Speaker 1: It's the Son of a Butcher podcast. We come to
Speaker 1: you every Wednesday. I'm your host, Claude Harmon this week, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the weather's starting to change, and I think there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people that are going into a time
Speaker 1: period to where they're not going to be able to
Speaker 1: play as much golf as they would want to weather wise,
Speaker 1: getting out on the golf course. And I think these
Speaker 1: kind of winter months, if you are kind of not
Speaker 1: able to get out and play as much as you
Speaker 1: want because of the weather, I think the winter months
Speaker 1: are a good time for you to do some real,
Speaker 1: real work on your golf swing. So if you could
Speaker 1: think of, you know, when the weather starts to get bad,
Speaker 1: it's it's if you live in a place where the
Speaker 1: climate is you know, warm in the summer and not
Speaker 1: so great during you know, the next four or five
Speaker 1: six months, you can use that as kind of a
Speaker 1: off season, right, you can use that as an off season,
Speaker 1: similar to what a tour player would do to say, Okay, listen,
Speaker 1: I have my season where I play and then I
Speaker 1: use this time. I think a lot of people think, Okay,
Speaker 1: the weather's getting bad now I can't go out the
Speaker 1: way I used to and it's somewhat of a negative
Speaker 1: because you can't get out on the golf course, but
Speaker 1: you could kind of flip the switch and say, let
Speaker 1: me see this as a positive. Let me find a
Speaker 1: way to take what is going on in my golf game,
Speaker 1: the stuff that I've seen, you know, when I've been playing,
Speaker 1: and then really break down the areas where I can improve.
Speaker 1: And if you're a regular listening to the pod, you
Speaker 1: always hear me talk about the difference between technique and execution,
Speaker 1: and I spend an enormous amount of time talking to
Speaker 1: players about executing. That technique is important, but you need
Speaker 1: to learn how to execute. And I think if you
Speaker 1: are in a climate to where you're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to get out as regularly and play the game,
Speaker 1: you could use this time as Okay, this is my
Speaker 1: technique time. This is the time where I'm going to
Speaker 1: go ahead and whatever I'm working on in my golf swing,
Speaker 1: this is the time where I'm going to say, okay, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be so much outcome oriented here.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be very much concerned on fixing whatever
Speaker 1: these problems are. And I think there's a number of
Speaker 1: different ways. I also think this is a time where
Speaker 1: a lot of people are hitting golf balls. We're going
Speaker 1: into a time period to where maybe you're hitting a
Speaker 1: lot of golf balls into a net. So and I
Speaker 1: think there are ways when you're hitting into nets to
Speaker 1: try and work on a number of different things. But
Speaker 1: if you are going to be working a lot inside,
Speaker 1: and you are going to be working a lot just
Speaker 1: hitting balls into a net, it's tough to see where
Speaker 1: the golf ball's going. If you're on a simulator, you
Speaker 1: can kind of see it, but that's all kind of
Speaker 1: based off of you know, algorithms and simulations and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But what I think is really important in
Speaker 1: this offseason is, first of all, do a yardage check,
Speaker 1: right and find if you don't have one, find and
Speaker 1: get access to a launch monitor and say, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: going to go through and do a yardage check because
Speaker 1: I think over the course of a year, your yardage
Speaker 1: is changed. They kind of go up and down. There's
Speaker 1: times where you're swinging really really well and you'll be
Speaker 1: hitting the golf ball really really good, really really solid,
Speaker 1: and then there's times where you're not. So I think
Speaker 1: golf season and during these winter months it's a time
Speaker 1: to really dial in the yardages. Now if you do,
Speaker 1: if you've ever been on a launch monitor before, you've
Speaker 1: got access to a launch monitor, I think what you
Speaker 1: want to do is do it in reverse. So pick out.
Speaker 1: I mean, ideally you would want to go through this
Speaker 1: with your entire golf back right, every club in your bag.
Speaker 1: Get an idea of how far it goes. But if
Speaker 1: you don't have the time to do that, look at
Speaker 1: what your scoring clubs are, look at the clubs that
Speaker 1: you tend to use the most in when you're on
Speaker 1: the golf course, whatever, But get the clubs that you're
Speaker 1: using at your home course on a regular basis. Most
Speaker 1: golfers are not traveling golfers, right, they kind of play.
Speaker 1: They're not like tour players to where they're playing a
Speaker 1: different course every week, and the test that that course
Speaker 1: demands is going to be different from week to week.
Speaker 1: So it's going to not be super long. Maybe the
Speaker 1: rough isn't super super thick, maybe the fairways are wide.
Speaker 1: Maybe either it's a wide open golf course, maybe it's
Speaker 1: a treeline golf course. Whatever that golf course is. I
Speaker 1: think that's one of the things that you want to
Speaker 1: try and figure out, Okay, where do I play most
Speaker 1: of my golf and what type of shots and what
Speaker 1: type of game does that course demand. First of all,
Speaker 1: if you can get on a launch monitor, you want
Speaker 1: to make sure that you know how far you hit
Speaker 1: your wedges. Those are the scoring clubs. You're going to
Speaker 1: hit a lot of those. I see big, big gaps
Speaker 1: in how far people think they hit their wedges versus
Speaker 1: how they actually do hit their wedges. And again, work
Speaker 1: if you are going to get access and work on
Speaker 1: a launch monitor, work at it in reverse. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of Listen. I think some of the combines
Speaker 1: out there are really really good. You've heard me talk
Speaker 1: about wraps out of the launch monitor that I use,
Speaker 1: and they've got a combine. I think it's really really good.
