Never Let A Bad Swing Get In The Way of a Good Round with John Grund

0:01 Hi, This is June Gaston from Colorado Springs, Colorado, and I play at Chair Triage golf Course. Golf Smarter number four hundred and eighty three, published on April seven, twenty fifteen. Welcome to golf Smarter Mulligans, your second chance to gain insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets old. Our interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations like this that are no longer available in any podcast app. It's an old joke with golf pros. The student company said, well, if I could just get that bof off the tee closer to the whole and we said, well, that's conceptually you have the idea, right, and they go, what do you mean? I said, well, I'll give you twenty yards off every tee, but my guess is you probably.

0:51 Won't beat your last golf scorer. Now what do you mean, Well, I'll give you twenty yards, right, So you give the guy twenty yards, but it's on the same line that he hit it. So if it's going towards the right rough, now it's deep in the rough at twenty more yards and if it's in the center of the. Fair, and then he gets twenty yards closer. Right, But most people really wouldn't improve that much with the extra twenty yards. Surprisingly for most people that they would actually struggle just as much. So the reality is when they start doing and that's my coaching is going in that direction is more I would say, real time assessment. I'm offering a product now to my students called shot by Shot which analyzes your game in real time and you do it yourself. It's real simple. You rate your drives one through six, did you hit the green, did you not hit the green? And then we find out what you did inside of fifty yards.

1:39 Never let a bad golf swing get in the way of a good round. With DGA certified instructor John Grund, this is Golf Smarter Premium. Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome back to the Golf Smarter Podcast. John. Thanks, Fred, good to be here. It's great to see you again. Tell me what's going on in your life. I appreciate you coming here today because I know that you're leaving town first thing in the morning. Right, yep, where are you going? I'm going to a golf tournament and you're playing, You're not watching. I'm playing. Yeah, the first time I've played in about seven months. Success in September, first golf tournament for me. I got a little accident, little injury. So I'm coming back from that and trying.

2:19 To and what is the what's the tournament. It's the Senior PGA Northern calis Senior PGA Match Play Championship. Okay, so members of the PGA of Northern California who also happen to be members of the National PGA Club Club Professionals. It's our senior section championship. And it's match play, okay. So there's a match play right now and then later the summer there'll be a stroke play version of it. And you've you've played in this tournament, yes, in the past, And how have you done. I lost two years ago, I think in the semi finals, played okay. The year before that I had lost in the quarterfinals. So and then last year I didn't play for some reason. I don't know what it was.

3:00 But you have experience in two PGA Tour tournament place. Yes, yeah, it's been a while, but I've played a lot of tournament golf the last seven or eight years has been a little bit less than probably than I thought. I would have because you're focusing on teaching. Yeah, and I had another business too, as we've talked about before, in the golf industry, and I sold that. Now I'm back to focusing on teaching and coaching full time. So you know, it's hard to ride two horses, but I'm trying to. It's it's a challenge to keep it in perspective, but it's actually good for me, I think, in the sense that I'm kind of getting in the zone where my students kind of come from, and that's probably a healthy thing.

3:40 Yeah, very much. So tell me no, but you have some PGA tour experience. Yeah, No, I played full time after leaving UCLA. I thought I'd go into the insurance business and that was laughable. So that lasted for a couple of years, and I kept playing amateur events and kept playing better. This is a footnote to that. You know, it's every guy from my golf team basically is still playing golf. I mean, you know, you know. So it's like I was like the fifth man on a college golf team, and I thought, surely a fifth man has to go go work for a living, not play golf. Not that golf's not work, but you know that type of work. So but I did. I went out and.

4:22 Worked for a brief period of time in the insurance business, which I trained to do, and found myself playing better and better in amateur events. So I pursued a golf career and made that decision in nineteen eighty one to be a full time no, let's see eighty three, to be a full time golf professional. I guess eighty two or something, and I just haven't looked back since then. I've stayed in the golf world as a golf professional, and I was able to play overseas South African tours, Canadian tours, a little bit in the South Pacific, a little bit in Mexico, a little bit in OURPGA tour. Tell me about that. That's where I'm trying to get too. Well, Okay, what did you go? Well? I so back in the earlier days, I'm trying to think what they called it before the Hogan Tour. I'm a dinosaur. So before the Hogan Tour, which then became some other tour, Nike Tour, and then it became the web dot Com tour. It was called the uh what was it called? For about three or four years, they actually canceled it lasted. That's how Tom Lahman got on the regular tour. A lot of guys came from that tour.

