Speaker 1: Golf Smarter number three hundred and seventy five, published on
Speaker 1: March nineteen, twenty thirteen, and on today's score Zone short
Speaker 1: game Academy, The Wedge Guy addresses a listener's question about
Speaker 1: adjusting the lie angle of your wedges just like the pros.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain
Speaker 2: insight and advice from the best instructors. Featured on the
Speaker 2: Golf Smarter podcast Great Golf Instruction Never gets Old. Our
Speaker 2: interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations
Speaker 2: like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
Speaker 1: I love the image that you just painted of filling
Speaker 1: the cup with water, and when it overflows, what direction
Speaker 1: is it going to flow? Yeah, that's really helpful, But
Speaker 1: it's going to be away from the cup.
Speaker 3: Going to be down the paull line. So there's no
Speaker 3: necessarily any guarantee that the direction water would flow below
Speaker 3: the hole is the same direction that water would flow
Speaker 3: into the hole. That's the hardest one to get right, yus.
Speaker 3: The green is perfectly flat and tilted, which again is
Speaker 3: not the real world. That's the only time the direction
Speaker 3: flowing in would be the same as the direction flowing out.
Speaker 3: Because the whole isn't necessarily placed on a flat surface,
Speaker 3: the direction in could be slightly offset from the direction out.
Speaker 3: That's much more common than not. So that's why it
Speaker 3: has some limitations. Is it only gives us the fall
Speaker 3: line directly below the hole. It doesn't necessarily represent the
Speaker 3: fall line above the hole. We can make a decent
Speaker 3: estimation based on that, but won't necessarily be as accurate
Speaker 3: as we would prefer.
Speaker 1: That same point. Putt it from the instructor's perspective with
Speaker 1: John Braham.
Speaker 2: This is Golf Smarter, sharing tips and insights from golfers
Speaker 2: and golf professionals to help blower your score. It's worked
Speaker 2: for your host, Fred Green.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Golf Smarter Podcast. John.
Speaker 3: Hello, Fred, how you been very good? Thanks?
Speaker 1: How the lesson's coming?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: If I don't usually do too much in the winter time,
Speaker 3: most of my lesson businesses through travel, so I'll travel
Speaker 3: between two and four weekends a month, just especially springtime
Speaker 3: is starting to pick up quite a bit now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And to just clarify for the audience, John is
Speaker 1: not speaking with me and sword fighting at the same time.
Speaker 1: His dog is actually we talked about this. His dog
Speaker 1: is walking around the room, is with you know, with
Speaker 1: his nails on the tile. So John. A few episodes back,
Speaker 1: we talked to Mark Sweeney about the aime Point golfing
Speaker 1: system putting system that he developed, and it was to me,
Speaker 1: it's a fascinating story of a guy with an idea
Speaker 1: and how he developed it and turned it into something
Speaker 1: very useful and brought it on to teachers all over
Speaker 1: the world. And you have embraced Aimepoint.
Speaker 3: Certainly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I think you told me
Speaker 1: that you're not even giving normal golf lessons anymore. You're
Speaker 1: just doing aim Point exclusively.
Speaker 3: Yeah, almost exclusively. I'll teach very little full swing. It's
Speaker 3: getting less and less and less over the years, and
Speaker 3: it's nearly nothing now.
Speaker 1: And from your perspective, and this is why I was
Speaker 1: so excited to have you on the show, because you know,
Speaker 1: there's so many different theories on putting. But as a
Speaker 1: certified instructor of I'm assuming you're a PGA certified instructor
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, So, as a PGA certified instructor and
Speaker 1: as an aim Point certified instructor, what is it about
Speaker 1: aim Point that you love, and why should we embrace it?
Speaker 3: The reason that I love it is because I can
Speaker 3: prove it. I can prove it right on the putting
Speaker 3: green while I'm teaching it that here's the scenario, here's
Speaker 3: the hole, here's the ball, here's the surface. We can
Speaker 3: do a read. We can get it right, we can
Speaker 3: get it wrong. Whichever the answer is, I can go
Speaker 3: out and figure out why I got it right or
Speaker 3: why I got it wrong and measure it and prove it.
Speaker 3: That's why I got involved.
Speaker 1: So it's all about being able to quantify.
Speaker 3: Everything exactly correct.
Speaker 1: All right, move on? I mean I want details. I
Speaker 1: want to know again from from your perspective, what it
Speaker 1: is that you teach. And you know, I'd like to
Speaker 1: just open the floor here and let you go. And
Speaker 1: you know, obviously it's not visual, but if you can
Speaker 1: walk us through the elements of it and why we
Speaker 1: should fall in love with us too?
Speaker 3: Sure? I mean, first we start off with explaining to
Speaker 3: people what actually causes the ball to break? What are
Speaker 3: the actual true variables involved? And there's basically three and
Speaker 3: those three are how steep is the ground between the
Speaker 3: ball and the hole? Let the balls rolling across? What
Speaker 3: direction is the ball rolling across the ground? We use
Speaker 3: the term angle what angles across in the ground. And
Speaker 3: then the third one is how long is it doing
Speaker 3: it for? So if I can figure out what those
Speaker 3: three things are, how steep, what angle, and for how long?
Speaker 3: Based on those things, physics and science says we can
Speaker 3: predict the ball should do this. Now, certainly we can't
Speaker 3: control if it hits a ball mark or hits a spike, marray,
Speaker 3: whatever the case we be, and things of that nature.
