Speaker 1: The guys from paying They've kind of showed me how
Speaker 1: much the equipment matters. I just love that I can
Speaker 1: hit any shot I kind of want.
Speaker 2: We're gonna be able to tell some fun stories about
Speaker 2: what goes on here to help golfers play better golf.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Pinging proven Grounds Podcast. I'm Shane Bacon.
Speaker 3: That is Marty Jerts and Marty I say this a lot.
Speaker 3: We've got a special guest today, a very exciting guest
Speaker 3: at that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a fun one. This is one I
Speaker 2: think all golfers out there have been have been touched
Speaker 2: by his what he's brought to this game and in
Speaker 2: one way or another.
Speaker 1: Chris Como, Hey guys, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Chris, How how did you get into instruction? When did
Speaker 3: when did that interest hit you? When did you see
Speaker 3: that as an avenue in your world?
Speaker 1: I think kind of like really early on. I took
Speaker 1: up golf somewhat late, like when I was like sixteen,
Speaker 1: and I've always loved sports, and and you know, I
Speaker 1: got pretty good at golf pretty quickly. But I I
Speaker 1: sort of I had this idea in my head that
Speaker 1: if I could like study everything, read all the books
Speaker 1: or whatever. I could expedite the process of getting better
Speaker 1: at golf just by like learning as much as possible,
Speaker 1: because I got completely just like obsessed with the game.
Speaker 1: You know, once I started playing that was misguided, right,
Speaker 1: like the pathway the game really good at golf. It's
Speaker 1: not like reading every golf book that there is, but that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, really started me down this path of just
Speaker 1: being like so intrigued by the game and how do
Speaker 1: you get better at it? I mean, like and just
Speaker 1: the fact that there's like so many different opinions. I
Speaker 1: mean I remember reading books on you know, a guy
Speaker 1: who's the number one coaching golf and the number two
Speaker 1: coaching golf and the number three coaching golf, and they
Speaker 1: had like wildly different opinions, and it's like whoa, like
Speaker 1: what gives? So it just really triggered this curiosity about
Speaker 1: the game and just the overall mystery of like, you know,
Speaker 1: how can you hit this incredible shot in one moment
Speaker 1: and then the next moment you're like, you know, chasing
Speaker 1: a ball into the woods or it goes out of
Speaker 1: bounds or whatever. I think there's just a lot of
Speaker 1: like kind of mysteries to the game. In some ways
Speaker 1: it's a big puzzle, and early on that grabbed me.
Speaker 1: And then you know, the natural segue from sort of
Speaker 1: the curiosity of the game and how to get better
Speaker 1: at it is is then how do you help other
Speaker 1: people get better at it? And that's kind of you know,
Speaker 1: really early on, I start down that pathway of coaching essentially, Chris.
Speaker 2: I think that's what we love about having you as
Speaker 2: an ambassador is how curious you are, how you've asked
Speaker 2: us to in the research end to help answer some
Speaker 2: very deep questions. Do you feel like you have Do
Speaker 2: you feel like you've had all these questions in your
Speaker 2: head and a bunch of them are answered and you're
Speaker 2: getting closer to the end or do you feel like
Speaker 2: as you've answered some of these questions it's opened more
Speaker 2: doors to more than ever Where are you out on
Speaker 2: that kind of spectrum?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you definitely start to make progress, and
Speaker 1: I think you know you have more and more like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna, if you will, kind of like understood a
Speaker 1: little bit better. And then you know, as a teacher,
Speaker 1: you get more tools and your tool set type of thing.
Speaker 1: But you probably, like most things, as you start to
Speaker 1: open it up and ask the questions. You know, more
Speaker 1: questions arise and and you you know, finally sort of
Speaker 1: concede that this is going to be a never ending thing.
Speaker 1: And you know, you'll be whatever years old and you'll
Speaker 1: be like, oh, you know, that was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: But here's sort of like the next set of questions
Speaker 1: for the next generation to kind of play with and
Speaker 1: make their own progress with. So it's probably like anything
Speaker 1: else you do with you know, what you can with
Speaker 1: the time you have in it, and it is sort
Speaker 1: of this never ending thing, which is is also part
Speaker 1: of the fun and challenge of it all.
Speaker 3: So yeah, Chris, I mean the doors in golf open
Speaker 3: and close as well for players, right, I mean you
Speaker 3: you evolve and you get better, and you work on things,
Speaker 3: and maybe a part of your game deterior rates and
Speaker 3: you're trying to work on that. I can only imagine
Speaker 3: in the world of instruction, you're always ahead because you've
Speaker 3: got to kind of stay ahead of the golfers. I mean,
Speaker 3: you think about the way we launched drivers versus the
Speaker 3: way players in the late nineties and early two thousands
Speaker 3: hit their drivers, right, it's completely different. I mean, you
Speaker 3: go watch John Daly in ninety two ninety three pound
Speaker 3: is driver and that ball is coming out low and
Speaker 3: spending and now obviously the way Rory launches it, it
Speaker 3: is starting out way up in the air, right off
Speaker 3: the face. How if you, I mean, for lack of
Speaker 3: a better term, how ahead of the golf curve are
Speaker 3: you in terms of paying attention to new technology and
Speaker 3: new thoughts? How hungry do you have to stay to
Speaker 3: be where you're at right now in the world of instruction?
Speaker 1: I mean I think, I mean, you're trying to help
Speaker 1: people get better, right and then like say, you know,
Speaker 1: on the PGA Tour or whatever, I mean it is
Speaker 1: the PGA tournament is in essence a zero sum game.
Speaker 1: It's like if if someone plays better, then other guy
Speaker 1: is going to make less money, right, So, like there
Speaker 1: is that element of it. So there is is trying
Speaker 1: to find like edges for the guys that you're working with.
Speaker 1: So there is that sort of zero sum game kind
Speaker 1: of like competitive mindset that does exist of helping a
Speaker 1: guy find an edge, and those edges you know, again
Speaker 1: it's it's probably this never ending thing and the edges
Speaker 1: get smaller that you're trying to push and you know,
Speaker 1: as equipment changes, you know, the whole set of variables
Speaker 1: that you're trying to find edges with change. You know,
Speaker 1: if all of a sudden they do a ball roll
Speaker 1: back or whatever it is, it's essentially changed the rules
Speaker 1: of the game. So and all of a sudden you've
Speaker 1: got to have to find edges within that new new
Speaker 1: rule set sort of speak, right, But then there's also
Speaker 1: like the macro of it, where you're just trying to
Speaker 1: like help the game grow. You're like, you know, you're
Speaker 1: trying to grow the GDP of golf and golf instruction
Speaker 1: and help people enjoy the game. And that's not zero sum, right,
Speaker 1: That's where you can help other people be better too,
Speaker 1: and that part's fun as well. So for me, it's
Speaker 1: always kind of that dance between those two worlds of
Speaker 1: trying to find the edge in a very competitive sense,
Speaker 1: and there's also trying to make you know, impact act
Speaker 1: or progress that can help like everybody in the golf industry.
