Speaker 1: Golf Smarter number three hundred and sixty nine, published on
February eighth, twenty thirteen. Coming up in our score Zone
Short Game Academy, the Wedge Guy addresses a question about
selecting the right wedge for different types of bunkers.
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 1: So let's talk about that shot where you've got to
keep the ball low, but you still need to get
it seventy eighty yards. Should you mind walking me through
the mechanics of how to do that?
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 4: For one, you're going to take probably a little bit
extra club, meaning you're going to have to deloft your club.
If you want to hit it low, you need to
take a five iron. It's more of a chip shot
type swing in length, and that club's going to stay
very long. I think here's one of the most difficult
things is when you're trying to follow through your head.
Better be very still, and your hands better stay in
front of that club face beyond impact, and your follow
through needs to stay low. You're not finishing in a
high finish. You're keeping that club head low along the
ground and not going that far pass waist high, so
it's more of a pop. It's not a full swing.
But I think you need to make sure your club
head stays low. Critically, your head has to stay still.
We tend to when we try to hit that with
our hands forward and keeping our club head low. Our
bodies and heads tend to go forward ahead of the ball.
At the same time we can top the ball. You
don't hit it very good and it's a miss. So
keeping the head very still and maintaining your hands ahead
of club face with a very short follow through. There's
a lot of feel.
Speaker 1: Involved shots that every golfer needs but doesn't know it.
Speaker 5: With Kendorty, this is Golf.
Speaker 2: Smarter sharing tips and insights from golf first and golf
professionals to help blower your score.
Speaker 5: It's worked for your host, Fred Green.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast.
Speaker 4: Ken, Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Oh it's a joy to have you here in the studio.
So now the audience is aware that I moved a
couple months ago, or they're not aware they don't really care.
What I haven't ever mentioned ever is that I live
next to the Marine Country Club. I've never mentioned this
until this very moment because I'm not a member of
the Marine Country Club yet. Someday I hope that works out,
but we'll see what happens. Anyway, we got a chance
to meet. We started talking, and I knew that I
had to get you on the show because not only
are you quite articulate about what you're doing, you're very
passionate about it. And I'm really excited to have you
on the show this time and many more in the future.
Speaker 5: I hope.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I was recently on a trip played around a golf
with a head teaching professional at the course, and it
ended up being a playing lesson, which was awesome. I
didn't expect it, and we did a lot of video,
and I realized that one of the things that we
don't get to talk about very often is all the
shots you need in your bag that you never practice,
and I thought this would be a lot of fun
to talk about with you, because you have people who
come and play the same course multiple times a week,
and I would suspect they don't play very many other courses.
Speaker 4: That's correct. And as far as practicing, how many people
go to the range and practice uneven lies and different
heights of grass They hit it off the tee or
off that range it's flat. So I think that there's
a couple levels to having a playing lesson. One is
it's reality. There's a big difference between hitt and balls
on the range and hitting it when it counts. So
I think a playing lesson really brings out the real
you very often. And there's shots in that range are
on the golf course. Excuse me that you can't replicate
on the range. You just can't. There's so many variables
on the golf course that you just cannot get on
the range. So I think a playing lesson is by
far the most valuable lesson you can have, and video
is important too, But range versus playing lesson, I don't
think there's a comparison.
Speaker 1: Wow, and I'm sure you've watched people practice out on
the range, and what is your sense? What do you
get that most people are just doing the same thing
over and over and over, or they'll take three or
four swings with each club, or they just go right
to the driver. What are your frustrations with watching people practice.
Speaker 4: Well, I've seen all different levels. You get some people
that are very analytical and they'll sit out there and
they've got their notes and they're thinking about the you know,
they're analyzing and thinking about different shots. And then you've
got other people that are out there and just trying
to bang the ball and hit it as solid as
they can, hit it as far as they can. I
don't know if there's really any method that they have.
I think if you're going to go there's two reasons
to go to the driving range, simply to warm up
to go play, or you need to have a purpose.
Why am I here? Otherwise it's just exercise, and I
think more people unfortunately probably do that then go out
there with a specific purpose.
