Speaker 1: Golf Smarter number three hundred and sixty seven, published on
Speaker 1: January twenty two, twenty thirteen.
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: Golf Channel picked up a point in January of seven,
Speaker 3: and you know, I told my wife in December of six,
Speaker 3: I said, if they don't pick us up, I'm done.
Speaker 4: I'm out.
Speaker 3: Because I had already kind of been through CBS and
Speaker 3: NBC and they were really the last network. The proma
Speaker 3: TVs was only really three people to choose from me. You
Speaker 3: have three customers, and if they all say no, then
Speaker 3: you're not You're that business. And I was literally within
Speaker 3: days of just giving up and moving on.
Speaker 1: Could you have really walked away from it at that point?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, at that point, I mean I loved it,
Speaker 3: but if there's no business for it, you know, started
Speaker 3: that if I couldn't prove a legitimate business, it was
Speaker 3: time to move on.
Speaker 4: Like it or not.
Speaker 3: Came down to really really a couple of days and
Speaker 3: around Christmas of six and Golf Channel did say, hey, great,
Speaker 3: we'll do this three year deal.
Speaker 4: They said, we'll do it one tournament, Part.
Speaker 1: One of the aime Point putting system with creator Mark Sweeney.
Speaker 2: This is Golf Smarter sharing tips and insights from golfers
Speaker 2: and golf professionals to help lower your score.
Speaker 1: It's worked for your host, Fred Green. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: Golf Smarter podcast.
Speaker 4: Mark. Thanks, hey, Fred.
Speaker 1: It's so good to hear you your voice son on
Speaker 1: the other end of the line here. Because so many
Speaker 1: Golf Smarter listeners have said, have you talked to Mark
Speaker 1: Sweeney at main Point Golf yet? Why haven't you got
Speaker 1: him on? Even Nick Chirtak, who introduced us as a listener,
Speaker 1: longtime listener and a golf friend of mine, says, this
Speaker 1: is what golf Smarter is all about.
Speaker 4: Is where I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what is it tell me about aim point
Speaker 1: A point?
Speaker 3: Well, any point started off as a basically a TV product.
Speaker 3: So what I did is I wrote a piece of
Speaker 3: software that could figure out how to put from any
Speaker 3: point on a real green to any other point. So
Speaker 3: There have been some research done on this before, but
Speaker 3: it was always done by you know, professors, and on
Speaker 3: some very kind of sterile environments, not real golf greens.
Speaker 3: So I basically just attacked the problem and got it
Speaker 3: working and got it on the Golf Channel in two
Speaker 3: thousand and seven and we've been on there with them
Speaker 3: for about six years now. And what that led to
Speaker 3: is a teaching curriculum. So what I learned by simulating
Speaker 3: thousands and thousands and thousands of putts was that there's
Speaker 3: some actually very predictable patterns and that we, as normal golfers,
Speaker 3: can can use some very simple rules and predict very accurately.
Speaker 4: What break is.
Speaker 1: What were you doing that you were considering writing software
Speaker 1: program for television?
Speaker 4: Well, I was bored.
Speaker 3: Basically, I was in the Uh That's the flattering version
Speaker 3: of the story was I was bored. I'd been working
Speaker 3: in finance and in high tech and I just kind
Speaker 3: of had some free time and I was I was
Speaker 3: playing tons of golf. I loved golf, and I had
Speaker 3: a background in software development, so I it was something
Speaker 3: I kind of knew how to do, and it was
Speaker 3: a sport that I really enjoyed, and I thought, you know,
Speaker 3: why is nobody really attacked or solved this problem? And
Speaker 3: so I just kind of put my mind to it
Speaker 3: on the side, you know, on on weekends and the nighttime,
Speaker 3: and just sat down and started chipping away at the problem.
Speaker 3: And surprisingly it came together pretty quickly. And when I
Speaker 3: started testing the software, it worked much better than I
Speaker 3: thought it should. So I thought it would be you know, okay,
Speaker 3: or be interesting, but it actually really worked well and
Speaker 3: that got me thinking, okay, well what can I do
Speaker 3: with this? And my pro at the time said you
Speaker 3: should really take this to the networks because they would
Speaker 3: love this for TV, and you know, took it took
Speaker 3: a year and a half two years for it to
Speaker 3: actually get on TV. But that's genesis of the idea.
Speaker 1: And were you an entrepreneur or had this entrepreneurial spirit
Speaker 1: about you in your career previously or it is like
Speaker 1: all of a sudden this started happening and you're telling
Speaker 1: your wife and seventeen children. So I got this idea
Speaker 1: that I'm going to be leaving my job and I'm
Speaker 1: going to go do this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess I had the entrepreneurial spirit, but I
Speaker 3: was working at big companies. I worked at Hewlett Packard
Speaker 3: for about five or six years. I worked at Cable
Speaker 3: Vision up in New York, and I think I had
Speaker 3: it in me, and this kind of put me over
Speaker 3: the edge to kind of stop doing the big corporate
Speaker 3: you know, working in a cube everyday thing, and branch
Speaker 3: out by myself.
Speaker 4: So it was just fun, you know. The biggest thing
Speaker 4: about it is.
Speaker 3: You know, it was just something I had a real
Speaker 3: passion for and I had enough skills to figure out
Speaker 3: how to make it work.