Speaker 1: So I think you're trying to do both at the
Speaker 1: same time at some capacity, But uh yeah, I don't know. Again,
Speaker 1: it doesn't it doesn't ever end, right, It's just the
Speaker 1: variables are changing, the rules are changing. So you're always
Speaker 1: you're always finding I don't know if it's ahead of
Speaker 1: the curve, it's it's the landscape's changing enough that if
Speaker 1: you are going to find edges, you know you got
Speaker 1: to you got to sort of keep looking. And for me,
Speaker 1: the hunger part, like curiosity has always been like a
Speaker 1: pretty strong driving force for me. So as long as
Speaker 1: there's questions that's like I don't know the answer to,
Speaker 1: or there's there's things where it's like, oh, that's interesting,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that before. I think that sort of
Speaker 1: natural hunger that comes from that curiosity will will probably
Speaker 1: always be there.
Speaker 2: Chris, you touched on some of it. I have my
Speaker 2: own hypothesis on why you've taken this approach, but I've
Speaker 2: always wanted to ask you this question you talked about
Speaker 2: in terms of helping the golf community, other golf instructors
Speaker 2: get better, That's kind of why I let off with
Speaker 2: You've you've you've touched a lot of players, whether they
Speaker 2: know it or not, but you've taken this approach to
Speaker 2: be very open with sharing your questions, your ideas, crowdsourcing,
Speaker 2: getting answers to those questions to the other best golf
Speaker 2: instructors in the world where I I would think that,
Speaker 2: you know, other great teachers might keep some things like
Speaker 2: trade secret or close to their chest on their findings
Speaker 2: or what they're trying to research. Why have you taken
Speaker 2: that approach? What's been the inspiration story behind this approach
Speaker 2: to be a little bit more open with asking these
Speaker 2: questions and these these deep scientific or biomechanical questions that
Speaker 2: you've done over the over the last decade or so.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting question. Huh. I'm not sure if I
Speaker 1: fully know the answer to that. I would say I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think I genuinely like like just sharing
Speaker 1: and seeing industry grow. I mean, I again, I didn't
Speaker 1: grow up playing golf, and no one my fans played golf,
Speaker 1: you know, golf expensive, and I didn't grow you know,
Speaker 1: I had whatever, Like, I didn't grew up in like
Speaker 1: a very sort of like affluent environment or anything. And
Speaker 1: golf has like provided so many incredible things for me.
Speaker 1: So there is an element of like just an appreciation
Speaker 1: for the game. So if I can like impact and
Speaker 1: give to it, that's that's awesome. Like I love that
Speaker 1: I have an appreciation for teachers, like the teaching industry.
Speaker 1: I know it's a tough gig, right, Like I've I've
Speaker 1: done it in so many different versions teaching at driving rangeery.
Speaker 1: You can barely pay your bills or whatever. So I
Speaker 1: just have a strong sort of like appreciation affinity for
Speaker 1: people in the business. So there is just a genuine
Speaker 1: sort of like I like kind of like sharing it.
Speaker 1: I like the dialogue. I feel like having it be
Speaker 1: more open sourced allows more people to think about it.
Speaker 1: So I think there's you know, a higher acceleration at
Speaker 1: my own learning because it's like, yeah, you can ask
Speaker 1: like a question or give an insight to something. But
Speaker 1: the bigger the population of people who are like maybe
Speaker 1: talking about something, They're gonna have their own ideas, which
Speaker 1: is going to have its own sort of like you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like you know, loop to it to where
Speaker 1: I'm going to get better with it. So there's that
Speaker 1: like you have these different aspects of you as like
Speaker 1: a human, right, I'm very curious. There's like a part
Speaker 1: of me that likes to like share with the community,
Speaker 1: but then there's also part of me that's competitive and wants,
Speaker 1: like my guess to play really well. So how do
Speaker 1: you like, how do you have all those things be
Speaker 1: true at the same time and like get the most
Speaker 1: out of it. I think I'd at least like to think,
Speaker 1: maybe this is a little cocky, but I'd like to
Speaker 1: think that part of my edge in the competitive sense
Speaker 1: is the way I kind of put it all together
Speaker 1: and the problem solving aspect of it. So I don't
Speaker 1: look at this and like here's some rote knowledge and
Speaker 1: now you know it, and now all of a sudden
Speaker 1: it's like easy. Like you still got to like figure
Speaker 1: out how to put the puzzle together. How do you
Speaker 1: take an individual in front of you who's got their
Speaker 1: own crazinesses or golf swing, the way their mind works,
Speaker 1: the way their emotions process things, And then you got
Speaker 1: to like put in maybe some sort of understanding of
Speaker 1: whatever it is, golf swing technique, groundwraction, whatever the thing
Speaker 1: is you know you're factoring in, and then take this puzzle,
Speaker 1: put it together and help a guy play better with it.
Speaker 1: That's its own thing that one. Even if I wanted
Speaker 1: to like try to like teach it to someone else,
Speaker 1: like it's kind of impossible to do. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like my real edge is the problem solving
Speaker 1: aspect of it, and putting it all together. So in
Speaker 1: some ways, I'm not really worried about, you know, giving
Speaker 1: that away. I guess, now someone else might be have
Speaker 1: their own way that fits another person better or whatever
Speaker 1: it is, and you know, so they could be better with,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever set of people. But the way I
Speaker 1: put together is in a sense, my monopoly of that
Speaker 1: good or bad, like it or not like it. It's
Speaker 1: it's sort of mine. So I'm not really worried about,
Speaker 1: you know, competition that in that way.
Speaker 3: I guess, Chris, what was your I made it moment?
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, we all have had it in
Speaker 3: this world. You're talking about teaching lessons at a driving
Speaker 3: range and you know, barely getting by. When did you
Speaker 3: have the moment where you went, oh, my goodness, X
Speaker 3: paid attention to me, or somebody called me, or you know,
Speaker 3: somebody wants my opinion on this? Did you have one
Speaker 3: of those? That comes to mind?
