Speaker 1: Hi, This is Stuart More. Goal is from Glenn Mills, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: and I played golf at the highly rating Glen Mills
Speaker 1: Golf Course. Welcome to Golf Smarter number four.
Speaker 2: Hundred and eighty one, published on March twenty four, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Golf Smarter mulligans, your second chance to gain
Speaker 3: insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
Speaker 3: Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets Old. Our
Speaker 3: interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
Speaker 3: like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 1: If you can handle being a little bit uncomfortable at
Speaker 1: the start because we had to change the way you
Speaker 1: were standing or the way you were holding the golf
Speaker 1: club in order to get you to swing differently, then
Speaker 1: you can handle a lesson with me. But that's amazing
Speaker 1: how much you can change where someone's golf club goes
Speaker 1: or how it moves around their body just simp by
Speaker 1: changing how they hold the club and set up to
Speaker 1: the ball.
Speaker 2: Isn't that the easiest thing to correct for you, I
Speaker 2: would think, is just your setup?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's not easy. A lot of people just
Speaker 1: get the alignment part wrong all the time. Have to
Speaker 1: know where you're going if you can't get lined up
Speaker 1: to it.
Speaker 2: Their focus is hitting the ball, not where the ball's going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we have a challenge with all my students.
Speaker 1: This is the first thing to hear on the teaching tea.
Speaker 1: If we took a picture of you from the side
Speaker 1: and from the back, and then you go home, and
Speaker 1: then you come back today and you set up again
Speaker 1: to hit a golf ball a day later, you get
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars. If you set up exactly the
Speaker 1: same way two days in a row. How would you
Speaker 1: do it? What would you measure yourself off of? They
Speaker 1: all start figuring out that the target's pretty important after
Speaker 1: that and lining up square to it because you can
Speaker 1: do that every day, day in and day out.
Speaker 2: How to identify and eliminate pressure on the golf course
Speaker 2: With Garrett Jenkinson.
Speaker 3: This is Golf Smarter Premium.
Speaker 2: Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome to the Golf Smarter Podcast.
Speaker 1: Garrett, Hey Fred, how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm great, So you're in Canada. How's the weather today?
Speaker 1: Oh, we're having a good one today. We're going to
Speaker 1: start golfing early this year.
Speaker 2: Is that a good thing or I mean, we have
Speaker 2: serious drought conditions here in California. We're in the fourth year,
Speaker 2: starting the fourth year of an ugly drought, and I'm
Speaker 2: reading articles that's saying, yeah, California, it's about one year
Speaker 2: of water left. It's like, but that's not a problem
Speaker 2: for you guys. You just hope that the thaws out
Speaker 2: and warms up early.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I don't know. It'd be nice if we
Speaker 1: could go year round, because what happens for us because
Speaker 1: we got the condensed season, everyone just sort of goes
Speaker 1: nuts for a voute four or five months.
Speaker 2: Well to get year round golf, I'm sorry, but you
Speaker 2: have to leave Canada.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, and we do, right.
Speaker 2: And where do you go for your winter golf?
Speaker 1: I'm a Phoenix or Palm Springs guy. Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, well, next time you're headed out there, let
Speaker 2: me know. I love going to Palm Springs. I'll drive
Speaker 2: down there, all right, love it, love it. So I
Speaker 2: was introduced to you by listener and former guests of
Speaker 2: the show, Michael Hamill, who was going crazy about your
Speaker 2: teaching philosophy starting on Facebook and then writing to me
Speaker 2: just talking about how he's really changed his perspective based
Speaker 2: on working with you.
Speaker 1: Mike's a fitness guy in town here and I've been
Speaker 1: running golf fitness programs for about fifteen years now in Calgary,
Speaker 1: and it's the way I ended up getting into fitness.
Speaker 1: It wasn't because I thought we should do fitness. It
Speaker 1: was because I thought I could see people couldn't do
Speaker 1: what I was asking him to do on the teaching tea.
Speaker 1: So I've figured out a way to do some fitness
Speaker 1: things and body function things to get people to be
Speaker 1: able to perform the things they needed to do on
Speaker 1: the teaching tea.
Speaker 2: For me, Oh, I want to back right up there
Speaker 2: and pick on that for a second. What are the
Speaker 2: things that we don't do? What can't we do that
Speaker 2: you were noticing that made you change?
Speaker 1: This? All the changes for everybody, I think. And we're
Speaker 1: getting some really good info nowadays. I mean, we've got
Speaker 1: these TPI screens that are going on. The Titleist Performance
Speaker 1: Institute has got guys studying the body and how it
Speaker 1: works and all those things. But most of its flexibility
Speaker 1: issues for people, you know, and the troubles that we
Speaker 1: get is it's body function. Does your body work like
Speaker 1: it did? When you were ten years old. If you
Speaker 1: ask anyone that, everyone will say not really.
Speaker 2: Not really, It's more like, of course not.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, and so thank goodness, Yeah yeah maybe maybe. So.