Speaker 4: And then it kept me on the golf course too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so sitting inside all day, it could actually be
Speaker 3: outside in the sun on the golf course, screwing around
Speaker 3: trying to get things working.
Speaker 1: And taking a year and a half to get the
Speaker 1: networks to I guess signed the deal. I guess they
Speaker 1: were listening. How long did you get them to take
Speaker 1: to listen?
Speaker 3: It took a while. I showed it to track record. Yeah,
Speaker 3: well that was the hardest. I had two difficult things.
Speaker 3: The first was I wasn't in the TV business or
Speaker 3: in the golf business, so I was kind of a nobody.
Speaker 3: So I did get in and saw some producers at
Speaker 3: CBS who thought it was great, and we did some demos,
Speaker 3: but the biggest obstacle was actually convincing people that it
Speaker 3: was doable. So when I went to the networks, a
Speaker 3: lot of people say, well, that's cool, but I don't
Speaker 3: believe you can actually predict what a putt will do
Speaker 3: before you hit it. And it took a lot of
Speaker 3: demonstrations and a lot of time in front of all
Speaker 3: the networks, in front of the PGA tour, in front
Speaker 3: of golf instructors, in front of the talent to say,
Speaker 3: you know, this actually does work. And even after I
Speaker 3: was on TV for a year and a half, two years,
Speaker 3: we still had people saying, yeah, but conceptually it really
Speaker 3: shouldn't work that well because of wind and grain and
Speaker 3: footprints and you know, you know, all these things that
Speaker 3: pop up on the golf green that you can't predict.
Speaker 3: And there was a big resistance to it, a big resistance.
Speaker 3: And then so luckily, after you know, years and years
Speaker 3: of showing this, when I say that, I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: two or three years, people realize, yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 3: not one hundred percent accurate, but it's ninety seven percent accurate,
Speaker 3: which is good enough.
Speaker 1: It's better than the networks.
Speaker 3: And It's better than not knowing anything. It's better than
Speaker 3: getting up to putt and going, well, I thought it
Speaker 3: was going to go left and went right. How weird,
Speaker 3: you know, and then move on to the next the
Speaker 3: next shot. It actually gave you a really accurate prediction.
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to get into the depth of that.
Speaker 1: But before I go there, we're recording this in the
Speaker 1: beginning of January and coming up, breathing down. Our next
Speaker 1: is the annual PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, the big
Speaker 1: daddy of them all. And you've been there, now how
Speaker 1: many TIMESGA show?
Speaker 4: Three times?
Speaker 1: Three times?
Speaker 3: I've exhibited three times. I've been there probably five or
Speaker 3: six times.
Speaker 1: Okay, and right because as you were developing this, you
Speaker 1: were probably scoping it out and seeing what's out there
Speaker 1: and what your competition is, right right, yeah, okay, So
Speaker 1: I've not been to the Orlando show. I went to
Speaker 1: the Las Vegas show a couple of times. And the
Speaker 1: one thing that really, what's the word I want to
Speaker 1: use here, depressed me. The one thing that I thought
Speaker 1: was sad were all these guys And this is what
Speaker 1: I want to throw out this warning right now. All
Speaker 1: these guys who are have an idea that they have
Speaker 1: the greatest tea ever made, and they just think, I'm
Speaker 1: giving up my Hewlett Packard insurance salesman job because I've
Speaker 1: got this great tea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's that was the very first thing
Speaker 3: that struck me, too, is how much stuff there was.
Speaker 3: And when I say stuff, I mean just cras garbage.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you, But.
Speaker 3: There was so much garbage. I mean, there were so
Speaker 3: many variations of very simple things. And I remember thinking,
Speaker 3: how in the world to these companies say in business?
Speaker 3: I mean, I just I just don't get it. And
Speaker 3: a lot of them don't. I mean a lot of
Speaker 3: them you see one year at the show and then
Speaker 3: you never see them again. But there was just thousands
Speaker 3: of these sorts of products that people put out there
Speaker 3: and spend money on and they never really get a
Speaker 3: foothold anywhere, right.
Speaker 1: Right, And they have and I've you know, I've been
Speaker 1: self employed for decades now and have come up with
Speaker 1: a couple of goofy ideas and they've allowed me to
Speaker 1: make a living. But I get people going, oh, I
Speaker 1: got this idea, I got it to do this, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be an entrepreneur. If you don't have the
Speaker 1: support system at home. Yeah, if you can hear the
Speaker 1: fingers tapping on the table or the toe tapping going Okay,
Speaker 1: you done yet?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: Do you get all right? Yeah?
Speaker 4: That's going right.
Speaker 1: And it took you a year and a half to
Speaker 1: get a signed deal. At what point did.
Speaker 4: You should take more than that?
Speaker 3: Actually took more than that because I started this in
Speaker 3: the fall of two thousand and three, CBS used it
Speaker 3: on air one time in five and I didn't get
Speaker 3: a deal with contract with Golf Channel till January of seven.
Speaker 3: So we're talking more like, you know, three almost for
Speaker 3: well really three years?
Speaker 4: Wow?
Speaker 1: And you know, so you're doing stuff in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night or did you quit your job? I
Speaker 1: mean where I was.
Speaker 3: I was doing some other stuff also, but I was
Speaker 3: getting more and more well, yes, I was doing other things,
Speaker 3: but I was spending more and more time and spending
Speaker 3: more and more money on trying to get this on TV.