Speaker 1: So when I graduated undergrad I was at this like
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have been in the golf business unless I
Speaker 1: was teaching, Like that's the only thing I had interest
Speaker 1: in doing in the golf missess, I would have done
Speaker 1: something else. And I I felt like in part because,
Speaker 1: like how I said earlier, there was so many different
Speaker 1: opinions on which you have in the golf swing. It's
Speaker 1: like I've already talked to too, you know, physicists and
Speaker 1: be like, if I let go of my phone, what's
Speaker 1: going to happen? They're all going to say, well, it's
Speaker 1: going to go to the ground because you know, Newtonian
Speaker 1: physics is sort of understood right. So to me that
Speaker 1: there were such different opinions, I'm like, there's a gap
Speaker 1: in the body knowledge at some level. And and you know,
Speaker 1: I felt like that was an opportunity and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go out there and really try to
Speaker 1: be like good at this. I'm gonna try to be
Speaker 1: the best at this. And that's what kind of like
Speaker 1: set me off on the whole golf coaching path. And
Speaker 1: you know, I went and traveled the country. I worked
Speaker 1: led for a little bit, worked for Haney for a
Speaker 1: little bit, spent a couple of years, uh, you know
Speaker 1: with maclgrady kind of hanging out with him, did all
Speaker 1: all the certifications like TPI, Paul Czeck, YadA, YadA, YadA,
Speaker 1: and I ended up in Dallas to do an academy,
Speaker 1: and the first year at this academy, I was working
Speaker 1: like sixty seven hours a week and I made nineteen
Speaker 1: thousand dollars at this academy. I mean they made no money.
Speaker 1: Like you know, it was I was eating into savings whatever, right,
Speaker 1: And it was such a what's the right way to
Speaker 1: say this, it was it was. It was not pleasant.
Speaker 1: It was it was I don't know if you guys
Speaker 1: can cents this, but it was a kick and it
Speaker 1: was just a kick in the butt where you're just like, yeah.
Speaker 3: Just a it's a total grind, I mean just grinding,
Speaker 3: grind and grind, and it.
Speaker 1: Was one of those things. I had some friends who
Speaker 1: had gone to law school. Yeah, and I'm making no
Speaker 1: money and I'm like, man, this was a bad decision.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't because my heart was still like so
Speaker 1: into it, right. So I ended up. Long story short
Speaker 1: of Marty probably knows this, I end up. I had
Speaker 1: joined a free poker league. Had done on that free
Speaker 1: poker league, which the one player of the year they
Speaker 1: fled to Vegas to play in a tournament. Came and forth.
Speaker 1: In this tournament, the Bolagio win forty grand one night,
Speaker 1: which doubled my year salary, take that money, break away
Speaker 1: at a driving range, and basically start to build like
Speaker 1: a golf book. But I was also playing poker at
Speaker 1: night in like the Dallas underground poker scene for a
Speaker 1: few years. So I'm like funding my golf passion instruction
Speaker 1: through playing poker at night, which is so ridiculous in hindsight.
Speaker 1: Start to really through a couple of like, you know,
Speaker 1: the right people playing well. There was a guy named
Speaker 1: Mike Madonna who used to play for the Dallas Stars.
Speaker 1: He'd start playing some good golf to help generate some
Speaker 1: like business. Scott Foster, the Guy of a Decade, actually
Speaker 1: met him in a poker room. He got a partial
Speaker 1: status on the web dot com tour. I was helping him,
Speaker 1: had some really good juniors, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I start building a book and they wake up one
Speaker 1: day and I'm like, actually like making a living teaching golf.
Speaker 1: But it was my own book too. It was like autonomous, right,
Speaker 1: wasn't at an academy. It was like my business. It
Speaker 1: wasn't where I could get fired the next day. It
Speaker 1: was like if I had left that driver range, the
Speaker 1: people would go to me. Someplace else. So it was
Speaker 1: like a true sort of like autonomous. I built like
Speaker 1: a business teaching golf where I can pay my bills.
Speaker 1: And this was this was before I went to grad
Speaker 1: school for biomechanics. This was before I started teaching like
Speaker 1: tour guys. But it was like a place where it's
Speaker 1: like I actually can like do this and make a
Speaker 1: living doing it, like a decent living. I was actually
Speaker 1: started to get really busy and was able to make
Speaker 1: kind of like a nice living. And that that's when
Speaker 1: I felt like, Okay, I made it, because you know,
Speaker 1: I was actually able to eat from teaching golf.
Speaker 2: So Shane N's in a little bit of a connection
Speaker 2: here to Victor playing playing Poker two and talking about
Speaker 2: you know, trying to get those little edges and making
Speaker 2: those little bets. Right. I think that's pretty interesting, Chris.
Speaker 2: What about let's let's talk about what happened next there?
Speaker 2: And like, I think, you know, you've a lot of
Speaker 2: the academic I think been sort of like the best
Speaker 2: applied scientists or applied problem solver taking some very academic principles,
Speaker 2: and then as you stated yourself, you know, you think
Speaker 2: your expertise is how you glue it together and apply
Speaker 2: it holistically to your players. So tell us about that journey,
Speaker 2: some of the things you've done. I mean, you've written
Speaker 2: a couple of papers in the Journal of Sports bio Biomechanics.
Speaker 2: How how did you get into that and how important
Speaker 2: has that been for you in your skill set? Is
Speaker 2: a foundation, is a is an instructor?
Speaker 1: So so yeah, so I you know, done all that.
Speaker 1: Where I'd worked for different guys was teaching, had built
Speaker 1: like a nice teaching business. And at this point I'm
Speaker 1: now at a country club called Glen Eagles, and I'm
Speaker 1: like grinding on the range, teaching all day. In some ways,
Speaker 1: I think I was always like running away from you know,
Speaker 1: like that it wouldn't work. So you know, if someone
Speaker 1: wanted a lesson, if it was at sixth in the
Speaker 1: morning or night, like they're getting a lesson, and I
Speaker 1: was out there all day like just grinding, right, and
Speaker 1: which is awesome. It was such a fun window. A
Speaker 1: friend of mine, his name is Chris Robinson. I've lost
Speaker 1: touch with them. I don't know where he is. Chris Robinson,
Speaker 1: here's this. Hit me up, curious about what you're doing.
Speaker 1: So he was doing his PhD at TWU and he's like,
Speaker 1: there's this really cool biomechanicslibe. You got to come check out.
Speaker 1: So I go to this lab and you know, they
Speaker 1: had the VITE I didn't even there was just the
Speaker 1: fancy cameras that you see like in like you know,
Speaker 1: video games or whatever is they're Vicom three D motion cameras.
Speaker 1: They had this crazy lab and there was this professor
Speaker 1: there named doctor Kuan. So I go to doctor Kwan
Speaker 1: and I'm like, and they weren't doing any golf research
Speaker 1: at the point. I'm like, do you have any interest
Speaker 1: in studying golf? He's like, yeah, bring me golfers. So
Speaker 1: I start bringing my students, different people from the club.
Speaker 1: We start collecting a bunch of data and just me
Speaker 1: being curious, I started asking them all these questions and
Speaker 1: he's like, why don't you just take my undergraduate Bao
Speaker 1: mechanics class. So I take the class and I like
Speaker 1: loved it. And there was like so many little things
Speaker 1: where I was like, oh, that makes sense why I
Speaker 1: see this in a swing or that, or starting to
Speaker 1: understand better the constraints of the human body, and I
Speaker 1: just I felt like I had this like flooding of
Speaker 1: like insights of things that I had seen in teaching
Speaker 1: or other teachers, things that I had learned, and it
Speaker 1: just kind of like gave it a framework and sort
Speaker 1: of the context for those things to make more sense
Speaker 1: to me. Like this is really cool. So I take
Speaker 1: the class, did one in the class in Kwan's like, hey,
Speaker 1: you got an aptitude for this, you should do like
Speaker 1: the graduate program. So anyway, do some other stuff to
Speaker 1: kind of like prerex sits and YadA, YadA YadA. I
Speaker 1: end up in his graduate program and to do a
Speaker 1: master's game bo mechanics, and I remember the first semester.