Speaker 3: The green' is not a perfect surface, but we have
Speaker 3: between thirty and forty seconds to make the best estimate
Speaker 3: that we can make. And if you know what the
Speaker 3: variables are, how to find them and measure them, we
Speaker 3: can do that very very quickly and be done sometimes
Speaker 3: almost before we actually get to our ball from the fairway.
Speaker 3: We can start doing this process from one hundreds of
Speaker 3: yards away, and then we just get there. We kind
Speaker 3: of refine our answer based on what we know that
Speaker 3: we're looking for, so it's a very specific process of
Speaker 3: things that we're looking for. The time element is mainly
Speaker 3: broken down into our distance from the hole and the
Speaker 3: speed of the green. There's other things involved in that,
Speaker 3: like grain and wind things of that nature, which are
Speaker 3: much harder to quantify because they tend out to be
Speaker 3: very consistent, you know, winds coming in and out. So
Speaker 3: the main things that we deal with again are how
Speaker 3: steep one angle? Then you could say, you know, how
Speaker 3: fast is the green and then how far away? So
Speaker 3: that's what was Once we figure those things out, we
Speaker 3: have a piece of paper that we look at saying okay,
Speaker 3: based on these inputs, the answer should be X, and
Speaker 3: we go from there and try to hit it with
Speaker 3: the assumption that our skills are going to hit the
Speaker 3: ball that delivers it between six and twelve inches past
Speaker 3: the hole. That's one of the assumptions that we kind
Speaker 3: of build in is that every part we're going to
Speaker 3: try and hit at the same distance relative to where
Speaker 3: we are and where the hole is. So it's working
Speaker 3: on you know, the actual skill the feels involved of
Speaker 3: determining what those variables are. So that's the art part
Speaker 3: that's still there that's never changed. We look at it,
Speaker 3: we feel that we do all those things trying to
Speaker 3: figure out what those pieces are. Then the science piece
Speaker 3: is okay, based on our skill and our feel we
Speaker 3: come up with this answer, and then we now we
Speaker 3: have the harder of the two parts, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: which is actually hitting it there at the cruck speed,
Speaker 3: aiming it there, things of that nature. So you know
Speaker 3: all of those variables. I can go in and I
Speaker 3: can measure while I'm practicing and say, okay, I thought
Speaker 3: the ground was this steep and it was this deep.
Speaker 3: I thought I was coming from this direction, I was
Speaker 3: coming from that direction. I thought I was eight feet
Speaker 3: away when I was ten feet away. Whatever the situation is,
Speaker 3: I can do something to measure it, to find out
Speaker 3: how well I've practiced said versus how well I determined
Speaker 3: it in the real world, and continually work on these
Speaker 3: skills that I can quantify, and like you said, it's
Speaker 3: quantifying feel is a great way to explain what we're
Speaker 3: trying to do. Saying okay, we need to figure out
Speaker 3: what these things are. We're going to put an actual
Speaker 3: number on them. Not just well it's a little downhill
Speaker 3: and it goes a little to the right. We want
Speaker 3: to know exactly how much downhill it is, how steep
Speaker 3: the ground is, that it's going down, all of those things,
Speaker 3: and based on the accuracy of our skills determines the
Speaker 3: accuracy of our read instead of just having it being
Speaker 3: a kind of a memory device, which is what normal
Speaker 3: green reading is. In my opinion, at least the way
Speaker 3: I was taught it is you look at the ground,
Speaker 3: look at the ball at the hole, maybe go to
Speaker 3: the other side, maybe you throw the bucket of water
Speaker 3: around the green, whatever the situation may be, and then
Speaker 3: I use that information and try to apply it in
Speaker 3: the future when I run across it again. Well, the
Speaker 3: problem with that is that those only include the variables
Speaker 3: of the ground itself. For example, if I had, you know,
Speaker 3: let's say, a ten foot pot across the slope on
Speaker 3: two different days, I can have it roll across the
Speaker 3: exact same ground and break completely different amounts because of
Speaker 3: either the speed of the green or how hard I
Speaker 3: hit it, or whatever the case may be. There's some
Speaker 3: other element in there besides just the ground itself that's
Speaker 3: going to help me to predict what it's going to do.
Speaker 3: If I only play the same course all the time,
Speaker 3: or at least a course that has the same speed
Speaker 3: of the green all the time, I can get very
Speaker 3: good at applying what I see now to the future.
Speaker 3: As soon as I go to a new course or
Speaker 3: come to my course on like the invitational or remember
Speaker 3: guest day, and the greens are faster than normal or
Speaker 3: slower than normal, whatever the case may be. I have
Speaker 3: no way now to predict what the curve will be
Speaker 3: based on all of my experience because they no longer
Speaker 3: apply to the same situation. So I will constantly struggle
Speaker 3: trying to figure out, why does this ground look exactly
Speaker 3: what I'm used to, what the ball is doing something different.
Speaker 3: So we're trying to teach people to kind of get
Speaker 3: out of that kind of, you know, the endless loop
Speaker 3: of you know, apply to the current what I saw
Speaker 3: in the past, instead of saying, okay, here's what the
Speaker 3: actual variables are. Let's figure out what they are and
Speaker 3: then just apply them to the situation that I have.
