Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 2: And when I find my ball in a bride egg
Speaker 2: Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, Frida Egg, Frida Egg Egg,
Speaker 2: fride Egg, Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run
Speaker 2: off of the hump.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name is Garrett Morrison,
Speaker 1: and today we're talking about the ongoing scientific revolution in golf.
Speaker 1: My guest is Will Haskett, a broadcaster you might have
Speaker 1: heard on PGA Tour Radio and formally on his podcast
Speaker 1: The Perfect Number. Will is also a writer. His book
Speaker 1: is called The Science of Golf and it covers topics
Speaker 1: like launch, monitor technology, strokes, gained analytics, advance an agronomy,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And it discusses how these innovations have made
Speaker 1: the modern game what it is, for better or for worse.
Speaker 1: It's a really, really good read, even for an admitted
Speaker 1: science idiot like me. Now, in addition to getting Will's book,
Speaker 1: make sure to check out the Frida Egg Pro shop.
Speaker 1: It's at proshop dotthfrid Egg dot com. Right now, we
Speaker 1: have new stuff in our print shop specifically some cool
Speaker 1: shots of Mierfield in Scotland and sand Hills Golf Club
Speaker 1: in Nebraska. You can get prints on metal, on canvas
Speaker 1: or just on plain old photo paper, all that and
Speaker 1: more at pro Shop dotthfried egg dot com. All right,
Speaker 1: Will Haskett, you are a man of many talents. Today
Speaker 1: we're talking about your book, The Science of Golf, and
Speaker 1: we'll get to that, but you have just wrapped up
Speaker 1: doing a broadcast.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I'm a sports broadcaster first, second, and third,
Speaker 2: so let's not throw the author category into it. We'll
Speaker 2: get into maybe how the bok came to be. But yeah,
Speaker 2: first and foremost I'm a sports broadcaster and predominantly now
Speaker 2: in golf. So yeah, I'm approaching ten years now on
Speaker 2: PG to a radio A little PG twour Live helped
Speaker 2: the LPGA launch feature groups for the first time this year,
Speaker 2: which is kind of exciting, so hoping that that grows
Speaker 2: a little bit more for the lady's side of it.
Speaker 2: But yes, I am predominantly a play by play guy
Speaker 2: in trade and heart in every single way, shape and form.
Speaker 1: You have that broadcaster's voice and polish and so that's
Speaker 1: much appreciated. And you have a nice little home setup
Speaker 1: from which you broadcast. So are you primarily doing your
Speaker 1: work from home these days? Has that been something that
Speaker 1: you've done since the pandemic or before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know how much I'm allowed to pull
Speaker 2: back the curtain without violating contracts and everything like this,
Speaker 2: but I think at this point in time it's pretty
Speaker 2: safe to say that. So our crew on pg to
Speaker 2: a radio, it's a host and an analyst, and there
Speaker 2: are three guys that are calling golf shots. And several
Speaker 2: years ago all three of those guys were on the
Speaker 2: golf course, and then for budgetary reasons and a number
Speaker 2: of different reasons, it went to a more sort of
Speaker 2: not fully remote model. But two guys are still walking
Speaker 2: in the fairways every week on the PGA to or
Speaker 2: another guy is sort of your tower announcer, right, somebody
Speaker 2: who's able to kind of bop around and see different shots.
Speaker 2: And that could be done from anywhere, whether it's in
Speaker 2: studio or whatever it might be. And then the pandemic
Speaker 2: forced pretty much the entire industry into this remote setup.
Speaker 2: And so I have colleagues in the industry for two
Speaker 2: years that we're calling all their basketball games on ESPN
Speaker 2: from their basements, you know, and they were having the
Speaker 2: remote kit, so we're still in sort of that same mode. So, yes,
Speaker 2: there is a component where a third of the guys
Speaker 2: that are calling golf shots are at home. So it
Speaker 2: works out to be about a third of my work
Speaker 2: during the year on PGA Tour Radio is from my
Speaker 2: home studio. And as you will obviously recognize as a
Speaker 2: father of young children, it has super perks, so I'm
Speaker 2: very much appreciative of it. I'm forty one and I'm
Speaker 2: still the youngest member of the broadcast team on PGA
Speaker 2: to a radio in the sport that scus a little
Speaker 2: bit older. So I do not mind being home a
Speaker 2: few extra times a year where I can get off
Speaker 2: the air and go upstairs and have dinner with the kids.
Speaker 1: Listen. To be clear, it has its perks, but it
Speaker 1: also has its drawbacks.
Speaker 2: Yes, if I was only here, I wouldn't. It would
Speaker 2: drive me crazy, Like you have to be able to
Speaker 2: go out and have the relationships and see the shots
Speaker 2: and feel the air and all those things that come
Speaker 2: with it, and without that context, it makes it really
Speaker 2: hard to do this job. If you just threw somebody
Speaker 2: into doing it from home and they're calling it off
Speaker 2: of a little monitor, you lose so much of the
Speaker 2: stories of the players and what they're working on. And
Speaker 2: a perfect example, I was in Bermuda last year. I
Speaker 2: got wind and rain blasted on the weekend by what
Speaker 2: felt like a tropical storm. And so I know the
Speaker 2: contours of the greens. I know where the guys are
Speaker 2: trying to aim it and hit it off the tee.
Speaker 2: So having that built in makes it way easier. If
Speaker 2: I'd never seen the footprint or never been to the
Speaker 2: golf course and I'm calling it from home, it's really
Speaker 2: really difficult. And so then you keep it so simple
Speaker 2: that I feel like it's a disservice to the audience.
Speaker 2: So I think we have a really good crew with
Speaker 2: a lot of experienced guys to where those people who
Speaker 2: are at home in this sort of new world that
Speaker 2: we live in in this remote model, can still provide
Speaker 2: all all the same context. And to be honest, sometimes
Speaker 2: I'm driving around listening to my own peers and I
Speaker 2: know the schedule Garrett, and I'll be listening. I'm like,
Speaker 2: wait a second, who's not the I can't tell. And
Speaker 2: if I can't tell, then I know the audience can't tell,
Speaker 2: so I think we're doing a pretty good job of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. I really enjoy the calls on PGA Tour Radio,
Speaker 1: which is where you do quite a bit of work, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: most of it, in addition to some work on camera
Speaker 1: as well. But the you know, the narration that you
Speaker 1: get on PGA Tour Radio is often something that I
Speaker 1: prefer to listen to. You know, the broadcast obviously is
Speaker 1: the number one thing. The television broadcast is sure is
Speaker 1: what you want to see since golf is a visual sport.
Speaker 1: But I often feel like with PGA Tour Radio that
Speaker 1: the commentary really does bring it a live in a
Speaker 1: nice way, and so it's a it's a good thing
Speaker 1: to do to kind of mix up your golf consumption.
Speaker 1: You know, if people have never listened to a PGA
Speaker 1: Tour radio broadcast and you like following PGA Tour events,
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of a way to do it.
Speaker 2: If you love golf, it's a great product. If you
Speaker 2: don't like golf, it probably will help you sleep a
Speaker 2: little bit. So I always say there's two benefits to
Speaker 2: everybody that's out there. We do call a lot of
Speaker 2: golf shots, so I think that's one of our number
Speaker 2: one things we hear from a lot of people is
Speaker 2: we get up. We squeeze a lot of golf shots
Speaker 2: into our broadcast. It's pretty fast paced, but every single
Speaker 2: shot then requires discussion and conversation. We're in a visual medium,
Speaker 2: you don't have to necessarily do that, and so you
Speaker 2: can sort of lose some of the storytelling and contextual
Speaker 2: elements of broadcasting it, and you can then squeeze in
Speaker 2: more sponsored elements or whatever it might sort of be.
Speaker 2: But we're always sort of breaking down lie angle what
Speaker 2: it's going to take, then reacting to what that is.
Speaker 2: And I think that we've also embraced advanced statistics a
Speaker 2: little bit more in our medium than in other places.
Speaker 2: So you can say, hey, this guy's ranked wherever this
Speaker 2: might be, or here's the shot probability of this, depending
Speaker 2: on who the analyst is that week. Some of our
Speaker 2: analysts have embraced that. Some of our analysts are little
Speaker 2: more old school, but some of our younger analysts, you know,
Speaker 2: guys that are waiting to turn fifty, I think have
Speaker 2: embraced a lot of those numbers and then allows us
Speaker 2: to tell those stories a little bit more. And this
Speaker 2: is probably a good segue point, But that certainly lights
Speaker 2: me up a little bit because I'm definitely the stat
Speaker 2: geek of all the play by play guys that we
Speaker 2: have calling golf shots on PG two Radio.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think stat geek would be sort of under
Speaker 1: selling it at this point. Oh really, you are now
Speaker 1: the author of the Science of Golf, So, uh, you
Speaker 1: have ascended to the status I think of geek lord
Speaker 1: at this point. Is geek Is that like an official title?