5:30 They played ten events. They were all one hundred thousand dollars and. One hundred thousand dollars person person. Yeah, okay, yeah, there wasn't much to play for. Quite frankly, I thought they were charging you on no, no, no, it was one hundred thousand dollars person. There was ten of them, and if you did well enough, you could actually I forget how it worked, but I think the top ten money winners were exempt of the tour finals. They didn't even give you a tour card. I don't think. Maybe they did. I don't know. It's been a long time. I certainly was not one of those guys, but I played enough of them. I played a few of them, a few cuts here or there, but nothing of any I was better on my home turf in southern California. Competing in events, and I did okay. In Canada.

6:11 I never won, but I had a couple of seconds. Well, yeah, that's that's impressive. Too. Yeah, you know, I was, I was a tournament. Golf is just to me, it's it's like it is what parody is about, right, you have to have parody. There's yea. I love dynasties in any sport. I think dynasties help a sport. But you really, you you may get that once in a generation in professional golf, you get a person who dominates the tour. Oh well, yeah, that's you know, as Malcolm Gladwell would call them, they're the outliers. They're just different people and there's no uh they don't fit into uh they don't fit into categories. They create categories.

6:54 Well, we're talking about Tiger Arnie Jack, you know, I mean it's. Well, yeah, I mean, if you go there, I mean I have some opinions on that, but well you hear it. Well, I mean, you know, probably Walter Hagen would have been one of the first first, you know, as a professional golfer in our country. Byron Nelson certainly was for a period of time, Ben Hogan was, and they all had different characteristics. I honestly think Byron Nelson could shoot lower scores than anybody in the history of the game for quite a while. I mean he shot he posted some numbers that were I think for a long time he had the lowest single year stroke average on the PGA Tour for like fifty years until time, right, I think it was like sixty seven point something or sixty eight or sixty seven, and I mean he was, Well, that's.

7:43 That's so interesting that even today, with all the advancements and all the you know, the the change in fitness and and the body types and the distance, and still scores. Are not decreased. And the average score, yeah, from the PG eight from the PGA Tour to the amateur golf and somebody could probably I'm just going a little bit off my past knowledge, and you know, cause stats are so I don't have Siri with me right now, but I can honestly tell you I don't think the scores have dramatically decreased that much in either category. And I honestly say an amateur golf if if at all, really you know, the the amount of subject, you know, there's just not that many people shooting that much lower golf scores. And let's classify that for a minute. Courses are not as well conditioned today than they were today. They're not I mean then they weren't as well conditioned exactly, and so greens were a little bit slower, but they were bumpier, so putts didn't go in as easy. But then again you could be more aggressive. Like we saw last year at the British Open. You know, you saw some greens that were rolling kind of pretty standard stuff, you know, tens, you know, rolling on what we call a stint meter. I don't think anybody knows really what not many people have ever used one or seen one in their life, but everybody talks about a stimpt meter. I have my own personal stint meter, and that's your brain right.

9:06 No, No, Actually, what I do is when I go to the practice putting green, I'll take three strokes. I'll try to find a flat spot on the practice putting green and I'll take three strokes. I won't even look at the ball once it leaves the putterhead. I'll just keep my head focus, taking just my normal stroke, and then I'll walk it off. Yeah okay, and then I'll go, okay, today it's a six, or it's a you know, and it's a lot with advertre or it's an eight, and that tells me, gives me a sense of what the greens. Are going to be right that day. So anyway, the Stint meter was by a guy named a Stimp and it's it's it looks like an old hot wheels track and it has a dimple in it and you lift it up slowly and we just yourself on the hot.

9:46 Wheels track, you know that. Pardon and dated yourself on wheel. They're still cool, hopefully they're coming back, hopefully, And there's an app for that. There's an app for that. And when you lift it up, it rolls off and if it's on a flat green, the distance that it rolls and they take the average of so many but and you know, greens vary. That's sort of my specialty, but they vary over a period of time. But yeah, so the game is changing, and so we have Hogan that I think was probably one of the most precision driven players ever in the game. And he overcame some extreme difficulties. You know, as we know, he was hit and get a car accident, hit by bus and greyhound bus and so he was a different type of guy.

