Speaker 1: It's the Son of a Butcher podcast. We come to
Speaker 1: you every Wednesday. This week's guests Dennis McDade. I was
Speaker 1: down in Australia a couple of weeks ago and got
Speaker 1: to spend some time with Dennis. He's one of the
Speaker 1: best golf instructors on the planet on the advisory board
Speaker 1: at the Titleist Performance Institute. But I think he's most
Speaker 1: known currently right now is he's the coach for Mark Leishman.
Speaker 1: He's done a great job with his golf swing, but
Speaker 1: he to me is at the forefront of junior golf
Speaker 1: development and that is a lot of what this pod
Speaker 1: this week is about. Having an opportunity to sit down
Speaker 1: with Dennis and pick his brain about junior golf, junior
Speaker 1: golf development, how he works with juniors. He has been
Speaker 1: at the forefront of junior golf development, helped the guys
Speaker 1: at the Titleist Performance Institute, doctor Greg Rose and Dave Phillips.
Speaker 1: Dave's been on the pod as well numerous times, but
Speaker 1: really helped kind of redesign their team junior program and
Speaker 1: it was a game changer for me. It's completely changed
Speaker 1: the way that I teach juniors. We get into how
Speaker 1: to teach juniors what to look for. One of the
Speaker 1: cool things about getting to travel is you sometimes run
Speaker 1: into people that you don't see on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: Dennis lives down in Australia, so I see him a
Speaker 1: couple of times a year. But being down in all's
Speaker 1: got to sit down, take a deep dive into junior
Speaker 1: golf development, junior golf instruction. So if you're a junior golfer,
Speaker 1: if you have junior golfers in your life as coach
Speaker 1: or as a parent, and if you're a junior listening,
Speaker 1: this is a great one. And Dennis, like I said,
Speaker 1: he is at the forefront of junior golf development. So
Speaker 1: I think everyone's going to get a lot out of this.
Speaker 1: Sit back and enjoy listening to Dennis McDade, Dennis Year
Speaker 1: and I've known each other a long time. For those
Speaker 1: listening that don't kind of know your background, obviously, coach
Speaker 1: Mark Leishman, you've worked with a ton of players. You're
Speaker 1: on the your senior advise reboard at the Titless Performance Institute.
Speaker 1: We had d Phillips on a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 1: after John Rahm winning. Definitely want to get into that.
Speaker 1: But for everyone listening kind of tell your background and
Speaker 1: how you got into golf and golf instruction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I was. I was when I was a
Speaker 2: much younger person human. I was a competitive swimmer. So
Speaker 2: between the age and yeah, there you go. So between
Speaker 2: the age and I'm going to say eight and thirteen
Speaker 2: to fourteen, I was a competitive swimmer. Was it was
Speaker 2: an outdoor pool, so we'd trained sort of spring through
Speaker 2: summer and autumn and then winter there was there was
Speaker 2: no swimming. It was an outdoor pool. And to be honest,
Speaker 2: back there, I got to the stage where it was
Speaker 2: really hard to jump in the cold pool at the
Speaker 2: start and the end of the season. So so Dad,
Speaker 2: who was a Scott, played a bit of golf and
Speaker 2: then during winter I started going out with him and
Speaker 2: just at the local un civil course and got the bug.
Speaker 1: And you like about golf at an early age, what
Speaker 1: I really liked was just the interaction with the other juniors.
Speaker 2: So where I was in Victoria, which is in the
Speaker 2: south of Australia, juniors at a golf well, first of all,
Speaker 2: you could join as a junior. Secondly, could plane competitions
Speaker 2: even on weekends. You could plane club championships, but every
Speaker 2: school holiday, my dad was a construction form and he
Speaker 2: dropped me off at the course on the way, dropped
Speaker 2: me off at the course on the way to work,
Speaker 2: and he picked me up on the way home. So
Speaker 2: I just spent my holidays at the golf course with
Speaker 2: my buddies. And I really that really appealed to me,
Speaker 2: that that social side of things, and you know, being
Speaker 2: able to play in practice with people my own age.
Speaker 2: And then the actual game. The actual game got me,
Speaker 2: you know, and from a young age, I knew what
Speaker 2: I wanted to do. I wanted to be a tour player,
Speaker 2: you know, like I was all right. And obviously the
Speaker 2: fact that I'm sitting here talking about coaching says that
Speaker 2: I'm a foil player, But no, that was the the
Speaker 2: start of me. It just golf hooked me really really quickly.
Speaker 2: It was like for all people, it was frustrating, but
Speaker 2: it hooked me really quickly, and I just ended up
Speaker 2: devoting my life to trying to be a player. And
Speaker 2: then one of the things that I'm thankful for is
Speaker 2: is the PJA professionals who I served my traineeship under.
Speaker 2: I think they call it assistance in the US, assistance.
Speaker 2: They were both. They both so it was Bruce Grant
Speaker 2: Row Melbourne and Bob Spencer at keys Mcgolfer, the two
Speaker 2: guys that I worked under. They both encouraged me to coach.
Speaker 2: They said, hey, this is definitely part of being a
Speaker 2: PG professional. You need to know how to repair a
Speaker 2: golf club. Remember how to repair a golf club. That's
Speaker 2: what I think for Simon.
Speaker 1: Heads to know was, you know, sanded them down, learned
Speaker 1: how to rewheip the shaft. Those are by gone days.
Speaker 2: Well, explain to my son not that long ago what
Speaker 2: it meant, because I still say I got it out
Speaker 2: of the screws because they had.
Speaker 1: We're also Jennis, we're also dating ourselves. So everybody listener
Speaker 1: going down those guys are really all wooden golf clubs.
Speaker 1: And you didn't just go by them and get shafts.
Speaker 2: And no, and you didn't you didn't change your driver
Speaker 2: every year and that sort of thing. But anyhow, so
Speaker 2: so both my my bosses were great. They encouraged me
Speaker 2: to coach and and and I knew before I finished
Speaker 2: my traineeship that if things didn't work out as a player,
Speaker 2: I was going to be a coach because I really
Speaker 2: enjoyed the social interaction of that as well, like it's
Speaker 2: it's a real relationship sort of thing. So so when
Speaker 2: I played in Australia for probably three years or so
Speaker 2: and then started to go down the path of coaching,
Speaker 2: and my first coaching job I taught golfers hitting balls
Speaker 2: into a net at a pitch and put course. That's
Speaker 2: where I where I started out. And Goody's going to
Speaker 2: start somewhere, that's right. That's so there were yes, it
Speaker 2: was that was my start and and I think one
Speaker 2: of the things I realized pretty quickly is I had
Speaker 2: an idea what I was doing. So I went and
Speaker 2: bought some equipment. So back in those days, it was
Speaker 2: the big camera, like it had no shut of speed,
Speaker 2: but big camera took the full VHS tape in the
Speaker 2: side pack and out of the VHS recorder and TV
Speaker 2: and I used to draw lines and I figured out
Speaker 2: I still didn't know what I was doing. So it
Speaker 2: was that point I went and started spending time with
Speaker 2: some of the better known coaches around Melbourne to try
Speaker 2: to learn some more. So I'd booked time with them
Speaker 2: and I'd literally take my tapes along and just go, hey,
Speaker 2: can I talked about some of the clients that I've
Speaker 2: been working with and get your opinion on what I'm
Speaker 2: doing and that sort of thing. So that's where I
Speaker 2: started off with a fairly broad sort of stroke with
Speaker 2: that people have spent time with and then gradually sort
Speaker 2: of whittled that down to the to the people that
Speaker 2: I was really getting some what I thought was really
Speaker 2: good information from. So those people Dale Lynch, you know,
Speaker 2: Dale Lynch was one of those. Dale coached me a
Speaker 2: bit when I was playing. Stephen Bahm spent some time
Speaker 2: with you. I intrigues like a lot of different people
Speaker 2: that I that I whose opinion I sought, and that
Speaker 2: was sort of the start of me starting to get
Speaker 2: a bit more of an idea of what not just
Speaker 2: the technical aspects of coaching were, but the approach and
Speaker 2: that sort of stuff. And then anyhow so I sort
Speaker 2: of I sort of progressed and was coaching full time,
Speaker 2: and to cut along story short, I ended up I
Speaker 2: won a coaching scholarship to what was the then Australian
Speaker 2: Institute of Sport Golf program. I was by this time,
Speaker 2: I was in Queensland up on the Sunshine Coach Coast,
Speaker 2: coaching a couple of places, and I got a coaching
Speaker 2: scholarship with with the AIS program, and the head coach,
Speaker 2: unfortunately passed away at quite a young age, was Ross Herbert.
Speaker 2: And that was my first taste of elite, a proper
Speaker 2: elite development program. And I thought I was pretty good coach.