Speaker 1: The first class was like just like a mechanics class
Speaker 1: and it was all like form. Kwan's this amazing professor.
Speaker 1: He's very much like a math first type of professor.
Speaker 1: And I sitting there and I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I get myself into it. I remember going to him.
Speaker 1: I was like it was like a month in the
Speaker 1: class on like a golf pro Like I don't know
Speaker 1: what I'm doing, and he's like he gave me this
Speaker 1: like pep talk sort of. He was like he was
Speaker 1: like there's this proverb where like Koreean general if the
Speaker 1: army is like facing which feels like an insurmountable foe
Speaker 1: that the general will back the army up against the
Speaker 1: body of water so they have no place to run.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you're basically calling me a whats aren't you.
Speaker 1: He's like, guess, So I stuck it out. That first
Speaker 1: class was actually the hardest, and then and then we
Speaker 1: went to it like on a nice flow. I was
Speaker 1: taking the coursework, I was working during the day. We
Speaker 1: were collecting data on golfers, like you mentioned, we published
Speaker 1: a couple of papers that were really cool. You know,
Speaker 1: I'd eventually completed all the coursework for masterstream and bio Mechanics,
Speaker 1: so I've done everything except for I have like a
Speaker 1: ten page thesis or something to write. But that's when
Speaker 1: Tiger Woods called me. Was like, right when I was
Speaker 1: finishing it.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna take this call. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: It's one of the things where, yeah, just starting to
Speaker 1: get on the technology, looking at three D data, looking
Speaker 1: at force plate data, and then having what I felt like.
Speaker 1: I felt like because I had all those years of teaching,
Speaker 1: which was a decade at this point of teaching at least,
Speaker 1: and then going to grad school and then kind of
Speaker 1: like connecting the dots just I don't know. It's just
Speaker 1: a very really cool like window of time where I
Speaker 1: felt like I was getting all these like aha moments
Speaker 1: because of that context. I don't think I would have
Speaker 1: had that if it was just like sort of the
Speaker 1: degree first type of thing. So it's really like, you know,
Speaker 1: fortunate in that way, and you know it. I don't
Speaker 1: want to say. I actually think in terms of teaching,
Speaker 1: the best window for me have developed, like might say
Speaker 1: a set of teaching seal would be when I was
Speaker 1: teaching on the range and you like, you know, you
Speaker 1: you only again pay your bills if you help people
Speaker 1: get better, So it forces you into a very sort
Speaker 1: of like pragmatic approach to teaching. No like you've got
Speaker 1: to be here or this position or whatever that you
Speaker 1: can get away with if you maybe had like a
Speaker 1: marketing machine or brand, because people are going to come
Speaker 1: to you per that. Like I was kind of this
Speaker 1: unknown person at a driving range that they're not going
Speaker 1: to come to you unless their friend said, hey, I
Speaker 1: hit it a lot better type of thing, right. That
Speaker 1: was the place where I really I feel like cut
Speaker 1: my teeth, just like in terms of actual teaching. But
Speaker 1: then post that the research side of it, again, it
Speaker 1: becomes this like small edge that I think amplified that
Speaker 1: previous experience, you know, like anything else, I think over time,
Speaker 1: as you get maybe better, more proficient at something, it
Speaker 1: becomes harder and harder to find those like edges. But
Speaker 1: the more academic side of it, blended with the previous experience,
Speaker 1: for me was just like just tons of aha moments,
Speaker 1: and I just I think it just helped me kind
Speaker 1: of take it to, you know, a bit of a
Speaker 1: higher level.
Speaker 3: So, Chris, you mentioned work in a bit with mac Ogrady.
Speaker 3: I feel like there's two names in golf that when
Speaker 3: when people hear it, their kind of ears perk up
Speaker 3: in terms of forst it's Maco Grady and Anthony Kim,
Speaker 3: especially modern day Anthony Kim, Like where is he? What's
Speaker 3: he doing? How was it with mac Ogrady, Because again,
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not sure you can just I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna let you just pass over the fact that you
Speaker 3: worked a little bit with mac over the years. So
Speaker 3: how was it like picking his brain listen to him?
Speaker 3: How did you find him? I mean, how did that
Speaker 3: whole thing go down?
Speaker 1: So I found him? He was playing a US Open
Speaker 1: qualifier elk Cab and I watched him play if he
Speaker 1: played lefty, al righting, he's playing righting, Okay. I watched
Speaker 1: him play, and then I like cornered him in the
Speaker 1: parking lot and started to ask him, like, you know,
Speaker 1: just struck up conversation. We sat out there for at
Speaker 1: least two hours. It was. It went from like, you know, whatever,
Speaker 1: hey and big fan, like really love like you know,
Speaker 1: the golf swing stuff, whatever, to this long conversation he recommended.
Speaker 1: I was like, what are some books you recommend? He
Speaker 1: recommended me five books. None of them were golf books.
Speaker 1: They're all just like philosophy of science and like Adamy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: It was great. He gave me his number. I called
Speaker 1: him for years, he never responded, and then I found
Speaker 1: this email somewhere online, sent an email, responded to that,
Speaker 1: and then I started doing the schools with them. It
Speaker 1: was great. I mean it was great, like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I was I think I was smart enough. For the
Speaker 1: first year. I didn't ask too many questions. I just listened.
Speaker 1: And then after the first year, you know, I like
Speaker 1: asking tough, challenging questions, and you know, anyway, different people
Speaker 1: respond to to tough questions differently, right, And that's where
Speaker 1: I feel like, uh, for me at least, you know
Speaker 1: guys like Kwan or Sasha McKenzie or you know Mike Duffy,
Speaker 1: or you know, like a guy like Mark Brody and
Speaker 1: Chris Brody who was over at Ping. There becomes this
Speaker 1: discourse where it's like the heart of the question, the better,
Speaker 1: Like I personally, I want people to challenge me, like
Speaker 1: I want to be asked the tough questions because I
Speaker 1: get better from that. So that's in general the environments
Speaker 1: I like to put myself in because those are the
Speaker 1: ones where I think, you know, it really can kind
Speaker 1: of like sharpen thought and help people advance. But anyway,
Speaker 1: how is his swing? His swing is so good, like
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it's it's beautiful, right, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know enough about like his PGH career and
Speaker 1: how much like how good of an actual ball striker is.