Speaker 4: And and as any.
Speaker 3: Entrepreneur and entrepreneur knows, you wake up a lot of
Speaker 3: mornings in a cold sweat, wondering why you're wasting your time.
Speaker 1: Oh you mean you get to that means you get
Speaker 1: to sleep. Yeah, most entrepreneurs are like freaked out, they
Speaker 1: can't even fall asleep.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean there's a lot of late nights
Speaker 3: and then you wake up, you finally go to sleep,
Speaker 3: you wake up in the morning and go, what am
Speaker 3: I doing?
Speaker 4: Like? What am I?
Speaker 3: Absolutely out of my mind? And I had that many
Speaker 3: a mornings. I woke up and just said, I'm an idiot.
Speaker 3: I don't know why wasting time and money on this
Speaker 3: because it's.
Speaker 1: Right, But you don't admit that on right, You don't
Speaker 1: admit that to your you know, like it's going on
Speaker 1: in your head, but you don't tell anybody. But you've
Speaker 1: got the other people in your life are going, what
Speaker 1: are you doing?
Speaker 4: Get on with it exactly?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, And I was there, and I mean most
Speaker 3: people don't know the story, but you know, Golf Channel
Speaker 3: picked up ame point in January of seven, and you know,
Speaker 3: I told my wife in December of six, I said,
Speaker 3: if they don't pick this up, I'm done. I'm out
Speaker 3: because I had already kind of been through CBS and
Speaker 3: NBC and they were really the last network. You know,
Speaker 3: the problem with TV is there's only there's only really
Speaker 3: three people to choose from. You have three customers, and
Speaker 3: if they all say no, then you're done, you're in business. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I was literally within days of just giving up
Speaker 3: and moving on.
Speaker 1: Were you did you? Could you have really walked away
Speaker 1: from it? Uh?
Speaker 4: At that point? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well at that point, I mean I loved it, but
Speaker 3: if there's no business for it, you know, you're starving death.
Speaker 3: I had, I had children, and it was just there
Speaker 3: was if I couldn't prove a legitimate business, it was
Speaker 3: time to move on like it or not. Whow So
Speaker 3: it was came down to really really a couple of
Speaker 3: days and around Christmas of six where and Golf Channel
Speaker 3: didn't say, hey, great, we know, we'll do this three
Speaker 3: year deal. They said, we'll do it one tournament and
Speaker 3: if it works, then we'll talk about moving on. So
Speaker 3: you know, that first Mercedes Tournament oh seven was extremely stressful.
Speaker 4: Went off.
Speaker 3: You know, we got everything working. Then they did one
Speaker 3: more than they didn't one more. There was never a
Speaker 3: floodgate where they said, oh, okay, it's great, we'll sign you
Speaker 3: for three years. It was just one after another chipping
Speaker 3: away and then eventually you know, you wake up one
Speaker 3: day and you've been on for six years.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: So you never got a full deal out of it.
Speaker 3: Well, I eventually did, but not after the first year.
Speaker 3: So the first year, I think we did seven tournaments,
Speaker 3: and then the second year we did twelve, and the
Speaker 3: third year we did twenty, And eventually I did get
Speaker 3: a deal. But they only run year to year sure,
Speaker 3: so at the end of every year they can renew
Speaker 3: or not renew. But in the beginning, in the first year,
Speaker 3: they had the sign a sponsor, they had to prove
Speaker 3: it worked, they had to get buy in, they had
Speaker 3: to do all these things, and that's just you know,
Speaker 3: that's not easy to do with a new technology, especially
Speaker 3: one that people, you know, a lot of people don't
Speaker 3: believe it could possibly work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I was. I actually I actually had the
Speaker 1: same experience that an idea that I had developed. Budweiser
Speaker 1: ended up sponsoring this idea and distributing it out. But
Speaker 1: every January first, I had no idea if it was
Speaker 1: going to happen again, and I got and I was,
Speaker 1: and I was hoping to get three years out of
Speaker 1: the Budwiser thing. It ended up getting eleven, which was amazing,
Speaker 1: but you just you just every year, I think, and
Speaker 1: then it progressed into other venues and I started working
Speaker 1: with the NFL and things like that, and every January
Speaker 1: first I had no idea how much money I was
Speaker 1: going to make that year.
Speaker 4: Oh I know.
Speaker 3: That's that's the downside of being running your own businesses.
Speaker 3: Of course, all the freedom in the world, but you
Speaker 3: have very little security, right.
Speaker 1: And people think you get to work for yourself. Ha
Speaker 1: ha ha.
Speaker 3: You're always working for somebody probably right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, You're always working for some.
Speaker 4: Somebody else is always writ in the check at the
Speaker 4: end of the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's right. Bob Dylan said, you got to serve somebody,
Speaker 1: and it's right. Oh man. So were they with each
Speaker 1: each tournament they were doing. Are they paying a rights fee?
Speaker 1: They paying licensing?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: How are they?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And are you getting money that's going? Okay, this could work?
Speaker 1: Ors like, here's a buck fifty, Thank you very much,
Speaker 1: see you later.