Speaker 3: It's just a very different process of doing it. And
Speaker 3: it's very similar to you know, the change from you know,
Speaker 3: SI seven years ago or in every full shot was
Speaker 3: an eye based event. I look at the green here
Speaker 3: I am, I predict about how far away I am,
Speaker 3: and I choose a club based on that visual appearance,
Speaker 3: and through time I start to build a relationship between
Speaker 3: what I see in my distance and what the club
Speaker 3: that equals, and I'm sure at some point in time
Speaker 3: when yardage markers and lasers became more prevalent, the golfers
Speaker 3: that had learned the skill of doing it by sight
Speaker 3: were very reluctant to switch because they had invested all
Speaker 3: of this time and this energy and the skill in
Speaker 3: learning that visual event. But nowadays nobody plays golf that way.
Speaker 3: All of the players that play for a living are
Speaker 3: mapping the course out in advance or shooting lasers, aregating
Speaker 3: as much detailed information as they can get to help
Speaker 3: them make that one choice. It's that same idea that's
Speaker 3: that we're bringing to the green that instead of it
Speaker 3: being just a strictly visual event, it's an area that
Speaker 3: can be measured and can be quantified and can be
Speaker 3: learned as a skill. And then we apply science to
Speaker 3: an answer.
Speaker 1: I am way too twenty first century centric, because when
Speaker 1: you said an ibased event, I thought you were talking
Speaker 1: about a new product from Apple. I was like, what,
Speaker 1: oh I E y E oh got it? How many
Speaker 1: other dare I call it a system? Aim point, we'll
Speaker 1: call ampoint a system at this point? How many other
Speaker 1: systems have you experienced, studied, and taught before you concluded
Speaker 1: that aim Point was it.
Speaker 3: When I started with aim Point, I wasn't aware of
Speaker 3: any other system that proposed to do what Mark was doing.
Speaker 3: In fact, I mean, you don't know me from a
Speaker 3: hill of beans. But when I first heard about it,
Speaker 3: I specifically got in contact with Mark to try and
Speaker 3: figure out what was wrong with it. There's no more
Speaker 3: skeptical person than myself in filtering information as it comes in.
Speaker 3: I have four kids, and I, especially in the wintertime,
Speaker 3: I spend a lot of time at home researching and
Speaker 3: doing stuff online trying to gather info. And so when
Speaker 3: I had heard about this, I'm like, oh, this is interesting.
Speaker 3: No one's ever tried to say they could do this.
Speaker 3: I want to get a hold of this guy and
Speaker 3: figure out what's wrong with it. Well, how can I
Speaker 3: break this thing so it doesn't actually actually work? And
Speaker 3: when we got together, you know, he was able to
Speaker 3: measure and quantify the things that he was doing, so
Speaker 3: I couldn't really argue with him, so I got involved. Now,
Speaker 3: since then, I believe there are two other systems that
Speaker 3: are at least maybe even more than that, maybe three
Speaker 3: that are kind of working off the same idea of
Speaker 3: at least trying to predict what the ball will do.
Speaker 3: But I have not had any personal experience with either
Speaker 3: of those other systems, aside from just what I've read
Speaker 3: online or heard from others. But I've never been to
Speaker 3: another class another system to see exactly what they do.
Speaker 1: Do you know what the other systems are?
Speaker 3: I don't know the name of one. Jeff Manham's got
Speaker 3: one some kind of wheel, but I don't know if
Speaker 3: he's got a name for it. There's a new one
Speaker 3: out that is that the vector one. No, that's a
Speaker 3: different one. That's a different one. And there's another one
Speaker 3: that a guy who used to do yardage books for
Speaker 3: the tour I think his name is and and he's
Speaker 3: just within the last couple of weeks or so, he's
Speaker 3: he's used all the topography information that he's gathered on
Speaker 3: tour to generate an app to say, Okay, well if
Speaker 3: the holes here and the balls here, the balls should
Speaker 3: break like so. But it's right on the phone. It
Speaker 3: would be completely illegal, but.
Speaker 1: That's not gonna stop us exactly.
Speaker 3: So, So those are the only the only other ones
Speaker 3: that I'm aware of that attempt to try and quantify
Speaker 3: break based on location is what we're doing.
Speaker 1: It's not John Grund. I know that John Grund did
Speaker 1: the yardage the sprinkler heads, but not the yardage guides.
Speaker 3: No, yeah, I think it's I think it's And I
Speaker 3: know his last name is Straca. I'm just not sure
Speaker 3: if his first name is John but s t R
Speaker 3: A c k A. I think Straca.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen that before too. And Jeff Mangum has
Speaker 1: uh has been a regular on Golf Smarter for years.
Speaker 1: And he's quite detail oriented.
Speaker 3: No doubt.
Speaker 1: And if you ever looked at his website, oh I've been.
Speaker 3: I've engaged with Jeff many times and uh and and
Speaker 3: detailed is a great way to describe Jeff's responses.
Speaker 1: I won't say obsessive. I'll just say detailed, detailed. Yes, yeah, Jeff,
Speaker 1: you're so entertaining. All right, Well, anyway we're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna get into I hope you you allow me to
Speaker 1: get into specifics about the elements of aim point and
Speaker 1: what what we can learn from you without obviously getting
Speaker 1: a clinic. This is about as close as we're going
Speaker 1: to get right now. But you do give you know,
Speaker 1: you were here in northern California just recently doing clinics
Speaker 1: all over the country, all over the world, all the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I was just at the Metal Club
Speaker 3: up in Fairfax just last weekend. I'll be at the
Speaker 3: I'll be in Phoenix this weekend and then a few
Speaker 3: days for the LPGA event and oh great, very pretty
Speaker 3: much every weekend from now until almost the fourth of yourly.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be a busy spring. Great.