Speaker 1: But one of the things I think you can do
Speaker 1: is do a combine, but do it in reverse. Okay,
Speaker 1: So whatever club that you're using, blind test that club.
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is get a club
Speaker 1: that you have an idea of whatever it is. Let's
Speaker 1: say it's your fifty six degree wedge and you've got
Speaker 1: an idea of how far you hit that. So let's
Speaker 1: blind test that. Let's hit five, ten, maybe twenty balls,
Speaker 1: and then go ahead and say, okay, let's say you
Speaker 1: think you hit your sand wedge ninety five yards before
Speaker 1: you out, actually look at how far your sand wedge
Speaker 1: is going, blind test it and say okay, I'm going
Speaker 1: to go through. You know, like I said, five ten, fifteen,
Speaker 1: twenty ball challenge, you're hitting shots to a target and
Speaker 1: you're just blind testing. You're just hitting these and try
Speaker 1: and do this without any kind of mechanical feels not
Speaker 1: really working on anything. From a technique standpoint, this is
Speaker 1: just let me get my wedge, this fifty six degree wedge,
Speaker 1: Let me get this nine iron, let me get this
Speaker 1: eight iron, the seven iron, the six iron, whatever the
Speaker 1: club is. Let me blind test it first from a
Speaker 1: yardage to see if I have a really good understanding
Speaker 1: as to how far I hit my club. And then
Speaker 1: you could even do this yourself. So on every ball,
Speaker 1: hit it, and on your phone or on a scorecard
Speaker 1: or something, right down, how far you think that went? Okay,
Speaker 1: So you're gauging how far the golf ball went off
Speaker 1: of the swing that you put on it. So you're
Speaker 1: gauging that off of how much the ball is curving,
Speaker 1: how much the ball is spinning, whether you hit the
Speaker 1: golf ball solid or not. But again, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of players are very and I've said this before
Speaker 1: on the Pod, I think a lot of golfers were
Speaker 1: very influenced by what we see on television and we think, okay, well,
Speaker 1: if Justin Thomas has got a wedge in his hand
Speaker 1: and he's hitting it from you know, he's got pitching
Speaker 1: wedge and he's hitting it from one fifty five to
Speaker 1: one to sixty. And then you hear that enough times,
Speaker 1: you hear Roy McElroy doing the same thing. You hear
Speaker 1: any of the players that you watch, You hear the
Speaker 1: same numbers over and over again for specific clubs. I
Speaker 1: think we get baited into that because if you watch
Speaker 1: a lot of golf, you're watching players hit on a
Speaker 1: lot of par threes, and there'll be a lot of
Speaker 1: similar clubs on the par threes. You rarely do you
Speaker 1: have a par three where there's three players in the
Speaker 1: group and there's a twenty to thirty yard difference in
Speaker 1: how far they hit the club into the par three.
Speaker 1: Watch golf on television, whether it's Men's, Women's Champs Tour,
Speaker 1: or wherever you're going to see a lot of players,
Speaker 1: especially on par threes, hitting kind of the same yardage
Speaker 1: and hitting the same type of clubs. So what you
Speaker 1: want to try and do is you want to find
Speaker 1: out how far you hit all of your clubs. And
Speaker 1: that's why I think it's important to do this blind
Speaker 1: and I think it would be really good for you know,
Speaker 1: a ten, fifteen to twenty ball challenge, Get a scorecard,
Speaker 1: get a piece of paper, whatever the clubs. Let's say
Speaker 1: it's a nine iron. You have an idea in your
Speaker 1: head of how far you hit the nine iron, So
Speaker 1: write down on a piece of paper, nine iron, and
Speaker 1: then how far you think you hit your nine iron right,
Speaker 1: and then go ahead and hit a shot, write down
Speaker 1: what you thought the yardage was. Then go through that.
Speaker 1: If you can get ten, if you can get fifteen,
Speaker 1: if you can get twenty, and then you've written down
Speaker 1: how far you think it went, then go to launch
Speaker 1: monitor and see what the difference is. What is the
Speaker 1: gap between that? Because I think a lot of time
Speaker 1: and ask yourself, did you hit this shot solid? So
Speaker 1: that's the other thing you could do. You'd blind test it.
Speaker 1: You grab your nine iron and you could hit the
Speaker 1: shot and say okay, on a scale of one to ten,
Speaker 1: one being the worst contact and ten being really really
Speaker 1: good contact, and give yourself a score out of one
Speaker 1: to ten. If it's really not good contact and stuff,
Speaker 1: maybe that's a five. If it's almost dead straight out
Speaker 1: of the middle, but you feel like it's a really
Speaker 1: good shot, maybe that's an eight, and you're writing down
Speaker 1: based off of the contact. Give yourself a score of
Speaker 1: one to ten. Then when you go through and look
Speaker 1: at the yardages you're hitting it, maybe okay, and I've
Speaker 1: seen this happen. Maybe the yardage that you think you
Speaker 1: hit it, the only way you're able to get that
Speaker 1: yardage is if the contact is at a ten, so
Speaker 1: it's perfect, perfect contact, which for the majority of golfers
Speaker 1: that's very difficult to do. We don't hit the golf
Speaker 1: ball solid all the time, and golf really is a
Speaker 1: game of misses. So I think having a good idea
Speaker 1: of how far you hit your clubs is vital. And
Speaker 1: I think that if you're hitting into a simulator, it's
Speaker 1: going to give you a number. If you're able to
Speaker 1: use a launch monitor, I think that's a very good
Speaker 1: way to do it. Or if you're on the driving range,
Speaker 1: pick out some targets, get your range finder out, pick
Speaker 1: a target out, and then figure out, Okay, that's my
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty target. Maybe that's my two hundred
Speaker 1: yard target. Maybe that's my one seventy five target. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's my one hundred yard target. Whatever the numbers are.
