Speaker 1: It's the Son of a Butcher podcast. We come to
Speaker 1: you every Wednesday. This week and an interesting experience last week.
Speaker 1: But I think a lot of people think that the
Speaker 1: only thing that I do is just work with tour
Speaker 1: players players trying to play professionally and stuff. But I
Speaker 1: do spend an enormous amount of time just giving golf
Speaker 1: lessons to regular people. I was over in the UK
Speaker 1: for a wedding and spent some time with my in
Speaker 1: laws and my father. My father in law Mike McCleary,
Speaker 1: big golfer, seventy five years old. He's had some he's
Speaker 1: had some health issues. He's two knee replacements, open heart surgery,
Speaker 1: he's been diagnosed with some early stages of Parkinson's, so
Speaker 1: he's got a little bit of a tremor. But you
Speaker 1: won't find someone that likes golf more than Mike does.
Speaker 1: And he watches golf, and he used to be very
Speaker 1: good player in his mid seventies. Now obviously his body
Speaker 1: isn't allowing him to do the things that he wants
Speaker 1: to do from a golf standpoint, But and he doesn't
Speaker 1: get to play nearly as much golf as he'd like to.
Speaker 1: He certainly doesn't get to practice as much as he'd
Speaker 1: like to. But we had some really good weather. We
Speaker 1: went to his club, the Wellow Golf Club, which kind
Speaker 1: of just a little bit outside of Southampton, and it
Speaker 1: was a really really nice day. It's good to see
Speaker 1: him get out on the golf course, but no warm up,
Speaker 1: We didn't go to the driving range. We just went
Speaker 1: straight to the golf course and he played nine holes
Speaker 1: and so I kind of rode around with him, and
Speaker 1: it was just it was a really interesting day in
Speaker 1: that I think Mike is he is. He is the
Speaker 1: average golfer, right, he is the epitome of the average golfer.
Speaker 1: He's just used to be a good player. Handicap isn't
Speaker 1: what it used to be. Handicap probably certainly isn't what
Speaker 1: he wants his handicap to be. But we went on
Speaker 1: on the golf course and listen, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of things that we could do with Mike's golf swing,
Speaker 1: from a grip standpoint, from a club face standpoint, from
Speaker 1: a path standpoint. So there are a lot of technical
Speaker 1: things that we could do with his golf swing. And
Speaker 1: occasionally when I do get to spend time with him,
Speaker 1: we work on some technical stuff, but I spent nine
Speaker 1: holes riding around with him. Has to take a cart
Speaker 1: now because you know, with the double knee replacement, walking
Speaker 1: nine holes, he just can't do it. He tends, like
Speaker 1: a lot of people listening to this podcast, he tends
Speaker 1: to slice the golf ball. The ball moves from left
Speaker 1: to right, and I would say compression is as much
Speaker 1: an issue as the direction the golf ball is going,
Speaker 1: So the quality of the contact, the quality of the
Speaker 1: strike for him is as important and one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why he hits good shots and one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why he hits poor shots. But from a real
Speaker 1: world standpoint, I watched him hit every shot for nine holes.
Speaker 1: I didn't say anything about his golf swing. And the
Speaker 1: reason I didn't say anything about his golf swing is, listen,
Speaker 1: he doesn't get a chance to practice that much, and
Speaker 1: we were actually out on the golf course and he
Speaker 1: was actually playing golf. So I kind of make a
Speaker 1: big distinction between practicing golf and playing golf, and I
Speaker 1: think that's something that everyone listening should really do as well.
Speaker 1: There is practicing golf and then there is playing golf.
Speaker 1: And it's a theme that that I stay on on
Speaker 1: the pod. But I think most people focus all their
Speaker 1: time on practicing golf and never really focus anytime on
Speaker 1: playing golf. So I got to go out play nine
Speaker 1: holes with my father. The golf course was in really
Speaker 1: good shape. The greens weren't super super fast. It's fairly flat,
Speaker 1: but if you did hit it off the fairway, the
Speaker 1: rough was quite it was quite peenals, quite thick. It
Speaker 1: was very very hot, which is rare in the UK,
Speaker 1: but I mean it was in the nineties. The golf
Speaker 1: course was firm, the golf course was fast, and the
Speaker 1: golf course was a little bit bouncy. But after we
Speaker 1: played nine holes, I think Mike was really very surprised
Speaker 1: that we didn't talk about as golf swing and where
Speaker 1: I feel like when I go out with players and
Speaker 1: I watched them play golf on the golf course, I
Speaker 1: think that's from an instruction standpoint, I think that's where
Speaker 1: you can make so many changes in so many gains.
Speaker 1: So we got to the first hole. Mike had a
Speaker 1: really nice drive right down, pretty much right down in
Speaker 1: the middle of the fairway, didn't hit a great shot
Speaker 1: on the next one, ball came up just short of
Speaker 1: the Green ended up making five right next hole par five.