Speaker 1: Do you, I mean other than when a club event,
club championship type of thing is coming up. Do most
people just come in for a warm up before the
round or are they seriously out there practicing two tents.
Speaker 4: So it depends on the time of day. The morning
people are out there warming up. The afternoons where you
see people camping over that bucket of balls or several
buckets and working on their game.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about someone just taking two hundred
balls a day and just.
Speaker 4: Well than nothing, it's better than nothing. I mean, you know,
when I give a lesson, I say, listen, this is
a fifty to fifty deal. You need to take lessons
if you're going to improve, and you need to hit
golf balls. You have to get that high end eye coordination.
You have to work on those things. So them hitting
golf balls, at least the club is in their hands
and there's some familiarity with that. I think that's very,
very important. I think they'll only go so far if
they're not if they don't have some direction and a
purpose and a vision of where they want to be.
And you know, if they take some good lessons and
go to a valued instructor, they're going to have a
path in which they want to get to their goal.
And I'm not sure that everybody at that range. I think.
I think too often you get people out there saying
let me try this, let me try that. Okay, I'm
going to try this, and before they know it, they've
tried so many things. They don't know what's right and
what's wrong. They could have made the correct swing and
just didn't hit it that well, which we all do,
and then figured, okay, well that's probably the wrong move.
And they didn't realize that they just made a great
swing and then they changed to something else and who knows,
they might hit it well and think, okay, let me
do this, and they're off track, and like I said,
they don't know. I think they get confused. Eventually, they don't.
They've got so many things in their bag that they're
pulling out of the grab bag that they don't know
what's right and what's not. And very often when they
come to a lesson, I'm wiping this light clean and
erasing a lot. I feel like I always tell me, I
feel like I'm the grinch, you know. I take so
many things away from them in a lesson because I
think people are misdirected.
Speaker 1: Well, when you say let me try this, let me
try this, are you talking about that? They'll say, let
me try hitting my hybrid from under a tree, or
it's like, oh, let me see if I can flatten
my swing plane a little.
Speaker 4: More, flatten the swing plan. Very few people actually will
come to me and work on a specialty shot. You know,
they're just trying to hit it farther, hit it more consistently, straighter.
If it's the short game, obviously they're trying to get better.
But for somebody to come to me and say, you know,
I need to work on this the shot under the tree.
One thing we have here at Marine. We have a
hole on number seven that's very difficult and the second
shot leaves you with very often the ball below your feet.
So I like that specific somebody will come up to
me specifically and say I want to work on whole
number seven. I have a very difficult time with that
shot to that par five, the third shot to the
par five green with the ball below their feet sometimes
in rough And that's the time that sometimes I'll get
specific request on different lies or different setups.
Speaker 1: Do you do you find yourself trying holding back of
rolling your eyes when you when someone comes to you
say what do you want to work on? And they say,
I just want to be more consistent? I mean, is
that like the number one request?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 4: Well, well, I'll tell you what I think. It's probably
a toss up because I get distanced a lot too.
It's consistent, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: And do you ever, like, don't you want to be
closer to the hole?
Speaker 5: Don't you?
Speaker 1: I mean it's like, really, do you know how far
you hit each of your clubs? You? Really is distance
the thing that's holding you back.
Speaker 4: Oh. I always tell them that's the car before the horse.
That's the last thing I want to talk about.
Speaker 5: Really.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, tell them to play different teas, yeah, right, right.
Speaker 4: Well, what I tell them is that I I did
a little experiment on my own. I hit my pitching
wedg about one hundred and thirty hundred and thirty five
yards and just dawned on me one day that you know,
part four might be one hundred or three hundred and
ninety or four hundred or in that neighborhood for most people,
I can hit that green in three with my pitching wedge,
and since I'm hitting a pitching wedge into the green,
I should get within reason anyways. And I would use
my pitching wedge to actually put the ball too, and
just kind of hit the equator of the ball with
the lead edge of the club. And so I decided
to go out and play nine holes with my pitching
watch just for the heck of it. And on the
very first hole, I hit my third shot six feet away,
missed the putt, but I mean there was an opportunity
to part, and I ended up boguing in for forty
five for nine holes. So that's a ninety if I
if I double that, play eighteen holes and I have
hit a maximum shot one hundred and thirty five yards.
