Speaker 1: Hi, I'm andre Ato.
Speaker 2: I'm from Henderson, Nevada, and I play at Revere Golf Club.
Speaker 3: And this is Golf Smarter.
Speaker 1: Number four hundred and fifty eight.
Speaker 2: Welcome to golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain
insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the
Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets Old. Our
interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 3: Well, I think, just like the golf swing, there are
certain basic fundamental things that everybody needs to go through.
You have to have a very sound fundamental putting grip.
Whether it's the traditional reverse overlap grip or whether it's
left hand low or the pencil grip or the claw
or whatever you like to do. You have to have
a sound fundamental grip that does what your grip is
supposed to do in the putting stroke, and that's to
work together with your arms and do not break down
an impact. I think you need to have a great
setup position. You have to have good eye position, good
ball position, good hand and arm position, because all those
things take care of where the putter is going to swing.
So if you have a good setup position and your
body is ready, the putter will swing on your target
line a lot easier than if it doesn't.
Speaker 1: Head professional Steven Snyder with important tips you may have forgotten.
This is Golf Smarter. Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast. Steve.
Speaker 3: Hello, Fred, how are you good? How are you?
Speaker 1: I'm doing well, Thank you very much good. I'm so
glad that you joined me here in the studio today.
We've known each other for a long time. Our kids
played little league together before the baseball strike, that was
pre ninety four. We've known each other a long time. Yeah,
but we've never discussed golf in all these years. And
I've you know, I've already been playing. I didn't even
know that's what you did at the time. I didn't
start playing until like ninety six or something, ninety eight.
So yeah, I am so excited to have this conversation
with you finally.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having man, I'm gonna enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Well, great, great, So let's talk about first of all,
Indian Valley Golf Course. How long have you been there?
Speaker 3: What do you do I've been there about eleven and
a half years. I'm the PGA head golf professional. I
work some hours in the golf shop every day. I
merchandise the golf shop. I do all the inventory of
clubs and clothing and things for the members and for
the public, and I teach in the afternoons. I organize
our junior golf program for the summer, and everything that
a head golf professional would do working for a Indian
Valley corporation.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's interesting because I think that most people have
this idea that it would be great to be a
golf pro because then I can just play golf and
give lessons. No, no, it's much more than that.
Speaker 3: Now we have a very very active men's and ladies
club and I play. I try to play with the
men's club once a week. I don't make that happen,
but I try to play with the men's club once
a week, and they encourage us to play. All the
golf professional staff, but once a week is about what
I do.
Speaker 1: Really, do you miss it?
Speaker 3: I do, But it's my business. I'm not in the
business of playing golf. I'm in the business of golf,
so I do all the different things around the playing
part of it. And I think I have and I've
been a PGA member since nineteen eighty, so I think
I have a pretty good knowledge of the operation of
the golf industry and enjoy all facets of it.
Speaker 1: When you're studying to be a golf professional teaching professional,
do they also teach you like business? I mean, it's
like you're going to have to run a pro shop.
Here are the things you need to know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they do. I think you learn a lot of
it through the School of Hard Knocks. But yeah, the
PGA has an education program that takes about four years
or five years to go through, depending on how long
you stretch it out, and they teach you everything from
owning your own golf shop and open to buy program,
turf grass maintenance, golf cart operations, and golf cart mechanics.
You know, they give you a little introduction on all
the different parts and then expect you to gain the
rest of it through working knowledge.
Speaker 1: The hard knocks. What's the biggest surprise for you.
Speaker 3: The biggest surprise with the golf industry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, since you've been doing it and when you came
out of school and stuff, it was like, WHOA, I
didn't expect that.
Speaker 3: Well, I think like everybody, I mean, we get into
the golf business because we like to play golf, and
I think that's probably the biggest surprises. You don't play
as much golf as you would like to or think
that you should, because you're too busy, and by the
time you've worked your eight hour day or nine hour day,
who wants to go out and play nine holes. We
do it, but it's a little harder to motivate yourself
to play golf under those circumstances.
Speaker 1: I can't Every teacher I've ever had a conversation with
doesn't play as much golf as they'd love to. And
when people ask me, oh, I love to play golf,
I would love to be a teacher, and it's like, well,
those are two real different things they are. Being a
teacher is one thing. Being a golf instructor it adds
to that. But if you love to play golf, you
may not want to get into the golf business because
you're going to get burned out, you're going to start
hating it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of people that they get in
and they get out shortly after, and they get into
a regular job, and they end up playing more golf
than when they were in the golf business, you obviously
lose some of the perks of being able to play
your golf course, but you probably play more golf when
you're not in the business.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you probably do, Probably do so. Indian Valley is
a course that I've talked about many times on the
show because it is my home course. I leave next
to a golf course that I don't play that much.
But it's only, you know, a ten minute twelve minute
drive for me to get there, and it's a challenging course.
It's a fun course. It's a great walk and a
lot of people probably don't do it. It's like seven
and a half miles or something.
Speaker 3: Pretty good size walk, and.
Speaker 1: There's only one level hole. In my head, there's only
one level hole on the course. Right. Everything is you're
hitting your lot ups and downs, lots of ups and downs,
lots of ups and downs. And that's one of the
things I want to go over is how to play
those shots, how to take advantage of a course that
is far from level. I mean, the greens are fair,
they're quick, and you've got to play your shots. But
it's a it's not an easy walk. It's a great walk.
