Speaker 1: It's the son of a bunch of podcast I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Claude Harmon. You guys know the drill. We come to
Speaker 1: you every Wednesday after last week's UM Podcasts with Pat Perez.
Speaker 1: If you haven't UM checked that out, go check it out.
Speaker 1: Figured we would dive into UM deep, deep deep into instruction.
Speaker 1: So if this is for all the instructors out there,
Speaker 1: if you're working on your game. UM. Jamie McConnell uh,
Speaker 1: he is the director of instruction at my academy out
Speaker 1: in Dubai. Was paying him a visit last week, as
Speaker 1: I do every year, and this guy is easily one
Speaker 1: of the smartest people that I know in golf instruction,
Speaker 1: and it was really really good to get an opportunity
Speaker 1: to UM sit down and talk to him and kind
Speaker 1: of get his views on on how he got into instruction,
Speaker 1: how he works and the stuff that he's doing, because
Speaker 1: as I say in the podcast, UM, he's a huge,
Speaker 1: huge part of of I team. But he's also been
Speaker 1: a huge mentor for me UM because I learned so
Speaker 1: much from other instructors and and that's the cool thing
Speaker 1: I think about UM. What I get to do is UM,
Speaker 1: I get to spend time with so many great people
Speaker 1: that are giving lessons around the world. UM, and get
Speaker 1: their ideas and get their views, and UM a lot
Speaker 1: of those ideas UM I take and and and using
Speaker 1: my own teaching. And and Jamie is somebody that UM
Speaker 1: he's a friend, he's a confidante, but he's also someone
Speaker 1: that I bounce ideas off of. UM a couple of times,
Speaker 1: you know, to three times a year, I'll be working
Speaker 1: with a player. UM. I've done this before with him,
Speaker 1: with with DJ, I've done this before with Brooks, with
Speaker 1: Pat Perez, with all the players see who Kim that
Speaker 1: I've worked with in the past. And sometimes I'll just
Speaker 1: send Jamie video and say, listen, UM, give me a
Speaker 1: fresh set of eyes on this. UM, we're trying to
Speaker 1: get this player to do X. And UM. You know,
Speaker 1: when you are working and engulfing as a as a player,
Speaker 1: when you're working with a player and you're a coach,
Speaker 1: sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees because
Speaker 1: you're so involved in it. And and Jamie is somebody
Speaker 1: that I will send video too of a player and say, listen,
Speaker 1: give me your two cents on this, UM, tell me
Speaker 1: what you think about this. And he always has kind
Speaker 1: of a different approach and and a lot of times
Speaker 1: it'll it'll send me down a path that I didn't
Speaker 1: really even think that I was going to go down
Speaker 1: and hadn't even thought of. So I'm really excited. Um,
Speaker 1: if you don't know, a lot of people don't know
Speaker 1: who Jamie is. I'm really excited for everybody to get
Speaker 1: to know his story and listen to him talk. So
Speaker 1: let's get straight to the interview. Jamie. How long I
Speaker 1: can't even think of how long you've been here in
Speaker 1: Dubai that the academy would have been. It's going into
Speaker 1: my tenth year at Schmidt or you knew my visa
Speaker 1: for the fourth time here, so almost a decade. It's amazing, Um,
Speaker 1: your journey to golf instruction. I mean, obviously for everyone
Speaker 1: listening to the podcast, I mean everybody knows, you know,
Speaker 1: who people like my dad are and and people who
Speaker 1: you know, David led Better, Sean Foley. But I always
Speaker 1: you know, they do these instructor lists every year in America.
Speaker 1: Top Golf Digest does Top fifty, Golf Magazine does the
Speaker 1: Top hundred and stuff. And you know, those of us
Speaker 1: that have been lucky enough I've been lucky enough to
Speaker 1: be on those lists. UM. Largely, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of that's popularity contest, UM largely. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of that sometimes is is people's work with tour players. UM.
Speaker 1: There are so many great instructors around the world. I'm biased,
Speaker 1: obviously because you run our academy here in Dubai, But UM,
Speaker 1: I think you're one of the best golf instructors in
Speaker 1: the world. I mean I learned is much from you, UM,
Speaker 1: and have learned as much from you in the last
Speaker 1: say ten years as as I've learned from anybody, but
Speaker 1: your your journey to golf instruction, UM. I always think
Speaker 1: it's interesting to find out why and how people become
Speaker 1: and choose instruction as their profession as their career. You played,
Speaker 1: you tried to play. I did a very bad job
Speaker 1: of plan. I did attempt to play for three years.
Speaker 1: I turned pro on my eighteenth birthday. Up to that point,
Speaker 1: I had a fairly average amateur career. Would say, I
Speaker 1: think I very much underestimated how many good players was
Speaker 1: out there, probably because of exposure. I hadn't really played
Speaker 1: the level that really a Rory McIlroy or somebody would
Speaker 1: have as an amateur. So I didn't because the difference
Speaker 1: in the US versus you know, a country like you
Speaker 1: grew up in in Ireland is in the US, if
Speaker 1: you're if you're playing, you're gonna play junior golf. Then
Speaker 1: you're going to play high school golf. If you want
Speaker 1: to keep going there, then you're going to try and
Speaker 1: play some level of of college golf, whether it's a
Speaker 1: D one, D two, whatever level junior college and then um,
Speaker 1: you try and then play Um. I don't think a
Speaker 1: lot of people in the US will realize that the
Speaker 1: avenue if you want to try and do that. In
Speaker 1: the in the UK and Ireland and Scotland, places like that,
Speaker 1: there was no high school golf for you. You're either
Speaker 1: in a county team then hopefully one day you get
Speaker 1: into the national team, but there's no real kind of
Speaker 1: organized team way to do it as as we see
Speaker 1: in the US. Right, So you just basically is an
Speaker 1: eighteen year old, you're playing a bunch of golf and
Speaker 1: you say, all right, I'm gonna turn pro. So you
Speaker 1: turn pro to eight team? Was that me? Yeah? Well
Speaker 1: that you know, up to that point, I suppose that
Speaker 1: the biggest thing I had won was actually your dad's tournament,
Speaker 1: the Red Bull Master Class. I had coaching off him
Speaker 1: and your three uncles at that point. Um Um was
Speaker 1: that Druid's heat drus he was rud he did. I
Speaker 1: think Marnock was the first year and then ruth Heath
Speaker 1: was the second, and then one year I was living
Speaker 1: in Scotland and we went down to um He and
Speaker 1: he and the brothers did one in um a Celtic man, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they went down and did that one. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: it was funny. My my dad, my dad and his
Speaker 1: brothers used to go over and do those um classes
Speaker 1: to where they would get a bunch of kids like yourself.
Speaker 1: And you know, obviously if you're going to places in Wales,
Speaker 1: if you're going to places in Scotland, if you're going
Speaker 1: anywhere in the UK. You know, my uncle Billy, my
Speaker 1: dad's youngest brother, who we've I've had on the podcast before,
Speaker 1: he loved it because he said, listen, it's ray inside ways.
Speaker 1: But the kids they don't know any different. They've got
Speaker 1: to hit golf balls. We didn't have any inside stuff,
Speaker 1: so they're hitting balls in the rain, they're hitting balls
Speaker 1: where it's raining sideways, there's no song and stuff. So
Speaker 1: you go to the Red Bull, you go to a
Speaker 1: red bulls it red Bull red Bull master Class. What's called. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we had a couple of days of instruction and
Speaker 1: then a tournament and like from winning that, I thought, however,
Speaker 1: I was probably sixties and it was a strong feel
Speaker 1: like there's some really good players. There was a couple
Speaker 1: of guys who played Walker Cup and I was like,
Speaker 1: I was over the moon. And I remember they always
Speaker 1: picked one person from the guys and the girls at
Speaker 1: the end, and I had won the tournament and I
Speaker 1: was like, great, I'm gonna get picked, going to go
Speaker 1: to Vegas, going to get the working budget, like all happy,
Speaker 1: and did it picked me? And I could never understand.
Speaker 1: I had such a grudge for so long until I
Speaker 1: started working here. And then I remember they picked Craig
Speaker 1: Drew and Craig bombed around this golf course. He had
Speaker 1: it all over the place, bombed around the course. But
Speaker 1: I like one ironed my way to win. And until
Speaker 1: I kind of started working for you guys, I then realized,
Speaker 1: like what they've seen from me, it was probably I
Speaker 1: was squeezing every last bit of score out of whatever
Speaker 1: limited talent they had, and then they see someone like
Speaker 1: Craig who just had so much speed and power and
Speaker 1: they're like, okay, I can make him better. I can't
Speaker 1: make that way back. I think that was That's what
Speaker 1: from working for you guys, I'm like, okay, I can
Speaker 1: see now why you would pick somebody else, because like
Speaker 1: when I see the standard now with the kids coming through,
Speaker 1: you can see like raw materials are all good, but
Speaker 1: like the worst thing you can have is an absolute
Speaker 1: polished seventeen year old who's just shooting under park. Whereas
Speaker 1: if you get a guy who's shooting like sixty two
Speaker 1: and then eighty two, you're like, okay, I can make
Speaker 1: that tidier, but you can't get the other guy. You
Speaker 1: can't give him a Ferrari engine if he's if he's
Speaker 1: got to be in the back of it. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that was the That was the thing that
Speaker 1: did it and pro you play for a little while,
Speaker 1: but like a lot of you know, people that have
Speaker 1: aspirations to play, you quickly realize how good the standard is,
Speaker 1: how good you actually really have to be, And so
Speaker 1: it's then that you decide to become a golf instructor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I ran out of cash. I had gone three years.
Speaker 1: UM in my third year at the debt starting to
Speaker 1: clock up quite heavily. In in the age of UM.
Speaker 1: Not just trying to turn this into talking about live
Speaker 1: because that's all anybody wants to talk about, but there's
Speaker 1: you know, when we look at people that are trying
Speaker 1: to play golf, and and and Pat Perez and I
Speaker 1: talked about this is, for some reason in golf, running
Speaker 1: out of money and trying to play and realizing that, okay,
Speaker 1: in order for me to keep playing and keep chasing
Speaker 1: my dream, I have to find money. I have to
Speaker 1: find backing, And for some reason in golf that's become normalized.
Speaker 1: And for some reason in golf it's it's romantic. Evidently
Speaker 1: it's romantic to to have to go and work fifteen
Speaker 1: jobs and all this stuff. And there are so many
Speaker 1: stories like that. Sue John Singh, who who works for
Speaker 1: us here in in in Dubai at the Academy, Sujohn
Speaker 1: played the Asian Tour. UM had some success. He said,
Speaker 1: you listen, he came over and walked around some practice
Speaker 1: rounds with me. UM at the Saudi International a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago. He's over there with Hunter bon Lahary
Speaker 1: and he's like, man, I just missed this so much.
