Speaker 1: Hi. This is Michael olfand from Farlow, North Dakota. I
Speaker 1: play at Rose Creek Golf Course.
Speaker 2: This is golf Smarter number nine eight nine.
Speaker 1: So if you play slow greens and you were going
Speaker 1: to practice the proper approach speed, you would put a
Speaker 1: club shaft behind the hole at exactly fifteen inches past
Speaker 1: the back of the cup. You would cut to miss
Speaker 1: on purpose. You would actually aim maybe a foot to
Speaker 1: the right of the actual hole, and you would try
Speaker 1: to get your balls to just gently stop right at
Speaker 1: that fifteen inch mark up against the shaft. Because if
Speaker 1: you play in really particularly on public horses in the South,
Speaker 1: with Bermuda grass, which is very slow, it needs to
Speaker 1: have more speed than that last foot of going into
Speaker 1: the hole to improve your odds of lipping in versus
Speaker 1: slipping out. There was just going to be more imperfections
Speaker 1: in the green and more footprints, particularly if you play
Speaker 1: it in a bermuda green golf course in the South
Speaker 1: or like here in Hawaii. And if you play on
Speaker 1: medium speed greens, you want that shaft to be at
Speaker 1: eleven inches, And if you play on fast greens, which
Speaker 1: almost exclusively private clubs, you would put it at seven inches.
Speaker 1: So there was the ball would roll by seven inches
Speaker 1: if you were trying to miss on purpose on fast greens,
Speaker 1: it would roll by eleven inches on medium greens and
Speaker 1: fifteen inches on slow greens.
Speaker 2: Pudding and chipping around the green drills, tips and advice
Speaker 2: with Jim Waldron from Balance Point Golf. This is golf Smurder,
Speaker 2: sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf minds to
Speaker 2: help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ.
Speaker 2: Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome back to the Golf
Speaker 2: s Murder podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Fred. I think this is my fifty thousand appearance.
Speaker 2: Well guess what, Yeah, I went through the spreadsheet and
Speaker 2: I looked it up this time. I couldn't fall asleep
Speaker 2: last night going don't forget to look up Jim's how
Speaker 2: many times Jim's been on the podcast. And here's some
Speaker 2: statistics for you since you're a fan of as. Okay,
Speaker 2: your first your first appearance was on episode one hundred
Speaker 2: and five on December eighteenth, two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: Okay, it sounds about right.
Speaker 2: Okay, you were on and then you were on once
Speaker 2: in two thousand and eight, then you were on a
Speaker 2: bunch and eleven in twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: you did two episodes back to back. We were doing
Speaker 2: the members only and they were on Putting, which you thought,
Speaker 2: we've never done anything on Putting.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, well I'm being treated for Alzheimer's right now?
Speaker 1: Should I should let you know that in your audience.
Speaker 1: Take what you're here with a grain of salt.
Speaker 2: I hope you're kidding person, kidding good, it's not funny.
Speaker 2: And then so that twenty fourteen we did two episodes
Speaker 2: in Putting. It was the only time you were on
Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen. You were only on once in twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen and once in twenty seventeen, m and once in
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen. But you were on monumental episodes of four hundred,
Speaker 2: number six hundred, number eight hundred.
Speaker 1: Remember that.
Speaker 2: But it's not going to be nine hundreds. It's not
Speaker 2: gonna be one thousand. Sorry I don't know what that's
Speaker 2: going to be. But anyway, this is drum roll. Please,
Speaker 2: this is Do I actually have a drum roll? Oh my,
Speaker 2: I think I do.
Speaker 3: Wait wait, look atm No, No that's not no, all right,
Speaker 3: shut up, okay, yay, okay, stop okay.
Speaker 2: So the only times I've ever used those buttons. So
Speaker 2: this is your thirty sixth appearance. Wow at it far
Speaker 2: far more than anybody.
Speaker 1: Else in the podcast. Well, it's almost honored, that is me.
Speaker 1: I'm honored and you were a one time with me.
Speaker 1: So does it count when I'm hosting you? Does that?
Speaker 1: Did you count as one of the thirty six? Well?
Speaker 2: Of course that was what was that eight hundred?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Cool.
Speaker 2: But you've become a podcast slot, haven't you.
Speaker 1: I'm shameless.
Speaker 2: We're not the only podcast you're on anymore. Yeah, I'm like,
Speaker 2: wait a minute.
Speaker 1: I'm getting in for all kinds of bizarre podcasts. It's
Speaker 1: it's funny, is that right? Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well good good?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And how's business?
Speaker 1: Fantash can't I mean, busiest I've ever been by.
Speaker 2: Far, because you're a podcast star. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I'm in Hawaii on the beach like I have
Speaker 1: been for the last thirty years and enjoying Hawaiian Yep,
Speaker 1: just came up from my morning walk and swim in
Speaker 1: the ocean.
Speaker 2: You told me you turned your phone off.
Speaker 1: This is not my phone, that's that's FaceTime computer.
Speaker 2: We've talked so many times about how difficult it is
Speaker 2: for you to just log in to this, and we
Speaker 2: logged in on the first try today right at the
Speaker 2: schedule time. It's amazing. But of course we're going to
Speaker 2: have glitches somebody trying to get into.
Speaker 1: Well, hopefully that'll be the only one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hopefully that'll be the only one. And we'll add
Speaker 2: a lot of I promise to the audience that you're
Speaker 2: not going to hear all of all of us trying
Speaker 2: to figure out how to shut that up.
Speaker 1: No's what's funny. We were talking about that because about
Speaker 1: how busy so when people you know, that's what I mean.
Speaker 1: I've been doing so many webcam lessons, mainly for people
Speaker 1: who suffer from yips or just poor mental game from
Speaker 1: all over the planet. I'm still working with people on
Speaker 1: their swing and their short game mechanics and obviously putting mechanics,
Speaker 1: but it's sort of sort of blossom in the yips
Speaker 1: and mental game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there's a couple of things. I definitely want
Speaker 2: to talk about putting today since we haven't done it
Speaker 2: in thirteen years. But I also want to talk about
Speaker 2: and God, I hope this isn't the yips, but I'm
Speaker 2: really struggling around the edges of the green on I
Speaker 2: chipping on. I have these great little I have a
Speaker 2: great stroke. I have a great practice stroke and then
Speaker 2: I go and I either chunk it, double hit it,
Speaker 2: or fly it across the green just you know, scull
Speaker 2: it and go and it goes and I'm like, what
Speaker 2: is going on? I used to be really good at
Speaker 2: this and get it right near.
Speaker 1: The hall chipping or putting off the green.
Speaker 2: Chipping, chipping chipping, you know, from like cause I don't
Speaker 2: like to putt over rough. I want to get the ball.
Speaker 1: You have to you have to chip pitch for sure, right,
Speaker 1: And I.
Speaker 2: Know that Tony Manzoni gave me this one tip that
Speaker 2: works so well for so long of taking like an
Speaker 2: eight iron and putting it more upright and putting it
Speaker 2: on the toe and just do a little putting stroke
Speaker 2: for it. But it's just it's not.