Speaker 1: And this is not sort of to saying to Mac,
Speaker 1: but but in general, I think sometimes like when people
Speaker 1: hit shots where they take a big divid the ball
Speaker 1: kind of comes out and it sounds really good. People
Speaker 1: get sort of like enamored and it kind of gets
Speaker 1: romanticized a little bit, but like Jack Nicholas, like he
Speaker 1: picked it and like people don't really rave about him
Speaker 1: as a ball striker, but from a practical sense, that's
Speaker 1: like probably the best ball striker of all time, right,
Speaker 1: So I think it's I think people got to be
Speaker 1: a little bit careful not to romanticize things because of
Speaker 1: the look at it of it. But it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: how does it actually practically hold up in the conditions
Speaker 1: that you're trying to play in. You know, if you're
Speaker 1: trying to win majors, hitting it really high to hold
Speaker 1: on fast screens can be pretty helpful. So again, I'm
Speaker 1: super appreciative of the time like spent with him, you know,
Speaker 1: so it was great. It was a great window.
Speaker 2: Chris uh kind of springboarding on that a little bit
Speaker 2: and maybe maybe making it putting all this that we've
Speaker 2: talked about in context for the listener. You know, the
Speaker 2: biomechanics stuff might sound a little out there for some
Speaker 2: folks or maybe you know, not tangible how it can
Speaker 2: help their game. I think one of the big things
Speaker 2: you and I still remember that video you and Sasho
Speaker 2: did and put out on YouTube maybe six eight ten
Speaker 2: years ago somewhere in that neighborhood or you guys are
Speaker 2: talking about the three D flat spot, right, and you
Speaker 2: were the first one, I think to kind of come
Speaker 2: to us, sashow others yourself personally and try to figure
Speaker 2: out what is this concept all about? Explore this concept
Speaker 2: for the listener out there that may have never heard
Speaker 2: of this concept. Can you just kind of tell the
Speaker 2: story of that, like, you know, how did you get
Speaker 2: interested in this, and how does it impact your teaching today?
Speaker 1: What is it?
Speaker 2: What can players do to maybe try to get a
Speaker 2: little more flat ish spot maybe not flat as we know,
Speaker 2: but and just kind of tell us that story a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 1: Okay, this, I mean this can be a bit of
Speaker 1: a rabbit hole, Yes, can come out. So you know
Speaker 1: this is like has to be thirteen plus years ago. Now. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's like an air Quotes rate of closure debate on
Speaker 1: one of the forums, and you know, there was some
Speaker 1: people in the academic world that was saying, like rate
Speaker 1: of closure has nothing to do with like it has
Speaker 1: no correlation with like handicap whatever. And I think this
Speaker 1: is where it was a little bit helpful to have
Speaker 1: some of like the boom mechanics background some of the courses,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, I think here's the problem
Speaker 1: is that golf coach has an intuition and they're asking
Speaker 1: a question, but they were using the language. They were
Speaker 1: using it sort of a different language than than like
Speaker 1: say the PhDs, or they're using words differently than how
Speaker 1: the like a PhD would interpret those same words, and
Speaker 1: there became fundamentally like a miscommunication between the two worlds.
Speaker 1: And so rate of closure at that point was being
Speaker 1: measured as you know, anger velocity per second, like at impact,
Speaker 1: so like sort of like an instants anger velocity. But
Speaker 1: the golf coaches they're looking at a camera and they're
Speaker 1: slowing it down and they're seeing the face look a
Speaker 1: certain way coming into the ball, and they're saying that
Speaker 1: looks like that has a lower rate of closure. And
Speaker 1: when they say rate of closure, that's essentially what they
Speaker 1: were getting at. But by the PhD sort of language,
Speaker 1: that's not what RATEI closure would be. So in my
Speaker 1: mind I came up, I'm like, well, what the golf
Speaker 1: pro is really asking is what is the change in
Speaker 1: the face rotationally per how it changes in space, like
Speaker 1: how its movement is in space. So I came up
Speaker 1: with this measurement of closure per displacement, so instead of
Speaker 1: closure per time, closure per how much it's moving linear
Speaker 1: in space. And then and then it came to me
Speaker 1: it was like, well, if you were to do that
Speaker 1: with the face, would you do that with the loft?
Speaker 1: Would you do that with the club path? Would you
Speaker 1: do that with the angle attack? So now all of
Speaker 1: a sudden it became could you take these variables that
Speaker 1: we know make the ball do what it does and
Speaker 1: say what is the change in the path per displacement?
Speaker 1: What is the change in the angle attack per displacement?
Speaker 1: Was the change of the face per displacement, the change
Speaker 1: of the loft per displacement? And again people sometimes mistake
Speaker 1: flat spot is being flat to the ground. It's not that.
Speaker 1: It's just saying what is the change of it? If
Speaker 1: you had less of a change in the path, you
Speaker 1: would have more of a straighter direction of it in
Speaker 1: some direction, so it have it would be less of
Speaker 1: an arc inissense, so that straightness could be you know,
Speaker 1: five degrees down, it could be five degrees up. It
Speaker 1: could be five degrees to the right of the target,
Speaker 1: It could be five degrees to left the target. It
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with being flat to the ground,
Speaker 1: which is saying is there less change in that path
Speaker 1: and that angle attack and again in the face in
Speaker 1: the loft during an interval, Because the whole idea is,
Speaker 1: you know, is there a window of space where impact
Speaker 1: could happen and is there less change of those club
Speaker 1: three D club had variables during that spatial interval, and
Speaker 1: if there is, does that have somewhat of a relationship
Speaker 1: to the overall shot distribution to person hits. So the
Speaker 1: idea would be, you know, this is one of the
Speaker 1: great sort of mysteries in golf. To me, it's like,
Speaker 1: and I think to everybody, and I kind of had
Speaker 1: alluded to before, Like there's plenty of five handicaps, ten handicaps.
Speaker 1: You know, somewhere in the world, there's an eighteen handicap
Speaker 1: that today will probably hit a hole in one. Right,
Speaker 1: So a lot of golfers hit really great shots, like
Speaker 1: maybe like the best shot possible, and that whole would
Speaker 1: be a whole in one, right, So if they could
Speaker 1: do that over and over again, they'd be the best
Speaker 1: golf forever. Right, always hit holes of ones, but for
Speaker 1: some reason, like we also hit these like weird shots, right, Like,
Speaker 1: at least I do. And if you're not like a
Speaker 1: toy guy, you hit weird shots, right? Where did that
Speaker 1: come from? And I think a lot of like the
Speaker 1: instructional like philosophies or frameworks have been an argument to
Speaker 1: how does the golfer be more consistent? You know, keep
Speaker 1: your head still, make your left arm across your test,
Speaker 1: how do you be more consistent? And that seems to
Speaker 1: make sense if I want the ball to be consistent,
Speaker 1: wy don't I be consistent? But then you get like,
Speaker 1: you know, I remember watching Trevino hit balls and he's
Speaker 1: like moving around and talking, and I mean he's freaking
Speaker 1: not consistent, and the ball's just every time poof, you know,
Speaker 1: And then you get you know, I'm sure we've all
Speaker 1: seen its someone who's got like the alignment sticks out
Speaker 1: and everything's perfect and like all the checklists and then
Speaker 1: the ball is going lept everywhere. Right, It's like they're
Speaker 1: really consistent. And if you were to look at their swing,
Speaker 1: like I think, imagine your friend, you know, whoever it is,
Speaker 1: fifty yards away, you watch them, so you know it's him.