Speaker 1: What we've been able to figure out is that we
Speaker 1: can actually get people's function of their body back just
Speaker 1: hit flexibility, rotational flexibility, strength, posture, balance, even and we
Speaker 1: get people improving at that, and it's amazing how much
Speaker 1: we can impact their game. Everything that I do is
Speaker 1: always I've always said I, if it isn't going to
Speaker 1: improve your game, I'm not going to give it to you,
Speaker 1: and I guarantee the same thing with with the fitness
Speaker 1: program that we do. I tell people, if it doesn't
Speaker 1: help you, don't pay me. Wow, that's what I say
Speaker 1: with my lessons as well. Well.
Speaker 2: How how much time do I get before I decide
Speaker 2: if it's helped me or not?
Speaker 1: Yeah? You only need an hour. I only need to
Speaker 1: prove it to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, Well how can I tell you if it's
Speaker 2: not working without going on try? Because what I have
Speaker 2: noticed unless is that even with an hour lesson is
Speaker 2: that by the end of the hour, everything's working beautifully.
Speaker 2: But when I get to go back out to either
Speaker 2: the range or the course which is may not be
Speaker 2: for another week or so, it's not there anymore.
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's a shame. We've got to keep on progressing.
Speaker 1: We need to be walking that, you know, going up
Speaker 1: up the staircase, and we don't want to be regressing
Speaker 1: and coming back and forth. We want to continue to
Speaker 1: progress forward, right, But.
Speaker 2: It's not always easy to when you're on your own,
Speaker 2: to make it work like it did when the teacher
Speaker 2: was giving you the nuances.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. Well you can hire us to just
Speaker 1: go golf with you all the time too. I don't mind.
Speaker 2: Sorry, my dollars are going into the playing golf round
Speaker 2: and golf, that's right. So how do we do it?
Speaker 1: I mean, how do we stay on top of it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know exactly.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think I think that's probably my
Speaker 1: challenge too. I look at it and I'm always, you know,
Speaker 1: every year, I'm asking myself, not even every year, it's
Speaker 1: every week, every day, what can I do today to
Speaker 1: help my students get better? What can I change? What
Speaker 1: can I add? Can I you know, if if it's
Speaker 1: if it's video for one person and a track man
Speaker 1: for another, maybe even just duct taping someone another one,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Whatever, Have you ever ductaped somebody?
Speaker 1: No? No, but I certainly certainly tried all the different
Speaker 1: apparatuses out there and had a few on people. But
Speaker 1: you know, I think that people have to come to
Speaker 1: an idea of what they want to see in their
Speaker 1: golf swing and how they want to do it. And
Speaker 1: I that's what I try to do with my students
Speaker 1: is create a team atmosphere of what are we trying
Speaker 1: to do, and where are we going and how we're
Speaker 1: going to get there, and we do We do it together.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't just pass the info and then
Speaker 1: walk away. It's a process that we work through, step
Speaker 1: by step over a series of lessons. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't ever like seeing someone for one lesson. I need
Speaker 1: to see them for a while and we come up
Speaker 1: with those plans together and nail it all down.
Speaker 2: Now, you sent me an email recently and you were
Speaker 2: talking about how the best players in the world have
Speaker 2: many opportunities to improve their game, but the average golfer,
Speaker 2: we don't. So and you put it on your responsibility.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got the In the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: I've got a really powerful piece of technology called a
Speaker 1: track Man and it's a Doppler radar that that gives
Speaker 1: you ball and club data. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: guys are using it as a science experiment there, physics guys,
Speaker 1: and they really like it. And I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of those types of guys that get into the
Speaker 1: physics too much, that information can crush people in this game.
Speaker 1: They can take that info and be able to not
Speaker 1: even hit a golf ball after listening to it all.
Speaker 1: So I think it's important to have a machine like
Speaker 1: that to learn more about what's going on. And it
Speaker 1: gives us the situation that's happening with people. And so
Speaker 1: it's factual data of what happens at the moment of
Speaker 1: impact with the ball and the club. And then you
Speaker 1: take it and you know, after a lesson, you'll see
Speaker 1: that here's where I was at the start of the lesson,
Speaker 1: and here's what actually happened with my golf ball and
Speaker 1: the distance different and the flight difference and the things
Speaker 1: that we changed did they actually work in a lesson?
Speaker 1: And it's really interesting with that piece of information and
Speaker 1: how how people do stick with the change then because
Speaker 1: they've seen it and it's factual data. Of if you
Speaker 1: do this, then this will happen, because it's not easy.
Speaker 1: Like you said, it's not easy to stick with what
Speaker 1: you learned in the lesson. You sort of revert to
Speaker 1: your old things. But I find that with this piece
Speaker 1: of machinery that when guys get the information, it just
Speaker 1: it really hits home for them, and they're like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I am really going to stick with this because
Speaker 1: I saw it. I added twenty yards to my iron
Speaker 1: I you know, every iron shot I added. I started
Speaker 1: drawing the ball and I've never done that before. I
Speaker 1: used to cut it all the time, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to do that. And so they really stick with
Speaker 1: it because the information is really powerful.
Speaker 2: Right we all believe that. We all think like, oh,
Speaker 2: now now that I got it, I'm just gonna run
Speaker 2: with this all the time. And again you take it
Speaker 2: back out to the course the next week and it's like,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, how did that work? How come it's
Speaker 2: not working today?
Speaker 1: You know, I don't. I don't see. I like to
Speaker 1: think that maybe my students are a little different than that.