Speaker 1: I don't sure I'll wear you know, I feel like
Speaker 1: i'm a I'm I'm trending towards geek lord dumb in
Speaker 1: certain areas of my life, and I hope eventually to
Speaker 1: get there. But I think that writing a book is
Speaker 1: really the big accomplishment in that vein. It is a
Speaker 1: fascinating book to read, and we're going to kind of
Speaker 1: dive deep into it in this podcast. So, you know,
Speaker 1: first off, the science in golf is a big, big subject,
Speaker 1: as I'm sure you discovered when you started to conceptualize
Speaker 1: this book. So how did you eventually settle on a
Speaker 1: focus for this book? You know, what, how did you
Speaker 1: decide what to cover and what not to cover?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in the interest of full disclosure here, I
Speaker 2: was contracted and hired by the publisher to write this book.
Speaker 2: Like it was titled for me, there's a Science of series. Yes,
Speaker 2: so there's a science of football, basketball, Hockey is coming
Speaker 2: out next year. I helped network and find a person
Speaker 2: who there's a science of Harry Potter. I mean, if
Speaker 2: we want to go full geeked them, I mean they've
Speaker 2: had science of books on things that have nothing to
Speaker 2: do with actual sport, and I love the idea of
Speaker 2: a science of series in sport, and then especially when
Speaker 2: it gets to golf. And I even mentioned it in
Speaker 2: the book. John McPhee, who's one of the key guys
Speaker 2: I interviewed he as a professor up in Canada, and
Speaker 2: he had the nugget that I'd never heard before that,
Speaker 2: you know, in golf, there are twice as many patents
Speaker 2: in the world of golf as all other sports combined,
Speaker 2: not any other sport, like twice as many patents just
Speaker 2: in golf as in all other sports. And that makes
Speaker 2: sense me think about all the equipment and different golf
Speaker 2: balls and things that you would actually have patents on.
Speaker 2: It's about as scientific as sport as possible. So to
Speaker 2: not bore the listeners too much on this one. And
Speaker 2: you were a guest on my previous podcast, The Perfect Number,
Speaker 2: which is not dead but hasn't been active for a
Speaker 2: couple of years, and I literally decided to stop doing
Speaker 2: that podcast, and the day after I decided independently to
Speaker 2: shut it down, I was approached to write this book,
Speaker 2: and I just sort of felt like, Okay, this is
Speaker 2: a sign, like this is definitely the project I need
Speaker 2: to take on now. And a lot of people you
Speaker 2: included were subjects of the podcast that then made their
Speaker 2: way into this book because I had this four year
Speaker 2: run of interviewing people and not just the data community,
Speaker 2: but across the entire spectrum of a lot of things
Speaker 2: that we covered. So, to answer your question in a
Speaker 2: long winded way, when they approached me to write this book,
Speaker 2: I knew I had this stuff. It was really a
Speaker 2: question of how broad do I want this book to
Speaker 2: be and how specific do I want this book to be?
Speaker 2: And you and I were talking before we hit record
Speaker 2: as I really thought that I was going to be
Speaker 2: able to do something and put my stamp on the game, right, like,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, like will Haskt discovered this something scientific
Speaker 2: And then the more I started finding the people I
Speaker 2: needed to fill all the gaps, I realized how dumb
Speaker 2: I truly am at understanding the main like all of
Speaker 2: the little details, Like I understand the main concepts, but
Speaker 2: the little details I had no clue about. And so
Speaker 2: then it really turned into a book of, Okay, what
Speaker 2: is every single aspect of golf that I think has
Speaker 2: science in it? And then let's touch them all. And
Speaker 2: that's really what the book became. And so it's ten chapters,
Speaker 2: the tenth chapter being really looking forward into the future,
Speaker 2: and the other nine really cover it all. And then
Speaker 2: it was really kind of a I always want to
Speaker 2: write a narrative type of book, and this is very
Speaker 2: much a more technical book than I thought the initial
Speaker 2: book that I would ever write. And so then it
Speaker 2: was how can I tie all these chapters together? How
Speaker 2: do I prioritize them? What I think is actually the
Speaker 2: proper order, Like what do I lead with? And then
Speaker 2: anecdotally is really where I went to, is like how
Speaker 2: can I then use my experience of a decade on
Speaker 2: the PGA tour and taking a lot of those stories
Speaker 2: and tying them into the scientific revolution that we've seen
Speaker 2: over the last quarter century, and.
Speaker 1: You really do focus on the scientific revolution of the
Speaker 1: past quarter century, because there has been science in golf
Speaker 1: going back to sure basically golf's beginnings, right, the feathery
Speaker 1: ball was a scientific advance from the wooden balls that
Speaker 1: preceded it. Are the rocks right, Yes, But certainly over
Speaker 1: the past couple of decades there has been an acceleration
Speaker 1: in the different areas of the game in which science
Speaker 1: has made its way, and your book really does dig
Speaker 1: into those. And so just to give people an idea,
Speaker 1: you said ten chapters. The last one is on the future.
Speaker 1: I want to give people a quick overview of what
Speaker 1: those chapters are about. So Chapter one is about you know,
Speaker 1: launch monitors. Essentially it's about contact with the golf ball.
Speaker 1: Chapter two is body in Motion. It's about kind of
Speaker 1: physiology of the game. Chapter three Powertrain, that's about distance
Speaker 1: in the game. Six inches is Chapter four that's about
Speaker 1: the neuroscience of golf. Chapter five is Data and Decisions,
Speaker 1: which is essentially about strokes gained statistics. Chapter six, Technology
Speaker 1: of the Ball, Chapter seven, Technology of clubs, Chapter eight
Speaker 1: Technology of putting, and chapter nine The Playing Field, which
Speaker 1: is about the science of agronomy, and I actually didn't
Speaker 1: expect to happen upon a chapter about the science of agronomy,
Speaker 1: but I was delighted to because that is obviously a
Speaker 1: major area that has affected the game, where there have
Speaker 1: been significant scientific innovations in recent years that have really
Speaker 1: changed the way we play golf at all levels in
Speaker 1: ways that are pretty profound and that are hard sometimes
Speaker 1: for people to notice. So really cool to see that
Speaker 1: subject come up. But I wanted to start with the
Speaker 1: with chapter one with contact, I want to dig into
Speaker 1: like a couple of particular topics here. We're we're not
Speaker 1: going to cover the full range of topics. Please buy
Speaker 1: the book, please, Yeah, exactly, So we're going to We're
Speaker 1: not going to give away the whole book here. We
Speaker 1: want to leave some surprises for people. But there were
Speaker 1: a couple of subjects that I thought were particularly fascinating
Speaker 1: to me personally, and the first one would be the
Speaker 1: advent of the launch monitor. And I think that this
Speaker 1: is one of the most important stories in golf in
Speaker 1: this century at least, and one that you know, in
Speaker 1: order to understand where the modern game is, you really
Speaker 1: have to understand the launch monitor. So maybe we could
Speaker 1: start by just you telling me the story of how
Speaker 1: the launch monitor was invented, and you know what it
Speaker 1: did that was different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this is where again I got to a
Speaker 2: book where I didn't want to. I hope that there
Speaker 2: was no opinion that came out of this book, you know.
Speaker 2: I wanted it to be straightforward, like this is what
Speaker 2: the science is now. My personal opinion. This is why
Speaker 2: the chapters are ordered their way is that if I
Speaker 2: if I were to say there's one single most significant
Speaker 2: scientific advancement in the entire history of the game of golf,
Speaker 2: I think it is the launch monitor. I think how
Speaker 2: it is changed, and maybe that's maybe that's more for
Speaker 2: the professional game, which is probably where I find myself
Speaker 2: more often, but even I mean, I just think about
Speaker 2: how the little ways that it's come into my game,
Speaker 2: where it's meant from a club fitting standpoint, in my
Speaker 2: own personal game or other people's sort of games. So
Speaker 2: to answer your question, and that's why I led with it,
Speaker 2: because I think the launch minor has changed how the
Speaker 2: game is taught. It's changed how the game is played,
Speaker 2: especially at the highest level, and I think it's had
Speaker 2: this profound impact the idea of ballistic technology and anything
Speaker 2: that tracks motion in a ballistic way has existed for
Speaker 2: much longer than TrackMan and flight scope have had the technology.
Speaker 2: It goes back to really the nineteen eighties, so you're
Speaker 2: talking about the height of the Cold War. Everybody is
Speaker 2: stocking up missiles. We got to figure out how we're
Speaker 2: going to be tracking those missiles, and so there's a
Speaker 2: huge technological advancement and all of that stuff, so that
Speaker 2: effectively the military is contracting with military contractors to build
Speaker 2: ways to track a missile in flight. And so you're
Speaker 2: talking about high speed projectile objects and being able to
Speaker 2: determined to an nth degree how fast they're traveling, where
Speaker 2: they're going to go, what that trajectory everything sort of means.