Speaker 1: Like people's swings are actually kind of consistent, right, So
Speaker 1: It's like, what makes certain swings have ball flight distributions
Speaker 1: be consistent more so than other ones? And I don't
Speaker 1: think the answer is just like you got to be
Speaker 1: more consistent. And again, like these things have come through
Speaker 1: like keep your head still, get put your left arm
Speaker 1: here or there or whatever it is. And it's like,
Speaker 1: well it's a hypothesis, let's test it. You know, rock
Speaker 1: Commedia moves off the ball, Bunch flushed it, Tiger Woods,
Speaker 1: Curtis Strange, they had like movement. And these guys were
Speaker 1: all very straight hitters. So the argument of this three
Speaker 1: flat spot stuff is, is there certain things that are
Speaker 1: contained in in you know whatever techniques that essentially make
Speaker 1: the ball flight less sensitive to human error And human
Speaker 1: air could be you know, you slide on a little
Speaker 1: bit more or whatever it is. Or it could be
Speaker 1: environmental stuff too, right, or I should just say air,
Speaker 1: not human air, but just air which could also be environmental.
Speaker 1: Could be like a downhill lie a side, he'll lie,
Speaker 1: it's inudivid whatever it is. All these different sort of
Speaker 1: like inherent variables that are existing around the golf. Are
Speaker 1: there certain techniques that fundamentally make it easier to have
Speaker 1: the contact you want and that shot flight, the ball
Speaker 1: flight distribution you want because of that technique. So that's
Speaker 1: sort of like the question. And then those are the
Speaker 1: variables that we were starting to look at. And this
Speaker 1: is where like technology like focal as well as you know,
Speaker 1: you guys being kind enough to start to like write
Speaker 1: in the code to like really look at this matter,
Speaker 1: is giving us the opportunity to start to like, you know,
Speaker 1: potentially answer this question. You know, is there correlations between
Speaker 1: guys who drive it really well are very good iron
Speaker 1: players and this variable that is its own continuum, right,
Speaker 1: like two people, two tour guys could have slightly different
Speaker 1: changes in path or angle, attack or face whatever it is.
Speaker 1: It's not like a binary thing. So it's got its
Speaker 1: own continuum to it. And does that have some relationship
Speaker 1: to you know, their ball striking ability? And then there's
Speaker 1: obviously going to be other variables that can are going
Speaker 1: to play a role, like you know, a person's emotional
Speaker 1: state and mindset and you know who knows. But but
Speaker 1: to me, that air quotesess consistency question or that repeatability question,
Speaker 1: I think is you know the biggest, really the biggest
Speaker 1: question in golf that determines like differences in skill set,
Speaker 1: because again there's plenty of whatever ten handicappers with enough
Speaker 1: club at speed that can hit a drive that looks
Speaker 1: like a tour player. But then you know, a couple
Speaker 1: drives later, they're they're their balls like hitting a house.
Speaker 1: So you know that, that to me is one of
Speaker 1: the phenomenas in the mysteries of the game. That's that's
Speaker 1: fun to try to figure out.
Speaker 2: Chris, you did an awesome job connecting. You know. I
Speaker 2: think the listener out there might be like, hey, biomechanics,
Speaker 2: you know, what is that, what's that going to do
Speaker 2: for me? I think that you kind of hit on,
Speaker 2: like that's kind of the holy grail. You're trying to find,
Speaker 2: right of that like consistency aspect which will help the
Speaker 2: every day golfer. And you've seen it. The Travino story
Speaker 2: is perfect one, right, you know, I think the golf
Speaker 2: prosol observed that in one way or the other. It's like,
Speaker 2: how do you get to the actual you know, mechanics
Speaker 2: of how you can teach that and influence it in
Speaker 2: a practical sense, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I mean that at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, it's like, you know, I think people miss
Speaker 1: it for at least me. I'm like, I'm so pragmatic
Speaker 1: with things, and I was a teacher first before I
Speaker 1: went down this path. But all these are to mirror
Speaker 1: tools to answer very practical questions, like at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, that's my end game is how do
Speaker 1: you just like figure out how to get better at
Speaker 1: the game. So I do think people can kind of like, oh,
Speaker 1: by my things, it's like yeah, and of itself whatever,
Speaker 1: But these are tools to answer what I think are
Speaker 1: really meaningful questions that you know. Again, this is part
Speaker 1: of the things that grabbed me about this game is
Speaker 1: that there is like phenomena, there's really interesting things that
Speaker 1: happened that aren't fully understood.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Again, it's like, how do you have guys, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's like whatever, like say Michael Jordan or some world
Speaker 1: class athlete that clearly has got you know, out of
Speaker 1: this world hand eye coronation a great athlete and their
Speaker 1: good shots are unbelievable, but they do not have that
Speaker 1: sort of repeatability as a tour player does. It's probably
Speaker 1: not a function of their coronation because they're great athletes, right,
Speaker 1: So it's like, what are some of the other reasons
Speaker 1: to explain what is sort of a phenomenon of golf
Speaker 1: is like why can you hit a great shot and
Speaker 1: then you know a minute later it just hit a
Speaker 1: shot that's like, you know, not that great Chris.
Speaker 3: The Trevino story was so interesting to me because I
Speaker 3: remember talking to Brad Faxon about putting and he would
Speaker 3: say that a big part of his great putting was
Speaker 3: he was a try to leave shots in certain areas
Speaker 3: where he would have the easiest putt. And then there
Speaker 3: were times, you know, you think about a great player,
Speaker 3: a great putter someone I mean you mentioned you know,
Speaker 3: like a Justin Rose right, who's on the range. He's
Speaker 3: got all these systems going, and he's got alignment rods
Speaker 3: and he's got the ball and all those types of
Speaker 3: things to make sure the swing is perfectly online. And
Speaker 3: then you got somebody like Lee Trevino who's out there
Speaker 3: making all sorts of different golf swings and he's considered
Speaker 3: one of the great ball strikers of our generation. I
Speaker 3: was listening to Steph Curry on a podcast a couple
Speaker 3: of weeks ago, and they said, Steph, what are you
Speaker 3: focused on when you're shooting? And he said, my entire
Speaker 3: focus now is just balance. If I'm balanced when I'm
Speaker 3: set to shoot, I feel like I'm going to make
Speaker 3: the shot. And you know, you watch Steph play basketball,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of shots where he's fading away, or
Speaker 3: he's stepping back, or he's shooting a one leged kind
Speaker 3: of floater in the lane and they all go in right.