Speaker 3: The amount of time and money that I put into
Speaker 3: it in the first two or three years, I think
Speaker 3: I did six on site demos for the networks, and
Speaker 3: every time I showed up on site. You know, I'm
Speaker 3: paying my own expenses, my own travel, it's operational expenses involved,
Speaker 3: you know, none of that.
Speaker 4: They don't reimburse you. For any of that.
Speaker 3: So they you know, they started to pay on a
Speaker 3: per tournament basis the first year, but I mean I
Speaker 3: didn't break even until probably into the third year. Wow,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, I mean, you know, the first
Speaker 3: couple of years I definitely operated a loss and just
Speaker 3: trying to recoop that.
Speaker 4: You know, what I had put into it.
Speaker 3: Between patents and legal fees and operational expenses. I mean
Speaker 3: all those things. You know, if you until you have
Speaker 3: a revenue coming in, those are just stacking up on
Speaker 3: top of each other.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and your wife was being supportive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she was shockingly supportive. She was probably more supportive
Speaker 3: back then because I was I was at home a
Speaker 3: lot more than I am now, and now I travel
Speaker 3: so much it gets a little more difficult.
Speaker 1: Oh so all right, Well, since you're home, go pick
Speaker 1: up the kids and while you're there, go to the
Speaker 1: market where you have to do a lot of like no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm working today, Yeah, no, No, you gotta go run
Speaker 1: some chores.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean it's great working at home, but
Speaker 3: you have to learn that. You have to learn little
Speaker 3: keys like when the office door shut, nobody comes through it.
Speaker 4: Period.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you still have to go put the wash
Speaker 1: on the dryer. Yes, yes, okay, I've been there.
Speaker 4: What in there?
Speaker 1: So the whole thought for you was this is going
Speaker 1: to be great on TV.
Speaker 3: Well that was my second thought. Actually, really my first
Speaker 3: thought was that.
Speaker 1: Was your marketing thought. That was the thought that's like, okay, oh,
Speaker 1: now I can sell it to somebody.
Speaker 3: Well that was that was actually the rich The original
Speaker 3: thought was I was going to create the software and
Speaker 3: put it on a handheld. Now, the problem was, in
Speaker 3: two thousand and three, handhelds were Palm pilots with no
Speaker 3: Internet connectivity, no cell connectivity.
Speaker 4: This was a standalone unit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was well the mobile yeah, the mobile world.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: So I so I actually didn't appen three and put
Speaker 3: it on a Palm pilot and went out and tested it.
Speaker 3: And the problem was you couldn't see the screen in
Speaker 3: the daylight. They weren't these sunlight you know, sunlight readable
Speaker 3: TFT screens. You'd take it on the bright sun and
Speaker 3: it just blanked out on you. And so it was
Speaker 3: just the equipment wasn't ready for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you were ahead of that. Technology was way.
Speaker 3: Ahead of the curve on that. And so I said, well,
Speaker 3: that's not gonna that's not gonna work right now? What
Speaker 3: could I do? And I was talking to again my
Speaker 3: head pro at the time, and he goes, oh, you
Speaker 3: should just take it to TV. And at the time
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, maybe, you know, we'll give it
Speaker 3: a shot.
Speaker 4: Why not.
Speaker 3: And TV showed a lot of interest, CBS showed a
Speaker 3: lot of interest very early on, which you know, kind
Speaker 3: of got me excited about it. But then to actually
Speaker 3: make it happen just seemed like it took forever.
Speaker 4: Mm hmmmm hm.
Speaker 1: And and with a palm pilot, plus there's no camera
Speaker 1: on that or do you need that? I mean, what
Speaker 1: is it? So what is the software that that you wrote?
Speaker 1: What does it do?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: That original one, what it did is it would actually
Speaker 3: load the laser scans of the grip of the course
Speaker 3: you were playing, So we would go out and laser
Speaker 3: scan the golf greens and get three D maps of it.
Speaker 3: And all you do is say, here's my ball and
Speaker 3: here's the hole, and it would tell you what the
Speaker 3: break was. So that was the original idea. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of operational difficulties with that as simple as there's
Speaker 3: the whole and the problem is you can take a
Speaker 3: pin and move it three feet and get a totally
Speaker 3: different break good efficient way to know exactly where the
Speaker 3: pin was.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of things that just made it difficult.
Speaker 3: So I just shelved it basically. I mean I had
Speaker 3: it built. I still have it built. I submitted to
Speaker 3: the USGA actually for a decision, and I just put
Speaker 3: on the shelf and moved on.
Speaker 1: And did you get to talk to the USGA about this?
Speaker 1: Were they receptive they cheating?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 3: No, that well, they didn't say cheating. The decision was
Speaker 3: interesting because they weren't really prepared for it. But what
Speaker 3: they said was they called it an outside advice, basically
Speaker 3: asked for outside advice. And it was interesting because they said,
Speaker 3: you know, we don't really know how to classify it,
Speaker 3: but we're not comfortable with a computer helping you with
Speaker 3: your game. And so they basically just threw a blanket
Speaker 3: rule at it and say it's you know, it would
Speaker 3: not be conforming equipment. And it didn't surprise me at
Speaker 3: all that they said that, But they didn't really know
Speaker 3: how to address it. You know, it's kind of outside
Speaker 3: their their thinking process at the time.