Speaker 1: I miss being in competitive tournament golf so much in
Speaker 1: pat Perez, you know. And DJ said to him, all,
Speaker 1: why aren't you still playing? And he said, well, I
Speaker 1: just ran out of money. Yeah, you know. Now there
Speaker 1: is the argument to be made that Okay, the better
Speaker 1: you play, the more money you're gonna make. But when
Speaker 1: you're first starting out, it's expensive, and you get to
Speaker 1: a point where you say, listen, I just financialists your
Speaker 1: wealthy parents. Unless you have a backer, you just can't
Speaker 1: afford to keep playing. And I'm sure in Ireland and Scotland,
Speaker 1: in the UK and all over the world there are
Speaker 1: loads of young kids that had aspirations they wanted to play,
Speaker 1: they just they couldn't afford to continue to try and
Speaker 1: be a competitive golfer. And literally, that's that's what it was.
Speaker 1: There was four of us, you know, traveling around and
Speaker 1: playing together, and we all basically had the same kind
Speaker 1: of time that we all kind of rent at Casher
Speaker 1: ran into too much debt the same time, and yeah,
Speaker 1: we all had to go and do something to maintain
Speaker 1: it for another year. And that's pretty much what I've done,
Speaker 1: so it turned to doing my p GA so I
Speaker 1: could teach a bit and I can work in a
Speaker 1: golf club and I can do all that. And that
Speaker 1: was kind of the start of, you know, me moving
Speaker 1: on from playing. You know, after one year of that,
Speaker 1: you quickly realize like I'm not good enough, Like there
Speaker 1: is a point where You've got to call equit. And
Speaker 1: for me, I was looking around at some of the
Speaker 1: guys that was playing against and I was just like,
Speaker 1: I'm nowhere near Then what year was would this have been? Um? So,
Speaker 1: that would have been oh god, probably about fourteen years ago.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but two eight, which is when we started
Speaker 1: the Justin Parsons and I JP and I we started
Speaker 1: the academy here. JP came to work for me. UM.
Speaker 1: I lived in Dubai here for three years two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight to two thousand eleven. I left in May
Speaker 1: of of two thousand eleven. Um you got hired by
Speaker 1: Justin Parsons. And I remember JP, who I've had on
Speaker 1: the podcast before. He now works at CEA Island and
Speaker 1: he's doing an unbelievable job working with Harris English, Brian Harmon,
Speaker 1: Brandon Grace Lew You who says, and any Justin has
Speaker 1: become one of the elite tour coaches on the planet.
Speaker 1: But you're talking about how you ran out of money.
Speaker 1: You had no money. One of the reasons when when
Speaker 1: JP said he was going to hire you, he called
Speaker 1: me and I was in the States. I said, you know,
Speaker 1: what do you like about this kid, Jamie? And he goes, well,
Speaker 1: he bought his own track Man. So you buy a
Speaker 1: track Man in what year I bought it? It was
Speaker 1: not long after that, so I actually bought. The only
Speaker 1: way I could get it was that to take out
Speaker 1: a bank Loung. But I couldn't get any bank Kong.
Speaker 1: It's the only one I could get with a caroline.
Speaker 1: JP told me, the kid's broke. He literally has no money.
Speaker 1: And in two thousand nine eight, you buy a track
Speaker 1: Man for those for when for those of you listening,
Speaker 1: we see track Man's, we see launch monitors on the road,
Speaker 1: but track Man really the orange box. It's the first
Speaker 1: real track Man to come out. For those of you
Speaker 1: that don't know, track Man's called thirty grand. It's basically
Speaker 1: like buying a car. So we see these on the range.
Speaker 1: Now now we see everybody have these these launch monitors
Speaker 1: and stuff. It seems cost thirty thousand U S. Dollars.
Speaker 1: It's it's the equivalent of buying a car. You're broke,
Speaker 1: Why did you say to yourself, Aca, I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: out a bank loan and buy a track Man. I'd
Speaker 1: started teaching a lot and I was really enjoying it,
Speaker 1: but wanted to know more about it. And there was
Speaker 1: some kind of social media guys starting to use it
Speaker 1: and started to see it, and I was like, there's
Speaker 1: nobody using this, and I looked at I actually did
Speaker 1: a Google at the time, looked in Ireland and I'm like,
Speaker 1: there's eight track Man in Ireland, all track Man two units.
Speaker 1: Track Man three had just come out, so at that point,
Speaker 1: really the only people that are using them on a
Speaker 1: regular basis or the club manufacturers and fitters and professional
Speaker 1: golfers here even at that point not all professionals, and
Speaker 1: it was very few Clary Anni professional golfer units. It
Speaker 1: was mainly fitters. So out of all the track Men
Speaker 1: in Ireland, they were all fitters. So I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I could get this. It will help me figure out
Speaker 1: a bit more helping my students. I thought there was
Speaker 1: some cool thing that you could do in terms of
Speaker 1: like performance stuff as well. And yeah, I just decided
Speaker 1: I get a and you're a Caroline and I spent
Speaker 1: twenty one You wasn a track man in a thousand.
Speaker 1: You wasn't care, which the bank didn't find. So just
Speaker 1: to add to that, it was it was an interesting way.
Speaker 1: So let me make sure I've got the story right,
Speaker 1: because I've never really asked you this, but JP told
Speaker 1: me so. Then you decide, all right, I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: this track man because nobody's got one in Ireland really
Speaker 1: from an instruction standpoint, and I'm going to basically become
Speaker 1: a mobile track man service that travels around Ireland two
Speaker 1: golf courses to clubs and try and use that technology
Speaker 1: from instruction and offer your services. You've paid the twenty
Speaker 1: one euros for it, and so you're charging what to
Speaker 1: use it? Well, what we start? Let me tell you.
Speaker 1: I can tell you right now this does not sound
Speaker 1: like a money making venture. No it was not. It
Speaker 1: was it was enough to survive. Like all I knew
Speaker 1: at the time was I did not want to work
Speaker 1: in a proa show. I wanted to teach, So anything
Speaker 1: that got me closer to teaching and doing more errors
Speaker 1: on instruction and I could live off was enough. So
Speaker 1: I think at the time, I think we were charging
Speaker 1: of it two hundred fifty euros a day. And I
Speaker 1: said to the guy, I basically said, because again people
Speaker 1: didn't know that much about it. So I said to him,
Speaker 1: look you can if you have a shop, you can
Speaker 1: fit with this. If you want to teach with it,
Speaker 1: I'll be there as an either consultant or I'll help
Speaker 1: you teach it, or I'll happily just go and have
Speaker 1: a coffee and you can use whatever whatever when you
Speaker 1: wanted to do. And I've done the track my Master
Speaker 1: certificate very early, so I think it was the first
Speaker 1: in the U kN are the tabin and yeah, I
Speaker 1: just basically started mentioning pros that in you. I set
Speaker 1: up a Facebook page called the track Man road Show,
Speaker 1: the tracks shock Man road Show, and I just started
Speaker 1: asking guys and like, look, do you want to try it?
Speaker 1: I'm like filled the day or do it half day?
Speaker 1: And I just started with like a little bit here
Speaker 1: and there, and by the time we had had left
Speaker 1: for here, We're up to twenty six days a month um,
Speaker 1: just traveling around. And that was in the space of
Speaker 1: its seven eight months, and then you make the decision
Speaker 1: to right fund and publish your own book on how
Speaker 1: to use the track Man. And again we're in two
Speaker 1: This information now for all the instructors and all the
Speaker 1: people that are golf nerds listening, this is all readily available.
Speaker 1: Now you can go online. There's you know, thousands you
Speaker 1: can find. I mean, if you searched you know, track
Speaker 1: Man usage or anything in YouTube right now, you can
Speaker 1: find tons of videos. It's part launch motor technology now
Speaker 1: is part of what we do as instructors. It's part
Speaker 1: of golf to you write a book, right, Yeah, Well
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do is write track Man for dummies,
Speaker 1: but I got copied right on that, so that's changed.
Speaker 1: So I just called it track Man Understanding the numbers,
Speaker 1: and it's very sure. It's like but again this is
Speaker 1: in two thousand and yeah, probably tens and nine does
Speaker 1: and tents and we're in that um and yeah. Started
Speaker 1: with just what I wanted to do is put like
Speaker 1: simple application aaans to it, so like you could get
Speaker 1: the descriptions of what like face angle and pap war,
Speaker 1: but it was just like how to actually use them
Speaker 1: in instruction and how to just the basics of understanding,
Speaker 1: like if you said it to a fifteen year old kid,
Speaker 1: could they understand it? And could they understand how to
Speaker 1: work it? And yeah, I thought it was a good
Speaker 1: way of getting publicity. It was at the time again
Speaker 1: you said it wasn't. I wasn't making a lot of money,
Speaker 1: so like, even if I'm getting fifty hundred dollars a month,
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, there's another dollars a month to help
Speaker 1: me survive and live and pay bills and travel around
Speaker 1: the country with a little orange box. And it was
Speaker 1: funny because in the did you did you have track
Speaker 1: men road show on the car for everyone listening that
Speaker 1: lives in the UK? I did not. Did you get
Speaker 1: the sponsored car and put the thing on the side?
Speaker 1: Jamie McConnell I did the money. I wish I had
Speaker 1: the money to do that at the stage, I was
Speaker 1: just trying to get around. But yeah, we've done that
Speaker 1: for seven seven months and it was fine. It was
Speaker 1: doing really well. And I remember track Matt hated me
Speaker 1: because they couldn't sell any units because when when I
Speaker 1: was going around the country, people are like, why would
Speaker 1: have spends on the TrackMan? I can get this day,
Speaker 1: get the road day. And I was at that point
Speaker 1: looking at buying a second one. I was very close
Speaker 1: to get in a second one and being able to
Speaker 1: just hand one to certain people who knew how to
Speaker 1: use it. Let then have two three days, and then
Speaker 1: I was going to go with the other one to
Speaker 1: the people who didn't and start to kind of leverage
Speaker 1: it a little bit. But yeah, that was just before
Speaker 1: I had come out here. So let's take a quick
Speaker 1: break to think our partner for wellness. You guys have
Speaker 1: heard me talk about it. I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: their coffee, big fan of the good stuff. I put
Speaker 1: it in my coffee on a regular basis. The thing
Speaker 1: I like about it, no sugars, no artificial sweeteners. It's
Speaker 1: gotten me off dairy. Um, quit putting you sweeteners, sugars
Speaker 1: in just the good stuff. But I also put the
Speaker 1: good stuff, put a scoop of that in my coffee.