Speaker 3: So for him, the focus is on balance. In your opinion,
Speaker 3: what is that constant from a Fax and putting to
Speaker 3: a Travino ball striking, to Tiger to Steph Curry shooting
Speaker 3: that they all do well even though they're all kind
Speaker 3: of juggling the ball.
Speaker 1: This is why I think golf is for a of unique.
Speaker 1: So I think, like all the stuff of like having
Speaker 1: the target and balance and all that like that that
Speaker 1: maybe like a stuff with shooting is important, and that's
Speaker 1: probably important through all sports. And you know, like I
Speaker 1: think putting maybe a little bit different, but I think
Speaker 1: when it comes to like ball striking, all that stuff matters.
Speaker 1: But I do think there's another variable, and this is
Speaker 1: like say some of the flat spot stuff that I
Speaker 1: do think is going to have my bat. My prediction
Speaker 1: is gonna be this is going to have a big
Speaker 1: sort of prediction on what makes someone hit it better
Speaker 1: than another one, because the reality of it is is
Speaker 1: like you know, let's say, even like Justin Rose, right,
Speaker 1: he's got all like you said, you're with the alignment sticks.
Speaker 1: Even to take away all his aliment sticks, and I
Speaker 1: already give him like seven shots at tequila, he's still
Speaker 1: going to hit it better than I am, right, so
Speaker 1: like with all my aliment sticks, because I think he
Speaker 1: does what I would call like air quotes, the really
Speaker 1: good stuff. I think he's kind of always done that
Speaker 1: for the most part, So he's going to be a
Speaker 1: really really good ball striker. Even if you disrupt some
Speaker 1: of the things that he would makes him feel more consistent,
Speaker 1: he's still going to have an inherent consistency to his
Speaker 1: motion that I think is going to kind of trump
Speaker 1: these other versions of like making it less consistent. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of an abstract thing. So this is why
Speaker 1: it's always tough to talk about. But like I appreciate
Speaker 1: you bring it up because it's it helps me sort
Speaker 1: of like maybe communicate it better. Whatever. And this is
Speaker 1: a weird analogy, and you can you can hammer this morning,
Speaker 1: but so to me, I think it was like this,
Speaker 1: like like, let's say I had a die right, and
Speaker 1: I was you know, like a crap sty or whatever.
Speaker 1: And let's say I can't really actually read what the
Speaker 1: dye says, but I can read it once it lands
Speaker 1: and it stops. And let's say I have a die
Speaker 1: and five sides say bad shot on it, and one
Speaker 1: side says good shot. Okay, and I rolled the die
Speaker 1: and good shot comes up. It's like, okay, what did
Speaker 1: I do there? I had my elbow here, Okay, let's
Speaker 1: see my head was here, bad shot? Oh what happened?
Speaker 1: What did I do on that one that I had?
Speaker 1: Good shot? Okay? Hold on, I had my heir, I
Speaker 1: had my my my shoulder here, bad shot. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: what's going on? Like I thought I had it right,
Speaker 1: So that to me would be like a high handicapper.
Speaker 1: And then on the other stream would be like a
Speaker 1: tour guy, which would be five sides would say good
Speaker 1: shot and once I would say bad shot, and they're like,
Speaker 1: good shot, round the back, good shot, you know, oof,
Speaker 1: good shot. It's just like sort of easier. Now, maybe
Speaker 1: they could go through their process and put their lubble there.
Speaker 1: Maybe in a very small way, they can maybe roll
Speaker 1: the good shots a little bit more often, but really
Speaker 1: the majority of the probability of the shots that they're
Speaker 1: hitting is contained in their die, and the die is
Speaker 1: you know, for the analogy is they're sort of that
Speaker 1: late interval stuff that we're talking about before. So that's
Speaker 1: at least part of this big golf kind of like
Speaker 1: puzzle mystery. That's that's part of kind of how I
Speaker 1: see it as a again sort of an analogy to
Speaker 1: to try to help with like something that sort of
Speaker 1: like out there a bit. But I don't know how's
Speaker 1: that Does that make sense? Right?
Speaker 2: I know, I think it's looking at it probabilistically and statistically.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what the game, especially you talked about
Speaker 2: in the tour level, Chris, where you framed it really
Speaker 2: well at the beginning, you know, word zero s you're
Speaker 2: trying to find the micro edge.
Speaker 1: You know, this is where I think from from a
Speaker 1: teaching perspective. If like I've helped make, if you may
Speaker 1: help a player make, there's certain changes you make where
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the game, not even a tour guy,
Speaker 1: but like a high handicapper, they make a change and
Speaker 1: the game feels easier to them, just like the strike
Speaker 1: is better, the whole shot distribution changes. So it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't think this is just a I think this
Speaker 1: is in some ways where players, if they're actually interested
Speaker 1: in like making improvements of their game, can make massive improvements.
Speaker 1: So I actually think it's not just a small edged place,
Speaker 1: but like when someone if they're willing to make a change,
Speaker 1: can really experience the game in a completely different fashion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree, Chris. One question I
Speaker 2: wanted to ask you, uh, is on the equipment side.