Speaker 1: But what I do think is important is getting that feedback.
Speaker 1: But the feedback based off of your fields. We always
Speaker 1: get asked how we create feel? Right, how do I
Speaker 1: create feel in my golf swing? And I think one
Speaker 1: of the ways you do it is you figure out, okay,
Speaker 1: what is your perception of how far you hit the
Speaker 1: golf ball and how far do you really hit the
Speaker 1: golf ball? And I think the difference between those can
Speaker 1: sometimes be really really different. I would do this with
Speaker 1: all of my scoring clubs, so my wedges. If you
Speaker 1: want to baseline it, you can do this. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you baseline your nine iron, if you baseline your
Speaker 1: seven iron, if you baseline your five iron, you're going
Speaker 1: to be able to fill in the gaps between the
Speaker 1: other swings. But a yardage check really really important. If
Speaker 1: you're a regular listener to the pod, you know that
Speaker 1: I've been drinking ag one for about a year now.
Speaker 1: Why did I start doing that? I really wanted to
Speaker 1: try and work on my wellness, my eating habits, and
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Speaker 1: Help listen. I've talked about this. I travel an enormous amount.
Speaker 1: I'm probably on the road over twenty weeks a year.
Speaker 1: It's hard for me to have the same kind of
Speaker 1: fitness and wellness regimen that I have when I'm at home.
Speaker 1: And that's what ag one has really done for me.
Speaker 1: Because I've said this before, I don't I don't need
Speaker 1: a lot of vegetables I should, but trying out AG one,
Speaker 1: it's it's made a massive, massive difference, and it's something
Speaker 1: that I think you can do as well. AG one
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Speaker 1: the road with me. Go to drinkag one dot com
Speaker 1: backslash ch three. That's drink ag one dot com backslash
Speaker 1: ch three. Check it out. If you want to improve
Speaker 1: your daily health and fitness regiment looking at how you
Speaker 1: hit the golf ball? What is your shape? Look back
Speaker 1: if you're someone that's kind of shutting things down and
Speaker 1: aren't really going to be playing a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: golf on the golf course, not really going to be
Speaker 1: playing a lot of competitions, Say to yourself, Okay, over
Speaker 1: the last season where I've been playing a lot of golf,
Speaker 1: what does my golf look like? Am I consistently hitting
Speaker 1: the golf ball from left to right? Am I consistently
Speaker 1: hitting the golf ball from right to left? Am I
Speaker 1: slicing the golf ball where it's overcurving to the right?
Speaker 1: Am I hooking the golf ball? Is it overhooking to
Speaker 1: the left, and the majority of the people I think
Speaker 1: that are listening right now are probably going to raise
Speaker 1: their hand and say, Okay, the predominant shot that I
Speaker 1: hit is left to right. The predominant miss I have
Speaker 1: is a slice right. So what that is is that's
Speaker 1: when the path starts to get when you slice the
Speaker 1: golf ball. If you're a right handed golfer, that's when
Speaker 1: that path starts to get excessively to the left. That's
Speaker 1: where the club face can start to come in very
Speaker 1: very open. I think the reason why the club face
Speaker 1: comes in in such an open position for most golfers
Speaker 1: is because the path is so far to the left
Speaker 1: that if you actually had the face square or released it,
Speaker 1: because the path is so far left of where you're
Speaker 1: trying to go, the golf ball would just go miles
Speaker 1: to the left. So as the clubs get longer, after
Speaker 1: we get after you know, wedge eight nine eight iron
Speaker 1: seven iron, I think you can get away with it.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times people will say, listen,
Speaker 1: I just kind of started a little bit left of
Speaker 1: my target and then it kind of fades a little
Speaker 1: bit to the right. But as those clubs get longer
Speaker 1: six five four, your hybrid's, your three woods, your drivers.
Speaker 1: I think for most people listening, the path is going
Speaker 1: to be left, that face is going to be open,
Speaker 1: and you're going to be hitting a shot that is
Speaker 1: going to be going dramatically from left to right. If
Speaker 1: that is your problem, I think that's during the season.
Speaker 1: You've got to be able to execute and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: even though I'm going to try and work on that shot,
Speaker 1: it's probably going to be tough for me to work
Speaker 1: on it and really get it out out of my game.