Speaker 2: So we already had the technology built in to follow
Speaker 2: these objects as they're taking off or being shot off
Speaker 2: wherever they were. All we had to do is just
Speaker 2: configure that into a sports space. I think baseball got
Speaker 2: to it a little bit earlier than golf did. Most
Speaker 2: of the sport ones. You know, they found guys because
Speaker 2: of pitchers, Right, So how's that ball coming out? They're
Speaker 2: measuring spin rate, they're measuring how that ball tracks. So
Speaker 2: the reason why you probably saw the advent of kzone
Speaker 2: and everything that you track and see on TV, even
Speaker 2: before you really saw track Man and tracer and golf
Speaker 2: world just happens to be that baseball embrace that technology first,
Speaker 2: and I'll shout out my guy Will Carroll, who has
Speaker 2: the Science of Baseball out and you can read about it,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure that you know there's a lot of
Speaker 2: the same stuff that's in there, and so yeah, eventually
Speaker 2: it's like, okay, we can monetize this in the athletic space,
Speaker 2: and maybe it's teachers first, but then it becomes consumers second.
Speaker 2: And now you have every single high level, per professional
Speaker 2: golfer walking around with ten to twenty five thousand dollars
Speaker 2: worth of equipment and they're lugging them through airports and
Speaker 2: you'll see him. It's like the mini briefcase, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: the golfers now on the PGA too, have a briefcase
Speaker 2: and it's carrying their launch monitor. And it's completely changed
Speaker 2: everything because now instead of looking up and trying to
Speaker 2: figure out what the ball is doing, you can look
Speaker 2: down and it'll tell you exactly what the ball is doing,
Speaker 2: and you can tailor everything backwards. So it effectively, and
Speaker 2: this is what chapter one is about. It reverse engineered
Speaker 2: the entire process of how we look at causation in
Speaker 2: the world of golf, and that's why I think it's
Speaker 2: the most significant because it's provided absolute data. While in
Speaker 2: my opinion also Garrett exploding the artistry of golf, I
Speaker 2: contend that golf can be as artistic as it ever
Speaker 2: was because we can just prove that what you're doing
Speaker 2: works with a launch monitor, as opposed to in the
Speaker 2: past saying you have to build a swing a certain
Speaker 2: way to make it work this way. And that's kind
Speaker 2: of where chapter one went with.
Speaker 1: All claim that you're making at the end, I want
Speaker 1: to get back to that, but just to just to
Speaker 1: clarify what you're saying is that launch monitors allowed people
Speaker 1: essentially to swing their swings. Golfers to swing their swings
Speaker 1: as long as the ball was doing yeah what what
Speaker 1: they wanted to do. You can you can swing like
Speaker 1: Matthew Wolf or you can swing like Ernie El's as
Speaker 1: long as the numbers that the ball is producing on
Speaker 1: that launch monitor are are good. Right, yep, Okay, So
Speaker 1: why don't we get to first some kind of nuts
Speaker 1: and bolts of what launch monitors revealed about what the
Speaker 1: golf ball was doing. What were some of the key
Speaker 1: insights that launch monitors provided that you know, people weren't
Speaker 1: aware of before that even experts or instructors weren't aware
Speaker 1: of before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean obviously we didn't know how fast the
Speaker 2: ball was spinning. You just looked up and it was windows. Right,
Speaker 2: So this ball was a little bit too spinny, and
Speaker 2: then just anecdotally it went up a little bit too
Speaker 2: high in the air. Well, now we can look at
Speaker 2: apexes and we can look at you know, that is
Speaker 2: the optimized sort of shot flight for these particular shots.
Speaker 2: We can look at what we want spin rates to be.
Speaker 2: And so while a lot of this stuff has sort
Speaker 2: of been boiled down into we know that now off
Speaker 2: the driver, we want to have as little spin as possible.
Speaker 2: We want to have a dialed in amount of spin
Speaker 2: for our middle irons all the way through the wedges.
Speaker 2: It allowed those guys to actually take the windows that
Speaker 2: they were trying to visualize and really dial it into
Speaker 2: where maybe some guys were thinking, Okay, if my spin
Speaker 2: rate can still spin in at this but at a
Speaker 2: little bit lower trajectory, I can still get the same
Speaker 2: distance and I can still get the same result, and
Speaker 2: so it was sort of I guess it was maybe
Speaker 2: validating some of those windows. So spin rate was a
Speaker 2: big part of it, and then also kind of the
Speaker 2: path relationship. Right, So the book we go into a
Speaker 2: lot about how there was old laws in terms of
Speaker 2: how the ball flew based off of the what the
Speaker 2: we thought was contact or what we thought was the
Speaker 2: path of the club, and the launch monitors pretty much
Speaker 2: defined exactly what causes a ball to hook or slice,
Speaker 2: and so it all has to do with the relationship
Speaker 2: between the face angle at impact and the path of
Speaker 2: that club in relation to the straight target line. And
Speaker 2: it's universal, so you could technically cast the club way outside.
Speaker 2: And this is where Garrett someone who's a teacher. I'm
Speaker 2: not a good swing instructor, so I sometimes get a
Speaker 2: little bit confused trying to discuss this myself. But effective,
Speaker 2: what it means is if the ball, the ball will
Speaker 2: always hook as long as for a right handed golfer,
Speaker 2: the face is closed in an angle to its path,
Speaker 2: if that makes sense. So you could technically have a
Speaker 2: path that is so far out and cutting across the ball.
Speaker 2: But if that face is still closed to that path
Speaker 2: that ball is going to hook. It'll go, it'll go
Speaker 2: even farther left. You're you're absolutely right, and so and
Speaker 2: so that was I think a huge part of it
Speaker 2: is that now a lot of modern instructors are able
Speaker 2: to look at that data and they and so instead
Speaker 2: of saying, oh, this guy has a swing that's going
Speaker 2: to always hit a slice, Well, I mean, what's his
Speaker 2: hand doing an impact? Like, what is kind? Where are
Speaker 2: his contact conditions like with how he strikes the ball,
Speaker 2: how the hands go through. So those are the two
Speaker 2: big ones. Is that we really started to optimize what
Speaker 2: spin looked like on the golf ball because spin is
Speaker 2: widely important to the game. It's what makes the ball
Speaker 2: fly in the first place. And so it really locked
Speaker 2: in what optimization is of spin. And then it really
Speaker 2: defined that one hundred percent guarantee of that face to
Speaker 2: path relationship defining how the ball is going to travel
Speaker 2: in the air.
Speaker 1: Now, tell me if I'm right or wrong about this,
Speaker 1: but I feel like the launch monitor also crystallized what
Speaker 1: the formula for distance off the tee is, which is
Speaker 1: high launch and low spin. And maybe people were aware
Speaker 1: of this before because it's just sort of a simple
Speaker 1: scientific fact about the golf ball. But it just seems
Speaker 1: like since the introduction of the launch monitor that we
Speaker 1: have been even more confident as golfers, as golf instructors
Speaker 1: that high launch spend is the way to go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one's really hard for me to answer, Garrett,
Speaker 2: because the advent of launch monitor usage by teachers almost
Speaker 2: exactly coincides with the advent of modern driver and ball technology, right,
Speaker 2: and so yes is the answer. But I haven't read
Speaker 2: a perfect study to say if we went back and
Speaker 2: you built a blot of ball with a persimon, would
Speaker 2: if that necessarily is the right contact condition. What I
Speaker 2: will contend is if you put a guy in a
Speaker 2: range with a bag full of one hundred ballotas in
Speaker 2: his persimmon, and a whole bunch of other persimmons, it's
Speaker 2: going to be way easier for us to figure out
Speaker 2: the right combination of ball and driver to maximize what
Speaker 2: that looks like. But I don't know if it's an
Speaker 2: absolute truth, because again, the technology was creating a completely
Speaker 2: different relationship. I think we could tune I think we
Speaker 2: could definitely dial in a little bit better. I think
Speaker 2: if you just took only launch monitors. In there words,
Speaker 2: no equipment and changes whatsoever over the last thirty five years,
Speaker 2: forty years. I know many in your audience the ears
Speaker 2: perk up, Like if we if we rolled the ball
Speaker 2: back and we rolled the clubs all the way back,
Speaker 2: but we still had launch monitors, the ball is going
Speaker 2: to go significantly farther for the guys on tour and
Speaker 2: even for the average player because we now have this
Speaker 2: ability to really dial it in with the launch monitors.
Speaker 2: But I don't know if we get that one hundred
Speaker 2: percent assuredness, but the combination of it with modern equipment
Speaker 2: has made that absolutely clear. And then couple it with
Speaker 2: advanced statistics telling us that longer is better, like laying
Speaker 2: up is never, well not never, but laying up is
Speaker 2: not the right play most of the time, especially for
Speaker 2: higher handicapped type of players. We live in the send
Speaker 2: it you know world right now, so I think all
Speaker 2: of that kind of couples into some of the things
Speaker 2: when it comes to distance. So I'm not gonna say
Speaker 2: it's one hundred percent that that's it with old equipment,
Speaker 2: but I think that where we are with modern equipment,
Speaker 2: it has made that Yeah, crystallized from what launch monitors
Speaker 2: teach us.