Speaker 1: Well, I apologize for missing, and I was out of town.
Speaker 1: I would have loved to have come up to the Meadal.
Speaker 3: Club and yeah, it would have been great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it would have been fun. Ever since I talked
Speaker 1: to Mark, I've been fascinated by this without having to
Speaker 1: get the lesson. I wanted to get one, but I've been,
Speaker 1: you know, looking at greens lately. Mentioned recently. I live
Speaker 1: right off of a private golf course, so I get
Speaker 1: to walk around the greens when people aren't around and
Speaker 1: look at it and trying to identify slope and which
Speaker 1: is the fall, which is the line? That is, if
Speaker 1: we just drop the ball right here, it's just going
Speaker 1: to not break at all. It's just going to go
Speaker 1: dead straight right. Explain to me how we can do
Speaker 1: that on a green without dropping a ball. I mean,
Speaker 1: let's let's go through the various steps on what it
Speaker 1: requires and how we learn how to do that.
Speaker 3: Well, there's a multiple of ways. I'm sure Jeff has
Speaker 3: shared some we you know, we we there's only you know,
Speaker 3: a few ideas that actually, you know, hold true to
Speaker 3: at least what we're trying to do. I mean, when
Speaker 3: when we're teaching it, especially to someone who's had a
Speaker 3: little bit of experience. Again, we'll start as from any
Speaker 3: distance away where they can see the ball and the
Speaker 3: surface and the flag, they can see those things. We
Speaker 3: start trying to identify the fall line from hundreds and
Speaker 3: hundreds of yards away, generally speaking in terms of a
Speaker 3: general slope direction. Sometimes that's easier to see from a
Speaker 3: distance relative to the high and low points that kind
Speaker 3: of surround the surface itself. So we've actually had tournaments
Speaker 3: where we do all of the green reading from off
Speaker 3: the green just to see how well we can do,
Speaker 3: and then once you get there you kind of refine it.
Speaker 3: But so when you're on the green, you know, it
Speaker 3: can still be a site event for sure, trying to
Speaker 3: figure out, you know, relative to you know, where the
Speaker 3: hole is and where the ball is and if we're
Speaker 3: assuming that we're crossing a single, single surface, we'll start
Speaker 3: with the easiest one first. You know, the surface between
Speaker 3: the ball and the hole is consistent. It's the same
Speaker 3: direction and the same amount throughout. Now, certainly that doesn't
Speaker 3: happen on all pots, but for the easiest of ones,
Speaker 3: we'll kind of start there. But it's trying to figure out,
Speaker 3: you know, in that area between the ball and the hole,
Speaker 3: what direction is the ground going. As you mentioned, what
Speaker 3: direction is the fall line. You know, I've used pictures
Speaker 3: of taking a hose and stuffing it in the hole
Speaker 3: and filling it up with water, and you know, figuring
Speaker 3: out where the water would come out. You know, we've
Speaker 3: we've talked about walking a circular shape around the hole
Speaker 3: and then based on how you feel changes of elevation,
Speaker 3: you can feel where the fall line will be. You know,
Speaker 3: if you're kind of walking half of a circle at
Speaker 3: some point you'll be walking down the other part to
Speaker 3: be walking up where that change is will be where
Speaker 3: the fall line is. You know, another way that we
Speaker 3: do it is strictly just by sight, you know, just
Speaker 3: by looking at the hole, trying to figure out what's
Speaker 3: the high and low part on the whole. We also
Speaker 3: do it by in terms of just general all overall balance.
Speaker 3: You know, the body is designed to keep us upright
Speaker 3: and vertical so that we don't fall over, and based
Speaker 3: on just the way that we're standing on the surface,
Speaker 3: our body will make some adjustment to that, and in
Speaker 3: certain directions that we're going to be facing, we'll get
Speaker 3: a a sensation of balance that, Okay, this is facing
Speaker 3: up the hill and this is facing down the hill
Speaker 3: straight where if I was facing across the hill, I'd
Speaker 3: have one foot lower than the other. You can kind
Speaker 3: of visualize that. So trying to figure out a balance
Speaker 3: relationship within our own body as to where the fall
Speaker 3: line would be based on how we're actually just standing
Speaker 3: on the ground would be one of the last ways
Speaker 3: that we do it.
Speaker 1: When you're circling the hole trying to and I loved
Speaker 1: when Mark talked about how you can if you close
Speaker 1: your eyes, you can kind of feel where the slope
Speaker 1: of the green and how it's changing while you're walking
Speaker 1: around it. But are you walking around it from two
Speaker 1: feet away, five feet, ten feet? What is the optimum
Speaker 1: distance that you're circling the hole that you can feel
Speaker 1: where the fall line.