Speaker 1: Well, that shot does not work if you're out of
Speaker 1: the rough. That only works if you're basically on the
Speaker 1: fringe with the ball sitting up in a really good line.
Speaker 1: That's called chipping. Okay, Yeah, it's what's something that Paul Runyon,
Speaker 1: famous touring pro back in the thirties, forties and fifties
Speaker 1: advocated for, but it doesn't work unless the balls Basically
Speaker 1: you have to be on the fringe with the ball
Speaker 1: sitting up for that technique to work.
Speaker 2: Okay, So if I'm another yard off the green and
Speaker 2: im and I'm in rough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, then you either have to do what's called modern shipping,
Speaker 1: which is chipping with a little bit of riskcock and release,
Speaker 1: or you got to do pitching, which is a half
Speaker 1: to even a full wrist cock, so different, you know,
Speaker 1: different technique than what you've been using. You you know
Speaker 1: which whenever you're in the rough, you have to come
Speaker 1: in on a steeper angle to get some club face
Speaker 1: on the ball, right, you can't come in shallow and
Speaker 1: classical chipping you come in pretty shallow, so you can't
Speaker 1: use classical chipping, you know, old school chipping. So it's
Speaker 1: a little harder shot because you have to time the
Speaker 1: release anytime, anytime you're setting a wrist angle, you have
Speaker 1: to release the angle on the downswing and that takes
Speaker 1: obviously timing and skill, you know, more skill than if
Speaker 1: you're using no risks. Yeah.
Speaker 2: M hmm, Okay, are we solved? Is it is that
Speaker 2: all I need to know?
Speaker 1: No, there's always more than that.
Speaker 2: That's why I brought you one. Of course, well more
Speaker 2: I need more. Fix it, fix it.
Speaker 1: Well, you got to keep your way forward, right, because
Speaker 1: if you want to, if you want to increase the
Speaker 1: angle of attack, you have to One way to do
Speaker 1: that is to put your weight more forward, lean your
Speaker 1: hands forward more so you have more forward chaffleen. Open
Speaker 1: the face of your lob wedge or your sand wedge,
Speaker 1: which are the two primary tools you're going to use
Speaker 1: in a shot like that. When you open the face,
Speaker 1: you expose more bounce, and the bounce slides through the
Speaker 1: rough better than the leading edge. The leading edge if
Speaker 1: it presents first, it'll it'll it'll encounter too much resistance
Speaker 1: from the grass.
Speaker 2: And do I want like on my my the wedge
Speaker 2: that I use for my lob is a fifty six
Speaker 2: degree and and then there's a second number on these wedges,
Speaker 2: and that's basically what the bounce is, right, I think
Speaker 2: mine is a ten. So what are the numbers? Not
Speaker 2: much bounce? What the higher number is less bounce and
Speaker 2: the low number is more bounce.
Speaker 1: Now the higher number, the higher number if it's the
Speaker 1: bounced number, because it could also be the loft some
Speaker 1: of these wedges have the loft angle imprinted, like fifty
Speaker 1: six degree would be the loft for example, right, And
Speaker 1: the most common bounce degree of bounce with a fifty
Speaker 1: six degrees sand wedge is fourteen degrees of bounce, but
Speaker 1: you can get them with twelve or even as little
Speaker 1: as ten. But I mean, to me, having only ten
Speaker 1: degrees bounce out of sand wedge is crazy. It kind
Speaker 1: of defeats the whole purpose. So, I mean, I've got
Speaker 1: one that has sixteen degrees of bounce. So you want
Speaker 1: you want to you know, bounce as your friend. You
Speaker 1: want to have a fair amount of bounce on your
Speaker 1: sandwich for sure.
Speaker 2: Right, and that's for softer sand I mean, we really
Speaker 2: discussed this a little bit more. I think it's enlightening
Speaker 2: for a lot of people to understand what what bounce
Speaker 2: means in their.
Speaker 1: In their way, Yeah, what the way bounce works? Well, Well,
Speaker 1: the best way to understand is to know the story
Speaker 1: of of uh uh Am. I'm having a senior moment,
Speaker 1: who was the Italian tour pro who invented the sandwich,
Speaker 1: whom I thinking of back in the nineteen thirties of
Speaker 1: the British Open. I don't know, I'm having a senior moment.
Speaker 1: But anyhow, he invented the same, but he invented the
Speaker 1: sandwidge Toeppe sandwich, Yeah, exactly, just Gisepe, my friend Giuseppe.
Speaker 1: But he kept it was such a powerful weapon because
Speaker 1: he added he basically had a welder weld some type
Speaker 1: of metal I forgot what it was on the bottom
Speaker 1: of his U pitching wedge, and he had the club
Speaker 1: fitter bend the pitching wedged like a lot, so there
Speaker 1: was a more loft. I think it was lead if
Speaker 1: I remember I so had this gobs of lead on
Speaker 1: the bottom and that works the way a keel on
Speaker 1: a boat works, so it can go through the water faster.
Speaker 1: So basically, when you have bounce on the bottom of
Speaker 1: a wedge, it's it slides through the turf better and
Speaker 1: it slides through the sand better. But if you don't
Speaker 1: have bounced, then the leading edge tends to dig in
Speaker 1: the grass or dig in the sand. So that's the
Speaker 1: whole idea. To provide some some more speed, more zip
Speaker 1: through the ground with a more stable club face angle,
Speaker 1: you need bounce.
Speaker 2: Okay, And for those folks who are playing jee.
Speaker 1: Jeans Sarason there you go.
Speaker 2: I knew it was going to pop into your head and.
Speaker 1: Made those Alzheimer drugs are really helping today. I say.
Speaker 2: So for those folks who live in areas that have
Speaker 2: more uh packed sand, it's not fluffy.
Speaker 1: You want lower bounce, Yeah, you.
Speaker 2: Want lower bounds. And then what about if you're playing
Speaker 2: a hard pan and you you know you're going to
Speaker 2: use a pitching wedge out there, and you're playing and
Speaker 2: that's not a lot of grass and it's the ground
Speaker 2: is kind of hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was. The harder the pan, you know, the
Speaker 1: less fluffy the lie is, so to speak, whether it's
Speaker 1: in sand or on the on the fairway or in
Speaker 1: the rough. Uh, the firmer the lie, the less bounce
Speaker 1: you need they want, okay, because if you have too
Speaker 1: much bounce, then that bounce will keep the leading edge
Speaker 1: too high during the impact, just before, during and after impact.
Speaker 1: And in fact that you can even you can literally
Speaker 1: even bounce off the ground. You can skull the ball
Speaker 1: over the green if you have too much bounce, it
Speaker 1: literally bounce off the ground. Yeah. So like in the
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest where I live, and you know in Oregon
Speaker 1: and Washington, we get a lot of rain most of
Speaker 1: the year except for a couple of months in the
Speaker 1: middle of summer. And so generally the better players here
Speaker 1: have like a if they have a fifty six degree
Speaker 1: sand wedge, they may only have twelve degrees of bounce
Speaker 1: eleven something like that. But if you look play in
Speaker 1: South Florida where they have those those almost talcum powder
Speaker 1: greenside bunkers where it's really light, powdery sand, you might
Speaker 1: have sixteen degrees of bounce on your sandwich. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: generally what I recommend is fourteen degrees on your sandwich
Speaker 1: and ten nine or ten degrees on your love which
Speaker 1: that seems to be the best combination for most people.
