Speaker 1: Hi, This is Larry Heckner in Wilmington, North Carolina. I
play on the beautiful Pete Die and Jack Nicholas courses
alongside the Atlantic Ocean at the Country Club of Landfall.
Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast.
Speaker 2: Golf Smarter number four hundred and seventy two, published on
January twenty, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 3: 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 4: I think one of the worst clubs that might have
been invented.
Speaker 5: Was the sixty degree wedge because everybody wants to use
a sixty degree around the green because.
Speaker 4: They can't stop the ball.
Speaker 5: I think there's spots for that club, But I think
the first thing that you look at is what kind
of a lie do you have?
Speaker 4: How's my ball?
Speaker 2: City?
Speaker 4: Is it in deep gras is it's sitting up? Do
I have a nice lie? You know? Can I get
to it?
Speaker 5: Then the second thing you look to is, once my
ball lands on the green, how much green do I
have to roll the ball out to the hole. So
you're trying to use the terrain of the green. So
you're going to use a golf club that's going to
lift the ball enough to get it over the fringe,
get it on the green and start rolling. So if
you're five feet off the edge of the green and
you've got a pretty decent lie and you've.
Speaker 4: Got thirty forty feet.
Speaker 5: To the pin, and you hit a lofted club like
a sandwich.
Speaker 4: You get no chance because you have to.
Speaker 5: Carry the ball too far out onto the green, and
then you really can't control what's going to happen when
it lands. So you take a nine iron, maybe a
pitching wedge, even an eight iron, and just get the
ball onto the green and let it start rolling like
a putt. So if you approach it like that, I
think you just have so much more success because you're
using the terrain and using the slope of the green
and rolling it like a putt.
Speaker 2: How to Minimize the Damage Part two with Tom Good
This is Golf Smarter. Welcome back to the Golf Smarter podcast.
Speaker 4: Tom, Hey, Fret, how you.
Speaker 2: Doing I'm doing fine. Thank you so much for continuing
this conversation, because I have a lot more to ask.
Speaker 4: Awesome, and I love it.
Speaker 5: I've got, I think a lot more that I can
contribute and try to help some people.
Speaker 2: Oh that would be fun. Okay. So what I really
wanted to find out from you to start is tell
me what is your method or your teaching philosophy.
Speaker 5: Swing the club head and if anybody goes and tries
to find out what that means.
Speaker 4: Ernest Jones.
Speaker 5: Ernest Jones was a proponent of swing the club head
and Ernest Todd in the late nineteen twenties, thirties and forties,
and his whole philosophy was on that freedom emotion and
feeling the golf club and feeling the clubhead swing. And
I think for the average golfers a great way to
feel the body getting involved in the golf swing, feeling
everything work together.
Speaker 4: And it's based around perfect motion, which is a pendulum.
Speaker 5: If the club hit swings back and forth at the
same speed, it's in perfect motion. And if we try
to interfere with it by trying to make it go faster,
try to guide it where it's going, we're going to
destroy that natural motion. So I try to use that
as my base, and then depending on the individual I'm
working with and the experience level and where they are,
I kind of can branch out from that and expand
on what that individual can do.
Speaker 2: You know, I would love to play the devil's advocate
and try to get you to flush this out, but
I'm just being plain old stupid. I don't understand what
you mean by swing the clubhead.
Speaker 5: Well, there's one thing in the golf swing that contacts the.
Speaker 4: Ball, and that's the clubhead.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 5: We don't do it with our shoulders. We don't do
it with our hands. We don't do it with our elbows,
we don't do it with our hips, we don't do
it thing. It's that golf club is our connection to
the golf ball. So if we can feel that weight
swinging and feel that motion and let our body work
with that motion of the golf club, that's perfect motion.
Speaker 2: And how are we supposed to feel that?
Speaker 4: Get rid of the.
Speaker 5: Tension in your golf swing, lighten up your grip pressure,
and actually feel the weight of the golf club as
it swings. If you let the golf club swing back
and forth, you'll start to feel the weight of the
club head.
Speaker 4: You know this.
Speaker 5: I deal with this a lot where people say, well,
can't I can't feel the clubhead. Well, most of the
time you're holding out of that golf club too tight.
Speaker 4: You're trying to control where.
Speaker 5: The golf club's going rather than letting it swing freely.
Speaker 4: If you just relax your hands and arms, you're never
going to.
Speaker 5: Lose the golf club the golf club because most of
the people hold the golf club too tight anyway, they're
gripping it, you know, death grip on it, trying to
You're trying to control that motion rather than getting getting
your body tuned into that motion of the swinging clubhead.
Speaker 2: Are you familiar with Fred Schoemaker.
