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