Speaker 1: So what you're going to do is say, Okay, I
Speaker 1: know that my path is excessively left to right. I
Speaker 1: see my divots down to the left, feel everything kind
Speaker 1: of steep. So what I'm going to do when I'm
Speaker 1: just hitting golf balls, whether I'm just hitting golf balls
Speaker 1: on the range, whether I'm hitting golf balls into a net,
Speaker 1: whether I'm hitting golf balls into a similar but I'm
Speaker 1: going to go work on my path. So again, if
Speaker 1: you have access to a launch monitor that gives you
Speaker 1: the path, you're going to be able to look at
Speaker 1: that number and see what that path number is. But
Speaker 1: what I do think is really really important is to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's try and work. Just as a generalization, Let's see,
Speaker 1: you're hitting golf balls into a net, you're hitting golf
Speaker 1: balls into a simulator, and you're just basically you know
Speaker 1: that that path is out to end. You know that
Speaker 1: that path tends to get left to right, tend to
Speaker 1: get those divots that tend to get steep. So there
Speaker 1: are a lot of different drills that you can do,
Speaker 1: but one of my favorites is, if you've got an
Speaker 1: iron in your hand, go ahead and take your setup.
Speaker 1: Take a headcover, take a floating noodle that you would
Speaker 1: use in a pool, something that's soft, you could use
Speaker 1: a club box, and then place that on the outside
Speaker 1: of the ball parallel to your target line. So it's
Speaker 1: going to give you a barrier if you come over
Speaker 1: the top of the golf ball. And I think if
Speaker 1: you are someone that excessively comes over the golf ball,
Speaker 1: and you put that head cover basically just parallel to
Speaker 1: your foot line on the other side of the ball,
Speaker 1: so that the big part of the headcover is at
Speaker 1: the back of your stance and the big part the
Speaker 1: top of the head cover would be more facing the
Speaker 1: front of your stands. Then I think if you give
Speaker 1: yourself that physical barrier, if you do come over the
Speaker 1: top of the golf ball, you are going to feel
Speaker 1: it because you're going to hit the object a club
Speaker 1: box to where if you're excessively coming over the top
Speaker 1: of the golf ball, you're going to come crashing into
Speaker 1: the club box. You could if you didn't want to
Speaker 1: do that, you could go ahead and get a golf
Speaker 1: ball and then take your set up and then put
Speaker 1: two golf balls. Put one on the inside of your
Speaker 1: golf ball and one on the outside of your golf ball,
Speaker 1: and that's going to create kind of a gate for
Speaker 1: you to swing through. Similar to if you were going
Speaker 1: to put teas down and you were trying to work
Speaker 1: on your putting and you were trying to put through
Speaker 1: the gate. We've seen tiger woods do that to where
Speaker 1: you're trying to put through a gate and you're trying
Speaker 1: to not hit any of the teas. Give yourself some
Speaker 1: room with your iron. You know, maybe you know a
Speaker 1: club head length maybe two club head lengths from your
Speaker 1: golf ball, So golf ball. Imagine you've addressed your golf
Speaker 1: ball and then one club head on the inside, two
Speaker 1: club heads on the inside one club head on the
Speaker 1: outside one club. So give yourself that gate. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: more tight and the more close you put that gate,
Speaker 1: the harder it is. But you're going to get a
Speaker 1: good idea of what you're doing on if you're hitting
Speaker 1: the inside ball, if you're hitting the outside ball, and
Speaker 1: then just working on that path. You could put two
Speaker 1: clubs down parallel to your foot line, and you could
Speaker 1: put them on either side of the golf ball and
Speaker 1: make you know, a path, a road, something that you
Speaker 1: could feel like the golf club would go down, a visual,
Speaker 1: a runway, a road that you could swing down and through. Right,
Speaker 1: so the clubs are pointing, you know, there's an inside
Speaker 1: club which would be parallel to your foot line, there
Speaker 1: would be an outside club which would be parallel to
Speaker 1: the other one. And then that's giving you a gate
Speaker 1: and a roadmap. If you make it wide enough, you're
Speaker 1: going to be able to see, Okay, that's my target
Speaker 1: line and all these divots are consistently left, and I
Speaker 1: can see that because I've got to find area of
Speaker 1: where I know my target line is. I've got two
Speaker 1: clubs down, two alignment sticks down. We see tour players
Speaker 1: do that all the time. But give yourself that road,
Speaker 1: give yourself that gait, and then you're going to be
Speaker 1: able to see how the club is working and then
Speaker 1: work the opposite. So if these paths are way left,
Speaker 1: if you can see that with the divot, if you
Speaker 1: can see that with the path, if you could see
Speaker 1: that with the number on a launch monitor, then try
Speaker 1: and work the opposite. So if the path is you know,
Speaker 1: six seven, eight degrees to the right, try and get
Speaker 1: that path, cut it in half and say okay, instead
Speaker 1: of being massively to the right and I'm overdrawing the
Speaker 1: golf ball, I'm going to try and say, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna swing. What I feel like is more left. If
Speaker 1: you're slicing the golf ball and you're massively out to
Speaker 1: in and you're over the top of it, and you
Speaker 1: know that path, as math will say, okay, I'm going
Speaker 1: to try and feel like I swing more out to
Speaker 1: the right. If you've ever played baseball, imagine that you're
Speaker 1: standing at home plate. Second base would be where the
Speaker 1: target is, and then if you're massively swinging over the top,
Speaker 1: you would be swinging to third base. So try the opposite.
Speaker 1: Try and feel like you're going to swing way out
Speaker 1: to first base, try and feel like you're going to
Speaker 1: swing out to the right, and I think having that
Speaker 1: ability and then if you can do both, then do both.
Speaker 1: Say listen, I'm going to swing left here and see
Speaker 1: what happens with the golf ball flight. Okay, now I'm
Speaker 1: going to feel like a swing to the right. Then
Speaker 1: I'm going to see what happens to the ball flight.