Speaker 5: I used to teach with Fred for a couple of years.
We taught at the same facility.
Speaker 2: Okay, because to me and Fred's been on the show
a couple of times, and he's truly amazing extraordinary. Golf
is remarkable stuff. And if we've got some new listeners
who have not heard Fred Schumaker, you've got to go
back into the archives and hear stuff because you'll be
blown away. And we also have his DVD here to
if you're interested in buying it. But I don't want
to get too deep into him. But if I can
interpret what you were saying, what he's saying is you
know the feel of what's going on. To be able
to feel it, that's kind of hard to do.
Speaker 4: It's it's not as hard as you think, Fred.
Speaker 5: When you when you get someone to relax enough to
where they can actually get a sense of the motion,
and you start with small motions, small movements back and forth,
and once you get the person swinging the golf club
with nice tempo and nice chiming, and the trick is
swinging the golf club the same speed back and the
same speed through, which goes completely against our human nature
and what we're trying to do because we're trying to
hit the golf ball.
Speaker 2: Did yeah, that you just completely baffled that we did
same speed?
Speaker 4: Kind of interesting, isn't it really interesting?
Speaker 5: Because the golf club will actually, on its own be
going faster at impact. But if we try to put
speed into it, we change the natural motion of the
golf swing. So if the swing is going back and
through in your mind at the same speed, then right
at the bottom of that arc, which is where we
line the golf ball up, it's going at this maximum speed.
So the swing really it starts out slow to fast
to slow coming through the ball, so it's fast right
of impact, and then it will start to slow.
Speaker 4: Down as it goes to the end of the golf swing.
Speaker 5: So if you kind of focus and a good way
to feel this is if you hold a golf club
in your fingers thumb and forefinger and just let it
swing back and forth. You're going to feel the weight
of the golf club. Sure, the golf club will swing
back and forth. Okay, So now if you take that
motion and just let your body get in tune with
that motion as the club swings back and swings through,
Now you're going to create some timing in the golf swing.
You're gonna keep you know.
Speaker 4: Get some rhythm.
Speaker 5: You're gonna you're gonna just feel the complete motion of
what's going.
Speaker 4: On where you're in tune with that clubhead. Hmm.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting Yeah, it definitely makes me and I
apologize for the dead air. I know this is not
a good place to have dead air. But when I
get you know, and I hear something like that, I
got to think about it.
Speaker 5: For a moment.
Speaker 2: So I'm trying to because that's why you.
Speaker 5: Know, when I kind of when I start talking about,
you know, swinging the clubhead and feeling that you're swinging
the same.
Speaker 4: Speedback because.
Speaker 5: Of the average golfers that play, they try to put
speed into the club and usually it starts at the
top of the back swing, right, and so that's when
you're going to come over the top. You're going to
release the club early. You're going to just have all
kinds of timing issues of when is the golf club releasing.
So if we focus on releasing the golf club right
at the ball, okay, well that's maximum speed is right
at impact.
Speaker 4: So as the club starts away from the ball, starts.
Speaker 5: Slow, the speed increases as the club comes down through impact,
and then it decreases as it goes to the end
of the golf swing.
Speaker 2: Wow, I know that. In our last conversation, you talked
about not your students, working with your students in getting
the most out of their natural swing, their natural ability,
not trying to compare them to anybody else, but because
they're the tour players are high profile and we get
to watch them more than we get to watch ourselves.
Is there somebody's swing that you actually love and think
it is the model? Or is it? Or should I
ask is there somebody's rhythm or tempo that you think
is a model?
Speaker 5: I mean, I think you could look at Ernie El's
and Fred Couple's something you'd say that, And I think
I think one of the best swings that I ever, ever,
still continues to work is Watson because what you what
you're looking at is a constant pace. Okay, it's not slow,
you know, it's not a slow swing. It's not a
fast swing, but it's a constant pace. So the swing
goes back and comes through it. There's a rhythm to
the golf swing. L's is a slower rhythm. Couples is
a slower rhythm. But if you watch L's and Couples
hit the ball and watch where the acceleration is, you know,
people are amazed, They.
Speaker 4: Go, how can Couples? How can you hit it? The
far doesn't even swing at it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but if you watch impact and you watch where
the speed is, there's no effort in it and it's
a smooth acceleration through impact.
Speaker 2: So rhythm tempo is important? Or are those two different things?
Speaker 5: I think rhythm and tempo are very similar. If you
don't have rhythm, you can't have tempo. They work together,
and I think they're they're critical to the golf swing.
I think I think they're probably the number one thing
in the golf swing is rhythm and tempo.