Speaker 3: It's yeah, it's a great walk. A lot of people
of older people, younger people do like to walk the
golf course. So the front nine is a little easier
walk than the back nine. The back nine gets a
little bit more up and down the hills once you
get to fourteen right fourteen through seventeen, but it's a
good challenge. It's not overly long distance wise, it's even
from the championship teas. It's about sixty three hundred and
fifty yards, so not horribly long. But you have a
lot of uphill, downhill, side hill, lies to some small
greens and then to some big greens, so you have
a good variation of shots that you're gonna play.
Speaker 1: So it tests you, yep, and there's a lot of
blind shots to greens. You know, it's always good to
have course knowledge of what you're doing, but you don't
always see where you're going. You can see the flag tip,
but that it ends up being it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a number of shots where you're hitting up
to a green or you're hitting over a little bit
of a rise, so yeah, you're gonna have some some
blind shots, not a lot of blind shots, but some.
Speaker 1: And also that back nine it can get pretty windy
on that too.
Speaker 3: Fifteen sixteen, yep, yep.
Speaker 1: But there is one of the greatest features of any
golf course, definitely in the county, that I've ever seen,
is you have an elevator. It goes between fourteen and thirteen,
fourteen and fourteen. What's the history of that? How did
that happen?
Speaker 3: Well, the boss likes to say Jeff McAndrews is the
general manager and Jeff Senior is the director of golf.
And they like to say.
Speaker 1: Any family business.
Speaker 3: It's a family business. Oh, they like to say, anybody
that would build a golf course it has an elevator,
that's got to be an idiot. But the elevator's been
there and been redone and remodeled several times. And it's
basically a tram ride for the walkers to get him
from the thirteenth green to the fourteenth tee. And it's
a beautiful ride. I've done a couple of times just
to take the ride up there. And you have a
view of Stafford Lake and you have a view of
about five or six holes on the golf course. So
and it helps a little bit with the speed of play.
And obviously cart writers ride the cart path up, but
the walkers can jump in that tram ride and get
right up to the next team.
Speaker 1: Last time I played, when I had my really spectacular
round after I came back from vacation, and we got
matched up with these two brothers, middle aged, big boys,
big like. These guys had to take the cart. These
are not walking guys right their cart. I had to
push their car, produce my cart to push their cart
up that hill because they were going, ah. It's things
running out of steam and it's like no, you're kind
of waiting it down. It made it a little tough.
You mentioned Stafford Lake, which is pretty much the water
source from Marin County. It's looking really sad right now.
What is Indian Valley And we've talked about this about
other courses. Pasa Tiempo did a show recently with the
Presidio and their efforts during our drought. What do you do?
What is Indian Valley doing to deal with the drought
right now?
Speaker 3: Well, Indian Valley actually is on water District property, so
the owners of the golf course don't own actually the property,
but we do get our water to irrigate from Stafford Lake.
They've asked us to cut back twenty to twenty five percent,
which we've done. So a lot of the perimeter areas
that normally would get irrigated this year did not get irrigated.
And you'll see some areas where some of the questionable
grasses have burnt out, but the basic golf course has
stayed in great shape all year. Tea to green, Yeah,
it really is.
Speaker 1: So that's the strategy here is just to avoid the
outside areas.
Speaker 3: Eliminate all the perimeters that you don't need to water.
The area from tee to green on a par three,
you don't see those getting watered at all, and they
they have gotten watered in the past. So we've cut
back as much as we can and as much as
they've asked us to, and we're all keeping our fingers
crossed for this winter.
Speaker 1: Right I'm really hoping for some lousy weather here.
Speaker 3: We'd like to sell some rain gear. Yeah, you've got
a lot of backgear. You've got a.
Speaker 1: Lot in the back room that you haven't been able
to get rid of for least the last three years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've got plenty.
Speaker 1: Oh man, that's a shame. One of the other features
that I just love about your golf course, and I
had this idea one day. It's like, you know, I
have to walk my dog every morning, why don't I
just take her with me on a golf course. So
I googled dog friendly golf courses, thinking I'd never even
heard of such a thing, and just that weekend there
was an article about two courses in Marine Indian Valley
in San Geronimo that are dog friendly. How did that
come about? And what does that mean?
Speaker 3: You know what, I don't even know how it's come about.
It's a great feature, and we have a lot of
people that take advantage of bringing their dog up of
some on a leash and some just on command that
are well behaved. And we haven't had any problems from
the dogs or from customers saying that I don't like
to play when people have their dogs, or it's just
a great feature and we all love our dogs, so
a little bit more quality time and a little exercise
for the pooch. And I know quite a few of
them by name that come up on a regular basis,
the owner and the dog, so we have a lot
of fun with it.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. And you know, some people just put the
dog in the cart and drive from the car. I thought, no,
I'm just going to bring her with me and I'll
keep the leash on her and let her drag it,
and then if I need to grab her, I will.
You know, if a skunk runs across the fairway or something,
or a deer and she wants to go after it.
Speaker 3: We do have some wildlife, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you do some beautiful wildlife out there. It's great
because you're pretty isolated. We are, which is really nice
in West Morin, and it's there's no houses on the
course at all.
Speaker 3: The closest house, I guess would be left of three fairway.
There's a couple of homes back on ranches, but they're
not right on the golf course.
Speaker 1: No, there's a lot of room between that house and
the and the fence. You're right there is that house
two houses over on number three fairway, which is a
par five, and you're spend more time looking for your
ball than you notice. The only thing you would notice
is if their horse comes up to you and wants
to say hello, and you're walking by the fence looking
for your ball.
Speaker 3: The horse is pretty well trained. He comes over when
he sees the somebody bringing him an apple or a carrot,
and that happens quite a bit.