Speaker 2: And then I got into that program. I thought, wow,
Speaker 2: I haven't even sort of scratched the service here yet,
Speaker 2: you know. And to spend time watching someone who was
Speaker 2: so skilled not only coached the plays, but how he
Speaker 2: structured the program. And then to see like that was
Speaker 2: back in so I did ninety five, nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 2: nine ninety six. I am dating myself there a bit,
Speaker 2: but to see the marriage of the high performance coaching
Speaker 2: but also the sports science and the sports medicine how
Speaker 2: that all interacted. And then from there Steve Manadelnch with
Speaker 2: the head coach and the assistant coach of the VIS program.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Victorians the sport which was you know, to
Speaker 1: me is one of it is a legendary you know program,
Speaker 1: it's to me, it's one of the seminal programs of golf,
Speaker 1: of modern golf development. You guys kind of were at
Speaker 1: the forefront coming from Australia, you know, not so much
Speaker 1: doing it out of the limelight, but because this is
Speaker 1: so far away. But what you guys were doing was
Speaker 1: kind of groundbreaking stuff and it was kind of a
Speaker 1: precursor to what I believe a lot of the US
Speaker 1: college system does now.
Speaker 2: Look, there's no doubt in my mind that that the
Speaker 2: model that the that the VICE program was back then
Speaker 2: and was carried through for quite some time was one
Speaker 2: that was used as a template around the world for
Speaker 2: pipe performance development of golfers. There's no doubt.
Speaker 1: Aaron Badley, Jeff Ogilby, Stuart Appleby, well, all of kind
Speaker 1: of that the last generation, the kind of pre Adam
Speaker 1: Scott generation came out of the vis What was the
Speaker 1: what was the goal of the of the v I
Speaker 1: S Golf's program? What did you if you had to
Speaker 1: like sum it up, what would you say? The goal was, Well,
Speaker 1: the goal.
Speaker 2: Was to produce players who would achieve it international amateur
Speaker 2: and especially professional levels. So the goal was to produce
Speaker 2: top hundred players in the world or top fifty players
Speaker 2: in the world. And ultimately, once you get to that stage,
Speaker 2: you're now in that realm where you can produce major winners.
Speaker 2: As well once you get to that level. So that
Speaker 2: was very clearly a goal was to develop to develop
Speaker 2: these young athletes into world class players who are winning
Speaker 2: at the highest level. That was clearly the goal. And
Speaker 2: when you've got a goal like that, you can actually
Speaker 2: structure a program that's meeting those needs. It's not about
Speaker 2: trying to make them play good for the next Ameur
Speaker 2: event or an event in three months. The whole mindset
Speaker 2: is around is okay, well we've got this let's say
Speaker 2: eighteen year old male coming into the program. It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: what do we want them to look like in their
Speaker 2: mid twenties? And everything was structured working back from being
Speaker 2: a world class an international players.
Speaker 1: So kind of what the Olympic development does in other countries.
Speaker 1: It just had never really been done in golf before, right,
Speaker 1: really hadn't been golf and golf instruction and golf development
Speaker 1: hadn't really been treated like you know, the Russian gymnastics system,
Speaker 1: what they do in China and what they do at
Speaker 1: all of these elite performance centers exactly.
Speaker 2: So from from our point of view at the at
Speaker 2: the at the v I S, if you look at
Speaker 2: just the numbers that would be coming through the state
Speaker 2: if you like, you know, the number of like, our
Speaker 2: numbers are smaller than say in the US, So we
Speaker 2: structured a program going, well, we're only going to have
Speaker 2: a finite number of players come through our system. We
Speaker 2: need to put a program in place that helps every
Speaker 2: single one of them achieve the highest level possible. So
Speaker 2: it was it was a it was a very high
Speaker 2: performance development focused program with that goal in mind that
Speaker 2: we want these juniors and well so much juniors, but
Speaker 2: these male and female athletes coming through the program to
Speaker 2: win on PGA Tour, to win majors. And that was
Speaker 2: as I said that, that was very clearly the goal
Speaker 2: of the program.
Speaker 1: Cut to the chase. You're on the advisory board at
Speaker 1: the Titleist Performance Institute. I've had Dave Phillips on the
Speaker 1: on the podcast number of times junior golf development. In
Speaker 1: my opinion, you're at the forefront, and I think the
Speaker 1: things that you did for junior golf development, it was
Speaker 1: really kind of changed everybody's way of thinking. And I
Speaker 1: think one of the amazing things, and I know you
Speaker 1: said this, once junior golfers were tended to be taught
Speaker 1: by the lowest person on the totem pole at the club,
Speaker 1: an assistant golf pro who was a trainee. He didn't
Speaker 1: know anything. He basically has a bunch of kids. They
Speaker 1: don't know anything. So I remember at a TPI junior
Speaker 1: seminar once you said, what has happened in the past
Speaker 1: is amateurs teaching amateurs how to play golf?
Speaker 2: Yeah, rookies coaching rookies.
Speaker 1: Rookies coaching rookies, and that that was so obvious that
Speaker 1: that was the wrong route to go to produce golfers
Speaker 1: and try and get them in. But that's what happened
Speaker 1: for years and years and years.
Speaker 2: It was a real it was a real afterthought. And
Speaker 2: when you think about I know, you've been very closely
Speaker 2: linked with TPI and all the work we've done. Once
Speaker 2: you understand what needs to be done from you know,
Speaker 2: let's say the age of you know, five through to
Speaker 2: twenty years of age, you understand just how important it
Speaker 2: is for our coaches to be highly trained, Like there's
Speaker 2: a huge market around the world to be a highly
Speaker 2: skilled junior coach. But that was certainly something that was
Speaker 2: missing in the air. I suppose when when I was
Speaker 2: learning to play golf, it was actually hard to get
Speaker 2: an experienced coach to give you a golf lesson, and
Speaker 2: it was just rookies coaching rookies, and it was just
Speaker 2: if you sort of was deep en theory, right, throw
Speaker 2: them all in the deep end. Whoever swims, you survive,
Speaker 2: you know. So I think that a big part of
Speaker 2: what we've done at TPI. And I can't take credit
Speaker 2: for all of it, you know, I'm one of an
Speaker 2: amazing advisory board. Is we basically stood back and just said, okay, well,
Speaker 2: with what we know about human growth and development from
Speaker 2: childhood through to adulthood, and what we know about how
Speaker 2: I suppose you should structure a golfer or a young
Speaker 2: athlete who athlete, I'm sorry, who comes into your program
Speaker 2: with no skill? How do you actually turn them into
Speaker 2: an athletic golfer? And that was the genesis of the
Speaker 2: whole TPI junior program. And I think the other thing
Speaker 2: that really has changed too, and it's kind of forced
Speaker 2: to rethink on the way we coached is I started
Speaker 2: playing golf when I was eleven. How old were you
Speaker 2: when you started? Probably younger?
Speaker 1: No, I mean, listen, I didn't really play a lot
Speaker 1: of golf, but my background was I just like to
Speaker 1: watch my dad golf lessons, so I was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out the instruction side of it and that piece
Speaker 1: of the puzzle. I mean, I've said this numerous times,
Speaker 1: and for a long time I was embarrassed to say this,
Speaker 1: but I'm not now. I was never a golfer at
Speaker 1: any level. I didn't play junior golf. I didn't play
Speaker 1: high schol golf. I didn't play college golf. I didn't
Speaker 1: play amateur golf. Golf wasn't cool. And I think this
Speaker 1: leads into what I was going to talk about with
Speaker 1: junior golf. Golf when I was growing up, I'm fifty
Speaker 1: four in about a week's time. My dad was a
Speaker 1: golf instructor. He wasn't the person he is today. Golf
Speaker 1: wasn't cool when I was growing up, even though my
Speaker 1: grandfather won the Masters in nineteen forty eight. But in
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties, golf wasn't what it was now,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't seen as a sport. It wasn't seen
Speaker 1: as athletic.
Speaker 2: So if you look at that component what you've just
Speaker 2: said there, so if you look at golfers now, I
Speaker 2: think I used to call it an emergent demographic. It's
Speaker 2: now demographic, and that's like the five to ten year
Speaker 2: old junior golf. Like they just weren't around when I
Speaker 2: was a kid. No one played golf when they were
Speaker 2: six or seven or whatever. You'd play whatever the summer
Speaker 2: and winter sports work. But we now we've got to
Speaker 2: a stage where I feel I get emails and phone
Speaker 2: calls going, hey, I've got a three year old, when
Speaker 2: can we sign up for the program. So it's like, well,
Speaker 2: you need to be ready for that because you might
Speaker 2: not have a three year old in the program, but
Speaker 2: you can provide advice around what you do with that
Speaker 2: with that category of like that age I should say,
Speaker 2: of junior golfer. But to come back to your point
Speaker 2: around not being cool and not being athletic, we have
Speaker 2: this this demographic of junior golfer and their sedentary so
Speaker 2: they're not not as active. Like when I got home
Speaker 2: from school when I was a kid, like I'd unlock
Speaker 2: the door, I'd throw the school bag inside the door,
Speaker 2: pull the door shut before mom could tell me to
Speaker 2: come to my homework, and they didn't see me till
Speaker 2: dark and I'd be playing cricket in the streets or
Speaker 2: footy or soccer or whatever it was, and that was
Speaker 2: our athletic development.