Speaker 1: I think he ended up making six. But the third
Speaker 1: hole was a par three that was kind of up
Speaker 1: the tea box, one of those tea boxes that's kind
Speaker 1: of below where kind of the the rise of the
Speaker 1: hill is you could see the green. It was right
Speaker 1: around one hundred and ninety yards, pretty pretty flat, no breeze,
Speaker 1: so it was playing the actual and Mike got up
Speaker 1: and he said, uh, I'm going to hit three wood
Speaker 1: And I said, listen, why don't you hit driver as
Speaker 1: opposed to you know, Mike can probably carry his driver
Speaker 1: right around that one ninety to two hundred two o five.
Speaker 1: Maybe if he really really catches one, he's going to
Speaker 1: carry it, you know, two ten in the air. But
Speaker 1: he wants to pull a three wood. And I said, listen,
Speaker 1: is there trouble around the greens? And he said, really,
Speaker 1: not that much trouble. And we when we got up there,
Speaker 1: there wasn't really a lot of them. So there's no water.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there was one bunker, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't really kind of in play, if you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. It was a bunker that you'd have to
Speaker 1: almost hit a really really bad shot. To get into.
Speaker 1: So his first inclination is to pull out a three wood,
Speaker 1: and I said, listen, you tend to slice the golf ball,
Speaker 1: and when you do miss it, you tend to miss
Speaker 1: it to the right. It gets a little bit spinny,
Speaker 1: you're losing a lot of distance. So takes driver. And
Speaker 1: his initial reaction was, well, what if it's too much club?
Speaker 1: And I said, well what if it is? I mean,
Speaker 1: when's the last time you were really really upset with
Speaker 1: yourself on a par three by hitting it over the green.
Speaker 1: That doesn't happen to most people listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1: Doesn't happen to me a lot when I play that,
Speaker 1: I don't hit it too far. If anything, I come
Speaker 1: up short. So he was I think he was a
Speaker 1: little bit tentative to hit the driver because I think
Speaker 1: he thought it was a little bit too much. If
Speaker 1: he caught it. He had a pretty decent drive and
Speaker 1: it came up just short of of the so he
Speaker 1: probably was about five yards off the putting surface, but
Speaker 1: was pin hives just a little bit to the to
Speaker 1: the left, about pin high. And so when we got
Speaker 1: up to the green, he had a pretty easy chip
Speaker 1: and he chipped it up on the green and made
Speaker 1: a par. And so when we looked back at the
Speaker 1: at the at from the green to the to the
Speaker 1: tea box, you know, we're looking back, and I said, listen,
Speaker 1: if you don't hit your three wood really solid, if
Speaker 1: you don't hit it really really well, and you hit
Speaker 1: the shot and have the miss that you normally miss,
Speaker 1: you're going to miss it to the right, probably in
Speaker 1: the rough, and it's probably going to come up twenty
Speaker 1: thirty yards short of the green. We hit driver where
Speaker 1: he's pin high. He's got an easy chip, and he
Speaker 1: gets out of there with par. So we go to
Speaker 1: the next hole and dog leg from kind of kind
Speaker 1: of downhill, a little slopey fairway, but pretty straight, maybe
Speaker 1: just a little bit of a dog leg, not too
Speaker 1: much to a dog like, but maybe just a little
Speaker 1: bit from right to left. And again he tends to
Speaker 1: fade the golf ball and the miss is a slice.
Speaker 1: And so standing behind him and I look where he's aiming,
Speaker 1: and he's aiming basically right down the middle of the fairway.
Speaker 1: So if he hits a good drive and hits one straight,
Speaker 1: he's going to be fine. But if he hits the
Speaker 1: shape that is consistent he's going to miss it into
Speaker 1: the right rough, maybe into the trees. He's going to
Speaker 1: get into trouble. So I said to him, listen, go
Speaker 1: ahead and take your set up and tell me when
Speaker 1: you get comfortable. And he took his set up, got comfortable,
Speaker 1: and I said, okay, I'm just gonna put a shaft
Speaker 1: down on your foot line and you can see where
Speaker 1: you're aiming. And he said, wow, I'm pretty much aiming
Speaker 1: dead center of the fairway. If I miss this golf
Speaker 1: ball at all, it's going into the right rough. So
Speaker 1: I said, listen, just aim a little bit more to
Speaker 1: your left. So he hit the first one and i'd
Speaker 1: let him hit the first one, and he kind of
Speaker 1: hit a little bit of a pole, and I said, okay,
Speaker 1: now let's hit another golf ball and go ahead and
Speaker 1: name what you feel down is the left side of
Speaker 1: the fairway. And so he set up and I said,
Speaker 1: you know, go ahead and aim down the left side
Speaker 1: of the fairway. And he set up and I was like,
Speaker 1: you can go more left, you can go more left,
Speaker 1: you can go more left, and he was very surprised
Speaker 1: at how far left I got him. And then I said, listen,
Speaker 1: you tend to Like most people, when you do slice
Speaker 1: the driver, you're hitting down on the ball and your
Speaker 1: path is from out to in. And so I said,
Speaker 1: the goal in hitting the driver is to take how
Speaker 1: much you're hitting down on the golf ball and hit
Speaker 1: a little bit more up on it. So I teed
Speaker 1: the golf ball much higher than he normally tease it,
Speaker 1: and I put it a lot more forward in his stance.
