Speaker 1: The guys from Ping.
Speaker 2: They've kind of showed me how much the equipment matters.
Speaker 1: I just love that I can hit any shot I
Speaker 1: kind of want. We're gonna be able to tell some
Speaker 1: fun stories about what goes on here to help golfers
Speaker 1: play better golf.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Ping Proving Grounds Podcast. I'm Shane
Speaker 3: Bak and joined as always by Marty Jerts and Marty.
Speaker 3: I need your help, my man, I need a little
Speaker 3: bit of help here. I find myself headed to a
Speaker 3: golf championship, not a golf tournament that I've never been
Speaker 3: a part of before I qualified for the US Amateur
Speaker 3: headed out there this weekend for this bad boy to
Speaker 3: start next week. It's in Colorado, Marty, and you're the
Speaker 3: guy that.
Speaker 2: Knows the stuff.
Speaker 3: So what do I need to know about Colorado golf,
Speaker 3: specifically altitude golf? Going to Colorado because I gotta get
Speaker 3: all like I gotta get my numbers all correct.
Speaker 1: You gotta get dial Shane. Well, I got good news.
Speaker 1: I got a little experience with this, and we got
Speaker 1: some tools that can help you with this. And we
Speaker 1: have your numbers from the Proving Grounds so we can
Speaker 1: help you out. We can help you out. Now. I
Speaker 1: know you like to keep your yardage books simple but simple.
Speaker 1: You can get as detailed as you want here, or
Speaker 1: we can help you with some general things that can
Speaker 1: help you out. But I got some really good news
Speaker 1: for you about playing golf in Colorado.
Speaker 3: All right, So you're a guy that spent a lot
Speaker 3: of time in Colorado. Obviously, now you live in Arizona.
Speaker 3: There's altitude in Arizona as well. Ball goes pretty deep.
Speaker 3: I think I don't know if a lot of that
Speaker 3: is heat or altitude or whatever. But when you go
Speaker 3: to Colorado, I mean, what are we? Are we a
Speaker 3: club longer?
Speaker 2: Like? What is kind of the thought process there?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So I think you nailed it. Which you come
Speaker 1: to Arizona and then it's hot and the ball goes far.
Speaker 1: And then you go to high altitude and the ball
Speaker 1: goes far. So what's going on? So when you increase temperature,
Speaker 1: you're going to lower the air density, right, okay, And
Speaker 1: when you increase altitude, when you go up in altitude,
Speaker 1: there's less atmosphere pushing down, so you also have less
Speaker 1: air density. So the same causal physics reason occurs when
Speaker 1: you have higher temperature and higher altitude, So you're gonna
Speaker 1: you're gonna carry the ball further. But the thing that's
Speaker 1: not as obvious to most players is that you also
Speaker 1: hit the ball lower. Okay, so when you go to
Speaker 1: high altitude, you're gonna hit the ball lower in the air.
Speaker 1: That's it. This kind of a weird thing, like your
Speaker 1: brain might be struggling with that, like if I'm hitting
Speaker 1: it further or I heard I should launch it high
Speaker 1: or something when you go to high altitude. But naturally speaking,
Speaker 1: this is why runways are longer in Denver and they're
Speaker 1: very short in San Diego. Right, you can you can
Speaker 1: stop the plane quicker because you have higher air density. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're gonna hit it further and lower. But the
Speaker 1: other good news Shane, for you is going to Colorado,
Speaker 1: is that the ball also goes straighter when you're playing
Speaker 1: high altitude. Yes, it also goes straighter for the same
Speaker 1: reason that it goes lower. It also flies straighter. So
Speaker 1: your little cut you hit down there off the tee
Speaker 1: is gonna be cutting a little bit less. But the
Speaker 1: fairways that maybe a cherry that are forty yards wide,
Speaker 1: they'll pay as if they're fifty yards wide. So that
Speaker 1: is the very good news. You can get out on
Speaker 1: one of those tea's. They're grown rough in fairways, look
Speaker 1: a little bit tighter maybe than you've been used to
Speaker 1: because you're in a championship. Now, that's right, I know
Speaker 1: how the USGA does it. Uh, don't be intimidated. They're
Speaker 1: gonna play wider than they appear up at altitude.
Speaker 3: All right, so the ball is gonna go longer, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna I'm gonna hit it in theory straighter, but it
Speaker 3: doesn't go as high. So how do I calculate kind
Speaker 3: of all those variables into what club would make the
Speaker 3: most sense. So let's just go with a stock number
Speaker 3: of mine, right, I mean, let's say Mitteine iron stock
Speaker 3: is somewhere between one sixty one sixty five. What was
Speaker 3: the number I sent you?
Speaker 1: Yeah it was let me pull it up. You're nine
Speaker 1: iron stock.
Speaker 3: Oh we're sharing a screen. By the way, go on YouTube,
Speaker 3: because Marty's got all this stuff. He's got like a
Speaker 3: beautiful little sheet. I'm gonna print this out and put
Speaker 3: it in my yardage book. This is a great YouTube episode.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, Marty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a YouTube episode. So Shane, hey, we
Speaker 1: have your numbers here when you got fit at the
Speaker 1: Pink Proving Grounds, and we plug them into a little
Speaker 1: app that we have. So you're nine iron, you said,
Speaker 1: one sixty. Yep, okay, So we made this sheet. This
Speaker 1: sheet is specific to you, specific to the PROB one
Speaker 1: X ball. I'm asson you're gonna continue to play that
Speaker 1: next week when you go to Cherry Hills, right, And
Speaker 1: this says, okay, these are your normal numbers that you've
Speaker 1: been playing your golf at sea level about seventy five degrees.
Speaker 1: We're gonna transfer that to Denver at eighty five degrees.
Speaker 1: And how are you going to use that number you
Speaker 1: normally hearr nine iron, one sixty. You're gonna go up here,
Speaker 1: and you can do this very quickly. If you print
Speaker 1: this out, we'll send it to you in a format
Speaker 1: that they go write in your book. And you're gonna
Speaker 1: go right here to between one fifty and one seventy five.
Speaker 1: If you hit your stock nine iron and it's eighty
Speaker 1: five degrees, it's gonna play sixteen yards shorter there.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you got to trust that this is what
Speaker 1: it takes some notes in your practice round. So if
Speaker 1: you get there and you're like, Okay, I'm one seventy six.
Speaker 1: What club do I hit? Uh, that's a perfect kind
Speaker 1: of stock nine iron. So what I would do is
Speaker 1: take some notes in your practice round. Make sure these
Speaker 1: numbers are working pretty good. If they're off, they're gonna
Speaker 1: be off by just the tiny little mound, and you
Speaker 1: can make some little notes there if you need to.
Speaker 3: Marty, when you go to altitude, when you go to
Speaker 3: Colorado play in like a Colorado Open or something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: is it hard for you to, let's call it, trick
Speaker 3: your brain into believing the number or the club, because
Speaker 3: you know, if you're a guy that you know, I
Speaker 3: mean you're seven iron?
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 3: I mean your seven irons probably stock what like one
Speaker 3: eighty two, one eighty.
Speaker 1: We're almost exactly the same on Ie'm one eighty five
Speaker 1: in my book, exactly one eighty five.
Speaker 2: Okay, so so you're you're one eighty five in your book.
Speaker 3: So and so I mean, if we're using this number,
Speaker 3: let's say one eighty five, you know it's nineteen yards
Speaker 3: down if it's eighty five degrees, So now what is that?
Speaker 2: It's basically two oh four is your seven horn?
Speaker 3: How are you I mean, do you ever struggle at
Speaker 3: all with understanding or at least believing that's the actual number.
Speaker 1: I think that's where the practice rounds are super helpful.
Speaker 1: Shan and I've used literally this exact sheet when I
Speaker 1: played in the Caller I Open the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: and it has been absolutely perfect for me. I love
Speaker 1: having that one number. We talked about think Box Playbox before,
Speaker 1: where it's like, oh, you got all these numbers in
Speaker 1: your head, how do you actually hit the shot without
Speaker 1: being paralyzed? I love having that one number in my head.
Speaker 1: I do all the little math. I need to pitch
Speaker 1: it here, I need a land to here. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: aim it a little bit over here. It's the plays
Speaker 1: like's gonna be this. Some of those Colorado Open shehades
Speaker 1: I've played has been really hot, and you can see
Speaker 1: that we actually have numbers here if you're looking at
Speaker 1: the laser pointer, if it's nearing one hundred degrees. I'mn't
Speaker 1: looked at the forecast for next week, but it can
Speaker 1: get that hot occasionally it could actually play up to
Speaker 1: twenty yards or twenty one, twenty two yards. Further, I've
Speaker 1: actually loved calculating this and then having that number in
Speaker 1: my head, Okay, I'm gonna try to hit the one
Speaker 1: eighty two seven iron right, and that actually can give
Speaker 1: you a lot of comfort instead as at one club
Speaker 1: or is it two right? It's a lot less kind
Speaker 1: of precise from a psychology standpoint in my experience.
Speaker 3: So for people that aren't watching on YouTube, what I
Speaker 3: find really interesting with this chart is we've talked about
Speaker 3: seven iron, you know, nine irons. What I find interesting
Speaker 3: is you think the numbers would jump substantially with the
Speaker 3: driver of three would but they're not that much different
Speaker 3: than say a nine iron or seven iron in terms
Speaker 3: of what you're going to gain. I'm assuming that's because
Speaker 3: the ball's gonna fly a little lower.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this is a big thing that I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people like to use a percentage. And
Speaker 1: this is where Shane, you're gonna have a little advantage
Speaker 1: over your competitors. Here we go, unless they listen to
Speaker 1: this pod. But these numbers are specific to you. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit more of a constant than what
Speaker 1: you would think is like, hey, it's a percentage, So
Speaker 1: the driver's gonna keep going up further, The forun is
Speaker 1: gonna keep going up further. One of the big reasons
Speaker 1: for that, especially when you look at that two hundred
Speaker 1: to two fifty range, which is your long irons, is
Speaker 1: because the ball is also flying lower, so you get, yes,
Speaker 1: it's gonna go further, but then it's also gonna fly
Speaker 1: a little bit lower, so the aerodynamics is kind of
Speaker 1: doing its thing in that part. So you know, one
Speaker 1: way you could use this, Shane, if you didn't want
Speaker 1: to look up these exact numbers, you could be, Okay, hey,
Speaker 1: my lob wedge sand wedge is going to be ten yards.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe my short irons are gonna be fifteen.
Speaker 1: If you want to average thirteen and sixteen here in
Speaker 1: that one thirty to one seventy five range, and then
Speaker 1: anything from you know, one seventy five and up is
Speaker 1: gonna be that twenty yard range. So if you wanted
Speaker 1: to simplify it, you could I personally like going to
Speaker 1: the sub yard accuracy here and kind of leaning into that,
Speaker 1: But it's gonna be up to you. This is gonna
Speaker 1: be fun to kind of practice with in your practice rounds, Marty.
Speaker 2: Can anybody do this?
Speaker 3: I mean, I obviously you've put the sheet together for
Speaker 3: me can anybody put this together if they were going
Speaker 3: to go play competitive golf somewhere where it's going to
Speaker 3: look a little bit different than where they're used to playing.
Speaker 1: Not quite yet, Shane, You're getting a little bit of
Speaker 1: a white.
Speaker 2: Glove treatment on this one, don't we go.
Speaker 1: But we are going to productize this into a solution.
Speaker 1: You can kind of see. We have balnamic on this,
Speaker 1: and so we do have plans to at some point.
Speaker 1: Can't promise the time frame yet. I wish I could.
Speaker 1: We will have this exact same solution, and it will
Speaker 1: be done in a way similar to copiloting and some
Speaker 1: of these other tools that we've built, where you could
Speaker 1: take a couple very simple numbers from your launch monitor.
Speaker 1: That's what we've done here. We had your driver numbers,
Speaker 1: we had your seven iron stock numbers from when you
Speaker 1: were fitted the proving ground, just like you could get
Speaker 1: any of our accounts. Plug it in, plug in a
Speaker 1: few key pieces of information like your stock yardages, which
Speaker 1: you knew where you typically play golf, and that's where
Speaker 1: you can generate that plays like So we hope to
Speaker 1: make this available. I think there's a couple cool use
Speaker 1: cases to this one. At the top part, which is
Speaker 1: gonna be your primary use case is Okay, you know
Speaker 1: how much shorter is the ball going to carry in
Speaker 1: the air? Then down at the bottom this is more handy.
Speaker 1: This will will definitely be handy for you in Denver,
Speaker 1: and we could talk about that, but for your daily
Speaker 1: play is also how much is the wind going to
Speaker 1: affect my ballflight? One of the very interesting things about
Speaker 1: playing golf in Denver, because the air is not as dense,
Speaker 1: is the wind is going to affect your ball less
Speaker 1: than at sea level. Okay, so if we if we
Speaker 1: compare these numbers, and for those of you that aren't
Speaker 1: watching visually here, you're gonna want to go back and
Speaker 1: tune into it. But we have a chart that shows
Speaker 1: for Shane five ten, fifteen, twenty twenty five miles an
Speaker 1: hour of herting wind versus that same amount of helping wind.
Speaker 1: What is the impact on his carry distance for hurting
Speaker 1: and helping winds? And I'm gonna show an interesting comparison here.
Speaker 1: Let's zoom into a number. Let's say you're one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty yards out, so we're gonna zoom into this
Speaker 1: range and you have fifteen miles an hour of herding
Speaker 1: wind that's gonna hurt you twenty two yards. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: toggle to a sea level chart we made for you, okay,
Speaker 1: and now that number went to twenty eight so you
Speaker 1: can see at higher altitude, you can see. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: toggle back and forth, and you can see all of
Speaker 1: those numbers really scale down in Denver as compared to
Speaker 1: sea level. So the wind's gonna affect your ball roughly
Speaker 1: fifty percent less. Kind of depends on the specific club
Speaker 1: and conditions and things of that nature. But that's something
Speaker 1: else to keep in mind, and you can kind of
Speaker 1: you can either know that and put that in your
Speaker 1: golf i Q Shane, or you can get really down
Speaker 1: the nitty gritty and throw an actual number at it
Speaker 1: next week if you want to.
Speaker 3: Marty, what's the biggest misconception with altitude and wind and
Speaker 3: and kind of all these variables that golfers talk about
Speaker 3: or think about a lot? Because when I talk to
Speaker 3: you about this stuff, I mean you're so.
Speaker 2: Dialed on it. I feel like you know exactly.
Speaker 3: And I mean I think one hundred percent you know
Speaker 3: what's going to happen to a golf ball depending on
Speaker 3: the variables what's something that we feel like we as
Speaker 3: golfers get wrong a lot.
Speaker 1: I think that a helping win and a hurting wind
Speaker 1: can be kind of equal, right. I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the big things that if you weren't down into
Speaker 1: the weeds like I am, or some of us into
Speaker 1: the testing their dynamic side, you might think that a
Speaker 1: helping wind in a hurting wind might give you that
Speaker 1: same magnitude of effect. But as we can see here
Speaker 1: on your chart, the hurting wind hurts you more than
Speaker 1: the helping wind helps you. And you're a high speed
Speaker 1: tour maybe above tour average speed, you generate ample amount
Speaker 1: of spin, so your numbers are even closer to equal
Speaker 1: for hurting wind and helping win. If we look at
Speaker 1: some of our slower swing speed players, which would be
Speaker 1: your typical golfer out there, there's a lot of scenarios
Speaker 1: where that helping wind can actually hurt their carry distance.
Speaker 1: And we've made some of these sheets here Shane, for
Speaker 1: a few of our LPGA tour players, and we get
Speaker 1: down into that two hundred to two fifty range or
Speaker 1: even that one seventy five to two hundred range that
Speaker 1: we're looking at here, and the helping wind actually hurts
Speaker 1: their carry distance, and then they think back in their
Speaker 1: brain they go, oh, yeah, I remember when I was
Speaker 1: between clubs, needed to carry a bunker switch to the
Speaker 1: five iron instead of the six. The ball kind of
Speaker 1: looked like it fell out of there. I thought I
Speaker 1: was taking the more conservative play to carry the trouble,
Speaker 1: but I hit it way shorter with that down wind scenario.
Speaker 1: So I think that's one of them. Is that hurting
Speaker 1: and helping wind? Marty?
Speaker 3: Do you mess around with driver lofts when you go
Speaker 3: to high altitude spots? I mean, I'm not going to
Speaker 3: do this because you know I have kind of my setup,
Speaker 3: But have you messed around with that at all, added
Speaker 3: a different type of wood, or you know, gone seven
Speaker 3: wood over three wood, things like that.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think the driver loft is a very important
Speaker 1: one and we can actually use I'm gonna share my
Speaker 1: screen again.
Speaker 2: Shane, sharing all the screens. I love it.
Speaker 1: Look at this. We're gonna jump right into Pinco Pilot,
Speaker 1: which all of our accounts have access to, and I
Speaker 1: have your exact numbers, and I have good news for
Speaker 1: you on this, Shane, because with your particular launch conditions,
Speaker 1: I think you're right, you might not need to tweak
Speaker 1: your lost Okay, but I'm going to talk about why
Speaker 1: that's different for different players, including me. My delivery conditions
Speaker 1: and my spin range is a in a window such
Speaker 1: that I actually did when I go play the call
Speaker 1: Red Open, or if I go play golf in Flagstaff,
Speaker 1: I do have to change my driver loft. Okay, And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna run your numbers here. So we got a
Speaker 1: driver measure on track, man, So we have radar here.
Speaker 1: Let's call it moderate fairway conditions one seventy seven balls,
Speaker 1: eight and a half degrees of launch, twenty nine to
Speaker 1: fifty spin. Now, a lot of listeners out there might
Speaker 1: be thinking, why can't you get Shane more dialed in
Speaker 1: with this spin that seems high? Well, guess what your
Speaker 1: stock little chip cut down there. You're hitting down about
Speaker 1: three degrees. Three three and a half degrees is what
Speaker 1: we measured you at. Okay. So the more you hit
Speaker 1: down on the ball, the higher your optimal backspin. So
Speaker 1: that is totally fine. So we're gonna run this through
Speaker 1: this tool that we have launch efficiency, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: run this Shane first at sea level, So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put in eighty five degrees in sea level. I get
Speaker 1: launch efficiency. This is doing all kinds of compute on
Speaker 1: the back end, all kinds of virtual simulations, kind of
Speaker 1: like AI, to tell you what you should do in
Speaker 1: your launch conditions to get totally dialed. And as we did,
Speaker 1: we use this tool. When you're at the proven grounds,
Speaker 1: you were pretty much perfect. This is saying this is
Speaker 1: a great fit. This is what co pilot is saying.
Speaker 1: You're within a half a degree of absolutely perfect and
Speaker 1: one hundred degrees of our one hundred RPMs of spin
Speaker 1: of absolute perfection from a fitting standpoint, So you can't
Speaker 1: really eke out at any more distance there because we
Speaker 1: got you dialed in. Now, let's say you hit that
Speaker 1: same shot in Denver. So I'm gonna pump the altitude
Speaker 1: up to fifty seven fifty and say get launch efficiency.
Speaker 1: And now you've moved down a little on that optimal window. Gotcha,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be living right at the bottom threshold of optimal.
Speaker 1: And you know this might seem crazy to some folks
Speaker 1: out there. The spin rate recommendation it says for you
Speaker 1: is three three hundred RPMs. So here we are ping.
Speaker 1: We're saying your optimal spin. At altitude, your optimal launch
Speaker 1: is nine to five and your optimal spin is thirty
Speaker 1: three hundred. That may sound pretty wild to people, but
Speaker 1: that's because of how you're angle of attack. And then
Speaker 1: at altitude, because the ball is gonna fly lower, we
Speaker 1: need a little more launch and a little more spin
Speaker 1: to keep that ball in the air. That being said, Shane,
Speaker 1: I think because you generate ample spin, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: warm next week in Denver. Most likely your driver as
Speaker 1: is is still gonna be really good for you there
Speaker 1: at altitude.
Speaker 3: Okay, since I got you here, Marty, I got a
Speaker 3: couple other questions. I just got a couple of basic
Speaker 3: kind of golf a questions that I've always been interested in.
Speaker 3: I want to start here with wedges, and I want
Speaker 3: to start with down wind wedges because I.
Speaker 2: Feel like, yeah, this is the most.
Speaker 3: Perplexing thing that golfers deal with on a week to
Speaker 3: week basis. Why is it that the wind's whipping behind
Speaker 3: me let's say ten to twelve miles per hour and
Speaker 3: I feel like, all right, it's a sandwich, but I'm
Speaker 3: gonna hit my lab wedge because there's a lot of
Speaker 3: wind behind me. Why does it feel like the ball
Speaker 3: falls out of the sky and I still hit that
Speaker 3: shot short of the green more often than not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh man, I can sense you have some some
Speaker 1: skeletons in the closet on this show everywhere, so have you, Shane?
Speaker 1: You probably know this from your Saint Andrews days. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's say you're hitting a pit shot around the green,
Speaker 1: like a high lob type shot, and it's you're literally
Speaker 1: only need to carry it ten or fifteen yards, but
Speaker 1: the wind's blown thirty miles an hour left. Right. If
Speaker 1: you ever hit that shot and then the wind like
Speaker 1: literally blows it like five yards, is just kind of
Speaker 1: like that pitch shot. You're like the wind affected the
Speaker 1: pitch shot more than my approach shot. You know why
Speaker 1: is that? It's pretty interesting? So I think the phenomena
Speaker 1: that's happening, and my callague doctor Eric Hendrickson, we got
Speaker 1: to have them on to talk about the exact microphysics
Speaker 1: of what's going on here. But there's a in aerodynamics
Speaker 1: sometimes there's like these we call them binary They're like
Speaker 1: switches that go off and on effects from an aerodynamic standpoint,
Speaker 1: So let's say you're hitting a lobwey a fifty yard
Speaker 1: loguage sixty yard lobguage, where that ball speed is only
Speaker 1: going to be like fifty sixty seventy miles an hour.
Speaker 1: So you got fifty sixty seventy miles an hour, it's
Speaker 1: call it sixty miles an hour. Then you got let's say,
Speaker 1: twenty miles an hour of down windy. So the net
Speaker 1: that the golf ball is seeing when it's spinning is
Speaker 1: only forty So there's a speed threshold where the speed
Speaker 1: is so low you're not getting that kind of turbulence
Speaker 1: around the ball that gives it its lift force. And
Speaker 1: the lift force is kind of like what keeps the
Speaker 1: plane in the air. Okay, So if you're not getting
Speaker 1: that lift force because the net speed the ball speed
Speaker 1: of the ball minus the helping wind speed of the
Speaker 1: wind gets too low, then you lose the lift and
Speaker 1: the ball falls out of the air. It's like a knuckleball.
Speaker 1: It loses its upward pushing force, which is called the
Speaker 1: lift force. There's some more little nuance that goes into
Speaker 1: the why. But does that kind of help make a
Speaker 1: little bit of sense of that painful shot?
Speaker 3: Absolutely well, I mean, you know, it's It's just so
Speaker 3: weird because I feel like this happens a lot, and
Speaker 3: you know, you pose it on a wedge and it
Speaker 3: lands on the front of the green, or you know,
Speaker 3: it lands ten yards on and spins kind of to
Speaker 3: the front of the green or something like that. And
Speaker 3: I've battled with this so long, Marty, because you know,
Speaker 3: you go, Okay, do I just hit the wedge? I
Speaker 3: would have hit anyway without the down wind, you know,
Speaker 3: hits one twenty five. Do I just hit gap weedge
Speaker 3: and try to swing smooth at it and just see
Speaker 3: what kind of occurs with the wind. What's your approach
Speaker 3: when you're let's say you're one hundred and ten yards,
Speaker 3: what's your sandwich? One fifteen stock?
Speaker 1: What do you get? One fifteen stock? One fifteen stock,
Speaker 1: one ten comfortable?
Speaker 3: You're one fifteen and you've got twelve miles per hour
Speaker 3: down wind? Are you still hitting that sandwich pretty much
Speaker 3: stock what you'd normally do?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I would, and I wouldn't be afraid to swing hard.
Speaker 1: I mean I think the scenarios were yes, because you
Speaker 1: want to keep the ball speed up. Okay, now actually
Speaker 1: try to almost hit it lower. Now that might seem
Speaker 1: crazy to some people like, hey, I'm down wind, he's
Speaker 1: trying to hit it lower. But if I try to
Speaker 1: hit it lower, you can have a more optimal spin loft.
Speaker 1: To keep more spin on, you could generate a higher
Speaker 1: gross spin rate. So try to get the spin rate
Speaker 1: up to twelve thousand or whatever depending on the lie.
Speaker 1: And then trying to hit it lower also keeps the
Speaker 1: ball speed up, so you're getting more ball speed, so
Speaker 1: you don't have that scenario where you like, like you
Speaker 1: know that differential between the ball speed and the wind speed,
Speaker 1: and then try to generate as much spin as you can.
Speaker 1: And so for those two reasons, I think that is
Speaker 1: an actionable thing to do. But that is such a
Speaker 1: painful shot, Shane, because the situation doesn't always allow you
Speaker 1: to do it. I mean a lot of times you
Speaker 1: have those shots. You got trouble short in trouble long,
Speaker 1: and so you're here, you're living on a razor's edge there.
Speaker 1: I also have some demons from some shots that I've had.
Speaker 1: The ball fall out there on a wedgshot or d
Speaker 1: c Ranch here has a hole way up on top
Speaker 1: of the hill and it's in this canyon and it's
Speaker 1: like one hundred and thirty yards one hundred and forty yards.
Speaker 1: The wind's always swirling. The other thing that happens, Shanes
Speaker 1: is sometimes the wind can actually blow down. This is
Speaker 1: like a crazy thing to think about. Is the wind
Speaker 1: doesn't always blow just left or right in front to back.
Speaker 1: The wind can also blow down. So there's a hole
Speaker 1: up there. I swear the wind's helping, but quite often
Speaker 1: you'll get some phenomenon in the mountain where the wind
Speaker 1: blows down, that ball falls down, hits into this rock
Speaker 1: wall and you're reteeing and you can't go along either.
Speaker 1: That's not good either.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're like, oh sweet, I may double on this
Speaker 3: hole again. Just what I was hoping for. That's that's
Speaker 3: wildly What about humidity, Like, what does humidity do in
Speaker 3: terms of golf ball's actions in the air.
Speaker 1: Humidity is such a controversial topic because but let's try
Speaker 1: to set the record straight here. I think golfers furience
Speaker 1: that when it's humid the ball goes shorter, right, So
Speaker 1: you got golfers in real life kind of experiencing this,
Speaker 1: then you have us maybe if I take my golf
Speaker 1: mind out of it, looking at this very scientifically, humidity
Speaker 1: by itself, if you change the humidity from zero percent
Speaker 1: all the way up to one hundred percent. You actually
Speaker 1: lower the air density by increasing humidity, which we talked
Speaker 1: about temperature and altitude earlier. You lower the density, the
Speaker 1: ball goes further. So in theory, if you but it's
Speaker 1: a very very teeny tiny effect. If you take a
Speaker 1: three hundred yard drive, you'd say your your driver launch conditions,
Speaker 1: the ball's dry, and we could somehow change the humidity
Speaker 1: from zero percent to one hundred percent, you would carry
Speaker 1: that driver one yard further when it's humid. But Shane,
Speaker 1: let's go back to man. We got all these golfers
Speaker 1: and I heard Justin Thomas online on Twitter kind of
Speaker 1: talk about it over when it's humid, the ball goes shorter.
Speaker 1: They're saying that, but yet in theory the ball should
Speaker 1: go further. Well, what's happening when it's humid out we
Speaker 1: most of the time you'll have little water droplets accumulating,
Speaker 1: even under a microscopic level on the golf ball itself,
Speaker 1: so you really have a wet golf ball. Now, what
Speaker 1: happens when the golf ball alone is wet, It flies shorter,
Speaker 1: so that humidity in the air makes it go slightly
Speaker 1: slightly further. But if you have water on the golf ball.
Speaker 1: If you have water on the ball, this is why
Speaker 1: if you if it's raining and you got a caddy there,
Speaker 1: keep the ball dry as the number one priority. The
Speaker 1: ball will go shorter. So uh, let's this is something
Speaker 1: you can anyone could test, Shane. You could go to
Speaker 1: your range if you had a track man, tee a
Speaker 1: ball up with your driver, sprits it with bringing a
Speaker 1: little spray bottle, sprints it with water, hit a dry
Speaker 1: ball and then hit a few where you spritz the
Speaker 1: ball wet in the wet golf ball with the driver
Speaker 1: for you will go like fifteen shorter. Okay, So having
Speaker 1: the ball dry is a very big deal. So then
Speaker 1: there's another compounding effect, which is when the ball's wet
Speaker 1: and you hit a low lofted club, you actually because
Speaker 1: the friction between the ball and the face, you'll actually
Speaker 1: generate more spin. We call that the reverse flyer. So
Speaker 1: you could actually get a scenario where let's say you're
Speaker 1: hitting a five iron, the ball's a little wet and
Speaker 1: it's it's humid out. The ball's a little bit wet,
Speaker 1: you generate a little more spin between the ball and
Speaker 1: the face, then the ball has a little moistureize, so
Speaker 1: it flies shorter through the air. So even though it's
Speaker 1: more humid air and it should go further, and actually
Speaker 1: goes shorter in practice, I think, and we think it
Speaker 1: pinging it from the proving grounds research, that's probably actually
Speaker 1: what happens out there in practice. So the golfers aren't
Speaker 1: necessarily wrong, but it's not the humidity that's making it
Speaker 1: go further. It's a wet golf ball, Marty.
Speaker 3: This episode's either going to make people way more fired
Speaker 3: up to play, or it's gonna make them quit the
Speaker 3: game entirely.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure which way.
Speaker 3: We're gonna go, because it's like, I mean, like just
Speaker 3: think about I think about how hard golf is in general, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, it is a very very difficult sport and
Speaker 3: you're trying to go through all. You know, like tennis,
Speaker 3: you can be a power player, right and you could
Speaker 3: be a big serve volley guy. In baseball, if you're
Speaker 3: a pitcher and you've just got a ton of speed,
Speaker 3: you can lean heavily on that. You need a little
Speaker 3: bit of movement with the ball, but that can be
Speaker 3: your thing. If you're Steph Curry and basketball Hugh shoot threes.
Speaker 3: In golf, you've got to do all of these things
Speaker 3: well to have a solid round of golf. It's not
Speaker 3: just the plane, it's not just the hitting. It's the
Speaker 3: saying and it's the thinking, Marty. And this is part
Speaker 3: of that thinking that makes golf so tough because you
Speaker 3: can have some of the best players in the world,
Speaker 3: Justin Thomas, one of the best golfers in the world,
Speaker 3: not totally understanding humidity in the game, and that he's
Speaker 3: not the only player that deals with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's true. I mean, I think that's just
Speaker 1: part of having high golf IQ. And I think hopefully
Speaker 1: Shane listeners this pot are leveling up their golf IQ
Speaker 1: just a little bit. I mean, if having that information
Speaker 1: helps you save one shot in one key tournament, that
Speaker 1: might help you win your championship or something like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that would be just absolutely phenomenal.
Speaker 3: All right, So, when when wind is a factor, let's
Speaker 3: say wind is helping. Let's keep going with the helping
Speaker 3: part of this. At what point is it helping at
Speaker 3: what speed, at what club, at what distance is wind
Speaker 3: actually going to propel that ball?
Speaker 2: Forward, whatever the case may be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it depends on the club type, and
Speaker 1: it depends on your ball speed. The higher ball speed player,
Speaker 1: this is the bad news for you. I had good
Speaker 1: news for you, Shane. Now I got bad news.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: The higher ball speed you are, the more the wind's
Speaker 1: gonna affect your ball flight, okay, because you're gonna have
Speaker 1: more time in the air and higher peak height. Okay.
Speaker 1: So if you are a slower swing speed player, the
Speaker 1: wind it's this nonlinear effect. The win's not gonna affect
Speaker 1: your ball flight as much if you're a lower swing
Speaker 1: speed player. I think we've seen this with player like Bryson,
Speaker 1: Like he's out there and his biggest challenge when he
Speaker 1: picked up all that speed was the wind. He became
Speaker 1: very kind of perplexed by how much the is the
Speaker 1: wind gonna affect my ballflight, where if you have other
Speaker 1: other players with slower swing speed, it doesn't affect it
Speaker 1: as much. Right, So I think it depends on your
Speaker 1: peak high, your trajectory, your ball speed, and it's gonna
Speaker 1: affect your wedges less. Okay. Again, they're in the air,
Speaker 1: they're you're not as far out and they're in the air.
Speaker 1: For a shorter period of time. So I think kind
Speaker 1: of like green reading, where one way, one kind of
Speaker 1: good way I think the aim pointers and I've kind
Speaker 1: of learned about of reading greens is to think about
Speaker 1: the longer the putt from a time standpoint. So if
Speaker 1: you had a very fast downhill putt, that putt could
Speaker 1: be rolling for maybe eight seconds, right, But if you
Speaker 1: had an uphill putt on slow greens, that same distance
Speaker 1: of putt might only be rolling for four seconds. So
Speaker 1: which one is going to break more the one where
Speaker 1: gravity can act on it for a longer period of time.