Speaker 2: Is that the number one thing you find in air
with a lot of a lot of amateurs.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, And I think the number one thing that the
average golfer tries to do is hit the ball. And
you know, and I use this a lot when I'm
talking to people, is that if you go down to
the driving range to practice, what are you going to do?
Speaker 4: When somebody said I'm going down.
Speaker 5: To the driving range to hit balls, nobody ever says
they're going down to the driving range to swing right.
Speaker 4: So it's a swing.
Speaker 5: And what I like to try to convey to people
is to try to get them to swing the golf club.
Speaker 4: The ball gets in the way, I'm not going to
try to hit it. I'm not going to try to
guide it. I'm not going to try to lift it.
I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to
try to get the golf club to swing through the ball.
Let the ball get in the way.
Speaker 2: I found that the impact is just the middle of
your swing. It's not the result. It's not the end
result exactly.
Speaker 5: How many times have you hit a shot on the
golf course that was just felt so soft that the
ball just took off and you're going, dang, I didn't
even swing at that thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, the ball just ripped.
Speaker 2: And always and it always has that perfect sound too.
You can always tell by the sound when it strikes it.
Speaker 4: And then so what do you do is you go
back and try to figure out what you did.
Speaker 2: And try to recreate that.
Speaker 4: And you recreate it. Well, it's a swing.
Speaker 5: You can repeat that swing if you can get that
swing moving okay, and feel that golf club, feel that weight.
And the only way you can feel it is to
get the tension.
Speaker 4: Out of your hands. Don't pull it so tight.
Speaker 5: And that leads me to, you know, my two pet
peeves in the golf swing are the two things that
people try to do all the time when they start
is keep your head down and keep your eye. You know,
I'm going to say right hand or here, keep your
left arm straight. How many times have you heard that one?
Speaker 2: I mean, all the time when I'm playing with friends.
Is like when whenever there's a bad shot, it's like, ah,
I lifted my head.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think you lift your head because your
body's swinging out a rhythm and your arms go faster
than your lower body, and then your head has to
move because your.
Speaker 4: Shoulders are hitting your head because you're keeping your head down.
Speaker 5: So when you keep your head down, you put your
head down and your chin gets into your chest, so
it gets in.
Speaker 4: The way of the shoulders rotating through.
Speaker 5: So you didn't lift your head on purpose, but it
had to lift up or you're gonna break your neck.
Speaker 2: How do you find tune your rhythm from? You know?
Speaker 4: There? There are several drills. I think one of the one.
Speaker 5: Of the really great drills to do, and it's really
it's probably very difficult for the average player is to
actually try to swing a fold.
Speaker 4: Let's say if you took a five iron out, okay,
and you have your normal yard you know what, Okay,
try to hit it one hundred yards.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Tom, I broke up. You broke up on
that last sentence. Please repeat your lessons.
Speaker 5: Sorry, Try to hit airn in slow motion and try
to hit a five iron one hundred yards with a
full motion, you can't accelerate through it. You've got to
let it just be a natural motion, so everything is
moving at a slower pace.
Speaker 4: A lot of work with with short shots.
Speaker 5: Hitting hitting little wedges, I mean, and I think this
is where a lot of people chunk wedg shots and
and and have a lot of trouble around the green
is because they get short and quick and they get
they get fast.
Speaker 4: They don't have rhythm in those short short shots.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I've always noticed that that on those on the
short pitch shots that you know, chips around the green
and whatnot, that I'm always the back, especially on the backswing,
it's going a lot faster than right then right, and
when slowing that down, yeah, I have better results.
Speaker 5: Think about that that Grandfather clock that you've seen with
that pendulum moving back and forth, sure perfect motion times
all the clocks in the world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So why can't we use that to time the golf.
Speaker 2: Swing Because that pendulum has never hit a ball, and
it never follows through.
Speaker 4: And it goes back the other way all the time.
Speaker 2: It's like, come on back, Nope, come back that.
Speaker 5: Way, No going the other way, And there's always that
little hesitation before it goes back the other way, and
you can incorporate that into your golf swing, where at
the top of your back swing there's a hesitation before
you go the other way. Okay, yeah, hesitate to rotate back.
Speaker 4: Through the ball.
Speaker 2: But it's not it's not a conscious hesitation. It's not
a hold right, not when.
Speaker 5: You get it going right right at first, it may
have to be a conscious stop. Okay, when you're when
you're practicing it, when you're kind of trying to get
a feel for this. I don't think there's anything wrong
with stopping a little bit longer just to feel it.
Speaker 4: You get it to the top of the.
Speaker 5: Back swing, everything stops, everything moves back through, and then
as you start to feel that rhythm, then you can
pick up the pace.
Speaker 4: Of the swing just a little bit. You kind of
pick up your tempo. So there's there's that constant pace,
so it's not slow. You're not swinging that.