Speaker 1: And I said, okay, so we're going to move the
Speaker 1: golf ball a little bit more forward in your stance.
Speaker 1: We're going to tee it a little bit higher. We're
Speaker 1: going to get you to aim a little bit more,
Speaker 1: you know, probably twenty thirty yards more left than you
Speaker 1: initially aimed. And then go ahead and hit it. And
Speaker 1: he hit a really beautiful high little fade. The ball
Speaker 1: went a lot higher. Because the golf ball was more
Speaker 1: forward in his stance, he was able to catch the
Speaker 1: golf ball a little bit more on the op as
Speaker 1: opposed to hitting so much down on it. And he
Speaker 1: hit the golf ball with the same golf swing forty
Speaker 1: yards further than the drive he hit previously. I didn't
Speaker 1: tell him to swing any harder, and fundamentally, his golf
Speaker 1: swing didn't change, And that was one of the things
Speaker 1: that I did say to him on the golf course.
Speaker 1: And I think it's really important for everyone listening. In
Speaker 1: a nine hole round of golf and an eighteen hole
Speaker 1: round of golf, and if you are in that kind
Speaker 1: of fifteen to twenty to twenty five handicap range, I
Speaker 1: got news for you. Your golf swing isn't going to
Speaker 1: fundamentally change that much in the horse of playing nine
Speaker 1: holes or eighteen. So whatever your golf swing is, whatever
Speaker 1: your swing tendencies are, whatever your DNA is of your
Speaker 1: golf swing, the shape that you hit, kind of how
Speaker 1: you hit it, that's probably not going to change a
Speaker 1: lot in nine holes of golf. And I got news
Speaker 1: for you as well. You're probably not halfway through your
Speaker 1: round exponentially going to start hitting the golf ball a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount. Further so, your yardages are kind of what
Speaker 1: they are when you start, and your DNA of what
Speaker 1: you do from a golf standpoint, regardless of one of
Speaker 1: whatever it is that you're working on, regardless of what
Speaker 1: you're trying to do in your golf swing, it's not
Speaker 1: really going to change that much once you get out
Speaker 1: on the golf course and you start playing. And I
Speaker 1: think he was a little bit surprised when I said
Speaker 1: that to him, and I said, listen, it's that's that's
Speaker 1: not a criticism. That's not saying that you're doing anything wrong.
Speaker 1: You have what you have when you come to the
Speaker 1: golf course. And I think so many people that are
Speaker 1: listening to the podcast go to the golf course and
Speaker 1: fundamentally think that in nine holes or eighteen holes that
Speaker 1: your golf swing is going to dramatically change and it's
Speaker 1: going to dramatically change for the better. That doesn't really happen.
Speaker 1: And I don't see that a lot. Now do I
Speaker 1: see that at the tour level. Yes, I see players
Speaker 1: go out and get off to bad starts and shoot
Speaker 1: over par on the front nine and then find it
Speaker 1: on the back nine and go back and shoot, you know,
Speaker 1: shoot two over, three over on the front, and then
Speaker 1: shoot twenty nine on the back, shoot thirty on the back.
Speaker 1: I've seen that more times than I can count. And
Speaker 1: you will see that if you follow any players on
Speaker 1: the PGA Tour, you'll see players that play really really
Speaker 1: good on the front play poorly on the back. You'll
Speaker 1: see players play not that great on the front and
Speaker 1: play really really good on the back. The talent level
Speaker 1: at the tour level, at the elite level, is so
Speaker 1: much greater than the talent level that we all have.
Speaker 1: But I say this all the time. We are incredibly influenced.
Speaker 1: All golfers are incredibly influenced by what they watch on television.