Speaker 3: Is it really varies. I mean, in a perfect world,
Speaker 3: if the green was perfectly flat and tilted, you would
Speaker 3: do it at whatever distance your ball was away. It
Speaker 3: wouldn't matter because it would all be the same. In
Speaker 3: the real world of greens, the fall line is not
Speaker 3: a nice, straight, continuous line. So we try to figure
Speaker 3: out the fall line that's between our ball and the hole,
Speaker 3: so that the walking one we don't use because generally
Speaker 3: you have to do it in a manner that's too
Speaker 3: far away from where the ball is, So you know,
Speaker 3: it's kind of taught to do it below where the
Speaker 3: hole is. Well, if the ball is not near below
Speaker 3: where the hole is, the fall line could completely change
Speaker 3: somewhere else relative to the fall line that's below the hole,
Speaker 3: so we don't really use that. We try to figure
Speaker 3: out the fall line that's between the ball and the hole,
Speaker 3: that the fall line the balls are actually going to
Speaker 3: roll across as precisely as we can by doing more
Speaker 3: of that balance feel between the ball and the hole.
Speaker 1: I love the image that you painted of I always
Speaker 1: thought about, you know which way is and people like that,
Speaker 1: how which way is the slope right on a green?
Speaker 1: And people always say, oh, well it goes to the mountain,
Speaker 1: and so it goes to the lake. Well, actually goes
Speaker 1: to the irrigation. Yeah. Right, So I always think like
Speaker 1: which way is the water going to flow on the screen.
Speaker 1: But I love the image that you just painted of
Speaker 1: filling the cup with water and when it overflows, what
Speaker 1: direction is it going to flow?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: That that's really helpful. But it's going to be away
Speaker 1: from away from the cup.
Speaker 3: It's going to be it's going to be down the
Speaker 3: fall line. So there's no necessary, necessarily any guarantee that
Speaker 3: the direction water would flow below the hole is the
Speaker 3: same direction that water would flow into the hole. That's
Speaker 3: the hardest one to get right. Mmm, there's unless the
Speaker 3: green is perfectly flat and tilted, which again is not
Speaker 3: the real world. That's the only time the direction flowing
Speaker 3: in would be the same as the direction flowing out.
Speaker 3: Because the whole isn't necessarily placed on a flat surface,
Speaker 3: the direction in could be slightly offset from the direction out,
Speaker 3: and that's that's much more common than not. So that's
Speaker 3: why it has some limitations. Is it only gives us
Speaker 3: the fall line directly below the hole. It doesn't necessarily
Speaker 3: represent the fall line above the hole. We could we
Speaker 3: can make a decent estimation based on that, but it
Speaker 3: will necessarily be as accurate as we would prefer.
Speaker 1: And in the slope and the grade are those two
Speaker 1: different things? And how do we define those as we're
Speaker 1: out there.
Speaker 3: I would I would say they're the same thing. The
Speaker 3: slope amount or the grade is you know, one of
Speaker 3: the big things based on just how steep the ground
Speaker 3: is between the ball and where the hole is, and
Speaker 3: then the slope direction that's the fall line. And then
Speaker 3: the time would be that third piece that I had mentioned,
Speaker 3: how long it's the ball.
Speaker 1: Roll for right? And and it's obviously gonna well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not obvious, but I would think right, And I
Speaker 1: would think that if you're putting uphill, it's going to
Speaker 1: actually take longer if you're equidistance, say you're uphill and
Speaker 1: downhill putts and you're ten feet away, that it's going
Speaker 1: to take longer to get to the hole going uphill
Speaker 1: than it would downhill.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's exactly the opposite of that actually, and ten
Speaker 3: really and the majority of people make this air and
Speaker 3: I think part of it is just because of the
Speaker 3: way greens are described. For example, if I had two
Speaker 3: surfaces that were perfectly flat, and one green would be
Speaker 3: a stimp of eight, which would be called a slow green,
Speaker 3: and the other green was a stimp of twelve, which
Speaker 3: would be called a fast green. And on each green
Speaker 3: I was going to hit the ball exactly the same distance.
Speaker 3: Let's say that same ten feet that you mentioned the
Speaker 3: green that's called the slow green, I actually have to
Speaker 3: hit with more force. I have to hit it harder
Speaker 3: to travel that same distance because it has additional friction
Speaker 3: on it, So that ball actually rolls faster for the
Speaker 3: amount of distance that it's rolling. The ball on the
Speaker 3: twelve I hit with less speed with less force. That
Speaker 3: ball rolls a lot slower for a lot longer and
Speaker 3: longer amounts of time for that same ten feet. So
Speaker 3: a slow green has the fastest rolling golf balls on it,
Speaker 3: a fast green has the slowest rolling golf balls on it.
Speaker 3: Just like a downhill putt is considered fast has the
Speaker 3: slowest rolling ball on it, and a pillo PUDs that
Speaker 3: are considered slow you have to hit them hardest. They
Speaker 3: have the fastest rolling puts on it. It's been a
Speaker 3: poor way of describing what slow and fast greens are
Speaker 3: relative to what the ball is actually doing on them.
Speaker 3: You know, the only reason an eight breaks less than
Speaker 3: a twelve is because I have to hit it harder
Speaker 3: and it travels for less time. That's why it breaks less.
Speaker 3: We could have the exact same ground, the same everything else,
Speaker 3: But the reason why it breaks less is because I'm
Speaker 3: hitting it harder, as traveling for a less amount of time,
Speaker 3: less time, less amount of time that gravity can affect it.
Speaker 3: Let's break over the same distance. So it's and most people,
Speaker 3: once you explain that to them, go like, oh uh okay,
Speaker 3: I get that, I just wasn't thinking right. But it's
Speaker 3: a fairly common misconception that I run across in the
Speaker 3: clinics that I do.