Speaker 5: That real slow back and through, but it's back up
to the top and back through.
Speaker 4: You know, it's a constant pace back and through.
Speaker 2: And then you have the concept or you have fourteen
clubs in your bag and they're all different lengths, so
how does that impact your rhythm? How does that impact
the speed or swinging the clubhead or does it?
Speaker 5: It shouldn't. It's going to be exactly the same. The
longer club just has a little longer to travel. So
if you're taking a driver and basically in your setup position,
you're in the same setup position because the club is
built to move further away from the ball just because
of the li.
Speaker 4: Angle of the golf club.
Speaker 5: So if you're swinging the driver at the same rhythm
as a wedge, okay, you're just going to have a consistent,
repeating golf swing day in and day out.
Speaker 4: It's going to be the same. It's never going to change.
Speaker 2: Have you ever been introduced to a scene or even
tried the one length set of irons?
Speaker 5: I saw those years ago when they first came out.
PGA made those golf clubs the PGA Golf Company, and
they're not around anymore, I don't think, so it must
not have worked.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean, because you know, the theory I
guess is that the club head itself is the angle
that's going to be where the ball comes off. So
why and it would make it I guess for you know,
high handicappers. It would make it a lot easier if
they just had the same length to deal with every time,
as opposed to being too close to the ball, being
far away from the ball.
Speaker 5: You know, well, I think that's where, you know, coaching
and instruction comes in.
Speaker 4: You know that that.
Speaker 5: People need to really get some guidance, They need to
find a good instructor, they need to find a good
PGA golf professional that can guide them, you know. And
that's where people will do that. They'll they'll change with
every club. And I don't I personally don't think that
you change your setup position with every club. If your
arms are hanging in the same position, you say, with
an eight iron and a three wood. Okay, the golf
clubs are built to take care of that distance.
Speaker 4: So if you repeat that setup.
Speaker 5: Position, just change your ball position longer club ball moves
a little bit further forward. You make the same motion
with the golf swing. The length of the club creates
a little more speed and you and the loft of
the club combined with the length of the club creates
more distance.
Speaker 2: Let's get back to what we were finishing up with
on our last episode, and you were talking about golf
course management and course management, which has nothing to do
with working at a golf course. I like to just
call it strategy. It's easier for me when I say strategy.
Speaker 4: Golf course. Yeah, management, what do you?
Speaker 2: What do you work in the exactly? I'm a bartender.
So i'd like to talk about You talked about going
out on the course and sticking a person at one
hundred and fifty yards and you know, seeing how they
approach and whatnot. Let's talk about course management from within
one hundred and fifty yards and then from there. Let's
talk about this for a while, and then from there
before we leave, I'd like to also pick your brain
a little bit about what you say is one of
your specialties, which is working around the greens. Okay, so
let's the critical time inside one hundred and fifty yards.
It's more important than most people realize. I think. I
think that they're so set on hitting the ball as
hard and far as they can off the tee and
not realizing that you really can improve your scores. If
you don't focus on that, you can get away with
a lot of garbage. I had. I had a shot
this weekend where my te shot went forty yards I
just I hit four inches behind the ball, the big
piece of dirt. The ball rolled and I parted the hole.
Luckily it was a one putt. But I mean, you
can get away with a bad tea shot, but you
cannot get away with bad shots inside one hundred and fifty.
Speaker 4: I agree.
Speaker 5: And when you look at a green, you know, most
of the bunkers or most of the trouble on a
hole is around the green. You know, there'll be some
fairway bunkers and things like that, maybe a lake near
some water at one point, you know, depending on the
the difficulty of the golf course.
Speaker 4: But when you get in that we call that the
scoring zone.
Speaker 5: When you get inside that one fifty, that one hundred yards, okay,
that's that is where you're going to make up a
lot of strokes, So you know, and I think one
of the things again goes back to the player really
knowing how far they hit the ball, knowing your real yardage,
you know, and knowing you know not just how far
is the is the pin, but you know it's it's
if you play a course a lot, you'll know how
big a green is. And a lot of the times
there's not a lot of trouble long. There might be
a bunker somewhere back there, just for a cosmetic thing
that they show. But usually a person is not going
to knock a ball unless they kind of blade want
to knock it really long. Very seldom are they going
to miss a green long. Most of the time they're
always going to miss the green shorts.
Speaker 4: So you know, I.
Speaker 5: Would say, you know, just error on this on the
side of being a little bit longer than really trying
to you know, maybe be really precise with that, you know,
one hundred and forty five yards shot right over the
top of the bunker, you know, hit it one hundred
and fifty five and get it to the middle of
the green and tupots.