Speaker 2: Well congratulations, I wonder fantastic. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1: No, So you know, I think that's that's trying to
Speaker 1: find ways. If if I found that my students were
Speaker 1: all having that scenario, then in my packages and things
Speaker 1: just the way that I think I would be adding
Speaker 1: adding in packages that included, hey, okay, we're going to
Speaker 1: do a lesson on the on the range, and then
Speaker 1: we've got another one that we're going to do on
Speaker 1: the golf course. I'd be saying you have to do it.
Speaker 1: Where I'm going on the golf course with you, there's
Speaker 1: no choice. But I'm finding a big success rate in
Speaker 1: a lot of my students.
Speaker 2: Congratulations, thank you. It's a very different lesson going onto
Speaker 2: the golf course with them then working on the range,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, it's it gets a little bit more focused
Speaker 1: on what are you thinking rather than what are you doing?
Speaker 1: You know, on the on the teaching tee, everyone wants
Speaker 1: to know what their body is doing and how it's
Speaker 1: supposed to work, and you know, and you get, you
Speaker 1: get I have to get them focused on what the
Speaker 1: golf ball is doing rather than what their body's doing
Speaker 1: all the time. And then you know, I think I
Speaker 1: think there's helping someone think their way around the golf
Speaker 1: course is a big one. One one thing I always
Speaker 1: say to people on the golf course is, on every
Speaker 1: single shot, if I bet you one thousand dollars to
Speaker 1: hit the fairway off the first tee one, what club
Speaker 1: would you hit? Two? And two? How hard would you
Speaker 1: swing at it? If you hit the fairway, you get
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars. So I think that changes it for
Speaker 1: people a lot. And that's probably my my number one
Speaker 1: comment on the golf course is if you just heard
Speaker 1: me in your ear on every single shot saying thousand bucks,
Speaker 1: if you hit the green, what club would you hit?
Speaker 1: What part of the green would you hit to? How
Speaker 1: hard would you swing? And what club would you use?
Speaker 2: Wait? What are you talking about? A par three or
Speaker 2: being able to reach the green on a par four
Speaker 2: on your D shot?
Speaker 1: Everything?
Speaker 2: Everything, well, just being able to reach the green off
Speaker 2: your T shot, no matter where you're hitting from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I think you know yeah, because I
Speaker 1: think you know. So if I gave it to you,
Speaker 1: Fred and I said we were at one fifty, let's say,
Speaker 1: and we've got a green and you go right away,
Speaker 1: you know, you pull your one fifty club, you say, well,
Speaker 1: that's an eight iron for me. Okay, great, Now, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden. If I said, there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of wind in your face, the pin is tucked back
Speaker 1: right corner, and there's a big wide part of the
Speaker 1: green on the left, maybe you would chip a little
Speaker 1: seven iron for a thousand bucks into the big part
Speaker 1: of the green instead of an eight iron. Just it
Speaker 1: makes you think different if you think that the goal
Speaker 1: of the shot is to hit the green, not not
Speaker 1: you know, not hit it within five feet. And if
Speaker 1: you think that way on every shot that you know,
Speaker 1: what is it that you know? What shot? A shot
Speaker 1: at a time means that you're going to hit your shot.
Speaker 1: So the first te you're going to put a t
Speaker 1: in the ground, you're going to put a ball on it,
Speaker 1: and you're going to hit the golf ball in the
Speaker 1: fairway hopefully, and then you're going home. That was golf
Speaker 1: for today. That's one shot at a time, and your
Speaker 1: measure is did I hit the fairway. That's that's that
Speaker 1: you succeeded if you did, and you failed if you
Speaker 1: hit it anywhere else other than there. And so one
Speaker 1: shot at a time means actually one shot at a
Speaker 1: time meaning I'm a success if I hit the fairway
Speaker 1: with that swing, and then my next shot would be
Speaker 1: hitting the green with my next shot or the fair way.
Speaker 1: If it was a part five, do.
Speaker 2: You change that philosophy or that approach depending on the
Speaker 2: level of skill per player. Yeah, I mean, like for
Speaker 2: a single handicap, would you say, all right, your goal
Speaker 2: is not to hit the green, Your goal is to
Speaker 2: get it within five feet of you in your approach
Speaker 2: shot get it within you know, tap in distance on
Speaker 2: that or are you still trying to just keep the
Speaker 2: idea of let's just get it to the green and
Speaker 2: two put.
Speaker 1: It depends on where we're at. If I already had
Speaker 1: a player that I've been working with for a while
Speaker 1: and they've got that figured out that it's more important
Speaker 1: to hit the green than it is to hit it
Speaker 1: to five feet, and then let your potter do a
Speaker 1: little talking for you. If we were just in a
Speaker 1: truly coaching scenario and I said, hey, I noticed you
Speaker 1: had ten shots inside one hundred yards and you're not
Speaker 1: hitting them close enough, then we could have that discussion.
Speaker 1: You're going to lower your scores be if you get
Speaker 1: your hundred yard shots closer to the flag than We
Speaker 1: got to talk about that. And it's a risk reward
Speaker 1: thing from one hundred yards. You might go at any
Speaker 1: flag from one hundred and fifty yards. You might not
Speaker 1: go with the same flag as you would from one
Speaker 1: hundred yards.