Speaker 1: One of the things in going to all the junior
Speaker 1: seminars that I've gone to and listened to you and
Speaker 1: Greg and Dave talk, kids don't play anymore, right. They
Speaker 1: don't climb trees, they don't play kick the can, they
Speaker 1: don't ride bikes, they get driven everywhere, they sit in chairs,
Speaker 1: they're on their phones all the time. And one of
Speaker 1: the TPI mantras from a junior standpoint has been to
Speaker 1: create athletes first, golfer. Second, we all teach regular people
Speaker 1: to play golf. Right, you have a fifty five sixty
Speaker 1: year old person who's been playing golf their entire life.
Speaker 1: They're a business person, they don't really do anything athletic.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to train a non athlete to play golf.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the things that was just
Speaker 1: mind blowing to me, And again it seems it was
Speaker 1: groundbreaking when you guys came up with it, but it
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, it's much easy. It's easy for me
Speaker 1: and you to work with tour players because they're skilled athletes. Right.
Speaker 1: You can tell them to do things, you can get
Speaker 1: them to do things they can do what you ask
Speaker 1: them to do from an athletic physical scamper the technical
Speaker 1: side of things, that's something different. But having an athlete first,
Speaker 1: and you know, if you get a golfer that comes
Speaker 1: in and he's in his forties and he's played multiple
Speaker 1: sports his whole life, he's in the gym, he's active
Speaker 1: and stuff, they're much easier to coach and train and
Speaker 1: help improve than if they have no athletic ability.
Speaker 2: I couldn't agree more so. I think if they're and
Speaker 2: I'm sure there aren't like any golf coach could relate
Speaker 2: to this. You have like a I don't know, an
Speaker 2: eight or a nine year old boy or girl walking
Speaker 2: to your academy. They've never picked up a golf club.
Speaker 2: You show them how to hold a club and straight
Speaker 2: away they go whosh, and you just go, my god,
Speaker 2: I've got a superstar in my hands because you're looking
Speaker 2: at athletic expression and they're able to pick up a
Speaker 2: golf club and apply that really quickly. But what a
Speaker 2: lot of people fail to realize is what's happened before
Speaker 2: they've walked into your academy. Right, they're probably from the
Speaker 2: age of since they can walk they've sampled all these
Speaker 2: different sports. They're a good or round athlete, and then
Speaker 2: they can just express that when they hold a golf
Speaker 2: club and try to hit a golf ball, and if
Speaker 2: you look at the other side of that, you get
Speaker 2: that sentry child that we were just talking about, who
Speaker 2: come in and you go, my god, I'm going to
Speaker 2: have them work cut out here, And at least now
Speaker 2: we know rather than going, my god, how am I
Speaker 2: going to teach them to play? Like? My mind set
Speaker 2: is straight away, I've got to turn them into a
Speaker 2: better athlete, because if I can turn them into a
Speaker 2: better athlete, it makes it so much easier for me
Speaker 2: to teach them how to become a golfer. And one
Speaker 2: of the things, and you've heard us talk about this,
Speaker 2: the five reasons kids do sport right. Number one, it's
Speaker 2: got to be fun. Number two, we've got to make
Speaker 2: they've got to be able to do it with their
Speaker 2: friends or make friends. Number three, they've got to feel welcome,
Speaker 2: so we want to talk about some of the country
Speaker 2: clubs and what happens around the world. Number four, it's
Speaker 2: got to feel too, feel good to do. And the
Speaker 2: other one is they've got to be good at it.
Speaker 2: So if you get a young junior coming to the
Speaker 2: program they've got no athletic ability and they suck at golf,
Speaker 2: they're probably not going to hang around too long. Right.
Speaker 2: So our job is to actually as coaches, is to
Speaker 2: is to recognize that assess them. We always assess. Don't
Speaker 2: guess right, We assess and we just go, hey, Jimmy
Speaker 2: or Jane, there's a couple of holes in your athletic
Speaker 2: development here. Golf can be a difficult game until we
Speaker 2: get those, you know, sorted out.
Speaker 1: But don't worry.
Speaker 2: You hang with us. We're going to sort those out.
Speaker 2: You're going to be a good player, you know, eventually,
Speaker 2: whatever approach you want to take. But being able to
Speaker 2: understand that, you're not seeing lack of commitment or ability,
Speaker 2: you're seeing a lack of athletic development, which makes it
Speaker 2: tough as coaches. Right.
Speaker 1: One of the things my grandfather said, and he passed
Speaker 1: it on to my father, and my father passed on
Speaker 1: to me. My dad used to always say, it's our
Speaker 1: job to teach people to play golf, not teach golf
Speaker 1: to people. And I think a lot of what we
Speaker 1: used to do with juniors is we'd have these lessons
Speaker 1: with a six seven year old, and we'd be trying
Speaker 1: to give them golf lessons like we give someone who's
Speaker 1: been playing golf twenty years. Work on your grip, posture,
Speaker 1: stance alignment. One of the things that was groundbreaking to
Speaker 1: me when I watched you all at TPI when you
Speaker 1: developed your Junior Golf Cyclone. And I'd love for you
Speaker 1: to talk about that. You guys were working with juniors
Speaker 1: for an hour and kids that have never really they've
Speaker 1: got a golf club in their hand for less than
Speaker 1: five to ten minutes of them. Talk about the Junior
Speaker 1: Golf Cyclone and how it came about. Because I know
Speaker 1: part of that came about with you, because I've seen
Speaker 1: the videos and I've watched how you raised your children
Speaker 1: and the crazy things that your children were doing on
Speaker 1: jungle gym's where ives and I remember once saying, it's
Speaker 1: a good thing you don't live in America because someone
Speaker 1: would sue you for allowing your children to play like that,
Speaker 1: because kids don't do that anymore. But the Junior Golf Cyclone.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about what that is.
Speaker 2: So the Junior Golf Cyclone that basically aligns with the
Speaker 2: fundamentals phase in LTAD long Term Athlete Development, and basically
Speaker 2: our philosophy there is we want to hook these kids
Speaker 2: on golf.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So, but if you had a I don't know, a
Speaker 2: six year old boy and you had him hit balls
Speaker 2: for an hour and he's not very good, he's probably
Speaker 2: going to get see a golf pretty quick, right, He's
Speaker 2: going to end up really not enjoying himself.
Speaker 1: Again, that's teaching golf to people. This is golf, this
Speaker 1: is how you have to learn it, and if you
Speaker 1: can't learn it like that, well then golf just isn't
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 1: And that's I did that. I think everybody that's an
Speaker 1: instructor at some point that's listening to this. If you're
Speaker 1: an instructor, you did that. At some point you were saying, hey,
Speaker 1: this is golf. We're going to teach it to you,
Speaker 1: and if you can't absorb it or do it, then
Speaker 1: you need to find another sport.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So basically exactly right. So basically with the psyche plone,
Speaker 2: our we get together. If I explain what happens, we
Speaker 2: get together. We have some warm ups which are like
Speaker 2: it's all age appropriate, right, So it's an age appropriate
Speaker 2: warm up. It's a bit of fun, but there is
Speaker 2: an intent behind that and it's developing what we call
Speaker 2: fundamental movement skills. So four categories of that. There's locomotion,
Speaker 2: anything used to get from A to B, the ABC's agility, balance, coordination, speed,
Speaker 2: object control, kicking, throwing, striking, punching.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's another thing that's huge, hugely important in
Speaker 1: junior golf development is the ability to kick, the ability
Speaker 1: to throw, the ability to punch. One of the things
Speaker 1: that I know that you guys at TPI came up
Speaker 1: with that girls versus boys catching patterns, the ability to
Speaker 1: catch an object. It's very different in young boys versus
Speaker 1: young girls, but that is a fundamental pattern of trying
Speaker 1: to find your in space, how to grasp an object.
Speaker 1: There are so many things that you're asking someone to
Speaker 1: do when they throw you a ball, but if you
Speaker 1: don't know how to catch a ball and do that,
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to progress.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Correct, So you can, like with what we're talking
Speaker 2: about here with the athletic development, I'll get back to
Speaker 2: the cyclone at the moment you actually need a child,
Speaker 2: oh I think anyway, a child athletic development specialist. So
Speaker 2: the perfect. The perfect analogy I would give here with
Speaker 2: this category of junior, with this early age junior is
Speaker 2: like the primary school in Australia, I think, do you
Speaker 2: call it elementary school like elementary school in the US.
Speaker 2: Like the sports teacher from the elementary school or from
Speaker 2: primary school is perfect for this program because that's what
Speaker 2: that says, special jump rope. That s yes, specialty Ryan
Speaker 2: is in developing that. So our cyclone basically we have
Speaker 2: a warm up which and again it's not just warming up,
Speaker 2: there's an intent to that. Then we take our juniors
Speaker 2: through a number of stations, okay, and it's all around
Speaker 2: athletic development, and it's a golf program, so there's some
Speaker 2: golf stations. So in our cyclone program there are four
Speaker 2: athletic development stations if you like, and two golf stations.
Speaker 2: So when I'm talking about a station, there will be
Speaker 2: an activity in each one of those stations. So it
Speaker 2: might be, hey, there's a target over the Volco target
Speaker 2: over there. You've got to pick up one of those
Speaker 2: balls and you've got to throw it at the target.
Speaker 2: Keep score if you like. Whatever. That's just an example, right,
Speaker 2: and what we do in each one of those stations.
Speaker 2: Because juniors have different juniors are at different stages of development.
Speaker 2: We can grade the difficulty, provide a little more challenge,
Speaker 2: back off on the challenge a little bit, and then
Speaker 2: the instructor is in there a bit like you spoke
Speaker 2: about with coaching before. The instructors in there providing some
Speaker 2: really age appropriate coaching if you like, around how to
Speaker 2: throw a better, or how to how to you know,
Speaker 2: jump better, or whatever it is. And then there'll be
Speaker 2: a couple of golf stations as well. And each one
Speaker 2: of those golf stations. By the way, it doesn't look
Speaker 2: like you and I coaching an adult like there is
Speaker 2: an outcome based activity. It's it's very much game based.
Speaker 2: There might be one point of instruction, so I would
Speaker 2: use example that well. I always say this development sequential.
Speaker 2: You can't start with calculus if you're learning maths, right,
Speaker 2: You've got to start with with all the basics. So
Speaker 2: we do that in our program and just on that
Speaker 2: haven't spoken about it yet. One of the great things
Speaker 2: that the advisory board did when we're having the discussions
Speaker 2: around this, and you've got you've got the likes of
Speaker 2: Dr Ernstwick, who's a you know, who's a specialist in
Speaker 2: growth and maturation. Now what a man is Mile O'Bryant,
Speaker 2: Greg Rose, Istvan Bali. You know all of these these guys,
Speaker 2: and we've just said, hey, what's the best what's the
Speaker 2: best structure for learning in the world. We've just gone
Speaker 2: all to school.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So, if you've got a young child and you take
Speaker 2: them along to grade one, there's an expectation as a
Speaker 2: parent that when they come out at the end of
Speaker 2: grade one, they're going to have certain they're going to
Speaker 2: have been exposed to certain skills.
Speaker 1: Certain skills to allow them to go to grade two. Correct.
Speaker 2: And that was our philosophy around structuring the program for
Speaker 2: the cyclone and from there was two was going, right, well,
Speaker 2: what's grade one? What do we have in grade one?
Speaker 2: What do we having grade one from a golf point
Speaker 2: of view? What do we have in grade one from
Speaker 2: an athletic development point of view? How do we make
Speaker 2: it fun, age appropriate and have them actually learn something?
Speaker 2: Because what we want is we want our We want
Speaker 2: them coming back because we know we need them for
Speaker 2: like ten years, right, we know that it's a minimum
Speaker 2: of ten years. We need them four to turn them
Speaker 2: into highly competent golfers. So that's where we so the
Speaker 2: cyclone again sort of going backward and forwards. We start
Speaker 2: with a warm up, we run through the stations. The
Speaker 2: stations run from maximum of about four and a half
Speaker 2: to five minutes, so there's no getting stuck in a
Speaker 2: station for twenty thirty minutes because when we're.
Speaker 1: Dealing with young kids, the retention span. But again, we
Speaker 1: used to expect a six year old kid to be
Speaker 1: able to focus in a golf lesson teaching them golf
Speaker 1: stuff that you would be teaching to a forty five
Speaker 1: year old fifteen handicapper, and we would get as instructors,
Speaker 1: you get frustrated because the kid's not listening. But it
Speaker 1: all now seems so simple in the way that you
Speaker 1: teach logically, the way you would do everything else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right. And that's the thing we were talking
Speaker 2: about rookies coaching rookies before. I think with what we
Speaker 2: know now, when I look for a new junior golf coach,
Speaker 2: I have one criteria and one criteria only, and that
Speaker 2: is you want to coach juniors. You're absolutely that's all
Speaker 2: you want to do is coach juniors. Because I feel
Speaker 2: like I can give you everything else you need. Everything
Speaker 2: else you need to be a great junior coach. I
Speaker 2: have to have for teaching junior two cook story. I
Speaker 2: moved from a facility. This is going back twelve years ago.
Speaker 2: I moved from a facility where I built up a
Speaker 2: big junior program to the other side of town. It
Speaker 2: was like twenty five miles away, and we were starting
Speaker 2: from scratch, and so we ran a school holiday program.
Speaker 2: So we advertised around all the local elementary schools program schools,
Speaker 2: and we had a whole bunch of juniors arrived and
Speaker 2: I said to the coach as I said, right, who
Speaker 2: wants to be junior coach? And they all put the
Speaker 2: hand up and I thought, okay, well I'll give you
Speaker 2: a run. And anyhow, we ran this junior golf school,
Speaker 2: and what I was really interested in is what the
Speaker 2: coaches did in the breaks. So so I kind of
Speaker 2: I kind of kept a bit of an eye on
Speaker 2: what they were doing, and you know, they kind of
Speaker 2: had a bit of an idea or not, and that
Speaker 2: wasn't important to me. But there was one coach who
Speaker 2: in the break, like just about every kid in the
Speaker 2: program was following around. He kind of looked at I'm
Speaker 2: showing them away, and I've just gone, that's my junior
Speaker 2: coach because the kids are gravitating to him. And kids
Speaker 2: are very perceptive. Right, if you don't pass a sniff that,
Speaker 2: if you don't pass a sniff test with the kids,
Speaker 2: you're done right. And out of all the coaches, they
Speaker 2: just hung around him, and I just said, hey, you've
Speaker 2: got the makings of a junior coach. He said, he said,
Speaker 2: do you think really said, I didn't think I knew
Speaker 2: what I was doing. I said, yeah, but the kid
Speaker 2: love you. And that was it. So he's actually still
Speaker 2: running my junior program out at Yarraban Public Course. He's
Speaker 2: just done that ever since. And he's a great junior coach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, give me Dennis for I know it's a generalization,
Speaker 1: but for junior golfers and for junior golf parents, one
Speaker 1: of the things that we know the worst case, and
Speaker 1: I know this is the worst case for you. The
Speaker 1: thirteen year old child whose parents took them out of
Speaker 1: all other sports at six years old, and for the
Speaker 1: last six years old, the twelve year old has done
Speaker 1: nothing other than play golf. He's got a beautiful golf swing,
Speaker 1: has no real athletic talent, has no real athletic development.
Speaker 1: He just plays golf. You get those, I get those
Speaker 1: I hear all the time. No, No, my son just
Speaker 1: focused on golf. Just focus on golf. My daughter should
Speaker 1: just focus on golf. What are the pitfalls that you
Speaker 1: feel that that can cause with junior golfers and how
Speaker 1: it can inhibit their development?
Speaker 2: So the first thing I would say is an moving
Speaker 2: just as an extension of what we spoke about before
Speaker 2: and the structure of the cyclone program from an LTD.
Speaker 2: From an lt a D point of view, there's a
Speaker 2: window that needs to be hit. Okay, and I didn't
Speaker 2: mention this when we were talking about cyclone. There's an
Speaker 2: opportunity to build speed, right, So there are windows of
Speaker 2: opportunity from the maturation from childhood to adulthood that you
Speaker 2: and the easiest way to explain them for those parents
Speaker 2: who might be listening is there are times in that
Speaker 2: period from childhood to adulthood where the body is particularly
Speaker 2: trainable for certain athletic attributes. So we talk about speed, strength, stamina, skill,
Speaker 2: et cetera. So, so what happens when there's been a
Speaker 2: focus on golf early you will develop some of those
Speaker 2: athletic attributes, but you won't develop all of them. And
Speaker 2: as we know nowadays, like people are always talking about
Speaker 2: speed and there are two speed windows. Like if you've
Speaker 2: focused solely on golf from a young age and that's
Speaker 2: all you've done, you've probably missed that window, and that
Speaker 2: will put a ceiling on how fast you can be
Speaker 2: if you like, when you're an adult.
Speaker 1: What are those speed windows?
Speaker 2: Speed windows now different for boys and girls? And you're
Speaker 2: going to You've put me right on the spot here.
Speaker 2: I'm going to say the first speed window for girls
Speaker 2: is four to seven years of age biological aide. Second
Speaker 2: speed window, sorry, first speed window for boys is six
Speaker 2: to nine years of age and biological age, not chronological
Speaker 2: age because they all grow at different speeds. And then
Speaker 2: the second window is that take off when they go
Speaker 2: through the growth spurt. And I'll get this wrong, but
Speaker 2: I'm going to say it's thirteen to fifteen for boys,
Speaker 2: and I think eleven to fourteen for girls. It's like that,
Speaker 2: it's like when they start growing fast, you train them fast, right,
Speaker 2: That's how I thing. When they're growing fast, train them fast.