Speaker 1: Oh I bet even today, even today, I would think
Speaker 1: that's a little bit outside of their thinking process. So
Speaker 1: why were you not completely discouraged at that point, going, well, listen,
Speaker 1: if I can't get back past this group, why do
Speaker 1: I keep going?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's a good question, I think because probably because the networks,
Speaker 3: the producer at CBS I showed it to, got very excited,
Speaker 3: very quickly, and I think that helped a lot. If
Speaker 3: I had if it had taken months and months to
Speaker 3: get anybody that from the networks to listen to me,
Speaker 3: I think I would have.
Speaker 4: Probably been a little discouraged.
Speaker 3: I think at that point I would have said, Okay,
Speaker 3: well I don't really know what to do with this now, Oh,
Speaker 3: just have fun with it.
Speaker 1: When you brought it to the networks, did they you?
Speaker 1: I got to imagine that they wanted to make it
Speaker 1: pretty for television. You brought them a concept, You brought
Speaker 1: them a pro type of a palm pilot. I mean, well,
Speaker 1: you know, what was your experience with television graphics and
Speaker 1: how to make something work on that.
Speaker 3: I had no experience with television television graphics. Basically, I
Speaker 3: went to them and said, here's what I can do.
Speaker 3: I can show you what the Putt looks like before
Speaker 3: you hit it. And what they said at the time,
Speaker 3: CBS worked with the virtual graphics company called pv I,
Speaker 3: and pv I did one of the first down lines
Speaker 3: for football the first time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. Isn't that the
Speaker 1: group that did the which was phenomenal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so they said, well, we work with them,
Speaker 3: Go work with pv I and give us a demonstration.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of scary because you don't know. You
Speaker 1: go to pv I and they go, yeah, we can
Speaker 1: do that, we don't need you, thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Uh, trust me. That's exactly what sometimes happened. Didn't happen
Speaker 3: with pv I, but that that can happen. Yes, So
Speaker 3: oh yeah, it's dangerous because you know, as a single person,
Speaker 3: as a small operator, I'm you know, I don't have
Speaker 3: any employees. When you go to big companies, you really
Speaker 3: have to protect yourself and it's very hard in the
Speaker 3: beginning because you kind of you work with who you
Speaker 3: have to work with. No, that's not necessarily who you
Speaker 3: choose to work with. And you get in with some
Speaker 3: big companies so they don't really care much about your business.
Speaker 3: You know, you don't have a personal relationship, and they
Speaker 3: look at it and go, oh, I could reproduce this.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow, and they really don't care about you.
Speaker 4: And they really really don't care about you.
Speaker 3: So you really have to protect yourself and then unfortunately,
Speaker 3: just try to work with good people and and just.
Speaker 4: Take a risk and go for it.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and so we got a good demonstration working
Speaker 3: for CBS and they basically they showed it once on air,
Speaker 3: but at the time they said they couldn't find a
Speaker 3: sponsor for it, so they just shelved it. Also, they said,
Speaker 3: we need somebody to sponsor this because most graphics on
Speaker 3: TV are sponsored by a company.
Speaker 1: Basically, what they're saying is we ain't gonna pay for it.
Speaker 4: Well, no, that's exactly that's exactly what they said.
Speaker 1: They said, it's we're not going to pay It's great,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna pay for it. We'll get someone else
Speaker 1: to pay for it. But they don't know if it
Speaker 1: is either oh man.
Speaker 3: And they were really supportive, I mean, they really liked it,
Speaker 3: but they just said, like any graphic, it's got to
Speaker 3: be sponsored or it's not going to be on there.
Speaker 3: So so that kind of went cold. But then luckily,
Speaker 3: you know, Golf Channel got the PGA Tour deal in
Speaker 3: o six. They had never showed PGA Tour events and
Speaker 3: they were starting in seven with this big splash, and
Speaker 3: they wanted some new graphics and they wanted to really come.
Speaker 4: Out and look good. O, your timing is perfect.
Speaker 3: So the timing was worked out very well, and luckily
Speaker 3: Golf Channel took a risk on it because my understanding
Speaker 3: was there are a number of people who said, listen,
Speaker 3: I don't I don't think this is possible. Do we
Speaker 3: really want to take a chance, And luckily the producer
Speaker 3: I was working with said, yeah, let's go for it,
Speaker 3: and they did it, and we won an Emmy for
Speaker 3: it for that first year too. The seven year we
Speaker 3: got a Sports Emi for it.
Speaker 1: And did you get an Emmy for it or did
Speaker 1: they're like, hey, look we got an Emmy.
Speaker 3: Well, the nice thing about this award is that it
Speaker 3: is a Golf Channel Emmy, but they can name what
Speaker 3: do they call them contributors or something, So so yes,
Speaker 3: I did get an Emmy, and there were a number
Speaker 3: of on the team who did it who got an
Speaker 3: Emmy for it also, wow, But it was Golf Channel's
Speaker 3: only Emmy I believe today still.