So when somebody tells me, they come up to me
and say, god, I can't break a hundred, I can't
break ninety, and I, you know, well, how far do
you hit it? About one eighty two hundred. I tell
them they're barking up the wrong tree. And I also,
you know, I think that that contact and direction consistencies
certainly are well above distance. So at least I've got
a little little data and a little history to support
what I say. And they buy into it pretty quickly.
I think.
Speaker 1: We talked about this previously. Now I'm just starting to
comprehend what you were saying. You played the entire nine
holes with just your nine iron.
Speaker 4: Pitching watch, with your pitching wedge only oh only, Yeah.
Speaker 5: That I've great challenge.
Speaker 4: I've even I've even had playing lessons where I'll say, okay,
we're on our last hole times running out, I'll play
I'm just gonna use my pitching wedge and I'll play
against you heads up and I've powered holes. I I
it's it's almost embarrassing for them because I just show
them how simple this is. If it's if you just
hit it one hundred and thirty five yards and you're
halfway consistent. You know how people are, they want to
bust the ball, especially the young male. A lot of
the lot of the young male just they come out
of their shoes and you know, they're all over the
lot and it's so much it'd be so much better
if you could get them to tone down and just
keep it in play, they'd play so much better. But
I think that's a fight with a testosterone.
Speaker 5: Well you know that that are four letter word ego.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, it gets in the way of everything, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I tell people, you know, you're better off
just getting up there and I'm gonna bunt this down
the middle of the fairway attitude, and you will play better.
And I've seen people with injuries play better because they
have to. They have to tone down a little bit,
swing easier, that's right, pull back and relax a little bit.
More they swing ease year and I think more times
than that people play better when they have to do
that because of an injury.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: You think they'd play worse because they were hurting.
Speaker 1: No, it's just the hardest thing to comprehend that you
can hit the ball farther if you don't swing as
hard well, and it's swing fast, grow.
Speaker 4: Up though throwing. You want to go farther, you throw
it harder. You want to hit that ball out of
the park, you swing harder. Uh. And it just makes
sense from the sports we grew up with that. Well,
if I swing as hard as I can, this sucker
is gonna fly. And it's so much Mechanics are so
much more important in golf, uh than than power. And
I think you can get power through mechanics. You're not
going to find mechanics going the power route.
Speaker 5: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Well, it's you know, hit down to make it go up,
swinging easier to make it go farther, opposite.
Speaker 4: It's to the core, isn't it. It's just it's as
it makes sense, yes, yeah, and it's hard.
Speaker 1: I mean I know that that I try to contain
myself on my drives, and yet I find myself just
coming out of my shoes.
Speaker 4: Sure, it's like, cut it out, keep your feet on
the ground.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just swinging Select forty five and a half inches.
Speaker 4: You're with the masses and they keep me busy. Actually,
well that's good.
Speaker 1: What's the difference between being a head professional at a
country club versus or have you done anything if you
worked at public courses.
Speaker 4: Before or just I've been at a public course, I've
been just an instructor at a private course. I've been
assistant slash instructor and now head professional at Marine Country Club.
And you know, if you're the instructor, well, that's your
job all day long. Every day you're going out and
lessons all day or playing lessons, where if you're the
head golf professional, lessons are just a small piece of
the puzzle. You're running a business, tournaments, merchandise and the
day to day operations, and your whole staff is teaching
and you're not sitting on the tee all day. And
I love teaching. It's it's extremely rewarding. But for years
and years that's all I did, and it's kind of
nice to take a break and just do it a
little bit more. I think it's more rewarding that I
do it part time. No, I get more out of
it now. Nice, that's nice, and hopefully they get more
at me. Yeah, well, of course, I mean if you're
there person after person after person, I mean you're a
pretty strong person to have the same energy that at
the end of the week for client number fifty, then
you did the first one.
Speaker 1: And what we haven't talked about is Marine Country Club
is managed by Truon Golf.
Speaker 4: Yes, and they have.
Speaker 1: Why don't you give me a little shout out for
true because I've always a big fan of Truon golf courses,
in the public courses and the resort courses that I've played.