Speaker 1: Huh well, I would I would generally say, I'm totally
Speaker 1: baffled by what you said, but I know I think
Speaker 1: I followed you on this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Just just think about whatever whatever amount of force
Speaker 3: that you're hitting the ball with that's controlling the time
Speaker 3: element generally speaking. Okay, and if I'm hitting them all
Speaker 3: the same distance, but I have to hit one harder
Speaker 3: than the other, then the one that I'm hitting harder
Speaker 3: is going to travel that distance in less time than
Speaker 3: the one I'm hitting softer.
Speaker 1: I have so many more questions for you. I want
Speaker 1: to know. Could you stick around so that you can
Speaker 1: also answer these questions and we do a golf Smarter
Speaker 1: for Members only episode.
Speaker 3: Can we do another one? Oh? Absolutely be happy to
Speaker 3: Oh that's great.
Speaker 1: All right, So we're going to have John. I'm going
Speaker 1: to have one more question before we go, but I
Speaker 1: just want to let the audience understand that John will
Speaker 1: continue this conversation on the details of the ame point
Speaker 1: putting system on our next episode, which is golf Smarter
Speaker 1: for Memory Only. And if you are not a member
Speaker 1: of golf Smarter for Members Only, I encourage you to
Speaker 1: check it out at golfsmarter dot com because with your membership,
Speaker 1: you will not only get a new episode every single
Speaker 1: week that we publish one, you'll get part two of
Speaker 1: many of the conversations that we have, but you'll also
Speaker 1: have access to our entire archives. And now that golf
Speaker 1: Smarter is up in the three high three hundred number,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of conversations that will help your golf game.
Speaker 1: So please, I encourage you, I ask you to support
Speaker 1: golf Smarter and help it stay alive by joining golf
Speaker 1: smarter for members only and take advantage of the benefits
Speaker 1: that also include additional discounts. My last question before we
Speaker 1: get to the members only though, is your follow up
Speaker 1: with your students on I know one person who's done
Speaker 1: aim point was totally fired up about it and try
Speaker 1: to get me to understand everything. He tried to give
Speaker 1: me the lesson, and then two months three months later,
Speaker 1: we were out playing and I noticed that he wasn't
Speaker 1: using his book, he wasn't going into the details. I
Speaker 1: asked him or I thought you were doing am point
Speaker 1: and he said, yeah, it was too much And I
Speaker 1: got it and I don't really need to do it anymore.
Speaker 1: How is the long term reaction from your students have
Speaker 1: you been following up on that?
Speaker 3: You know? It really varies quite a bit depending on
Speaker 3: the student. I mean, there are certain personality types that
Speaker 3: enjoy the idea of trying to get the answer right
Speaker 3: and will pursue the process in the effort to get
Speaker 3: the answer right and spend additional time practicing and learning
Speaker 3: how to do it so that they get the answer right.
Speaker 3: There's other types of personalities that don't necessarily need to
Speaker 3: get the right answer. I just want to get an
Speaker 3: answer this kind of okay, and then they can just
Speaker 3: kind of, you know, fill in the gaps with their
Speaker 3: own feel or whatever. On their own I can cleatly
Speaker 3: understand both ideas and concepts. You know, I certainly fall
Speaker 3: into the more exacting side based on, you know, the
Speaker 3: way that I think and my preferences, and because of that,
Speaker 3: I will do the extra work to get the answer
Speaker 3: that I want. I know a lot of people will
Speaker 3: will feel that, you know, trying to learn a green
Speaker 3: reading system based on actual true numbers takes away their
Speaker 3: feel and it becomes too too thoughtful and too mechanical
Speaker 3: or whatever the case may be. You know, Yet at
Speaker 3: the same time, you know, you ask them what their
Speaker 3: driver launch conditions are, and they know their angle of
Speaker 3: attack and their club path and the spin rate and
Speaker 3: their launch and all the other kind of stuff where
Speaker 3: they know exactly, you know, they're going to shoot a
Speaker 3: laser from here to the flag. But if I tell
Speaker 3: them to aim three inches out, they're like, well, I
Speaker 3: just want to kind of just kind of hit it
Speaker 3: about a cup out or whatever. It's it's an interesting
Speaker 3: dichotomy between you know, the preferences of some people relative
Speaker 3: to wanting exactness in other areas and then wanting a
Speaker 3: little bit of vagueness in others. So it completely depends
Speaker 3: on the person. I've certainly run into both types. There's
Speaker 3: no question that most people underestimate the amount of skill
Speaker 3: required to do it well and the amount of practice
Speaker 3: to do it well. There was a gentleman that I
Speaker 3: saw at a conference. His name was doctor Brett McCabe,
Speaker 3: who had an LPGA player who had learned the system
Speaker 3: and was doing quite well with it. And then a
Speaker 3: few months later he had noticed kind of the same
Speaker 3: thing that she hadn't been doing it so much, and
Speaker 3: he had asked her, you know what's been the change is?
Speaker 3: She goes, well, you know, I've learned it all. You know,
Speaker 3: I think I got it. And doctor McCabe's response was is, like,
Speaker 3: you know, aimpoint is a skill. It's not a gift.