Speaker 1: So one way to think about wind is very similar.
Speaker 1: Think about the time that the wind can act on
Speaker 1: the golf ball. So one major way to counter that
Speaker 1: in playing golf is to reduce that time. Is to
Speaker 1: lower your peak height and lower your trajectory. Is a
Speaker 1: really good technique for a player like you, Shane, and
Speaker 1: that's why you see the very creative high speed golfers
Speaker 1: and Bubba's of the world being able to manipulate their
Speaker 1: vertical trajectory a lot when they're playing golf.
Speaker 3: Seemed like one of the big kind of arguments in
Speaker 3: that middling career of Dustin and Rory was their kind
Speaker 3: of inability or the fact that they wouldn't try to
Speaker 3: manipulate the wedges. You know, you watch you mentioned Bubba,
Speaker 3: and you watch bubb in his prime, and Bubba would
Speaker 3: hit these crazy window wedges, these low love wedges and
Speaker 3: these sand wedges that come out of windows look like
Speaker 3: a four iron. Yet that obviously was what he was
Speaker 3: trying to do because he had the ability to manipulate.
Speaker 2: The golf ball in that way.
Speaker 3: And you do see especially I run into this a
Speaker 3: lot with young players. I'm sure you do as well,
Speaker 3: young high speed players, and it feels like the wedges
Speaker 3: are only coming out of one window and that's extremely high,
Speaker 3: and that's great if there's no conditions. When the conditions
Speaker 3: starting to kind of heighten up, that is that that's
Speaker 3: not going to get you close to the hole, You're
Speaker 3: gonna find yourself hitting a lot of thirty footers for.
Speaker 1: Birdie, absolutely. I mean, this is one of the big
Speaker 1: things that Sean Fully and Cameron Champ have worked really
Speaker 1: hard on to help Cameron win a few turna you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of his tournaments a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: Was being able to hit those different windows with his
Speaker 1: wedges because because he kind of had that. You know,
Speaker 1: the problem of being very high speed, right, it comes
Speaker 1: with some skills that you need. You're gonna have more
Speaker 1: consequence on things like the wind affecting your irons more
Speaker 1: and so being able to manipulate that vertical trajectory is
Speaker 1: very important. I think you, Shane. You also brought up
Speaker 1: Rory and manipulating and choosing different shots. One of the
Speaker 1: funnest things to watch was him hitting his final two
Speaker 1: iron when he won the Scottish Open earlier this summer,
Speaker 1: where it was a scenario where if he would have
Speaker 1: hit his stock draw, everyone says, Rory always hits a draw,
Speaker 1: go back and look at that shot. We actually at
Speaker 1: Balnama simulated if he would have hit the draw with
Speaker 1: that same scenario, his two iron would have gone like
Speaker 1: thirty yards over the green on the back edge, and
Speaker 1: his make percentage probability back there would have been like
Speaker 1: one in one hundred and he would be more likely
Speaker 1: to three putt and not even make a playoff. So
Speaker 1: he had to cut it into the wind, and by
Speaker 1: cutting it into the wind, he reduced the distance because
Speaker 1: he was between four iron and two iron and four
Speaker 1: iron wouldn't have worked because the geometry of the hole
Speaker 1: like it was, it was geometrically impossible for him to
Speaker 1: get it close to the hole. His only way to
Speaker 1: pull that shot off and win the tournament was to
Speaker 1: cut the two iron with a lot of spin axes
Speaker 1: right back up into the wind, take the distance off,
Speaker 1: create the angle, and capture the victory. A beautiful example
Speaker 1: of a high speed player using shot making to control
Speaker 1: distance and and clutch.
Speaker 3: Up, Marty, anything else you've got for me as I
Speaker 3: get set for Colorado, Because I feel like we've checked
Speaker 3: the box on distance and altitude. I feel like I've
Speaker 3: checked the box on down wind wedges. I feel very comfortable.
Speaker 3: I'm extremely excited to hit. To hear I'm gonna hit
Speaker 3: more fairways. That is great news for me. As I
Speaker 3: continually get buddies text to me pictures of Colorado Golf
Speaker 3: Club's best you rough on the about Now I'm not
Speaker 3: worried about it anymore. This is this is making me
Speaker 3: all fired up to get to Colorado. Is there anything else,
Speaker 3: weather wise or variable wise that I should be thinking about?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is one one thing, Shane, So I talked
Speaker 1: about hitting it lower. So with your irons, especially at
Speaker 1: Colorado Golf Club, because the greens might be a little
Speaker 1: bit firmer out there on that course, your irons are
Speaker 1: gonna go lower. So if you hit your stock trajectory
Speaker 1: from sea level to Denver, your landing angle with your
Speaker 1: mid and long iron's going to be about seven degrees shallower. Okay,
Speaker 1: So it's something to be mindful of. Are you gonna
Speaker 1: bring your You have a seven wood right bringing the bag.
Speaker 1: It's bag perfect. So that might be a very important
Speaker 1: club for you because again that peak height the the
Speaker 1: the height's gonna be lower, You're gonna land it shallower.
Speaker 1: This might be a little bit non obvious to the
Speaker 1: rest of the players there. So definitely bring that seven wood.
Speaker 1: Definitely be mindful if the greens get firm that you
Speaker 1: might be landing it a little bit shallower. That's where
Speaker 1: your high cut can give you a major advantage over
Speaker 1: those young kids that only hit hit one one shot
Speaker 1: shape in there.
Speaker 3: Interesting, you know, I it's so funny because when you
Speaker 3: have it, like for me especially, I kind of have
Speaker 3: my golf bag set and you feel really comfortable with
Speaker 3: the setup, and you see these professional golfers and I
Speaker 3: always am so I'm so impressed by pros because their
Speaker 3: willingness to tinker is a very strong characteristic of a
Speaker 3: great player. I mean, you think about Phil Mickelson winn
Speaker 3: Majors with two drivers in his bag. You know, I
Speaker 3: remember Adam Scott years ago chasing that PGA Championship had
Speaker 3: two putters in the bag, having five wedges sixty two
Speaker 3: sixty four degree wedges. Like you see these pros willingness
Speaker 3: to try different clubs at big time events, and the
Speaker 3: seven wood is something I've been very excited about bringing
Speaker 3: with me because again not just in terms of shots,
Speaker 3: in terms of how they're laying on the green, but
Speaker 3: out of some of this nasty championship rough is you'd
Speaker 3: be able to galluge it out of some of these
Speaker 3: spots that you couldn't do with the crossover.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And the other thing I would say, Shane, I played,
Speaker 1: I've played Colorado Golf Club once or twice. Absolutely loved it. Man.
Speaker 1: It's like, have you played there yet?
Speaker 2: I haven't played it ever.
Speaker 1: It's like bandon Dunes in Colorado.
Speaker 2: Okay, fire, it's fired up, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Gonna love it. So so we got Colorado Golf Club
Speaker 1: and then Cherry Hills. They're very different. So give yourself
Speaker 1: permission to maybe play the seven wood at Cherry, but
Speaker 1: you might need the three iron or the crossover over
Speaker 1: there at Colorado Golf Club. So definitely do your homework
Speaker 1: because you could mix your bag up a little bit
Speaker 1: in that scenario. Between those two tracks, I would say
Speaker 1: probably a higher probability of needing the seven wood out
Speaker 1: there at Cherry. Greens are small, Rough's gonna be thick.
Speaker 1: That place is super fun. It holds its own for
Speaker 1: not being super long on the card. You will end
Speaker 1: up hitting some shots in there, like, hey, how am
Speaker 1: I hitting all these long irons? It's it's sneaky in
Speaker 1: how that place you end up hitting some long irons
Speaker 1: to some very small greens. You're absolutely gonna love it.
Speaker 1: Both those tracks are unbelievable.
Speaker 3: Marty, the the Arnold Palmer driving holes three ninety now,
Speaker 3: you know, I just think it was three sixty when
Speaker 3: the green?
Speaker 2: Can I get there? Can I get there? Or no?
Speaker 2: At three ninetyes ah?
Speaker 1: You know what it is, Shane. I think it depends
Speaker 1: on where the pin is because that green has a
Speaker 1: lot of complexity to it. Okay, and you know it's
Speaker 1: also in you know, there's a difference between match playing
Speaker 1: stroke play. I mean stroke player, you just get just
Speaker 1: get through so uh and there's water down the right,
Speaker 1: and it's if that's your first hole the tournament. Man
Speaker 1: oh man, I would be more likely hit in the farewell,
Speaker 1: So it's no guarantee. It's also not the easiest. It's
Speaker 1: not a guaranteed layup either. That's the other factor. So
Speaker 1: if you do lay up, you know, really focus on
Speaker 1: that shot. You got to get that ball in the
Speaker 1: short grass there, because that green is complex. That being said,
Speaker 1: maybe in match play they can move the tea up
Speaker 1: into the right a little bit to the original tee.
Speaker 1: Then it's send all day long. Okay, it's quite fun,
Speaker 1: and I would hypothesize they would do that in match
Speaker 1: play because you don't have to worry about the pace
Speaker 1: of play and all the other things with getting all
Speaker 1: those golfers through thirty six holes. Up there with me
Speaker 1: some afternoon storms, Marty.
Speaker 2: This has been amazing. This has been extremely helpful.
Speaker 3: I hope your phone is charged next week because you're
Speaker 3: going to be getting text messages from me as I
Speaker 3: get through some of these practice rounds and get a
Speaker 3: feel for what I might be doing or what I
Speaker 3: might not be doing. But I'm fired up. First first
Speaker 3: US amateur for me, you know, at thirty nine years old,
Speaker 3: I do the qualifiers, Marty, and it's thirty holes and
Speaker 3: it's a long day, and I sign up and I'm excited.
Speaker 3: You know, I kind of have the theory go out
Speaker 3: and play and see what happens. But to actually get
Speaker 3: through this and to play in this championship, you know,
Speaker 3: this was this was the first event I ever broadcasted
Speaker 3: on national television, was the US Ader back at twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: So to kind of full circle it and get to
Speaker 3: finally get a chance to play in it, I am
Speaker 3: very excited about it.
Speaker 2: I'm very fired up.
Speaker 3: And my cheat sheet that you've made me is going
Speaker 3: to be extremely helpful, and it's going to be on
Speaker 3: the front page of my yardage book.
Speaker 1: There we go. I love it. Shane. Well just hope
Speaker 1: you we help you out a little bit. Enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Those two courses are awesome for you. You got a
Speaker 1: higher golf I Q. Then the rest of the competition
Speaker 1: out there and uh man, just have fun. Get it,
Speaker 1: just get it done, get into match play, and anything
Speaker 1: can happen in match play, Shane.
Speaker 3: Anything could happen. Anything could happen in match play. That's
Speaker 3: the goal. Marty, you're the man. I really appreciate you
Speaker 3: doing this. We've kind of thrown this together last minute,
Speaker 3: and it was an idea that I think both of
Speaker 3: us had had about chatting about this. So thank you,
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. I hope you guys enjoyed it
Speaker 3: as well. I hope you learned something. This is the
Speaker 3: Paying Proving Grounds Podcast.
Speaker 1: H