Speaker 1: The first time I brought my dog out to the course,
my friends that I was playing with that day, they
were like, really, you brought your dog, and I'm like, yeah,
it's a dog friendly chorus. I'm gonna just give it
a shot. Well, by the end of the round they
were thanking me for having the dog out there because
it calmed everybody down. Whenever they got like frustrated or
angry upset, they go over and pet the dog and
their whole attitude with therapy. It's it's amazing with canine
therapy can do to your golf game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: So why do and you've never had I mean, hopefully
each person that does this is a good dog citizen
and they'll clean up after their dog, because you would
hate to find, you know, your ball and a pile
of poop.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, we don't have any problems with that.
Speaker 1: No. I brought bags with me and she you know
one time, Okay, fine, just put it in the trash
in the next hole. No one's gonna care.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, no, they the dogs are fine. The dogs
are are so well behaved. Probably more behave than some
of the players from time to time.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I never had a dog bark at
the time that I was on a backswing. I can
tell you how many times each round that we're all
be in a backswing and I'll hear somebody who's probably
missed a putt. You can hear them from another Okay, okay,
calm down, guys. Yeah exactly. Is there anything that you
guys treat the ground with that we should be concerned
that our dog might be sniffing and licking around? And
is there any chemicals or anything that keep your course
so green that I'd be worried about.
Speaker 3: No, we're pretty restricted by the water district because we
are on water district properly. That's interesting that there are
a lot of chemicals that we cannot use. So no,
we're we're very animal friendly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's such a I don't know why more courses
don't even consider it. Have you heard of other courses
that are have had trouble with it, or even courses
that do it? No, the two here in this county. No,
I have not really, No, it's bring it up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a fun feature.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, what so, so you know bring When I
say bring it up, I mean like an upcoming PGA
professionals meeting. You guys have regular meetings and conferences and things.
What are the struggles that everyone's discussing these days? As
far as you know, we're all losing business left and right.
How do we get them back?
Speaker 3: Well, we got to a point where we overbuilt, so
there were too many golf courses and too many options,
and play was just going.
Speaker 1: Through the roof, and which was a great thing.
Speaker 3: Nobody saw a decline happening, and all of a sudden,
the economy hits and people either have a budget for
time or for dollars and they can't play as much golf.
Speaker 1: Right. So well, and you also have the Tiger factor.
You have somebody who's not as charismatic, who's leading the
tour and making headlines of people going, oh, I want
to do that, I want to do that. There's really
I mean, Rory is a great player, but he doesn't
have the or the you know, the press appeal of
a Tiger. And I'm talking about press appeal. Even before
Tiger's mishaps, he's still the press loved him, right, and
that's going to generate a lot of business for the industry.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we're looking at areas where we can
expand the golfer base. Everybody has now an email list,
a base of emails that you can send out specials
and invitations and promotions that you might have from time
to time to try to expand on who you're advertising to.
I think the inevitable thing is that there are going
to be some golf courses that close, and that does happen.
But we're trying to go from the positive standpoint, how
do we get a few more people to play golf?
And a couple of years ago it was trying to
get the people that play six times a year to
play twelve times, and that's what it is, and those
kind of things, and expanding the junior population and expanding
the ladies' population so that you get a few more
players that way, and we're working at it.
Speaker 1: Do you have a sense of the average customer at
Indian Valley how many times a year they play at
your course, Because, like I'm one of the members, you
know when you're lesser members. But I recently did a
check because my son was asking me, and of the
last thirteen rounds that I had played, I played eleven
different courses in Marin, Sonoma, and San Francisco, so I
don't always go to Intow Valley it's my go to,
but I play a lot of courses. So do you
have any sense of how often.
Speaker 3: Well, we have an annual membership right with about two
hundred and twenty five or so, either single members or
family members, and they play more golf, obviously than the
general public plays. I think the average family member probably
plays two to three times a week. Then the one
extreme would be we have one member that played three
hundred and eight rounds last year. Wow, they weren't all
at Indian Valley, but he posted three hundred and eight
rounds of golf. That's a lot of golf.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of golf. Well, that's the beauty of
living on the West Coast when you can play twelve
months a year.
Speaker 3: And we had a year where the weather was more
conducive to playing. We didn't have much rain, so he
played golf.
Speaker 1: I have a listener who I actually just did a
show with because he's a physical therapist as well and
is a certified TPI instructor and he lives in Ottawa, Alberta.
He lives in Alberta, Canada, and he's already had over
two hundred and fifty rounds this year. And he doesn't
get to play for like more than five or six
months a year, right, but he plays two rounds of
golf every day, at least two. He'll play thirty six holes.
That's a lot of golf and he's only been playing
six years and he's down to a three.
Speaker 3: So you eat a sink or swim there, get better
or ya kuia one or the.
Speaker 1: Other exactly exactly. So of all the conversations that are
going on these days about how do we bring more
people in, there's some outrageous ideas being you know, the
first one comes to mind, like fifteen inch hole and
you know, moving the t's up to play it forward concept.
Have you guys done anything or you would you consider
doing anything that is special to bring bodies in or you.
Speaker 3: Just yeah, I think we would, And we wholly support
the play It Forward program and we've promoted that, probably
not as much as we should, but we have promoted
it some. I think everybody would have a lot more
fun if they played a golf course where they could
shoot a good score and was a little bit more
usually friendly. I think that's the point we got into
building golf courses that were seven thousand yards long. And
you go out there and don't have much fun and
shoot a high score, You're probably not going to come back, right,
So we try to promote.