I just love the way they manage a golf course.
I love the condition of every Truon course I've ever played.
I'm a big fan and the fact that you know
I've got this Truon course in my backyard makes me crazy.
What is it about Trouon?
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, in two thousand and eight, Truon
started to manage my club that I was in South Florida.
It's a fifty four hole facility, private equity, gated, high
end and they turned that club around. I believe the
year they moved in, or just the year before they
moved in, uh, they lost to three quarters of a
million dollars, and two years after they came in they
actually made three quarters of a million dollars. The conditions
of the courses complete one eighty they were in trouble,
and they went from again being in some bit of
trouble to the facility of the year within Truon and
Truon manages two hundred golf courses or approximately two hundred
golf courses, and they've got a lot of resources. And
then they came into Marin, and Marin brought them in
for a reason, and so far the feedback has been
extremely positive and they're very good at it taking care
of your country club. The conditions of the courses. I
go to the Truon managers or I mean, I never wonder.
I know they're going to be in good condition. And
the staff is the customer service is fantastic. I mean,
it's it's a great friendly atmosphere with every Truon course.
So it's great to be a part of them, it
really is. And that's how I came to Marin because
I was working at the course in South Florida Ball
and Owls and they needed a head professional and asked
if I would be interested, and I left it the chance.
Speaker 1: The general manager here at Marin Country Club, Ryan Wilson.
He was actually featured on Golf Smarter back in two
thousand and six when he was general manager of a
truon course in Arizona.
Speaker 4: So that's what happened to his career.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he's not listening.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that was said then, and
it's always rung true to me, is that at the
public truoned courses, they treat their guests like members.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I've always said that. Actually I was at
a public course and somebody asked me what the difference is,
and I said, I don't see a difference. I you know,
you see some are returning customers, but a lot of
new customers with a public golf course. But I still
treat them as if they're my member. I just don't
you know, with a with a member club, Yes, you
spend a lot more time with them. They become almost family.
There's a more of a relationship there. But is there
any different respect level or the way you handle them
in the service department. No, I don't. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: And we know that the golf industry has had some
difficult times over the last few years, as every industry
has UH and UH. Private courses have been deeply affected
by this, many courses closing every single year.
Speaker 4: How's business business for Morena is very good. We're fortunate.
We're in a pretty nice area of Morenne County and
we are fortunate to that we don't have to worry.
I mean, we're always looking for more members, but we're
not in a position that we're going to be closing
our doors.
Speaker 1: Fortunately, hopefully not.
Speaker 4: Not a chance, not a chance.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's let's talk about those shots in your
bag that you don't practice. Let's let's think about a
couple of different shots that that people should be thinking
about when they're on the practice facility at the driving range.
Let's say you play a course it has a lot
of trees, low hanging trees. Let's talk about how you
would approach and right out here.
Speaker 4: There there's you know, you've got to right outside your door.
Speaker 1: I've seen people standing, well, there's a bunker right outside
my gate here. But there's a couple of trees here
that you cannot get a good shot at the green,
because your drive is going to end up under some
trees that have branches that are no more than ten
feet high.
Speaker 4: Yep. If you're a right hander and you slice it
off your tee, you're most likely navigating some trees and
possibly going under them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So first thing we have to learn, and one
of my all time favorite lines is never follow a
bad shot with a stupid shot and.
Speaker 4: You're going right where you should. I mean the you know,
I believe that the first mistake isn't what kills you.
It's the second one. And if you try to make
up for the first one, there goes double and triple.
Speaker 1: You need to take you you're going to add you're
going to add strokes to your score.
Speaker 4: Oh absolutely, you're trying to make up for that first mistake,
and you're going to have triple before you know it.
It's hard to swallow, but in most cases, you need
to get yourself to a position to hit on the
green and then take your bow gee or whatever position
you're in and get out of there and minimize the damage.
And know that it happens to most people. Uh, And
it is an attitude I believe when you go out
to play to have that. I think that if you
go out there and try to if you train yourself
to go out there and just try to minimize the damage,
you'll do better. And I can guarantee you most people
listening right now probably either now or at some point
didn't do that. I think they try to look at
that little hole between the branches and make up for it,
or try to hit a very low shot, and uh,
you know, the very very good players practice that. You don't,
nor do you have the mechanics in your golf swing
to probably pull that shot off. You know, the hitting.