10:39 He hit the ball and his career changed a little bit. You know, he came on the tour is kind of a long driver. I don't know if people remember that for a guy who was one hundred and forty pounds, he could just smash it. If you go from. Power Golf to to the five Easy Lessons or five Easy Lessons or whatever, you know, swing changed quite a bit. And I think that was a little bit of flexibility. And he also kind of fought a hook a little bit, so he was trying to figure out how to how to. Deal with that. Why are so many people obsessed with trying to find this secret to Ben Hogan? Well, I think it was one of the first times we saw on golf. I mean, Bobby Jones was similar, but he combined both power and finesse in a way that we hadn't quite seen before. And so I think that was one of the things. And his record was pretty impressive, you know, his ability to win majors and respond to the moment for major championships was tremendous, and when you watched him, it was like, you know, it was like and again to date myself, I mean, it was like it was a car.

11:53 Every shot was a carbon copy. I mean one of the things you a lot of people will not really recognize, but we now can we can track with launch monitors is elevation and our shot arc And with Hogan, his shots were so consistent coming off the face, So he would hit a seven iron every time. I mean, it wouldn't. Vary on its on its trajectory, and drivers were the same way, and if he wanted to, he did. And the stories are analyst about him. I happened to spend a lot of time at one point in my early right before I turned pro, with a man named and after I did shortly seventy nine, eighty eighty one, eighty two eighty three, with a guy named John Shlee, who Ben Hogan befriended for some unknown reason, except that Shelee approached him one day and said, I'd like to take lessons from you, and no one did that. I mean, it was like, what have you just done?

12:51 You just talked about Hogan? What did you do? That's crazy? You know you can't say that to mister Hogan, right, And so that that. There was like a islands in the room, like you know, like it was this huge faux pa. And so a couple of years later, Hogan approached him and said, John, how you play it? You're talking to me, mister Rogart, and you know, I've been following your career, you're following my what. So? Uh And sure enough they became close friends, and so he spent a lot of time down and down in Dallas playing. With it was either Preston Trail or whatever wherever they played.

13:32 Shady shitty oaks, I think, but they spent a lot of time and uh, he had some very interesting stories and almost none of them have to do with mechanics. Really, Yeah, what does he talk about? Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah, that's that's where you know, and that's for me as an instructor. That's what I like. You know, I'm a I like just haven't been involved in sports at different times in my life and sort of a I wouldn't say not fanatic, maybe I am. I love sports, you know, like Tomorrow nights pretty. Much the national holiday, right, the national championship, a national championship. It's a national holiday. I mean, you know, for me, I mean, I just.

14:15 That's another conversation. Yeah, right. But what I'm saying is is behavior wins, see, you know, and we saw it last night. You know, we saw two matchups of some two classic teams and the guy Wisconsin. Yeah, the guys that were able to impose their will on the other team one five years from now, where we see how many of those guys in Wisconsin playing in the NBA and how many guys from those Kentucky playing in the NBA. Yeah, Yeah, you just gave a pretty good number there, and I think you're probably pretty close to right. And but last night, Uh, the guys from. Wisconsin, the Badgers, Yeah, the Beedgers, Badgers, the Edgers, the Panger. They were able to impose their will on some Wildcats, right and uh and they won. So Hogan, I think that's one of the impressive things about him, was able to impose his will on a golf course. One of my mentors was a man named Eddie Marin's still pro emeritus a bel air, Yeah, and my coach at UCLA, and I started taking lessons from him in the mid seventies.

15:14 Oh that's a hot wheel thing I just did myself. So anyway, but mister Marrin's is a tremendous instructor. And I remember one time he told me I had transferred there from a Division two school to finish up my career in college golf, and I was transferred into a team that had you know, they were number one in the country and their second team was probably number two, so maybe not quite but pretty close. And and I I was playing pretty well, you know, in the fall schedule. I played okay, and I was kind of on the border making the traveling team in the spring. And he says to me, John, he says, listen, Son. There's four areas. There's four there's four things you need to do at golf. He says, if you learn how to control yourself, you can you can control the club. If you control the club, you can control your shots. If you control your shots, you have a moderate amount of control over that golf course.