Speaker 2: We had Dave Stockton on the show when his book
came out earlier this year, and he gave this piece
of advice that I have found incredibly helpful, and that
is he never takes just one club to the ball.
You know, it's like, Okay, I'm at one hundred and
fifty yards. That's generally my six iron. Not for Stockton obviously,
but you know, but but that just doesn't mean because
you're one hundred and fifty yards that is the club
to hit. So he takes a couple of clubs and decides,
you know, he looks at the lie, he looks at
the wind, he looks at where the the you know,
the pin is placed on the green if you want
to attack it, you know. And I find that I go,
I'm short a lot, and that recently I'm clubbing up
more often than I ever have, and I'm having a
lot more success.
Speaker 5: It's great, No, and yeah, because they put most of
the trouble in the front of the greens, because they
just seem to just realize that the average guy's going
to go out.
Speaker 4: There and lady and they're not going to hit enough
golf club. And part of it is not really being
honest and being you know, for.
Speaker 5: The guys, I got to let their ego go a
little bit and say, you know what, I don't hit
my seven iron one hundred and sixty yards, you know,
I hit it one hundred and thirty.
Speaker 4: Five, and you know, and use a little bit more club.
Speaker 5: And the other thing that happens when you use a
little bit more club is you're going to swing a
little smoother.
Speaker 4: And not hit it quite as hard.
Speaker 5: And that might lead into why I think the real
short game, the chipping and pitching are so important because
if you're really.
Speaker 4: Good at that takes.
Speaker 5: A lot of pressure off of you out there one
hundred and fifty yards. If you're a bad chipper and
a bed you've got a really bad short game and
you're one hundred and fifty yards. You put so much
pressure on yourself because if I don't hit the green,
I've got triple bogie here or something, you know, because
I can't chip, I can't hit bunker shots.
Speaker 4: I can't do this.
Speaker 5: And that's the way people think I've got to hit
the green because it's I guarantee it's a double bogie if.
Speaker 2: I don't hit the green, and that that kind of
pressure it itself is just not going to help exactly.
Speaker 5: You know you, I mean, you might get lucky once
in a while and hit one, but when you put
that heat on yourself, you're just you're gonna you're gonna
miss the shot. In ninety percent of the time, you're
either gonna hit it fat, you're gonna pull it, You're
gonna you know, push it. It's it's it's going to
end up in disaster. But when you do, when you
can get it up and down from the edge of
the green. When you can chip it up and make
the putt, you can stand out there a one hundred
and fifty hundred and forty yards and you take a
huge amount of pressure off of yourself in the game
and just you're going to enjoy it a lot more
because you say, you know what, I don't care for,
miss Green, I'm a great bunker player.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and walk into a bunker going, oh, this is
going to be fun instead of going oh no, no, no,
I don't want to.
Speaker 5: Be oh my god, yeah, change your attitude and you
hit it in a bunker. I got no chance, you know,
I might as well take a triple right now because
I can't play bunker shots. Well, how many times do
people practice bunker shots, you know? And that's that's kind
of one of the things. I think a lot of
golf courses maybe don't have that good practice area where
you can practice your bunker shots and practice your short game.
And you you know, you surely can't practice them on
the golf course while you're playing because.
Speaker 4: You got to keep up with the group in front
of you. You know, you can't hold up play and
hit extra shots. So it's it's really hard for people
to practice that short game. So you know, again, finding
finding a good.
Speaker 5: Facility that's got a place to practice that short game
is really important.
Speaker 2: Kind of bird you have back there, Oh.
Speaker 5: That's a little Senegal parrots.
Speaker 4: He's about two rooms away and you can still hear him.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he broke a glass in here.
Speaker 4: I moved him to the other room. You know, he
hears me talking about him right now.
Speaker 2: So okay, let's let's say, uh, we're one hundred and
fifty out. I hit my seven iron is my is
my one forty two club, and my six iron is
my one fifty five club, and I'm one hundred and fifty.
You know the whole I'm between club's dilemma? What do
I do? How do I how do I deal with that?
How do what do you advise on that?
Speaker 5: Go with the longer club. Hit the ball a little longer,
and you're gonna be on the green because you're gonna
you're gonna take that that club that's just not quite enough.
Speaker 4: It's going to force you to swing a little harder.
You're and you know, you may not be conscious, you
may not be out there saying okay, you know I
it's gonna be on the front of the green. But
then right there, you know it's not.
Speaker 5: Quite enough, so you try to goose it a little bit,
try to give it a little extra Generally, it's gonna
end up with a poorly hit.
Speaker 2: Shot, right because now we're going back to what you
were saying about your adding tension because you're trying to
swing harder, right right.