Speaker 1: So a little a little less bounce on the on
Speaker 1: the love witch.
Speaker 2: So actually I use my fifty three degree as my
Speaker 2: sand wedge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's probably a fifty four that was bent
Speaker 1: to fifty three, probably, I'm guessing, okay, yeah, because I
Speaker 1: don't really know nobody. I really find that a fifty
Speaker 1: three degree.
Speaker 2: And I spread my legs wide and I crouched down,
Speaker 2: I get down and I'm able to you know, I've
Speaker 2: had more success doing that in the sand than using
Speaker 2: unless of course I'm on a green side bunker that
Speaker 2: the pin is very close, then I'll go with a
Speaker 2: higher lofted my fifty six and try to just get
Speaker 2: under it and let it pop up. Is that right?
Speaker 1: You never really want to try to get under it.
Speaker 1: That you want to try and get under it is
Speaker 1: your your conscious mind using language expressing what's called in
Speaker 1: your unconscious mind scooping impulse. Okay, even on a flop shot,
Speaker 1: you should not try to get under it, right, because
Speaker 1: that that'll almost certainly make you either hit it really
Speaker 1: thin and skull it or maybe hit it really fat.
Speaker 2: M Yeah, but there's that there's that common myth I
Speaker 2: guess or notion of you want to you want to
Speaker 2: in the bunker, you want to get like under the ball. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's just hitting behind it.
Speaker 1: Well, you're you're hitting behind it on purpose, you're hitting
Speaker 1: it heavy fat on purpose. But you never want to
Speaker 1: feel like you're trying to get under it. Remember, you're
Speaker 1: think of it from the standpoint of your wrists, and
Speaker 1: your wrists on cocking is what creates most of the
Speaker 1: downward force into the clubbed on all golf shots where
Speaker 1: you're cocking your wrists, which lifts the clubb up towards
Speaker 1: the sky on the backswing. Your bus basically reversing chorus
Speaker 1: on the forward swing, so you're always hitting down the
Speaker 1: clubed's going down from your wrists and any where you
Speaker 1: set your wristcock angle on the backswing. So what what's
Speaker 1: getting getting under is when people go sideways with their rest,
Speaker 1: which is called flipping, which is a bad, bad flaw
Speaker 1: that almost all golfers have unless they're really good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The loft built into the club makes the ball get airborne.
Speaker 1: You don't need to help out by trying to get
Speaker 1: underneath it.
Speaker 2: Okay, so then I don't necessarily need a higher lofty
Speaker 2: club when I'm yeah, you.
Speaker 1: Do need a lot. Everybody should have a lob wedge
Speaker 1: in their bag, which is generally sixty, but it could
Speaker 1: be a fifty eight degree.
Speaker 2: But he's really hard to hit.
Speaker 1: If your technique sucks. Yeah, yeah, but you can.
Speaker 2: You can take a handicap or as a sixty degree. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're not necessarily.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, if your handicap is roughly twenty or higher,
Speaker 1: you probably don't have the skill to hit a lob wodge.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, okay with that, Yeah, I use mine all
Speaker 1: the time all the time.
Speaker 2: Oh, I do too. I mean my fifty six. I
Speaker 2: used to use a sixty bit, but I was not
Speaker 2: getting Sometimes I would need it for like a fifty
Speaker 2: yard shot, and with my sixty I couldn't reach it.
Speaker 2: But with this fifty my fifty six, I'm pretty good
Speaker 2: up to sixty five yards and I can go different
Speaker 2: distances on it. Yeah, it's just when I get in
Speaker 2: the rough around the green, that's when I I didn't
Speaker 2: want to make the choke sound, so I just made
Speaker 2: the vomiting vomit sound.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. We all know that sound.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: All right. Should we talking about putting?
Speaker 2: You want to talk about pudding? I would love to
Speaker 2: talk about.
Speaker 1: Putting, Okay, So here's my story. I'm putting. I was
Speaker 1: never very good at it until about twelve years ago
Speaker 1: my dad.
Speaker 2: What happened then?
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you. My dad was really good. He was.
Speaker 1: He only got down to about a ten handicap, but
Speaker 1: he was like a plus three at putting. He practiced
Speaker 1: putting every night, like like in commercials back in the
Speaker 1: day when you couldn't you know, before there were TV
Speaker 1: remotes and you had to wait for the commercial. He
Speaker 1: would just practice putting. For three minutes all the commercials
Speaker 1: were running, and he got really good at it. But
Speaker 1: I never liked it. I always thought it was kind
Speaker 1: of boring. And I had this round of golf here
Speaker 1: in the north shore of Oahu at Turtle Bay, at
Speaker 1: the Palmer Course, which is probably the best course in
Speaker 1: Hawaii and one of the hardest courses for sure, and
Speaker 1: I shot by ball striking that day was really good.
Speaker 1: I think I hit fifteen greens or something like that
Speaker 1: in like twenty mile an hour trade winds.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: But I missed like four putts, four birdie putts, I
Speaker 1: think three birdie putts and one par saving putt within say,
Speaker 1: four to six feet, and they were makeable putts. I
Speaker 1: ended up shooting like, I think seventy four for the day,
Speaker 1: something like that could have been if I had made
Speaker 1: all those potts, it would have been you know, like
Speaker 1: sixty nine or something. And so that kind of was
Speaker 1: a wake up call. So I decided this was like
Speaker 1: twelve years ago. I said, you know, I really don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm doing, what I'm doing with a putter,
Speaker 1: and I better figure this out. So I spent the
Speaker 1: next year really intensely investigating putting instantly learned a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff that most people, most amateurs, have never heard of,
Speaker 1: and even most teaching pros, I think, still don't understand
Speaker 1: about putting really and I totally changed my system of
Speaker 1: how to teach it, and I've had absolutely incredible results
Speaker 1: teaching it since then to people. Yeah, but it's it's
Speaker 1: a very different approach. I'll just give you a quick
Speaker 1: sort of overview and then you can feel free to
Speaker 1: throw some questions at me. But the first principle of
Speaker 1: the Waldron putting system is the fact that your ball
Speaker 1: is on the putting surface doesn't mean you should always
Speaker 1: use the same grip. And you know, you shouldn't always
Speaker 1: think of every putt as being basically the same. It's
Speaker 1: not so. In my system, there's four different types of
Speaker 1: putts you could encounter in a typical round of golf,
Speaker 1: and it's based on the distance the ball is from
Speaker 1: the hole number one and number two. How much the
Speaker 1: distance the ball is from the hole involves line control
Speaker 1: versus distance control. So here's what it is. So if
Speaker 1: you're if you have a short put what I call
Speaker 1: a short putt, and I'm talking about for the vast
Speaker 1: majority of golf courses today, they're between nine and eleven
Speaker 1: on the stint meter. Probably ten is average today of
Speaker 1: a decent, you know, well maintained golf course. There obviously
Speaker 1: are faster ones that the tour guys play on, and
Speaker 1: there are slower ones here in the un courses in
Speaker 1: Hawhi where they're like seven or eight, you know, but
Speaker 1: vast majority of courses are nine, ten, eleven. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: when you're putting within seven feet of the hole, that's
Speaker 1: what I call a short putt. And you should think
Speaker 1: of that putt as ninety percent about line control only
Speaker 1: ten percent distance control, because most of the time when
Speaker 1: you miss a short putt like that, it's mostly not
Speaker 1: always it's because you're ball veered left or right of
Speaker 1: the intended line. And I'm assuming you know you can
Speaker 1: read the line properly right. In other words, you you
Speaker 1: didn't hit it on the line you inten So you
Speaker 1: miss left or right only ten percent of the time.