16:01 And if you focus on those things, those first three things, you can slightly impose your will on the course. Otherwise the course is going to dictate the terms to you, and you want to be on the other end of that stick if you want to play your best golf. So Ben Hogan was sort of the epitome of that. He was able to impose his will on golf courses because he could determine. And getting back to John Shlee, I remember Slee took me out one day and we were talking about driving and he says, what's going on with your game? And at this time I was a club champion I think at Industry Hills where he was teaching, and we went out and played, and he said, you know, I was having trouble with my driver one day and I asked mister Hogan about how I can improve my driving, and he says, well, John jumping the cart with me, and they jumped out and they went out on the golf course and he says, see this dibot. That was my dibbot this morning. He said, see the dibbot five feet right of that. That was my dibot this afternoon.

16:50 The problem with that is my spot that I was picked out was twenty feet left of that. I hit both of these bat Then he went the next hole and literally he was picking out spots in the fairway where he wanted his ball to end up, and the divot. Was pretty much with it. You know, He's picked out sides of you know, dark spots and light spots in the fairway. He wasn't aiming at trees and trying to hit lines. He wanted his ball to end up like his nine iron right. He was picking blades of grass well basically. I mean, he was you know, we I'm gonna take it over that right edge of the bunker. Hogan was like, no, I want the ball to land, and I want it to end up there, right because from there, that's the shot I want into the hole. Right that that's the shot that I like the look of that shot, you know, or the shot plays better for me, or it's an easier shot in you know, if you got a front left pin, being being short left and in between clubs is not a good place to be. Maybe being on the right side of the fairway not in between clubs.

17:45 You know, you might be twenty yards shorter there on the left if you can drive. It away up there. But hitting the three wood to the right side of the fairway might open Might it open open it up for you a little bit? You know, It just depends. And it's everybody has their shot patterns that they like to play. But he was a master of that. And I think that's so behavior wins, and so those who can practice, Like for like, I'm trying to get ready for a golf tournament, and you know, that's a brain that I got to kind of crawl back into and tournament preparation is a little bit different than normal practice. Well, you kind of want to recreate like I'm I'm trying to get I'm trying to look at my wedges right now and see what my distances are. And so I with a launch monitor, now I can practice in real time.

18:32 I can practice. I can get. Results that are actual, real. Not just oh I think I'm hitting at eighty four yards with my fifty two degree sandwich or fifty four or whatever. No, I'm actually hitting eighty seven. That's the number when I bust this thing. And for me, I'm consistent. I can stand there and hit twenty eighty seven yard sandwiches in a row, I mean literally within a yard of each other if I hit it solid. And so I want to know what I'm doing, and so when I practice, I want to practic just kind of a little bit like I'm playing. So I want to know the yardages I'm trying to prep by what yardis am I currently hitting shots right now? And I want to roll some pots, put a little real time pressure on my stroke on the putting green. So I have a few drills that I used, nothing complex, but just trying to kind of get ready to get my brain ready for I was going to say, it's not about the mechanics, not really, no, no, And like I was given a lesson yesterday to a promising young twelve year old boy, and he's got some talent, and nobody actually introduced to him the idea of a preshot routine, and he had he'd kind of figured it a little bit out of all on his own, you know, because he's got some he had some skill and.

19:43 A twelve year old yeah, yeah. Yeah, and he's got some skill already, you know, he can go out and shoot. So we were talking. He comes to me, this is you'll love this one. So he says, you know, I think I want to work on my driver today. And I go really, oh, okay, well what's going on with your driver? And he goes, well, I played didn't play too well the other day. I go, w'd you shoot? He goes, well, I had a really tough day. It was kind of windy and cold. But I shut forty one at mckinnis or forty two or something. I said, okay, well tell me about the round that's a par thirty thirty two, right, yeah, And it wasn't. It wasn't his best round, but because I think he shut close to par there a few times. But yeah, or maybe he's even broken, but he can play much better. So I said, well, tell me about the round. I said, okay, so I hit a good drive. I hit a drive off one and kind of on the wrong side of the fairway. I didn't hit it quite as long, but I had wedge in and I said, okay, what'd you hit on the next hole? I had wedge in the next hole. I said, what'd you do on the third hole?