Speaker 2: Well you yeah, hopefully you're not. I mean, now we're
Speaker 2: getting into course management, right, right, It's true, that's true. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'll be at a par three one hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: yards with a friend who, even on his best of days,
Speaker 2: can drive the ball one hundred and fifty yards with
Speaker 2: his driver, and he'll pull out his hybrid and you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: flags in the back right, I'm going after It's like,
Speaker 2: just try to get to the green. What are you
Speaker 2: doing right?
Speaker 1: Right? Yeah? And I think that's it's it comes down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it changes for the level of player. For sure,
Speaker 1: there's people who can't reach par fours and two right,
Speaker 1: But then I'd be saying, well that that's that's a shame.
Speaker 1: Let's go over to the teaching tea and show you
Speaker 1: how to hit it further right, and then we're going
Speaker 1: to get onto the course. So sometimes you don't want
Speaker 1: to get onto the course too early either. I think
Speaker 1: that everyone, everyone should be able to have a chance
Speaker 1: of hitting part fours and two, that that shouldn't be
Speaker 1: a problem unless the golf course is totally unfair.
Speaker 2: And there are those no, yeah, you know that there
Speaker 2: are there are some architects who like to just mess
Speaker 2: with you, and then there are those who you don't
Speaker 2: want to make make it so well, was it? Robert
Speaker 2: Trent Jones Sr. Was a difficult par and easy voguee.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I would love to see a golf course where
Speaker 1: we don't have to have handicaps. There's so many tea
Speaker 1: boxes that what levels you off on a hole is
Speaker 1: if we're on a four hundred yard par four and
Speaker 1: I play it at four hundred yards, what yardage doesn't
Speaker 1: need for you for you? Is it? What yards doesn't
Speaker 1: need to be for you to play me straight up
Speaker 1: on that hole? Well?
Speaker 2: Isn't that the whole tea at forward program?
Speaker 1: Yeah? And I think that I want to see a
Speaker 1: golf course done that way. I'd love to see.
Speaker 2: It really well. The whole point of teer forward, I think,
Speaker 2: is for every course to participate in their own way
Speaker 2: and you just decide, you know, if I want to
Speaker 2: hit an eight iron approach shot like they do on
Speaker 2: the tour, then I need to move my tea box
Speaker 2: up another thirty forty yards, right, So so do it
Speaker 2: that way. Just tee it up farther forward so you
Speaker 2: can get yourself in position for that eight iron shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would love to do it. I'd love to
Speaker 1: go on the course with a few people and just
Speaker 1: say what yardage does everybody need to have this whole
Speaker 1: lot to play straight up? The beginner golfer might play
Speaker 1: the a part for at one hundred yards? Wow?
Speaker 2: Why not?
Speaker 1: Why not?
Speaker 2: I mean it's not tournament play, obviously.
Speaker 1: I'd be more inclined to wager something against you or
Speaker 1: with you if you were getting two shots on a
Speaker 1: hole versus let's play straight up and I don't care
Speaker 1: what your yardage is. I'll play you straight up.
Speaker 2: I like that because my kid Mike, when I go
Speaker 2: out with my son to play, and he's always wanting
Speaker 2: to make bets with me just to keep his head
Speaker 2: in the game. It's like, I don't I don't do that.
Speaker 2: He's like, how many strokes you give me? How many strokes?
Speaker 2: I said, now, I'll give you yardage instead. You can
Speaker 2: you can tee it up right up.
Speaker 1: To one hundred and fifty yards and I'll play you
Speaker 1: straight up.
Speaker 2: That's pretty good. I like that idea. We're going to
Speaker 2: make a note on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we might be on the something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that could be a lot of fun doing it
Speaker 2: that way. Interesting, But you incorporate more than mechanics and
Speaker 2: into your lessons.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and well we talked about flexibility already.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Probably my biggest the thing that makes me one
Speaker 1: thing that I learned to do through making mistakes myself.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of golf lessons where people tried
Speaker 1: to change my golf club while it was moving, meaning
Speaker 1: it had to get more inside or more outside, or
Speaker 1: how the toll had to go up, or And my
Speaker 1: belief on the golf swing is that anything that you
Speaker 1: want to change has to be changed standing still. It's
Speaker 1: it's broken before you move it.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you. I love this idea because the golf
Speaker 2: swing is so fast, there's so much going on that
Speaker 2: it is so hard to be conscious of every nuance
Speaker 2: that's going on while the club is being swung.
Speaker 1: I totally agree. So if you can, if you can
Speaker 1: handle being a little bit uncomfortable at the start, because
Speaker 1: we had to change the way you were standing or
Speaker 1: the way you were holding the golf club in order
Speaker 1: to get you to swing differently then you can handle
Speaker 1: a lesson with me. But it's amazing how much you
Speaker 1: can change where someone's golf club goes or how it
Speaker 1: moved around their body, just simply by changing how they
Speaker 1: hold the club and set up to the ball.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean, isn't that the easiest thing to correct
Speaker 2: for you, I would think is the position, grip, alignment,
Speaker 2: the PGA part of you know, just your setup.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and that's not easy. A lot of people
Speaker 1: just get the alignment part wrong all the time.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Tough to know where you're going if you can't get
Speaker 1: lined up to it.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, and I don't think they understand the concept of
Speaker 2: target golf or aiming at something. They're just they're just
Speaker 2: their focus is hitting the ball, not where the ball
Speaker 2: is going.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, we have a challenge with all my students.