Speaker 1: But working that and working on it to where you're
Speaker 1: giving yourself some drills, you're giving yourself some barriers. And
Speaker 1: if you're on a range, there's not a lot of consequence.
Speaker 1: You're picking out of targets. You're not doing this on
Speaker 1: the golf course. And I think you know, these winter
Speaker 1: months are a really good opportunity for you to work
Speaker 1: on what your golf swing is doing, what that path
Speaker 1: is doing. If the golf club's getting in too much
Speaker 1: on the inside, trying to feel like that golf club's
Speaker 1: going more on the outside, the golf club is doing
Speaker 1: too much of the golf club going out, you can
Speaker 1: work just mechanics and drills, and this is your technique work. Right,
Speaker 1: there's your execution work when you play, and then there
Speaker 1: is your technique work. I think the winter months are
Speaker 1: a really good opportunity for you to work on your putting.
Speaker 1: If you can do this indoors. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: different putting products out there. Dustin Johnson has one the
Speaker 1: perfect practice practice. That's it's a mat that you put on.
Speaker 1: Phil Kenyon, who's been on the pod, he has his
Speaker 1: Visio matt that you can get online, which can put
Speaker 1: tea's in. You know, there's a there's a bunch of
Speaker 1: them that you could you could buy. You could just
Speaker 1: work on, you know, your start lines. You know, put
Speaker 1: a ball down. If you don't have a mat, put
Speaker 1: a ball down. Stick two balls about, you know, two
Speaker 1: three inches in front of yours, give yourself that gate
Speaker 1: and see if you can just consistently start the golf ball. Online.
Speaker 1: If you're on a putting green and you want to
Speaker 1: work on this, get a you know, three four five
Speaker 1: foot putt, make sure it's relatively straight, and then you know,
Speaker 1: do what we talked about the tiger woods drilled where
Speaker 1: you're hitting your your putts and you're putting teas on
Speaker 1: the other side of your on the heel of your
Speaker 1: putter and on the toe of your putter, and you're
Speaker 1: putting through a gate. You could do that, and then
Speaker 1: a little bit bigger than a golf ball, the size
Speaker 1: of a golf ball, the width of a golf ball,
Speaker 1: you could put on your intended start line. You could
Speaker 1: put another gate and all you're trying to do is
Speaker 1: not hit the teas as you're coming through impact, and
Speaker 1: then see if you can consistently start the golf ball
Speaker 1: on your target line. So I do think that you
Speaker 1: could if the length of your backswing with your putter
Speaker 1: is too long, you could put barriers to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to try and shorten or tighten up the
Speaker 1: length of my backstroke. I see a lot of putters
Speaker 1: that have that excessively long putting stroke on the backstroke
Speaker 1: and then they're decelerating through. So I think in the
Speaker 1: winter months where you're not really worried about outcome, you're
Speaker 1: just saying, okay, I'm just gonna work. Stroke mechanics is
Speaker 1: my putting stop. You can film it. You can film
Speaker 1: what your stroke looks like, you can film what your
Speaker 1: body's doing. There's a lot of stuff that you can
Speaker 1: do in this downtime where you're not playing constantly. So
Speaker 1: that's yardage check that's some stuff you can do with
Speaker 1: your full swing, and then that's some stuff that you
Speaker 1: can do with your putting. But one of the things
Speaker 1: that I think is probably one of the easiest low
Speaker 1: hanging fruit to improve your golf swing and improve your
Speaker 1: golf game as we're going into these winter months where
Speaker 1: we're not going to be playing as much as possible,
Speaker 1: is to work on your body, is to work on
Speaker 1: what you're trying to do physically. We've had Dave Phillips
Speaker 1: on the pod numerous times. He's one of the co
Speaker 1: founders of the Titleist Performance Institute. They have a website
Speaker 1: MYTPI dot com you can go on. They kind of
Speaker 1: look at their Big twelve swing characteristics of their swing falls, faults,
Speaker 1: and then they've got physical characteristics that kind of cause
Speaker 1: all those. So I think the winter months are a
Speaker 1: great opportunity if you haven't been physically screened. Your golf
Speaker 1: is important to you. Whether you're a competitive golfer, a
Speaker 1: single digit handicapper, someone just trying to break eighty or
Speaker 1: trying to break ninety or one hundred for the first time.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, there are probably some things going
Speaker 1: on in your body, some physical limitations that you have,
Speaker 1: and then if you can work on those and clear
Speaker 1: those and have an understanding as to how those affect
Speaker 1: your golf swing. I think the biggest physical thing that
Speaker 1: I see on a regular basis in all the lessons
Speaker 1: I give, regardless of the handicap level, is what we
Speaker 1: call early extension. So if you think about your lower body,
Speaker 1: your pelvis, most golfers, as they're trying to hit the
Speaker 1: golf golf ball on the downswing, the lower body, the
Speaker 1: lower pelvis, the hips, they're getting closer to the golf
Speaker 1: ball on the downswing, and as a result of that,
Speaker 1: the upper body has to kind of back up, their
Speaker 1: body stalls out. That's what we would call early extension.
Speaker 1: That's what we would call thrust. That's when your pelvis
Speaker 1: has an inability to rotate correctly around your lead hip.