20:33 I missed the green? So what'd you hit next? For the second shop? I had wedge pretty close, but I didn't put so well. And we go through things and I said, okay, so so far during this nine hole, as you're telling me, you had nine shots inside of ninety five yards, okay. And how many pets did you have? Oh? I had? I had twenty three pots. So you had thirty two shots with a wedge and a putter. Wow. Again McGinnis as an executive little golf course. Right, it's part three, but there are three. It's the number one, three number four. There's like five part three's six or four or five part three.

21:16 Four four four parts and four part four is four part fours. Yeah, four part fours and five part Three's right. So the point I was trying to make to them was if you want to be better, your behavior has to become better and then your golf swing gets better. Okay, so I said, so when you practice, practice the things that you're not doing well enough on the golf course. Why would anybody want to do that? Why would I want to go practice things that I can't do well? I want to hit the ball, like. Most people go to the golf course and they have that. For them, golf is an activity. It's not a process of getting better. They think it's a process of getting better, but they're actually just doing an activity because they have no idea what actual behavior will actually make them better.

22:07 They don't know how to practice. So if you want to hang out with somebody that plays really quality golf, you will find that they practice more efficiently. They practice the things that are that they need to improve upon because they through determination of skill and knowledge, they determine and maybe today technology they're able to determine their inefficiencies for them, and they'll practice things that may draw upon for the next tournament. That like courses might require a little more driving accuracy, or might require a little more wedge play, or might like this week, we got a gusta coming up. So lag putting becomes number one, speed control becomes imperative, and iron control becomes number two. And so those are you know, things that you need to be blow the hole, you need to.

22:52 Have uphill putts. You don't want to put yourself position where it's really tough to two putt right, let alone one putt. So so with this young man, we said, you know, well, thirty three shots with the do you think that's really the problem the driver? Hmmm, what do you think he probably didn't have that many shots with a driver. Well, no, he didn't. But but the point is is, you know he he had like nine wedge I mean of the holes of all the par fours he had wedge in. Yeah. So and they are a long hole. I'm just saying, in his mind, he's thinking he wants to drive it longer and hit it longer. And I know that's standard for a young twelve year old thinking he wants to hit it further and our farther. I think it's the quick pest, but we all do. Yeah, And and and we all think that, and that's that's one of the ironies.

23:40 It's an old joke with golf pros. But the student comes to he said, well, if you know, if I could just get that ball off the tee closer to the hole, you know, And he said, well, that's conceptually you have the idea, right, and they go, what do you mean. I said, well, I'll give you twenty yards off every tee, but my guesses you probably won't beat your last golf score. What do you mean, well, I'll give you twenty yards. Okay, that's all right. So you give the guy twenty yards, but it's on the same line that he hit it. So if it's going towards the right rough, now it's deep in the rough at twenty more yards, and if it's in the center of the fair and then he gets twenty yards closer. Right, But most people, really they don't. They wouldn't improve that much with the extra twenty yards. Surprisingly, for most people, they wouldn't. They wouldn't that they would actually struggle just as much. So the reality is when they start doing and that's my coaching is going in that direction is more I would say real time assessment I'm offering a product now to my students called shot by Shot which analyzes your game in real time and you do it yourself.

24:44 It's real simple. You rate your drives one through six, did you hit the green, did you not hit the green? And then we find out what you did inside of fifty yards and you know, it's real simple stuff. And from that there's like a three hundred thousand round database and we can kind of drive some of the amazing stats that will help you doing short game challenges with people finding out. So most people really have no idea how far they can carry it. If you ask them to carry a forty four yard shot, no, they wouldn't know what that really is and they and they probably wouldn't make solid enough contact. So that's that's the. One area where the instruction does have to be. You have to get people. The most important thing any golfer can ever do, ever, unequivocally ever is find the low point of his arc. And he can consistently do that.

25:33 That defines the quality of the player. If you want to, I need to tell because I want to clarify this arc of your. Swing or arc of the ball flight, arc of your swing. Okay, the low point. The low point because the golf balls hit first, and the bottom right, the bottom, the bottom of your arc is for all players of lower handicap or you know, the lower the lower lower, it's between probably an inch and almost two inches in front of the ball. So everybody thinks they hit the ball and then the club moves up up Now with a driver, I will I will verify that. There's there's two schools of thought in this. Most of the launch monitors will tell you the best players in the world who just slight me up on it, and I think that's true. But the drivers are deeper now and they're different, so.