Speaker 1: But I also put it in smoothies and take it
Speaker 1: on the road with me. And the other thing that
Speaker 1: I've been using are their energy bites. UM. I keep
Speaker 1: them with me on the golf course. UM A lot
Speaker 1: of times when I'm out on tour, I don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of time to sit it and eat. So
Speaker 1: these energy bites, a little coffee hit, a little bit
Speaker 1: of energy, um, all the good stuff, all natural and UM.
Speaker 1: If you haven't given those to try, check those out.
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Speaker 1: for Wellness dot com slash Podcast. All right, let's get
Speaker 1: back to the interview. You know the thing I find
Speaker 1: interesting now. You know we cut to almost a you know,
Speaker 1: over a decade later. Um, when I watch you teach,
Speaker 1: when I come over here, and when we talk, I
Speaker 1: mean you and I talk. You know, you're running the
Speaker 1: academy here. I mean there's there's there's weeks where you
Speaker 1: and I talk daily there you know we deaf there
Speaker 1: isn't you know? It doesn't go longer than maybe two
Speaker 1: or three days where you and I don't talk on
Speaker 1: the phone. Um when we talk about instruction and we
Speaker 1: talk about that. I find it interesting when I watch
Speaker 1: you teach now, you would think, after that background, after
Speaker 1: all the stuff that you went through to kind of
Speaker 1: be an early adopter of the technology of teaching and
Speaker 1: using launch monitors for something other than instruction. Right, I
Speaker 1: only ever see you pull out a launch monitor for
Speaker 1: something very very specific, to look at something specific, and
Speaker 1: it's never for you right at this point, you know,
Speaker 1: when I watch you teach now, the launch monitor data. Yeah,
Speaker 1: every now and again you say, hey, let me see
Speaker 1: what this player does and and and get an idea
Speaker 1: of what they do. Right, But you and I have talked,
Speaker 1: and I say this in seminars that I give all
Speaker 1: the time. If you're an instructor listening to this podcast
Speaker 1: and you need a launch monitor to tell you what
Speaker 1: a player is doing, you need to get a new job.
Speaker 1: You need to find another profession. Because if you need
Speaker 1: a thirty dollar piece of technology to tell you that
Speaker 1: the path is left and the face is right or
Speaker 1: the path is right and the face is left. If
Speaker 1: someone's got a giant slice the numbers I think you
Speaker 1: use now and the data that you use now is
Speaker 1: to make your not make your case, but to say
Speaker 1: to the player, listen, this is what you're doing. It's
Speaker 1: not me guessing. This is what you're doing, and this
Speaker 1: is how to fix it. But I'm always taken aback
Speaker 1: by you. You probably are one of the best that
Speaker 1: I've ever met from an instructor. You adopt all the technology,
Speaker 1: you know how to use SAM, you know how to
Speaker 1: use captive, you know how to use all of this technology.
Speaker 1: But I don't really see you use it as much
Speaker 1: as I would think. Right, It's not like every single
Speaker 1: lesson you give is from a full swing standpoint is
Speaker 1: looking at data. Not every single putting lesson you give
Speaker 1: is using technology. So there is this constant, I think
Speaker 1: for the instructors and for the golf junkies out there listening,
Speaker 1: this balance of data versus real world. You know Carl Morris,
Speaker 1: the sports psychologists called you know, I've been on his podcast.
Speaker 1: You've done a lot of work with him. He does
Speaker 1: great work in the UK working with players. He looks
Speaker 1: works with a lot of tour players. Um it was
Speaker 1: Phil Kenyon. We were in Saudi a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: ago and we were talking about the subject. Phil and
Speaker 1: I are just sitting having breakfast, and you know, Phil said,
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about data and information. And Phil
Speaker 1: said something and it just blew me away. He said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's an example of information rich data
Speaker 1: I mean information rich, knowledge poor. And I said, feel
Speaker 1: that's Unbelievable'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you full
Speaker 1: credit when I use that. And he said, I didn't
Speaker 1: say that. Dr Carl Moore said that, And I think
Speaker 1: we are at a stage in instruction now to where
Speaker 1: we are data rich, information rich, but knowledge poor and
Speaker 1: how to apply that? So, how have you over the
Speaker 1: last decade said, Okay, we have all of this technology
Speaker 1: that can tell us all of the stuff about what
Speaker 1: players are doing. We no longer have to guess, we
Speaker 1: no longer have to do any of this stuff. But
Speaker 1: how do we use this information and use the technology
Speaker 1: to help players get better? I think I've I've kind
Speaker 1: of had a habit to use it and reverse remember
Speaker 1: doing the presentation of the track Man and I call
Speaker 1: it track man without the numbers. So like I love
Speaker 1: like the picture of the range, then the line and
Speaker 1: just having the dead straight ball the target line, because
Speaker 1: I gotta tell people to stand up and right you
Speaker 1: have to start right of that and curve left and
Speaker 1: like if they're slicing it to begin, and then they
Speaker 1: start to do that and I'll go, well, here's your
Speaker 1: path to begin, here's your path at the end. So
Speaker 1: it's stead of going numbers to picture, you're gonna picture
Speaker 1: and then on hiding the numbers. And it means that
Speaker 1: like they actually start to get something they can feel
Speaker 1: use and understand, and like, to me, that's the way
Speaker 1: it should be used. It shouldn't be just like point
Speaker 1: out the data. It should be like change it and
Speaker 1: then go okay, it was here and now it's here.
Speaker 1: Here's the understanding. But they immediately have the feel of
Speaker 1: what to do rather than the information because the information
Speaker 1: to useless. And I think it always goes back to
Speaker 1: like Justin used to hammer me on this and he
Speaker 1: committed the officent and I think it was your dad
Speaker 1: saying it was like, don't teach what you can't use
Speaker 1: on the back then and someday and it's like you
Speaker 1: don't have a track on the back round and something
Speaker 1: you don't have a sound, and like they're huge, the
Speaker 1: great pieces of technology, but if you're if you're standing there,
Speaker 1: you know on the last team, you've got to hit
Speaker 1: a draw. It doesn't matter what information you've got, You've
Speaker 1: got to be able to hit a draw, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And that was the one thing that
Speaker 1: always stood out. And he used to just absolutely obliterate
Speaker 1: this and this all the time, and even watching you
Speaker 1: and your dad teach, like there's never anything complicated. Like
Speaker 1: Tom who's working for a snare or fitness trainer. You know,
Speaker 1: he and said, watching you in a lesson, he just
Speaker 1: came in with this shock look in his face. I'm like,
Speaker 1: he okay, He's like, it's just so easy. What do
Speaker 1: you mean It's so easy? He goes. He just makes
Speaker 1: it look so easy. It was so simple. And you
Speaker 1: know I always say to you, like the best lesson
Speaker 1: I've ever seen you give was so maybe five year
Speaker 1: old guy, and through it in and you had liked
Speaker 1: big the biggest chicken wing you've ever seen. You had
Speaker 1: video them not showing them. You put spin, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: put dynamic loft on the screen and it was like
Speaker 1: fifty five degrees and you were like, get that down
Speaker 1: to thirty, and you just kept saying yeah, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: And by the end of it, he's got the straightest
Speaker 1: left art And you've ever seen the impact change and
Speaker 1: you're not changed and the numbers changed. And that was
Speaker 1: six years ago, and that lesson to me always stands
Speaker 1: out and like you changed it by saying very very little,
Speaker 1: but you changed it in a huge way. And he
Speaker 1: understood it. He's like, oh, if the loft does this,
Speaker 1: my arm does it. And he felt it. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: your in you before he had even seen the change.
Speaker 1: He could see the ball flight and he could feel it,
Speaker 1: and he knew what he was doing. It didn't matter
Speaker 1: about the picture looked like. But then goes out and
Speaker 1: the picture, like you say, have some buy into it,
Speaker 1: helps them go okay right now, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's never a day it's like that was eating. It's like,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna get it. Deliferent this one based on
Speaker 1: where you started, you know, your instruction journey, and where
Speaker 1: you are now, how do you feel like you've evolved
Speaker 1: and changed? You know, if you could go back and
Speaker 1: look at the lessons. I say this all the time. Um,
Speaker 1: if I could go back and find the people that
Speaker 1: I gave lessons to when I was working at my
Speaker 1: my dad's golf school in Vegas and tigers there and
Speaker 1: all the best players in the world are there, I'd
Speaker 1: give them their money back because I didn't I didn't
Speaker 1: know ship. I didn't know anything. I just kind of
Speaker 1: knew what my dad said, I knew what some other
Speaker 1: people said. I had no real world kind of practical application.
Speaker 1: I was under my dad's umbrella. You know, I didn't
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't know anything. How is your journey
Speaker 1: from when you've started, When you look at what you
Speaker 1: were teaching and and trying to help players with ten
Speaker 1: years ago, five years ago, how has that evolved? And
Speaker 1: I think for the instructors and the golf chunkies listening there,
Speaker 1: there has to be an evolution. You shouldn't know everything
Speaker 1: when you start, right, But how is your joursey? You
Speaker 1: can't know everything right, Um, how is your jour How
Speaker 1: do you How do you teach differently now than you
Speaker 1: taught maybe ten twelve years ago. I think I'm comfortable
Speaker 1: with saying less and if, like if Justin's listened to this,
Speaker 1: he'll have a chuckle at this. Like literally almost every lesson.
Speaker 1: He used to tell me, if Jamie could just quit talking, right,
Speaker 1: if Jamie could just learn how to quit talking, because
Speaker 1: he's trying so hard to give all of this information
Speaker 1: that that he's got in his head, which is all amazing,
Speaker 1: fantastic information, but it's too much. But it's too much,
Speaker 1: and it's it's I think the other thing as you
Speaker 1: as you give more lessons and you just keep going
Speaker 1: back to the simple stuff. Like we had a kid
Speaker 1: in yesterday, really good kid, shot a decent score at
Speaker 1: the weekend, super strong, grip way behind it, and I
Speaker 1: you know, I said to him when it was the
Speaker 1: last time you're worked in your grip. He's like like
Speaker 1: a year and a half on five knuckles, left hand grip,
Speaker 1: And I said, week in your left hand and knock
Speaker 1: left hand, right hand super under the club. And I
Speaker 1: think the big difference with that is now I'm comfortable.
Speaker 1: I know from from doing two thousand golf asens a
Speaker 1: year for the last ten years. I know if it
Speaker 1: fixes grip and getting the punchet, he's going to deliver perfectly,
Speaker 1: Whereas ten years ago it's like, Okay, you're not even
Speaker 1: given to yourself that this will have such a big effect.
Speaker 1: So you you kind of almost compensate by talking, and
Speaker 1: you're trying to convince them you're smart, and like people
Speaker 1: look at it now and go, is that it? And
Speaker 1: I'm like yeah, and I'm like look and oh, that's
Speaker 1: all I have to do. Yeah, And it's getting comfortable
Speaker 1: with giving less. I think that's the biggest difference for me.