Speaker 1: That they're charging you one hundred and fifty to two
hundred dollars to do.
Speaker 3: So fees can be high. Yeah, the feest can be high.
We promoted from that from that avenue the twelve inch cups.
I don't know that we're going in that direction. I
wouldn't be a fan of that. I'm still more traditionalist
and I'd like to see other things explored before we
go to a twelve inch cup.
Speaker 1: Well, just if you play the fifteen inch hole or
the twelve inch hole, just don't post your score. But hey,
you're gonna first of all, you're going to probably play
a lot faster, and you know you're going to score
a lot lower, you're going to make a lot more putts.
Speaker 3: I'd have less frustration.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And if it's a way to get people,
you know, excited about it, have fun. I don't know,
I'm kind of on the fence about it. I've heard
many conversations. I just don't wanted to disrupt normal play.
It would have to be a designated time or a
day or something. But I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm just more traditionalist with the golf that the history
of golf and the challenge of golf and being a
golf professional. I'd like to teach people and get them
to play a little bit better. Maybe they'd have a
little bit more if they're more fun if they played
a little bit better. So I would attack it from
that direction. And then the idea, I mean, there was
ideas years ago. Why shouldn't the average player, and a
male average player is somewhere between a fifteen and a
twenty handicap, why shouldn't he be able to hit the
same kind of iron into a hole that one of
the stronger players on the tour can hit.
Speaker 1: And that was the play it forward, And that's the.
Speaker 3: Play it forward I did. And I think everybody would
score better and they'd have more fun doing that.
Speaker 1: No question, And drop the ego, folks. Sure you know
it's like, I don't have a problem playing the whites.
What's the problem. I'm going to have a better score probably.
Speaker 3: Or the reds. And we took the names off of them.
It's not ladies team in exactly, it's Redswhites, it's forward,
t's middle, te's.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. But are people taking advantage of the do they?
First of all, do they understand the concept play it forward?
Because I don't know if that name really explains what
it is. And we had Barney Adams on who it
was his idea, and we've talked about it and talked
about the name and how it doesn't come up with anything.
But do you think people are actually a significant number
of your or even a minor number of your customers
are taking advantage of that content?
Speaker 3: Well? I think they are. In fact, I just before
I came over, I met with our nine old Ladies
group and they're playing a couple of teas that we
don't even have team markers at right now, because they
want to play it a little farther forward, and they
want to have rounds go a little bit quicker, and
they want their higher handicapped ladies to enjoy themselves a
little bit more. So. I think there's instances where we're
making it happen.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into helping the average golfer, and
that is what we do here at Golf Smarter. It's like,
I'm a guy with the right equipment and a bunch
of questions, and I want to get my game better.
I don't want to talk about what's going on in
the tour and how much money they're making or not.
I want to improve my weekend first. I guess the
first thing is to move up closer on your t
shots so you can get yourself a short iron versus
a hybrid, right, right, But let's talk about playing Indian Valley,
and of course that is very hilly and a lot
of uneven lies. What would be the first thing that
you would remind somebody of to pay attention to when
then you know, when they have to address the fact
that the ball is going to be above their feet
or below their feet on any hit.
Speaker 3: Well, I might even take one step backwards from there
and think about how many people play golf that don't
have proper equipment, and so you might think about addressing
the issue of what's in your bag and how to
use what's in your bag. The sand wedge is the
most versative, versatile golf club in your bag. If you're
not using it to do a lot of your pitching
and things around the green. Then you're cheating yourself. So
you need to learn how to use that. Hybrid clubs.
Everybody should have a couple of them in their bag.
Speaker 1: What clubs should you get rid of to so that
you can replace with three hybrids?
Speaker 3: The three iron is almost obsolete. The two irons nobody
even makes anymore. Wow, So most of the sets start
with four or maybe even five iron, and a five
iron has got enough loft and a short enough shaft
that most people can feel confident enough to get the
ball up in the air with a five iron. So
then you go four iron three iron in the hybrid set,
and they're built like a fairway wood and they'll get
launch the ball up in the air and it'll land
softer on the green. And so having proper equipment, even
to the point of having the hybrids and having the irons,
and making sure that you're fitted properly, and you go
to your golf professional and you get fit for the
proper length and lie and shaft type so that you're
getting the best out of your game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I am such a huge advocate on getting fitted.
It makes me crazy when I have friends out there
and goes oh, look, here's my new driver. It's like, oh,
did you get fitted? No, I just swung. I took
a couple of swings at the golf shop into a
net and it felt good, like.
Speaker 3: Bad move, bad move. And then they can do a
decent fitting at a golf shop where you're using the
computerized equipment. I like to see the ballfly. So when
you're outdoors and you can see the initial launch angle
besides what you're reading on the computer fitting, and you
can see the spin rate, and you can see the
curve of the golf ball. You're going to find out
what kind of shaft and whether you need a softer
shaft or a lighter shaft or a heavier shaft. Those
kind of things can be seen just by looking at
the ball flight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm trying to think like getting fitted than
not hitting into a net. I mean, actually seeing the
actual ballflight. You can learn a lot more from that
than just I mean, the computers are pretty awesome.
Speaker 3: Computers are awesome. The computer can tell you from the
initial contact with the golf club the spin rate, launch
angle and all those kind of things. It's ball speed,
those kind of things that you're interested in. But from
a naked eye. You see the ball launch off of
your club face. You see the initial spin rate, balls
that take off and they start low and they rise.
You know, there's too much spin on the ball. I'm
I'm a field person and I have a trained eye.