26:16 Technically center of gravity, yeah, the pushback. So so your arc is it's a little I haven't quite my brain hasn't wrapped around that one. I'm not maybe quite that quickly smart enough. So so professional players, the better players, the bottom of the arc is in front of where the ball is setting. That's correct, and for most amateurs, most of os, it's that's why so many people hit the ground first, you know, because there is it now, is that a set up position or is that. Well, you know, we can follow my thought. Let me follow with my thoughts mechanics. So so with the short game, you know what good players do is they control their ball after it lands. Right, the best wedge players in the world control their ball after it lands. First of all, they know. I think I've told you the story before, but I had an illuminating story when I was about let's see what year was.

27:13 It was nineteen seventy seven, so whatever. I was eighteen, nineteen years old and I have this illuminating moment. I go up to a golf club near my house to drop off some stuff and there's Hubert Green on the driving range. It was basically, if. You're a musician, it would be like walking into a record shop in San Mafel and finding Bono. Yeah right, okay for me, right, it was like really, so I'm down there, I'm all by myself. I'm watching Herebert Green hit golf balls. And he looks around at me and I'm five feet ten feet away from him, and he says, are you a golfer, which you know, I guess. He was just a conversation. So I said, yes, sir. And by the way, just people don't know this, and I think he was.

27:53 A purple hard guy. Twice so he has a little sense of intensity about him when you talk to him. He just you know, it's just like this piercedness, you know, like what he says to you, it's like, yes, sir, yeah, I played golf, sir. He goes. A few minutes later, he goes, well, do you want to know why I'm the best golfer in the world? And I said I'd love to know. Yes, I would like to know. He proceeded to hit three shots with each golf club in the bag at different heights and different elevations and different distances and different shapes, and basically called every shot and the finish at off he hit I'm now going to hit a driver one hundred and fifty yards with a full golf swing, and which he did. And then what really backed it up for me is he went out and won the US Open a month later, wow, with a death thread on him, by the way, a little little by the by Wow, which I guess was not you know, he understood that world pretty quickly.

28:40 So waking up thinking you might die to day, then you got to play the us O. Yeah, right, he's got to shoot you, right, Yeah, a couple of right, So he gets that anyway, so that for me was the first area of well, if I learned how to control my golf ball, then I get better. I say, so, it's not it's you know, it's not now. I used to think it was always the arrow and not the always the Indian and the not the arrow, and now it's combination with launch monitor. The equipment's huge, don't underestimate it. It's massive. But you know, you need to match your equipment to you whatever Indian you are, right, So we have technology to be able to do that, and that's mass. I think that's probably the biggest change in the game in the last fifteen to twenty years is being able to the combination of the technology and then matching your game to that technology to get the most out of whatever.

29:28 Skill sets you have. But that being said, the best players control their wedge game by hitting the ball consistently and in the manner in which they want to do it, so when they make contact, it's a sound. It's a discernible sound. Maybe not so discernible with little wedge play, but little pit shots and little chip shots. You need to hit that ball first, and the low point is going to be slightly in front of the ball and unless you do that, then you can't control the ball the way you want it. And you know a lot of players with their wedge play fight too much spin. That's the better players. Right, you're hitting a little shot and you don't want it to stop. You needed to you need to roll and roll out. A lot of times you hit a sand wedge and all sudden, oh gosh, it stopped. I didn't want it to stop. Now I got a twenty footer.

30:09 So controlling the ball, shooge and the wedge wedge play is massive. So again bringing back to this young young man, twenty three pots, that's a really bad and the wedge play could have been a little bit closer. So what should he be practicing? Right? Putting and work in the wedge and you know, twelve years old, why not because he's not going to get the distance it's going to come. His golf swing's fine, he'll hit it further farther whatever. I go, he's correct, and so. He's got to do that, and so we need to. But we the lesson I was trying to share with him was, hmm, how do I behave how do I react to my results?

30:51 And how do I look at them? And how do I educate myself on what I do on the golf course and how do I reflect on it, and then how do I get better? And I think that was a great thing for me. When I transferred to UCLA, was hanging around guys like Corey Paven and Tom Pernice and Steve Pate and Jay Delson, all these guys that have won PGA Tour events. Duffie Waldorf Is, they did that. They did that very well. And I think a little bit what happened to be mister Marrin's He invoked sort of that aura of behavior as the lesson he gave me. But it was important to review what have I done on the golf course. I remember I was playing Mini Tours. I was struggling a little bit, and I started keeping notes on my up and downs from different distances and my ratios, and so I started noticing I had a huge gap between about forty and about eighty five yards, and so.

31:41 I started working on that. And the minute I did that, you know, suddenly I'm playing in US opens, I'm finishing high and the money lists and professional events outside of the country. And I didn't do anything massively different. I just learned how to manage my wedge game between about thirty five and about ninety yards. That's yeah. I noticed that for myself as well, that when my start with my scores were going down, it's because I was focusing on those that distance and those shots. Right, sot and stuff. I wanted to talk to you as an instructor, and you even talked about this, Every shot was a carbon copy and you're talking about Hogan. When when students come to you for the first time, what are the the two things that you hear from most students on what they you know, like, why are you here? Distance in consistency, distancing.

32:36 It's just everybody says the same thing. Every instructor says distances. Most people are pretty much I mean, you know, there's there's some element of that neess to it, and some sometimes very clearly. It's just that. And and what I've been noticing too so that. People are starting to that people are starting to say I get more questions now about putting than I used. To interesting, and I don't know why that is, but it is okay. So what I want to go after today is the myth of consistency. I think because I think that it's so interesting to play with people on a regular basis and hear them complain about a shot that they make.

33:20 But I don't think they notice or recognize that they complain about that shot regularly, you know. And I was thinking. I even wrote to somebody recently and said, try this on your scorecard. When you make a shot that you don't like. The first time you make a shot you don't like, just make a mark on your scorecard, okay, and focus on every time that happens in your round. Make the mark and see how many marks you've made during your round to like, oh wait, I did that six times today, seven times. I did that twelve times today. So to me, that means they're incredibly consistent. Well right, I mean it's interesting.

34:02 I mean, let's define consistency a little bit, or inconsistency. The problems they have are reoccurring, and they're the same problems over and over, so therefore it is a consistent issue. They view it is is that they want to be better. So their idea of themselves, you know, it's sort of like it's a little everybody's a little gullible. They always think they're a little better than they are or it's a sting, you know. It's like the sting operations. People can they believe something that they're not and so so that premise allows them to think that they're inconsistent. But when I put them on video or I put them on a launch monitor with Doppler radar, like we see players using or their swings are massively consistent, massively consistent, I mean, there's consistent as tour pros almost.

34:55 You know. The problem is is that their pad, their swing patterns will create a wide a more wide variety of shots because of their inefficiency. But the pattern of their swing is relatively the same way if I if I was to put it on three D motion detector, their body is going to be doing the same thing over and over again. Their pelvis will be reacting the same way. Their spine angle will be the same way. If we look at their club head moving around their body, it will basically follow a very consistent pattern to a certain extent, especially people that have played for a considerable amount of time. Beginners maybe not so much, but people that are that you know, have played, you know, they played enough golf.

35:38 They think they're being inconsistent. They are consistent, they're just consistently inefficient at creating a low point of arc in front of the ball. So how do you convince these students that know you actually are consistent. Well, I put them on you, and I just show them the pattern of their golf club, and then I take a look at their golf face of their face, and they'll find out the worn out spots on their face are all in the same place. That just it's not it's not the sweet spot of the club. Before and more towards the toe. You don't get too many people missing it towards the heel, and on a driver, it's usually high and outside on the toe because they're steep. They're coming steep and they're coming to the club. The club is working at the top of their golf For most people, the club works away from their body and then across their body through the ball, which then produces sort of.

36:29 A chicken wing type effect. Right. So for better players, from the top of the back swing, they have a little bit more depth in so the club can work down and out in front of them, and so the club is now working into their body and away from their body, which is so it works. It works sort of into their body coming down and then away from their body through the ball, where the opposite is true for the inefficient player. It's more away from the body and then into the body through the ball. And so and then what also happens too, They don't get enough weight forward and they don't get the weight, the proper weight forward. They don't get the. They don't get the So every good player and you can see it. It's classic. It's almost classic for other sports too. But if if you want to throw a baseball, if you want to throw a football, and the spine leans away from the target, the leg and pelvis starts to lean to the target.