Speaker 1: But I look back where I was like, I knew
Speaker 1: a lot of the information. I thought I knew everything.
Speaker 1: I thought I had ten percent to learn. Now I'm like,
Speaker 1: I think I've got ninety percent to learn. But it's
Speaker 1: funny like in ten years, you're just getting used to
Speaker 1: giving less and a lot of lessons become repetitive. But
Speaker 1: that's not a bad thing. You know, if if if
Speaker 1: you had everybody in a good grip post set up
Speaker 1: takeaway chances, they're going to hit it better. There's not
Speaker 1: many people that walk in with a perfect grip. There's
Speaker 1: so many of the average golfers. And when I say
Speaker 1: I say this all the time, you know, I'm lucky
Speaker 1: to live in two worlds. I live on I live
Speaker 1: in the tour world. I've been lucky enough to work with,
Speaker 1: you know, some amazing players who I've learned a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount from, and and that's you know, I think largely.
Speaker 1: You know, probably one of the differences between you know,
Speaker 1: the people listening to this podcast is they know who
Speaker 1: I am because of the players I've worked with, and
Speaker 1: they don't know who you are because they haven't heard
Speaker 1: your name on TV. They haven't seen you on a
Speaker 1: driving range or anything like that. But very rarely for
Speaker 1: the average golfer. To me, average golfers are people that
Speaker 1: you're not seeing on TV the amount day in and
Speaker 1: day out that we see a fifteen handicapper come in,
Speaker 1: who has got a good grip, who sets up to
Speaker 1: the golf ball well properly, who has good ball position, right,
Speaker 1: the basic fundamentals grip, stance, posture, alignment, the stuff in
Speaker 1: that is so not the norm, right, It's so not
Speaker 1: the rage right now. It's not sexy, it's not cool,
Speaker 1: it's not the new thing. It's not to lay it
Speaker 1: down and all that bullshit. Right, Um, so many golfers,
Speaker 1: like you said, could improve so much by just spending
Speaker 1: six months on having a consistent, good grip a A.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say neutral, but I always say when I
Speaker 1: look at golf swings and setups, I think so many
Speaker 1: golfers and so many people listening to the podcast, they
Speaker 1: have something in their set up from ball position, alignment, posture,
Speaker 1: or grip that is extreme. It is out of the norm, right,
Speaker 1: It is not normal for what a good player does.
Speaker 1: Obviously there have been great players David Duval, four knuckles
Speaker 1: in an elbow, Um Jose, Muriel thobl weak grip. There
Speaker 1: are outliers, right, But I think it's interesting that you
Speaker 1: say that if if that, if everyone listening would just
Speaker 1: improve the obvious things that you do before you hit
Speaker 1: a golf ball. You know, we always talk about you
Speaker 1: and I have talked about this a lot a long time. Um,
Speaker 1: the grip, the posture, the set up, the alignment is
Speaker 1: the same thing that players that play golf on a
Speaker 1: regular basis don't do well. And then that domino effect.
Speaker 1: They have something extreme in their grip, they have something
Speaker 1: extreme in their posture, they have something extreme in the
Speaker 1: ball position that from there it's almost an accident or
Speaker 1: just dumb lock. If they somehow match it up and
Speaker 1: hit a good shot and that's why so many players,
Speaker 1: Jamie come to us and say, listen, I'm hitting it
Speaker 1: so bad. And we've talked about this. The average person
Speaker 1: listening to the podcast that plays golf on a regular basis,
Speaker 1: they're more surprised by the good shots than they are
Speaker 1: by the bad shots, right, and they can't repeat the
Speaker 1: good shot. And so it's interesting that you said that
Speaker 1: having the basics done makes the rest of what you're
Speaker 1: trying to do more attainable. And I always use the
Speaker 1: example of like, if you look at the top ten
Speaker 1: players in the world, they've all got very different swings,
Speaker 1: very different characteristics based on how their bodies moving. You know,
Speaker 1: you see things that you have the stories like John
Speaker 1: ram at his foot as a child, and obviously you're
Speaker 1: not going to get everybody to swing it the same. JT.
Speaker 1: Justin Thomas is a bit of a throwback. You know.
Speaker 1: We see a lot of players with that backswing being
Speaker 1: super super vertical, that left arm plane, the high hands.
Speaker 1: The modern golf swing is much, i would say, more
Speaker 1: more rounded and flatter than the way JT swings the
Speaker 1: golf club. Um, you know Jordan's speace grip. You know
Speaker 1: when Jordan's speech came on the scene and and started
Speaker 1: to play, you know, professionally. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people in golf instruction watched him, you know, tour players
Speaker 1: to our coaches were like, yeah, I mean, the kids
Speaker 1: got to change that grip to be able to compete.
Speaker 1: And he hasn't changed any of them. And I think
Speaker 1: the thing is, you know, don't look for those nuances
Speaker 1: that they have. Look for the common out of these
Speaker 1: they all stand too good. They all set the ball
Speaker 1: position good. The posture is generally all good. You know.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's many of the modern players now
Speaker 1: as I think as the modern golfer has become taller. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think most of the players that were
Speaker 1: starting to see you see this in players that are
Speaker 1: starting to play, that that want to play competitively, they're
Speaker 1: bigger then. They're bigger than they were ten fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: They're taller. You know a lot of the juniors that
Speaker 1: we're seeing now that are that are choosing golf as
Speaker 1: the pathway. Um, they're over six ft tall, right, and
Speaker 1: so um the posture changes now you just like you said,
Speaker 1: the top ten players in the world, their postures are
Speaker 1: pretty good. You know, everybody sees on Instagram these positions
Speaker 1: to where you know every year, you know, every so
Speaker 1: often they cycle through all the different positions that players
Speaker 1: get into at the top. But like you said, at
Speaker 1: address ball, position wise and set up wise, the things
Speaker 1: that they do before they hit the golf ball tend
Speaker 1: to be they don't look the same, very very very common.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what not only like players, but
Speaker 1: I think coaches need to do that for longer too,
Speaker 1: because like coaches tend to jump around a lot. We
Speaker 1: we get people into the academy and you know, if
Speaker 1: I know they've had lessons with somebody else, a's else.
Speaker 1: The theme been of your lessons, as in, assuming they've
Speaker 1: worked on one thing for a period of time, and
Speaker 1: they go, well, I de gripped and then it de posture,
Speaker 1: and then it did release, and then I did this,
Speaker 1: and then it was reversed fine, and then I was
Speaker 1: trying to get one and I'm like, how many lessons
Speaker 1: in that? I got like six? And you're kind of like,
Speaker 1: how are you meant to get any of that? And
Speaker 1: then they set up to it poorly and you're like,
Speaker 1: all right, grip post yourself. If you start from there,
Speaker 1: you have a better chance of doing everything else right.
Speaker 1: But you're not going to do this in a day
Speaker 1: or a week, like this should be your plan for
Speaker 1: the next month, two months, three months, depending on what
Speaker 1: it is. And you'll see people want to move a
Speaker 1: certain way because of their body, so like if their
Speaker 1: body is always moving that way, they will have to
Speaker 1: constantly work at that. Like you look at Tiger, he's
Speaker 1: always you know, a little cross the line at the top.
Speaker 1: You know, that never really changed through the years, except
Speaker 1: maybe that two thousand to two thousand and two where
Speaker 1: it was pretty much your you know, ideal or model swing.
Speaker 1: But even when you see him injured or he'd come back,
Speaker 1: it would always go a little bit that way because
Speaker 1: that's the way his body wanted to move. And you think,
Speaker 1: like everybody's got that, and you think Tiger never can
Speaker 1: completely mastered it. Nobody's made the perfect game. Yet you know,
Speaker 1: you've got to swing within your own limitations and find
Speaker 1: your swing. I think, as you said it a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, you had to remember you had a
Speaker 1: little like cube but you I think it was your
Speaker 1: granddad swing in it, and I remember there was a
Speaker 1: quote on it. It was like there's only one. It
Speaker 1: was something like, there's only one swing for you, but
Speaker 1: that swings not for everybody. Yeah, I mean you know.
Speaker 1: Arnold Palmer famously said, swing your swing right, Um, do
Speaker 1: you feel like people? You know? For everyone listening, I
Speaker 1: always say, and I said that a lot this week
Speaker 1: here in Dubai to the team. Um, you know, not
Speaker 1: only from an instruction standpoint, but from what we're trying
Speaker 1: to get players to do is do the obvious things. Well.
Speaker 1: The obvious thing that you can control as a golfer,
Speaker 1: whether you're fifteen, ten, five scratch handicapped, is the way
Speaker 1: you set up to the golf ball. Because all that
Speaker 1: happens before the golf swing starts. It's hard if you
Speaker 1: feel the golf swing a little stuck and under coming
Speaker 1: in on the inside to let go of the golf
Speaker 1: club mid down swing and stop. If you feel yourself
Speaker 1: start to come over it, in two seconds, your golf
Speaker 1: swings over, it's hard to let go of the golf
Speaker 1: club and say, listen, I didn't hit the ball because
Speaker 1: I felt myself coming off, so I just stopped right time.
Speaker 1: Tiger was famous for being able to stop his golf
Speaker 1: swing right. The average person has got no chance to
Speaker 1: do that. So if you do the obvious things well
Speaker 1: in your grip, your posture, your set up, your alignment,
Speaker 1: and like you said, just work on that for five
Speaker 1: six months. Just work on the grip being consistent, work
Speaker 1: on the posture, work on the alignment, the ball position.
Speaker 1: Then you've got a good chance to address some of
Speaker 1: the other things, definitely, And it's it's sticking to your plan,
Speaker 1: you know, sticking to the things that you know we're
Speaker 1: going to make you better. And if everybody walked in
Speaker 1: here with a grip posture set up that was good
Speaker 1: and probably have a lot less gold lessons, So you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Like that, that to me is
Speaker 1: and I hammer the guy who's on it. Like if
Speaker 1: if the grip posture has set up a good they've
Speaker 1: got a chance. If any of those are off, it's
Speaker 1: a domino effect. It's going to throw other things off
Speaker 1: later on in the swing and then you're just firefighting.
Speaker 1: You're just hoping that they find a way to get
Speaker 1: the club back. And that's the thing that's within your control.