Speaker 1: And so your golf swing isn't going to change. So
Speaker 1: my father in law's golf swing in nine holes isn't
Speaker 1: going He's not going to miraculously start not swinging out
Speaker 1: to end. That's his DNA, that's what he does. That's
Speaker 1: what he does on a regular basis. So what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do on the golf course is saying, hey,
Speaker 1: let's allow for the miss that you've got right so,
Speaker 1: and let's also look at where you're setting up from
Speaker 1: a tea box standpoint. So I think, like a lot
Speaker 1: of players, he just comes to the middle of the
Speaker 1: tea box, which really kind of allows him or gives
Speaker 1: him more license to aim neutral and aim square. So
Speaker 1: he's aiming down the middle of the fairway. He's set
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the tea box. So again,
Speaker 1: you've heard me talk about if you're a regular listen
Speaker 1: to the pod. I'm always trying. I'm always trying with players,
Speaker 1: whether they're someone like my father in law, who's, you know,
Speaker 1: in his mid seventies. He's got some body issues. His
Speaker 1: golf isn't nearly what it used to be. I think
Speaker 1: he's one of these players, like a lot of people,
Speaker 1: as we get older, that we look back to the
Speaker 1: glory days of what we used to be able to
Speaker 1: do as opposed to being honest with ourselves as to
Speaker 1: what we are able to do now. And your golf
Speaker 1: swing as you get older is going to I mean,
Speaker 1: your golf swing's always going to be in a constant
Speaker 1: state of flux, right, It's constantly changing. But I do
Speaker 1: think that you can make gains by looking at where
Speaker 1: you're setting up on the tea box. So what I
Speaker 1: asked Mike to do, I said, listen, as opposed to
Speaker 1: coming over to the into the middle of the tea box,
Speaker 1: why don't we go over to the far right hand side,
Speaker 1: Because you slice the golf ball, so in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, I think it's easier for people that slice
Speaker 1: the golf ball to see more of the fairway, to
Speaker 1: see more of the golf course from the tea box
Speaker 1: by coming over to the far right hand side, which
Speaker 1: allows you then to aim more left. Because then if
Speaker 1: you're curving the golf ball, and you've got the golf
Speaker 1: ball curving from right to left, like a lot of
Speaker 1: people listening to this podcast do, your ball can be
Speaker 1: curving back towards the middle of the fairway, even if
Speaker 1: you still have a little bit of slice. But if
Speaker 1: you set up right in the middle of every fairway,
Speaker 1: go straight down the middle tee it up right in
Speaker 1: the middle of the tea box, you're eliminating a lot
Speaker 1: of the usable space that you've got from an aim standpoint,
Speaker 1: but also the usable space you have from how your
Speaker 1: golf ball curves. So if you are someone that slices
Speaker 1: the golf ball, don't be afraid to come over to
Speaker 1: that far right hand side and then say, Okay, now
Speaker 1: I'm going to aim a lot more left than I
Speaker 1: normally do. Right, I'm going to give myself room. I'm
Speaker 1: going to have the shape that I have, but I'm
Speaker 1: just going to set up differently. I talked to Mike about,
Speaker 1: you know, the concept that with your irons you want
Speaker 1: to be hitting down on the golf ball. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 1: the golf ball's on the ground and as we hit
Speaker 1: down on it, and that helps the golf ball get
Speaker 1: into the air. But with the driver, the ball is
Speaker 1: already on a tee. And I think so many golfers
Speaker 1: struggle with the driver. They're losing so much distance, they're
Speaker 1: losing so much direction because they are hitting so much down.
Speaker 1: So Mike had the golf ball a little bit too
Speaker 1: far back in a stance, and so I said, just
Speaker 1: move the golf ball more forward, te the golf ball
Speaker 1: a little bit higher, and then you're trying to swing
Speaker 1: a little bit more on the up and hit the
Speaker 1: golf ball a little bit higher. That was the only
Speaker 1: real technical thing I said to him. In the course
Speaker 1: of the nine holes that I watched him play. All
Speaker 1: I tried to get him to do is say, okay, listen,
Speaker 1: let's look at where you're aiming. Let's look at where
Speaker 1: you're trying to land the golf ball. And then one
Speaker 1: of the things that I did was every time he
Speaker 1: went to pull an iron, whether if it was an
Speaker 1: eight iron, I told him pull a seven iron. If
Speaker 1: it was a pitching wedge, I said, pull a nine iron.
Speaker 1: And what I was trying to get him to do
Speaker 1: was play for the miss, not play for the great shot. Again,
Speaker 1: most golfers their yardages. I don't think the average golfer
Speaker 1: really has any real concept as to how really far
Speaker 1: they hit their golf ball. They don't understand how far
Speaker 1: they hit it. They maybe think, Okay, I hit it
Speaker 1: once on a part three and I had a really
Speaker 1: good shot. And let's say I had an eight iron
Speaker 1: and I hit it one hundred and fifty yards. So now,
Speaker 1: regardless of how my body feels, regardless of how I've
Speaker 1: been playing, regardless how I've been hitting it, I think
Speaker 1: golfers have these arbitrary numbers in their head that they
Speaker 1: hold on to, and I think those numbers are probably
Speaker 1: influenced a lot by what they hear on television, a
Speaker 1: lot by what they see other people play with. It's
Speaker 1: very important that you have an understanding as to how
Speaker 1: far you hit the golf ball. It doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: the people you play with on a regular basis, doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how far they hit the golf ball. The only
Speaker 1: thing that matters is how far you hit the golf ball.