Speaker 1: All my students get this. This is the first thing
Speaker 1: to hear on the teaching ta. If we took a
Speaker 1: picture of you down the line and out in the
Speaker 1: front and you set up to the golf ball. So
Speaker 1: you set up, and we take a picture from the
Speaker 1: side and from the back, and then you go home
Speaker 1: and then you come back today and you set up
Speaker 1: again a day later to hit a golf ball, you
Speaker 1: get one hundred thousand dollars. If you set up exactly
Speaker 1: the same way two days in a row, how would
Speaker 1: you do it? What would you measure yourself off of?
Speaker 1: They all start figuring out that the target's pretty important
Speaker 1: after that and lining up square to it, because you
Speaker 1: can do that every day, day in and day out.
Speaker 2: Clearly your incentive as a teacher is financial reward. You
Speaker 2: always like, I'll give you one hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: I might have an imaginary gambling problem.
Speaker 2: Hey that's better than having an actual game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just try to get people's attention. I use
Speaker 1: it all the time. I'm like, if someone called you up,
Speaker 1: we use hockey up here. You guys would probably use
Speaker 1: football or something down there.
Speaker 2: But you use hockey for everything we said.
Speaker 1: You know, I always tell them you just got called
Speaker 1: up to the to the Calgary Flames halftime show and
Speaker 1: you got to hit a perfectly straight shot. What are
Speaker 1: you gonna do? You're gonna line up like this, right?
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'll tell you my dirty Canadian joke after
Speaker 2: we're done recording.
Speaker 1: Okay, So.
Speaker 2: Do you have to or do you think it's appropriate
Speaker 2: to warn your students before you start the lesson that
Speaker 2: look the changes that we make today, and I've looked
Speaker 2: at a couple of your swings, and we're going to
Speaker 2: make some changes. Your game is going to digress before
Speaker 2: it progresses. And because you know when you talk to people,
Speaker 2: I had a lesson last week and my game has
Speaker 2: completely fallen apart since then. I'm so frustrated. Well, it's like,
Speaker 2: but if you stay with what they taught you, you
Speaker 2: will improve. It's just going to take some time. And
Speaker 2: you know, we have so many examples on the tour
Speaker 2: of guys who are are tinkering and tinkering with their
Speaker 2: swings and it doesn't work immediately.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it should. It should get them, it should improve,
Speaker 1: you know what. So those are PGA tour players. These
Speaker 1: are the best players in the world. That's not that's
Speaker 1: not the massive of people who land up on the
Speaker 1: teaching team in front of me. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: easy for them to struggle because they are so good.
Speaker 1: Most of the people that I see when you're you know,
Speaker 1: let's say you're anywhere from a a twenty handicap down
Speaker 1: to a five handicap or or even up to a thirty.
Speaker 1: When you make some good and changes in your golfing,
Speaker 1: sure you might struggle. But my what I find my
Speaker 1: favorite struggle for my students is they all come in
Speaker 1: and say, man, I shot so high, I flew it
Speaker 1: over every green. I used to play a cot, now
Speaker 1: I'm playing a dry I have no idea where to aim,
Speaker 1: and I'm hitting the ball way further. Well, that's that's
Speaker 1: a pretty good complaint.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. Stop keeping score for a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's you know what, it's going to take
Speaker 1: a little time to get used to that. And I
Speaker 1: think that if everybody said, here's my issue in golf,
Speaker 1: you know, like the typical one. I cut the golf
Speaker 1: ball and I don't hit it very far. Okay, so
Speaker 1: we start getting you to draw the golf ball and
Speaker 1: you hit it forty yards further. With everything, the next
Speaker 1: round of golf is going to be one of the
Speaker 1: hardest rounds of golf you've ever played. Right, everything's fixed,
Speaker 1: and you're you're dying out there, and you just have
Speaker 1: to learn to play the game in a new way.
Speaker 1: But that's the exciting thing is that you start looking
Speaker 1: at it and it's it completely changes it, and it
Speaker 1: changes it for people and they get excited and get
Speaker 1: rolling it. That's so much fun.
Speaker 2: And again it's a situation where you need to get
Speaker 2: rid of the scorecard and just treat it as a
Speaker 2: practice round and not a you know, scoring round, because
Speaker 2: you've got new things going on. So don't hurt yourself
Speaker 2: doing that, because you'll really get upset with yourself.
Speaker 1: Well, or just have a fun short game day rescuing yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, right, yeah, it's it seems so entertaining in
Speaker 2: some ways that people aren't really sure of the distances
Speaker 2: of their clubs, or even if they are, they think
Speaker 2: they're sure the distances of their clubs. Say they hit
Speaker 2: let's say they hit their six iron one hundred and
Speaker 2: eighty yards, but one time they hit it one hundred
Speaker 2: and ninety five, and now they're thinking, well, if I
Speaker 2: hit it perfectly, I'm going to hit it one hundred
Speaker 2: and ninety five. And what happens They come up short.