Speaker 1: So do that really well and get really good at that.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's the one thing I noticed what
Speaker 1: our junior is like just looking at them over and
Speaker 1: over and over again, especially the slightly older ones that
Speaker 1: we've had for a few years. There's very few of
Speaker 1: them to set up badly, you know, they all they
Speaker 1: might get a little off of alignments and things like that,
Speaker 1: but generally speaking, they all grip a good they all
Speaker 1: set up to a good and it's something that the
Speaker 1: guys have done a really good job, Like across all
Speaker 1: of our instructors, you can see. That's why you're getting
Speaker 1: so many good kids. It's not that we're really good
Speaker 1: at teaching the swing and that we're really good at
Speaker 1: just get the basics right and they can kind of
Speaker 1: figure it out after that. You know, they all, they
Speaker 1: all have enough time and enough skill to figure out
Speaker 1: the golf swing. But the biggest thing is just making
Speaker 1: sure that they're in a position from the get go
Speaker 1: that they can allow their talent to kind of take over,
Speaker 1: as opposed to us having to manufacture swings all the time.
Speaker 1: Inside right there, you go, go play, go enjoy it.
Speaker 1: You know, a good start point and you can figure
Speaker 1: it out and play place. Guildfoot off on that. Let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break and we are back. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people I think most people listening to
Speaker 1: the pod, they know what Dubai is, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: Dubai is kind of this iconic you know, skyscraper or
Speaker 1: place in the desert. Um, it's very much an international destination.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've all been, we've all marveled over the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years. Um, how much Dubai has grown
Speaker 1: and changed. And for for a lot of people that
Speaker 1: have never been here, they come here for the first
Speaker 1: time and it's it's literally like they're in a science
Speaker 1: fiction movie. I mean, and they've just never seen anything
Speaker 1: like it. So it is a it is a global place.
Speaker 1: It is a global destination. But from a golf standpoint,
Speaker 1: this is still a very very very small Gulf region. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, there's probably you know, anywhere between two to three,
Speaker 1: maybe even four million people living here in Dubai. And
Speaker 1: how many golf courses are there? Probably at six the
Speaker 1: sixteen in the UA. And for those people that don't
Speaker 1: know the U as the United Arab Emirates, it's made
Speaker 1: up of different emirates. Dubai is an emerate very similar
Speaker 1: to a state in the US. Within Dubai, just Dubai itself.
Speaker 1: How many golf courses on a ten can't be more
Speaker 1: than ten and the majority of the people in the
Speaker 1: UA live in Dubai, so it's a small golf market. UM.
Speaker 1: I'm really proud of the fact that, Um, what we've
Speaker 1: done is helped develop players. There's a wall as you
Speaker 1: go into our our gym facility here at the academy,
Speaker 1: here at the Els Club. UM that it's really cool
Speaker 1: that you did this. You put our logo in the
Speaker 1: middle of it and then put the names and the
Speaker 1: colleges that all the people we went to. How many
Speaker 1: names are on that? Would you say there's all there's
Speaker 1: a bit twenty or so on it. Probably another seven
Speaker 1: or eight to go on it. Ye, so you know,
Speaker 1: close to thirty kids that have gone and played some
Speaker 1: form of college golf in America. UM. Rayhan Thomas is
Speaker 1: at Oklahoma. Stay right now, Toby Bishop just went to
Speaker 1: the University of Florida. You're really, I think have been
Speaker 1: at the forefront. In my opinion, UM, I think you're
Speaker 1: one of the best junior golf developers in the in
Speaker 1: the world. Really. UM, you've put together this program kind
Speaker 1: of like a high school golf program here in Dubai,
Speaker 1: here in the U A which again outside the United
Speaker 1: States just doesn't exist. You know, if you if you
Speaker 1: played college golf in America, most likely you played high
Speaker 1: school golf on some team. Talk me through why you
Speaker 1: wanted to kind of. So we've created this elite junior program,
Speaker 1: this elite junior team, um you know, across the board
Speaker 1: currently our junior program here um in in Dubai, how
Speaker 1: many kids from start from early ages to the late stages?
Speaker 1: I mean, for a four, we've got kids in our
Speaker 1: junior program here at start early as oh three years old,
Speaker 1: three years old, so we go from three to elite
Speaker 1: juniors who were in their late late teens. How many
Speaker 1: kids do we currently have enrolled in our junior program
Speaker 1: from the young to the old hundred hundred nine and
Speaker 1: the junior program and then give or take there's probably
Speaker 1: thirty in the various differently, So with that many juniors
Speaker 1: coming through our you know, our doors here, was that
Speaker 1: the reason why you said, okay, we've got to find
Speaker 1: a way to create a different or another pathway for
Speaker 1: the elite player. Yes, you know, it's developed. It was
Speaker 1: an idea that Justin had, and Justin had begun it
Speaker 1: just before he had left, and it was just quite
Speaker 1: difficult to get off the ground, mainly because of the
Speaker 1: schooling side of things. It was trying to get the
Speaker 1: right skill to attached then and Jem's first point came
Speaker 1: along and it was a perfect fit. But to me,
Speaker 1: it was just it's trying to give them the next
Speaker 1: little target. So like as kids, we found that when
Speaker 1: our junior program, initially they would get to tournament ready,
Speaker 1: which is our top one. They could reach that by fourteen,
Speaker 1: but then they would just go into individual and we
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to keep that team aspect to We
Speaker 1: wanted them to feel like they could be, as you
Speaker 1: said the other day, like a part of something bigger.
Speaker 1: And we also seen the value at group stuff because
Speaker 1: we get a lot of those kids when they reached
Speaker 1: that that like, right, we want to come for individual
Speaker 1: instruction four times a week, And I would say a
Speaker 1: comparentcy no, and they're shocked by it because they're like,
Speaker 1: but we want to. I'm like, yeah, but it's useless
Speaker 1: for your child. It would be much better off if
Speaker 1: he came once a week to me any practice and
Speaker 1: played with his friends. And obviously with the limited golf
Speaker 1: courses here, you also have limited access for the juniors,
Speaker 1: it's quite difficult sometimes for them to get on a play.
Speaker 1: So the idea behind the kind of elite programs were
Speaker 1: basically to bring together players of similar levels, because we
Speaker 1: noticed a lot with like Josh Hill, Toby Argan, they
Speaker 1: were they were almost like a little mini team at three,
Speaker 1: and as they grew up they pushed each other. So
Speaker 1: off the back of that we were like, Okay, there's
Speaker 1: definitely something in having groups of kids similar level create
Speaker 1: friendships and also push each other and push them in
Speaker 1: the right way. Like I always remember watching them play
Speaker 1: the Ballot series when Year and I think combined there
Speaker 1: was something like thirty five under power miles ahead of everybody,
Speaker 1: but like they'll be playing against each other and one
Speaker 1: of the balls to be going towards the water, the
Speaker 1: other two be showing to sit because they didn't want
Speaker 1: to win by them messing up. They wanted to win
Speaker 1: by them making birdies and big the other guy, and
Speaker 1: like that always just that memory of them stood out,
Speaker 1: and to me that was the driving force. Was like
Speaker 1: trying to finish a project that JP had started, trying
Speaker 1: to give get more of those groups together that would
Speaker 1: really bring each other on, because like Okay, coaches can help,
Speaker 1: but actually it's much more about the environment that that
Speaker 1: helps them develop, because really, if we weren't here and
Speaker 1: they created that environment themselves, the chances are they would
Speaker 1: still get really good. So all we're doing is trying
Speaker 1: to basically ramp that up and go right. Well, if
Speaker 1: we can give good coaching plus that environment, they're going
Speaker 1: to get better quicker, and we're gonna get more. And
Speaker 1: for me, like last week, I said to the team
Speaker 1: last Sunday, it was just when you were arrived. I
Speaker 1: was like to me, this is the must predit day
Speaker 1: I've had a nine years. And the reason why I
Speaker 1: was at fifty four juniors. You posted that on on
Speaker 1: your Instagram account. Fifty four juniors competing across three different events.
Speaker 1: It's a Part three event, a Junior Open and Events Open,
Speaker 1: and there's fifty four kids from the academy. I'm like,
Speaker 1: that is a huge number from an academy to be
Speaker 1: competing in three events across the v The other thing
Speaker 1: I think for people listening is is is in the
Speaker 1: developing in the outside the United States, maybe outside UK
Speaker 1: and stuff. A market like Dubai is is a a
Speaker 1: developing golf market right, There isn't the A J G
Speaker 1: A right. There is some US, but you know, for
Speaker 1: the majority of people you know listen to this podcast
Speaker 1: that come from the US, it's normal for your kids
Speaker 1: to you know, in Florida where I live, there's the
Speaker 1: Hurricane Tour, there's I j G T, there's you know
Speaker 1: a j G there's there's a there's five different junior
Speaker 1: tours that your kids can play on here in in
Speaker 1: in a in a region like Dubai, there's none of that.
Speaker 1: There's no organized junior golf development tour like the A
Speaker 1: A G A like there are all around the United States.
Speaker 1: So the kids have to play in a lot of
Speaker 1: tournaments where they're playing not against their peers, not against
Speaker 1: kids their own age, they're playing against in tournaments at
Speaker 1: country clubs, at golf courses with adults. And and so
Speaker 1: I think what I love when I come here and
Speaker 1: I get so many different ideas and ways of thinking
Speaker 1: about things, is I see you developing so many more
Speaker 1: real world type drills and skills and stuff. UM, talk
Speaker 1: to me about how you come up and give me
Speaker 1: some examples of, you know, for the for the people listening,
Speaker 1: UM of an example of Okay, so you've got a
Speaker 1: junior class and this is our elite program here. These
Speaker 1: are all good players. These players all say they want
Speaker 1: to try and play competitively at some level. They all
Speaker 1: want to hopefully go play Division one college golf in America.
Speaker 1: Some of them have aspirations to play professional golf. But
Speaker 1: typical class, what are you trying to get the groups
Speaker 1: to do, because in the group lessons, they're not doing instruction,
Speaker 1: they're doing playing and testing. Talk me through that. I think, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do is just recreate playing scenarios.
Speaker 1: We're also trying to challenge them mentally, like we're trying
Speaker 1: to create situations where they're going to fail because at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, like I think, it's very
Speaker 1: easy to just be that kind of parent who wraps
Speaker 1: them and bubble wrap and never lets them fail, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, they end up, you know,
Speaker 1: at some point in their life or in their golfing career,
Speaker 1: and they fail and they don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: So I supposed for us, we're always trying to make
Speaker 1: them challenge and fail at different points in time, and
Speaker 1: we want them to kind of think of a lot
Speaker 1: of their sessions as play. You know, it's the opportunity
Speaker 1: to try things, the opper genity to compete. It's teaming
Speaker 1: up at different people all the time. And like examples
Speaker 1: would be, you know, the other day, we had a
Speaker 1: really simple and we had every time they had to
Speaker 1: go back to a drive, so they would alternate drive
Speaker 1: and a short game shot and a pair of too
Speaker 1: so you'd have to hit one out of two on
Speaker 1: the fairway and then they would have to do And
Speaker 1: what I like about this is also you know here
Speaker 1: in in Dubai and the u A and I think
Speaker 1: all over the world, it's hard to get juniors on
Speaker 1: the golf course. But that is a constant theme that
Speaker 1: everybody that is involved with junior golf, for all the
Speaker 1: parents listening, unless you are a very very wealthy person
Speaker 1: that lives in the United States and your child can
Speaker 1: go to a country club and they're gonna have access
Speaker 1: to the golf to a golf course. But there are
Speaker 1: so many people listening to this podcast who have who
Speaker 1: are either a junior golfer a competitive golfer that can
Speaker 1: look back at their career and say, yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: have access to a golf course and so I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that I love about what you
Speaker 1: do and what we're trying to do here is we're
Speaker 1: trying to create ate a competitive golf course situation, but
Speaker 1: unfortunately they're not on the golf yes exactly, So like
Speaker 1: we we have to do the best for what we have.