Speaker 1: If you're halfway decent at putting, do you miss those
Speaker 1: putts because you blew it by the hole with too
Speaker 1: much speed or you didn't get it to the hole right.
Speaker 1: So you got to think of that as a putt
Speaker 1: that's mostly about having good line control. Yeah, so that
Speaker 1: means it's possible to use a different grip on that
Speaker 1: short putt than you would use on say a sixty
Speaker 1: five foot putt. And I'm loving the timing of this
Speaker 1: podcast because I was watching the PJ event Tory Pines
Speaker 1: the last couple of days and the number one player
Speaker 1: in the world, Scotti Scheffler, has been doing this for
Speaker 1: a while now, I think for the last year or so.
Speaker 1: He puts with what some people call I like to
Speaker 1: call it the paintbrush grip, kind of like this. Some
Speaker 1: people call that the saw grip. When he's within fifteen
Speaker 1: to twenty feet and when he's outside fifteen to twenty feet,
Speaker 1: he does a conventional putting grip. And I've been teaching that.
Speaker 1: That part I've been teaching for a long time, over
Speaker 1: twenty years.
Speaker 2: And what's the what's the value of that?
Speaker 1: The value is the conventional grip, which is sometimes called
Speaker 1: the reverse overlap palms neutral where your palms are basically
Speaker 1: parallel to the club face. You do a reverse Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is really good for feeling the weight of the
Speaker 1: club head and the speed that your hands and clubhead
Speaker 1: are moving. So it's really good for distance control, but
Speaker 1: it's not so good for line control because it allows
Speaker 1: too much risk action and risk and forearm rotation. When
Speaker 1: you when you rotate your wrists and forearms, you're altering
Speaker 1: the face angle. The club face will either will roll
Speaker 1: shut or roll open.
Speaker 2: And you know, interestingly, that's kind of why I moved
Speaker 2: to a broomstick or now a sweeper. You can't use
Speaker 2: the word broomstick anywhere where you're talking about lab golf, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: because some company now owns that word.
Speaker 1: Oh is that right? I had no idea.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, broomstick you can use broom handle is okay?
Speaker 1: And sleeper it's a yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know how they anyway, But I switched over
Speaker 2: to a broomstick. I'll call it that for now because
Speaker 2: we all know what I'm talking about. I did that
Speaker 2: for about because my hands were getting in the way
Speaker 2: with my normal length thirty three and a half inch putter.
Speaker 2: And but I used the broomstick for about four months
Speaker 2: and I could barely get under thirty six putts, where
Speaker 2: before I was in the thirty two thirty three range
Speaker 2: and sometimes thirty you know, so I went back to
Speaker 2: my thirty three inch thirty three and a half inch,
Speaker 2: talking about four months with the broomstick's work.
Speaker 1: Anyhow, So in my putting system, you use two grips.
Speaker 1: Use what I call a short putt grip around fifteen
Speaker 1: to twenty feet or less wow, because it creates better
Speaker 1: face angle stability, So left hand low would be the
Speaker 1: most popular of those. Then there's the saw grip, the
Speaker 1: one that Scotti Scheffler's using. Then there's a Christ Marco
Speaker 1: clawgrip up, there's a Paul Runyon grip. There's split hand
Speaker 1: left hand low, which is what I do. I separate
Speaker 1: my hands by about an inch left hand low, and
Speaker 1: I rotate my left hand about forty five degrees to
Speaker 1: face the sky. So that's a form of an armlock grip.
Speaker 1: So the knuckles on my right hand are pressing against
Speaker 1: the inside of my left wrist with equal sideways pressure.
Speaker 1: So the universal aspect of a short putt grip is
Speaker 1: it creates massive club face angle stability, and it also
Speaker 1: tends to almost totally inhibit any tendency to flip your wrists.
Speaker 1: And you know, mid to high handicap amateurs often will
Speaker 1: flip their wrist sideways during right before impact, which is
Speaker 1: a bad flaw to have in your putting stroke. So anyhow,
Speaker 1: so that's part of it. So you use the standard
Speaker 1: putting grip that can so called conventional putting grip roughly
Speaker 1: outside fifteen to twenty feet and one of the short
Speaker 1: putt grips inside it. Then there's four types of potts.
Speaker 1: Again to mention, the short winners are seven feet and
Speaker 1: in from eight feet to about fifteen to twenty feet
Speaker 1: our medium distance putts. And then from twenty one feet
Speaker 1: to about forty four feet our long our medium long putts.
Speaker 1: And then anything outside forty five feet I call a
Speaker 1: long putt. And what I teach is differing amounts of
Speaker 1: grip pressure, four differing amounts of grip pressure. What's called
Speaker 1: sideways triangle pressure, one of Hogan's concepts, which applies to
Speaker 1: all golf shots, including putting. That means you squeeze your
Speaker 1: upper arms, your elbows, your forearms, and your hands toward
Speaker 1: each other sideways with equal pressure. And the more stability
Speaker 1: you want in the club head and you want a lot,
Speaker 1: you want a ton of stability in the club, particularly
Speaker 1: in the face angle on a super short putt, the
Speaker 1: more triangle pressure you apply and the more grip pressure.
Speaker 1: So when I'm working with a student, I'm teaching him
Speaker 1: how to be much better at putting, at making putts
Speaker 1: within seven feet, he has very firm ret pressure. Overall,
Speaker 1: he has high intensity sideways pressure, and he also has
Speaker 1: high intensity connection pressure. Connection pressure means the pressure of
Speaker 1: your tricep against your pectoral muscles going behind you. And
Speaker 1: if you watch Tiger Woods, who's insanely great and very
Speaker 1: short putts within seven feet, you can see him do
Speaker 1: that and how he doesn't do it on longer putts.