Speaker 5: I gotta I gotta hit this one really good, because
if I don't hit this one good, I'm in the
bunker or I'm short of the green. So I'm going
to jump on it a little bit, and that throws
your normal timing out of whack.
Speaker 4: It throws your rhythm out right well.
Speaker 2: And I think that this is part of what like
like a front pin creates a situation in your head
where you're trying to you're trying to get the ball
in the hole, so you're going to come up short,
you know, instead of just going for the middle of
the green and coming back right.
Speaker 4: And I think if you know where people hit, they
try to.
Speaker 5: Hit shots that they're not capable of hitting, and that's
why they're a twenty five handicap, you know, And that's
why they make the triples and the you know, the quads,
and they're just going, what's wrong with my game?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, they're not playing at their ability level.
They're there. They saw this shot on TV exactly I can.
I think I can hit this shot right over that
bunker with a little draw.
Speaker 5: And they've never hit a draw in their life, you know,
but they're gonna they're going to hit that draw because
they saw, you know, Tiger hit it right, and you know,
and so it ends up they you know, they yank
went over in the bunker somewhere and they got a
big number. It's just you got to take those big
numbers out of the game, and you got to take
the lost balls and the penalty shots.
Speaker 4: You know, keep the ball in play.
Speaker 2: And I apologize to the audience for being so redundant.
But one of my favorite favorite all time lines was
actually told to me by a Golf Smarter listener when
we were all playing together. He says, never follow a
bad shot with a stupid shot, right, Yeah, And so
it is so often where you hit some you hit
your drive and it goes errand and it's over in
the trees and there's an opening and you can see
the green you can see the flag. There's nothing in
the way except there's trees lining the entire area. But
there's this small opening. So you're like, I can go
for that. You've gotten double bogie all over that, right,
double making.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's a there's a one percent six best rate
in going through that opening right again. You know, so
they're you know, they're just leaving themselves. Knock it out
in the fairway. Take your medicine, you know, and you'll
see you'll see the really good players.
Speaker 4: You'll see the tour players. Take their medicine. Okay, I
hit it in the.
Speaker 5: Rough here, I'm chipping it out, and you know, they're
they're very seldom they're going to hit the master's one
hundred and fifty yard four hundred forty forty yard hook
around trees with a wedge. You know that the bubble hit.
You know, that's that's once in a lifetime shot, you know,
and people.
Speaker 4: Say, you know, I think I can do that. Yeah, right,
you take your medicine, chip it.
Speaker 2: Out, and really it's like you're sitting there in that
bad position and you're going, okay, I can get there
from here, and it's like, wait a minute, think about
the results before you take that swing. If you don't
make it, and chances are you won't, but I know
you think you can. So now you're looking at double
bogie maybe at best, but here if you just go ahead,
put it back in the fairway. Now you've got a
shorter shot to the green. You put it up on
the green. All of a sudden, you're now you're playing
a bogie. That's okay, right.
Speaker 5: Exactly exactly. So you know, if you if you made
a bogie in every hole, you shoot ninety.
Speaker 2: Hello, it's like if you get a five on every hole,
you shoot ninety. And so many people are struggling to
break ninety and they don't see it. They keep trying
to do things that, like you said, they're not practicing.
You know that in practice.
Speaker 5: Right, But you've seen the other one is where the
you know, you're in the rough to the right, it's
long grass and you hit it. You're going to hit
you know, it's you know, one hundred five yards of
the green. So I'm going to hit a four iron
out of this rough and you know, you hit it
about fifty yards and it stays in the rough, you know,
and then you try to advance it and you keep
trying to advance it up the rough rather than Okay,
let's hit something with loft, get it out in front
of the green where I can knock a nine iron
or a wedge onto the green. And you know, it's
just minimizing your damage, just trying to look at it
and say okay. And I think if people would approach
that shot and take just a few extra seconds, it
doesn't take very long and they start with it, look
at it.
Speaker 4: Okay, if I if.
Speaker 5: I go through that opening, you know I could hit
you know, that's a possibility. But my success rate there
is one percent. Okay, if I chip it out to
the fairway, that's ninety percent. If I kind of take
a little bit more cut off of the you know,
around the edge of the tree, that's maybe a fifty
percent kind of rate.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm going with the ninety You.
Speaker 5: Know, it's you know, if you just take that just
a little bit more time in looking what your options
are and not being the hero heroes to turn into
you know, it doesn't work most.
Speaker 4: Of the time.
Speaker 2: Zeros. Yeah, yeah, let's spend the last couple of minutes
here about working around the green. Okay, So now you've
taken that one hundred and fifty yards to the hole
and you've hit it. Actually, you've pulled out the wrong
club and your ego is too big, and you hit
it one hundre and thirty five yards. Now you're five
yards short of the hole and the pins in the middle.