Speaker 1: It is interesting that the launch monitor came about right
Speaker 1: when essentially when the pro v one and the modern
Speaker 1: driver came out right, these were these were a concurrent
Speaker 1: you know, uh happenings and in the world of golf,
Speaker 1: and they all added up to a big change, a
Speaker 1: sea change, and how.
Speaker 2: The game was playing at least, and money in the
Speaker 2: sport and all this other I mean again, like this
Speaker 2: it's a perfect storm, like when I say the last
Speaker 2: twenty five years, Like it's truly a perfect storm of
Speaker 2: all of these things at the same time. And that's
Speaker 2: why it's we're in this fascinating era where it's it's
Speaker 2: hard for us to put the toothpaste back in the
Speaker 2: tube because it came out flying there for the last
Speaker 2: quarter century.
Speaker 1: Well, there was no way that any governing body could
Speaker 1: have possibly kept.
Speaker 2: Up everything every angle And what are you supposed to do?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's incredible. Yeah, And you and I have
Speaker 2: had this conversation too, and we're not going to get
Speaker 2: in every chapter, so I don't know if we'll spend
Speaker 2: much time in chapter three, which is pretty much all
Speaker 2: about physical fitness and nutrition. But like that's an extra three, four, five, six,
Speaker 2: ten percent depending on the type of golfer of stuff
Speaker 2: that we're still learning. I mean, we're still kind of
Speaker 2: behind in even having scientific studies proving that what the
Speaker 2: modern trainers are doing right now this very day, but
Speaker 2: we know it's better than it was fifteen twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: And so that's a huge, another huge difference where I mean,
Speaker 2: who knows if we had obsolete equipment, but these guys
Speaker 2: were training with the speed that they are and how
Speaker 2: they're using their bodies, how different it would be. So again,
Speaker 2: all of this stuff and Tiger influenced that, Like Tiger
Speaker 2: made working out cool in golf and necessary, and it's
Speaker 2: it's wild. It all happened at the same time and boom,
Speaker 2: here we are.
Speaker 1: So let me throw something at you that is sort
Speaker 1: of a counter argument against this idea that the launch
Speaker 1: monitor enhanced the artistry of the golf swing. I mean,
Speaker 1: I hear that argument like that any number of golf
Speaker 1: swings can end up producing these ideal numbers, and that's
Speaker 1: that's a truth, right, That's something that instructors are emphasizing
Speaker 1: less now is kind of the aesthetics of the golf
Speaker 1: swing and having things proper, right, they're just looking at
Speaker 1: what the ball is doing, and that frees certain players
Speaker 1: up to be eccentric in a way, and that is
Speaker 1: I find that really welcome. But I wonder if you
Speaker 1: have ever felt nostalgic like I do for a time
Speaker 1: when players had to battle more with doubt when it
Speaker 1: came to their swings, right, Because back in the seventies, eighties,
Speaker 1: and nineties, one huge fact of a professional golfer's life
Speaker 1: was just trying to dig it out of the dirt,
Speaker 1: was trying to find some kind of magical solution to
Speaker 1: what was ailing them in their golf swing. And there
Speaker 1: was a lot of kind of you know, psychological struggle,
Speaker 1: and there were even like these mystical elements to how
Speaker 1: players would try to find what would cure them. Right,
Speaker 1: there's this, I think of Ben Hogan's secret, Right, It
Speaker 1: almost took on this kind of mythical status over time.
Speaker 1: He found the secret to his golf swing. Turns out
Speaker 1: it was something pretty technical about his grip and his
Speaker 1: you know, club path and stuff like that. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure you could boil it down to science now, but
Speaker 1: for a long time golfers had to deal in that
Speaker 1: kind of ambiguous realm of doubt about their golf swings.
Speaker 1: And that was something that I found interesting about the game,
Speaker 1: found fun to think about, found fun to write about.
Speaker 1: It attracted kind of these neurotic characters to the game
Speaker 1: who were who were fun to follow. Now, it seems
Speaker 1: like with the launch monitor that young players have a
Speaker 1: lot more confidence in what they're doing and have this
Speaker 1: kind of serene sense of comfort that you know, what
Speaker 1: they're doing is the right thing, and if they get
Speaker 1: off track, then they kind of know how to solve it.
Speaker 1: How would you respond to that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's a great point. I love the
Speaker 2: romanticizing of that. I guess that fear right, the misering, Yes,
Speaker 2: the tastory of it.
Speaker 1: Maybe I shouldn't be romanticizing it, but it's you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, it is what it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah. My counter to it is, I mean I was
Speaker 2: a junior player that didn't have access to this because
Speaker 2: I came up almost a couple of years younger than Tiger,
Speaker 2: So it wasn't as if I was playing in my
Speaker 2: formative years and all of this stuff was already available, right, So,
Speaker 2: you know, in my first years and I was a
Speaker 2: club pro, a couple of years out of college, and
Speaker 2: that was when the pro V one had just come out.
Speaker 2: So again, like all of this stuff was kind of
Speaker 2: right before it for me, and I was experiencing this,
Speaker 2: you know, as it came to be, and I wish
Speaker 2: I was ten years younger and seeing what my game
Speaker 2: would have been like if this was just sort of
Speaker 2: the commonplace of it all. But what I will say
Speaker 2: about what I've seen from modern players and a lot
Speaker 2: of the college golf that I've covered, and then seeing
Speaker 2: these young guys have such success at the professional ranks
Speaker 2: and where I still think I have what you're looking for,
Speaker 2: is that they get it's so good so quickly because
Speaker 2: of all of this that then when the first little
Speaker 2: thing goes wrong, that to me becomes the fascinating part.
Speaker 2: So to where it's like guys were grinding and struggling
Speaker 2: and going through the agony and the misery of finding
Speaker 2: that swing, finding the swing that when they eventually get
Speaker 2: it and they're in their thirties and they finally can
Speaker 2: put together what they think is perfect golf. Instead it's
Speaker 2: guys who actually haven't found all of the secrets yet
Speaker 2: but are good enough because of all of this stuff
Speaker 2: who then have to go through that lean discovery the
Speaker 2: put stop going in. You know, you're Colin Morikawa and
Speaker 2: you have two months where all of a sudden, the
Speaker 2: ball just doesn't fade, Like why is it not fading?
Speaker 1: That's an example that just came to mind when you
Speaker 1: were talking about this. Yeah, he all of a sudden
Speaker 1: like he came out of college a perfect ball perfect
Speaker 1: but recently he has had some kind of mysterious struggles,
Speaker 1: uh with his ball flight.
Speaker 2: And I find that just as fascinating. So I think
Speaker 2: it still exists. That would be my counter argument. It's
Speaker 2: just we've we've turned the timetable of it a little
Speaker 2: bit more around. And I'll also add this to it.
Speaker 2: You know, Ben Hogan had the perfect swing, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: we've got a million videos of it. Everybody wants the
Speaker 2: Hogan swing, and so we had a generation of teachers
Speaker 2: who are teaching a certain type of swing. And when
Speaker 2: I say I think that there, the launch monitor allows
Speaker 2: more artistry to be the game what I mean, But
Speaker 2: I think we're still forcing it back in. I think
Speaker 2: the Matthew Wolf's of the world, like that's the up
Speaker 2: and coming because we now have a younger generation of
Speaker 2: instructors who have only instructed with all of this technology
Speaker 2: that has flipped and reverse engineered the teaching process to
Speaker 2: where a lot of that old school I'm going to
Speaker 2: teach a guy to grip it one way, to swing
Speaker 2: it one way, to get it to a certain sort
Speaker 2: of place. We now have a lot of younger teachers,
Speaker 2: so I think it's actually going to take time. But
Speaker 2: you know, I'm in Vegas a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 2: and I forget the kid's name from Oklahoma who plays
Speaker 2: with the reverse grip, like the left hand low, right
Speaker 2: handed golfer, And it's like, could you imagine that being
Speaker 2: a thing? Like, there's no way there was an instructor
Speaker 2: thirty years ago. It's gonna let that kid get to
Speaker 2: the highest levels of college golf playing with left hand,
Speaker 2: low full swinging shots. But if it's working and that
Speaker 2: ball's coming off with optimized numbers, they're gonna let it
Speaker 2: sort of go. And so, you know, I think we
Speaker 2: could go back and nitpick Garrett and say that you
Speaker 2: know what, artists were always the outliers, right, Like for
Speaker 2: every Lee Trevino, there was five other guys that were
Speaker 2: on tour that were swinging it beautifully and in tempo
Speaker 2: and upright, because let's be honest, like, there's probably one
Speaker 2: way that's the best for getting those optimized numbers. I
Speaker 2: just like the fact or I believe that we have
Speaker 2: the technology now that keeps a young Lee Trevino, a
Speaker 2: young Matthew Wolf, a young Babba Watson even more engaged
Speaker 2: with what he is doing and feeling comfortable than maybe
Speaker 2: we did twenty thirty years ago. But that's that's my
Speaker 2: opinion out of it, and I tried not to write
Speaker 2: that into the book as much as it was just, Hey,
Speaker 2: a lot of instructors are recognizing we can now teach
Speaker 2: from contact backwards instead of swing forwards, which is where
Speaker 2: the which is where instruction has gone.