Speaker 1: So if you're a right handed golfer, that is your
Speaker 1: left hip. So when we see that early extension and
Speaker 1: we see that lower body get closer to the golf ball,
Speaker 1: one of the characteristics that we see with the naked
Speaker 1: eye when you're looking at your golf swing on video
Speaker 1: or you're watching your golf swing would be balanced and
Speaker 1: would be seeing how much your weight goes to your
Speaker 1: toes as you start your downswing. As soon as your
Speaker 1: weight is going up to your toes in your left
Speaker 1: foot and your right foot, that means that lower body,
Speaker 1: your pelvis, is getting closer to the golf ball, and
Speaker 1: as a result, on the downswing, as that lower body
Speaker 1: gets closer to the golf ball, your upper body kind
Speaker 1: of goes backwards. So in reality, what's really happening is
Speaker 1: you're losing a tremendous amount of rotation and not only
Speaker 1: your lower body, but your upper body. And a lot
Speaker 1: of times we'll see this in balance issues. We'll see
Speaker 1: players that are way up on the toes. And again
Speaker 1: if you're hitting golf balls into a net or driving
Speaker 1: range or a simulator. One of the great things to
Speaker 1: work on with your wedges to help get that lower
Speaker 1: body to start to work better is just to hit
Speaker 1: kind of a nine to three. If you're a right
Speaker 1: handed golfer nine o'clock on the back swing with your
Speaker 1: hand position three o'clock on the follow through, with your
Speaker 1: hand position that nine to three, that kind of wiste
Speaker 1: tie back waist tied through, get a sand wedge, get
Speaker 1: a pitching wedge. Hit some of these and hit them
Speaker 1: and try and feel like you're hitting these nine to three.
Speaker 1: So nine o'clock on the back swing, follow through to
Speaker 1: three o'clock. Keep your right heel on the ground through impact,
Speaker 1: try and keep your left heel on the ground through impact.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good way to start to
Speaker 1: hit the golf ball solid. I think it's a really
Speaker 1: good way for you to start to say, oh wow,
Speaker 1: when I do that, I hit the golf ball more solid.
Speaker 1: And when I do that, I feel like my weight
Speaker 1: is more on your toe, on your heels rather than
Speaker 1: my toes. Most really good ball strikers, specifically with their irons,
Speaker 1: are going to have more weight in their heels than
Speaker 1: their toes. Most higher handicapped golfers tend to get a
Speaker 1: lot of weight on that downswing. They kind of jump,
Speaker 1: they get up on their toes, and they just don't
Speaker 1: hit the golf ball solid. Now, that can be a
Speaker 1: concept isssue to where you don't know you're supposed to
Speaker 1: have more weight in your heels at impact. You don't
Speaker 1: know you're supposed to have more weight on your lead
Speaker 1: foot than your back footed impacts. If you're a left
Speaker 1: or if you're a right handed golfer, you would want
Speaker 1: to have more weight on your front foot at impact
Speaker 1: than you would on your back foot. But one of
Speaker 1: the things going through a TPI movement screen with a
Speaker 1: TPI certified fitness trainer is you're going to have an
Speaker 1: understanding as too. Is that a concept issue or is
Speaker 1: that a physical issue? Do you have really really tight glutes?
Speaker 1: Do you really have really really weak glutes. Do you
Speaker 1: have the type of job where you sit all day
Speaker 1: to where you're just in a sitting, sedentary position. Are
Speaker 1: you in a car? Those type of jobs are not
Speaker 1: really conducive to a tremendous amount of rotation because you're
Speaker 1: not doing anything in your daily life that has any rotation.
Speaker 1: Most golfers are going to the golf course. They're not
Speaker 1: doing a warm up. They're not doing a dynamic warm up.
Speaker 1: They've been in a car, they've been sitting all day.
Speaker 1: They just go to the golf course. They do a
Speaker 1: couple of bullshit stretches that may be seen on TV
Speaker 1: that don't really have any real effect on anything. Their
Speaker 1: bodies cold, their muscles aren't loose, their muscles aren't warm,
Speaker 1: and then we get into a golf posture we bend over.
Speaker 1: You've been sitting in a desk all day. That lower
Speaker 1: back is tight, the glutes are switched off, they're weak,
Speaker 1: your hamstrings are tight. You don't have a lot of rotation,
Speaker 1: Your ability to squat to stay in that body position
Speaker 1: is compromised. And then you do all these things that
Speaker 1: we want you to do in the golf swing. And
Speaker 1: if you look at three of the most common things
Speaker 1: that I see from a swing characteristic standpoint, we see
Speaker 1: players coming over the top. We see a lot of
Speaker 1: players scooping at impact. We see a lot of players
Speaker 1: with that chicken wing. So those three golf swing characteristics
Speaker 1: that I'd say for the majority, I'd say, the average
Speaker 1: golfers that are not trying to play competitively that I
Speaker 1: teach the handicap golfers, I would say almost ninety percent
Speaker 1: of them come over the top, are scooping the golf
Speaker 1: ball at impact, have that chicken wing, and have that
Speaker 1: early extension. The lower body doesn't work well. So if
Speaker 1: you think about how your body and what we need
Speaker 1: your lower body to do at impact, having your lower
Speaker 1: body work correctly, having your lower body work efficiently, having
Speaker 1: an understanding of how your lower body works, in the
Speaker 1: golf swing, having an understanding that to start the downswing,
Speaker 1: the downswing needs to start with your lower body. The
Speaker 1: downswing doesn't need to start with the upper body. Wanted
Speaker 1: to take a moment and thank our partners at Rapsodo.