The key here is to not chip and then two putt.
The key is to make that chip, get it as
close to the hole as possible for taping. That would
be the goal, well, right, the goals to make it,
but chances are that's not going to happen.
Speaker 5: Okay, So simply the way I kind of approach this,
I mean most people, and I think maybe one of
the worst clubs that might have been invented was the
sixty degree wedge because everybody wants to use a sixty
degree around the green because they can't stop the ball.
Speaker 4: Okay, you know, I think there's spots for that club.
But I think the first thing that you look at
is what kind of a lie do you have?
Speaker 5: How's my ball sitting? Is it in deep grass? Is
it sitting up? Do I have a nice lie?
Speaker 4: You know? Can I get to it? Okay?
Speaker 5: Then the second thing you look to is how much
ground is there? How much grass or how much ground
between my ball and the front edge of the green
where I'm going to you know, from the green or
the edge of the green to the hole. How much
green do I have to work with? Okay, so first
of all, how much how's my lie? How high in
the air do I.
Speaker 4: Have to get my ball? And how much ground do I.
Speaker 5: Have to carry to get the ball onto the green
and let it start rolling like a putt? So I
think when you start looking at once my ball lands
on the green, how much green do I have to
roll the ball out to the hole. So you're trying
to use the terrain of the green. So you're going
to use a golf club that's going to lift the
ball enough to get it over the fringe, get it
on the green and start rolling.
Speaker 4: So if you're five feet off the.
Speaker 5: Edge of the green and you've got a pretty decent lie,
and you've got thirty feet thirty forty feet to the pin,
and you hit a lofted club like a sandwich, you
get no chance because you're trying to you know, you're
trying to carry that you have to carry the ball
too far out onto the green and then you really
can't control what's going to happen when it lands. So
you take a nine iron, maybe pitching wedge, even an
eight iron, and just get the ball onto the green
and let us start rolling like a putt. So if
you approach it like that, I think you just have
so much more success because you're using the terrain and
using the slope of the green and rolling it.
Speaker 4: Like a putt.
Speaker 2: And then there's the whole concept of backspin or making
the ball check, you know, making it getting enough where
it's gonna hit and just hold tight, which is so
hard to do well.
Speaker 5: And particularly if you're close to the green because you're
not creating enough speed to spin the ball. I heard
a you know, just kind of going on backspin, and
I believe it was mister Venturi who said this at.
Speaker 4: A clinic one time. He was talking about people.
Speaker 5: Asking questions, and the guy asked him how.
Speaker 4: Do you back the ball up? How do you put
that backspin on it? And he was at Venturing asking
him how far do you hit your seven iron? He
said one hundred and twenty yards. He said, why do
you want to back it up? You know it's a
hitting balls with backspin is.
Speaker 5: Hard to do because, particularly around the green, I don't
think you can create enough speed in the club to
create backspin. You can create check if you're using the
loft of the club, and you know it has to
do with.
Speaker 4: Keeping your your lead arm ahead of the club head.
Speaker 5: So you're pulling the golf club through the ball and
you're not flipping it with your backhand right and that's
where you flip flip the club.
Speaker 4: If you're a right hand it's your right hand.
Speaker 5: You kind of your club head gets ahead of everything
else and the ball goes up in the air and
there's no spin on it at all.
Speaker 4: Okay, So it's it's really keeping your hands.
Speaker 5: Ahead of the club head and letting the loft of
the golf club create whatever height is going to come
out of it, and.
Speaker 4: The ball is actually going to spin.
Speaker 5: Okay, if you're in long grass, you're not going to
spin it out of long grass.
Speaker 4: It's it's almost impossible to do. You have to have
a clean light to get any kind of spin at all.
Speaker 2: So and so many people just try to get it
up in the air and let it kind of float down.
But really, are you advocating that you want to keep
the ball as low as possible, let it roll as
long as you can.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, you know, if you were standing on the edge
of the green and it wasn't a it was a
game of toss the ball and get it to roll
as close to that hole as you can or as
close to that target out there, okay, and you.
Speaker 4: Had to throw it with your hand.
Speaker 5: I'll guarantee you that ninety five percent of the people
are going to toss it low, and they're going to
get down low and they're going to roll it along
the ground and they're not going to throw it as
high as they can up in the air.
Speaker 2: That's a great way to envision it. Yeah, that's awesome.
What would you do if you were just throwing the ball?
Would you throw it?