Speaker 1: So what I started to do kind of midway through
Speaker 1: the round is. I just said, listen, every iron you pull,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have you pull another one. So we
Speaker 1: got to a par three. It was about one hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty yards. It was a little bit downhill, and
Speaker 1: I think Mike pulled out a club the first time.
Speaker 1: There was a little bit of kind of gorse area
Speaker 1: and a little bit of stream running through the front
Speaker 1: of the green. There was a bunker to the left,
Speaker 1: There was rough around the green, so there's nothing over
Speaker 1: the green, and there was really only one bunker on
Speaker 1: the left hand side, so there wasn't any bunkers on
Speaker 1: the right. So I think the first club that he
Speaker 1: pulled out from one hundred and six yards was his
Speaker 1: five iron, and he kind of topped it and you
Speaker 1: could tell that he was trying to make a swing
Speaker 1: that was a very very hard, fast swing because he
Speaker 1: didn't have enough club. I think instinctively, we as golfers
Speaker 1: know when we don't have enough club, right. I think
Speaker 1: it's I think it's something that's really I think if
Speaker 1: everybody was honest with themselves. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: times you pull a club, you know it's not the
Speaker 1: right club, and then what you try and do is
Speaker 1: especially on par threes. You try and swing so hard
Speaker 1: because you're trying to hit the golf ball a specific
Speaker 1: distance that you don't really hit it. Maybe you once did,
Speaker 1: maybe you do occasionally, but that's not the real usable
Speaker 1: distance that you hit your club and you make too
Speaker 1: hard of a swing. So that's what that's what he did.
Speaker 1: He hit it into the into the water. He's staring
Speaker 1: at making double triple bogie in the face. So I
Speaker 1: went back to his golf bag and got a seven
Speaker 1: wood out and I said, hit me the seven wood.
Speaker 1: And so I think five iron is maybe does he
Speaker 1: have a feign he might have a foreign I think
Speaker 1: I did mention something about the fact that he had
Speaker 1: a four n four iron, and I said, what the
Speaker 1: hell do you have a four iron? Four? I mean,
Speaker 1: that's you're never going to hit that club. You're not
Speaker 1: going to hit it well, get you know, hybrid replacements.
Speaker 1: But he took out. It was either seven or a
Speaker 1: six wood. Hit a beautiful shot again, just missed the green.
Speaker 1: Was just off of the fringe on a flat lie
Speaker 1: in the rough. The ball was sitting down a little bit,
Speaker 1: but again it's pin high. So the golf ball is
Speaker 1: going thirty to forty yards further. Again, same thing that
Speaker 1: we did with the driver, by having him aim differently,
Speaker 1: by having move the golf he hits the golf ball
Speaker 1: a little bit more solid because one he catches the
Speaker 1: ball in the center of the face. So when I'm
Speaker 1: looking at launch monitor technology, I think everyone is obsessed
Speaker 1: with clubhead speed, which I do think is important, but
Speaker 1: I'm looking at ball speed and I think that if
Speaker 1: you can start to hit the golf ball a little
Speaker 1: bit more in the center of the face, sometimes your
Speaker 1: clubhead speed might go down, but your ball speed will
Speaker 1: massively jump ten fifteen miles per hour and the golf
Speaker 1: ball will go further. So by choosing a different golf
Speaker 1: club that he doesn't have to hit as hard, he
Speaker 1: catches it more in the center of the face, gets
Speaker 1: it to the green. So now he was over in
Speaker 1: just a little bit of the rough. He was in
Speaker 1: that kind of go no go zone that a lot
Speaker 1: of people are in. It's just off the fringe. He
Speaker 1: could put it the ball sitting down a little bit.