Speaker 1: Oh is that right? Wow? Very cool? Very cool. So
Speaker 1: now we have the idea. Basically, what it does is
Speaker 1: it it puts a line on the green television wise,
Speaker 1: So we're watching TV. Why don't you explain that? So
Speaker 1: as we're watching TV, what do we see and what
Speaker 1: is it? And how did you make that work?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yes, essentially after the green's ahead of time with a
Speaker 3: high definition laser scanner, so we know exactly what the
Speaker 3: surface of the green looks like down to footprints. Literally
Speaker 3: the scanner is accurate to like two millimeters I think,
Speaker 3: So we know what the green looks like. The software
Speaker 3: knows how to get the ball from point A to
Speaker 3: point B over that surface. So when the ball hits
Speaker 3: the ground, we say, here's the ball, there's a whole
Speaker 3: here's the green. Speed show me how to make the
Speaker 3: putt okay, so my figures out how and then they
Speaker 3: just insert the just like the first down mark, or
Speaker 3: they put what's called a virtual graphic on which basically
Speaker 3: the computer knows how to keep the graphic still even
Speaker 3: though the camera's moving around, so it looks like it's
Speaker 3: paintsed on the green.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very so.
Speaker 3: And it's cool because it only takes you know, three
Speaker 3: or four seconds to solve pretty much any put out there.
Speaker 3: And it's shockingly accurate. I mean really really. The thing
Speaker 3: that surprised me from day one is it worked better
Speaker 3: than I expected it to work. Just the physics of
Speaker 3: it is so is so good.
Speaker 1: And how what about your prep time? I mean you
Speaker 1: you're saying you have to do a laser scan of
Speaker 1: every green before it starts, so you can't do every
Speaker 1: golf course in the in the country to to put
Speaker 1: what kind of how much prep time does it take
Speaker 1: before they will broadcast?
Speaker 3: Well, they only scan, uh, they use on two greens
Speaker 3: per tournament, so we only have to sprant stanch.
Speaker 4: And so there's a guy who goes.
Speaker 3: Out, takes them a couple hours, he scans it, and
Speaker 3: then I just show up. I just show up and
Speaker 3: basically push the buttons, so I don't even have to
Speaker 3: go stand on the golf green. Literally, all I have
Speaker 3: to do is get the green speed correct and if
Speaker 3: there's any wind, plug in some wind and then the
Speaker 3: computer just does the whole thing from there.
Speaker 1: Oh that's really interesting is now that that kind of
Speaker 1: answers a big question for me is how come we
Speaker 1: don't see it all the time. It's so cool. Why
Speaker 1: is it only you know, like they only do two greens, Perer.
Speaker 4: They only do two green.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just it's usually only use it, you know,
Speaker 3: a couple times, three times an hour, and it's just
Speaker 3: not feasible to happen on eighteen greens. And we also
Speaker 3: need a fixed camera on a tower, and they don't
Speaker 3: have towers on every green. They typically have them kind
Speaker 3: of fifteen through eighteen, maybe nine also, So just operationally,
Speaker 3: it's just very difficult to do more than two or
Speaker 3: three greens.
Speaker 1: Well, the reason I've been hearing from listeners about this
Speaker 1: is because you've been able to migrate it over from
Speaker 1: a television product to a product that can help the
Speaker 1: average golfer.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, And that's actually been one of the funnest
Speaker 3: parts about this is learning during this process of showing
Speaker 3: it on TV that you can actually use it as
Speaker 3: an average golfer with no technology. So it was always
Speaker 3: kind of my goal because I'm your typical golfer, you know,
Speaker 3: I never I don't play as much as I would
Speaker 3: like to play. I'm not from the golf industry, and
Speaker 3: I'm thinking to myself. Well, you know, I've learned a
Speaker 3: lot about putting and green reading from all these simulations
Speaker 3: that I know nobody knows. I said that, you know,
Speaker 3: I've taken lots of golf lessons in my life, and
Speaker 3: I've never heard or read any of these concepts that
Speaker 3: I was seeing by virtue of the simulation. And I said, well, wow,
Speaker 3: it would be really great to kind of get these
Speaker 3: out there and teach people how to understand greens because
Speaker 3: it's really not as difficult as you think, but it's
Speaker 3: just not out there. It's something you can never figure
Speaker 3: out without a computer. And now we obviously have the
Speaker 3: technology and via the simulations to show us exactly why
Speaker 3: the ball does what it does.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to ask you a lot more questions
Speaker 1: about how how we can take advantage of this and
Speaker 1: how we can learn from using your system, but we've
Speaker 1: run out of time for this episode, and I would
Speaker 1: really love it if you could give us some more
Speaker 1: time on our members only episode for next episode? Could
Speaker 1: you stick around for some more Yeah, absolutely, that would
Speaker 1: be great. Well, thank you very much. So, if you've
Speaker 1: heard about Aimpoint and you want to know more on
Speaker 1: how you can become a better putter by using this system.
Speaker 1: And I've received feedback from a lot of listeners saying
Speaker 1: that they have become better putters by using the aim
Speaker 1: point system. First thing you want to do is check
Speaker 1: out the website and that is where Mark.
Speaker 3: That's gamepointgolf dot com, aampoint goolf dot com.
Speaker 1: Go there, find yourself an instructor and we'll get more
Speaker 1: information on that.
Speaker 5: Mark.
Speaker 1: Stick around and we will come back for members only.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for forgiving us the stories.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Thanks.
Speaker 1: It's time once again for our score Zone Short Game
Speaker 1: Academy with Terry Kaylor, the Wedge Guy.
Speaker 5: Hi, Terry, how you doing Fred?
Speaker 1: I'm doing well. I'm getting excited for you to go
Speaker 1: to the PGA Merchandise Show so we can get a
Speaker 1: review when you come back.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're looking forward to this busy week for us.