Speaker 1: He actually you can see him kind of fit his
Speaker 1: particularly his left tricep against his left peck and press
Speaker 1: it there when he's putting within roughly seven feet. So
Speaker 1: in that type of a pot, there is no there
Speaker 1: should be no slack in the system at all, meaning
Speaker 1: your upper arms should stay glued deer pecks anytime you're
Speaker 1: putting within seven feet. Yeah, Whereas on a putt that's
Speaker 1: outside forty five feet, you need to have some sideways
Speaker 1: motion of your upper arms brushing, brushing against your pecks,
Speaker 1: moving against sideways against your pecks, still still touching your pecks,
Speaker 1: but they're brushing, they're moving. Yeah, because you have to
Speaker 1: make a bigger stroke. So you can't. You can't. You
Speaker 1: couldn't use a connection pressure stroke on a longer putt
Speaker 1: because you wouldn't. You wouldn't move the putter hardly at
Speaker 1: any distance in space. Right, So we've got four different
Speaker 1: amounts of sideways pressure, connection pressure, grip pressure, and then
Speaker 1: the fourth one is called ring the flannel. Have you
Speaker 1: ever heard Hogan talk about ring the flannel pressure?
Speaker 2: You know that is never talk to Hogan.
Speaker 1: Oh, well, you should talk to him. He's fantastic. He's
Speaker 1: really good at parties. He's very entertaining.
Speaker 2: If I have one, Yeah, you should invite him over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just just you're gonna watch the martinis. Too
Speaker 1: many martini.
Speaker 2: We'll get it. We'll get them for episode one thousand,
Speaker 2: the Ghost of Smarter. That would be no, no, we'll
Speaker 2: just get Hogan. I'm not going on even the.
Speaker 1: Ghost Okay, no no. But anyhow, he learned this from
Speaker 1: h Scottish touring probe and he applied it to all
Speaker 1: his golf shots, full shots, short game shots and putts.
Speaker 1: But what you do is you, once you take the
Speaker 1: proper grip, you gently squeeze each hand toward each other
Speaker 1: in a twisting motion, So your left hand on the
Speaker 1: putting grip twists like an eighth of an inch to
Speaker 1: the right, and your right hand twists an eighth of
Speaker 1: an inch to the left with equal pressure. So it's
Speaker 1: almost like ring the flannels the Scottish term for ringing
Speaker 1: a wet towel dry. So it's like you're you're not
Speaker 1: physically moving your fingers on the handle, that would be
Speaker 1: a mistake, but you're only doing it with your muscles
Speaker 1: without actually moving your fingers. So I'm talking really really
Speaker 1: really subtle pressure. Right, But when I'm doing a very
Speaker 1: short pot, I have a higher intensity ring the flannel
Speaker 1: pressure than I do on a sixty five foot putt. Right,
Speaker 1: I basically have almost none on a long pot, and
Speaker 1: I have a lot on a short putt. That's the idea.
Speaker 1: And again, because we need more club face stability on
Speaker 1: a s and we need more feel awareness for how
Speaker 1: big emotion and how fast emotion on longer putts for
Speaker 1: distance control, because long puts are mostly about distance control,
Speaker 1: not line control.
Speaker 2: Okay, I am such a lab rat. I am so
Speaker 2: enamored with with lab golf, and I know not everybody's
Speaker 2: bought into it yet, because probably because of price. But
Speaker 2: one of the things that they talk about and that
Speaker 2: they're trying to they have scientifically cured is torque, right,
Speaker 2: is take the torque out. And you I hear you
Speaker 2: saying a lot of things about twisting and avoiding the
Speaker 2: tist and that's what we're talking about. We're talking about
Speaker 2: that's why wouldn't you have a putter that just now
Speaker 2: that they're available, what put that prevents that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So the lab putters will make will absolutely create
Speaker 1: a more stable face angle during the stroke, but it
Speaker 1: still doesn't eliminate uh, instability.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: That you have to do as a skilled athlete. You
Speaker 1: have to learn how to maintain a neutral putter face
Speaker 1: angle to your path throughout the stroke.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, okay, And that's this.
Speaker 1: Gets to something else I mentioned Tiger. There's there's a
Speaker 1: there's a I think mistaken view that Tiger is sort
Speaker 1: of promulgated called releasing the putter, which is the idea
Speaker 1: when you talk about releasing the club face in a
Speaker 1: long game shot, in a few short game shots, it
Speaker 1: means that just before impact and just after the toe
Speaker 1: is moving faster than the heel, So there's independent face
Speaker 1: angle rotation independent of the path. That's not really a
Speaker 1: thing in putting in my based on my research, right,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. It doesn't actually release. Now, you can do it,
Speaker 1: and Tiger does do it. He does rotate the toe
Speaker 1: a little faster than the heel. He uses his wrists.
Speaker 1: He's using very old school putting methods that he learned
Speaker 1: as a child. Right, And you can certainly do it
Speaker 1: that way. And so I'm saying, if you can do
Speaker 1: it that way, but why would you. Most amateurs basically
Speaker 1: suck at keeping the face angle stable. I mean people
Speaker 1: that I will play golf with who are average, average players.
Speaker 1: They miss a lot of makeable putts within eight seven
Speaker 1: or eight feet because their face angle was rotating either
Speaker 1: too much to pass the heel, which means they miss
Speaker 1: it left if they're right handed, or they go the
Speaker 1: other way and they roll the face open and they
Speaker 1: miss to the right. So what I teach, which goes
Speaker 1: along with the lab thing, is I want, even on
Speaker 1: long putts, I want the face angle to be stable
Speaker 1: throughout that I don't want. I don't want any club
Speaker 1: face rotation at all. I think I think that's just
Speaker 1: a myth that you need to have that you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh there you done. Usually no I was waiting
Speaker 2: for you going please okay, no, no, no, please keep going.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the idea is when you have connection pressure,
Speaker 1: which again is the upper arm pressing against your pecks
Speaker 1: in the in the behind you direction, and when you
Speaker 1: have sideways pressure, and when you have ring the flannel pressure,
Speaker 1: and when you have firmer grip pressure, the combination of
Speaker 1: those four things to the highest extent that I advocate,
Speaker 1: which again is nowhere near maximum, it's still pretty subtle,
Speaker 1: that does something I call it takes the slack out
Speaker 1: of the system. And the reason why I was a
Speaker 1: poor putter until twelve years ago is I had way
Speaker 1: too much slack in the system. And I can guarantee
Speaker 1: anybody who's listening this ninety nine point ninety nine nine
Speaker 1: percent of people listening to this podcast have way too
Speaker 1: much slack in the system. The system is the so
Speaker 1: called triangle of your shoulder girdle and your two arms.
Speaker 1: And when you have slack in the system, and it
Speaker 1: could be anywhere from your fingertips all the way up
Speaker 1: into your armpits, the very fact that there's give or
Speaker 1: slack or not, you know, not being taught enough. No
Speaker 1: tautness allows the face angle to rotate open or shut
Speaker 1: and allows your path to be inconsistent. And you want
Speaker 1: a neutral path, and you want a stable club face
Speaker 1: that stays neutral to the path, and you can't have
Speaker 1: that when you have a lot of slack in the system.