Speaker 1: The instinct was to take the putter because he doesn't
Speaker 1: feel comfortable with the chip, and I said, listen, keep
Speaker 1: the six wood, the seven wood in your hand, and
Speaker 1: why don't we make an exaggerated putting stroke with a
Speaker 1: seven wood a six wood. You could do this with
Speaker 1: three woods, four woods, five woods. Play the golf ball
Speaker 1: in the middle of your stance, get a little bit
Speaker 1: closer to it, so the shaft gets a little bit
Speaker 1: more vertical. And then because the length of the club
Speaker 1: that you're using is so much longer than your putter,
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily have to have that kind of kill
Speaker 1: putt stroke through the grass. And he had a but,
Speaker 1: and so the first one he hit a little bit
Speaker 1: too hard, but it was only maybe five to six
Speaker 1: seven feet past the hole. But as I said to him,
Speaker 1: when is the last time you were in the situation
Speaker 1: and your approach shot to the grid? I went past
Speaker 1: the hole, not bladed over the green, but just past
Speaker 1: the hole. And he was like, it doesn't really happen
Speaker 1: that often. So we put a couple more down and
Speaker 1: I said, again, it's just an exaggerated putting stroke. And
Speaker 1: after two or three of these, he hit some beautiful, little,
Speaker 1: effectively kind of a bump and run putt with a
Speaker 1: seven wood a six wood, and it basically rolls a
Speaker 1: lot like the putt, and he was like, listen, I'd
Speaker 1: never really thought of doing that. I would either putt
Speaker 1: it or then I would take my lob wedge, try
Speaker 1: and open the face and hit some sort of lob shot,
Speaker 1: which is the complete wrong shot to hit right. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just such a risky shot, a shot that he
Speaker 1: doesn't need to hit. But because he doesn't have a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of confidence in his chipping, he likes to
Speaker 1: putt from everywhere. So again, just trying to give him
Speaker 1: another option up to a downhill par When we get
Speaker 1: to downhill par four, probably around two eighty, which you
Speaker 1: know from the back tiase a lot of people could drive.
Speaker 1: But again had him come over to the left hand,
Speaker 1: to the right hand side of the of the tea box,
Speaker 1: aimed down that left hand side, moved that golf bole
Speaker 1: a little bit more forward in the stands and just
Speaker 1: try and hit up on it. And he hit a
Speaker 1: beautiful high almost just a little bit of just a
Speaker 1: high straight ball which landed just in the left hand
Speaker 1: side of the fairway. And he had a shot that
Speaker 1: initially so it was downhill, nothing in front of the
Speaker 1: green and no rough in front of the green, and
Speaker 1: the fairways were a little bit firm and bouncy, and
Speaker 1: so we had some rooms. So initially he wanted to
Speaker 1: hit a sand wedge and I said, okay, go ahead
Speaker 1: and hit the sand wedge, and again it I think
Speaker 1: again instinctively he didn't think that it was enough club
Speaker 1: but the yardage said okay, I'm downhill, I can hit
Speaker 1: my sand wedge. Hit it really really high, ran up
Speaker 1: the face, super spinny ballooned on him, went a little
Speaker 1: bit to the right and came up, you know, fifteen
Speaker 1: twenty yards short. Not a good shot. And I said, okay,
Speaker 1: why don't you go get me a pitching wedge or
Speaker 1: nine iron and land this golf ball. So he probably
Speaker 1: had about you know, he was playing from the up tee,
Speaker 1: so he probably had about one hundred yards. And I said, listen,
Speaker 1: why don't you try and hit this golf ball between
Speaker 1: fifty to seventy yards. It's going to land on the
Speaker 1: fairway in front of the grass. It's downhill, it's gonna
Speaker 1: get some gravity help to it, and it's going to
Speaker 1: roll and it's gonna you don't have to carry the
Speaker 1: golf ball all the way to the flag. It's exactly
Speaker 1: what he did, and he rolled it up about ten feet,
Speaker 1: had a legit birdie chance, missed the putt, but got
Speaker 1: out of there with a four, So a shot that
Speaker 1: he probably wouldn't have tried to hit, but a shot
Speaker 1: that gave him a legit chance because he's trying to
Speaker 1: carry the sandwich all the way to the flag spin it.
Speaker 1: When I asked him, he was like, I was trying
Speaker 1: to carry it all the way to the flag and
Speaker 1: you'll hopefully get some spin. But in my head, I'm
Speaker 1: asking myself, Okay, what are you actively doing to try
Speaker 1: and get any of the spin? Right? Tell me what
Speaker 1: you're doing that you're going to to do in your
Speaker 1: golf swing that is going to impart some spin on
Speaker 1: this golf ball. And you know, we create spin with
Speaker 1: our irons in short game with speed, right, and most
Speaker 1: people just don't get that good quality contact. They're trying
Speaker 1: to hit the golf ball too high, they don't catch
Speaker 1: it solid. The ball speeds all over all over the place.
Speaker 1: Where they catch the golf ball in the center of
Speaker 1: the faces, they're catching on the heel, they're catching on
Speaker 1: the toe, and because they're trying to hit it so hard.
Speaker 1: Mike is like a lot of golfers. He's trying to
Speaker 1: hit the golf ball so hard that as he makes
Speaker 1: this rapid fast move on the downswing, his balance gets
Speaker 1: off and he falls backwards, which you know, I was saying, listen,
Speaker 1: if you want a swing thought on all of your
Speaker 1: iron shots, just try and at impact feel like you
Speaker 1: have more weight on your lead foot than your backfoot.