You know, there's a what was that saying there? The
said something about when you're hitting through that tree there.
Somebody said it was ninety percent air and one triple bogie.
Speaker 5: Ye have heard something similar. Trees are like screens. Yeah, yeah, great,
but you're still.
Speaker 4: A screen door, that's correct.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: It's like, uh, watching Bubba play, you just never know
what he's going to try to do and if he's
going to pull it off.
Speaker 5: But what we don't.
Speaker 1: Realize is that he probably practices all those shots.
Speaker 5: Tiger. If anybody you know you see him do these
shots that are outrageous.
Speaker 1: But you got to know that he's probably practiced that
shot a thousand times where we have seen it on TV.
Speaker 5: Going, I can do this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And not only do they practice a lot, they
have tremendous control and awareness of where their hands and
club face are during the swing. And most amateurs, vast
majority have no idea. Uh if I tell him to
take it inside and close the face versus up and
most people can't do that.
Speaker 5: They they understand what you're talking about.
Speaker 4: There's a percentage that didn't know what I'm talking about.
But you're right. Some people I'll say that and they
you know, it's a deer in the headlights. Yeah. So
so those those people, the pros, the better players, not
only practice it, they they can feel where that club
and hands are. And if you can't feel where your
clubhead is or your hands are and manipulate that during
the backswing or nowhere to go, well you've got no
business trying those those specialty shots.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that shot where you've got to
keep the ball low, but you still need to get
it seventy eighty yards and you know, if you pull
out your if you pull out your four iron, which
you know that's you know you're gonna have You're not
gonna be able to take a full swing, but you
got to keep the ball low. Let's let's can you
do you mind walking me through the mechanics of how
to do that? And if you need to stand up,
you have plenty of room here and I can stand
up with you.
Speaker 4: But well, for one, you're going to take probably a
little bit extra club, meaning you're going to have to
deloft your club. If you want to hit it low,
you need to take a five iron, you know, and
this might be only a seventy yard one hundred yard shot,
but you might have to take a five iron, and
you've got to learn that it's more of a chip
shot type swing in length, and that club's going to
stay very low. The ball position is going to be back.
And I think here's one of the stands already. I
think here's one of the most difficult things is when
you're trying to follow through, your head better be very
still and your hands better stay in front of that
club face beyond impact, and your follow through needs to
stay low. You're not finishing in a high finish, You're
keeping that club head low along the ground. And not
going that far past. You're certainly not getting your head
your club head passed waist high. So it's more of
a I don't know if I want to use the
word bunt, but it's it's basically a little pop. It's
not a full swing, but I think you need to
make sure your club head stays low. Critically, your head
has to stay still. We tend to when we try
to hit that with our hands forward and keeping our
club head low. Our bodies and heads tend to go
forward ahead of the ball. At the same time we
can top the ball, you don't hit it very good
and it's a miss. So keeping the head very still
and maintaining your hands ahead of club face with a
very short follow through, and there's a lot of feel involved.
Speaker 1: Are you coming down on the ball at that.
Speaker 4: Point, Yeah, a little bit, but you've got a pretty
shallow You.
Speaker 5: Come down too hard, it's gonna.
Speaker 4: Well exactly and you've got but the thing is you're
coming You're gonna come down on that shot. Yeah, but
it's not nearly the degree of a full swing. You
have a very shallow swing you're making. It's going to
be fairly low back and fairly low through because as
you just said and described was that if you go
too high or too vertical with your back swing and
swing down, that ball goes upwards. So you want to
flatten your swing. If you flat it, meaning keeping your
club head low to the ground, taking it away and
going through, that'll produce a lower ball flight.
Speaker 1: Two other things that I would think would be really
important to again, you want your mind to be cleaned
and clear, but you've got to keep a sense of
what you're doing here. Is one your grip, because I
know in a situation like that for me, white knuckles,
you know, squeezing this thing with her. And Second, your rhythm.