Speaker 2: Most of the time.
Speaker 1: There's when I give you the thousand dollars bad or
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars, which club would you pull out right
Speaker 1: now to hit that green? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then and then part of that question you
Speaker 2: had was and how hard would you swing? What kind
Speaker 2: of response do you get to that?
Speaker 1: It's a tough one for people, right, they all come
Speaker 1: back and they go, oh my god, you know I
Speaker 1: I swing a hundred I swing over one hundred percent
Speaker 1: and everything if there is over one hundred percent, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I look at it. I look at
Speaker 1: any any professional athlete finds their sport easy, and.
Speaker 2: Then they become teachers and don't understand people who can't,
Speaker 2: who don't get well.
Speaker 1: Well. But see, that's that's my My job is to
Speaker 1: make the game is how fast can I make the
Speaker 1: game easy for people? It's great? How how fast can
Speaker 1: I get you to a stage where you go, man,
Speaker 1: this is just a lot simpler than I used to
Speaker 1: think it was. I used to make it so difficult,
Speaker 1: and it was me, you know, it was me making
Speaker 1: it difficult. And now I know what I'm supposed to do,
Speaker 1: and I know what I'm practicing, and i just got
Speaker 1: to go do it a bunch of times and I'm
Speaker 1: going to get I'm going to enjoy the game a
Speaker 1: lot more.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So once it becomes easy, then then the game changes.
Speaker 2: When does it get easy?
Speaker 1: That's your decision. That's up to you. You can make
Speaker 1: it easy right now. There's a lot of people who
Speaker 1: make it tough. There's a lot of people who have
Speaker 1: the tools in the bag right now, they and they
Speaker 1: just make it tough because they make everything in life tough.
Speaker 1: They just can't. They just can't seem to say, is
Speaker 1: this is good the way I'm doing. I like it.
Speaker 1: I like what I'm doing. Always I gotta do better.
Speaker 1: I gotta do better. There's something that baffles me on
Speaker 1: in golf that people think they've always continually got to
Speaker 1: change their golf swing. I don't. I don't know any
Speaker 1: hockey player who's ever changed the way they shot the
Speaker 1: puck over over their career. I don't know any basketball
Speaker 1: player who change how they shoot. I don't know any
Speaker 1: football player who changes how they throw the ball.
Speaker 2: They tweak, they tweak, they work with coaches, they tweak.
Speaker 2: But you're right, making making major blanket changes on things
Speaker 2: like that, that's that seems unique to golf.
Speaker 1: If you're right, we got a situation in the world
Speaker 1: of golf right now that might might be because of that.
Speaker 1: You might maybe when you're number one, you're just supposed
Speaker 1: to say I can just practice this more and get
Speaker 1: better at what I do already, don't You don't have
Speaker 1: to change it.
Speaker 2: Do you get the sense that more golfers want to
Speaker 2: be good golfers versus being happy golfers?
Speaker 1: I think that if you want to be what it
Speaker 1: depends on what good is for you.
Speaker 2: Well, I've seen a lot of good golfers that are
Speaker 2: not happy. It's like, because the basic nature of golf
Speaker 2: is I can do be better. I can be better.
Speaker 2: I can do this better. I know I can, right,
Speaker 2: And so they're frustrated, they're angy, and you know, you
Speaker 2: guys who you have guys who are fifteen to eighteen
Speaker 2: handicaps that play with somebody who's a nine and they're like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I fight You're so good and the
Speaker 2: nine is going, oh I missed that shot. You know.
Speaker 2: It's do you ever get happy when you're playing golf?
Speaker 1: What is that? Is that a human nature thing or
Speaker 1: a golf thing?
Speaker 2: Well, isn't golf like life in so many ways? That
Speaker 2: to me, the major similarity between golf and life is
Speaker 2: how you handle the problems right.
Speaker 1: And and that's that's why, because both.
Speaker 2: Life and golf gives you lots of crap to deal with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when I hire, my favorite interview process for a
Speaker 1: job when I hire new staff is to take people
Speaker 1: for nine holes. I don't I don't need to ask
Speaker 1: you a whole bunch of questions. I just need to
Speaker 1: see how you handle yourself on a golf course.
Speaker 2: Nothing exposes a person's character faster than a round of golf.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so true. You know, so if people aren't happy,
Speaker 1: I mean we run into those people everywhere. They're in business,
Speaker 1: they're they're in there in life, they're in friendships, they're everywhere.
Speaker 1: That just there's just nothing that that. You know, they
Speaker 1: can't make enough money, their house is never big enough there,
Speaker 1: you know, and that's and then they do the same
Speaker 1: in golf. And it was man, life show would be
Speaker 1: easier if you're like, man, I'm pretty good at just
Speaker 1: about everything. If you could just look at yourself and say,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty good.
Speaker 2: And I'm satisfied, I'm happy. Yeah, it works for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, once everyone's figured that out, I think we
Speaker 1: got life figured out.
Speaker 2: That ain't gonna happen.
Speaker 1: No, I'm living you, Yeah.