Speaker 1: And he did that. You've start to be able to
Speaker 1: take some divots and started to hit some better shots,
Speaker 1: which to me is what is the most important. I
Speaker 1: think it was eye opening that we weren't really talking
Speaker 1: about technique. We weren't really talking about what he was
Speaker 1: doing in his golf swing. We were talking about club selection,
Speaker 1: we were talking about where you're landing. So next hole
Speaker 1: was a shortish part four, and I didn't give him
Speaker 1: any audio prompts on where to aim, where to set up,
Speaker 1: just to see if if he would, you know, absorb
Speaker 1: any of this. So we got up hit a really
Speaker 1: nice drive that had his kind of patented shape, which
Speaker 1: was a little bit from left to right. But because
Speaker 1: he had teed up in the middle of the tea box,
Speaker 1: and because he'd aimed right down the center of the fairway,
Speaker 1: he missed the golf ball into the left rough or
Speaker 1: into the right roff. We never found the golf ball,
Speaker 1: and I said, okay, now hit another one. Aim a
Speaker 1: little bit, come to the right hand side of the
Speaker 1: tea box. Aim down that left side. He had a
Speaker 1: much better drive, still a little bit on the spinny side,
Speaker 1: still a little bit on the left to right curve side,
Speaker 1: but just got into kind of the first cut. We
Speaker 1: were able to find the golf ball, and the lie
Speaker 1: was sitting down just a little bit, and the natural
Speaker 1: inclination is for him to take some sort of lofted wood,
Speaker 1: and I just said, listen, you're probably unless you hit
Speaker 1: an absolute hero shot, you're probably not going to get
Speaker 1: the golf ball onto the putting surface. Because I think
Speaker 1: he originally went to choose his five hybrid, and I said,
Speaker 1: you know, that lie, the ball sitting down. I said,
Speaker 1: you don't need to try and go for this green, right,
Speaker 1: So why don't we just take a seven iron something
Speaker 1: that's got a lot of loft on it. You can
Speaker 1: kind of gouge us out. The green again was a
Speaker 1: little bit downhill, and I said, you know, maybe you
Speaker 1: roll this thing up and get it on the front edge.
Speaker 1: He had a really nice iron shot with the seven wood,
Speaker 1: didn't quite get to the putting surface, so he had
Speaker 1: a chip shot. The pin was kind of cut on
Speaker 1: the left hand side of the green. There was a
Speaker 1: bunker left and there was a little bit of a
Speaker 1: mound about five to ten paces in front of the flag,
Speaker 1: and then he had about twenty five you know, so
Speaker 1: from where he was, he was probably about five to
Speaker 1: five to seven yards from the putting surface and then
Speaker 1: he had a lot more about thirty feet of green
Speaker 1: from there. So what I did to him is I said,
Speaker 1: all right, why don't we think about this logically, is
Speaker 1: let's I'm going to walk to where the front edge
Speaker 1: of the green is and then I'm going to continue
Speaker 1: to walk all the way to the flag. So we
Speaker 1: had a shot to where it was about about thirty
Speaker 1: five steps from ball to the flag. And again his
Speaker 1: first inclination was to take a club that lands the
Speaker 1: golf ball next to the flag, try to carry it
Speaker 1: all the way. But I said to him, listen, I'm
Speaker 1: going to walk to where from where your ball is
Speaker 1: to where the front edge of the green to the
Speaker 1: putting surface started. And that was about fifteen steps. So
Speaker 1: it's a round a thirty to thirty five ish shot.
Speaker 1: But I said, if you think about it, you only
Speaker 1: need to carry the golf ball fifteen yards in the air.
Speaker 1: And rather than take your sand wedge or your lob
Speaker 1: wedge and try and carry it all the way to
Speaker 1: the flag, we've got some green to work with. Take
Speaker 1: your pitching wedge, your fifty. The golf swing is going
Speaker 1: to be smaller. Try and land this sink fifteen yards
Speaker 1: in the air, fifteen to seventeen yards in the air,
Speaker 1: and then it rolls like a pot. That's what he did.
Speaker 1: He took a pitching wedge, landed at about fifteen sixteen
Speaker 1: yards in the air, and it rolled up to about
Speaker 1: five feet and he made the pot. Again. I'll keep
Speaker 1: saying this. Your technique once you get out onto the
Speaker 1: golf course is probably not going to massively change, and
Speaker 1: it's probably not going to massively change for the better.
Speaker 1: So you've got what you've got. So learning how to
Speaker 1: play with the shape that you've got, with the distance
Speaker 1: you've got, can very much improve your scores because you're
Speaker 1: not trying to do things you can't. You're not trying
Speaker 1: to do things that aren't you You slice the golf ball.
