball, and that snaps that clubhead ahead.
Speaker 3: You'll hit behind the ball. You can hook the ball.
Speaker 3: There's many unfortunate things that can happen when your handstop.
Speaker 3: So I want somebody to take their hands as they
Speaker 3: follow through or as they hitting the ball, and to
Speaker 3: swing their hands out to the target so that ensures
Speaker 3: that their hands stay forward. We don't want to hit
Speaker 3: at the ball, like you said, you want to hit
Speaker 3: through the ball. So you try to think of either
Speaker 3: hitting through the ball swinging your hands to the target.
Speaker 3: I like to have people pick a spot beyond the ball,
Speaker 3: maybe an inch or two beyond, and try to hit
Speaker 3: the ground or see their club go through the grass.
Speaker 3: Beyond the ball. It can help a tremendous amount in
Speaker 3: short game and long to actually see your club go
Speaker 3: through the grass pass the ball. And I've also used
Speaker 3: this opposite effect when you see people want to get
Speaker 3: the ball in the air. Okay, So what they do
Speaker 3: is they try to flip their hands, they stay behind
Speaker 3: the ball, they fall away, And I've told people, I
Speaker 3: want you to hit this ball as low as possible,
Speaker 3: drill it five feet off the ground, and they've made
Speaker 3: perfect golf shots that go exact exactly the height they're
Speaker 3: supposed to, and they hit them crisply. When somebody tries
Speaker 3: to hit the ball low, they instinctively know, okay, I've
Speaker 3: got to delf the club. I got to get my
Speaker 3: hands forward and try to hit this ball low and
Speaker 3: get my way.
Speaker 4: To the left. That's how you hit a golf ball.
Speaker 3: I mean you want to accentuate that even further in
Speaker 3: some cases and move the ball back in your stance.
Speaker 3: And so I had to hit the ball low. But
Speaker 3: when you tell somebody who's been flipping their hands and
Speaker 3: falling away to try to hit it low, I can't
Speaker 3: tell you how many times it's actually had somebody hit
Speaker 3: the ball properly, and so even come out of a bunker.
Speaker 3: I'll say, every time you hit a bunker shot, I
Speaker 3: want you to try to hit it purposely.
Speaker 4: Into the bank.
Speaker 3: And now this doesn't apply to everybody, but to me,
Speaker 3: it applies for those that are hanging back or flipping
Speaker 3: and hitting behind the ball and then their club is
Speaker 3: rising before it even gets to the golf ball. Those
Speaker 3: are the people I want to try to hit it
Speaker 3: into the bank and follow through and that ball comes
Speaker 3: out every time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was this last round and there was a
Speaker 1: couple of shots I had that were and I realized
Speaker 1: when I started thinking about it, oh, my hands are
Speaker 1: coming around to the left here, No wonder the ball
Speaker 1: is doing what it's doing as opposed to going through
Speaker 1: it and ending up facing the target.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know so.
Speaker 1: And I think that one of the things that you
Speaker 1: you didn't really touch on, but you talk about when
Speaker 1: you talk to your teacher, and this is a big
Speaker 1: one that I've just learned. You got to find the
Speaker 1: right teacher. I've worked with a lot of people, I've
Speaker 1: talked to hundreds of coaches, but finding somebody who is
Speaker 1: articulate enough and has you can understand what you're doing
Speaker 1: and can communicate that with you in a way that
Speaker 1: you're not getting defensive or confused. And I would suggest,
Speaker 1: so find a teacher that you can work.
Speaker 3: Well, there's some better than others, but clearly there's somebody
Speaker 3: for everybody. And I think that you know, you can
Speaker 3: be a very good instructor and just not communicate the
Speaker 3: way that fits them.
Speaker 4: And I think you're right.
Speaker 3: Whether it be a doctor or an instructor or whatever
Speaker 3: it is, Uh, you need to find somebody that you
Speaker 3: understand and they communicate how you know, how you need
Speaker 3: them to communicate.
Speaker 1: And that you trust, and I means you build that
Speaker 1: trust and because of it, right now, like I said,
Speaker 1: I'm playing with more confidence. Yeah, and it's really apparent.
Speaker 1: That's like really at one point, I was standing behind
Speaker 1: the ball. I was about to take a shot and
Speaker 1: my eyes were closed and my friend like, I guess
Speaker 1: I was closed for a while, and he goes, are
Speaker 1: you all right? I'm like, yeah, I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: visualize what it's this swing's going to look like?
Speaker 4: Good for you.
Speaker 1: I just want to because like I've had a couple
Speaker 1: of bad swings in a row, and I just I
Speaker 1: need to know what it's supposed to look like on
Speaker 1: my body and visualized and went up and nailed it.
Speaker 4: So good for you.
Speaker 1: So thank you. You're welcome publicly. Thank you. I appreciate
Speaker 1: I'm having so much fun. So now my goal is
Speaker 1: to try to have and I've only done the three
Speaker 1: times this year, but try to get so I more
Speaker 1: rounds in the seventies than in the nineties.
Speaker 4: That good for you.
Speaker 3: And I'll tell you going back to the instructor, for
Speaker 3: all of you out there, you need to find somebody
Speaker 3: that you believe what they're saying. And I asked this
Speaker 3: question sometimes after a lesson, are you drinking the kool aid?
Speaker 3: And for those of us old enough to know what
Speaker 3: that means, it just means do you believe?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 3: Terrible situation, but it's do you believe in what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: because if you don't, you're not going to change. You're
Speaker 3: not going to make this change that we need to.
Speaker 3: And so if you're not believing in that change, well
Speaker 3: then you need to find somebody else, or at least
Speaker 3: get that person to communicate it differently to see if
Speaker 3: you do understand and believe.
Speaker 1: Well, that was something else that happened to me those
Speaker 1: first four or five rounds where I just was not
Speaker 1: doing anything right. But I was committed to making it
Speaker 1: work because I understood what you were trying to accomplish.
Speaker 1: And there were so many moments where I was going,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm just going back to what I
Speaker 1: was doing before, I'm not to do this, but I
Speaker 1: stopped myself and I made right exactly exactly, And then
Speaker 1: they don't like the teacher, and it's really.
Speaker 4: It's their comfort zone. Well, change is difficult. It just is.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you can go to somebody and and say something
Speaker 3: and it it's a quick change and they tend to
Speaker 3: get it and move on. But then there's others that
Speaker 3: you know, the change is difficult to make and it's
Speaker 3: a commitment and it's very difficult. It's much easier to
Speaker 3: go back to your own swing, even if you know
Speaker 3: you're going to have those poor outcomes sometimes.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to thank you once again for making
Speaker 1: time to be able to come over and have a
Speaker 1: conversation with me, because I really enjoy talking to you
Speaker 1: about this and you you, You and I can go
Speaker 1: on for a long time and hopefully we'll get these
Speaker 1: opportunities do so again. Thanks so much for coming.
Speaker 4: Back my pleasure. Thank you so much,