Speaker 1: So removing the slack is why we do those four things,
Speaker 1: especially on a very short put and having a little
Speaker 1: bit of slack on a really long putt is good
Speaker 1: because a little bit of slack in the system on
Speaker 1: a longer put gives you better distance control.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense, yes, because distance control is critical.
Speaker 2: So what kind of drills? What kind of drills can
Speaker 2: we do so that we can ingrain this and make
Speaker 2: this you know, unconscious competence.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a there's a there's various training aids in
Speaker 1: the market. There often called the putting tripod. It's one
Speaker 1: of them, and it's two fiberglass poles that are about
Speaker 1: maybe I guess they're about four feet long that connect
Speaker 1: with a clamp on the shaft of your putter below
Speaker 1: the grip, and the poles themselves go underneath your armpits.
Speaker 1: So it looks like this V shaped device that's underneath
Speaker 1: your armpits, and then you simply squeeze your your upper
Speaker 1: arms and your forearms and elbows toward each other again
Speaker 1: with the sideways pressure. So basically this really works. This
Speaker 1: gives you the sideways pressure almost automatically. I highly recommend
Speaker 1: some type of a putting tripod aid like that for
Speaker 1: people who learn to take the slack out.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, I've never heard you, you know, talk
Speaker 2: about aids that offer value.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one. The
Speaker 1: other way you can think of it, it's just strategically
Speaker 1: is anytime you're putting, and again I'm not talking about uphill,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about level pot obviously got to adjust for
Speaker 1: uphill downhill, but anytime you're putting around forty five feet
Speaker 1: or more, you have to think of that putt as
Speaker 1: first of all, your odds of making it are close
Speaker 1: to zero percent, right, So you're what you're really trying
Speaker 1: to do is not three putt from there, yeah right,
Speaker 1: And that means your first putt has to be reasonably
Speaker 1: close to the hole withther than a three foot circle.
Speaker 1: And again, most people when they three putt, it's not
Speaker 1: because they're like eight feet left or right of the hole.
Speaker 1: When the ball stops, it's because they're eight feet short
Speaker 1: or eight feet long of the hole. True, right. So
Speaker 1: distance control is really so I always say think of
Speaker 1: that as ninety percent. That putt is ninety percent about
Speaker 1: distance control, only ten percent about line control. And when
Speaker 1: you're putting from about twenty one feet to about forty
Speaker 1: four feet what I call medium long, it's like seventy
Speaker 1: percent distance control, thirty percent line control. And when you're
Speaker 1: putting from around eight feet to about fifteen twenty feet,
Speaker 1: it's like fifty to fifty line control distance control. And
Speaker 1: when you're putting seven feet or less, it's ninety percent
Speaker 1: line control only ten percent distance. Yeah, And so that's
Speaker 1: partly why I want people to use two putting grips,
Speaker 1: a putting grip for sure outside fifteen twenty feet that
Speaker 1: promotes good distance control, and a different putting grip within
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty feet that promotes better line control. And then
Speaker 1: along with what I mentioned earlier, having varying amounts of
Speaker 1: ring during the flannel pressure connection pressure, sideways pressure grip pressure.
Speaker 1: I mean most of my students when I show them
Speaker 1: my grip pressure on a putt within seven feet they're
Speaker 1: shocked how firm it is, because there's this myth that
Speaker 1: as the putts get shorter, you could hold on lighter.
Speaker 1: And all I can say is, if you want to
Speaker 1: get the putting yips, do that. In fact, so many
Speaker 1: of the students I work with who have putting yips,
Speaker 1: they mistakenly think I got to hold on really light
Speaker 1: with pressure. That's like inviting the yip in, right, because
Speaker 1: you're starting out with so much slack in your fingers
Speaker 1: that it invites the fingers tightening up. Whereas if you
Speaker 1: start out tight, they're already tight. There's no more room
Speaker 1: for the yip to come in, right.
Speaker 2: Sure, Sure, Yeah, I don't know if I've ever played
Speaker 2: with anybody who had two different grips.
Speaker 1: Well, well, apparently I haven't been playing with Scotti lately then, yeah?
Speaker 2: Or Phil, No, I've not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Phil started doing that about four or five years ago.
Speaker 1: There are about, I guess about ten percent of the
Speaker 1: guys on tour I would guess are using two grips,
Speaker 1: and have been from the last starting about five years ago.
Speaker 1: It's gotten to be a thing, though. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: I think twenty years from now everybody will be doing it.
Speaker 1: There's no there's no reason not to do it. There
Speaker 1: really isn't. There's such an advantage, you know.
Speaker 2: So, uh, well, I'm fascinated by if you're short or
Speaker 2: long and you're ten feet you have a less chance
Speaker 2: of putting it in is if you're seven or eight
Speaker 2: feet wide left or right.
Speaker 1: On long putts, I'm talking about very long putts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, on long putts, yeah. Yeah. And that's interesting to
Speaker 2: me because it kind of rings true. I'd like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think the ones that I missed the read, but
Speaker 2: if I missed the distance sometimes I'll be three putting. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Why is it then that apparently the tour average the
Speaker 2: best players in the world from ten feet are at
Speaker 2: fifty percent.
Speaker 1: I don't even think it's ten feet. Fred. Last I
Speaker 1: looked was about a year ago. The fifty percent mark
Speaker 1: was like at seven feet. I think from ten feet
Speaker 1: they're only making like forty percent. Wow, they're making fifteen
Speaker 1: percent roughly a little bit more from fifteen feet. Back
Speaker 1: in the day, when Pels first wrote his book put
Speaker 1: Like the Pros, I think it was the name of
Speaker 1: the book. It came out in the early nineties. He
Speaker 1: had done a test at Westchester Country Club. Back then,
Speaker 1: the Westchester Greens were the best on tour, and he
Speaker 1: took the top ten putters on tour and they made
Speaker 1: exactly from six feet. Their make percentage was sixty percent
Speaker 1: from six feet straight in putt that had no break
Speaker 1: in it, And of course there's going to be less
Speaker 1: on a putt that has a break, right, which most
Speaker 1: of the time they will like the pros.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he also has the putting Bible right right.
Speaker 1: The other thing in my system, which is kind of cool,
Speaker 1: is that for distance control, it's really important to understand
Speaker 1: what's called Have you ever heard the term approach speed
Speaker 1: and putting approach speed?