Speaker 1: Very busy week indeed. And the question we're going to
Speaker 1: go to today is from Stephen Davis of Colorado Springs, Colorado,
Speaker 1: and he said that, and I love the opening of
Speaker 1: a question already. When I was fitted for irons, thank you,
Speaker 1: he said, they made a big deal about getting the
Speaker 1: right flex. However, when he purchased wedges, it seemed like
Speaker 1: all the flexes were the same. So he asked two questions.
Speaker 1: The second question is why, But the first one is
Speaker 1: is there really a need for different flexes on wedges?
Speaker 5: Well, I think think you got to go further than that, Steven,
Speaker 5: and there is a need for not just different flexes,
Speaker 5: but different shaft materials and weights in wedges. And let
Speaker 5: me so you ask why. So here I go what
Speaker 5: you're looking for in your set of golf clubs, and
Speaker 5: you have a transition from your irons to your wedges.
Speaker 5: But this happens right in the middle of what I
Speaker 5: call money range. And you're going to really beat the
Speaker 5: golf course with your scoring clubs, your high loft golf clubs.
Speaker 5: You know, whether that starts at the eight or the
Speaker 5: nine iron and down through your wedges. And what we
Speaker 5: golfers have always been saddled with is that we have
Speaker 5: a set of irons and they have this shaft and
Speaker 5: this flex in them, and that typically goes up through
Speaker 5: the pitch the pea club as I call it, and
Speaker 5: then we have a match or a mismatch of wedges,
Speaker 5: these things called wedges that we bought off the rack
Speaker 5: at the store and the major brands have always offered
Speaker 5: wedge just as a commodity off the rack item, and
Speaker 5: they use a commodity grade steel shaft with the stiff
Speaker 5: flex and it's standard weight steel, and it fits reasonably
Speaker 5: well two people who are playing standard weight steel stiff
Speaker 5: flex irons. But most of the golfers today are migrating
Speaker 5: to lightweight steel. They're migrating to graphite in their irons.
Speaker 5: More and more and more golfers playing regular flex. And
Speaker 5: so what happens is when you walk out, if you're
Speaker 5: riding in a card or if you're pulling your bag
Speaker 5: or you're carrying your bag, and you get to the
Speaker 5: shot and it's right on the line, it could be
Speaker 5: a pitching wedge, it could be your gap wedge, or
Speaker 5: you're fifty four, whatever your first wedge is. If you
Speaker 5: are carrying off the rack wedges with a heavy stiff
Speaker 5: steel shaft and you were playing irons with a lightweight steel,
Speaker 5: regular flex or a graphite even in a senior flex
Speaker 5: or regular flex or firm flex, you have in your
Speaker 5: hand a choice of two clubs that have what I
Speaker 5: call a disconnect. The wedge weighs and feels like one thing.
Speaker 5: The peak club ways and feels like another thing and
Speaker 5: your full swing shots need you need to have your
Speaker 5: clubs feel and perform the same way. So the first
Speaker 5: part of that is the best thing to do in
Speaker 5: your wedges is to put shafts in them. And this
Speaker 5: means getting them refitted or buying them from a company
Speaker 5: like Score, But that will build your wedges to the
Speaker 5: specifications to give you this what I call a seamless transition,
Speaker 5: to avoid this disconnect. And you can retrofit your wedge shafts.
Speaker 5: Any good club maker can do that. But what you're
Speaker 5: looking for is to get the weight about the same
Speaker 5: and the shaft get the flex about the same the materials. Certainly,
Speaker 5: if you're playing graphite shaft in your irons, get graphite
Speaker 5: in your wedges. It's going to give you that similarity,
Speaker 5: that seamless transition as.
Speaker 4: We call it.
Speaker 5: And I would tell you there are few things you
Speaker 5: can do to improve your short range performance quicker if
Speaker 5: short of buying a whole new set of scoring clubs.
Speaker 5: It really did again shameless plug, sorry guys, But is
Speaker 5: to get the shafts in your wedges to blend to
Speaker 5: those shafts that are in your irons, to performance improve immediately.
Speaker 1: Terry, did you just make a very controversial statement. I've
Speaker 1: heard a lot of people say that you really, uh,
Speaker 1: wedges and graphite don't really go well together.
Speaker 5: Well, I think that's conventional wisdom.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: But and if you go back to the history of
Speaker 5: iron shafts, when people first started putting graphite in irons,
Speaker 5: most of the companies were using a pretty low grade
Speaker 5: graph it. I'm sorry, guys, I'm going to pick on
Speaker 5: them because to use a really nice, high grade graphight
Speaker 5: that set of graphite irons was going to cost thirty
Speaker 5: dollars a club, more than the steel shaft. At times
Speaker 5: eight clubs, it's two hundred and fifty dollars. They didn't
Speaker 5: the companies didn't think golfers would go over that. The
Speaker 5: quality of graphight has improved dramatically over the years, and
Speaker 5: even in the lower pricing, you know, you don't have
Speaker 5: to spend fifty or sixty or eighty dollars to get
Speaker 5: a good quality graphight iron shaft graphite. To me, I
Speaker 5: haven't played a steel shaft golf club from a nutter
Speaker 5: to a driver in eight years, and I'll never go
Speaker 5: back to steel and I'm not going to go back
Speaker 5: to Buya supply tires on my car either. So but
Speaker 5: technology works. I mean what we can do with graphite
Speaker 5: And at Score Golf we developed two new graphite shafts
Speaker 5: designed specifically for the scoring clubs, and we can build
Speaker 5: them with a firmer tip and a softer upper section
Speaker 5: and exactly the weight we want, exactly the frequency we want.