Speaker 3: It's not one of the information piece, which is the
Speaker 3: putt prediction break amounts. That's the science piece. The actual
Speaker 3: skills required to generate the answer that will provide the
Speaker 3: correct amount of break requires a great amount of skill
Speaker 3: that requires continual maintenance and practice to do well. Especially
Speaker 3: living up north. You know, I'll go especially on the holidays,
Speaker 3: I won't step on the ground actual ground for you
Speaker 3: months at a time, and then when I go to teach,
Speaker 3: I can certainly sense that my perception of the skills
Speaker 3: I need to be able to do to per see
Speaker 3: what the ground is doing have lessened and that it
Speaker 3: takes a little bit of time for me to get
Speaker 3: back into reacclimating my skill set to what the reality
Speaker 3: of the ground actually is. So a lot of people
Speaker 3: aren't necessarily familiar with the idea that it's not just information,
Speaker 3: it's an actual skill, just like their golf swing is,
Speaker 3: and then if they don't do it, it gets worse.
Speaker 3: Or some people may make mistakes and then not know
Speaker 3: that they mistakes and think that the science is bad
Speaker 3: because I didn't match what they had. I run across
Speaker 3: that one more often than not that you know, someone
Speaker 3: will do a read and what all actually does doesn't
Speaker 3: match what the chart did, and they just assumed that
Speaker 3: whatever they did was correct and what the numbers on
Speaker 3: the chart were wrong without ever going back to check
Speaker 3: to see, well, did I have the slope ride that
Speaker 3: I have the angle right? Did I have the distance right?
Speaker 3: I did I have the inputs right?
Speaker 1: Or not?
Speaker 3: And if they're not checking and they're not diligent with that,
Speaker 3: it's very easy to say, well, you know this book
Speaker 3: is wrong and I'm always right. Just the different personalities.
Speaker 1: Awesome. We're going to continue. I'm going to go to
Speaker 1: that next question, but we'll do it on our next episode.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for agreeing to stick around, and thanks so
Speaker 1: much for your insight on this and your help.
Speaker 3: Certainly, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: This time once again for our score Zone Short Game
Speaker 1: Academy with the Wedge Guy Terry Taylor, CEO of score Golf. Hey, Terry,
Speaker 1: how are you?
Speaker 4: I'm great for it.
Speaker 1: How are you doing fine? You know, I'm I'm not
Speaker 1: going to talk about this much, but I'm taking lessons now.
Speaker 1: I've never taken lessons, but I'm taking lessons now. And
Speaker 1: my teacher posed a question to me that I want
Speaker 1: to throw out to you. What is the objective of golf?
Speaker 4: Drink beer and have fun?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's what I said, And he said.
Speaker 4: Objective of golf, that's an interesting question. Did you answer
Speaker 4: it forrim?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: I answered it many ways, and he kept looking at me, like,
Speaker 1: stop making it so difficult, stop getting so deep, stop.
Speaker 4: Speaking the thick of a golf is you hit it
Speaker 4: from here until it goes in the hole, and then
Speaker 4: you go do it again seventeen more times you win.
Speaker 1: It's put the ball in the hole.
Speaker 4: So anything that counts is how many times you had
Speaker 4: to hit it to get it in the hole. And
Speaker 4: nobody gives you bonus points for which clubs you get,
Speaker 4: how far you hit it. The only thing you get
Speaker 4: points for is how many times did you hit it
Speaker 4: before it was in the hole?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: And it's all right? And his point, and I'm so
Speaker 1: glad we're talking about this on this show. During our
Speaker 1: Short Game Academy, we just finished a conversation about putting.
Speaker 1: His point is it doesn't matter how long you hit
Speaker 1: the ball. You know, you can hit it two fifty
Speaker 1: and send it right up the middle or two seventy
Speaker 1: five three on right up the middle. That's not going
Speaker 1: to get you as excited as hitting a twenty foot
Speaker 1: putt or chipping from off the green and putting it
Speaker 1: in the hole. Right.
Speaker 4: That's right. So his whole point was about that in
Speaker 4: his book, Getting Up and Down, that he learned the
Speaker 4: game when he a little bit of kid. His dad
Speaker 4: took him out of the putting green and gave him
Speaker 4: a little cut down putter and a ball and said here,
Speaker 4: put it in the hole. And so you know, he
Speaker 4: dropped it four or five, six feet whatever, and you
Speaker 4: know he couldn't make it go in the hole. So
Speaker 4: he would just go set it right next to the
Speaker 4: hole and tap it to where it would go in.
Speaker 4: Because that was what was fun, is watching the ball
Speaker 4: go in the hole. That was what he was there for.
Speaker 4: And Watson said, to this day he does not like
Speaker 4: anybody hitting a putt back to him. He likes to finish,
Speaker 4: whether it's two inch or six inch or ten inch
Speaker 4: or two footer. He wants to put the ball in
Speaker 4: the hole because that is the point of the game.
Speaker 1: Right, And what I like to call the happy sound,
Speaker 1: that sound of the ball goes.
Speaker 4: Most golfers in most recreational games are hitting and puts
Speaker 4: back to it. And you may play eighteen holes of
Speaker 4: golf and only actually hear the happy sound three or
Speaker 4: four or five times, right, And guys, for hitting your
Speaker 4: one footers and your ten inches back to you. And
Speaker 4: the next thing you know, it's like I never really
Speaker 4: finished anything today. Pretty interesting, all right.
Speaker 1: So so the point is get get the ball in
Speaker 1: the hole and and do it as little as possible.