Speaker 2: That ain't gonna happen In twenty fourteen. Congratulations, you were
Speaker 2: named the Alberta Teacher of the Year. That's yeah, you
Speaker 2: should be very pleased and honored by that. And you
Speaker 2: said that again in a letter to me, you said,
Speaker 2: the game is given, taught and transform many of my beliefs,
Speaker 2: thoughts and values that I have in my life. Let's
Speaker 2: talk about that for a minute.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Well, what.
Speaker 2: Is it that golf has taught you that it has
Speaker 2: transformed many of your beliefs and your thoughts and your
Speaker 2: values that you approach, that you change in the way
Speaker 2: you deal with your life.
Speaker 1: Now, well, some of the things that that we've even
Speaker 1: just talked about, just you know, when is enough enough?
Speaker 1: When are you satisfied? That's the thirty thousand foot view
Speaker 1: of you know. I remember when I played on tour.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you'd shoot a sixty five and
Speaker 1: you come off the course and you could say, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I could have shot a sixty two. There was
Speaker 1: those three shots that I did. You know, I missed it,
Speaker 1: but yeah, yeah, and you got to be at this
Speaker 1: stage and you know, and I when I was when
Speaker 1: I played on tour, there was also the opposite. I'd
Speaker 1: shoot seventy five and couldn't sleep either because I just
Speaker 1: I was so angry that I wasn't going to make
Speaker 1: the cut, and it was you know, and you just
Speaker 1: have to realize that it is. It just is what
Speaker 1: it is. And you know, sometimes if you can look
Speaker 1: at a seventy five or a difficult situation and say,
Speaker 1: you know, here's an opportunity to turn it around now
Speaker 1: and do something great with it. Have a great attitude,
Speaker 1: and see if you can make something great of something
Speaker 1: maybe that isn't that feels not so great, or even
Speaker 1: adding to something that is already great, like shooting is
Speaker 1: sixty five and shooting another one. Yeah, so I guess
Speaker 1: you know, from my perspective, it's it's been. It gives
Speaker 1: me just on little things everything in life. It's so
Speaker 1: easy to get swallowed up by kids and work and
Speaker 1: all your commitments that go on in our lives and
Speaker 1: oh my god, and I you know, I can't, I
Speaker 1: can't keep up. And sometimes we forget that, you know,
Speaker 1: it is okay, everything's good, and just focus on the fairway.
Speaker 1: Quit thinking about the trees, and quit worrying about the water,
Speaker 1: and quit worrying about worry about money, and quit worrying
Speaker 1: about these things. Those things will come and just try
Speaker 1: to focus on and enjoying yourself strolling down the middle.
Speaker 2: How are you able to teach golfers to not worry
Speaker 2: about history in this sense that when you said stop
Speaker 2: worrying about this tree, stop worrying about the water, It's like,
Speaker 2: you know, oh, every time I play this course, I
Speaker 2: hit the ball in the water. It's like, yeah, but
Speaker 2: that's not relevant to your next shot? Is it?
Speaker 1: Being able to let go is a serious skill? Again?
Speaker 1: That's why I go back to that silly thousand dollars question.
Speaker 1: You know, if I stand you there and I bounce
Speaker 1: that question off you again, I'm like, say, like, you
Speaker 1: get a thousand bucks, why don't you forget about the water. Like, seriously,
Speaker 1: if someone was really going to give you a thousand
Speaker 1: bucks to hit the green, would you be sitting here
Speaker 1: going on, I'm going to hit in the water again,
Speaker 1: and it's really hard, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I think, yeah, but I actually think that people
Speaker 2: would even that kind of pressure. I'll give you a
Speaker 2: thousand bucks, which is not necessarily a positive question. I
Speaker 2: can see that being a tremendous amount of pressure adds
Speaker 2: a lot of tension, adds a lot of you makes
Speaker 2: makes the water bigger, makes your hand squeeze tighter, make
Speaker 2: your shoulders go up even higher. You know it's not
Speaker 2: a relaxed, loose, easy swing. Then there's a lot of
Speaker 2: tension behind that.
Speaker 1: Well, if you know how to gamble, it is.
Speaker 2: I had a clubmaker. I had a clubmaker who once
Speaker 2: made me fill out one hundred and ten question survey
Speaker 2: before he would discuss making clubs for me. And one
Speaker 2: of the questions was do you bet when you play golf?
Speaker 2: And I said, no, I don't. I don't find gambling entertaining.
Speaker 2: And he said, you don't gamble when you play golf.
Speaker 2: Why do you play.
Speaker 1: That? Now that might be a problem on the other side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, this guy wants to take your money exactly.
Speaker 1: I don't bet either. I'm just learning. But if you
Speaker 1: want to bet, I will know.
Speaker 2: And to me, it's more score scorecard watching than anything.
Speaker 2: And it's that's what I don't want to do when
Speaker 2: I'm playing, is keep looking at the scorecard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, And we're just just commenting on on
Speaker 1: how do you how do you you know? Uh, just
Speaker 1: when somebody if you did say a thousand dollars question
Speaker 1: with the water, it can work in reverse. As well.