I would think that that's something people tend to get.
Speaker 4: A little quick when they have to shorten their backswing. Uh,
and do that shot. And you've got to make sure
you take that back swing slow and try to pause.
Don't be in a rush again.
Speaker 1: Pausewhere wait, wait, keep going pause at.
Speaker 4: The at the top of your back swing or it's
not gonna be the top. It's gonna be Yeah, the
top of your backswing happens to be maybe waist high. Yeah,
but you need to be patient there and A and
A and A being relaxed having your hands soft will
help that. Again, you know, I can, I can describe
those motions and those mechanics. That's only a small percentage.
You've got to get out there and now try to
make that happen and have either your own video or
have somebody watch you to make sure that you are
indeed doing what the article or what I'm saying, because
a lot of people take that article from the from
the news or from the magazine and they really don't
apply it correctly. So you need to have somebody make
sure you know you have the knowledge. Now let's make
sure you execute it properly.
Speaker 1: Are these magazines doing damage?
Speaker 4: Uh? To some? Sure to some. I mean the articles
are fantastic and there's a lot of good, but not
everybody knows what pertains to them. And a lot of
people don't know how to take what they've read and
then have that application work.
Speaker 1: And some people learn watching video versus readings.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, you know, absolutely, So you know, I certainly don't
want to take a shot at that. But they keep
me busy some of those articles, because you know, I've
had people bring me articles and say, Ken, look at this,
read this, you know, and whoa time out and I
know it's not yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Now I want to get back to that
concept of the pause and and on a normal swing,
are we pausing at the top or is this very Specific's.
Speaker 4: A good question. There always needs to be. There's sometimes
that people are quick and I'll say you need to
pause at the top. I want you to feel a pause.
I don't want to see it. And there is a
big difference. Well, people feel like they're going to pause.
Sometimes I say, listen, because of your swing, you're going
to feel like you're having a tea party up there
and that you're never going to get back to that
golf ball. But when I watch them swing and then
I show them on video right after, it looks like
the normal transition pace. It's just again the feeling you
have to you have to be able to see that
on video or have somebody watch you to give you
the confidence that you're not sitting up there forever. There
is a certain pace to the swing, and the transition
to me is one of the most important parts of
the swing. The speed of which you change your transition.
It needs to be soft, it needs to be relaxed.
It's one of the most important things in my swing.
The things I think about are the pace of my backswing,
which is nice and slow, and to feel a pause. Now,
that pause that I feel could be very different than
what you feel. But there's a certain pace to my
swing that could be different than the pace to your swing.
You need to find what it is. I think most
people don't. They go a little too fast in the
backswing and they don't pause enough. And again I don't
mean a literal pause. It's not like, no, we're.
Speaker 5: Not going yeah exactly, taking literally what does that mean?
Speaker 4: Well, we're not going up there, and I mean to
suggest a pause. You're thinking you're going up there, and
you're hitting literally hitting the pause button and everything is stopping. No.
I think that that there needs to be a soft transition,
and that's probably a better term. I like that, Okay,
there needs to be a soft transition to up and down.
There's not a hirky jerky motion. It needs to be
very smooth. And there's a big difference and probably a
big difference in your result when you take a swing
that is very calm at the top and the other
one that is very rigid and very.
Speaker 1: Abrupt, rigid face, hands, shoulders, pants, everything rigid tight.
Speaker 4: I'll tell somebody, if you relax through your whole game
and through your whole swing, you'll do more for yourself
than anything else I can do for you. Really, absolutely, absolutely,
I think it's very very very important. In fact, I've
learned from experience that I'll get up to a drive
that's that just looks daunting, it's narrow, there's all kinds
of trouble up there, and it used to be that
I would stand up there and.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this all you're out there right now.
Speaker 4: Is a perfect example. I would usually stand up there,
or in the past, I would stand up there and
say okay, and then I'd get tight and I'd feel
like I'd try to steer it or aim it or
you know whatever I was trying to do, and I'd
never hit it straight. I hit it terrible. And this
is how I came to know this. On a par five,
very very often, I'll have an opportunity to go forward
and two, and if I don't, if the risk is
too bad or it's just too far, maybe I'll take
a six iron out and put myself in a good
position to hit my next shot. Those invariably are the
most solid, best shots of the day because I'm not
real I'm just looking. I'm relaxed, and I'm just looking
to hit it out there, in out there for my
third shot. I'm not firing at a flagstick where there's
more tension. And I hit him so good, and I think,
why don't I do that with the rest of my game,
And so I try to do that as much as possible.