Speaker 1: All right, well, why don't we talk about another topic here,
Speaker 1: which you cover in chapter five of the book, And
Speaker 1: this is the advent of strokes Gained analytics. And this
Speaker 1: is another kind of huge shift in how people think
Speaker 1: about the game and how the different skill areas of
Speaker 1: the game relate to success on the golf course. So
Speaker 1: how and why did strokes Gained get created? What's the
Speaker 1: story behind that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So, I mean Mark Brody is the founder of
Speaker 2: the strokes gained system. The idea of shots gained has
Speaker 2: been around golf for forty to fifty years, but then
Speaker 2: in terms of actually getting baseline measurements and numbers and
Speaker 2: data and then looking at it across the board, it
Speaker 2: was Mark partnering with the PGA Tour and then sort
Speaker 2: of building out this sort of project that then creates
Speaker 2: what a strokes gain system looks like. And that's why
Speaker 2: now today you have baselines for every handicap and data
Speaker 2: tracking places like RCOs or any other the number ones
Speaker 2: can actually do have millions of data points now to
Speaker 2: where you can have strokes gained data for yourself or
Speaker 2: you can compare yourself to other five, ten, fifteen, twenty handicappers.
Speaker 2: But the idea of strokes gained is really just where
Speaker 2: in your game are you average, above average, below average
Speaker 2: in comparison to what your score is. And so golf
Speaker 2: is this tapestry of a million things that happen that
Speaker 2: lead to a score. And yet somehow if you and
Speaker 2: I are playing a match and we're going head to
Speaker 2: head in strokes and you and I both shoot seventy seven,
Speaker 2: and we're like, oh, well, we have the exact same
Speaker 2: day to day. Well, we know that's not true. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's any other sport where you
Speaker 2: can have as different of a path to the final
Speaker 2: outcome of two competitors than anything. I mean, I guess
Speaker 2: a basketball game or one team the Warriors reign twenty
Speaker 2: five threes against a team that posts up and shoots
Speaker 2: fifty free throws and doesn't hit a three. I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess there's multiple ways to a score in basketball
Speaker 2: or in football or any other sort of sport. But
Speaker 2: in golf, like I could miss every fairway and scramble
Speaker 2: my butt off, and you could just be an absolute
Speaker 2: Fred Funk driving machine and two put every green or
Speaker 2: something like that, and we arrive at the same sort
Speaker 2: of place. And so what strokes gain has done is
Speaker 2: it obviously boils it down to where are you efficient
Speaker 2: or deficient in all of those areas tee to green.
Speaker 2: And it really started with measuring from a baseline of
Speaker 2: putting and kind of working backwards and then using those
Speaker 2: base that's well, actually it starts, excuse me, from average
Speaker 2: score in a hole. So if you play the first
Speaker 2: hole at your club ten times, your average score is
Speaker 2: never going to be a round number mostly you know
Speaker 2: it's gonna be if it's a par four, maybe your
Speaker 2: average score there is four point three over that. Well,
Speaker 2: if that's your baseline and you make four, that's a
Speaker 2: good hole right over the course of ten rounds. So
Speaker 2: then putting that into perspective and then diving into that
Speaker 2: number even deeper and understanding how did you arrive at
Speaker 2: those four shots where you more efficient off the tee
Speaker 2: or not, And then looking for trends, and then obviously
Speaker 2: what I do on a more weekly basis is then
Speaker 2: using those incredible data trends for PGA Tour players and
Speaker 2: comparison and comparing their strengths and weaknesses across the field
Speaker 2: to where you can talk about, you know, Rory McElroy's
Speaker 2: rise again to the top player in the game, and
Speaker 2: he was a top twenty putter last year on the
Speaker 2: PGA Tour, a top twenty five putter on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 2: Like no one talk We always talk about driving, but
Speaker 2: the dude gained five tenths of a shot on the
Speaker 2: field every round with his putter. I mean, if Rory
Speaker 2: is a half shot around guy on the greens, it's ballgame.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, it's oh, I mean, that's an
Speaker 2: incredible number for him, and we now understand why that's
Speaker 2: important for somebody who's always going to gain a shot
Speaker 2: per round off the tee because of how good he
Speaker 2: is with the driver in his bag. And so those
Speaker 2: a little ways that I think it's revolutionized. And I'm
Speaker 2: sorry that was a really long winded answer to that question.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any short way to describe stretch.
Speaker 2: It's hard, but you did.
Speaker 1: He did a very nice job there, And just to
Speaker 1: underline its importance to how we understand what's happening on
Speaker 1: the golf course. In a previous era, we would have
Speaker 1: looked at Rory McElroy's season and just kind of tried
Speaker 1: to come up with some explanation using our eyes about
Speaker 1: what happened the season and why he was so good.
Speaker 1: But now that strokes gained exists, we can kind of
Speaker 1: look at these different scale areas and help ourselves tell
Speaker 1: a story about inaccurate story about what happened the season,
Speaker 1: and sometimes we find out, you know, surprising things like
Speaker 1: he had a great putting season. We don't necessarily think
Speaker 1: of Roy McElroy as an elite putter, but if he's
Speaker 1: top twenty Strokes gained putting, then we know that he
Speaker 1: was operating at a very very high level on the
Speaker 1: greens this season, and so you know that is what
Speaker 1: Strokes Gained has essentially done for us, and it's been
Speaker 1: a big deal. Now, in your chapter Data and Decisions
Speaker 1: on Strokes Gained, you identified three big learnings from this
Speaker 1: new area of analytics, and I'd like to kind of
Speaker 1: go over those because I find each of them pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: So the first is that distance off the tee matters
Speaker 1: more than we previously thought, right, yes, And so how
Speaker 1: did Strokes Gained reveal that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So again everything with data is in context, right,
Speaker 2: So people, anybody listening to this podcast, I don't care
Speaker 2: if you're a scratch golfer or a twenty handicapper. If
Speaker 2: you can get the ball closer to the green with
Speaker 2: every single shot that you hit, it's going to make
Speaker 2: it easier to score. And we now have the data
Speaker 2: to sort of prove that the idea of laying up
Speaker 2: to your perfect wedge number of one hundred yards, if
Speaker 2: you can get down there to forty, it just doesn't
Speaker 2: play out over the course of time. Now it depends
Speaker 2: what the shot is. Is that forty yard shot off
Speaker 2: a downslope over water to a front hole location, then
Speaker 2: maybe that changes the strategy. Again, every single decision needs
Speaker 2: to be viewed within the context of it, but in
Speaker 2: the broader sort of scheme of things. This idea that
Speaker 2: distance was the supreme thing is is has been proven
Speaker 2: out in all levels of golf, and it really just
Speaker 2: boils down to if you're fifteen yards longer than the
Speaker 2: guy next to you over the course of a round,
Speaker 2: and that means that if every hole is the exact
Speaker 2: same length, that means that I'm hitting eight iron in
Speaker 2: and you're hitting, you know, a hard seven or maybe
Speaker 2: even having abut of six every single approach shot, like
Speaker 2: I would like my chances against you hitting eight iron
Speaker 2: over six iron fourteen times around or whatever many times
Speaker 2: ends up being that way. Now, the counter to that is, okay, well,
Speaker 2: what if you're laying back because you want to value
Speaker 2: fairways And that's where it gets a little bit murkier
Speaker 2: in in I guess proving it, but for the most part,
Speaker 2: you aren't significantly more accurate with whoever that layup club
Speaker 2: is compared to the driver. And so what the math
Speaker 2: showed is from a strokes gained off the t standpoint.
Speaker 2: So let's say for every time I hit driver to
Speaker 2: your three wood, I'm gaining a tenth of a shot
Speaker 2: strokes gained off the tee right for the fairway, Say
Speaker 2: I miss one more fairway than you do by playing that,
Speaker 2: because that's typically what you'll see on the PGA Tour.
Speaker 2: The difference between the most accurate guy in the PGA
Speaker 2: Tour and number one hundred is effectively one fairway around,
Speaker 2: and it kind of works that way through all of golf.
Speaker 2: So if you're two twenty handicappers and you both only
Speaker 2: hit four or five fairways around, why are you laying up? Like,
Speaker 2: let's try and get those four or five that you
Speaker 2: are going to hit in the fairway hit with a driver.
Speaker 2: So back to my analogy there, If I'm gaining a
Speaker 2: tenth of a shot on you every single time because
Speaker 2: I'm playing from closer in, then my penalty when I
Speaker 2: missed that one fairway to yours is maybe three tenths
Speaker 2: of a shot. Over the course of that round, I'm
Speaker 2: still gaining on you. And so that's what the data
Speaker 2: has played out in all of this, is that the
Speaker 2: farther you get it, the short of the club. In
Speaker 2: the short of the club, you have the better chance
Speaker 2: of success. You're maximizing the opportunity to get it close. Now,
Speaker 2: if you hit your three wood straight every time and
Speaker 2: you spray your driver forty yards and every direction and
Speaker 2: you're counting a million penalty strokes, then this doesn't apply
Speaker 2: to you, and you need to go get fit for
Speaker 2: a better driver, Like I'm dead serious, Like there's no
Speaker 2: reason why that driver should be getting sprayed and the
Speaker 2: three wood is dead straight. Figure out why that three
Speaker 2: wood is optimized for your swing and why the driver isn't,
Speaker 2: and let's figure out how to get that driver pounding
Speaker 2: down there. But that's where the data has sort of
Speaker 2: showed it is that you're just putting yourself in an
Speaker 2: advantageous position. Now, I'll tell you anecdotally from my own game.
Speaker 2: I'm forty one. I've lost some speed on my fastball.
Speaker 2: I really grind it on my game this summer, and
Speaker 2: I did start valuing accuracy. I'm not swinging out of
Speaker 2: my shoes except on holes where I know I've got
Speaker 2: a little bit more wiggle room, Like fairways are still important,
Speaker 2: but I'm also hitting driver as often as I possibly
Speaker 2: can because I know I can miss I can miss
Speaker 2: fairways with my three wood, I can miss fair with
Speaker 2: my four iron. I just did it yesterday. I missed
Speaker 2: a fairway with my four iron trying to lay up.
Speaker 2: So I think that's I don't like it when people
Speaker 2: think that the data has said grip it and rip
Speaker 2: it everywhere. No, what we're just saying is, if there's
Speaker 2: room out there, hit the driver instead of the three
Speaker 2: would even if it's a little bit more narrow because
Speaker 2: that length over time, if you play the long game
Speaker 2: with the data, is going to pay out for you.
Speaker 1: All Right. So second big takeaway from the Strokes Gained
Speaker 1: revolution that you identified is a shift in mindset about
Speaker 1: course management. And we've already sort of talked about this.
Speaker 1: One of the insights that Strokes Gained has provided is
Speaker 1: that a lot of the time you're going to want
Speaker 1: to be aggressive off the tee. What are some other
Speaker 1: things or you know what is just the kind of
Speaker 1: even the general philosophy now that Strokes Gained has allowed
Speaker 1: people to adopt when it comes to deciding on a
Speaker 1: strategy on a particular hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think at the highest level, because we
Speaker 2: can see where shots have gone and where guys have
Speaker 2: scored from you know, in previous years, why have data
Speaker 2: analysts and stat analysts on their teams now on the
Speaker 2: PGA to where it's changed a lot of that. I
Speaker 2: think what strokes Gained is done, is it again, it's
Speaker 2: it's putting yourself in a position to succeed or effectively
Speaker 2: minimize your misses. The most for the high handicapped players,
Speaker 2: the reason why your scores are so high is because
Speaker 2: of penalty shots. You know, I mean obviously the occasional
Speaker 2: duff or top or something like that, but if you
Speaker 2: can avoid penalty strokes at all costs, and so a
Speaker 2: lot of that has to do with aiming. And I
Speaker 2: know that sounds really simple, but Garrett, how many times
Speaker 2: do you play around a golf and you just have
Speaker 2: a boneheaded I just aimed at the flag and I
Speaker 2: wasn't even thinking. It happens every single time. And that's
Speaker 2: what really blows my mind about how good these guys
Speaker 2: are at the highest level, is that they're so focused
Speaker 2: on the process every time, about what their target is.
Speaker 2: And so I think what strokes Gain has really done
Speaker 2: is it's validated a lot of one of the lot
Speaker 2: of the smart course management already existed, you know, the
Speaker 2: Jack Nicholas's of the world who would say, like, I'd
Speaker 2: aim at the middle of the green and if it
Speaker 2: was a right hole, I'd you know, I'd try and
Speaker 2: cut it in there. If it was a left hole,
Speaker 2: if it turned over fine, even though I like to play.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of these guys kind of had that.
Speaker 2: But what Strokes Gains has done in making the careers
Speaker 2: out of a lot of course managers, and like Scott
Speaker 2: Fawcett features predominantly in this book too because of his system,
Speaker 2: which is heavily marketed, but it's not that complex, I
Speaker 2: think in a lot of respects, because it's just drilled
Speaker 2: down to that data of finding that correct line to
Speaker 2: where you're maximizing or i should say, minimizing your failures
Speaker 2: right and he calls it a shotgun pattern or your
Speaker 2: cone or whatever it might sort of be. And that
Speaker 2: number or working backwards of where you're going to make
Speaker 2: the least amount of mistakes has really driven a lot
Speaker 2: of those decisions in terms of course management. But off
Speaker 2: the t it's definitely said, look, if there's not if
Speaker 2: there's if you can't lose a penalty stroke in both
Speaker 2: directions right, if there's not if it's out of bounds
Speaker 2: left and out of bounds right, okay, this is a
Speaker 2: hard hole. Let's figure out how to keep it in
Speaker 2: between the goalposts. But if it's just a lateral hazard
Speaker 2: left and there's no trouble, right, we're going to aim
Speaker 2: that sucker a little bit right of center of the
Speaker 2: fairway and we're going to swing hard and try and
Speaker 2: get it close to the green. That's where I think
Speaker 2: it's changed a lot of the course management stuff.
Speaker 1: Now, even among experts in this area, there is some
Speaker 1: disagreement about how players should approach a golf course. I
Speaker 1: don't want to portray this like there's you know, one
Speaker 1: single system that has come out of this. And one
Speaker 1: particular area of disagreement that you identified was how aggressive
Speaker 1: players should be in an elite competitive setting where they
Speaker 1: need to make birdies in order to win, right, Because
Speaker 1: the question of how can you minimize your risks the
Speaker 1: most and score the lowest over many, many rounds is
Speaker 1: a slightly different question from how can you try to
Speaker 1: win this tournament?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And so could you talk about that a little bit,
Speaker 1: because I found that really interesting. It's something that I
Speaker 1: often think about when tournaments are coming down to the
Speaker 1: wire and players need to make decisions about you know,
Speaker 1: is it worth it for me to go for this
Speaker 1: pin in order to give myself a chance at a
Speaker 1: birdie and win this tournament? Or should I play a
Speaker 1: little bit smarter, play how I played the first three
Speaker 1: days and play to the middle of the green?
Speaker 2: Right? Two different worlds of golf. Right. So I'm a
Speaker 2: low single digit handicapper, and from my skill level all
Speaker 2: the way to the top, all of us, if we
Speaker 2: just hit it at the middle of the green every time,
Speaker 2: give me a middle number, aim at the middle of
Speaker 2: the green every time, We're all probably going to score
Speaker 2: better over the course of time. I mean, that's just
Speaker 2: fundamentally probably true, right, I Mean it's should we aim
Speaker 2: in a couple of pints, maybe, but the reality is
Speaker 2: if we can just maximize getting in on greens and
Speaker 2: two putting and avoiding three putts, we're always going to
Speaker 2: score better. Now we go to the other end of
Speaker 2: the spectrum where I'm covering it, and I get in
Speaker 2: this debate all the time with a lot of guys
Speaker 2: that feature in this book too, because I've had too
Speaker 2: many conversations most of which off the record, sadly that
Speaker 2: I couldn't put in this book of talking to the
Speaker 2: best players in the world who are like, yeah, if
Speaker 2: I get in a playoff with somebody, I throw all
Speaker 2: of that strategy out the window. Or I'm a top
Speaker 2: twenty player in the world and I'm not worried about
Speaker 2: losing my card. I go out and I play a
Speaker 2: little bit different than the guy who's already knows showing
Speaker 2: up to the golf course in the PGA Tour, or
Speaker 2: these maybe two shots worse than Rory McElroy when they
Speaker 2: tee off, like could he win that week? Yeah? Maybe,
Speaker 2: But if his primary objective is feeding his family and
Speaker 2: maximizing his earnings and his FedEx Cup points every single week,
Speaker 2: then he's playing a much more strategic game than the
Speaker 2: guys who were like I'm out here for blood, Like
Speaker 2: I'm out here to win, and to that point, that's why,
Speaker 2: and you and I have had this conversation offline. The
Speaker 2: most fascinating thing to me right now is psychology, Like, honestly,
Speaker 2: because this stuff, to me, it's not black and white.
Speaker 2: We're humans, Like, we're humans playing a sport. And so
Speaker 2: while you're right over the long term, some of this
Speaker 2: stuff can happen and be really good, and there's great
Speaker 2: examples of it. I think Keith Mitchell this past year
Speaker 2: really started taking his course management into into his repertoire
Speaker 2: and he had his probably best season from a consistency standpoint.
Speaker 2: He's really focused on the process, but he was just
Speaker 2: like a happy, go lucky guy that was out there
Speaker 2: swinging shots with natural god given talent. And now he's
Speaker 2: honed it a little bit and he's found areas of consistency.
Speaker 2: Will he win multiple times? I don't know, Like when
Speaker 2: he gets to the final nine holes, what's gonna happen?