Speaker 2: No, but let's uh, let's let's talk about that right
Speaker 2: after this. Okay, okay, I interrupted you and you wanted
Speaker 2: to talk about something that I've not heard about, and
Speaker 2: that's called approach speed on the putt.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So this this relates to both how how
Speaker 1: you master the skill of distance control and putting, but
Speaker 1: it also has to do with critically important Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it has to do with improving your odds of of
Speaker 1: a of a putt that actually hits the hole it
Speaker 1: being in versus lipping out. That's the whole that's the
Speaker 1: key to understanding approach sped. What it means is the
Speaker 1: last foot or so that the putt's traveling before it
Speaker 1: hits the hole. There's often invisible footprints that Pels discovered
Speaker 1: years ago, and you called it the lumpy donut or
Speaker 1: the volcano because people are standing there and bending over
Speaker 1: to get their ball out of the cup, particularly if
Speaker 1: you play in the public golf course late in the
Speaker 1: afternoon in the summer, there's all these there's like an
Speaker 1: invisible depression there. And you know, even though we have
Speaker 1: soft spikes to say, they still can make little marks
Speaker 1: in the green. So there can be little invisible imperfections
Speaker 1: in the putting surface that you might not even see
Speaker 1: with your naked eye. Because the ball is moving its
Speaker 1: slowest right before it falls into the hole, those invisible
Speaker 1: imperfections and the footprints can knot get offline.
Speaker 2: So it happened to me last week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2: So you want the putting right to the Yeah, what
Speaker 2: what was that? Exactly? What that?
Speaker 1: So you need to know, oh, that you have to
Speaker 1: have the proper speed so that the ball will go
Speaker 1: up the volcano, over the lumpy donut and will not
Speaker 1: get knocked offline. Very often by the invisible imperfections, but
Speaker 1: also not be moving so fast that it actually lips out.
Speaker 1: And that speed is dependent on the speed of the
Speaker 1: average the average green speed of the courses you play
Speaker 1: most often. So in my research I've come up with
Speaker 1: a way of measuring it and then a drill to
Speaker 1: practice it. And here's what it is. If you're playing
Speaker 1: on fast and I'm not talking about super fast greens
Speaker 1: like they play at the US Open or maybe the
Speaker 1: PGA or sometimes the British Open, I'm talking about which
Speaker 1: are usually you know, thirteen or higher. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: more realistic horses the average people play. So medium speed
Speaker 1: greens are ten to eleven and a half. Fast greens
Speaker 1: are eleven and a half to thirteen, and then slow greens,
Speaker 1: which we have here in Hawaii with the old Hawaiian bermuda,
Speaker 1: are eight and a half to ten. Right, So if
Speaker 1: you play slow green and you were going to practice
Speaker 1: the proper approach speed, you would put your club shaft
Speaker 1: eight club shaft behind the hole at exactly fifteen inches
Speaker 1: past the hole, past the back of the cup, and
Speaker 1: you would you would put to miss on purpose. You
Speaker 1: would actually aim maybe a foot to the right of
Speaker 1: the actual hole, and you would try to get your
Speaker 1: balls to just gently stop right at that fifteen inch
Speaker 1: mark up against the shaft, because if you play on
Speaker 1: really particularly on public horses in the South, with Bermuda grass,
Speaker 1: which is very slow, it needs to have more speed
Speaker 1: than that last foot of going into the hole to
Speaker 1: improve your odds of lipping in versus slipping out. There
Speaker 1: was just going to be more imperfections in the green
Speaker 1: and more footprints, particularly if you play in a Bermuda
Speaker 1: green golf course in the South or like here in Hawaii. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you play on medium speed greens, you want
Speaker 1: that shaft to be at eleven inches, And if you
Speaker 1: play on fat greens, which is almost exclusively you know,
Speaker 1: private clubs, you would put it at seven inches. So
Speaker 1: there was it. The ball would would roll by seven
Speaker 1: inches if you were trying to miss on purpose on
Speaker 1: fast greens. It would roll by eleven inches on medium
Speaker 1: greens and fifteen inches on slow greens.
Speaker 2: Well, I've always been under the impression that you want
Speaker 2: to get your speed so that it goes past the hole.
Speaker 2: I want to have enough because everyone everyone comes up
Speaker 2: short most of the time because they're just trying to
Speaker 2: let it just drake, you know, just dribble into the
Speaker 2: dribbles not the right word, just drop right into the
Speaker 2: front edge of the hole versus hitting the back rim
Speaker 2: of the hole. Right.
Speaker 1: Well, that's kind of my point of saying this. So
Speaker 1: this is another way I've explained. When I working with
Speaker 1: a student, I have the student, he and I kneel
Speaker 1: down on the green. We put a cushion down so
Speaker 1: we don't make a hole on the green, but we're
Speaker 1: nailing on a cushion, right. The greenskeeper on nuts. If
Speaker 1: you see this without a cushion, And I say, if
Speaker 1: you play on really fastens, then you want the ball
Speaker 1: to roll in, to roll over the front edge and
Speaker 1: then drop into the front edge of the bottom of
Speaker 1: the cup. And medium speeds it rolls to the middle
Speaker 1: of the cup and then drops, and on fast greens
Speaker 1: it rolls to the back edge or even hits the
Speaker 1: back edge before it hits the bottom pops down. So
Speaker 1: you need to practice again depending on what kind of
Speaker 1: greens you play.
Speaker 2: Either, and also it's dependent on if you're going uphill
Speaker 2: or downhill.
Speaker 1: Well you have to go for that of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right uphill you're gonna want it to go to
Speaker 2: the back of the hole right and downhill you wanted
Speaker 2: to just kind of like fall in correct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you have to practice that. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: a skill to make the ball go. The other thing
Speaker 1: is that when people have bad distance control. Of the
Speaker 1: people who suffer from poor distance control, it's it's like
Speaker 1: seventy percent they're short and only thirty percent are long
Speaker 1: in my experience, so the vast majority of people don't
Speaker 1: get the ball to the hole. You know, when I've
Speaker 1: asked people who were liked it, I go, where do
Speaker 1: you see the target? They go the I go, No,
Speaker 1: the cup's not the target, right, and they look at
Speaker 1: me like I'm nuts. I go, they go, what are
Speaker 1: you talking about? I'm trying to make the ball go
Speaker 1: to the hole. No, you have to putt it to
Speaker 1: go past the hole to have decent you do right,
Speaker 1: for all the reasons we just mentioned earlier, the hole
Speaker 1: can't be the target. You have to always think a
Speaker 1: little bit past the hole should be the should be
Speaker 1: the for distance control, especially.
Speaker 2: Right good yes, yeah, good. Now. There's been a lot
Speaker 2: of controversy in the last few weeks about aim point yea.
Speaker 2: Lucas Glover has come out on his on his uh
Speaker 2: Serious XM show, and he was lambassing. Even Jim Nantz
Speaker 2: was complaining about that game point because of what it
Speaker 2: does to the pace of play, and does it work
Speaker 2: or does it not tell tell us your feelings about
Speaker 2: aame point.
Speaker 1: You know, I've worked with a lot of people, good
Speaker 1: players who use it, and the general consensus seems to
Speaker 1: be if you suck at reading greens, and sometimes good
Speaker 1: players do suck at it, it can really help you
Speaker 1: to read the green better. There's no question about that.
Speaker 1: It helps people come up with more accurate reads. The
Speaker 1: problem is it can put you in a non athletic mindset, which,
Speaker 1: if you know how you know what I teach, I'm
Speaker 1: so big, I'm not doing that what I call contamination,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking too much, right, paralysis from over analysis.