So as far as the equipment goes, it's it's a bonus.
I would say it's a bonus, but I like to
see the ball fly.
Speaker 1: Interesting. That makes a lot of sense. But there's a
lot of people who don't aren't using taking advantage of that. Well,
they don't have the room.
Speaker 3: Well, and if you if you come to a to
a golf shop or a golf club where you can
hit balls and you can see the ball fly. Everybody
that does the club fittings, and I'm included. We have
three of us that do club fittings at Indian Valley
and we can club fit you and the club fitting
doesn't cost anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a huge advantage that people don't realize. It's like,
you know, it's not going to cost you anything and
you're only going to do better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just gonna help.
Speaker 1: And what are the things that are gonna for me?
When I got fitted. One of the first things that
started happening is my drives. I got a new driver
and they were going longer, and the dispersion they weren't.
It wasn't flying to the right, it wasn't flying to
the left. Once we made those adjustments, I was just
you know, you put more balls in the fairway, your
scores are gonna go down.
Speaker 3: You can have a lot more fun when you're not
in the trees every.
Speaker 1: Hole, yep, yep. And you guys have trees, yes.
Speaker 3: We have trees, and we have fairway bunkers a few,
and we have hazards that you can get yourself into.
So getting yourself fit for the proper clubs is a
big thing.
Speaker 1: How do you keep the bunkers in good shape with
the drought.
Speaker 3: Well, sand traps on the fairways are not going to
get as much use as up around the green so
they take a little bit less maintenance. But sure the
green side bunkers they get maintained on a daily basis,
and they get upgrades throughout the year as need be,
you know, refilling the sand or re raking the sand
to get them to where they're more playable, because they
do get hit with irrigation and they get hit with
storms in the wintertime, so you have to do some maintenance. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was up at Foxtail North this past weekend up
in Rohnert Park, and the bunkers were like playing off
a hard pan and it was like unfortunately, it was
like when I played at Pasa Tiempo that was just
dried out rock hard, looking ugly. But the bunkers just
work hard, really hard.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm not very comfortable to hit a sand shot
next to a green and right not have a great
deal of sand in there. But we do a pretty
good job keeping the sand.
Speaker 1: Why are they just not refilling the sand or it's
just because it's so wet.
Speaker 3: The economy hits in a lot of different directions.
Speaker 1: YEA interesting. Interesting, all right, Now let's see Okay, so
we talked about equipment. We talked about playing the correct teas. Okay,
now let's get back to those uneven lies.
Speaker 3: Uphill downhill side hill lies. Yeah, some of them more
difficult than others. I think the biggest basic thing that
everybody needs to think about when you're on a hilly
golf course is getting your body level to the slope
that you're trying to play. For instance, your spine angle
where that is and being perpendicular to the ground. So
uphill lies, you're going to tilt your body and get
your spine angle matched up to the ground. Downhill lies,
you have to go the other direction and try to
actually get your right side a little bit higher so
your club can swing down the slope. So there is
a definite knack to the side. Hill lies and the
up and downhill lies even from short game to a
fairway wood to a long iron.
Speaker 1: So you want to make sure that your body is
perpendicular to the ground right, not to perpendicular to gravity
right right, so you're not like trying to go you
be straight even though the ground is at an angle,
and you want to be up and down as far
as gravity's concerned.
Speaker 3: Right, the spine angle to the ground has to be
at a ninety degree angle. So if you've got an
uphill lie, you want the club to be able to
swing up the slope and not swing into the slope.
Speaker 1: And then what about ballflight coming off of a shot
where the ball is let's say above your feet.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you got a ball that's going to go
up up the hill a little bit, it naturally adds
more loft to your club, so you need to club up.
If it's a five iron shot, maybe you need a
four iron. You need something that's going to have a
little flatter face because your launch angle is going to
be higher, and then vice versa. If you're going down
the slope, you need something with more loft. And the
hardest shot to hit off of a downhill slope is
to try to take a fairway wood and try to
get an airborne where most people would be better off
if they took that hybrid with twenty three degrees of
loft and swing down the slope and get the ball airborne.
Is probably going to come off like three would.
Speaker 1: Number eight at Indian Valley, Part three, All up hill.
Speaker 3: Hardest tool on the golf course.
Speaker 1: The death of Me. It's it's got a narrow green
going left to right. So when you're looking at it,
it's the width of the green, it's not very deep,
and it's all uphill to the green, and it's the
green is on top of the hill. And if you
even land on the green, you your chances are you're
going to bounce off and go back down the hill.
Speaker 3: Very difficult show.
Speaker 1: Very difficult shot to get the ball to stay on
the green. Playing from the whites, you're probably it's like
one hundred and thirty five hundred and forty yard shot.
But with the uphill you got to add two clubs.
Then you got the wind in your face sometimes or
the wind behind you. It's either in your face or
behind you. How do you what do you recommend to
play that hole or a hole? That's that that complicated?
Speaker 3: Well, like you said, if it's if it's into the wind,
you have to only have to club up. You're clubbing
up because it's uphill.
Speaker 1: And that's what a two or three club difference.
Speaker 3: It depends on how strong the wind is. That's just
something that's a judgment called there's.
Speaker 1: No wind at all, that kind of elevation change going uphill.
You know, I think if something to decide how many
clubs that you want to go up.
Speaker 3: Well, I think it depends on how high you hit
the ball. I think it's a one club difference going
up that hill. So from one hundred and sixty yards
I would hit a six iron. I'd normally hit a
five iron going up that slope. But you also want
to think about the green itself. You don't want to
be long there, so any kind of miss needs to
be short, because at least you have a chance from
short to chip and put and get it up and down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but even if you're a little short, that thing's
going to hit the edge of the hill, take one
bounce and just fall off to the right and now
you're down by the fence way below the hole.