Speaker 2: Tell tell us a little insight into either, you know,
Speaker 2: using a change in equipment let's say, you know, driver
Speaker 2: or another club in the bag to help influence a
Speaker 2: change that a players making right or have you what
Speaker 2: examples have you seen of players playing equipment maybe a
Speaker 2: driver loft is too low and they're doing some things
Speaker 2: mechanically that's going to fight what you want them to do. Basically,
Speaker 2: what I want to get to is just kind of
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about equipment slash fitting, equipment slash
Speaker 2: coaching and how those two things marry together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you can't separate them. I mean just
Speaker 1: you know, the easiest sort of example is, especially if
Speaker 1: someone's got like some back issues. If the loft is
Speaker 1: too low, they're going to figure out a way to
Speaker 1: hit it high enough. Especially a better player, they're gonna
Speaker 1: they're gonna hit shots that fit their eye. So I
Speaker 1: think you're always whether it be like the trajectory that's
Speaker 1: launching at or if it's like say, you know, got
Speaker 1: more of a draw bias or a fade bias, that's
Speaker 1: all massive role in terms of the changes you're trying
Speaker 1: to make with the guy, because they're they're going to
Speaker 1: make the ball do what they want to do. So
Speaker 1: you know, as of for instance, if someone's got say
Speaker 1: some back stuff and they're kind of like hanging back
Speaker 1: on it, you know, I'm always gonna try to get them,
Speaker 1: not always, but oftentimes try and get them into a
Speaker 1: more lofted driver so they have that same move they
Speaker 1: hit it too high, and then it sort of like
Speaker 1: encourages them to you know, have their chest not be
Speaker 1: so kind of backed out of it and get sort
Speaker 1: of stressed on the lore back.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: And there's so many different for instances of these, right,
Speaker 1: So it's like if I'm if I'm trying to get
Speaker 1: change the release pattern or something, you know, it's could
Speaker 1: work either way, but like either in the spectrum, but
Speaker 1: like you know, maybe it's something where I want a
Speaker 1: club that's more right biased because I need them to
Speaker 1: do something to like try to air quotes square it
Speaker 1: up earlier, and for them it's to take out the
Speaker 1: right or vice versa. Right. So, but but at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, it's it's you know, making changes
Speaker 1: in the golf swing is is sort of like it's
Speaker 1: it's it's it's part of an ecosystem, and you got
Speaker 1: to understand how these pieces play a role and then
Speaker 1: how the player is always going to end up reacting
Speaker 1: to making the ball do something and you kind of
Speaker 1: have to get ahead of that and that's part of
Speaker 1: that's part probably put the puzzle together for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Chris, do you still play poker?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: No, not really. I stopped. It's funny, I uh two
Speaker 1: thousand and two thousand and seven, I played in the
Speaker 1: World Series. I played in the main and I for
Speaker 1: I did not I bust out day one. I qualified
Speaker 1: for thirty dollars and I actually made it very late
Speaker 1: in the day one and had I had trip almost
Speaker 1: tripled my chip stack and I got it. And there
Speaker 1: was one of the guy at the table who I
Speaker 1: didn't know who he was, and he was just give
Speaker 1: him so many fits. And I played a hand with
Speaker 1: him and he just completely outplayed me. He was the
Speaker 1: only guy at the table had me covered, so like
Speaker 1: an hour before the day one broke, he he busted me.
Speaker 1: And I'm kind of like, I'm pretty good about like
Speaker 1: if I feel like I'm making a good decision and
Speaker 1: things don't work out, I'm good with. Like I'm pretty
Speaker 1: stoic about like I made the right decision. Whatever I lost, right,
Speaker 1: it's life experience, right, But uh, I had clearly gotten
Speaker 1: outplayed and made like a bad decision. So I was
Speaker 1: like in the lobby it was at the rio, and
Speaker 1: I was like ahead, I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I was just so mad at myself. And he comes
Speaker 1: and sits down next to me because I feel like
Speaker 1: I had actually played pretty good at that point. He
Speaker 1: comes down and sits next to me because he had.
Speaker 1: It was like right before the day one broke and
Speaker 1: then it broke, and I'm sitting on like the bench
Speaker 1: and he sits next to me. He's like, he's like,
Speaker 1: he played pretty good, and he's and he introduced himself
Speaker 1: to me, and he was like one of the best
Speaker 1: online players at the time in the world, And if
Speaker 1: I had known it was him, I would have like
Speaker 1: just sat on my hands, waited for day two and waited, wait,
Speaker 1: waited for a table break because it was actually a
Speaker 1: really really bad spot because of just how good he was,
Speaker 1: and I got, I just got, I got toyed with basically.
Speaker 3: So it's like showing up to a money game and
Speaker 3: it's Victor Hoblin and you don't know who he is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, I shouldn't play this guy for five hole.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. Yeah, it was. It was. It was I
Speaker 1: was clearly out of my league. And then after that,
Speaker 1: after that, is right when the golf was like really
Speaker 1: starting to get busy, and I just stopped playing. It's
Speaker 1: just it was too hard to be both. Poker was
Speaker 1: like a blessing. I didn't want to become a losing player,
Speaker 1: and I'd worked pretty hard at it, so I felt like,
Speaker 1: you know, if I wasn't putting the time into it,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be like, I wouldn't be any good at it.
Speaker 1: So I stopped playing. Once in a while, play you know,
Speaker 1: like whatever in Vegas or like different spots and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm the donkey in the room.
Speaker 2: So Chris Gray, stuff, man, it's been fun having you
Speaker 2: on the team. And you know, I think it's you know,
Speaker 2: we have this kind of symbiotic relationship with you on
Speaker 2: the research side, which is like, you know, we need
Speaker 2: you to keep asking us questions to push us further right,
Speaker 2: And I'm you know, let's it's been fun journey for us,
Speaker 2: the all the team, you know, doctor Eric, doctor Paul,
Speaker 2: the rest of the team. How much kind of fun
Speaker 2: questions we've had trying to answer questions through our focal system.
Speaker 2: It's been super fun. So uh, let's let's keep this
Speaker 2: journey going. And uh, we really appreciate having you on
Speaker 2: the pod.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I tell you, tell you what, Like,
Speaker 1: the relationship with Ping has been so meaningful to me,
Speaker 1: So I appreciate you saying all that for me personally,
Speaker 1: Like I just get so much value out of the
Speaker 1: relationship with you and Paul and Eric and Chris and
Speaker 1: and and just the way you guys like go about it.
Speaker 1: It's so funny because you know, I've been doing stuff
Speaker 1: with PING for quite a while now, and and uh,
Speaker 1: whenever there's like my sort of like relationship with you
Speaker 1: guys is contractually up. The start of the negotiation is
Speaker 1: always like, all right, we both know that I'm never
Speaker 1: gonna go anywhere else, So it's it's it's it's one
Speaker 1: of those things wherever.
Speaker 3: It's just gone, Chris, it's like leverage.
Speaker 1: I know, Like there's no there's no point of like
Speaker 1: you know, not not accepting what it is. There's just
Speaker 1: so much value I get from you guys, And people
Speaker 1: will ask me because I'm always trying to be like
Speaker 1: pretty like transparent with stuff, and it's like, well, you
Speaker 1: know what about all the It's like there's probably lots
Speaker 1: of like I think all the big club companies are
Speaker 1: really good, right, Like they're making good stuff. But I
Speaker 1: feel so confident in saying that, like from an R
Speaker 1: and D perspective, the team that Ping has in terms
Speaker 1: of just that genuine kind of like curiosity of really
Speaker 1: trying to figure stuff out. Now, maybe someone might like
Speaker 1: one club the way it looks or whatever, who knows, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's just being a human the subjective aspect of
Speaker 1: it all. But in terms of the R and D
Speaker 1: part of it, it's just like it's hard for me
Speaker 1: to imagine a company like really doing the things that
Speaker 1: you guys do, so at least for me, I can't
Speaker 1: tell you, guys how I appreciative I am to have
Speaker 1: the relationship and it's it's made me a way better
Speaker 1: coach for it. So thank you, guys.
Speaker 2: Love it, Love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Chris, we appreciate it.
Speaker 3: It's been great chatting with you for Maco Grady, to science,
Speaker 3: to poker and beyond. We appreciate all your insights. We'll
Speaker 3: have you on again. Thanks so much. This is paining
Speaker 3: Proven Grounds podcast.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm