Speaker 1: It's the son of which podcast. I'm your host, Claude Harmon.
Speaker 1: This week on the pod we had him on. I
Speaker 1: think back in twenty twenty two, Mark Blackburn one of
Speaker 1: the best and hottest golf instructors on the planet. Don't
Speaker 1: take my word for it, PGA of America Teacher of
Speaker 1: the Year, Golf Magazine Top one hundred instructor, but Golf
Speaker 1: died just top instructor on their top fifty list. Works
Speaker 1: with a number of really really good players, Max Homa,
Speaker 1: Justin Rose, and we kind of dive into their performances
Speaker 1: this year in the majors, breakout years. I think for
Speaker 1: both of them Majors, it's been a while since you. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Justin Rose has had a chance to win a major.
Speaker 1: He made a run at the Open Championship. Maxhoma had
Speaker 1: a chance on the weekend going into Augusta. But I'm
Speaker 1: lucky that I get to spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: with Mark on tour, picking his brain, talking to him. Listen,
Speaker 1: when we're out on tour, we spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time waiting waiting for the guys to come out and
Speaker 1: hit balls, waiting for him to practice and stuff. So
Speaker 1: specifically at the majors. I think I get to spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time with Mark, and he's someone who
Speaker 1: I've always enjoyed really talking to try and pick his
Speaker 1: brain as much as I can, and I just think
Speaker 1: he's got great stuff. I like his perspective, I like
Speaker 1: the stuff that he talks about. And I figured, seeing
Speaker 1: as it's been a couple of years, we'd get him
Speaker 1: back on the pod. So this is a good one.
Speaker 1: Mark Blackburn, son of a Butch. My guest today is
Speaker 1: Mark Blackburn. Mark, we had you on the Pod twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two. You were PG Teacher of the Year in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty Golf Magazine Top hundred. But now you are
Speaker 1: the Golf Digest number one instructor, knocking off Butch harmon
Speaker 1: my dad, but she had a massive run at the
Speaker 1: top of that list and you got there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean that's listen. I mean we can joke about
Speaker 1: it and stuff like that, but from an instructor standpoint,
Speaker 1: the Digest list was always kind of the gold standards,
Speaker 1: whether it is now in the social media age or not.
Speaker 1: But to follow my dad having had that massive run,
Speaker 1: as popular as he's been and all the things he's
Speaker 1: done in the game. That must be pretty cool for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the coolest part was the fact that
Speaker 2: I actually got to hang out with him for a day,
Speaker 2: so that was a lot of fun. I hadn't really
Speaker 2: done that that.
Speaker 1: Would be that'd be cool for me. I don't get
Speaker 1: to do that.
Speaker 2: So we had a good time, you know, and we
Speaker 2: probably have more similarities than I probably realized, so I
Speaker 2: thought it was great. I mean, obviously they call it
Speaker 2: the Butch Harmon Award, which is great in his honor,
Speaker 2: and to be fair, they put him and Randy Smith,
Speaker 2: Chuck Cook and all the legends on another list, so
Speaker 2: if they still he was still on the list, we
Speaker 2: all know he'd still win, which is you know, I'm
Speaker 2: sure he's not very happy about that, but he is
Speaker 2: the goat, so it is what it is. But yes,
Speaker 2: for me personally, for my club, my academy, you know,
Speaker 2: all the players I coach, is kind of cool to
Speaker 2: have that accolade. And the coolest thing about this award,
Speaker 2: as your dad rightly told me, is that you're actually
Speaker 2: voted on by your peers. So that's that's the one thing.
Speaker 2: So I guess for the people on the ballot, I
Speaker 2: was voting number one. Whether I'm number one or not
Speaker 2: is definitely up for debate. But I seem to have
Speaker 2: swown the voters, so you know, like any election, there's
Speaker 2: some politics. But yeah, no, it's great. I mean to
Speaker 2: be the guy after your dad for twenty years is
Speaker 2: very cool. And I got to meet him and hang
Speaker 2: out and we had a good time. So yeah, I mean, look,
Speaker 2: it doesn't make you a great teacher winning awards. They're
Speaker 2: nice because people know what you do. But yeah, never hurts.
Speaker 1: I got to number three on that list once and
Speaker 1: then two years later after it's a two year cycle.
Speaker 1: Two years later, after Brooks went to number one and
Speaker 1: won four majors, I dropped like fifteen spots. So it's
Speaker 1: always good, exactly. We've had a fun summer. I know,
Speaker 1: it's been a fun year for you. We've spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time at at Majors and it's been fun
Speaker 1: watching you weight knuckle your two students, Max home, justin Rose,
Speaker 1: Rosie having a chance to win the Open Max Homa
Speaker 1: at the Masters, Max third, Rosie second. We'll get to
Speaker 1: Rosie in a second, because I think that's a great story.
Speaker 1: But is this a big kind of stepping stone for Max,
Speaker 1: I mean, final round at the Masters, didn't have his
Speaker 1: best start, shot one over, but he'd been one of
Speaker 1: those guys that everybody was talking about, when's he going
Speaker 1: to get in contention to win a major? When is
Speaker 1: he going to win a major?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: I think it was a huge week for Max at
Speaker 1: the Masters. I think it's going to do him and
Speaker 1: his career a lot of good to get in the
Speaker 1: mix on Sunday in one of the last couple of
Speaker 1: groups at a major championship. What's your take on the
Speaker 1: performance and how this could be a springboard for Max
Speaker 1: moving forward?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, for sure. Now. I think one of the
Speaker 2: things that it we all kind of forget is when
Speaker 2: you look at him coming off eleven, kind of in
Speaker 2: the lead, I believe, and then he hits a pretty
Speaker 2: reasonable shot on twelve and gets a horrific bounce, which
Speaker 2: is everybody at Augusta. Hits a firm part of the
Speaker 2: green and ends up way over there, and now he's
Speaker 2: in an impossible situation. So he shot one over, but
Speaker 2: I almost feel like it kind of he was right there,
Speaker 2: and then he had a bit of bad timing, which
Speaker 2: happens with everybody, right we all know to win a major. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you got to play great, but you've got to get
Speaker 2: some luck. So from that standpoint, I feel like he
Speaker 2: put himself in a position, he enjoyed it, he relished it,
Speaker 2: he was so excited on Saturday. I think he played
Speaker 2: phenomenal and he came off the course and you could
Speaker 2: see that it really had meant a lot in terms
Speaker 2: of he'd put himself under the kosh as we say
Speaker 2: in England, and he'd been able to deliver the goods.
Speaker 2: And I think that that's what for you as your point,
Speaker 2: that's a big stepping stone, like actually putting yourself in
Speaker 2: that position in a major. It's one thing after thirty
Speaker 2: six holes, but being able to be there after fifty
Speaker 2: four and then having a chance back nine on Sunday,
Speaker 2: putting yourself and that's what we all want to our
Speaker 2: students to be able to do, is like put them
Speaker 2: there so they have a chance. And I think being
Speaker 2: there once, like anything right, once you've and it once,
Speaker 2: you know you can probably do it again, and I
Speaker 2: think the confidence you get from that is huge. I
Speaker 2: think sometimes it can also be a bit of a
Speaker 2: curse because you get to the next major you're like, well,
Speaker 2: I should win this one because I did really well,
Speaker 2: and I think then you're going to have that expectation,
Speaker 2: but you got to be in it to win it,
Speaker 2: so to speak. And for me, I think Max definitely
Speaker 2: showed a lot of maturity there because he was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: now I've put myself there. Obviously, his performances in the
Speaker 2: Ryder Cup we were both in Rome together arguably probably
Speaker 2: was one of the better, if not the best American
Speaker 2: player there. I think all those things. If I could
Speaker 2: get him to play stroke play like he plays Max play,
Speaker 2: it would be incredible. So but again, it's just one
Speaker 2: of those things. It's just it's a different mindset for
Speaker 2: Max play because you're never out of it and you've
Speaker 2: got seventy two holes of stroke play, and I think
Speaker 2: it's just a different mindset and I've talked about it,
Speaker 2: but it's one of those things where he's definitely got
Speaker 2: a lot of confidence. I'm you know, our job as
Speaker 2: a coach is a part shrink and we you know, look,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of evidence here for your student, Max,
Speaker 2: this guy, look what you've done and accomplished that you've
Speaker 2: got the ability to do it. And I would argue
Speaker 2: that the Ryder Cup has more pressure. He took an
Speaker 2: unplayable got it up and down to you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, there's things that if you can thrive in
Speaker 2: that environment, then majors arguably you should be able to
Speaker 2: do it as well. So I think that was validation
Speaker 2: Masters that he could do it. I think twenty four
Speaker 2: or twenty five will be even better. I think, you know,
Speaker 2: we're starting to put some pieces in play working towards that,
Speaker 2: and I think having been there and done it makes
Speaker 2: it a lot easier to put yourself back there. As
Speaker 2: you well know, with all the majors you got.
Speaker 1: When you look at Max, how much of getting to
Speaker 1: that next level and being a guy that is in
Speaker 1: the mix mark all the time in major championships is
Speaker 1: technical in golf swing? And how much of it do
Speaker 1: you think from Max is mental? Because Max always looks
Speaker 1: to me like he's very much an emotional player. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think we saw that at the Open Championship at Troon.
Speaker 1: He hooped it what from like thirty forty feet on
Speaker 1: Friday to make the cut and showed a lot of emotion.
Speaker 1: I think Max where is his emotions outwardly? Honestly you
Speaker 1: kind of know what you're going to get with him,
Speaker 1: and I think that's one of the reasons why he's
Speaker 1: such a fan favorite. But how much of getting to
Speaker 1: that next level and competing and having chances to win majors,
Speaker 1: you know, two, three, four times a year do you feel,
Speaker 1: as his coach is the technique side of things and
Speaker 1: how much of it do you think is the mental
Speaker 1: side of things and the belief side of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, I think that it's a balance, right. You
Speaker 2: have all of these ingredients that going towards it. We
Speaker 2: all think of all of his players got a great swing,
Speaker 2: and they're just going to be great. But it's not
Speaker 2: necessarily all about that. So you've got to be able
Speaker 2: to understand your swing, know how it works under certain conditions,
Speaker 2: and what are your tendencies in stress under pressure, and
Speaker 2: then managing that and then so that becomes mental and emotional, right,
Speaker 2: And you can have bad holes and bogies don't kill
Speaker 2: you in majors. You just need to avoid these big numbers,
Speaker 2: and it's just trying to navigate it. And it's a
Speaker 2: little bit like where am I going to take my opportunities.
Speaker 2: I've used the analogy a lot. I didn't come up
Speaker 2: with it. But it's like playing craps at the casino.
Speaker 2: You go in, you cut your chips in, and you
Speaker 2: don't change your strategy. If you lose in the first
Speaker 2: you know, twenty minutes, you keep doing it because you
Speaker 2: know you're going to get your run, just like a
Speaker 2: deck of cards at a blackjack table. So it's just understanding,
Speaker 2: I've got to be able to have a sure game.
Speaker 2: I call it a defense that you can navigate the
Speaker 2: bad time, but because you know you're going to get
Speaker 2: your run and as long as your offense is good
Speaker 2: enough and you make enough birdies, you should be able
Speaker 2: to have a chance to play well. And I think
Speaker 2: for Max it's one of those things. He's got ossive
Speaker 2: offenses good is really really good. He's not putting maybe
Speaker 2: quite as well as he did last year, and arguably
Speaker 2: hasn't hit it quite as well, but it's like he
Speaker 2: has in Spurts, played beautifully well. Understanding that you don't
Speaker 2: have to have your best to contend. That part then
Speaker 2: becomes very very mental. I mean, you look at Nicholas,
Speaker 2: you look at wo Stay one, lots of events kind
Speaker 2: of hanging around. Even your guy Brooks talks about everybody
Speaker 2: does something different in a major. So it's more a
Speaker 2: question of being comfortable in the uncomfortable, thriving in the chaos,
Speaker 2: and knowing I just hang around enough, I'm probably going
Speaker 2: to get my run and that. And that's all I
Speaker 2: think Max has got to do is just put himself
Speaker 2: back in that situation. I don't think he has to
Speaker 2: really do anything massively different. Is just be comfortable being
Speaker 2: uncomfortable and just know that, Hey, majors aren't easy. Got
Speaker 2: to get a bit of luck, You got to get
Speaker 2: the right side of the draw, got to be able
Speaker 2: to you know, navigate more when I'm going to have
Speaker 2: some bad holes. That's where your short game comes in.
Speaker 2: And so that the belief system that you've done it
Speaker 2: and you've had you've had a chance, that to me
Speaker 2: is huge because you know what to expect because when
Speaker 2: you get there again, it's not uncommon to you. Right.
Speaker 2: That's why I think like all the players once they
Speaker 2: won once, now when they get in the situation again,
Speaker 2: they know how to close. So you get guys that
Speaker 2: are perennial closes of events because they put themselves in
Speaker 2: that situation. And I think Majors is just kind of
Speaker 2: the next progression from that.
Speaker 1: Golf swing wise, talk to us about what you guys
Speaker 1: are working on and what are the keys that you
Speaker 1: think makes his swing good, and what are the things
Speaker 1: that what are the habits that he falls into that
Speaker 1: all players have habits and DNA signatures, but what are
Speaker 1: the things that you guys are working on day in
Speaker 1: and day out, and what are the things that he
Speaker 1: is kind of reverts back to that you guys are
Speaker 1: trying to have him not do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. So I think inherently we
Speaker 2: try and give him a golf swing that's kind of
Speaker 2: He's a kind of long guy, right, and you would
Speaker 2: think he'd have this big wide arc, and he tried
Speaker 2: to play like that way for a while when he
Speaker 2: first came on twenty wasn't successful. So after looking at
Speaker 2: in movement wise screening him, you know a lot of
Speaker 2: the TPI stuff I learned from David greg who was
Speaker 2: that that's probably not a good match for you. Probably
Speaker 2: better off with a bit of a Laura arm playing
Speaker 2: to match your your body's mobility. And then you know,
Speaker 2: how do you try and get the club on the ball.
Speaker 2: What are you doing? And so for him, maintaining his
Speaker 2: dynamic posture is a big deal. When he does that
Speaker 2: and he's not standing up and out of it, he
Speaker 2: hits the ball beautifully well. Now, he also is very
Speaker 2: powerful and one of the best things he's got is
Speaker 2: a lot of vertical so when he starts jumping to
Speaker 2: try and hit it further, at times he can start
Speaker 2: thrusting towards the ball and he loses that posture and
Speaker 2: then he kind of loses the face. So what we're
Speaker 2: working on is that balance between having enough speed but
Speaker 2: then also maintaining that posture. So I was actually in
Speaker 2: the desert for a couple of days with him this
Speaker 2: past weekend, just working on trying to maintain that. Work
Speaker 2: on that in the gym, like train that movement pattern,
Speaker 2: so he has a chance to be able to still
Speaker 2: generate the speed but maintain his posture. So he doesn't
Speaker 2: have a lot of play in the club. He's one
Speaker 2: of those players that likes to feel a pretty stable face. Now,
Speaker 2: all golfs are different, but for him, he likes to
Speaker 2: feel that. So obviously, him starting to move his body
Speaker 2: the handle gets high, kind of loses the face. You
Speaker 2: see it more. It's more of a detriment in his
Speaker 2: driving when the handle gets high and then he starts
Speaker 2: to miss them out to the right, gets it in
Speaker 2: the heel. So he's really trying to we live in
Speaker 2: kind of a more a lower and a cut pattern
Speaker 2: to try and offset that. Obviously cutting the driver is
Speaker 2: a lot better, but that's where kind of we're working on,
Speaker 2: And I think having a player having a better understanding
Speaker 2: of that and then knowing their tendency and competition, well,
Speaker 2: ok I feel like I'm doing it with what are
Speaker 2: the strategies I can put in place to offset that
Speaker 2: until I can go get a good feel for it
Speaker 2: on the range, et cetera. So I think that's one
Speaker 2: of the things that we're probably trying to focus on
Speaker 2: from a technique perspective. But he does some things that
Speaker 2: are really really well. Is a great iron player, but
Speaker 2: we build it around okay, knowing I'm not going to
Speaker 2: have a bunch of excessive movement. He's got that great tempo.
Speaker 2: But again, he gets into a trouble sometimes when he
Speaker 2: just comes up and out of his posture, which is
Speaker 2: a lot of people, but specifically for him because he
Speaker 2: wants to fade it. He doesn't do really well for
Speaker 2: a long period of time. If he's got face flash,
Speaker 2: some players thrive with that can play really well. That's
Speaker 2: just difficult for him. So that's kind of our moving
Speaker 2: forwards Winter PROJECTIV Life It twenty five is to just
Speaker 2: keep working towards that so that he can hit the
Speaker 2: middle of the face more often, keep the same amount
Speaker 2: of dynamic laugh, same face angle, very predictable shots.
Speaker 1: For everyone listening that you know that would try and
Speaker 1: have a picture of what that looks like. The opposite
Speaker 1: of that would be someone who want to major that.
Speaker 1: My dad worked with Jimmy Walker. Jimmy had a lot
Speaker 1: of thrust, a lot of early extension, the handle would
Speaker 1: get really high, He had a lot of face rotation.
Speaker 1: He played a lot through rhythm and timing, so that
Speaker 1: dynamic posture. There are a lot of people, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's a word that you and I and all
Speaker 1: the instructors that are listening and the players they're used
Speaker 1: to hearing that. But for the regular golfer, that's that's
Speaker 1: listening mark dynamic posture for you and for them means what. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Just so when we set up at address with bent
Speaker 2: overright and anger, we play golf kind of side on
Speaker 2: and our torsos bent forwards, and we kind of have
Speaker 2: a little bit of hinge in the pelvis or your hips.
Speaker 2: So ideally, what you'd like to do is just imagine
Speaker 2: that you're rotating around that and unfortunately, if you start
Speaker 2: to stand up and move into the ball, basically now
Speaker 2: you're losing that sort of axis that you set up
Speaker 2: and address. You have to compensate. Now, the best players
Speaker 2: have the best compensations they can manage. Jimmy Walker, Jeff Ogilvy,
Speaker 2: there's lots of guys in one majors being phenomenal at
Speaker 2: it right. But there's a timing element. So what happens
Speaker 2: is then you get a period of time where you're
Speaker 2: on and then you can kind of be off. Like
Speaker 2: and what we want to try and do now we're
Speaker 2: playing on these elevated events and we want to know
Speaker 2: when we want to play well. It would be easier
Speaker 2: if we could just maintain that axis of rotation our
Speaker 2: posture dynamically because we're moving, hence the dynamic, it would
Speaker 2: be a lot easier. There'd be less manipulation needed in
Speaker 2: the club face. Theoretically we'd be able to hit some shots.
Speaker 2: But Jack Nicholas early extended and moved into the ball,
Speaker 2: so you can do it right. But it's one of
Speaker 2: those things where for certain players it's probably much more
Speaker 2: important for them to maintain it than other players. Arguably,
Speaker 2: if you want to fade it, start the ball left,
Speaker 2: fall right. As soon as you start moving into the
Speaker 2: golf ball or thrusting, you're going to kind of open
Speaker 2: the face up shift things out to the right. It's
Speaker 2: great if you aimed thirty yards left and hit a
Speaker 2: push cut, but it's not very good if you want
Speaker 2: to start the ball online to left and hit a fade.
Speaker 2: So that's what why I would call dynamic posture. I
Speaker 2: think that if you use your body well and you're
Speaker 2: strong and you do the right things, you guys on
Speaker 2: the tour. The guys do it anyway because it's the
Speaker 2: most effective way to generate speed. If you look at
Speaker 2: long drivers, very rarely do any of them. Actually they
Speaker 2: all extend and jump, but they don't do it early.
Speaker 2: They're super strong and get out the way. They're using
Speaker 2: a lot of falls. So I think that's the thing. Also,
Speaker 2: probably what we knew twenty twenty five years ago when
Speaker 2: you and I were playing golf learning it. Maybe thirty
Speaker 2: years ago, there was a lot more lateral motion in
Speaker 2: the golf, like side to side, which arguably might promote
Speaker 2: some of that thrust and jumping and then tossing the
Speaker 2: club face equipment could have done it. Whereas now you
Speaker 2: can work in a little bit more of a sort
Speaker 2: of rotary fashion, still have plenty of distance and hit
Speaker 2: the ball a long way. So I think that's kind
Speaker 2: of for me maintaining dynamic posture. That's kind of what
Speaker 2: I think. I'm looking for. Consistency and if I can
Speaker 2: do some things that help you be more consistent, have
Speaker 2: less manipulation at the handle, hit the ball straighter, that's
Speaker 2: a big deal for a tour player. May not be
Speaker 2: such a big deal for a long driver, but straight
Speaker 2: it's a big deal for a tour player.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think one of the things that the
Speaker 1: average golfer, non competitive tour player, recreational golfer, struggles with
Speaker 1: is the speed element, right. I mean, when they do
Speaker 1: have that early extension, the body stalls out and they're
Speaker 1: not blessed with natural speed like people that are playing
Speaker 1: at the elite tour level that have a lot of rotation,
Speaker 1: that have a lot of fast twist muscles. So the
Speaker 1: average golfer staying in that dynamic posture is actually almost
Speaker 1: more important to them than it is for the tour player,
Speaker 1: because the tour player can get by with one talent.
Speaker 1: They have good eye hand coordination, they can manage the
Speaker 1: face through impact, and they have speed, whereas the fifteen
Speaker 1: to twenty five handicapper doesn't have any of that. They
Speaker 1: struggle with speed, they struggle with rotation, they struggle with
Speaker 1: club face control. As you said, one of the things
Speaker 1: I like about the way that you talk about golf
Speaker 1: swings and work with players, but you talk a lot
Speaker 1: about club face manipulation, and I think the regular recreational
Speaker 1: golfer has so much of that, but they don't have
Speaker 1: the other component of it, which is any sort of rotation.
Speaker 1: What are some things that you think the regular everyday
Speaker 1: golfer could do in their practice sessions, Mark to try
Speaker 1: and manipulate and manage the club better and manipulate it less,
Speaker 1: because I think everybody that's playing golf at a recreational
Speaker 1: lever is so golf club centric. They're so everything is
Speaker 1: about the golf club, the handle, the club face, and
Speaker 1: they don't work backwards and realize, well, the golf club
Speaker 1: is never going to be able to move itself unless
Speaker 1: you pick it up and move it. It'll stay on
Speaker 1: the ground, It'll stay in your bag forever unless somebody
Speaker 1: picks it up and moves it. So, what is something
Speaker 1: that you think is paramount for everyone listening that can
Speaker 1: help them manipulate the club face less, which would help them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so obviously your hands are your best friend. The
Speaker 2: club face is the boss, right and understanding that now,
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of peak own probably twenty five
Speaker 2: years ago as the first person I saw it. We
Speaker 2: had a I was saying about a lady golf where
Speaker 2: he was teaching and he was using a Potter grip
Speaker 2: to try and show her the face. And then I
Speaker 2: was like, okay, well, I'm the tourists for using Potto
Speaker 2: grips in loads of different positions to get people aware
Speaker 2: of the face, right, like it's on the side, on
Speaker 2: an angle or whatever. And to me, like club golfers,
Speaker 2: if you want the hands have to work, right, we
Speaker 2: talk about no hands in the swing. Will your hands
Speaker 2: do everything? But not necessarily consciously. There's a lot of this, right.
Speaker 2: The best players in the world have got this really
Speaker 2: incredible unconscious competency where they just line the face up
Speaker 2: and they know where it is. And they say that
Speaker 2: they don't like to feel their hands, but their hands
Speaker 2: are incredible. The club golfer needs to understand how can
Speaker 2: they use their hands and how can they match them
Speaker 2: up to their body. So I'm all about, look, we're
Speaker 2: side onto it. Everyone thinks I have to have all
Speaker 2: this twisting, like releasing the club. I mean I try
Speaker 2: and get people to do a lot of hand work,
Speaker 2: trail hand only, lead hand only, and understand that you know,
Speaker 2: if you put the club down and you've got loft
Speaker 2: it and you take it back, if you can bring
Speaker 2: it back to a fairly similar position, maybe with a
Speaker 2: shaft leaning forwards, the face is pretty square. There's not
Speaker 2: a whole lot of this. We talk about release, but people,
Speaker 2: that's not really what's happening. So with the club goalver
Speaker 2: I like split grips, splitting your hands up so you
Speaker 2: can understand how the hands actually work together as opposed
Speaker 2: to you put a grip here and it just feels
Speaker 2: a bit weird. Like the lead hand is very important,
Speaker 2: and so the trail hand. But every golf book and
Speaker 2: we got golf books aol over this academy, you got
Speaker 2: a lot of players to talk about they fail their
Speaker 2: lead hand, and you got loads of hands people have
Speaker 2: said they felt the trowl hand. Neither of them is wrong,
Speaker 2: but there's going to be one that works best for you.
Speaker 2: So it's like becoming familiar with that and understanding which
Speaker 2: is your reference point for your club face, and then
Speaker 2: how does your body work. So if you're someone that
Speaker 2: doesn't turn very well, you may well do well with
Speaker 2: a bit of throw with the right hand, but if
Speaker 2: you're someone who turns well, you'll be probably better off
Speaker 2: with a bit of hold with the left hand. Do
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Like trying to understand which
Speaker 2: one is better for you? And this is what everyone feels.
Speaker 2: The lessons we all teach to the club golfers that
Speaker 2: you know, one side we have club players, the other
Speaker 2: side we have tool players. It's like the club golfers
Speaker 2: is a lot more about showing them out a square
Speaker 2: a club face and what happens so they can then
Speaker 2: learn to swing in the right direction. Tour players is
Speaker 2: more about they know what the face is doing. We
Speaker 2: got to show them whether the planes over here or
Speaker 2: your eight you know what I mean. It's it's kind
Speaker 2: of inverse. But the club golfer, if we can show
Speaker 2: them how to use these less but in the right way,
Speaker 2: a lot of times now they have an incentive to
Speaker 2: maybe use their body a little bit or in the
Speaker 2: way that's best for them. And I think that's the
Speaker 2: part that we've got to understand. It's why moving, you know,
Speaker 2: a movement assessment's massive. I want to know what somebody
Speaker 2: can do. Some people look like they're not very good
Speaker 2: movement wise. They're covered and they are incredible, and then
Speaker 2: there's some people are like, man, this this lady, she
Speaker 2: looks really athletic, and they're useless moving right. It's guys girls,
Speaker 2: So it's trying to assess them and then figure out,
Speaker 2: you know, which word's going to work better for them,
Speaker 2: and then what can they do with this? Because club golfers,
Speaker 2: if they can put the club on the ball and
Speaker 2: make it go towards a target, they're kind of hooked.
Speaker 2: Make it easy for them, but then make them understanding
Speaker 2: most of them move badly, and then these have to
Speaker 2: do the wrong thing, Whereas if you can educate these
Speaker 2: to do the right thing, sometimes their body isn't quite
Speaker 2: as crazy. But the funniest thing is that club golfers
Speaker 2: search for speed. Extension itself is speed, right, early extension
Speaker 2: you can argue get you more speed, but they never
Speaker 2: hit it in the middle of the damn face sentence.
Speaker 1: It doesn't do you any good, correct.
Speaker 2: Right, So scentedness of hit is everything. If you can
Speaker 2: hit it in the middle and have high smash, whatever
Speaker 2: speed you got, you're putting out to the club. So
Speaker 2: to me, that's more important than potentially trying to go
Speaker 2: after a bunch of speed where you never hit the
Speaker 2: thing in the middle of the face.
Speaker 1: You started working with Justin Rose, but I think in
Speaker 1: no like end of twenty twenty two he was a
Speaker 1: major champion. I think the work that he and Sean
Speaker 1: Foley did turned him into one of the elite ball
Speaker 1: strikers of the last fifteen years. I mean, Rosie was
Speaker 1: an elite ball striker. What was the remit when he
Speaker 1: came to you at the end of twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: and what have you tried me? What's Rosie now? Early forties?
Speaker 2: He actually just turned forty four last.
Speaker 1: Week, forty four, So you know, when you get a
Speaker 1: player like that, I mean, he's done everything in the game, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, there isn't anything that he hasn't done, Ryer Cups,
Speaker 1: FedEx Majors, big tournaments, number one in the world. But
Speaker 1: what was what was he looking for? And what was
Speaker 1: what you to tried to do together and have done,
Speaker 1: you know, incredibly successfully over the last two years. You know,
Speaker 1: to finish second in a major on home soil for
Speaker 1: Rosie at forty four, that's that's there aren't a lot
Speaker 1: of people doing that at his age.
Speaker 2: And he came through local qualifying too.
Speaker 1: He did, that's right local. I mean the fact that
Speaker 1: the fact that Justin Rows has to qualify from major
Speaker 1: championships is to me is a joke. I mean it's
Speaker 1: I personally believe if you win a major, you should
Speaker 1: be there's got to be a category that can get
Speaker 1: you in to where you don't have to go to
Speaker 1: local qualifying having been a major champ. And I know
Speaker 1: it's a cool part of the story and everybody loves
Speaker 1: it and it's a great story, but I think it's bullshit.
Speaker 1: I think if you've won a major, you shouldn't be
Speaker 1: going to local qualifying.
Speaker 2: I just don't believe that they call it final qualifying.
Speaker 2: But you're right, so I think it's pretty funny actually,
Speaker 2: so I had to there's a story to this, I've
Speaker 2: told it before, but essentially, Rosie's at Houston and I'm
Speaker 2: at Houston, and I owed Phil Kenny in a favor,
Speaker 2: so I had to persuade Kennyan to help Homer putt
Speaker 2: on putting, right, So I owed Kenny in a favor.
Speaker 2: So anyone who knows Phil Kenyan is he's quite persuasive anyway.
Speaker 1: So he's the darn king of putting.
Speaker 2: Yeah he is. But anyway, so long story short, he
Speaker 2: asked me, he goes, I need you to have to
Speaker 2: have a look at Rosie. So that's kind of how
Speaker 2: it started. And then Rosie came to me. And I
Speaker 2: think one of the things that's interesting about Rosie is
Speaker 2: he's had a lot of success, right, but he's notoriously
Speaker 2: a tinkerer. And I'm Sean's incredible that he went through
Speaker 2: that for fifteen years, which is unbelievable. Now, Sean and
Speaker 2: I have a little different coaching philosophy, sure.
Speaker 1: Just a little.
Speaker 2: Way different, right. I'm probably I probably would have been
Speaker 2: terrible for Rosie when he was younger, but Sean was incredible.
Speaker 2: I'm probably a little bit less tolerable of messing around
Speaker 2: and trying different stuff. Let's just say that. So Rosie, obviously,
Speaker 2: to your points, won everything. All he wants to do
Speaker 2: is try and win majors. So he had a chance
Speaker 2: to kind of win the PGA this year on a
Speaker 2: course which typically wouldn't suit him, which was a lot
Speaker 2: of validation he's doing the right things.
Speaker 1: And then obviously because at the PGA you had to
Speaker 1: shoot crazy low, it was a shootout, it was like
Speaker 1: a regular PGA Tour event. And Rosie, throughout his career
Speaker 1: and throughout the peak of his career, is one of
Speaker 1: those players he wants the golf course to be as
Speaker 1: hard as possible, correct, right, He doesn't want twenty under
Speaker 1: to win, he wants one under even to win. And
Speaker 1: when he won his major at Marion, I mean nobody
Speaker 1: could play that golf course and the shots he hit
Speaker 1: down the stretch there, nobody could find a way to
Speaker 1: make any pars coming down the stretch. So he is
Speaker 1: that category of player that wants the major championships to
Speaker 1: be as difficult and as hard as possible. And I
Speaker 1: think you're right, having success in a major that was
Speaker 1: at Valhalla, which was a shootout, has got to be
Speaker 1: validation for him to say, Okay, I can go, I
Speaker 1: can hang.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think he learned a lot at Valhalla too,
Speaker 2: because he hadn't been in that situation in a while.
Speaker 2: And if you asked him, he probably played the last
Speaker 2: couple of holes slightly differently. But anyway, I digress. So
Speaker 2: essentially success leaves clues right, And with Rosie he'd had
Speaker 2: some back issues. He had a certain goal swing when
Speaker 2: he won Marion and arguably when he played his best,
Speaker 2: and he kind of reinvented it again in a seventeen
Speaker 2: eighteen and then he kind of was all over the
Speaker 2: place and he'd kind of liked new information, so he
Speaker 2: kind of went and saw a bunch of a few
Speaker 2: different people, and I think he was a little bit cluttered,
Speaker 2: and I basically when he asked me, I said, well,
Speaker 2: the shot you want to hit is this straight to
Speaker 2: full left shot or what you're doing that's not going
Speaker 2: to work? How you move, you know, what does your
Speaker 2: body do? So I talked to Justin Buckthorpe at the
Speaker 2: time and Charlie Marshall there kind of his team, and
Speaker 2: we talked about what he does well, what he doesn't
Speaker 2: do well, and I was like, Rosie, you probably need
Speaker 2: to get back a little bit more to what you
Speaker 2: did in two thousand and you know thirteen when you
Speaker 2: won the Open lawa arm playing a little bit deeper,
Speaker 2: a little bit more, turn, a little bit more in
Speaker 2: your body, in your tilts, so to speak. And I
Speaker 2: think that was really the nucleus of it, and has
Speaker 2: started hitting it quite well again. But obviously he gets
Speaker 2: a little bored with stuff, so you've got to reinvent
Speaker 2: and say the same thing a few different ways. And
Speaker 2: it's one of those things where we've actually got this blueprint.
Speaker 2: It stayed pretty similar, we've deviated a little bit. We
Speaker 2: kind of went back more towards where we originally started
Speaker 2: kind of earlier part of this year. So I think
Speaker 2: it's one of those things where he's a lot of
Speaker 2: what he and Shured did really really well. I've taken
Speaker 2: quite a bit of that, especially some of the backswing stuff,
Speaker 2: and then with some of the stuff we now know
Speaker 2: about ground reaction forces and kind of how it to
Speaker 2: generate speed and power, I've kind of married some of
Speaker 2: that now in his downswing, So he does some different
Speaker 2: things through the all to kind of stop him sliding
Speaker 2: and tilding quite as much. He's another one that has
Speaker 2: a tendency to kind of pop up out of it
Speaker 2: and then he has some face flips. So there's some
Speaker 2: similarities between him and Max. And Rosie's pretty perceptive because
Speaker 2: he said one of the things that it was interesting
Speaker 2: to him was you like Max's golf swing, and so
Speaker 2: it's as a student of the swing. He's one of
Speaker 2: those people who wanted to understand. But they actually have
Speaker 2: a few similarities, so it's no surprise that they've both
Speaker 2: been somewhat successful with the pattern that they're in. But
Speaker 2: for me, he does everything incredibly well. He is the
Speaker 2: consummate professional, so and I for me coach in Max
Speaker 2: who wants to get to number one in the world,
Speaker 2: and Rosie's been there. A lot of what Rosie does
Speaker 2: are things that I can share with my younger players,
Speaker 2: like Alex Fitz who's in there, Matt's younger brother. It's
Speaker 2: one of those things where, look, this is what's got
Speaker 2: someone to number one in the world. These are the
Speaker 2: some of the special things that they do that those
Speaker 2: are things that you could incorporate with other players, and
Speaker 2: we always say that we learn more from the players
Speaker 2: than they learn from us. But in this scenario, it's
Speaker 2: certainly the case is just okay, how can I use that?
Speaker 2: But Rosie does the right stuff. I mean, he's got
Speaker 2: this sub Rosa bus that this wing. We're in Greensboro.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean that's David Darbyshire. I mean I
Speaker 1: remember darbs telling me that years ago at Augusta that
Speaker 1: Rosie had this idea to make this like recovery bus
Speaker 1: that I think it was. It just kind of came
Speaker 1: out on all the social channels of this recovery bus
Speaker 1: that Rosie's kind of come up with. I interviewed Rosie
Speaker 1: when he was working with Sean. It's got to be
Speaker 1: six years ago, seven years ago at Memorial he shot,
Speaker 1: you know, a really good score there, and I think
Speaker 1: they were kind of they really pushed the envelope mark
Speaker 1: with track man, trying to zero everything out, all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And I asked him about that and he said, we've
Speaker 1: kind of got I've kind of gone away from that
Speaker 1: with Sean. And I had to tell falls, listen, my
Speaker 1: feels are sacred to me. What I feel in the
Speaker 1: golf swing is sacred to me and he said, I
Speaker 1: think sometimes you can go down the rabbit hole of
Speaker 1: all of the numbers. So he's a very analytical guy.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've known him a long time. He kind
Speaker 1: of came up the ranks with Adam Scott, so I
Speaker 1: still remember he and Scotti when they were playing on
Speaker 1: the European Tour. Rosie's always been very very curious, very
Speaker 1: very analytical. How do you, as a coach marry that
Speaker 1: how much is too much? Because he's one of those
Speaker 1: Trevor Immlman type characters, give me more information, more info,
Speaker 1: more info, more info. So how how do you as
Speaker 1: the coach and work with him as the player to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: how much tech and how much info do we give
Speaker 1: you versus how much of your feels being sacred to you?
Speaker 1: You're the player, how do you fly the plane on
Speaker 1: instinct as well as with all the information.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great point. Well, I think what I
Speaker 2: tell over every player is my job is to be
Speaker 2: able to catalog and quantify their feels. That makes sense,
Speaker 2: like objective. So as a team, Rosy's very fortunate Charlie
Speaker 2: travels with him. He's got dogs out and done as well.
Speaker 2: And then JB. So we know Rosie's been measured every
Speaker 2: which way and Sunday and regularly, so we know what's
Speaker 2: actually happening objectively. And Rosie's feels are subjective and they
Speaker 2: are sacred, but feels can change daily. So as long
Speaker 2: as Rosy's within the pattern, the blueprint that we have
Speaker 2: from set up, back, swinging downswing and delivery, and he's
Speaker 2: doing the right things and he's moving well, his fields
Speaker 2: can be really abstract and radically different day to day
Speaker 2: for the same movement, which is hard for people to
Speaker 2: grasp and as a coach I probably didn't appreciate that
Speaker 2: until the last few years in that my job is
Speaker 2: to look at what they're doing. And that's why I
Speaker 2: talk about having different vernacular with different players, but putting
Speaker 2: their feels. So when when I commune with Rosie, I'm
Speaker 2: giving back to him in the fields and the ways
Speaker 2: that he teaches. But in my brain it's like, well,
Speaker 2: that's his wording and feel for this, and so we
Speaker 2: know what he's actually doing and needs to do, and
Speaker 2: when he deviates from that, okay, and then how are
Speaker 2: you going to get him back to that using some
Speaker 2: of his vernacular, his feels and his words, and so
Speaker 2: he uses a lot of colors. It's quite interesting. Most
Speaker 2: people think that these players, you know, they must be
Speaker 2: really technical, but I think they're geniuses. They take very
Speaker 2: technical things and make them so dumb and simple that
Speaker 2: they're incredible. By Buddy doctor will Woo, he's big on Like, look,
Speaker 2: the best stuff is super external, super abstract because it
Speaker 2: works under pressure, technical thinking, internalizing it is rarely does
Speaker 2: it works sometimes, but very rare. So with Rosie, it's
Speaker 2: all about understanding his feels, quantifying them, and then being
Speaker 2: able to relay them back to him. And so we
Speaker 2: have copious amounts of notes when you feel this, hey,
Speaker 2: all this, and he's great to share. And I had
Speaker 2: success doing this when I was dealing with Sean, So
Speaker 2: it's like my job is to remember all of that
Speaker 2: and then be able to bring it up when he's
Speaker 2: in a pickle. And I think that's the part that
Speaker 2: people don't really see. And coaching is like different to teaching.
Speaker 2: Teaching is like getting someone to do something technically. Coaching
Speaker 2: is then trying to bring them back to be able
Speaker 2: to allow them to play the game. And as we
Speaker 2: often talk about on ranges, we do good warm ups
Speaker 2: we do bad warm ups, we perform well, we perform
Speaker 2: badly as coaches, but some of our best work is
Speaker 2: when we can get the player back towards their fields
Speaker 2: that they came up with that allow them to be
Speaker 2: able to master their swing and be able to go
Speaker 2: play great. And for Rosie, he is abstract. He is
Speaker 2: out there. Definitely, I have to pull him up. Don't
Speaker 2: go down a rabbit hole, buddy. I mean, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to use it on this podcast, but I'm English,
Speaker 2: so you can imagine some of the language that get used.
Speaker 2: And in our team we kind of use a lot
Speaker 2: of it. But it is one of those things where
Speaker 2: I think having a bit of a heavier hand and
Speaker 2: not being scared to stick my neck out there and say, Amy,
Speaker 2: don't be it is something that Rosie now is very
Speaker 2: susceptible to and receptive to older in his career. When
Speaker 2: he's younger, he probably wasn't and I probably would have
Speaker 2: been a disaster. And that's why Foles was so good
Speaker 2: for him.
Speaker 1: Even though he didn't win. I mean I went through
Speaker 1: a similar situation. The shot that he hit on Sunday
Speaker 1: sixty seven on Sunday didn't get it done. Obviously he's
Speaker 1: Ander wins his second major, but stand in the middle
Speaker 1: of the sixteenth fairway. Part five, he roasts driver off
Speaker 1: the deck because he's trying to win the tournament. I
Speaker 1: had a similar situation when when I was working with
Speaker 1: Ernie Els in twelve. He was ready to quit and
Speaker 1: at the Olympic Club that the US Open that Web won,
Speaker 1: he got in the mix. He made an eagle and
Speaker 1: got in the mix. On the back nine, I think
Speaker 1: it was sixteen. Pinn was back left. He was in
Speaker 1: the middle of the fairway, I think he was one
Speaker 1: or two back at the time, and he went right
Speaker 1: at the flag, hit it over the flag, hitting the bunker,
Speaker 1: ended up making bogie. But I remember thinking afterwards and
Speaker 1: he said it, he said, we're over the hump. He's
Speaker 1: because in that situation, it would have been very easy
Speaker 1: for him to dump it to twenty five thirty feet,
Speaker 1: get out of there and just but he as a
Speaker 1: as a guy that's won major's before. Rosie's in that
Speaker 1: category as well. Ernie was trying to win the golf
Speaker 1: tournament and I said to myself, I think we're we're
Speaker 1: over the issues of is he still good enough to
Speaker 1: win again? And he won the Open a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks later. Obviously Adam Scott helped him, but you must
Speaker 1: have been proud of the fact that he attempted to
Speaker 1: do that as a coach. Because driver off the deck,
Speaker 1: they make it look easy. It's not an easy shot.
Speaker 1: It's sure as hell is an easy shot in Scotland
Speaker 1: off of that grass too. And then he hit a
Speaker 1: great shot and didn't but he didn't make the putt.
Speaker 1: But my point is he's trying to win the golf
Speaker 1: tournament at that point and he feels like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is the shot. If I'm going to have any chance
Speaker 1: with two holes left, I have to do something now.
Speaker 1: And I think it was just vintage. Justin Rowe stand there,
Speaker 1: driver after deck and he had a beautiful shot. It
Speaker 1: must have been pretty satisfying for you to see that,
Speaker 1: even though he didn't get the w Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, The ironic part is Charlie and I are standing
Speaker 2: on the Fairewey and I'm like, he's hitting driver. This
Speaker 2: is unbelievable, and Rosie so doesn't. But again, he's trying
Speaker 2: to win the golf tournament. I mean, He'll be honest,
Speaker 2: he was trying to win the golf tournament at the PGA,
Speaker 2: and he probably didn't quite do it the way he
Speaker 2: wanted to, but again, he's in that situation he's like
Speaker 2: going to take the shot on and then he actually did,
Speaker 2: and he goes, that's the first time I've actually hit
Speaker 2: a driver after deck in a tournament, let alone when
Speaker 2: I'm in contention. He goes, but I wanted to like
Speaker 2: prove to myself, Look, I'm going to take this on.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to back down. So I think one
Speaker 2: of the coolest things is he said that he needed
Speaker 2: to shoot six under to win the Open. He shot
Speaker 2: four under. He left a couple out there. He didn't
Speaker 2: play his best round of golf, and Zana said, that's
Speaker 2: the best round of golf he's ever played. So my
Speaker 2: thing to Rosie was, look, there's a lot of validation.
Speaker 2: You're doing all the right things. You've got a chance
Speaker 2: to make history in the next five years, to be
Speaker 2: one of the guys who's won multiple majors at your age.
Speaker 2: You can do that. The way you take care of yourself,
Speaker 2: the way you practice, the things, you do, the experiments.
Speaker 2: I always say, look, if you've got wisdom and experience,
Speaker 2: but you've got the vitality of youth. You've got this
Speaker 2: perfect recipe to be an incredible player, and if you
Speaker 2: can make sure you don't have any scar tissue, now
Speaker 2: all of a sudden you can put yourself in that situation.
Speaker 2: And obviously he's finished second in every major right, so
Speaker 2: it's one of those things where all he cares about
Speaker 2: is winning major championships. That is his guy. I was
Speaker 2: playing the Ryder Cup and win majors. So he's now
Speaker 2: got that opportunity. We can plan twenty twenty five. He's
Speaker 2: in all the majors. We're ready to go. So I
Speaker 2: think it's great as a coach to be part of that.
Speaker 2: Someone that's highly motivated, a lot of experience, does the
Speaker 2: right things, and then our job is to frame things
Speaker 2: to where we can motivate our players. But for me,
Speaker 2: I'm just excited that he has the opportunity to, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe get that green jacket and win a Claric Jug
Speaker 2: and these other things, which is as coaches, that's the
Speaker 2: gratifying part. It's more about being a part of the
Speaker 2: team that helps somebody be successful. So Rosie is a
Speaker 2: lot of fun to work with. He's highly entertaining. I
Speaker 2: think he's calmed down a lot in his older age,
Speaker 2: which is fortunate for me as a coach.
Speaker 1: You mentioned ground force reactions. That is a kind of
Speaker 1: buzzword I think in instruction right now. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people listening may have heard that, maybe know
Speaker 1: what it is. But for you, dumb it down for
Speaker 1: everyone listening, what are groundforce reactions? There have been some
Speaker 1: really cool videos. You did one with Charlie hoff and
Speaker 1: out of TPI, but you did one with Trey MOLINACX
Speaker 1: with this kind of thing that I bought off the internet,
Speaker 1: that kind of sliding thing and stuff. But for you,
Speaker 1: what are ground force reactions and what do they mean
Speaker 1: for everyone listening?
Speaker 2: Okay, So really simplified is so you have an action
Speaker 2: force that's us applying a force to do something, and
Speaker 2: then there is a reaction created from that, right, simple physics.
Speaker 2: For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. So
Speaker 2: if I apply a certain type of force, and if
Speaker 2: I take one of my foot joys off here, basically
Speaker 2: we've got up and down vertical, we've got right left,
Speaker 2: and we've got frictional sort of forwards and backwards. Okay,
Speaker 2: we call that anterior posteria this would be right left
Speaker 2: mediolateral and then that's vertical. You can use those forces,
Speaker 2: and this is controversial because some golf coaches don't think
Speaker 2: you do. But the reality is, like you measure people,
Speaker 2: whether it's conscious or unconscious. These are happening, so they're
Speaker 2: not some phantom thing that's just I've got a fifty
Speaker 2: expensive device in there that they have.
Speaker 1: A swing catalyst. I mean, I mean it measures. It
Speaker 1: tells you what people are doing with their feet and
Speaker 1: how they're moving, pressure and all that stuff. You can
Speaker 1: I mean, we can argue about it, or everybody can
Speaker 1: argue about the data, but the data is real.
Speaker 2: So the data's there. We use the gas plates that
Speaker 2: I mean they are they're three D force plates, so
Speaker 2: it's showing you what happens. So there's ways to you
Speaker 2: can either put energy into the club or the handle
Speaker 2: or at your feet. Everyone's putting at the handle, but
Speaker 2: you can control certain situations and you can put energy
Speaker 2: into the club by how you apply force at the ground.
Speaker 2: So ground reaction forces, so you put an action force
Speaker 2: in and the reaction is what happens from the words
Speaker 2: ground reaction forces or however you want to describe it,
Speaker 2: and Essentially, in the swing, you're you know, you're trying
Speaker 2: to do certain things to help you deliver the golf club,
Speaker 2: and movement at the feet can either help or hinder
Speaker 2: how you deliver the golf club. And so essentially it's
Speaker 2: a it's a mechanism to help you square the face
Speaker 2: up depending on how you move. And to me, that's
Speaker 2: an advantage that we didn't really have a few years ago,
Speaker 2: and how you can really help players generate a lot
Speaker 2: of speed. The best hitters, you know, the really long
Speaker 2: they're putting about the long hitters I see in here.
Speaker 2: Alex Fitzpatrick's a long hitter. He puts two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty percent of his body weight vertically into the golf ball. Too.
Speaker 2: Average is about one ninety at TPI. We got a
Speaker 2: great database between what I got here, what Greg's got TPI.
Speaker 2: We got the same system. Como uses it. Steve Goulds
Speaker 2: the creator of it. But we have enough evidence to
Speaker 2: say this is what happens longer hitters. Long drivers put
Speaker 2: a lot more force into the ground vertically, so they're
Speaker 2: pushing down, they're going up, and that allows them to
Speaker 2: pull up and on the handle and kind of speed
Speaker 2: the club up right, because as we go up, the
Speaker 2: handle decelerates, which feeds the head up. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: just simple, right, Like, it's not complicated, and it's just
Speaker 2: a great way to work and to teach people. Like
Speaker 2: it's something that you can use. Sometimes it's difficult, sometimes
Speaker 2: it's easy, but it's also a way to stop people
Speaker 2: maybe moving in a certain direction. Someone like Trey that
Speaker 2: has a hip issue, he essentially has naturally created a
Speaker 2: mechanism to help him rotate really well to hit a
Speaker 2: cup or he hangs on his back foot and unfortunately
Speaker 2: that led to his fema getting driven up into his
Speaker 2: hip and he wore out his labor on his right leg.
Speaker 2: So we've tried to teach him in that video you
Speaker 2: saw to get to his lead leg and use his
Speaker 2: lead leg, which we see most of the best players
Speaker 2: being a lot more dominant in their lead side left
Speaker 2: leg for a right handed golfer in pushing and to
Speaker 2: try and get himself to rotate, so we take streps
Speaker 2: off his right hip. So that'd be an example of
Speaker 2: ways to where you could use ground reactions forces to
Speaker 2: help you. And then conversely, lots of players that let's
Speaker 2: say do lose their posture dynamically, there are certain things
Speaker 2: we can do to use the ground to flex us forwards,
Speaker 2: to try and help us stay in our posture. So
Speaker 2: there's a whole mirror of things. But you know what,
Speaker 2: it's in all different sports sciences. The golf back biomechanists
Speaker 2: and biomechanists at soccer clubs, rugby clubs, cricket clubs, they're
Speaker 2: all using it. So the golf coaches and people who
Speaker 2: don't necessarily think it's relevant, well, the rest of the
Speaker 2: sports science world thinks it is. So arguably I'd say
Speaker 2: the science generally wins over. I don't claim to be
Speaker 2: a genius expert at it, but i feel pretty competent
Speaker 2: with it, and I've seen lots of success using it,
Speaker 2: and I've seen it help lots of players. So to me,
Speaker 2: it's my responsibility to educate myself to give people the
Speaker 2: best information possible. And as I said, and maybe on
Speaker 2: this show before, I'd much rather get information now as
Speaker 2: a cool give help someone another twenty years ago. But
Speaker 2: like I say, we're practicing golf instruction just like they're
Speaker 2: practicing medicine. We learn more, we get better, we have
Speaker 2: better strategies, better solutions, so we can help people. And
Speaker 2: obviously our athletes are getting bigger, faster, and stronger, and
Speaker 2: our job is to keep them healthier longer so they
Speaker 2: can play for all this cash that's been thrown around.
Speaker 1: One of the things phrases that I like that you
Speaker 1: use is feed the fault. Yeah, feeding the fault. Talk
Speaker 1: to us what that means and how you use feeding
Speaker 1: the fault in teaching, because I think it's a fact.
Speaker 1: I think it's a it's a great it's a great
Speaker 1: way to think about it. As soon as I heard
Speaker 1: you say that, I was like, Yeah, I really really
Speaker 1: like that. I love that kind of concept. But for
Speaker 1: people that don't know what that is, what is feeding
Speaker 1: the fault for you?
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's say I'm I'm kind of coming. Was
Speaker 2: just used as real simply let's say my hands are
Speaker 2: shifting out, I'm coming over the top. Well, I'm going
Speaker 2: to do some things to make you do that more
Speaker 2: so that you have to resist and figure out. Okay, well,
Speaker 2: how would I not make that happen? Just like if
Speaker 2: you're moving into the ball, I'm going to move you
Speaker 2: into the ball more so that you have to stop
Speaker 2: yourself doing that. So by feeding the fault. I'm kind
Speaker 2: of amplifying its significance to make it worse and then
Speaker 2: trying to get you to counter that and intuitively figure out, well,
Speaker 2: how would I do that? Now, I can lead you
Speaker 2: to the solution, or I can kind of put you
Speaker 2: in a scenario where you don't have a choice but
Speaker 2: to do something different, which then is reflected in how
Speaker 2: the club's moving, whether it's the club base, whether it's
Speaker 2: the shaft, whatever it may be. So that's where I
Speaker 2: would say, feed the fault. Like I didn't come up
Speaker 2: with it. I think it's out of the mode of
Speaker 2: learning world. Greg uses it quite a lot of TPI
Speaker 2: as well, But it seems to be like if you
Speaker 2: push someone towards what they're doing, they tend to start
Speaker 2: to figure out a way to how to remedy that
Speaker 2: and counter it. And now that internally they've come up
Speaker 2: with a feel or a queue or when you do
Speaker 2: this to me, I feel like I'm doing that. Okay,
Speaker 2: well let's explore that. Now it's internally come from them.
Speaker 2: Tends to have a lot more sticking power than if
Speaker 2: I just give you a queue, right, Because back to
Speaker 2: Rosie's comment, feels a sacred so it's like, if you
Speaker 2: come up with the feel yourself, now, all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: it's much more pliable and it's much more relatable to
Speaker 2: you yourself. So that's kind of feeding the fault. I
Speaker 2: think with anything, any sort of swing issue, whatever it
Speaker 2: might be saying with chipping bunker shots, I'm always trying
Speaker 2: to do that because I'm trying to get the person
Speaker 2: to start thinking and problem solve themselves as to how
Speaker 2: would I be able to do that right. So, let's
Speaker 2: say somebody's chunking a chip and they're going down. They're
Speaker 2: not using their body, they're not extending out to sholler
Speaker 2: the club out. I might push them down even more
Speaker 2: and then they're forcing themselves. They're having a stand up
Speaker 2: and I'm like, okay, so how does that feel? What
Speaker 2: are you doing now? All of a sudden they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I have to extem my legs in turn as I
Speaker 2: come up. Yeah, that's what good pictures do. And you
Speaker 2: pull up a video Jordan Speith and you're like, oh, wow,
Speaker 2: he's doing yeah Brett Rumfan, Wow, so now you kind
Speaker 2: of So that's how I would best describe it as
Speaker 2: just intuitively making someone realize they probably needs to do
Speaker 2: the opposite of what they're doing to have the right solution.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I remember when we first started going
Speaker 1: through all the TPI stuff and going through all the
Speaker 1: TPI screens. This has got to be back two thousand
Speaker 1: and five, Ryan Chrysler, who works with me. Ryan and
Speaker 1: I were talking about, you know, early extension, how to
Speaker 1: get people to feel like their lower body didn't go
Speaker 1: closer to the golf course or the golf ball at impact.
Speaker 1: He said, I've got this idea. I'm going to make
Speaker 1: this move club. So he took a seven iron, made
Speaker 1: it two inches short, and made it way way flat,
Speaker 1: super super flat. So now if you early extend, the
Speaker 1: golf club is two inches shorter than your normal seven iron.
Speaker 1: It's massively flat. So if you do that, you basically
Speaker 1: can't get the golf club on the ball. You'll hit shanks,
Speaker 1: you'll hit tops. It just didn't work. And it's it's
Speaker 1: funny that you mentioned that. I just as you were
Speaker 1: talking about I was like, man, Ryan was doing that.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: Five. You know, I talked to the juniors a lot
Speaker 1: all the time. You know, when we hit you know,
Speaker 1: we'll have them set up, We'll have them putting alignment
Speaker 1: stick down. I'll film them from face on and they'll
Speaker 1: hit a snap hook, that one you know, that'll go
Speaker 1: miles to the left, and I'll be like, okay, I
Speaker 1: can show you the video. Your club face is dead
Speaker 1: square at address you. We can see where you're aiming,
Speaker 1: so you're not aiming there and the club face isn't
Speaker 1: aiming there. So if I ask you, just hit it
Speaker 1: forty yards left to your target. Do that again and
Speaker 1: they'll be like, what, No, no set up, square, club
Speaker 1: face square, hit me one that starts left of the
Speaker 1: left bunker. What would you have to do? So re
Speaker 1: engineering the miss Yeah, And I guess that's my way
Speaker 1: of feeding the fault is okay, so you're not set
Speaker 1: up to do this, you're doing it. What is your
Speaker 1: body doing and what are you doing with the golf
Speaker 1: club to do this? And I think reverse engineering backwards
Speaker 1: from that to say, okay, now what do you need
Speaker 1: to do to not hit the golf ball over there
Speaker 1: from this good set up position that you're in. I
Speaker 1: think it's really powerful, and you mentioned it. I think
Speaker 1: the power behind this is me as instructors. The best
Speaker 1: thing for me is when a player feels it themselves
Speaker 1: and they go, oh yeah. I felt that because I
Speaker 1: can give you. You can give a player a thousand different fields, thoughts, moves, ideas,
Speaker 1: but they have to then take one of them and
Speaker 1: go okay. I felt that one. Yes, I was able
Speaker 1: to do that. And I think that idea of feeding
Speaker 1: the fault and figuring out I think it can help
Speaker 1: the player figure it out themselves. Lastly, Gordon, sergeant, you
Speaker 1: work with him. This kid has I mean, go ahead
Speaker 1: and just depress everybody. What is his club at speeding?
Speaker 1: His ball speed is with the driver? What was he
Speaker 1: cruise at with just thirty six thousand feet take the seatbelt,
Speaker 1: sign off with the driver not trying to hit it far?
Speaker 1: What's he cruise at club at speeding ball speed?
Speaker 2: Probably eighty seven eighty eight maybe with a he's touching.
Speaker 2: I think he can get one to ninety knob problem
Speaker 2: he's not even really trying. And then his club speeds
Speaker 2: like high one twenties, touching one three.
Speaker 1: So I watched him play at the Floridian, and I
Speaker 1: watched him on our eighteenth pole, you know, hit it
Speaker 1: one hundred yards offline into the lake and make, you know,
Speaker 1: make a huge number. So The reason I bring this
Speaker 1: up is when he showed up at Augusta a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, everybody on life from was like, with
Speaker 1: this speed and as far as he hits it, he
Speaker 1: could contend here as a college amateur golfer. Everybody is
Speaker 1: trying to get more speed in golf, right, everybody listening
Speaker 1: to this podcast is trying to get more speed. For
Speaker 1: a guy like Gordon sergent Mark, it is an embarrassment
Speaker 1: of riches in the speed department for him. So how
Speaker 1: do you go about turning this f one Ferrari red
Speaker 1: Bull this massive, massive power and how do you get
Speaker 1: him to somehow manage it to where it can help him?
Speaker 1: And he just isn't a player that everybody goes He's
Speaker 1: got unbelievable speed, but he's not winning five, six, seven
Speaker 1: times a year. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I think one of the things when Gordon came
Speaker 2: to seeing he was like, you guys talk supplies about
Speaker 2: what you do. He's had a lot of success. The
Speaker 2: kid is a start Yeah, lovely kid, great to work with,
Speaker 2: great family and you know, really rounded. But it's one
Speaker 2: of the things that's interesting is like, well, what's your
Speaker 2: go to shot or don't really have one. So like
Speaker 2: the first thing we kind of really worked on was
Speaker 2: like a tee down driver, like just this little leader
Speaker 2: and it's pretty funny because it's like one eighty seven
Speaker 2: ball speed like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the fairway finders one eighty seven.
Speaker 2: Ball speed fairway finder and it, I mean he probably
Speaker 2: averages one eighty five ball speed with it, and it
Speaker 2: gets out there and it runs a long way. So
Speaker 2: I think that was number one. It was sort of
Speaker 2: a fair way finder. And then really where we've done
Speaker 2: most of the work. He likes to play a fade,
Speaker 2: but he is with his wedges, so his wedges, like
Speaker 2: most high speed guys really struggling with low launch, had
Speaker 2: a way too much spin on the ball Shoal Creek
Speaker 2: where we're both members theorists for spinning the ball off
Speaker 2: the green right, So using a quad and explain to
Speaker 2: him which he has like dynamic loft spin loft and
Speaker 2: I kind of what's going to make it spin less?