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Speaker 1: the regular golfers. Yes, if you've got thousands upon thousands
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Speaker 1: used to seeing on TV behind all the players shows
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Speaker 1: get better at your golf, having this type of technology
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Speaker 1: of the same numbers that the best players in the
Speaker 1: world are looking at. So obviously I work with players
Speaker 1: that are winning majors, winning tournaments, play all over the world.
Speaker 1: But when I'm not on tour, I work with regular,
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Speaker 1: with your game. One of the really good drills that
Speaker 1: I think is good, and this is great if you're
Speaker 1: hitting balls into a net. It's great if you're on
Speaker 1: a simulator or you're on the driving range. Take a
Speaker 1: nine iron, seven iron, an eight iron. You can do
Speaker 1: this off the ground. You can put it on a
Speaker 1: t and just say, okay, I'm going to go to
Speaker 1: the top of my backswing and stop, and then I'm
Speaker 1: going to count one to three and then I'm going
Speaker 1: to start my downswing and say go Now. If you're
Speaker 1: doing this drill in an ideal world, the downswing would
Speaker 1: be started by the lower body. The lower body would
Speaker 1: be the thing that starts the downswing. If you're coming
Speaker 1: over the top of the golf ball, if you're chicken
Speaker 1: winging the golf ball or the club through and back
Speaker 1: with that lead elbow, and you've got that kind of
Speaker 1: chicken wing elbow. A lot of times that's because that
Speaker 1: path is working massively from out to in. So you
Speaker 1: think that it's a path problem, it's an upper body problem.
Speaker 1: But a lot of times, if we can clean up
Speaker 1: how the lower body is working that drill to where
Speaker 1: if you're coming over the top of it, the arms
Speaker 1: are really getting steep and that path is getting to
Speaker 1: the left the stop start drill to where you're going
Speaker 1: to the top of her back swing, pausing for one, two, three,
Speaker 1: and then starting the downswing with your lower body. Now,
Speaker 1: when we have played players do this a lot of times.
Speaker 1: We'll have players top the golf ball, hit behind the
Speaker 1: golf ball, shank the golf ball because their arms are
Speaker 1: working faster than their lower body. So if your arms
Speaker 1: are working faster than your lower body, first of all
Speaker 1: you want to know is does your lower body physically
Speaker 1: have the ability to work in the way that you
Speaker 1: need it to do. Is it a physical issue, is
Speaker 1: it a concept issue? Is it a combo of both.
Speaker 1: I see a lot of players have that lower body
Speaker 1: combo to wear one. They didn't realize how much that
Speaker 1: lower body was getting closer to the golf ball. They
Speaker 1: didn't realize that that was causing the golf club to
Speaker 1: land behind the golf ball. To get that path to
Speaker 1: the left, so over the top that kind of scooping
Speaker 1: at impact where that left wrist, if you're a right
Speaker 1: handed golfer, to where that left wrist kind of breaks
Speaker 1: down and isn't solid. That also causes that chicken wing.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times we clean up what's happening
Speaker 1: with the lower body and the domino effect of what
Speaker 1: that does with the upper body, what that does with
Speaker 1: the wrist angles, what that does with the downswing really
Speaker 1: can be a game changer to where I'm a big
Speaker 1: believer in that the golf swing is a series of
Speaker 1: dominoes and there's a domino effect. And I think when
Speaker 1: you're looking at your golf swing, yes, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of different things going on. It's a dynamic movement pattern.
Speaker 1: You're swinging the golf club. You know, a second to
Speaker 1: second half to two seconds and the movement pattern is over.
Speaker 1: And so there's all of these different things. Like if
Speaker 1: you think about all of your body parts, you think
Speaker 1: about all the things that are going on. But what
Speaker 1: tends to happen is there is a flaw an issue
Speaker 1: that is the domino that is causing all of the
Speaker 1: other dominoes. So I think the off season is a
Speaker 1: really good opportunity for you to look at your golf swing,
Speaker 1: look at what's happening in your golf swing and saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: what is the big domain that is causing all of
Speaker 1: the things that are working in my golf swing. What
Speaker 1: is the one thing that I am doing that is
Speaker 1: causing everything else to fall in line? Because I hear
Speaker 1: players all the time say, listen, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: come over the top of it. I'm trying to swing
Speaker 1: more into out. I'm not trying to have the golf
Speaker 1: club go so inside. I'm trying to have the golf
Speaker 1: club work more outside. So you're never doing what you're
Speaker 1: doing in your golf swing because you want to. You're
Speaker 1: doing what you're doing in your golf swing because unfortunately
Speaker 1: you have to. So I think if you can understand
Speaker 1: how everything is interconnected, and that's why I think that
Speaker 1: in the off season, if you can go and go
Speaker 1: through a physical assessment screen to where you can say, okay,
Speaker 1: is this me or is this my understanding of the
Speaker 1: golf swing or my golf swing? So is it my
Speaker 1: body that's not allowing me to do what I want
Speaker 1: to do in the golf swing. Or do I just
Speaker 1: not know what I'm supposed to be doing, or I
Speaker 1: need a better concept. But I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people listening right now, you have something going on in
Speaker 1: your golf swing physically that isn't allowing you to do
Speaker 1: some of the things that you're trying to do from
Speaker 1: a technique or a technical standpoint. So that's why I
Speaker 1: think having a physical screen and going and saying, okay, listen,
Speaker 1: this is what my body can do. This is what
Speaker 1: my body can't do. The things that my body does well,
Speaker 1: these are the things that my body doesn't like to do.