Speaker 1: So if there's weeks where we can't get on the
Speaker 1: golf course, we will straight away go towards skill testing
Speaker 1: and having some fun with them doing that and again
Speaker 1: making them see practice as played. The worst thing for
Speaker 1: them is standing on a range for four and a
Speaker 1: half hours hitting golf ball after golf ball, and then
Speaker 1: they go on the golf course and they have no
Speaker 1: idea how to actually hit shots. Um. So we're always
Speaker 1: trying to recreate the environment where we can't access the
Speaker 1: golf course, and then if we have any kind of
Speaker 1: time to get on the golf course, we'll just bring
Speaker 1: them straight out and we'll do different things, but on
Speaker 1: the golf course and wherever possible, because ultimately that's what
Speaker 1: we have to do. It's play. It's actually how do
Speaker 1: you get involved from ah being the lowest of many structs,
Speaker 1: and it's interested in seeing the kids because you have
Speaker 1: certain ones who are really polished and look great in
Speaker 1: the range and the cant go and score, and then
Speaker 1: you have other ones who look very average, they don't
Speaker 1: look great in certain tests and things, but then they
Speaker 1: really are good at putting it together. And I think
Speaker 1: that's the interesting thing, is how do you develop them
Speaker 1: to play better faster, not necessarily just swing the golf
Speaker 1: club really nice. And like all of our training sessions,
Speaker 1: like we'll sit in the office, the whole team, and
Speaker 1: we'll just throw around ideas and we'll try it, and
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes they're really hard on their way too hard,
Speaker 1: and we'll have to make a lastminut adjustment. And sometimes
Speaker 1: they're way too easy, and again we'll have to adjust.
Speaker 1: But it's like, I suppose the thing that I love
Speaker 1: about our team as well, is that we're all willing
Speaker 1: to throw our two cents in and talk about it
Speaker 1: and debate it. And even the other day when you
Speaker 1: did the speed test, like you said, it's like, I
Speaker 1: wasn't sure that was gonna work, but it worked really well.
Speaker 1: So let's do that more often. And it's it's that
Speaker 1: willingness for us to try things and also for the
Speaker 1: kids to try things, and sometimes they'll put their hands
Speaker 1: up and out terrible, and they'll go and work on
Speaker 1: that and you'll see them actually around the recreating those
Speaker 1: games sometimes. So if they get one they really like, like,
Speaker 1: you'll see them and you'll you'll watch them from a
Speaker 1: fire just in their own practice time, and they'll be
Speaker 1: moving around the school and you're like, oh, they're actually
Speaker 1: they've just copy that game and that's where you put
Speaker 1: a big star. And I was like, okay, do this
Speaker 1: one again, you know, because they like that, We've we've
Speaker 1: even tried to extend that into just normal clients. We
Speaker 1: started to do something called the train and Plan, So
Speaker 1: three times a week, anybody's single figure better, you can
Speaker 1: come along to this class and it's done exactly the
Speaker 1: same way. So it's done as a competitive practice, and
Speaker 1: it could include one part of the game, it could
Speaker 1: include every part of the game. You just don't know.
Speaker 1: And we'll come up with it on the on the
Speaker 1: morning off and we'll come up with some sort of
Speaker 1: challenge and they've got to compete against each other. And
Speaker 1: again it's trying to introduce play to instruction rather than
Speaker 1: just teaching them heads fing golf. So let's take a
Speaker 1: short break and we will be back right after this.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get back to the interview. So this
Speaker 1: is the part of the podcast where where people are
Speaker 1: going to get, you know, some stuff for free. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I want you to give everyone listening um a
Speaker 1: putting game that they could play, right, they could add
Speaker 1: a range at their one, a short game, one for irons,
Speaker 1: one for drivers. Come on, give me give me a
Speaker 1: good putting game that everybody listening could take out and say, okay,
Speaker 1: you could just this is this is kind of the blueprint.
Speaker 1: Do this one. I think probably the most valuable one
Speaker 1: that I use is that you know, putting wise is
Speaker 1: actually stolen from your a friend Cameron McCormick, and really
Speaker 1: simply your market starting point. Inside of a fifteen feet
Speaker 1: you take two teas and you basically make a gate
Speaker 1: in the middle of the line just a bit bigger
Speaker 1: than a put her head apart, and then you make
Speaker 1: a semi circle of teas behind the whole about a
Speaker 1: foot and a half. That's safe. Yeah, So you've got
Speaker 1: three points available. You've got a point if you get
Speaker 1: it through the gate. You've got a point if you
Speaker 1: get the speed right, and then the final points of
Speaker 1: ye hold. I mean, I think you have learned and
Speaker 1: and and I think it's also important to to say this, Um.
Speaker 1: This is something that my dad says all the time.
Speaker 1: And I think you've been a great adopter at this.
Speaker 1: My dad always says in seminars, you know, when he
Speaker 1: gives instruction. You know, I think my dad's the best
Speaker 1: golf instructor in the world. Um, he's on the mountain
Speaker 1: Rushmore in my opinion of golf instruction. Um. But he
Speaker 1: always says in in in seminars, I have invented nothing
Speaker 1: in golf instruction. And there are golf instructors out there
Speaker 1: that love to try and act like they've created something
Speaker 1: and it's something new and it's there as a loan
Speaker 1: and they're really secretive about it and they're not going
Speaker 1: to tell you all about it. But you've been You're
Speaker 1: looking at all of these different things that you can
Speaker 1: do from other instructors. And then you know Cam, who
Speaker 1: you and I have a tremendous amount of respect for
Speaker 1: Cam is big on um and I've had him on
Speaker 1: the podcast for Cam is big on testing and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So you're trying to get them to feel
Speaker 1: these things. Yeah, absolutely, And you know, like I think
Speaker 1: it's always a balance, you know, You're always you know,
Speaker 1: in my head, I've always balanced probably between you know,
Speaker 1: things like that that I love to try and play with.
Speaker 1: Like I've always loved skill development, always really enjoyed that,
Speaker 1: Like looking at Cam Corey and a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: Ed cockland back and I and you know that that
Speaker 1: side really interests me because like a lot of that
Speaker 1: is very applicable. But then also like when I look
Speaker 1: at justin teaching, like he's so good again the technical
Speaker 1: side right quickly and in a very easy manner. It's
Speaker 1: it's always like it's a bit of a game, right
Speaker 1: and even with certain players, certain players are going to
Speaker 1: need more of one and work better with more of one,
Speaker 1: and certain players are more of another. And it's trying
Speaker 1: to get that balance between good technique, good method, but
Speaker 1: also getting into like, okay, well how applicable is this?
Speaker 1: Can you hit that job? And I always remember you
Speaker 1: with Toby a couple of years ago, was the first
Speaker 1: time you had met him, and he had said he
Speaker 1: wanted to play college golf and he wanted to be
Speaker 1: a PGA Tour player, and you just said to him, write,
Speaker 1: hit ten shots in the same shape, and you stood
Speaker 1: for an hour and just said no to him. And
Speaker 1: I've never seen that boy is quiet in my life.
Speaker 1: But like that hit a cord because every single day
Speaker 1: for the next month, he still there just doing that
Speaker 1: one drill and he just wanted to hit ten shots
Speaker 1: and wrote the same shape. And then he started coming
Speaker 1: up with his own way of doing it, and he'd
Speaker 1: like adding targets and add in tightness and had to
Speaker 1: be within a certain range. And like I love that
Speaker 1: because that's really applicable. And all he kept doing was
Speaker 1: like one shape, one shape, one shape, and it's yeah,
Speaker 1: we steal everything, like and because people have figured out
Speaker 1: a better way to do it. Like I I can't
Speaker 1: actually think of anything anything really that I haven't stolen
Speaker 1: from somebody. And it's just this huge mixing pot of
Speaker 1: people that have met. Like obviously, I would say a
Speaker 1: lot of it comes from justin you and your dad,
Speaker 1: because they're the three biggest influences I have had. And
Speaker 1: then like you branch off and you go, well, you
Speaker 1: know the people you've introduced me to, the guys like Cameron,
Speaker 1: you know, I love looking at his stuff and artists,
Speaker 1: and I love looking at what they do, and I'll
Speaker 1: take some of them and go, it's not really like that,
Speaker 1: And there's other stuff that will take and go it's
Speaker 1: not I really don't like that. And you kind of
Speaker 1: have to filter it because there's just so much information,
Speaker 1: like to everybody, to instructors to players, like you have
Speaker 1: to be able to filter it, and some people will
Speaker 1: be better filter than than others. And it's trying to take,
Speaker 1: you know, new stuff and go, right, Can I take
Speaker 1: one thing from it? Don't need it all, just like
Speaker 1: it's the one thing there that could help do something
Speaker 1: a little better. I think if you can do that,
Speaker 1: you get better as an instructor and you probably get
Speaker 1: better as a player. So the drill potting fifteen ft
Speaker 1: and where do you put the gate? So the gates halfway.
Speaker 1: It's just a bit bigger than a put a lens
Speaker 1: of the idea would be if you pictured like a
Speaker 1: pro tracer line that kind of goes along the ground,
Speaker 1: the goal is at the gate is in the middle
Speaker 1: of the line that you see, So the left or
Speaker 1: right pot and you read a foot a break, you're
Speaker 1: a foot left of the whole. The ball should pass
Speaker 1: through the gate for a point at good speed for
Speaker 1: another point, and if it's both are perfect the ball
Speaker 1: and going the hole, you've got three. So you hit
Speaker 1: five pots from the tee through the gate into the
Speaker 1: hole hopefully, and then you move the pot, so there's
Speaker 1: fifteen points available each time. And it's great because it
Speaker 1: helps you identify is your speed good, is your read good?
Speaker 1: Or is your start line good? And hopefully it's all three.
Speaker 1: But if you then see a problem at one, you
Speaker 1: have an area to focus on. And I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that a lot of players do is
Speaker 1: they practice their technique. It's something that that everybody who
Speaker 1: listens to the pod knows that I'm a big this
Speaker 1: balance of technique versus execution and executing what you're doing.