Speaker 1: And I think I think that's the key is we
Speaker 1: all have to figure out how to live with ourselves
Speaker 1: or compete against ourselves and and and succeed. You know,
Speaker 1: That's the key is we have to be able to
Speaker 1: That's really all we're playing against. Is my thinking going
Speaker 1: to take me in a negative direction today or a
Speaker 1: positive one?
Speaker 2: Interesting? So is my thinking said or is it working
Speaker 2: against me?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, And I think that I don't know. I
Speaker 1: get a chance to golf with a lot of different people,
Speaker 1: and I've golfed with some guys who are pretty good golfers,
Speaker 1: and you know, they're they go crazy on the golf course,
Speaker 1: throwing golf clubs and to the point where I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: I don't I got to say something because I don't
Speaker 1: want to get hit with a golf club.
Speaker 2: You know, Well, the first lesson there is stand behind
Speaker 2: the other guy.
Speaker 1: And I guess I I abuse my position in golf
Speaker 1: a little bit on those scenarios. And I just I
Speaker 1: asked them, I said, what are you getting so angry for?
Speaker 1: I mean, really, you're you're playing at the level that
Speaker 1: you're you that's pretty good for you. I can't play
Speaker 1: like me or like a PGA Tour player, So why
Speaker 1: are you trying to get mad when you don't hit
Speaker 1: a shot like one?
Speaker 2: I actually got an email from a listener ones who
Speaker 2: said that his dad used to say to him when
Speaker 2: he was a kid, you know, and he was a
Speaker 2: hot headed kid, and he would regularly throw his clubs
Speaker 2: and his dad said, you're not good enough to throw
Speaker 2: your clubs yet.
Speaker 1: Right, that's right. I love I do too. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Golf Performancecanada dot com.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: Okay, make sure.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have lots of golf tips coming up there
Speaker 1: too this year. Well, one thing we know today with
Speaker 1: the track man that when people swing a golf club,
Speaker 1: we talk about swing path and club face angle. And
Speaker 1: I ask people all the time, if your face points
Speaker 1: over here and your path goes over there, where's your
Speaker 1: ball end up? And people are pretty sharp when you
Speaker 1: ask him that question. They always tell me that the
Speaker 1: golf ball basically follows the face, which is the truth.
Speaker 1: So wherever your ball goes, it's because that's where your
Speaker 1: face is pointing at the moment of impact.
Speaker 2: Club face, not your face.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, clubface. Yeah. So what happens when people are
Speaker 1: swinging is they don't realize that when they get to impact,
Speaker 1: the faces either open or closed, or very rarely is
Speaker 1: it square. And I find that the best way that
Speaker 1: people can influence their club face because it's a seventy
Speaker 1: five percent influence on the ball. The path of the
Speaker 1: golf club influences the ball twenty five percent, and the
Speaker 1: face of the golf club set is seventy five percent.
Speaker 1: So the best way that you can make an impact
Speaker 1: on your game is to actually work on your grip.
Speaker 1: My saying that I always say is if you're not
Speaker 1: working on your grip, you're not working on your game.
Speaker 1: So what I want to do is try to give
Speaker 1: you some sort of idea of what we can do
Speaker 1: in the left hand. So in the left hand, what
Speaker 1: happens with a lot of people, so this is their
Speaker 1: top hand, what happens to a lot of people is
Speaker 1: they get the golf club too diagonal in their hand
Speaker 1: this way, and what they need to do is get
Speaker 1: the golf club running more across their knuckles this way
Speaker 1: so that it's deeper in their hand. You want to
Speaker 1: be able to hold it with this pinky back here
Speaker 1: and then that gets on this way. So if I
Speaker 1: actually turn that this way for you to have a
Speaker 1: look at my hand gets turned over so that there's
Speaker 1: a bit of a bend in the wrist here as well. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's in my left hand. I always want to
Speaker 1: do that. The other way I can think of it
Speaker 1: is I want to put the toe of the golf
Speaker 1: club up this way, so when I'm holding it, I
Speaker 1: want to feel like I'm grabbing a motorcycle grip, like
Speaker 1: I'm going to race the motorcycle. And then what that
Speaker 1: should do when I hold the golf club is I
Speaker 1: actually turn the glub face down a little bit and
Speaker 1: close the face. So the big deal is getting the
Speaker 1: golf club deeper in your hand, running more across your knuckles.
Speaker 1: One other way you can think of it is how
Speaker 1: do you hold it? If someone brought you the golf
Speaker 1: club this way? How do you hold it? You just
Speaker 1: grab it in here and it goes right across your knuckles.
Speaker 1: So you can see how it goes across my knuckles
Speaker 1: this way, And that's how you want to grip it. Lefetime,
Speaker 1: you want to get it more across your knuckles, less
Speaker 1: diagonal in your hand, clay around with your grip, make
Speaker 1: it either close or open and watch what happens with
Speaker 1: your golf ball.
Speaker 2: Awesome. That was an amazing tip and the video is
Speaker 2: so important on that. So people are just listening from
Speaker 2: this one, you've got to go check out on golf
Speaker 2: Smarter TV the YouTube channel so you can see what
Speaker 2: he just explained because it's going to have an impact
Speaker 2: on the results of your ball flight and your swing.
Speaker 1: Awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great, Garrett, thanks so much, Buddy.
Speaker 1: Hey, thank you, bred I appreciate it.