Speaker 2: But that would be roughly correct. There'll be a few
Speaker 2: LTAD people just sort of look skywards when I said that,
Speaker 2: but it's basically there and I think that. Sorry, just
Speaker 2: to answer your question, I think the danger with developing
Speaker 2: skills only you get that illusion of success. So if
Speaker 2: you've got a skilled coach training a junior in all
Speaker 2: the technical aspects of golf, they can go out there
Speaker 2: and perform at quite a high level as a junior,
Speaker 2: but they're going to get overtaken by the athletes who
Speaker 2: also develop their technical attributes along the same time. At
Speaker 2: some stage they're going to get overtaken. So they might
Speaker 2: be the ones who are, you know, winning the trophies
Speaker 2: at a young age, but often they get overtaken. So
Speaker 2: I think, you know, we use the some of our
Speaker 2: research suggests that I think it was three to four
Speaker 2: percent of age division winners, junior age division winners around
Speaker 2: the world go on to achieve at professional level. So
Speaker 2: in my mind, it's like, I don't want to what's
Speaker 2: there's no rushes shouldn't be focused on winning at those
Speaker 2: age levels. There should be a focus on development, like
Speaker 2: even right through to sort of nearly college level. Right.
Speaker 1: Do you think that could be the reason why, Dennis
Speaker 1: that I guess this is a generalization, but I see
Speaker 1: more juniors that are better when they're fifteen and sixteen
Speaker 1: than they are when they're twenty. Right, and the world beaters,
Speaker 1: I mean they're winning. There are prolific golfers, and that
Speaker 1: jump from level to level to level. And you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people playing golf at a
Speaker 1: very very high level that are superstars that weren't necessarily
Speaker 1: great juniors. They weren't the best junior in their city,
Speaker 1: they weren't the best junior in their state, their country,
Speaker 1: and then you have these other kids. You know, I
Speaker 1: always ask tour players, hey, when you were growing up,
Speaker 1: was who was the g right? Who was the best player?
Speaker 1: And who are you surprised that didn't make it? And
Speaker 1: every tour player will go, man, when I was when
Speaker 1: I was a junior, when I was in high school,
Speaker 1: even when I was in college, this kid was a
Speaker 1: absolute world beater stud and they just never made it.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that is? That's just such a
Speaker 2: sad scenario where they've played the best golfer, They laugh
Speaker 2: between fifteen and seven eight, all right, like that says,
Speaker 2: what the hell did we do wrong? You know? But
Speaker 2: I look at that situation. I've seen it a lot
Speaker 2: if you look at So if you take that example
Speaker 2: of the years before of someone who's focused solely on golf,
Speaker 2: let's say, and they're developing those golf specific skills, and
Speaker 2: then they get their growth spurt before everyone else. So
Speaker 2: now that not only have they got golf skill, they've
Speaker 2: got the advantage of some early strength and size, right,
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that they're better athletes. And at that stage
Speaker 2: you've got golf specific skill that's been developed with the
Speaker 2: addition of some length. And that growth spurt affects everyone differently.
Speaker 2: Some people, some juniors, hit the growth spurt and they
Speaker 2: lose their they lose their skill. It's not unusual, and
Speaker 2: some don't. It's just it affects everyone differently. But I
Speaker 2: think you know what happens is a lot of the
Speaker 2: late bloomers. So if we talk about LTA D that
Speaker 2: the ones that hit their growth spurt late, they spend
Speaker 2: more time in skills phase. So after our cyclone program,
Speaker 2: we have our smash program, which is the easiest way
Speaker 2: to put it, is like late elementary school age. We
Speaker 2: always talk biological age, but I'm just trying to give
Speaker 2: one a bit of an idea around it. And that's
Speaker 2: from an LTA D point of view, that skills phase, right,
Speaker 2: So if you hit your growth spurt later, you can
Speaker 2: have an extra year developing or two developing your skills
Speaker 2: before you hit your growth spurt. Okay, so just remember
Speaker 2: in our program, although I call it skills phase, you're
Speaker 2: developing skills around all of your athletic hat reviews as well.
Speaker 2: So now once those kids get or those juniors get
Speaker 2: through the growth spurt and whatever challenges that's presented, they're
Speaker 2: better athletes. They're as skilled, if not more skilled, because
Speaker 2: they spent more time in skills phase and they overtake
Speaker 2: those juniors a lot of them anyway, that were early
Speaker 2: bloomers and skills specific if you like, just focus solely
Speaker 2: on skill now some of them make it now, they
Speaker 2: don't all fail. But with the way the game is nowadays,
Speaker 2: like we know how much the game's changed over the
Speaker 2: last sort of twenty to thirty years. Yeah, just lends
Speaker 2: itself to the ones that are as we say, athletes first,
Speaker 2: golf sag and love for the game A lot build
Speaker 2: a love for the game along the way.
Speaker 1: What are some sports for junior golfers outside of golf
Speaker 1: that you think are really really important but also can
Speaker 1: help develop golfers.
Speaker 2: That's a great question because you can spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time being a multi sport athlete and play all
Speaker 2: the sports that really don't help golf much. Right, So
Speaker 2: I think the best sports, like golf's a ballistic rotary movement. Right.
Speaker 2: So I look at any of the field sports, Olympic
Speaker 2: field sports like you know, shot put, discus, hammer, any javelin,
Speaker 2: any of that stuff, I'm just going, yeap, giddy up,
Speaker 2: let's get in there. That's that's really going to help rotation.
Speaker 2: That's rotation. I think things like table tennis is really good,
Speaker 2: like starting to understand spin reaction, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: I really like volleyball for vertical jump and obviously there's
Speaker 2: a rotation in spiking that sort of thing. And bad minton.
Speaker 2: I really like bad minton as well for similar reasons.
Speaker 1: Jam Plenty of one of the old world long drive guys.
Speaker 1: He was a he was a competition badminton player. He
Speaker 1: and everybody said, you know, here's a kid. He was
Speaker 1: like one of the early long drive guys. But he
Speaker 1: wasn't big, he wasn't a body builder, but he was
Speaker 1: able to create that kind of speed. One of the
Speaker 1: other ones I know that that that you and Greg
Speaker 1: and Davi at TPI talked about martial arts big for golf.
Speaker 2: So if we yes, so, I would think if you
Speaker 2: go backwards just a little bit, saying into a slightly
Speaker 2: younger age, say even pre cyclone cyclone, I think martial
Speaker 2: arts are great because it's training both sides of the body.
Speaker 2: Like when you work up and down the jojo, you're
Speaker 2: using both sides of the body. That's the first day
Speaker 2: you get there. That's trained right. And there's all sorts
Speaker 2: of movements where you have to move, you know, stabilize, rotate, throw, kickstrup.
Speaker 2: There's a whole bunch of stuff there. And then the
Speaker 2: other thing is gymnastics, like peewee gymnastics and that sort
Speaker 2: of thing that's totaling yep.
Speaker 1: I mean one of the things that I know that
Speaker 1: you all do with a lot of juniors, and again
Speaker 1: you do this in front of pack. I've actually and
Speaker 1: I implement now this with junior golfers that are in
Speaker 1: high school. Hopping, skipping, rolling patterns massive for learning how
Speaker 1: to control your body in space, learning how to accelerate decelerate,
Speaker 1: but you'd be surprised. I mean, you'll watch it and
Speaker 1: I do this. Now. I'll watch a kid and he's
Speaker 1: trying to play golf. The parents have taken him out
Speaker 1: all the other sports. You can see that his coordination
Speaker 1: and his ability to control the club face isn't really great.
Speaker 1: And I remember you all doing this at a TPI
Speaker 1: junior conference once. We got a kind of a ladder
Speaker 1: that you put on the ground where you have to
Speaker 1: you know, just boxes you have to hop, skip and
Speaker 1: learn how to control. It's amazing to watch kids that
Speaker 1: are trying to play competitive golf that have no ability
Speaker 1: to hop from one box to the next box. Today.
Speaker 1: Things that you did is kids when I was growing up,
Speaker 1: you hop scotch. Nobody plays those sports. Nobody does that anymore.
Speaker 1: Those patterns, the running, skipping, jumping, learning how to jump
Speaker 1: rope all things that we used to do as children
Speaker 1: and that children don't do today, but are massively important
Speaker 1: for you as a human being to be able to
Speaker 1: learn how to control your body correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and to some extent, everything you've just spoken about
Speaker 2: there is what we've put back into our junior program
Speaker 2: because are just so critical to like that's the athletic
Speaker 2: foundation that our juniors need to to begin to become
Speaker 2: decent players. And we look at we're very specific with
Speaker 2: what we do. So in our cyclone, for example, we
Speaker 2: teach them how to sprint, like just shortbursts. Everything's fast, right,
Speaker 2: because that speed windows open. But the movements we have,
Speaker 2: we do skipping because skipping teachers dissociation hip association. So
Speaker 2: we have exercises that are in our athletic stations and
Speaker 2: in our golf stations that teach transition without them holding
Speaker 2: onto a golf club, Like, how do you teach transition
Speaker 2: and the movement you want to a five year old
Speaker 2: where you better not have a golf club in the
Speaker 2: hand to be talking about, Hey, what I want you
Speaker 2: to do? As you get near the top? I want
Speaker 2: you to start yell ower, body firing this like you
Speaker 2: need a game and an activity where they don't even
Speaker 2: know that you're teaching it, right, So we have activities.
Speaker 2: We have skipping in there, we have hopping and of
Speaker 2: course you know the ability to jump and stabilize in
Speaker 2: a leg Hay, I think that's in a golf swing
Speaker 2: and then sliding side to side where you're transferring weight
Speaker 2: having to stabilize, go back the other way, stabilize like
Speaker 2: they're all like, it's interesting. Sometimes you get parents go hey,
Speaker 2: why are you doing this, And I'll just say, hey,
Speaker 2: in the golf swing, you gotta do this, and they go, oh,
Speaker 2: I get it. Cool.
Speaker 1: That's great because one of the things that you do
Speaker 1: that I've seen you guys doing. We did this as
Speaker 1: well in our junior program that we have in Dubai.
Speaker 1: Having a young child, say listen, swing this tennis racket,
Speaker 1: you know, do this for ten reps. Now take a
Speaker 1: ball and throw the ball right. Do that ten times.
Speaker 1: Now kick a soccer ball. Do that ten times, and
Speaker 1: both sides of the body, both sides of the body.
Speaker 1: And then say, all right, remember what you were doing
Speaker 1: when you had the tennis racket in your hand. Now
Speaker 1: we're going to put a golf club in your hand.
Speaker 1: It's basically the same type of and I think because
Speaker 1: golf has always been taught as is, but I think
Speaker 1: back in the day, golf was taught in a way
Speaker 1: that it was golf specific, right. These were golf specific
Speaker 1: movement patterns that didn't really have anything to do with
Speaker 1: the wider athletic movement that you would make another and
Speaker 1: every other sport, right. So I don't think most people
Speaker 1: that are trying to play golf realize how much you
Speaker 1: are asking your body to do in a dynamic movement
Speaker 1: pattern that's over in one point five to two seconds.
Speaker 1: We're asking you and you've got two feet, two legs,
Speaker 1: two arms, two hands, You've got all of these body
Speaker 1: parts that you're trying to coordinate in a very very
Speaker 1: small window, and we're asking you to do that from
Speaker 1: a completely static position. I gave a golf lesson once
Speaker 1: to a guy that had sold his semiconductor company to
Speaker 1: the US government and was now a I mean a captain,
Speaker 1: I mean just made stupid money. And when I tell you, Dennis,
Speaker 1: he had no athletic ability. He was a scientist, he's
Speaker 1: a buffin right. He just had no athletic ability at all.
Speaker 1: And he wanted to learn how to play golf. And
Speaker 1: it was just like pulling teeth. It was brutal, and
Speaker 1: he's sweating and I'll never forget this, he said. You
Speaker 1: know the hardest part about this sport for me is
Speaker 1: I have to start the move movement from zero energy.
Speaker 1: And I just went, what the hell did you just say? It?
Speaker 1: Just blew my mind. I'm like, yeah, because every other
Speaker 1: sport that you play, you're running to where the opponent
Speaker 1: is you think is going, or is going. You're throwing
Speaker 1: the ball to where the So it's all about but
Speaker 1: in golf, we put you in this static position, the
Speaker 1: balls on the ground, you're to the side of it.
Speaker 1: You've got to hold a golf club with two hands,
Speaker 1: but there's only one golf club. And now we go, okay,
Speaker 1: now you start the movement from no movement and figure
Speaker 1: out a way to control that. And so I think
Speaker 1: all of the things that you're talking about that you
Speaker 1: guys do in these junior golf cyclones are all about
Speaker 1: trying to get people to understand that golf is just
Speaker 1: like every other sport you play that's really a road
Speaker 1: or re sport. You're going to get your body to
Speaker 1: move in a pattern and throwing, kitching, kicking, punching, striking
Speaker 1: patterns are hugely important for motor skill development.
Speaker 2: And they have at one hundred percent true and they
Speaker 2: have a very direct correlation to a golf swing. Is
Speaker 2: like we've said it a couple of times already, but
Speaker 2: there's a great transfer of learning into into a golf swing,
Speaker 2: and you know a lot of the stuff around club
Speaker 2: phase control that can be done at a younger age.
Speaker 2: You know, you've heard us say the seminars all the time.
Speaker 2: Our goal in the cyclone program is speed, Like we
Speaker 2: could care less where it goes, because let's create some speed. Hey,
Speaker 2: when we're in skills phase, we'll start to teach a
Speaker 2: little more around some of that control. Remembering that the
Speaker 2: junior boys and girls who are in our cyclone program
Speaker 2: like to some extent, it's the larger muscles that are
Speaker 2: wired that that that brain development and the smaller you know,
Speaker 2: fine control over the smaller muscles happens later in the
Speaker 2: maturation cycle. So why are we trying to teach like
Speaker 2: awesome club face control here where they haven't actually got
Speaker 2: control over the bodies yet. It's kind of like what
Speaker 2: you just said before. You know, it's that that static
Speaker 2: movement having to control all these things. Well, that they're
Speaker 2: still learning to feel their body let alone, and not
Speaker 2: all the muscles are wide beautifully yet you know that
Speaker 2: that happens in that in that next phase right with
Speaker 2: with with with brain development, start laying milin down. You know,
Speaker 2: all the different pathways and.
Speaker 1: I've got a really good friend.
Speaker 2: Sorry getting it off track there.
Speaker 1: I've got a really good friend that used to play
Speaker 1: professional football soccer in the UK, Irish god named Stephen Grant.
Speaker 1: And after he started playing after he quit playing golf,
Speaker 1: he decided, or after he quit playing football, he decided
Speaker 1: he wanted to be a professional golfer. He's made it
Speaker 1: the second stage in Europe and the US a couple
Speaker 1: of times. One of Roy McElroy's really really good friends.
Speaker 1: You know, he's got kind of a unique golf swing.
Speaker 1: But the guy's short game is as good as savvy
Speaker 1: bi asteros, because the way that he would kick a football,
Speaker 1: the way that he would move his foot to spin
Speaker 1: the ball in different directions, and he's like a savant
Speaker 1: with short game, and tour guys play with him and
Speaker 1: they're like, bro, your short game is unbelievable. But it
Speaker 1: all came from his ability to kick a football and
Speaker 1: to have it move in a certain pattern in a
Speaker 1: certain way, and to spin the ball in a certain
Speaker 1: way with his foot. He took the exact same thing
Speaker 1: that he did with his feet and just applied it.
Speaker 2: They are swinging shots.
Speaker 1: He's a great shaper of the golf ball too. He
Speaker 1: can move the golf ball a lot of different He
Speaker 1: was never really the longest player, but his ability to
Speaker 1: control the flight of the golf.
Speaker 2: Ball, and he would he would I mentioned, he would
Speaker 2: see it.
Speaker 1: And his short game was devoid of technique. Like I
Speaker 1: taught him for a long time and he would go,
Speaker 1: let's go work on your short game. And I'm like, mate,
Speaker 1: your short game is you don't need to work on that.
Speaker 1: And he's like, yeah, but I feel like my technique
Speaker 1: isn't good. I was like, your technique is unbelievable because
Speaker 1: it works. He's like, yeah, but I don't like the
Speaker 1: way it looks. I said, who cares how it looks.
Speaker 1: It's so unbelievably functional. But that all came from the
Speaker 1: way that he was trained. I've been lucky enough to
Speaker 1: meet some of the the polo guys, the Pierra's Boys
Speaker 1: from Argentina. The things that they can do with golf
Speaker 1: clubs as a result of the way that they are
Speaker 1: on horses, their eye hand coordination in riding a horse
Speaker 1: but also using a polo mallet. When I watched them
Speaker 1: play golf again, their short games are beyond belief because
Speaker 1: they're riding on a horse at twenty five miles an
Speaker 1: hour and they've got to nudge this ball at full
Speaker 1: speed hanging off this horse, and they've got amazing short games.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating to watch that kind of crossover from other sports.
Speaker 2: Dennis, that was a little bit sorry, just that was
Speaker 2: a little bit like I spoke about, like table tennis,
Speaker 2: so like the spins and figuring out what you do
Speaker 2: with a racket and your wrist to get the.
Speaker 1: Ball to move and risk kind of development.
Speaker 2: Like how many of these guys are here this way?
Speaker 2: If you took them on a table tennis, they just
Speaker 2: wipe you off the the table, right They just.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty three, Denis. Obviously the athletes are playing golf.