Speaker 1: That's the miss. When you hit a good one, you
Speaker 1: hit a fade, and if you hit a really good one,
Speaker 1: you hit kind of a straight ball, right. But the
Speaker 1: majority of the shots that a lot of people hit
Speaker 1: with the clubs, especially with the driver, is the slice.
Speaker 1: That's unfortunately, that's not going to get better. And if
Speaker 1: you spend eighteen holes trying to go out and work
Speaker 1: on your golf swing, work on your technique, if you're
Speaker 1: going to do that, that's fine, but don't keep score.
Speaker 1: If you're going to do that, then because that's not
Speaker 1: playing golf. That is playing golf swing and working on
Speaker 1: your technique, which I think has a time and a place.
Speaker 1: But I believe that if you're going out to the
Speaker 1: golf course, you were going out to play golf. You
Speaker 1: were going out to play the game of golf, not practice.
Speaker 1: If you're in a practice practice on the driving range.
Speaker 1: And I do think it's a habit that it's an
Speaker 1: easy habit to get into. Right, you go out on
Speaker 1: the golf course, you hit a couple of bad shots,
Speaker 1: you say, listen, I'm just gonna work on my game.
Speaker 1: And I think it's really important to go out on
Speaker 1: the golf course and say, Okay, I didn't necessarily get
Speaker 1: off to the best start today. I didn't get off
Speaker 1: to the start that I wanted. But what I am
Speaker 1: going to do is play with what I've got. I'm
Speaker 1: going to maybe take one or two clubs more than
Speaker 1: what I want on my iron shots. I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: that on par three specifically, so that if you don't
Speaker 1: hit the golf ball perfect, if I don't hit the
Speaker 1: golf ball solid, it's gonna come off. But it was
Speaker 1: just a one. It was a great day to get
Speaker 1: out there and spend some time, you know, with my
Speaker 1: father in law and you know, who hasn't been able
Speaker 1: to play golf the way he wants to. You know,
Speaker 1: the health issues that he has don't allow him to
Speaker 1: do what he wants to from a body standpoint. But
Speaker 1: as someone that is lucky enough to play with the
Speaker 1: best players in the world, the games we were able
Speaker 1: to make with his game where we were able to
Speaker 1: shave strokes off by club selection alignment. If you're out
Speaker 1: and you're not playing in a tournament, right, it's not
Speaker 1: a tournament. Put a club down. Put a club down
Speaker 1: on your foot line so that you can see where
Speaker 1: you're aiming. Don't be afraid to hit shots on the
Speaker 1: golf course. You know you're not playing a competition. Okay,
Speaker 1: don't turn your scorecard in if you're doing that, But
Speaker 1: put a club down and say, okay, this is where
Speaker 1: I would want my feet to aim. Maybe go out
Speaker 1: and play nine holes and use an alignment rod and say, okay,
Speaker 1: let me see where I'm aiming. Okay, yeah, let me
Speaker 1: aim and don't turn the scorecard in. But maybe if
Speaker 1: you're shaving two three shots off of your round, by
Speaker 1: just aiming better, aiming for your shape, you can make
Speaker 1: some big improvements At the highest level. We are tweaking
Speaker 1: golf swings right. We're working a lot on technique, but
Speaker 1: I think regular, everyday golfers could benefit so much from
Speaker 1: what I was able to do with my father in law. Listen,
Speaker 1: aim more left, take more club, try and have more
Speaker 1: weight on your front foot. Don't worry about your golf swing.
Speaker 1: Just your golf swing is your golf swing. Just make
Speaker 1: sure with your irons that you've got more weight on
Speaker 1: your front foot than your back foot when you hit contact,
Speaker 1: when the ball contacts the club, more weight on your
Speaker 1: front foot, and I think my father in law was
Speaker 1: really surprised at how many better shots that he hit.
Speaker 1: We didn't talk about his golf swing. Your golf swing
Speaker 1: isn't going to fundamentally change that much, so just wanted
Speaker 1: to share kind of a real world experience. Tour players
Speaker 1: aren't in the real world for everybody listening, right, we
Speaker 1: don't hit the golf ball like they do. We just don't,
Speaker 1: So stop trying. Try and hit the golf ball like
Speaker 1: you hit it. Try and hit the golf ball more solid,
Speaker 1: allow for the miss, allow for your shape, and really
Speaker 1: remember that your golf swing isn't going to change that
Speaker 1: much on the golf course. So the golf swing you
Speaker 1: have on the driving range, that's probably going to be
Speaker 1: the golf swing you have on the golf course. Allow
Speaker 1: for it, learn how to play with it, and I
Speaker 1: think you can make some gains by aiming better club
Speaker 1: selection and just thinking better on the golf course. I
Speaker 1: want to thank everybody for listening. Son of a Butch
Speaker 1: comes to you every Wednesday. We'll see you next week.