Speaker 3: No doubt, a very difficult hole, but.
Speaker 1: It's not ranked as like the highest handicap hole on
the course.
Speaker 3: Though, I think purely because of the yardage, just because
one and forty one hundred and sixty yards depending on
where you're playing from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, last time I think that I I stayed just
just on the fringe, but on the back fringe of
the green. Plus, you don't necessarily want to attack the
pin on that hole. You just want to get to
the middle of the green as best you can.
Speaker 3: And you always want to favor left. Why because there's
more forgiveness to the left side. Anything that hits from
the middle of the green right is going to fall
down that slope and you're going to have a much
more difficult ship in.
Speaker 1: The front side of the green. But on the back side,
if you go it's narrow there, it's narrow so you
go a little bit. Yeah, now you're all the way
on the back end again and there's a big oak tree.
Speaker 3: Right, there's never been there myself.
Speaker 1: Well, let me tell you about that hole, Steve. It
can happen, you know, when you're on the other side
of the green and you've got to come up. You
want to take a nice high lofted club just kind
of floated up, but you can't because there's a tree there.
Speaker 3: It's a big oak tree.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I hope you never do get to introduce
yourself to that.
Speaker 3: It's a difficult shot from long.
Speaker 1: What's the best score at the course? What's the course record?
Speaker 3: Fifty nine? Wow, Felix Cadinho shot fifty nine senior fifty
nine when, oh god, it's been fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: Probably really Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 3: He's a very fine player, and he plays Indian Valley
very well. He's had a lot of close calls to that.
He shoots a lot of sixty threes and fours.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's amazing, pretty strong. It's your best friend at
Indian Valley.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think about my best I think probably
about sixty six or seven, which is good for me.
I'm not a. I don't make a lot of birdies,
but I don't make a lot of bogies either.
Speaker 1: Is where's your what are your issues if you're not
making a lot of birdies.
Speaker 3: Well, my strength is my t shot. I drive the
ball straight and not very far far enough, but not
very far, so I don't get into a lot of trouble.
And I'm good with the short game. My iron play
is probably my weakest part of my game, so I
don't get into a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1: And how many pets around do you put in?
Speaker 3: Well? I played in a tournament last month where I
had thirty one puts the first round and twenty eight
the second round, and twenty eight is good. Yeah, I'll
take twenty eight every time.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah yeah. Get me around the thirty
mark underneath, I'd be very happy, absolutely hate.
Speaker 3: Those three puts unless you're only hitting about three or
four greens around so.
Speaker 1: Well, right right, And if you are coming up short
to be able to have enough of a short game
to do, give yourself a five foot.
Speaker 3: Or less to get it up and down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the key. It is how you score. I'd
tell you score as a golfer, not as an instructor,
but as a golfer, what's the best advice you've ever
received about playing golf?
Speaker 3: The best advice I've ever received. I think there's a
lot of people who try to find that magic moment
in their game that's just going to make them fixed
and they're going to be able to just play better.
And I think the patience that everybody needs to have
if you're making a little swing chains that you're patient.
Your patient on the golf course. If you miss it
a shot, you try to get it up and down
and you try to make it up on the next toll.
There is a lot of patients involved, and the best
players in the world can really exercise that and they
don't let their confidence wane and go up and down
too much. I think that's probably the best advice I've
ever gotten.
Speaker 1: Do you give playing lessons as well? Just go out
on the course with people, and I do.
Speaker 3: I don't have the time to give too many of them.
And I feel like if you're going to give a
playing lesson, there needs to be something specific on the
golf course that you need to work on, whether it's
your strategy, it's stuff around the green, different lives around
the green or even just uphill downhill side hill lies
that we were talking about. Those are things that you
can't do on the driver range right exactly.
Speaker 1: And what is glaring to you when you're out doing
a playing lesson that you'll see just so common as
a mistake.
Speaker 3: Lack of knowledge of the short game is probably the
biggest thing. I've worked with some really good players who
don't understand the loft and the d loft and being
able to get the ball up and down around the
green the basic mechanics.
Speaker 1: And that would be the key to really scoring.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely. I mean, you look at the average player
that can hit a t shot two hundred yards and
hit a second shot one hundred and eighty one hundred
ninety yards. They're in that fifty yards to the green
area that they need to make sure that they're one
on the green almost every time or every time, and
that they're in a range that they're going to have
two putts maximum. That's a bogie golfer, right.
Speaker 1: And that would be a beautiful thing for a lot
of people.
Speaker 3: It would be a really good thing for a lot
of people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what I see a lot and don't know how
to well. I don't offer any help because I'm in
no position to do it. But what I see a
lot is, especially on the short game, is people sweeping
at the ball. They're not coming down, they're not you know,
trying to control it that way. Why do people just
automatically think you just got to slide right under the
ball and they don't get the hit the ball hit
the ground concept.
Speaker 3: Well, I think down equals up and golf, so for
the club to swing down, that sends the ball up.
But psychologically it doesn't make sense. The golf game is
played with the ball in the air, so most players
are trying to get the ball in the air, help
the ball in the air, and they're not allowing their
club to be able to get the ball in the
air for them. So yeah, that's part of the mechanics.
It can be simply ball position, and it could be
like you're talking about, it could be the angle of
attack with their club that it's not coming up and
down enough to be able to get the ball airborne.