Speaker 5: And I'll do this with a lot of beginners or
a lot of intermediate golfers that really are having trouble
with their short game, I'd say I'll hand them a
ball in their hand. I said, just toss it to
that hole, and they'll toss it out hip higher or
less and it'll roll out to the hole. Very seldom
will they stand there and they'll throw it, you know,
twenty yards up in the air, thirty feet or whatever
you want to call it. You know, nobody's going to
do that because they're looking at that hole and they're
just going to roll it out there. So if you
can get that concept and so the next time i'd
say to anybody that you're really struggling with, you know
what kind of a shot do I want to hit?
Speaker 4: Here? Is put a ball in your hand and toss
it out there.
Speaker 5: And now you can't really do this when you're playing
within a game, you know, but sometime maybe you're playing
nine holes by yourself, get out there and toss the
ball around the green, or go to the practice green,
if you're around the chipping green, you know, toss some
balls and see what the ball does when it's when
you're rolling it, and all of a sudden you're going
to start to get a really good fee fell and
a really good dea on the type of shot.
Speaker 4: And you want to hit.
Speaker 2: Information.
Speaker 5: Well, you got all those clubs in your bag, use them, yeah,
because they all can create different things.
Speaker 4: I mean, people get stuck chipping with one.
Speaker 2: Club, right, what's your favorite club to chip with?
Speaker 4: Uh? Probably a pitching wedge degree, probably.
Speaker 5: Fifty fifty two, you know, the fifty eighth versatile if
you're in longer grasp, you know, fifty eight to you
know the fifty eight to sixty, you know, but you
can take your if you've got a fifty six, you
can open it up a little bit, just lay the
club back and all of a sudden it's a fifty eight.
So you know, you can you know, you have again
good feel of what you're trying to do.
Speaker 4: You're looking at that lie, You're looking at.
Speaker 5: How much ground I have to carry to get that
ball rolling, And that's that's the swing I want to make.
Speaker 2: Awesome. Hey, Tom, you are a wealth of really fun
information and really valuable information. I really appreciate your time.
This has been a blast.
Speaker 4: I've had a great time.
Speaker 5: I just love I know how hard the game is
for the average player. And I think, just in closing
so much of the knowledge that or the information I
should say, that's put out there in the magazines and stuff.
As they always you know this is you know, they
they tend to talk to the advanced player and not
the average guy that's going out on the weekends and playing.
And my my goal in this game is to show people,
you know, how much easier the game can be they
can make it much easier and not trying to do
the stuff that is impossible for them to do physically
or mentally.
Speaker 2: It's something that that, to me, was got me motivated
to do this from the very beginning because I always
felt in watching the Golf Channel as they were talking
to single digit handicapped golfers and I didn't understand what
they were talking about. So I just went out and said, Okay,
I'm just going to be the weekend hack that I am,
and I have a lot of questions, so I'm going
to start asking.
Speaker 5: And I think it's it's awesome. It's awesome, and you're
absolutely right. It's you know, they're talking at a level
you know of advanced players who understand certain.
Speaker 4: Things, and and you.
Speaker 5: Know, the the average, the average golfer, which is the
majority of people.
Speaker 4: You know, they need you need to simplify it. You
need to make it make it simple, awesome. It's a
hard enough it's a hard enough game.
Speaker 5: I mean, and you put a four and a quarter
inch hole, you know, and you got a one point
six eight inch golf ball and it's five hundred yards
away and you're supposed to get it in that hole.
It's you know, and you look at it like that
as kind of crazy. So let's make it as easy
as we can.
Speaker 2: It's so true. I mean here, I've done, you know,
ten years worth of this stuff. I'm still talking about it,
and I'm still learning stuff that I'm I have aha
moments on a regular basis with these conversations.
Speaker 5: Well, and I do too. Standing on the lesson tee
and listening, I see stuff, and I hear stuff, and
I see things that I I you know, you continually
learn and see things, and that just kind of, you know,
makes me more more motivated to make it as simple
and as fun as I can for everybody.
Speaker 2: And that's why we love the game.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. They named it wrong. It should let's go play fun.
Speaker 2: But that was taken fun was yeah, yeah, let's go
a little with relaxation. Right, Well let's just go play good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there we go?
Speaker 2: All right? Tom Good?
Speaker 4: Perfect?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: And that's Tom Good at the Good Goolf Connection dot com.
Is your email address. If anybody wants to reach out
and talk to you.
Speaker 5: Some more, absolutely, please send me an email and I'll
be glad to shoot one back.
Speaker 2: Well, Tom, we are not We're not that far from
each other in proximity. So I hope I get a
chance to come down and visit with you and play
down there and we'll get more chance to talk. But
I hope that I can invite you back on the show.
Speaker 5: I'd love to you anytime, and you've got a free
wind coming, just come down and see me and we
can talk about more about my stupid philosophy about how
swinging you clubhead.
Speaker 4: I'll show you how you do that.