Speaker 1: Do you think we've reached I mean, Dave, when I
Speaker 1: had Dave phil Phillips on the podcast a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago, we were talking about speed and you know,
Speaker 1: this new rollback of the golf ball, everybody's saying, everybody's
Speaker 1: going to be hitting the golf ball at you know,
Speaker 1: two hundred mile an hour, you know, plus club hit
Speaker 1: our ball speed. Dave thinks that there's a ceiling that
Speaker 1: you can compete with speed.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I think the governing bodies and the wider public just say, Okay,
Speaker 1: speed is killing golf, but the long drive guys, they're
Speaker 1: not winning golf trumps. Yes, Bryson went on that run,
Speaker 1: but Bryson is even scaled back what he's done to
Speaker 1: Where do you think we are in twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: from an athletic standpoint? But where do you think? What's
Speaker 1: the ceiling on? How athletic this sport, as golf, as golfers,
Speaker 1: how athletic can it become?
Speaker 2: It's a really interesting question. So it wasn't that long
Speaker 2: ago we thought no one would ever break the four
Speaker 2: minute mile, and now college students do it. I think
Speaker 2: that the way golfers are trained has changed, and they're
Speaker 2: all athletes. I don't know whether I would talk about
Speaker 2: a ceiling, but what I would say is that since
Speaker 2: we always talk about speed but not so much about efficiency,
Speaker 2: because I think you can actually get a golf ball
Speaker 2: going further with moderate increases in speed by moving more efficiently,
Speaker 2: like knowing musculature, how it all interacts, how you need
Speaker 2: to move to create a really efficient sequence. And then
Speaker 2: if you make that faster, I think ball's going to
Speaker 2: go even further up. So around that, I think that
Speaker 2: we probably don't need to open the can of worms
Speaker 2: around how far the ball goes and golf courses and
Speaker 2: what we're having to do. But I would think that
Speaker 2: the sports fundamentally changed. I don't see it going back.
Speaker 2: I think I think the other thing that we need
Speaker 2: to look at here is speed is one thing, but
Speaker 2: it's still a game. There's still an art involved here.
Speaker 2: And I look at the best players, and yes, they've
Speaker 2: they're they're probably within a certain bandwidth of speed, but
Speaker 2: they've got great control as well. And that's that's where
Speaker 2: I see it. It's like, you know, speed without control
Speaker 2: or efficiency ain't gonna work out here unless there's some
Speaker 2: sort of advancement in equipment that I sort of can't
Speaker 2: see just around the corner. So I think there's a
Speaker 2: there's a job for all of us to do as
Speaker 2: a as a you know, is working around these players
Speaker 2: and these developmental players, you know, the sports science community
Speaker 2: and the sports medicine community, and coaches, you know, high
Speaker 2: performance coaches around finding that blend of for this player,
Speaker 2: how does this player need to move? You know, what
Speaker 2: does the how does that what is their body needs
Speaker 2: to look like in five years time, how with their physiology,
Speaker 2: what's the most efficient way for them to move? And
Speaker 2: then how fast can they move that way without breaking
Speaker 2: down physically or injury wise, and have the control they
Speaker 2: need over the ball golf ball? And can we also
Speaker 2: teach them like your analogy before with the guy who
Speaker 2: the footy guy, can they actually have some control over
Speaker 2: that as well? Like how much control do they need
Speaker 2: in the modern game with equipments. That's a whole nother discussion, right,
Speaker 2: But that would be the way I would see this
Speaker 2: is just finding what's optimum for each player, because for
Speaker 2: some of them anyway, I'm probably just going to go
Speaker 2: over what I just said, But that's probably more the way.
Speaker 2: The way I see things is we'll get to the
Speaker 2: stage where we'll just go right, how close well I
Speaker 2: know this, if you look at look at some of
Speaker 2: my players, they'll just go right, what's my man acts?
Speaker 2: Where does the ball going when I'm going at max?
Speaker 2: And how do I feel? How far back from that
Speaker 2: do I back off to get within that bandwidth of
Speaker 2: distance and control that I want. That's going to be
Speaker 2: different for every play and every player's program is going
Speaker 2: to be different, right, but that's kind of the way
Speaker 2: I see it. With my background and the people I'm
Speaker 2: fortunate enough to work with or smarter than me, it's
Speaker 2: just going right for this person with their physiology, this
Speaker 2: is their most efficient movement. We can prove that on
Speaker 2: three D. We can see it in the flight, the
Speaker 2: players talking about the control they've got, the strike, my
Speaker 2: good shots, it feels like my good shots going where
Speaker 2: it should go. The bad shot it should be going there.
Speaker 2: And then just figure, as I said, figuring out what's
Speaker 2: the what's that cruising speed? Where I get that? And
Speaker 2: that'll be interesting to see whether that bell curve changes
Speaker 2: over time, right, because I think that's where we're getting
Speaker 2: to as a community of coaches and sports science and
Speaker 2: sports medicine people, is we're just going can we shift
Speaker 2: this more this way? Now? They might roll the golf
Speaker 2: ball back a bit, but that's not going to stop
Speaker 2: that progression. And I think importantly seeking to progress, like
Speaker 2: we're not all going to go, well, well they've died
Speaker 2: the golf ball back.
Speaker 1: Let's just let's just stare where we go.
Speaker 2: Let's just say where we.
Speaker 1: Are we want to Adaptah.
Speaker 2: And the other thing too, is is if you look
Speaker 2: at you look at you know, through history, like I
Speaker 2: look at Nicholas, when you know when Nicholas came out
Speaker 2: what an athlete? Oh is unbelievable. Man, it's just so
Speaker 2: much further than everybody else.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it's not like the game, it's not like all
Speaker 2: of a sudden we've got you know, better athletes. Is
Speaker 2: not the word that the game has always had great athletes.
Speaker 2: It's just know, we know more about how to create them,
Speaker 2: I think, and there's more of them, and I think
Speaker 2: the equipment, the way the equipment is, it's no doubt
Speaker 2: it's more forgiving that lends itself to sort of pushing
Speaker 2: that envelope and trying to move that bell curve a
Speaker 2: little bit, but ultimately coming down the stretch, it's the
Speaker 2: guys that can that have got the ultimate control and
Speaker 2: that art and finesse. There's still an art and finesse
Speaker 2: in the game right in all aspects of the game,
Speaker 2: and as coaches, we can't forget that because we live
Speaker 2: in a very data focused, objective, objective world.
Speaker 1: Lastly, Dennis in twenty twenty three, what do you like
Speaker 1: about golf instruction and the direction it's going and what
Speaker 1: don't you like or what do you just give what
Speaker 1: what are some things that kind of give you pause
Speaker 1: and go h. I don't know about that.
Speaker 2: It's a really good question. So when I first started
Speaker 2: playing as a junior, no one had even a video camera,
Speaker 2: like I think I was nineteen when I saw swing
Speaker 2: for the first time. I was horrified by the way
Speaker 2: because I thought I was a mix of Nicholas Ballistos
Speaker 2: and Watson and found out that I was nothing like that.
Speaker 2: But I think I think back in the day, the
Speaker 2: best coaches they could look at a ballflight, they could
Speaker 2: look at the way you were moving, and they could
Speaker 2: explain to you what was causing that that there weren't
Speaker 2: many there weren't. I don't think there were a whole
Speaker 2: lot of those type of guys around. I think a
Speaker 2: lot of them would go, well, we just we'll change
Speaker 2: your grip a bit, or we'll change your ball position,
Speaker 2: or we'll get you to turn more, or we'll get
Speaker 2: you to change this. But I think there were some
Speaker 2: really skilled coaches who could without the use of tech,
Speaker 2: without the assistance of technology, could work backwards and just
Speaker 2: go right, that's what's causing that, you need to do this,
Speaker 2: and the way they went, I think, well, I've certainly
Speaker 2: lived through an error and as a coach where there
Speaker 2: are more and more and more, you know, equipment now
Speaker 2: that will provide information around what's happened.
Speaker 1: Data collection, data collection.
Speaker 2: So I see a lot of data collection from a
Speaker 2: lot of different pieces of machinery. But what I'm not sure,
Speaker 2: but I'm not seeing a lot of This is a
Speaker 2: shocking general generalization, right, But I don't know too many
Speaker 2: people who can gather all of that information to do
Speaker 2: something with it and analyze it. So we live we've
Speaker 2: lived in it in an era where there's been an
Speaker 2: explosion in technology and assistance. But I'm not but there's
Speaker 2: not a lot.
Speaker 1: Of really, really really good.
Speaker 2: Data analysts who can like process all of that and
Speaker 2: come up with a coaching coaching information, and then you've
Speaker 2: got to come up with how you're going to express
Speaker 2: that to the players. So it's if I use my
Speaker 2: own experience around that just to sort of define that
Speaker 2: not just blanket you know, not just a blanket comment.
Speaker 2: When for example, three D first came out, I was like,
Speaker 2: I've got to be an expert in three D.
Speaker 1: We've got we've got a twelve cents a well, I
Speaker 1: bought one as well, and I'm not a biomechanas.