I'll stand up on the tee and I'll just totally
relax when I you've either struggling with my driver a
little bit, or I've got a hole that I think, oh,
my goodness, is this tight? And I'll tell you what.
I hit the ball straighter a lot more often when
I totally give in and relax and let it happen.
And again, the game is the opposite to the core.
You think you want to steer it and be tight
and rigid and push it out there. No, if you
totally give in and relax, you think that there's, oh
my goodness, this could go anywhere. And I found, at
least personally, I hit him better, more solid, better air.
Time my ball goes a little bit higher, I tend
to hit a little bit lower ball. And it's also
from the tension, So I think that relaxing again, it's
it is if you can do it, it's your friend.
Speaker 1: Interesting And when you said, you know, get some video,
have someone look at you, You're not talking about having
a friend look at you because they're only going to
give you bad advice.
Speaker 4: Well yeah, but if you want, I'm not saying them
to give you instruction. But I think that if you
got instruction and then you knew what you needed to do,
you just needed somebody to confirm that you are aren't
doing it. I think that's okay. Yeah, you got to
be a little careful with that as well, but you
can't see it yourself, so you better either take video
and look at it afterwards, or have somebody watching you
do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because we we think we're doing stuff. It's amazing
how watching video of your swing is can be so depressingsing.
Speaker 4: I've had both. I've had people be upset about it
and I've had other people be pleasantly surprised.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh it's shocking. Yeah, there's no question that it's shocking. Listen,
we we've hit our time limit on on this episode
of Golf Smarter, but we would I would love to
have you stick around. Uh, we can do, because I
have so many more questions. We only got to one shot,
that special shot in your bag, which is really what
I wanted to cover. And it's great to have you here.
It's great to finally get to meet.
Speaker 5: You on the show.
Speaker 1: And yeah, no, and and again, if anybody has any
questions for Ken, please go ahead and click on the
Heyfred button at golf smarter dot com and send him
in to me and I will put you in touch
with Ken. Absolutely, he'd be happy. That would be great.
So can you stick around for another episode?
Speaker 4: Certainly.
Speaker 1: And now it's time for our score Zone Short Game Academy.
Think of question about your short game, really think about
your short game. You're telling me you don't have any
questions that you'd like to ask an expert. Well, we've
got the expert here. It's the wedge guy, Terry Gaylor
of score Golf. Hello, Terry Hip, I'm doing well, thank you,
And we've got an interesting question that's come in from
Ray Dickinson. And again Ray submitted this question, and so
he is going to receive a free scoring club of
his choice from his selection of the group of five
from a score forty one sixty one Wedge Scoring Club.
He'll also receive a golf Smarter divot repair tool, the
world's greatest switchblade divot repair tool. At least that's what
everyone tells me. And so let's get right to Ray's
question and again encourage everyone. If you've you've got a question,
send it in. Chances of Terry answering the questions are
very good because he really loves to do this and
he even uses these questions for his blog as well,
The Wedge Guy. So this one comes from Ray Dickinson.
He's in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and it's a two
part question. Again, it doesn't he doesn't think he did,
but he really did do two questions here. So I'm
having a tough time getting out of the green side
bunkers when they have hard compacted coarse sand. It's like
I wrote this question. I usually have little trouble in
the light fluffy sand. I just take a lot of
sand and hit it on the green, but when it
comes to the hard compacted bunker, I usually hit a
low burner after the wedge bounces into the ball and
stick it to the side of the bunker, or catch
it thin and air mail the green so his two
part question one which club should I use?
Speaker 5: And two the hell do I hit it?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: Ray that you know the problem you're talking about is
not uncommon. So the first answer is what club should
I use? Is obviously you should use a score forty
one sixty one wedge and then your problems will be over.
Speaker 5: It's true.