Speaker 1: I like what you do with all of these games.
Speaker 1: And just because it's you're working on something, you're working
Speaker 1: on the technical aspect of something. Then you're testing it.
Speaker 1: Most people think the test is going to play the
Speaker 1: golf course. You and I have talked for years. You've
Speaker 1: got to test it before you take it to the
Speaker 1: course to see if anything you're working on is actually working.
Speaker 1: And these games that you go through, actually this one
Speaker 1: where you've got three different checkpoints. You get a point
Speaker 1: for this, you get a point for this. You'll probably
Speaker 1: maybe be good at one, maybe two of them, but
Speaker 1: you'll be bad at another. So it allows you as
Speaker 1: the player to say, Okay, I've just did this little game,
Speaker 1: this little test, this little um you know, skill development thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty good at this. I'm pretty good. I just
Speaker 1: need to go practice that part of it, all right.
Speaker 1: Give me a short game, one short game, one bad ball,
Speaker 1: two balls. Play the worst ball each time until you
Speaker 1: finish the ball off. You have two chips, but you
Speaker 1: everyone's further from the whole. You hit two pots from there.
Speaker 1: If you hold both of them, job done. If you
Speaker 1: miss one, play two pots from there. Proper pressure that one.
Speaker 1: That's hard as well. Like you, you do that in
Speaker 1: any kind of difficult scenario. Just worst ball each time,
Speaker 1: and do that when it's it's good. Give me a
Speaker 1: full swing game test that everyone listening can do on
Speaker 1: their own driving range without any sort of other you know.
Speaker 1: That's the great thing about this. If you have a
Speaker 1: if you have a putting green, if you have a
Speaker 1: short game area, um, if you have a driving range,
Speaker 1: even if you don't have a great short game area,
Speaker 1: you can go somewhere on the on the driving range
Speaker 1: and try and make one up yourself. But give me
Speaker 1: a full swing um game that you like to see players.
Speaker 1: I always like the cheapman's track man, which is an
Speaker 1: alignment stick on your balls target line just pointed straight up.
Speaker 1: How how many steps out? So probably about four or
Speaker 1: five steps at So you have to basically hit a
Speaker 1: shape around it. So if you're fader, you've got to
Speaker 1: start at left, curve it right and can't miss over
Speaker 1: the right side of the balls target line drawer the opposite.
Speaker 1: So you hit ten balls or twenty balls, how many
Speaker 1: shots can you successfully hit with the correct starting line
Speaker 1: and the correct curve? Really simple, just start startling. Can
Speaker 1: you start it online? Can you hit the right shape?
Speaker 1: And then if if you get really good at that
Speaker 1: and you start to get high number, you can add
Speaker 1: in a finish so you can say, okay, it's gotta
Speaker 1: finish within ten yards of the target. It's gonna finish
Speaker 1: on this side, and you can add levels that you
Speaker 1: can then start to say okay, every alternating shot, there's
Speaker 1: trouble more one side than another one, So one might
Speaker 1: be the trouble right, one might be their trouble left.
Speaker 1: But you can add levels, but to be honest, most
Speaker 1: people don't get past stage one. Can you start the
Speaker 1: ball online? And can you curve it the right way?
Speaker 1: And we talk all the time, you know, And that's
Speaker 1: one of the things that that I do when I
Speaker 1: come over and spend time with the team that I
Speaker 1: think the the instructors, the young instructors that we're lucky
Speaker 1: enough to have on our team here, Like you said,
Speaker 1: they're surprised that you know, if you're trying to play
Speaker 1: and if you say you want to play competitively, as
Speaker 1: as a junior golfer and as as an amateur golfer.
Speaker 1: Um to me, if you're telling me you're you're going
Speaker 1: to want to hit a draw. If you're telling me
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to hit a fade, If you're telling
Speaker 1: me you want to hit a draw, the ball show
Speaker 1: as hell needs to start right of your target. If
Speaker 1: you're telling me you want to hit a fade, you
Speaker 1: sure as hell better be able to start the golf
Speaker 1: ball consistently left of your target. What it does after
Speaker 1: that is another that's another that's the next phase. But
Speaker 1: I think so many players are obsessed and you and
Speaker 1: I have talked about this. Um, I think so many
Speaker 1: golfers are obsessed with where the golf ball is ending
Speaker 1: up from a full swing standpoint, as opposed to where
Speaker 1: the golf ball is starting relative to the shot they're
Speaker 1: trying to actively hit. Yeah, and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: it makes me even more when I get these random
Speaker 1: videos from students and they're like, oh, what do you
Speaker 1: think of the swing? And I'm like, where the ball?
Speaker 1: Because I have no information on this swing whatsoever other
Speaker 1: than how pretty it looks. So it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: was it a push lights with a pull hook? Was
Speaker 1: it a a fade? Was it a draw? Because like
Speaker 1: the thing is, if they understood that, they'd probably be
Speaker 1: able to fix it most of the time themselves. But
Speaker 1: all I'm going to comment on is all the face
Speaker 1: look shot. But he might have hit you know, massive
Speaker 1: open face slice and impact. I can't tell anything other
Speaker 1: than seeing the first couple of pet of the ball.
Speaker 1: So like understanding start line and you know the direction
Speaker 1: of the ball is moving, it helps you figure out
Speaker 1: your own swing, you know what I mean. And if
Speaker 1: you can practice that and understand that, it makes my
Speaker 1: job a hell of a lot easier because all of
Speaker 1: a sudden when I ask you, you know, how did
Speaker 1: you hit at the weekend? Well, do you know what?
Speaker 1: I started? Everything left and it just kind of stayed there.
Speaker 1: I'm like straightaway, Oh, it's a pull. I need to
Speaker 1: get the face a bit more of it, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Like it. It helps me direct my
Speaker 1: coach in better. But if somebody comes in and go,
Speaker 1: I hit it, I hit it right? Okay, what it
Speaker 1: was it? Understand? Right? Was it curban? Right? Was it
Speaker 1: a push? Right? Like? Well, what was the shot? So
Speaker 1: it definitely gets people more zoned into hitting a shot
Speaker 1: and also being able to describe a shot back and
Speaker 1: understand those shots. And I think that's really you mentioned.
Speaker 1: You know, when someone shows you a picture or a
Speaker 1: video of their golf swing, like you said, you don't
Speaker 1: know where the golf ball goes, right, And we see
Speaker 1: so many junior golfers who spend an enormous amount of
Speaker 1: time looking at their own golf swing and looking at
Speaker 1: other golf swings. Um, Tommy Fleetwood, Um yeah, we all
Speaker 1: love Tommy. Right, Tommy is the best, Right, we love him.
Speaker 1: He he's moved out here to Dubai. Um, this is
Speaker 1: where he's going to make his home his two his
Speaker 1: two boys are in our junior program here. Um, and
Speaker 1: you've you've basically put them on notice that they're not
Speaker 1: allowed to video or look at their golf swings because
Speaker 1: that's all they tend to do, because that's the world
Speaker 1: they live in right there around a guy like Tommy. Um,
Speaker 1: they're looking at it all the time. And you said, listen, enough,
Speaker 1: we're not looking at the golf swing now, Um, how
Speaker 1: important do you think that is in in twenty because
Speaker 1: everybody's got everybody's got a smartphone, everybody's got The majority
Speaker 1: of the junior golfers that we teach all have the
Speaker 1: alignment rod holder where they can put the phone up
Speaker 1: and they're looking at their golf swing. They're looking at
Speaker 1: their golf swing. They're looking at their golf swing. And
Speaker 1: that's something I always say, Um, what are you looking for?
Speaker 1: Are you looking at your golf swing for something specific?
Speaker 1: Because if you are, fine, but if you're trying to
Speaker 1: look at your golf swing constantly, you've got to remember
Speaker 1: that there are so many body parts, all of these
Speaker 1: things happening in a dynamic movement pattern that's over in
Speaker 1: a second and a half to two seconds and trying
Speaker 1: to figure that puzzle out. Sometimes you can look at
Speaker 1: videos so much that you just nothing actually changes. Well,
Speaker 1: I learned that Toby. It was I always remember it
Speaker 1: was November two thousand and seventeen, and it just that
Speaker 1: I'll never forget it. I remember looking at the video,
Speaker 1: was swing on camera, and it just looked perfect, like
Speaker 1: we had the left risk perfect base. It looked like
Speaker 1: like it was almost a copy of where Tiger would
Speaker 1: have that. And we were like, we were just we
Speaker 1: were loving this swing. And he hit the ball everywhere,
Speaker 1: and I remember looking at it, and I remember you
Speaker 1: went to play the tournament and he had he had
Speaker 1: the worst stretch of tournaments I've ever seen him play.
Speaker 1: Ball was going everywhere. Swing looked amazing, and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is just wrong. It's just and I did at
Speaker 1: the time, I didn't know what it was. I didn't
Speaker 1: know why it was wrong, couldn't tell you. I said
Speaker 1: to him, right, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna
Speaker 1: not look at video for a month, said me, and you.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna look at it. We're not allowed to
Speaker 1: look at the swing at all. We're gonna look at
Speaker 1: the ball and we're only gonna look at the ball
Speaker 1: and we're gonna see what happens. After month, we're gonna
Speaker 1: try and make a shot. And I remember we took
Speaker 1: a month no video either of us. I wasn't on
Speaker 1: every chord of swing. He wasn't let to look at it,
Speaker 1: and we focused on ball play, ball flight, ball play.
Speaker 1: And then at the end of the month we went
Speaker 1: back and looked to what the swing was because he
Speaker 1: started playing really really good. Him like right, whatever, it
Speaker 1: looked different, completely completely. I remember it got really short,
Speaker 1: his left frisk got very bold, the face was very shut.
Speaker 1: And remember saying him at that point, I'm like, right,
Speaker 1: the one thing we now know is what your swing.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna look traditional. It's always going to have
Speaker 1: to be shot at the top. And we used that
Speaker 1: for the next five years. So any time his face
Speaker 1: started to get open, you would see the ball started
Speaker 1: to go over. As soon as he did that, the
Speaker 1: first thing we would change, regardless what the rest of
Speaker 1: the swing looked like, we'd start to get a bit
Speaker 1: more closed at the top. And it always worked. Now
Speaker 1: took us fine in that model. It took us like
Speaker 1: going right, we've done something wrong here, and I had
Speaker 1: to put my hands up and go, I've done something
Speaker 1: wrong here, like I've I've told you to do all
Speaker 1: this and it clearly has not worked because he was
Speaker 1: shooting like eighty five and it looked, it looked perfect.
Speaker 1: I've still got the swing. I've kept that videos reminder,
Speaker 1: do not go for a model, and yeah, we just
Speaker 1: use that as like our theme for the next five years.