Speaker 1: But the objective of golf is thank you very much,
Speaker 1: mister teacher, who I'm not allowed to talk about anyway.
Speaker 1: We do have a great question that came in from
Speaker 1: Paul Arellano or Paul Ariano, but I think it's Paul
Speaker 1: Rolano from Vista, California, and he wants to know well, Terry.
Speaker 1: He writes it this way. I've read that pro golfers
Speaker 1: usually have their lit angles flattened. Is that something everyone
Speaker 1: should do as well? Or do you need to swing
Speaker 1: a certain way before flattening lie angles on wedges?
Speaker 4: Well, it is very common, Paul and all the listeners
Speaker 4: out there for the tour players to play their wedges
Speaker 4: one to two degrees flatter than they play their irons. Now,
Speaker 4: this is proportionately flatter, please, So if your irons are
Speaker 4: two degrees upright, you might want to play your wedges
Speaker 4: one or even standard. If your irons are standard, you
Speaker 4: might want to play your wedges one to two degrees flat.
Speaker 4: The reason the tour players do this is because it
Speaker 4: helps them set their hands in the low position at
Speaker 4: address that they want. And good players and I always
Speaker 4: encourage golfers to watch video of good players hitting short
Speaker 4: game shots, wedge shots, full swing nine irons, you know,
Speaker 4: and particularly the little delicate shots around the green, and
Speaker 4: you'll see these guys crouch a little more on their knees.
Speaker 4: Their hands are hanging straight below their shoulders, so their
Speaker 4: hands are lower at address, closer to the ground than
Speaker 4: they would be with a full swing seven iron or
Speaker 4: six iron, because they're standing more upright for a more
Speaker 4: powerful swing. And if you don't flatten the lies on
Speaker 4: your wedges, and you do that, you're going to stick
Speaker 4: the heel of the club in the ground. With a
Speaker 4: more upright line golf club, I like to think that
Speaker 4: the lie of the club is my guide as to
Speaker 4: how I'm executing. So if I feel the toe of
Speaker 4: the heel, the toe of the club, or the heel
Speaker 4: of the club sticking in the ground, I know that
Speaker 4: was a swing flaw, not not a misfit golf club.
Speaker 4: So if I'm sticking the heel in the ground, I'm
Speaker 4: getting too low with my hands, which doesn't happen too often,
Speaker 4: but particularly what most offers, you'll feel that toe sticking
Speaker 4: in the ground because you're getting more upright your hands
Speaker 4: are drifting a little further away from your body. And
Speaker 4: you know, if you think about it this way, if
Speaker 4: you set up to the golf club, Paul, and make
Speaker 4: sure that club is sold flat on the ground, swing
Speaker 4: so that you feel that soul, make flat contact again.
Speaker 4: Let the club be your school. Let the club be
Speaker 4: your guide to schooling you as to whether you're doing
Speaker 4: it right or not.
Speaker 1: And that's your answer. That's a good one. That's a
Speaker 1: good question.
Speaker 4: It is a good question because and one of the
Speaker 4: things that and I think your listeners and we talk
Speaker 4: about this, you know every couple of weeks is I'm
Speaker 4: all about the toolkit. And I'll talk about instruction. I
Speaker 4: understand the god swing everything, but the toolkit that we
Speaker 4: use to play the game is so crucial, so important
Speaker 4: and having the right tools in our bag for our
Speaker 4: particular game and having those tools shafted properly and length
Speaker 4: andlngles and the right loft to gap your your set out.
Speaker 4: And we should talk more about the toolkit in future
Speaker 4: episodes because I'm I mean, it is so important. You've
Speaker 4: got a big investment, and if you invested in the
Speaker 4: wrong things, you're going to be frustrated. Out there.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Well, I think that everyone is learning that you
Speaker 1: know what you're well, at least your opinionated. Whether you
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about or not. You have an
Speaker 1: opinion about it, but it must be a good opinion
Speaker 1: because the score golf scoring clubs. You score forty one
Speaker 1: sixty one clubs put up against some of the major manufacturers.
Speaker 1: You're selling these at shows, and the response even from
Speaker 1: the press, the response has been very very good. Congratulations, well, thank.
Speaker 3: You, Fred.
Speaker 4: And we took a fresh approach at this end of
Speaker 4: the set. And I invite any of your listeners to
Speaker 4: look at their late model wedges or brand new wedges, whatever,
Speaker 4: and go compare them to some that are in the
Speaker 4: bargain barrels that date back to the forties, fifty sixties.
Speaker 4: This is the last club in the bag that has
Speaker 4: not caught up to the modern game that we play,
Speaker 4: the full swing power game, you know, and fifty years
Speaker 4: ago nobody made full swings with wedges, and now everybody does,
Speaker 4: and the wedge did not catch up with that, and
Speaker 4: so people get ballooning trajectories and inconsistent distances and it's
Speaker 4: not their fault. We give absolution here. It's not your fault.
Speaker 4: You're playing a nineteen fifty model golf club with the
Speaker 4: twenty thirteen model game, and there's a disconnect there, and
Speaker 4: there's better technology, and we've seen upstart companies challenge the
Speaker 4: status quo for the last forty or fifty years in golf,
Speaker 4: and better technology wins every time.
Speaker 1: Terry, thanks so much once again, and we'll speak with
Speaker 1: you soon.
Speaker 4: I look forward to it. Thank you. Fred