Speaker 2: Just working through that and building a wedge game, and
Speaker 2: that's probably one of the things that we've done is
Speaker 2: like really improve his distance wedge game so that he's
Speaker 2: understand it's a slightly different technique, not nearly as much riskset,
Speaker 2: not nearly as much speed, a lot more body driven
Speaker 2: passive kind of at the handle shaft leaning to get
Speaker 2: the low launch, some higher spin, but not spin that's
Speaker 2: zipping off the green just like I don't. And I
Speaker 2: think that's kind of where we've done a lot of
Speaker 2: work and we'll continue to He's going back to school
Speaker 2: this year, so he's at the US and this over
Speaker 2: this week. Hopefully he'll get that, which would be kind
Speaker 2: of the last thing he needs to do as an amateur.
Speaker 2: He's done everything else that you can do, but he's
Speaker 2: going back to school to try and continue working on
Speaker 2: his game. He's at Vanderbilt, so not too far from Birmlingham,
Speaker 2: and then he'll turn pro. He's obviously got that PGA
Speaker 2: to you, but he's got a bright future and he
Speaker 2: works really really hard at all assets of it. And
Speaker 2: I think back to the point about Justin Rose and say,
Speaker 2: working with Max and these great players, over time you
Speaker 2: start to see what good players do, and then the
Speaker 2: fun part is then sharing that mentoring these younger players,
Speaker 2: and they get access to those players as well, do
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Like that, which I think
Speaker 2: is going to help their game as well, so it's
Speaker 2: really when you've got that much speed, you have the
Speaker 2: essential ingredient. It's learning how to harness it and then
Speaker 2: being disciplined enough to be okay, where do I hit this?
Speaker 2: What do I need to do? And when you've got
Speaker 2: one eighty five bull speed with a tee down, there's
Speaker 2: not many golf courses you can't play with that shot. Now,
Speaker 2: the hard part is that you can tee it up
Speaker 2: and now you can hit it another thirty yards. That's
Speaker 2: when it's like difficult because it's like, well, yeah, but
Speaker 2: if I hit this and now I can hit an
Speaker 2: aid iron into this five hundred and ninety yard part
Speaker 2: five versus now I'm having to hit a five itn
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? It's just it's an
Speaker 2: ability to know when to use it. I think that's
Speaker 2: the part that it's going to take some time. That's
Speaker 2: the coaching part that's fun. But he's incredible. The funny
Speaker 2: part is talk about ground reaction forces. I think I
Speaker 2: can get him over two hundred miles an hour bullsby
Speaker 2: no problem.
Speaker 1: So but it's the DJ model, right, It's you know
Speaker 1: DJ back in fifteen. I mean, he hit it further
Speaker 1: than everybody in the game he had. Now everybody hits it.
Speaker 1: You know, ten years ago there were four or five
Speaker 1: guys that hit it a long way, really really really long.
Speaker 1: DJ was one of them. But his wedge game was terrible,
Speaker 1: and so by becoming a better wedge player, I believe
Speaker 1: that helped him win his first major and helped him
Speaker 1: kind of get to number one in the world and go,
Speaker 1: you know, plus twenty plus wins and the Masters and
Speaker 1: all the FedEx and all the stuff he did. He
Speaker 1: had the power, but the wedge game was horrendous. And
Speaker 1: if you think about it, Gordon's in the same category
Speaker 1: that DJ was in back. Then think about how many
Speaker 1: wedges he's got in the course of a round of golf.
Speaker 2: And that's the I always say that when someone starts
Speaker 2: to see the difference and the control, but not only
Speaker 2: in distance but dispersion, and then they say, man, if
Speaker 2: I use that wedge swing with my aid R, it's
Speaker 2: unbelievable how straight it goes. And so you start to
Speaker 2: get these these things where the players know intuitively, okay,
Speaker 2: well I could apply this to hear. So I think
Speaker 2: that lots of the things that you can learn this
Speaker 2: is I've reached this a lot to people with a
Speaker 2: distance wedge. Learning how to control loft, knowing how to
Speaker 2: lean the shaft, but not sticking in the ground. All
Speaker 2: of these things that allow you to be a great
Speaker 2: ball hitter happen with a wedge game. So if you
Speaker 2: could develop a distance wedge game, let's say sixty to
Speaker 2: one forty, it does wonders for the whole part of
Speaker 2: your game. And to your point, when a smash is
Speaker 2: hitting wet, they have a lot of wedges, So now
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, it's like you're really contributing to
Speaker 2: their score. And because they're even if they aren't put great,
Speaker 2: they're gonna have a lot of shots inside fifteen feet.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I could do another hour of this,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna let you go and I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: open a bottle of wine. Listen. It was really really fun.
Speaker 1: I mean, as somebody, and I don't say this to
Speaker 1: beat you up about it, is someone that's been lucky
Speaker 1: enough to work with players that have won major championships.
Speaker 1: When you've got guys trying to win one, it is
Speaker 1: for us as coaches, it is the pinnacle of what
Speaker 1: we do. And to have two guys this year have
Speaker 1: two legit chances of it. It wears you out, it
Speaker 1: beats you up, but it's the reason why we do this.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm proud of the work that you do.
Speaker 1: I'm lucky to be able to at tournaments in the
Speaker 1: players lounge on the driving range when we're sitting around
Speaker 1: waiting for these superstars, it's fun to pick your brain.
Speaker 1: You've always been somebody that has been very, very open
Speaker 1: with the information that you've got, and you're somebody that
Speaker 1: I will ask questions to about Hey man, what do
Speaker 1: you think about this with this player and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and hopefully that will continue. We'll look forward to seeing
Speaker 1: you soon. Good luck in the FedEx with all the boys,
Speaker 1: and keep hanging trophies.
Speaker 2: Man, Appreciate it, Appreciate you, Appreciate our friendship, thanks to everything.
Speaker 2: Especially appreciate your nice text after the Masters. Didn't have
Speaker 2: to do that, so you're the man. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Look forward to seeing you soon. Hopefully I see you
Speaker 2: at an International Cup match at some point soon. We'll
Speaker 2: see about that. Yeah, hopefully hopefully. Good to talk to you,
Speaker 2: ye buddy, take care of bite So.
Speaker 1: Mark Blackburn listen he's one of the best in the game.
Speaker 1: He works with some of the best players in the game.
Speaker 1: I think the work that he does with players, not
Speaker 1: only on tour, but the work he does off tour
Speaker 1: as well, is second to none. And someone who I
Speaker 1: very very much respect and enjoyed talking to. So that
Speaker 1: was cool. I hope everyone enjoyed it. I'm at a
Speaker 1: live event this week and one of the really cool
Speaker 1: things this morning seeing all the guys that have just
Speaker 1: come back from the Olympics into breakfast and get an
Speaker 1: opportunity to just kind of ask them how it was.
Speaker 1: Some of them are wearing, you know, the workout clothes
Speaker 1: from their teams. A couple of the guys I saw
Speaker 1: wac o'neman over the weekend down in Jupiter. He still
Speaker 1: had the chili bag. I think the Olympics and golf
Speaker 1: is really something special. And just talking to the guys
Speaker 1: and asking them their experience what it was like, everybody
Speaker 1: was just blown away. They all said it was really
Speaker 1: kind of life changing for them. Must talk to John
Speaker 1: Rahm and I said to Rambo, I said, how was it?
Speaker 1: And he said, one of the coolest things I've ever done.
Speaker 1: Really one of the coolest things I've ever been a
Speaker 1: part of. And for a guy like John ram a
Speaker 1: two time major champion, He's got a green jacket us Open,
Speaker 1: the number one in the world. For him to say that,
Speaker 1: and for him to say that when he blew a
Speaker 1: big lead at the Olympics, he was leading on the
Speaker 1: back nine and didn't get it done, but that was
Speaker 1: kind of cool. Today to get an opportunity just to
Speaker 1: talk to all of the different players talk about what
Speaker 1: it meant for them to represent their in the Olympics,
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty special. Roy McElroy made some comments
Speaker 1: about he thinks it's on par with kind of what's
Speaker 1: going on at the Ryder Cup, that kind of feeling.
Speaker 1: I kind of think it would be cool if there
Speaker 1: was an opportunity to have a team competition in the
Speaker 1: Ryder Cup as well, not just an individual but they'll
Speaker 1: work it out. But Paris the Olympics this summer, I watched,
Speaker 1: I watched the men play, I watched the women play,
Speaker 1: and I am a fan. So really cool to talk
Speaker 1: to everybody and something that I would just really as
Speaker 1: a coach if I could work with a player that
Speaker 1: was in the Olympics, that would be pretty pretty special.
Speaker 1: I want to thank everyone for listening, rate, review, subscribe
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Son of a which comes
Speaker 1: to you almost every Wednesday. We'll see you next week.