Speaker 5: The things you can do with graph fight you can
Speaker 5: control these things interdependently of the basic diameter of the shaft.
Speaker 5: I'm a huge fan of graphight. Graphite has fuel transmission
Speaker 5: qualities that steel can't approach. Again, that may be controversial,
Speaker 5: but I'm a fisherman. If any of your guys are
Speaker 5: fishermen's there's not a tubular steel fishing rod on the
Speaker 5: market because tubular steel is not noted for its field
Speaker 5: transmission qualities. Graphight fiber carbon fiber is noted for its
Speaker 5: field transmission qualities. And I would challenge any of you
Speaker 5: guys to go out find a wedge demo with a
Speaker 5: really good quality graph height. And that's the key. It's
Speaker 5: got to be a good quality graph fight. To find
Speaker 5: a wedges with really good quality graphight, you'll be surprised.
Speaker 5: The sensation of impact, the feel the clubhead, where you
Speaker 5: can feel that club in the swing. It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: Wow. Well, thank you. I appreciate once again, I appreciate
Speaker 1: the education, and Steven, I'm sure appreciates the answer and
Speaker 1: the fact that he's getting a brand new wedge. And
Speaker 1: I'm telling you the.
Speaker 5: Shaft if that's what you play, Steven.
Speaker 1: And there you go, Steven, if that's what you want,
Speaker 1: you tell.
Speaker 5: Us the shaft that's in your irons, and we're going
Speaker 5: to build you a score forty one sixty one club
Speaker 5: that blends perfectly to that. And I'm going to warn
Speaker 5: you're gonna want to fill in your set. That's what
Speaker 5: we only hear from everybody, So that's why I know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and listen, I don't mind your shameless plug, but
Speaker 1: please explain once again. The forty one sixty one.
Speaker 5: Forty one sixty one was the name we gave to
Speaker 5: this series of golf clubs because we're the first company
Speaker 5: to ever build the scoring clubs in every loft from
Speaker 5: forty one to sixty one degrees, so other companies could
Speaker 5: hit a fifty one degree wedge or a forty seven
Speaker 5: degree pitch or a fifty three degree mid wedge or
Speaker 5: a fifty seven degree sand, but they have to bend
Speaker 5: one to something it's not. And I'm kind of goofy
Speaker 5: for this because I think these are the most precise
Speaker 5: clubs in your bag. These are the money clubs, and
Speaker 5: if you need a fifty one degree wedge to get
Speaker 5: your gapping just right, I wanted you to have a
Speaker 5: fifty one degree wedge, not a fifty or a fifty
Speaker 5: two that we've been around on and so we made
Speaker 5: the decision to tool up every single with btge loft
Speaker 5: from forty one to sixty one degrees, which some people
Speaker 5: might say that's not really wedges. That goes down all
Speaker 5: the way to nine iron replacement philosophy there is that
Speaker 5: your nine earn is really more like a wedge than
Speaker 5: a six ron. So it should be built and it
Speaker 5: should feel, it should perform like your scoring clubs.
Speaker 1: And Steven, once you get the wedge of your choice,
Speaker 1: he's right, you're going to want to fill out the
Speaker 1: fill out the entire set. And there's a set of
Speaker 1: five that you can get of these score forty one
Speaker 1: sixty one wedges, and as a golf smarter listener, all
Speaker 1: you have to do when you're checking out is use
Speaker 1: the checkout code golf Smarter and you'll get an immediate
Speaker 1: ten percent discount and that automatically goes with your your
Speaker 1: one hundred percent money back guarantee. Any Golf Smarter listener
Speaker 1: who wants to check out the Wedges these scoring clubs
Speaker 1: from score Golf, you can click on their banner ad
Speaker 1: at golfsmarter dot com. But remember, if you're a golf
Speaker 1: Smarter listener, you do get a ten percent discount by
Speaker 1: using the checkout code golf Smarter. Now, if you're a
Speaker 1: golf Smarter member, you'll get an additional five percent discount.
Speaker 1: That's a fifteen percent discount. And I'm telling you, if
Speaker 1: you're not a Golf Smarter member yet and you're really
Speaker 1: considering getting these clubs, you've got to join Golf Smarter
Speaker 1: because the first club it's going to pay your membership
Speaker 1: for a year, if not more. Okay, So become a
Speaker 1: member of golf Smarter and not only take advantage of
Speaker 1: these great discounts, but you'll also get to take advantage
Speaker 1: of getting a new episode every week, including part two
Speaker 1: of episodes like the one you're about to hear on
Speaker 1: our next members only episode. Terry, thanks so much, and again,
Speaker 1: best of luck at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando.
Speaker 1: I know you guys are going to be a bigger
Speaker 1: hit you were last year, and I want a full
Speaker 1: report when we get the chance to do that. And
Speaker 1: I don't know it's going to be on our next show,
Speaker 1: but maybe after that, we're going to want to hear
Speaker 1: everything about the show, Okay,