Speaker 2: Whereas now whereas now I go, you know, what all
Speaker 2: I need is someone who can look at that, see
Speaker 2: all of that in their mind and go, right, here's
Speaker 2: what's happening before those different parts. So the onus on
Speaker 2: on my on my part is to make sure that
Speaker 2: I can have a conversation with someone whose world is
Speaker 2: looking at that sort of thing, right, and their job
Speaker 2: is to understand that I'm just a golf pro and
Speaker 2: they need to dumb it down a little bit so
Speaker 2: that I understand it. So that was I think I've
Speaker 2: lived through an era where we had launch moditors. Now
Speaker 2: it's like, wow, now I've got to understand launch monitors.
Speaker 2: And then there are people around who can simplify that.
Speaker 2: So you can get all of that information and come
Speaker 2: up with a really complicated scenario of what's going on,
Speaker 2: or you can have someone who helps you understand exactly
Speaker 2: what's going on, so you can express something that's complex
Speaker 2: quite simply to that's sorry, turn something that's quite complex
Speaker 2: into something quite simple, because then you need to be
Speaker 2: able to communicate with a player, because at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, if you hook a player up with
Speaker 2: three D or you've got a track man running or
Speaker 2: force plates or whatever. The play's just going to go, well, right,
Speaker 2: a coach, what are we going to do? So you
Speaker 2: can have all the information coming in, but ultimately you've
Speaker 2: got to come up with there's got to be an
Speaker 2: output from that. And I think for me as a coach,
Speaker 2: that's been the challenge. I think I went as I said,
Speaker 2: I went through the whole thing of going, holy crap,
Speaker 2: I've got to be an expert in this, this and this,
Speaker 2: and I've got to totally understand it all because I've
Speaker 2: got to be able to talk to my player about it.
Speaker 2: And I think I've got to the stage now when
Speaker 2: there's an emerging technology, i'ld call so the guy I use,
Speaker 2: Ryan Lumston based here in Adelaide. We'll have a conversation
Speaker 2: around this new technology coming out and it's like, what
Speaker 2: do you think is it going to be useful? Is
Speaker 2: it going to be a coaching result from.
Speaker 1: He's effectively doing. He's the research guy. He's immersed in
Speaker 1: the details, and what you're trying to say is listen,
Speaker 1: what do you think about this new concept?
Speaker 2: And he'll go and police formally educated and.
Speaker 1: Then you said, Okay, now, how can I apply that
Speaker 1: in the real world? And I think that's the important
Speaker 1: thing that as golf instruction becomes more data driven and
Speaker 1: more technology driven, you have to be able to do
Speaker 1: something to affect change with the information that you're getting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree, Otherwise you're just getting him. I've always said that,
Speaker 1: I think we're probably now I think two generations in
Speaker 1: of just my worry is that we're just creating generations
Speaker 1: of data collectors and they're just data money and you're like, okay,
Speaker 1: and they're saying to students, listen, this is I've got
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars worth of technology. This is what
Speaker 1: you're doing. The student's going okay, I didn't know now what, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but this is what you're doing. The technology tells me
Speaker 1: this is what you're doing. But the students sitting there
Speaker 1: going Okay, what the hell do we do now? Because
Speaker 1: anybody can look at the data and say, hey, you're
Speaker 1: doing this, you're doing this, you're doing this, this is
Speaker 1: what's happening. Okay, now what and how do I get
Speaker 1: better as a golfer with all of this information?
Speaker 2: Correct? And that's and if you look at the best
Speaker 2: teams around, the best players in the world, they're able
Speaker 2: to not only gather data, that to effectively analyze data
Speaker 2: and have a discussion and come up with a way forward.
Speaker 2: And typically by the time that's process you digested, processed,
Speaker 2: and spat out, it's a fairly simple piece of information
Speaker 2: for the player. But for example, the fella I spoke
Speaker 2: about before, Ryan Lumsden, he's been working on programs that
Speaker 2: gathered data from from different technologies and he's able to
Speaker 2: he's getting the stage where he's filtering down the importance
Speaker 2: for each player he's in the matrix. He's yeah, So
Speaker 2: he's a very clever man. And as I said, that's like,
Speaker 2: that's something I could but I'm not unashamed to say
Speaker 2: I'm not smart enough to do that. But as if
Speaker 2: I dial this right back to the to the vis
Speaker 2: the CEO of the vis A great man by the
Speaker 2: name of doctor Frank Pike, who sadly passed away a
Speaker 2: number of years ago. When I got the assistant coach
Speaker 2: position at the Institute of Sports, so Dale Intwit's head coach,
Speaker 2: I was assistant coach. He came and sat me down
Speaker 2: and he said, look, he said, there's only two things
Speaker 2: you really need to do in this job. He said,
Speaker 2: when you get up in the morning, he said, you
Speaker 2: need to think about, Okay, well, what can I do
Speaker 2: for my athletes today to help them get better? And
Speaker 2: he said the second thing I'll say is you've got
Speaker 2: to surround people who You've got to surround yourself with
Speaker 2: people who are smarter than you and leave your ego
Speaker 2: at the door. And they are two things that I've
Speaker 2: that I've tried to do my whole coaching life, and
Speaker 2: I think it served me pretty well. At the time,
Speaker 2: I kind of thought he might have been having a
Speaker 2: bit of crack, a bit of a crack at me, going,
Speaker 2: you need to surround yourself with people who are smarter
Speaker 2: than me. Yeah, right, So anyhow, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, I think you're one of you know you, Greg Dave,
Speaker 1: the guys at TPI, you're some of the smartest people
Speaker 1: I know. And I don't think you guys get nearly
Speaker 1: enough credit from people like us because you have fundamentally
Speaker 1: the work that certainly the work that you've done Dennis
Speaker 1: in junior golf development. When I first was exposed to it,
Speaker 1: it literally changed everything for me. And it is shaped
Speaker 1: everything that I have done since then, So I can't
Speaker 1: thank you enough. And it's great to be down here
Speaker 1: in Australia to get a chance to spend some time
Speaker 1: with you. And we could literally do five hours of
Speaker 1: this and just go straight down the rabbit hole. We'll
Speaker 1: get together again soon and do it again. But congrats
Speaker 1: on all your success and keep doing what you're doing,
Speaker 1: because you are one of the good ones, and you're
Speaker 1: one of the best in the world at.
Speaker 2: What you do. I will say this justin is just
Speaker 2: as a final comment or just a final comment, is
Speaker 2: I've been extremely fortunate in my coaching life to have
Speaker 2: come across some people who have been just amazing mentors.
Speaker 2: Is just like you can. I think there's a certain
Speaker 2: amount of coaching that you dig out of the ground
Speaker 2: through trial and error. And I've been extremely fortunate from
Speaker 2: the moment I started coaching, not only to have great
Speaker 2: mentors from all around the world, but great mentors who
Speaker 2: are happy to share and part of that mentoring being
Speaker 2: challenged by people around the way you think too, right,
Speaker 2: And I've been extremely fortunate, and i'd count to you
Speaker 2: amongst those people, Claude, and thanks very much for inviting
Speaker 2: me to speak, has been a's been terrific.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, we I'll see you again soon, all right, buddy.
Speaker 1: So what a cool opportunity I had to get to
Speaker 1: spend some time with Dennis. I hope everybody got a
Speaker 1: lot out of that. Listen, the way we teach junior
Speaker 1: golfers today versus the way that they were taught, you know, fifteen, twenty,
Speaker 1: even thirty years ago, is so dramatically different. And when
Speaker 1: I first met Dennis and I saw the work that
Speaker 1: he was doing with Greg and Dave at TPI and
Speaker 1: went to their junior golf certifications. I think the first
Speaker 1: one I went to was in Madrid in probably two
Speaker 1: thousand and maybe nine, maybe I think two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: twenty ten. And everybody that works with me, that works
Speaker 1: for me, has all gone through the TPI Junior Development series.
Speaker 1: We have one hundred and eighty kids in our junior
Speaker 1: program in Dubai and out of Dubai, small little golf market,
Speaker 1: but in the last ten eleven years, I think we've
Speaker 1: sent thirty kids to play college golf in the United States.
Speaker 1: Dubai is a big, big city on the world stage,
Speaker 1: but as a golf market is a very small small
Speaker 1: golf market, so for us to find over thirty kids,
Speaker 1: some of have gone on to play for University of Florida,
Speaker 1: Ohio State, some excuse me, Oklahoma State, some big, big
Speaker 1: programs and we're really proud of that. And it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be if it wasn't for the work that Dennis has
Speaker 1: done in junior golf development. Certainly wouldn't have been able
Speaker 1: to do the stuff we did. So thanks for Dennis
Speaker 1: to talking to us and to me, it was a
Speaker 1: really really good one junior golf development. If you haven't
Speaker 1: thought about it in the way that Dennis talked about it,
Speaker 1: you definitely should. Can't thank everybody enough for listening, Rate, review,
Speaker 1: subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You guys know the
Speaker 1: drill son of a butch comes to you every Wednesday.
Speaker 1: We will see you next week.