Speaker 1: And that was it. And now Toby Bishop. That was
Speaker 1: five years ago. Toby's now a freshman at the University
Speaker 1: of Florida plan for coach j C. Deacon. J C
Speaker 1: has been on the podcast UM Jamie where UM if
Speaker 1: people want to see what you're doing social wise, see
Speaker 1: what the academy is doing, where can they check that out?
Speaker 1: And they can check out Probably Instagram is the best bet.
Speaker 1: Just see his three performance Golf is their Instagram and
Speaker 1: then jam Golf coaches mine and you'll find most of
Speaker 1: the stuff there. Really. Lastly, UM, I am absolutely shocked
Speaker 1: at the UM even though it's a podcast. A lot
Speaker 1: of people can't see this the body transformation. UM, You've
Speaker 1: made from a pound standpoint. UM in pounds, I know
Speaker 1: you work in Kilo's UM. In the last two years.
Speaker 1: How much weight have you lost? If my mass is correct,
Speaker 1: it's about seventy pounds since I came to Dubai. So
Speaker 1: when you've got in Dubai from the from the day
Speaker 1: you arrived to today, you've lost in the last two years,
Speaker 1: you've lost close you've were lost well over fifty pounds. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's thirty key, it's about sixty to seventy pounds. You're
Speaker 1: doing triathlons. Now you're about to run a marror a
Speaker 1: thon um. What was the crazy one that you just did?
Speaker 1: I just did the half Iron Man in Greece, so
Speaker 1: that was the other one. Into the Dark we do
Speaker 1: this thing, well, our Jim does this thing every year
Speaker 1: called into the Dark fifty k by, fifty k run
Speaker 1: and fifty k bike. Can we go through the night?
Speaker 1: She started seven pm and then everybody tried to finish
Speaker 1: it before light. So we did that this year as well.
Speaker 1: Which was what was the impetus? Because again we ask
Speaker 1: our as instructors, were asking our students to better themselves.
Speaker 1: What was the impetus for you to try and say listen,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, you're you're half the person you
Speaker 1: used to be, right, what what was the catalyst um
Speaker 1: personally for you that said, Okay, something needs to change
Speaker 1: for me. I think I knew, you know, when I
Speaker 1: came to Thridian you you gave me some very very harsh,
Speaker 1: but honest words. I think people can take it in
Speaker 1: two ways. They can take it either as an insult
Speaker 1: or they can take it as somebody trying to help you.
Speaker 1: And I took it as that and it took me
Speaker 1: a while to figure out how. But I was from
Speaker 1: that moment da On trying so hard to lose weight,
Speaker 1: and then I was lucky enough to come across and
Speaker 1: it wasn't so much, you know, from to where I'm
Speaker 1: trying to body shame you. But I think one of
Speaker 1: the things that I was trying to impress upon you
Speaker 1: is listen. You're you're working with so many, you know, juniors,
Speaker 1: You're you're mentoring so many junior golfers and we're asking
Speaker 1: them to do so many things and and change things.
Speaker 1: And and I could see you, you know, we you said, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to come and work out. Listen for everybody listening.
Speaker 1: I am I am by no means an athlete, right,
Speaker 1: but you know fitness, But I I feel like it's
Speaker 1: it's my job that if I'm gonna ask my my
Speaker 1: golfers and and the athletes that we work with to
Speaker 1: get in the gym bust their ass and getting better shape,
Speaker 1: that that that's on me too. I had to do that.
Speaker 1: And that that to me was like life changing, like
Speaker 1: in the best possible way, because as much as some
Speaker 1: people might tea it is harsh, it, to me it
Speaker 1: was you were the first person that was honest enough
Speaker 1: to say it. You know, there other people and you
Speaker 1: I was heavy, but like nobody said it. And that
Speaker 1: was the moment that I could just see the you know,
Speaker 1: you were you do you struggle? You know all the time? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you were tired. And then you know, over over the
Speaker 1: course of a couple of years, I've lost a pounds
Speaker 1: and then a two and a half. Three years ago,
Speaker 1: I came across a gym close to us, call in
Speaker 1: her fight and a really good coach called Jess, and
Speaker 1: she's just kind of stuck with me along the way
Speaker 1: and just help me kick on to some crazy things
Speaker 1: that I never thought would be possible. So yeah, to me,
Speaker 1: it's just I was lucky enough to have somebody willing
Speaker 1: to be honest and then somebody to help me out
Speaker 1: along the way. And it's been been a fun couple
Speaker 1: of years. Well. As I said to you at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the podcast, UM, you are one of the
Speaker 1: instructors around the world and around the globe that largely
Speaker 1: go unnoticed. But in my opinion, UM, you're one of
Speaker 1: the best golf instructors in the world. And I'm very
Speaker 1: proud that you run the academy here and UM you
Speaker 1: know you and Justin um Parsons you know you guys
Speaker 1: are like brothers to me and and you're adopted members
Speaker 1: of the Harmon family. And I'm incredibly proud of all
Speaker 1: the work that you've done and and not only the
Speaker 1: person you become, but the instructor you become. Because let
Speaker 1: me tell you, if I'm if I'm going into battle,
Speaker 1: if I've got an instruction team and somebody says listening,
Speaker 1: you can hire a couple of people to be on
Speaker 1: your instruction team. You know you and JP or at
Speaker 1: the at the top of my at the top of
Speaker 1: my list, because UM, I want you guys on my team,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate everything you do for us. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much. So that was a deep dive into instruction
Speaker 1: with Jamie McConnell and UM, hopefully everybody will UM give
Speaker 1: him a follow and take a look at what he's doing,
Speaker 1: because he's doing something really really cool stuff. UM. And
Speaker 1: like I said, if if I've got to pick someone
Speaker 1: for UM to go to battle with from an instruction standpoint,
Speaker 1: he is top of the list. So I spent last
Speaker 1: week UM at my academy out in Dubai, Go once
Speaker 1: a year and UM Jamie and I kind of talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about it, but UM, it is a
Speaker 1: really unique kind of h obviously one of the really
Speaker 1: great cities of the world. UM. I think it's becoming
Speaker 1: an iconic city with you know, the landscape of what
Speaker 1: they've done there. And but it is a very very small,
Speaker 1: small golf market. So whenever I get a chance to
Speaker 1: go over and spend time there, UM, I'm always spending
Speaker 1: time with UM a lot of different UM people taking
Speaker 1: golf lessons. My schedule when I go to Dubai's pretty
Speaker 1: packed with giving golf lessons and it's it's interesting I
Speaker 1: get to give golf lessons from people from all over
Speaker 1: the world. And last week UM the Nationalies, I gave
Speaker 1: a lot of golf lessons to people from India, UM, Pakistan,
Speaker 1: UM Asia, UM, Russia, South Africa, UM, Northern Europeans, UM,
Speaker 1: A lot of people from the UK. So it's always
Speaker 1: interesting to kind of work with people when you when
Speaker 1: you live in the US, the predominant amount of golf
Speaker 1: lessons you give are two people UM from the U.
Speaker 1: S they're they're Americans. And I always think it's interesting, UM,
Speaker 1: how people they very very much learn differently. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the way that people from different countries approach instruction, UM,
Speaker 1: in approach getting a golf lesson is is very very different.
Speaker 1: And and I think that's one of the cool things
Speaker 1: about what I get to do is is I get
Speaker 1: to meet a lot of different people and get to
Speaker 1: spend time with people from you know, different walks of life.
Speaker 1: But UM, last week I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: with our juniors in our junior development program, and UM,
Speaker 1: you know, when you are dealing with with with a
Speaker 1: bunch of juniors and kids who are coming UM into golf,
Speaker 1: and they're not coming into it from kind of the
Speaker 1: way that I think a lot of people listening in
Speaker 1: the US the traditional way. UM. I touched on that
Speaker 1: a little bit. UM the junior golf UM. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons why we we've leaned heavily into junior golf
Speaker 1: development at our academy in Dubai is to is to
Speaker 1: try and give kids a pathway in the U S.
Speaker 1: It's it's easy, right, there's junior tournaments everywhere. UM yeah,
Speaker 1: there isn't probably anyone listening in any state in the
Speaker 1: US UM that doesn't have a place where UM it.
Speaker 1: You could go and put your your children into a
Speaker 1: junior development program. You could put them in junior tournaments,
Speaker 1: but UM out in Dubai, UM, it's very very limited
Speaker 1: on the amount of things that the juniors can play
Speaker 1: in together UM with their peers. They tend to play
Speaker 1: a lot of golf with adults, and so what we
Speaker 1: wanted to try and do was really kind of immerse UM.
Speaker 1: A lot of the kids that we have in our
Speaker 1: junior program UM into kind of this team concept to
Speaker 1: make them feel like they're part of UM like a
Speaker 1: high school team. I talked a little bit about that
Speaker 1: with Jamie and um UH. When when we think about
Speaker 1: when I think about people ask me, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: the topic of growing the game to me UM as
Speaker 1: an instructor I feel like I am trying to grow
Speaker 1: the game by bringing in junior golfers. I think everybody
Speaker 1: that is a off instructor around the world. UM, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a huge opportunity. It's it's a responsibility, I
Speaker 1: think too, to to bring in junior golfers to UM
Speaker 1: get them introduced to golf and UM, you know, instill
Speaker 1: all of the kind of the values. UM. You also
Speaker 1: have to remember that a lot of people from UM,
Speaker 1: developing countries that don't have a huge amount of history
Speaker 1: and golf, they don't know a lot of the traditions
Speaker 1: and the history of of the game. And UM, that's
Speaker 1: one of the things I really really like is is
Speaker 1: getting an opportunity to talk to people about you know,
Speaker 1: the history of golf and and you know, all the
Speaker 1: things that came before them. And you'd be surprised, um
Speaker 1: because of just where a lot of of of of
Speaker 1: kids live that you know, aren't immersed in a lot
Speaker 1: of the history and the the the legacy of golf.
Speaker 1: They just don't know a lot of those things. So UM,
Speaker 1: I think it's always a unique opportunity for me to
Speaker 1: to get an opportunity to kind of fly the flag
Speaker 1: for for golf and golf instruction. So UM it was
Speaker 1: a really cool UM. It was really cool week and
Speaker 1: it's a week that I always really look forward to. UM.
Speaker 1: I want to thank everyone for listening UM, and we
Speaker 1: will continue to do what the podcast does. UM bring
Speaker 1: you guests that that maybe give you hot takes, UM,
Speaker 1: maybe guests that you you didn't know. But UM just
Speaker 1: try and continue to get people on that that love
Speaker 1: golf and are passionate and golf is part of their life.
Speaker 1: Son of a which comes to you every Wednesday. We
Speaker 1: will see you all next week.