Speaker 2: I always joke on the PGA Tour there's sixty three
Speaker 2: holes and then there's nine holes. We play sixty three
Speaker 2: holes of all right, figure it out, and then nine
Speaker 2: holes of all right, you want to win this thing,
Speaker 2: let's go, let's go, let's go. Time right now, and
Speaker 2: crazy things happen on those final nine holes, and that's
Speaker 2: where I think there's no data for that. That's just
Speaker 2: dudes hitting shots. And that's where I think the sport
Speaker 2: gets really fun. And I'm not saying you throw it
Speaker 2: out the window. They're still aiming in certain places. But no,
Speaker 2: some of those guys they've got the cajons. They just say,
Speaker 2: damn these numbers, like I'm going at that flog, give
Speaker 2: me the number to that flagstick. I'm going at it.
Speaker 2: Let's go.
Speaker 1: Do you think this is an area of golf performance
Speaker 1: that science just isn't going to be able to touch
Speaker 1: or do you see there being some efforts on the
Speaker 1: part of scientists to figure to figure out essentially what
Speaker 1: the formula to winning is, right, because that's what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. We're talking about the instinct that certain players
Speaker 1: seem to have to win tournaments. To the killer instinct
Speaker 1: that you know that we sometimes perceive in certain golfers.
Speaker 1: Is that Do you think that's something that just is
Speaker 1: always going to remain a mysterious, intangible sort of quality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would always be intangible. The alpha gene to
Speaker 2: me is intangible. I mean, we talked earlier about all
Speaker 2: of Rory McElroy's stats, but you know, one of the
Speaker 2: stats that we can't measure this year is his fu
Speaker 2: mentality with the live stuff, Like how much did that
Speaker 2: motivate him to play better? Now? He said he's been
Speaker 2: working on things and seeing progress and all the things
Speaker 2: that he's supposed to say. I believe him to a point,
Speaker 2: but was twenty twenty two the first real nudge that
Speaker 2: mature Rory McElroy has had that brought out or has
Speaker 2: inspired some of his best golf. Can't measure that, and
Speaker 2: that's what makes sports so much fun watch.
Speaker 1: And I also wonder if you could ever measure what
Speaker 1: happened on the last day at the old course to Rory,
Speaker 1: because you know, it was almost like the perfect round
Speaker 1: to look at from a strokes gained perspective because he
Speaker 1: did a lot of things right. You know, he was
Speaker 1: playing pretty conservative, but he just wasn't really making puts
Speaker 1: above ten feet right. He didn't make many big, big putts.
Speaker 1: But then you could ask should he have been more aggressive? Right?
Speaker 1: Should he have been more like Cameron Smith who came
Speaker 1: out firing? Right? He was firing at pins and also
Speaker 1: Cameron Smith was making big long putts. I don't know.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of things going on on that
Speaker 1: day at St. Andrews that seemed to be psychological or
Speaker 1: spiritual rather than things that data could necessarily touch. I
Speaker 1: wonder if you agree with that.
Speaker 2: I totally agree with that, And again, statistics will tell you,
Speaker 2: if you'd it outside of ten feet, you're not going
Speaker 2: to make it more than half the time. I mean,
Speaker 2: the fifty to fifty make rate, and it's in the book,
Speaker 2: is eight feet on the PGA Tour. I mean that's
Speaker 2: for the best players in the world. The fifty to
Speaker 2: fifty make rate is from eight feet on putting. So
Speaker 2: you have to be spectacular just to give yourself a
Speaker 2: better than average chance of making the put in the
Speaker 2: first place, and forget the consequence or forget the yeah,
Speaker 2: the consequences of having ten thousand people pulling along and
Speaker 2: all that stuff. Was there more pressure on Roy to
Speaker 2: win that tournament than Cameron Smith? Absolutely there was more pressure.
Speaker 2: So from a psychological standpoint, how does that weigh on him?
Speaker 2: I thought he played a really good round of golf
Speaker 2: and he got beat by a spectacular around a golf
Speaker 2: And I think I wish I had my log book back,
Speaker 2: because I did. I watched the final round again, and
Speaker 2: I think there were only two shots total in the
Speaker 2: entire day, Garrett where I was really like ooh, like
Speaker 2: that was one where it was a substandard shot or
Speaker 2: he played too conservatively, like two that I really fully questioned,
Speaker 2: like everything else was pretty technical and pretty If you
Speaker 2: make one or two putts, then we're talking about this
Speaker 2: a little bit differently. But when it was sort of
Speaker 2: anybody's game, but you just got to mean Cam Smith
Speaker 2: man up and I mean come on the up and
Speaker 2: down on seventeen. Like these are the little things where
Speaker 2: it's like cam Smith won that tournament, Roy didn't lose it,
Speaker 2: And to go back and litigate, Okay, did Rory do
Speaker 2: something that he shouldn't have done, I think is a
Speaker 2: bit unfair. There's plenty of rounds where that has happened,
Speaker 2: but maybe one or two things changes it a little bit.
Speaker 2: But Cam Smith is manned up, and he's always been
Speaker 2: the more aggressive of the two of them. As a
Speaker 2: player like Cam Smith, he's almost recklessly aggressive. And his
Speaker 2: iron game went to another level this year strokes game
Speaker 2: data again to where now he had this full complete
Speaker 2: package to kind of recover from the fact that he's
Speaker 2: not that great of a driver of the golf ball.
Speaker 2: And he had an amazing season and I wish we
Speaker 2: could see him more head to head. We'll see what
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three has. It's kind of crazy, but I
Speaker 2: wonder if that was our ceiling and did we see
Speaker 2: the you know, that may have been peek Cameron Smith.
Speaker 2: I don't even know. It's a different podcast for a
Speaker 2: different time. But no, I don't reflect on that and
Speaker 2: say that modern analytics cost Rory that open. I think
Speaker 2: that a better player just beat him on that particular
Speaker 2: day and there's a lot of intangibles that went into that,
Speaker 2: and that's the stuff that's the most fascinating to me,
Speaker 2: and I admire I like covering sports because I still
Speaker 2: like the stuff that we can't answer with the formula.
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to touch on the last takeaway from
Speaker 1: Strokes Gained data, and that is a new understanding of
Speaker 1: the role that putting plays in low scoring in golf.
Speaker 1: And this is one of my you know, one of
Speaker 1: the main things that I learned specifically from Strokes Gained. Right.
Speaker 1: The belief before Strokes Gained or the common kind of
Speaker 1: bromide that people would cite would be you know, dry
Speaker 1: for show, put for dough. Putting is the most important
Speaker 1: thing to work on, you know, and it does have
Speaker 1: a huge impact on scores. But Strokes Gain tells us
Speaker 1: something different about the role that putting actually plays across
Speaker 1: the course of a player's career, I suppose, and what.
Speaker 2: Is that it's the most volatile. So even the best
Speaker 2: putters have really bad days on the greens. Some of
Speaker 2: the best ball strikers and drivers tea green guys in
Speaker 2: golf have bad days, but they have far more good
Speaker 2: days than they do bad days in terms of ball striking.
Speaker 2: And so, yes, there are some incredible putters, and some
Speaker 2: of them are even in the book sort of talking
Speaker 2: about their craft. But it sort of showed that there
Speaker 2: was so much volatility in it, and it was so
Speaker 2: much more attainable to have good putting rounds or good
Speaker 2: putting tournaments that it really sort of showed us that
Speaker 2: it's it's drive for do It's not drive for dough.
Speaker 2: It's ball strike. I'm trying to I used to. I
Speaker 2: coined my own expression once. I'm trying to remember what
Speaker 2: I called it.
Speaker 1: But I've thought about this too. It's hard to find
Speaker 1: one that's as cat and memorable.
Speaker 2: It's like drive yourself into the bank and then put
Speaker 2: your way to the dough. It's kind of what it
Speaker 2: is like. You have to you can't survive long term
Speaker 2: being a bad ball striker and just rely on putting alone.
Speaker 2: You have to get yourself there. And it's far easier
Speaker 2: to be consistent with the ball striking and have one
Speaker 2: or two good putting weeks than it is to have
Speaker 2: great putting weeks and hope that your ball striking gets
Speaker 2: you across the finish line when that happens, So there's
Speaker 2: far more. I mean, Colin Morikawa has won two majors
Speaker 2: and five times in a young career and up into
Speaker 2: I think when he won that second major, it was
Speaker 2: something ridiculous, like he had gained strokes, gained putting in
Speaker 2: six or seven professional starts, and five of them were wins.
Speaker 2: So I mean just, I mean, it just it blows
Speaker 2: my mind, like he's not a good putter, but he
Speaker 2: figures it out when it matters the most. And then conversely,
Speaker 2: you look at the top putters in the game, and
Speaker 2: granted there's some great examples of world class Hall of
Speaker 2: Fame players who were probably top ten, top twenty putters.
Speaker 2: You know, Jason Day begin number one in the world
Speaker 2: by being the best putter in the world for one year,
Speaker 2: But that's a fleeting stat it's going to eventually go away.
Speaker 2: You're going to have to have something else to sort
Speaker 2: of lean on. And that's what we've kind of discovered
Speaker 2: through the years, is that there's just way more volatility
Speaker 2: and putting and you can't rely on that to be
Speaker 2: your number one stroke gainer each round, each week, and
Speaker 2: then over the course of a season.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So take Denny McCarthy for instance. Putting is not
Speaker 1: super volatile for Denny McCarthy. He's just he just absolutely
Speaker 1: holds everything he looks at. If he were as great
Speaker 1: a ball striker as he is a putter, then he
Speaker 1: would be probably a top ten player in the world, right.
Speaker 2: Oh easily. I mean you're talking he's close to a
Speaker 2: plus one strokes gain putting guy. There's been very few
Speaker 2: of those. So we're talking about every time he plays
Speaker 2: a round of golf, he's a shot better on the
Speaker 2: greens than the field average is effectively what his best
Speaker 2: seasons have been, and there are very few plus one
Speaker 2: strokes gain approach seasons. Colin JT, you guys of that
Speaker 2: ILK who are great iron players are typically there. You
Speaker 2: put those two together, just from irons and putting alone,
Speaker 2: and you're gonna get that. Now, there's a little bit
Speaker 2: of a statistical side to it too. Like Denny McCarthy's
Speaker 2: also gaining a lot on strokes gain putty because he
Speaker 2: lags a lot of forty and fifty foot He hasn't
Speaker 2: hit it close very often either, and so there's opportunities
Speaker 2: to gain. He's not missing a lot of putts inside
Speaker 2: of ten feet, and so he's got to scramble a lot.
Speaker 2: He probably gives himself more opportunities to have put gaining opportunities,
Speaker 2: But I don't really buy into some of that aspect
Speaker 2: of it. He's that's his one skill, and that skill
Speaker 2: has carried him to the highest level of golf, and
Speaker 2: he knows that he has to work on the other areas.
Speaker 2: He knows that he's got to maximize opportunities, that he's
Speaker 2: got to get a little bit tidier and turn some
Speaker 2: of his thirty five footers into twenty footers, you know,
Speaker 2: per round to do that. He's talked openly about that
Speaker 2: process of trying to get just incrementally better in those
Speaker 2: other areas. It's nice having a superpower. I'll say that
Speaker 2: on the PJ Tour. If you can have one superpower,
Speaker 2: you'll stay out there for a while. And his superpower
Speaker 2: is still really damn good. But he hasn't won yet,
Speaker 2: and I mean you should point that out, like, he
Speaker 2: hasn't won and he's still the best, And he's been
Speaker 2: the best plutter on the PJA Tour for four or
Speaker 2: five years running literally twice, was the numberumber one putter
Speaker 2: and has been a top ten guy and hasn't won.
Speaker 2: If you're the number one iron player on tour for
Speaker 2: five years running, you're gonna win. Yes, You're gonna win.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that was I wasn't clear on the scenario
Speaker 1: as setting up if he were as good a ball
Speaker 1: striker as he is a putter, and he were as
Speaker 1: good a putter as he is a ball striker, which
Speaker 1: is you know, last season he was one and forty
Speaker 1: eighth off the tee and one hundred and thirty first
Speaker 1: approaching the green. If that were his putting rank and
Speaker 1: he were instead, you know, second tee to green, then
Speaker 1: he would be Corey con a better known Yeah, exactly right,
Speaker 1: So that just I think that's a yeah. Corey Connors
Speaker 1: is a great example, not not necessarily a top ten player,
Speaker 1: but a guy who certainly, if he has a few
Speaker 1: good weeks, could suddenly be a top ten player. And
Speaker 1: Denny McCarthy just has a longer way to go than
Speaker 1: Corey Connors.
Speaker 2: Correct, Like the mountain is a little bit taller for
Speaker 2: him to get to the top where I shouldn't even
Speaker 2: say that the mountain. The data golf guys I follow
Speaker 2: great website. You can go and tink around with it.
Speaker 2: They have expected wins for guys during the course of
Speaker 2: the year. Like Danny McCarthy's expected wins can be a
Speaker 2: lot lower during the course of the than some of
Speaker 2: those other guys because they're going to put themselves in
Speaker 2: more positions because that skill is going to give them
Speaker 2: more opportunities to the course of the season. So he's
Speaker 2: going to have fewer opportunities you would think statistically probability
Speaker 2: over time to be able to win because of that.
Speaker 2: But again, like that's what he's done, That's that's who
Speaker 2: he is. He has to embrace that. Also, that's not
Speaker 2: that's not a scarlet letter on his chest by in
Speaker 2: search of imagination. It should be a badge of honor
Speaker 2: for him, and he does wear it that way. But
Speaker 2: it's I think even he knows it's difficult.
Speaker 1: All right, Why don't we find a way to wrap
Speaker 1: up here? There's we've covered a lot of really interesting ground.
Speaker 1: I guess what I want to hear you speak to
Speaker 1: at the end here is just the kind of skeptical
Speaker 1: voice that somebody might bring to your book, and that's
Speaker 1: that science has had a tendency in golf potentially to
Speaker 1: make things more numbers driven and less artistically driven. And
Speaker 1: to some people that might mean that science has made
Speaker 1: golf less interesting, that it has deadened certain aspects of
Speaker 1: the game. Now, I kind of go back and forth
Speaker 1: and how I think about this myself, But I wonder
Speaker 1: how you address that kind of skeptical argument about the
Speaker 1: impact of science on golf.
Speaker 2: I addressed it in and I actually led in the
Speaker 2: forward the introduction of my book about this is that
Speaker 2: the beauty of golf is that all of us that
Speaker 2: view it differently, of different ages, of different skills, can
Speaker 2: all come together and play and enjoy it together. It's
Speaker 2: one of the few sports where an eighty year old
Speaker 2: can compete with an eighteen year old. We have handicaps,
Speaker 2: we have different teas, we have different ways of being
Speaker 2: out there together and playing the game together, and that
Speaker 2: in and of itself is beautiful and yet also creates
Speaker 2: as much friction sometimes in the game as anything because
Speaker 2: there's so many different philosophies and how to view the game.
Speaker 2: I wrote a book on the science of golf. I
Speaker 2: use science in talking about and covering the sport on
Speaker 2: the professional level. I rarely use it in my own game.
Speaker 2: Like I've been fit, I get on a launch monitor
Speaker 2: from time to time. I don't track my own stats.
Speaker 2: I like to dig it out of the dirt. I
Speaker 2: like my shirt untucked. I like music on the golf course.
Speaker 1: Does say that you should tuck your shirt.
Speaker 2: I like seltzer flowing through my veins when I play,
Speaker 2: which is probably in defiance of chapter three about nutrition
Speaker 2: and hydration. There's a number of ways that I just
Speaker 2: engage in the golf the way that I want to
Speaker 2: play it, and so I think, to the recreational standpoint,
Speaker 2: there's a million ways that we can all experience golf together.
Speaker 2: Where I don't feel I hope that there isn't that
Speaker 2: golf is less interesting now at the highest levels of
Speaker 2: professional golf, where there are multi millions of dollars on
Speaker 2: the table this year, multi billions of dollars on the table.
Speaker 2: Thank you out there, players, managers, agents are going to
Speaker 2: unearth every single advantage they possibly can for another one
Speaker 2: percent more here or one percent more there to get
Speaker 2: to the best. I don't think we can get the
Speaker 2: cat back in the box or the toothpaste back in
Speaker 2: the tube when it comes to the highest levels. But
Speaker 2: I think at the lower levels, the recreational levels, we
Speaker 2: can enjoy golf however we want to enjoy golf, And
Speaker 2: I don't really know if it's changed that much, Garrett.
Speaker 2: I think you always had your pack of guys in
Speaker 2: the locker room that you liked playing with, and the
Speaker 2: guys in the locker room you didn't like playing with,
Speaker 2: And even before the revolution that we're in right now
Speaker 2: in terms of science, you probably were still aligned with
Speaker 2: how it sort of viewed. So I guess that would
Speaker 2: be how I would view it, and that I kind
Speaker 2: of am living a hypocritical life, and that I know
Speaker 2: all of this stuff when I use it as a broadcaster,
Speaker 2: but I don't really I'm not all in on it
Speaker 2: myself as an actual player, And I think that is
Speaker 2: maybe the answer right there, Like I'm a perfect example
Speaker 2: of it, Like I use this to help broaden my
Speaker 2: understanding of the professional game, but when it comes to
Speaker 2: me teeing it up and trying to get the best
Speaker 2: out of my game and having fun with my friends.
Speaker 2: I have my own sort of comfort level, and I
Speaker 2: think that golf still has plenty of space out there
Speaker 2: for everybody.
Speaker 1: All Right, Well, thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 1: the podcast. The book is called The Science of Golf.
Speaker 1: You can get it wherever you get books. Congratulations, Thanks Garrett.
Speaker 1: This episode of The Frida Egg podcast was edited by
Speaker 1: Meg Atkins. The best way to stay up to date
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