Speaker 1: And it does take time, so it does tend to
Speaker 1: make a slow play issue, and it tends to make
Speaker 1: you thinking too much instead of being more reactive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I think if there was a way maybe to
Speaker 1: speed it up, I'm not sure there is, but if
Speaker 1: there was a way to do it quickly and then
Speaker 1: switch over to an athletic mindset once you've done the
Speaker 1: read then I don't see a problem with it. No.
Speaker 2: We We had someone on recently who was talking about
Speaker 2: he's a surveyor, I trade right, So to him, it's
Speaker 2: all math. Yeah, and he says, if you use his system,
Speaker 2: you know you can't misread a putt because it's all math.
Speaker 2: Once it's math, how can you go wrong? Right? It's
Speaker 2: like x's and o's are ones and zeros. Why why
Speaker 2: do why do some of the greats suck at reading greens?
Speaker 2: There's so many ways to well.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of it. At a point, I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously an a point, you're using your external visual channel, your eyeballs.
Speaker 1: That's why that's why you do the plumbbob thing and
Speaker 1: you do the finger thing. But you're also using your
Speaker 1: kinesthetic sense in your feet. You're doing kind of a
Speaker 1: combination of both. I mean, I've been okay, I've never
Speaker 1: been great at reading greens, but you know, decent my
Speaker 1: whole life. I think pretty good at it. But some
Speaker 1: of the students I work with are terrible at it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I had a guy the other day who
Speaker 1: was on a long putt uh at the very end
Speaker 1: of a two and a half day school and I
Speaker 1: do this as a ritual at the end of a
Speaker 1: putting school. So I already knew what the break was,
Speaker 1: so I was sort of cheated, but I said, well,
Speaker 1: what do you think it does? And he says, he says,
Speaker 1: I think he said like eight inches outside the left edge,
Speaker 1: and I said, no, eight feet. It was eight feet
Speaker 1: of break and he only saw eight inches and that's
Speaker 1: not unusual. So I think some of it. You have
Speaker 1: to to really see it. You have to get down
Speaker 1: really low. I remember Camille vi Jagas years ago used
Speaker 1: to get down on his belly. You have to get
Speaker 1: low to see it. And then you know, Pels and
Speaker 1: his Putting Bible talked about his research was that it's
Speaker 1: just human nature to underread the break. And he said
Speaker 1: that high handicappers underread it by three hundred percent, and
Speaker 1: mid handicaps by two hundred percent, and low handicaps and
Speaker 1: tour prosy by close to one hundred percent, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, still, that's that's a lot significant. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: you know his explanation, which I happen to agree with,
Speaker 1: is that because people think there's a point in time
Speaker 1: where the break starts, which is he called the apex
Speaker 1: illusion and he's one hundred percent right. Putts are breaking
Speaker 1: before your eye can pick it up. Right. It doesn't
Speaker 1: suddenly have a point where it suddenly starts to break
Speaker 1: toward the hole. It's that's it looks like it for
Speaker 1: some people, but that's an optical illusion. It's breaking way
Speaker 1: before that, which is why when I ask people, do
Speaker 1: you do you use the cup as a reference point
Speaker 1: for your start line? You know, so it'd be center
Speaker 1: of the cup, left edge or right edge basically right,
Speaker 1: And people say, no, I never used the cup. I
Speaker 1: use I use the apex where the break is. They're
Speaker 1: they're terrible at reading greens. That's part of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what about using the cup as a clock?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: What right? And yeah, I want I want the ball
Speaker 2: to go you know, like looking right at the cup,
Speaker 2: that's six six o'clock. And for young people, sorry we're
Speaker 2: not going digital here, but if you're looking at the
Speaker 2: cup and you want the ball to go in, say
Speaker 2: at four o'clock, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right inside that's when it breaks inside the cup.
Speaker 1: You have to do that for sure. You have to
Speaker 1: use the clung system. Yeah, okay, or you could just
Speaker 1: help you can see control too, right, Oh yeah, for sure, definitely.
Speaker 1: But you could rather than use the clock, you could
Speaker 1: just say I want I see my start line as
Speaker 1: a quarter inch inside the left edge, right, because it's
Speaker 1: breaking to the right, so that's where you want to
Speaker 1: you want to start at the cour Or you could
Speaker 1: say I want to be an inch and half inside
Speaker 1: the left edge, yeah, which is basically the same thing
Speaker 1: as using the clock system.
Speaker 2: I I ask friends frequently it's like, how many puts
Speaker 2: did you have today? They're like, I don't know. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: wait a minute. They give you two putts for every
Speaker 2: hole on the score card, so you know, are you
Speaker 2: one petting at all? Are you You know you're getting
Speaker 2: close on your chip ends obviously, But but what what
Speaker 2: are the numbers for the various handicap, low, mid, high
Speaker 2: handicappers they should be Should they be keeping track of
Speaker 2: how many putts and what is the number they should
Speaker 2: be trying to achieve?
Speaker 1: Well, I don't even think it should because to me,
Speaker 1: putting is so much easier in terms of the mechanics
Speaker 1: of the stroke compared to the full swing and a
Speaker 1: lot of the short game strokes. There's just no excuse.
Speaker 1: Although to ask the average teaching pro how many people
Speaker 1: in a year ask for a putting lesson, like one
Speaker 1: or two? Nobody takes putting.
Speaker 2: Lessons, Nobody, I want more distance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but if they did, and those you can, I
Speaker 1: actually can teach people to do as good a putting
Speaker 1: stroke as the tour pros and four or five hours. Wow,
Speaker 1: and what would be a habit after? No, they still
Speaker 1: have to practice when they go home, but I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, within a very short period of time they
Speaker 1: can learn because there's not much going on and you're
Speaker 1: basically all you're doing is rocking your shoulder girl like that,
Speaker 1: using your abs, your low back muscles, so there's not
Speaker 1: much to it. But you know, if you if you're
Speaker 1: halfway decent, if you can break one hundred, let's say,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't want to have more than thirty
Speaker 1: two putts around? Wow. Yeah again, if you want to
Speaker 1: be decent, thirty two is a good number to go for.
Speaker 1: I mean the tour pros, I think average is average
Speaker 1: closer to twenty eight to twenty nine something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And also when I'm in the thirty, when
Speaker 2: I'm in the thirty thirty one range, yeah, thirty two thirty,
Speaker 2: that's pretty good. That's when I'm shooting in the seventies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it also depends on how good
Speaker 1: your ball striking is, because if you if you're missing
Speaker 1: a lot of greens, and because of that, you had
Speaker 1: to rely on your short game to score. Meaning you're
Speaker 1: good at the short game, you're going to have fewer
Speaker 1: putts than someone who hits a lot of greens. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: So you have to kind of facor that into it too.
Speaker 2: But absolutely absolutely, Oh good job, Jimmy, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: That was awesome. I appreciate that. And again, Episode thirty
Speaker 2: six with Jim Waldron of the Golf Smarter podcast is
Speaker 2: now complete. Thank you, Jim, always great to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Thanks do it again.
Speaker 2: M HM.