But the simple mechanics are the short game and then practice.
And one of the faults that we have here in
Marine County is we don't have a really good short
game area, and we are creating that at Indian Valley
down next to our driving range. We're going to have
a nice short game area green with a bunker and
some chipping area around it, and I hope that people
will take advantage of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll tell you what I do when I to
practice my short game when I come out because your
driving ranges a hill, so I need to We'll get
to that in a minute about how accurate it is
when you're hitting on there. But what I do is,
you'll generally there's never a lot of people on the
driving range. People don't just come out to Indian Valley
just to go to the driving range. There's other places
they'll go.
Speaker 3: For trying to make it that way that we're trying
to make it a little bit more of a destination
practice area.
Speaker 1: But I agree, Yeah, I mean probably Peacock would be,
you know, a destination practice area in this county. But
what I do is, so generally when I go up there,
there's only one or two guys, if any up on
the range, and what I do is I will just
take a handful of balls and try to get try
to hit it to the mat because I can retrieve
all my balls, but I'll just go, Okay, this one's
going to go to two mats. Now I'm going to
just go to three mats and just try to see
if I can just keep it, you know, whether it's
a high shot or a low shot, just try to
get it to each mat and see how accurate I
can be on that.
Speaker 3: Well, I think I think we're going to offer a
nice little practice area, destination practice area. It's you can
get your bucket of balls and you can go hit
a few bunker shots and you can hit some wedges
and then go up and hit the rest of your
golf balls, so you're fully warmed up before you go
out to the first team.
Speaker 1: Oh that's great. That's really exciting. When do you guys
think you'll have that open soon?
Speaker 3: I hope the grass is in there pretty good right now.
It's up to the superintendent when he thinks it's ready
to go, but hopefully soon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've been doing a lot of work on the
driving range over there.
Speaker 3: We have. Yeah, the area right in front of the
tea box has now been leveled and that is now
grassed as well. It won't be a grass hitting area,
but cosmetically will look a lot better.
Speaker 1: Yea.
Speaker 3: And realistically, when you go down to that driving range,
if you're really working on practicing, then you're gonna hit
your seven eight nine pitching wedge, you're gonna hit your
shorter clubs. If you're going down there to warm up,
then you hit everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I one or two swings with the driver, but
mostly it's you know, working on you know, because that
is a warm up is my practice time. I don't
get enough time to go out to a range, so
I'll focus on my short short clubs.
Speaker 3: And you know that's where you're going to score anyway.
Speaker 1: Right, exactly exactly so, but your driving range is on
a hillside it is, and you have flags up there
and you're saying it's one hundred and fifty yards one
hundred and fifty yards. Define thee hundred and fifty yards
when you're hitting it on a hill, I mean, is
it actually one hundred and fifty yard shot or no.
Speaker 3: Well it's one hundred and fifty yards, But whether it
plays one hundred and fifty yards it depends on what
kind of loft you're going at it with. For somebody
hits the ball pretty high, it's probably going to be
fairly accurate. But for somebody who's not lofting the ball
as much, it's going to feel like it's a long
ways to that one hundred and fifty yard marker. So
it depends on the trajectory of your shot.
Speaker 1: But when you're playing a hole, like when we talked
about on number eight, when you have an uphill sh
that's we'll call it one hundred and forty yards, you
have to account for you know, the ball is gonna
so when it's uphill, it's gonna be a little bit
longer than what it says it's gonna play a little longer. Right,
Oh yeah, it's going to explain how that works for
me for uphill and downhill and why you want to
go like on number five, the par three downhill four, okay,
number four, Right, you've got that one where it's one
hundred and twenty five yard, except it's extreme downhill, so
you're not necessarily going at it at one hundred.
Speaker 3: You know, there's a lot of factors in golf besides
just hitting the golf ball that you always have to
weigh in on the temperature. The ball is going to
always go farther when it's warmer, the wind direction, the
uphill and downhill side hill lies, those always play a part.
So when you're working on number eight, you're hitting it
one hundred and forty yards up the hill. For me,
that shot right there is probably a seven iron because
my trajectory is not high. For somebody who hits the
ball pretty high, they're probably not going to lose a
whole lot there without any wind blowing. So it has
to do with the trajectory of the shot. The hill's
going to take some of the loft off of the
shot hitting it up that hill.
Speaker 1: What is your specialty as an instructor. What do you
focus on the most or think that you can help
somebody the most with.
Speaker 3: Well, I think I can help people with their full
golf swing, But I think my specialty is probably with
the putter or with the short game. I think I
have a very good technique to teach the putting stroke,
and I think that I have a really good technique
that I've developed over time and tested and trial and
tested with the short game, everything from a little short
pitch shots to fifty thirty forty fifty yard web shots.
Speaker 1: When I've gone into stores and ask a salesperson about,
you know, clubs they have distinct opinions and then getting
fitted on all the different clubs. But when you bring
up a putter to someone like that, they'll go, you know,
it's all about feel. It's all about how you feel.
And when you start taking instructions, they'll start you with position, grip,
and alignment. There's the basics of the full swing. And
then again they come back there's so many different ways
to putt. How do you have a method of putting
that you're able to transition somebody from what they were
doing to what you feel is the correct way to
do that.
Speaker 3: Well. I think, just like the golf swing, there are
certain fundamental, basic, fundamental things that everybody needs to go through.
You have to have a very sound fundamental putting grip.