Speaker 1: And as a result, now it makes sense as to
Speaker 1: why I would be swinging the golf club the way
Speaker 1: that I am because there's an issue with my physical
Speaker 1: that is causing an issue with my technique. The way
Speaker 1: I look at golf swings now is when I look
Speaker 1: at a player and I look at them swinging the
Speaker 1: golf club, I know that if they're a higher handicapped
Speaker 1: golf cert and they're swinging that golf club from out
Speaker 1: to in, they're slicing the golf ball, they're not trying
Speaker 1: to do that. They don't want to do that. They're
Speaker 1: trying to do the complete opposite, But my brain says okay,
Speaker 1: So I'll ask questions, do you know why you're slicing
Speaker 1: the golf ball. Yes, the club is working very much
Speaker 1: from out to in. It's cutting across the golf ball.
Speaker 1: The face is very open. I'm trying to swing the
Speaker 1: golf club more into out. Okay, that would be somebody
Speaker 1: that understands the concept. And then you'll have players that say, listen,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize I was swinging the golf club so
Speaker 1: much from out to in. I didn't realize I was
Speaker 1: so over the top of the golf club. So then
Speaker 1: you could say okay. And then if we look at
Speaker 1: their body and you could say, okay, well, your body
Speaker 1: is fine. You just don't know that you're not supposed
Speaker 1: to come over it. So then we can just change
Speaker 1: what they're doing from a concept standpoint. So I do
Speaker 1: think that most golfers will fall into that bucket of
Speaker 1: there's an element of a concept problem, but there is
Speaker 1: an element of a body position. And if you think
Speaker 1: about it, right, what I just said, that early extension,
Speaker 1: that lower body getting closer to the golf ball on
Speaker 1: the downswing, the upper body goes back. That causes over
Speaker 1: the top moves that causes hanging back, that causes weak scooping,
Speaker 1: poor impact positions that causes chicken winging, that can cause
Speaker 1: thin shots, that can cause fat shots that can cause
Speaker 1: not center concept or contact. So if we can have
Speaker 1: a better understanding as to how that pelvis works, get
Speaker 1: the lower body to rotate, you can do some movement
Speaker 1: preps and some body preps before you hit golf balls,
Speaker 1: before you get out on the golf course. That will
Speaker 1: start to wake up these muscles that will address what
Speaker 1: these issues are. I think the offseason and where maybe
Speaker 1: you're not hitting as many balls on the golf course
Speaker 1: and scoring and not playing as many rounds as you
Speaker 1: normally would, I think these are great times to work
Speaker 1: on the physical So you can go on to the
Speaker 1: MYTPI website, you can look at find a fitness professional,
Speaker 1: look at people in your area and sign up and
Speaker 1: instead of going taking a lesson, go get physically screened
Speaker 1: and see if there's some things that you can do
Speaker 1: from a movement standpoint. But I think this is a
Speaker 1: really fundamentally important time for everybody listening, regardless of your
Speaker 1: handicap level. If you don't live in an area to
Speaker 1: where the weather's good and you can get out on
Speaker 1: the golf course. I think a lot of people listening
Speaker 1: are in that kind of time of their golf to
Speaker 1: where Okay, I'm hitting a lot of golf balls, I'm
Speaker 1: hitting balls in a net, I'm hitting balls in a simulator,
Speaker 1: and I'm not getting out on the golf course and playing,
Speaker 1: scoring and executing. So for me, this is the time
Speaker 1: to where you really want to grind out that work
Speaker 1: on the technique, on your full swing, on your putting,
Speaker 1: and on your body. Those to me are three areas
Speaker 1: that if you don't have the opportunity to get out
Speaker 1: on a golf course, you can really do some things
Speaker 1: in the offseason, work on those three things, and they
Speaker 1: will really make a massive, massive improvement, so that when
Speaker 1: you do get back out on the golf course when
Speaker 1: the weather does start to get a little bit better,
Speaker 1: you can go and feel like, Okay, I've done some
Speaker 1: stuff in the off season. I've put the work in
Speaker 1: not only with my golf swing, but also with my
Speaker 1: body with my putting as well, and I'm ready to
Speaker 1: go and I'm ready to compete. So those are just
Speaker 1: a few things that I think are really easy to do.
Speaker 1: That you can work on in this off season as
Speaker 1: the weather starts to get a little bit cooler, and
Speaker 1: I do think that will have a big effect on
Speaker 1: your golf game once you get back out and playing
Speaker 1: on a regular basis. Want to thank everybody for listening.
Speaker 1: We've got a bunch of great podcasts in the bag.
Speaker 1: If you haven't listened, if you're new, go back and
Speaker 1: check them out. I think that if you want to
Speaker 1: listen to players talk about their game, we've got that.
Speaker 1: If you want to listen to instructors talk about their game,
Speaker 1: we've got that. If you are a golf nerd and
Speaker 1: just want to listen to people geek out, we've got
Speaker 1: episodes where they're very very golf specific. And if you
Speaker 1: want to hear about how golf impacts people's lives that
Speaker 1: aren't in the golf space, celebrities, musicians, actors, athletes, we've
Speaker 1: got that too. Son of a Butch comes to you
Speaker 1: every Wednesday. We will see you next week.