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