Whether it's the traditional reverse overlap grip or whether it's
left hand low or the pencil grip or the claw
or whatever you like to do. You have to have
a sound fundamental grip that does what your grip is
supposed to do in the putting stroke, and that's to
work together with your arms and to not break down
an impact. I think you need to have a great
setup position. You have to have good eye position, good
ball position, good hand and arm position, because all those
things take care of where the putter is going to swing.
So if you have a good setup position and your
body is ready, the putter will swing on your target
line a lot easier than if it doesn't.
Speaker 1: Dave Stockton was on a couple months ago and he
mentioned that because I'm left hand low and lag, putting
can be difficult for me, and he said, change your
grip for the longer ones. What's your thought on.
Speaker 3: That, Well, that's probably very true because if you're a
right handed player playing right handed, your right hand is
your power supply. So if your right hand is basically
taken out of the stroke by having left hand low,
you don't have the same kind of feel and being
able to roll the ball at longer distances. So I
would agree with that.
Speaker 1: Interesting, Well, I want a lesson. I want a putting
lesson from from here. That would be a lot of fun,
because that's to me, that's where I'm You know, three
putting can ruin your whole round. It can just get
into your head and think you're having a terribly. You
can be green and every fair way, hit every green
and regulation and you're three putting and worse and you
just become a miserable human being. No doubt, it'll just
I suck because you can't put it.
Speaker 3: There's no reason why a fifteen eighteen handicapped player can't
be a good putter.
Speaker 1: And then they won't be a fifteen or hit the right. Yeah,
they can drop down to twelve quickly with that.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I'm going to take you up on that,
because what do you think about the ruling on the
long putters and attaching to the body or not attaching
the body or.
Speaker 3: I have mixed emotions. I mean, I'm for anything that's
going to make golf easier for people, and I think
the long putter when it came out, it took players
who had real problems with the putter and gave them
a whole new feeling a bit about playing golf. It's
a good thing, which is a good thing. But I'm
also a traditionalist, and I think the golf swing is
what we're calling it, so the putter needs to swing,
and in that kind of action, it's more of a
pendulum attached to your body kind of situation, so your
arms aren't normally swinging the putter, so kind of mixed emotions.
I think there will be some new things evolved. I
think people will adapt and we'll have people using the
Matt Coots your method and something that Bernard Langer did
a long time ago, or he braced it to his
arm and still swung his arms, and that's still going
to be allowed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that'll be allowed. Okay, traditionalists, Yes, there's there's new
fangled equipment all the time. The technology has changed so
radically in the last ten years as far as the
materials used. Do you like that or you think we
should go back?
Speaker 3: Well, I think the USGA has a good handle on
what's going to happen with the equipment and the golf ball.
And they're only going to allow the golf ball to
go so fast off the club, So the golf ball
is only going to fly so far. And they keep
tinkering with the feel of it and the initial launch
angle and spin rate and those kind of things. Will
probably tinker with the ball a little bit, but the
club material that's probably something that will change over time.
But the ball is only going to come off of
that club face so fast, right, So I don't I
don't see a whole lot changing there. She marked changes.
I think we're gonna have clubs that are going to
be more forgiving. They're going to keep working on the
hybrid idea and things that make off a little bit
more fun. But as far as distance goes, I don't
think it's going to happen.
Speaker 1: Just did a conversation with an author who wrote a
book about the nineteen sixty nine Ryder Cup, and we
had it on just as the Ryder Cup was happening.
And one of the things that fascinated fascinated me about
reading the book was they talking about how in the
early sixties there was a different sized ball in the
US being used versus the one over in the UK.
It's a little bit smaller, like eighty one hundredths of
an inch smaller. Instead of making the holes bigger, if
we made the ball smaller, would that help?
Speaker 3: Actually, David Ferridy is a fan of making the balls bigger, bigger,
slightly bigger, which will reduce how far they go.
Speaker 1: Would you want to do that? Everything is trying to
make a game longer.
Speaker 3: Well, and trying to get an equal playing field, and
trying to make it to where the long hitters can't
hit it fifty yards by you making the ball slightly
bigger will make the ball go a little bit shorter.
I don't know if I'm a tremendous fan of that idea, but.
Speaker 1: I think that way we have different tea boxes, that
is till the long hitters can stand back there and
you don't have to play. Not everybody in your forest
them has to play the same tea box.
Speaker 3: It's okay, that's true, and I hope we're to the
point now where we're not going to see Augusta National
have to go to eight thousand yards. And you know,
all of our local golf courses have to get longer,
longer to make them viable.
Speaker 1: But ninety eight percent of the players can't play those
long courses anyway. I mean to build courses just for
the tour.
Speaker 3: That's true, and I think, well that was the ego
build that we had for a number of years, and
now I think we're much more reasonable about what the
golf courses need to play. Like, we have some golf
courses in the area here that maybe worked a little
bit too hard when they were first built, a little
too severe, and people play them a couple of times
and say, I don't want to go back there. So
now I think they're softening those courses up and they're
making it work. It's a little bit more friendly and
people will have a better time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they should. And most people shouldn't be playing the
back teas anyway, that's true, unless you are included.
Speaker 3: Six sixty year old guys don't need to play seven
thousand yard golf course.
Speaker 1: You know, it's very funny. Well, Steve, it's so great
that we've finally got a chance to do this. I
really appreciate you taking the time to come out and
have this conversation with you. I've been waiting for a
long time to do this. I've threatened you for years
to do this.
Speaker 3: Thank you for the invitation.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for coming. And I look
forward to two things. One seeing you out there every
time I come out, and to getting that putting lesson.
I need the help.
Speaker 3: I'll be glad to help gain it.
Speaker 1: Put