Speaker 3: Oh so that's what we've been on our soul far.
But let's talk about your You're a pretty good bunker player.
When you have a typical soft, fluffy bunker. You're laying
the club open behind it and bring the sand on
the ball out and and you're doing a good job there.
When you get into a bunker that's hard compacted, you know,
it's wet, don't think of it as a bunker. This
is a totally different kind of lie because that hard, wet,
packed sand is going to provide a lot more what
I call rejection force of the bottom of your club
than that light, fluffy sand will. So even though you're
in a bunker, when you walk in there and that
sand is not giving under your feet, and that ball
is sitting there, you know clean on this on this
packed sand, it's not sitting down because the sand is
not back. You want to play that shot more like
it was in a hard pan out at the bunk,
or it was a tight lie outside the bunker. So
if you have a sand wedge with a high bounce
on it, that's not the club you want to take
in there. Take your pitching wedge, or take your gap wedge,
or if you carry a lob wedge with not a
lot of bounds, take that club in because you don't
you've already got this hard sand it's going to reject
that golp club, and a lot of bounce just increases
or enhances that what I call the rejection quotient. So
take your gap wedge or your lob wedge if it's
a low bounce, or your score forty one sixty one,
because our visul will handle this. But there's a different
way to approach the shot. And the way you want
to look at this shot is not as a lay
the face open splash it behind the ball, but you
want to focus right on the back edge of the
ball rather than that spot behind the ball, and it's
not as hard of a swing. It's kind of like
the difference between hitting range balls off a turfer off
of a mat. You know that map. Just you can
feel that club just skip off the mat and it
causes a hotter shot. This wet packed sand, the club's
going to skip off that sand and give you a
little hotter shot. So it's more like hitting just a
little pitch shot off a hard pan line which is
always comes off hot than it is that bigger force
in the soft sand. So you're not going to remove
my hand from the bunker at all because the club's
going to skip. You want to make contact with the
sand and the ball just about the same time. Stay
with the shot, go ahead and hit down on it.
Slow everything down, be very precise with it, and go
into find a wet bunker and throw you eight or
ten balls down. Just practice. It's like hitting a little
pitch shot out of the bunker and you'll find very
quickly this you can take the fear out of that.
Speaker 1: Okay, So don't you feel better now, Ray, don't you
feel I feel better. I'm going to go practice, you know,
because that when it gets when it's hard like that,
I do the same thing.
Speaker 4: I hate it.
Speaker 5: But that was a great answer. Thank you very much,
and more welcome.
Speaker 1: And we'll get into more detail later about the PGA
show that you were at last week. But congratulations on
once again making the Golf Digest hot list.
Speaker 3: Huh, Well, we're really excited about that. I mean, it's
a rare honor for a brand new company to be
stacked in with all the major brands and feel one
more year and we're going to have one of those
gold medals because people are really understanding that we're building
wedges for the modern power game, and we've got some
very interesting things, and your listeners can go online and
learn more about Score Golf and City that we're challenging
the way wedges have been built for the last forty
or fifty sixty years, because they really have all the
clubs in our bag. That club has changed the least.
And yet we play golf a very different way than
it was played back in the fifties and sixties, when
golf was very much a precision game because the clubs
were so unforgiving. With the hadvent of middlewoods and cavity
back urns, the game has evolved to a much more
forceful power game, even for mid to mid to high handicappers.
We all go go at the harder than they did
back then. But these things called wedges really haven't evolved
to keep up with this modern power game. And what
we did was score forty one sixty one is totally
reinvent the waiting scheme in wedges so that they're more forgiving,
they're more accurate, they deliver better trajectories, more consistent distance control,
and they eliminate those big, high ballooning webshots that are
the nemesis for all of us.
Speaker 1: You know, listen, if Golf Digess is putting on the
hot list, and this is what the second year in
a row.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, two years in a row, I mean ever
since we introduced the product.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely you know, when the press takes notice,
everyone's going to follow. And that is really incredible. So Terry,
congratulations again, and we'll talk to you in a couple
of weeks on the Golf Smarter episode.
Speaker 3: That'd be great. I'll look forward to it. All fun