37:21 So legs are leaning towards the target on the downswing and the spine is leaning away from the target, and that creates leverage in the golf swing and that allows when you get that pelvis area forward through through impact, that allows the low spot of the arc to be in front of the ball. Without it, it just doesn't happen. Interesting, So it's like the kind of the comment might be, well, I'm hitting off my back foot, Yeah, yeah, you are, you know, right, And and that's what people kind of do. And when when you find a person that's consistently getting the low point of his arc in front of the ball, his dispersion patterns will become much tighter. Okay, so we like with the launchmutter. Now with my focope, I can, I can look at this. So I do a lot of tracking of golf shots now with my students, and we start looking at dispersion patterns. I recently had a player and I wish I don't. I don't know how he did in the match.

38:10 Play this week. He's playing in the San Francisco Seniors, and and we just we detected that, you know, just nothing that technical, but his all his all his shot patterns with his wedges between short wedges were short and left and and it was a little bit of a club face alignment and ball placement and just intent of what he needed to do. So a little correction of his stance and a little correction of ball placement, we were able to get his lower his web shots more online and he qualified like in the top five, I think. And he's won his first two matches in this week, and I don't. Know how he did yet. So I've been com busy. I haven't checked. But that's just because I was able to see the dispersion ratio, and we were able to we his dibbot was a little bit behind the ball, and we were able to buy ball placement, were real to get the dibbot a little bit further forward and by moving the ball around create a better, more solid impact, and he was able to get more control over his shots and a little bit more consistency out of that.

39:09 Interesting, that makes sense. Sure, but this is a guy who wants to compete, and he is competing. Yeah, I mean, but what about the I mean when you when you have your normal students right who are just out there because they want they want more consistently, they want more existence, but they're not going to work on it that much because they have enough time to play golf once a week. You have a couple, you have a couple options you have. You can do a reality check and go to your golf pro like me, and find out how far you actually hit it and what your pattern actually is, and then act like a real competitor and to know thyself as divine, admit your weaknesses and play to them or around him.

39:53 It's that simple. And then once you do that, you buy equipment that can maybe with somebody that really knows what they're doing can less soften those weaknesses. And you're talking about getting fitted for your class. Yeah, yeah, just don't change the swing. Just just change, you know, adapt the swing with with with the equipment. So it's going to be a lot harder to change your swing if you're not going to be that dedicated to it anyway. Yeah, and you know, swings don't change. And this is me as a behaviorist again, and less intention changes and intention precedes all activity. So unless you have a clear knowledge of what you're trying to do, and your intention is to do what you're trying to do, which is the correct thing, then the pattern's not going to change.

40:37 So most people have no idea what they were supposed to do with a golf club. They think they're supposed to hit the ball. And there's not a golf prone in the world that thinks about hitting a golf ball. Keep going. Well, they just don't think about they think about where they're all to go. Yeah, the targets first, the golf ball is not the target. Ball is not the target, right. So we have in so I get my students maybe to throw a rope, I have I have them thrown ropes like short ropes, thick ropes at the target, and nine of them will throw it thirty yards left of the target right away. You know, I have PVC pipes that I haven't there. You can even throw your own clubs.

41:19 I take them out of the fairway and have them start throwing the car Yeah, okay, yeah. And so their intention is to swing the club at the target. And unless that's part of the process, then then you're you're gonna have You're gonna struggle. You will. And because there's only two things involved in hitting the golf ball, basically from from a technical standpoint, one is geometry and the other one's physics. Geometry has to do with direction, and physics has to do with the leverage and distance. So if you're swinging a club or a rope properly and you throw it properly out at the target, then you're accomplishing both the geometry and the physics in that moment. And that creates and the only way you can do that is to have your legs leaning towards the target, You're spine leaning away and you and you make and the low point of the arc. I can show you. I take people who would normally hit it fat have them swing a rope and they look like Ben Hogan and they've never played golf before. Literally they look like they have so much leverage coming into the ball.

42:11 It's like, Holy smokes, and what happened. One thing we've done is we've eliminated the golf ball because the golf ball gets in the way of the target for everybody, right, So, and when we start doing that, think people get people get better. But the intention is is what's my intention? What's my relationship to the target? Right? And so the better my relationship with the target is higher quality of golf shots I tend to hit for everybody. So it's a target oriented game. It's not a swing oriented game. It's not a technical you know, it really isn't. At the highest at the simplest level, it's that way, and surprisingly the better you play at the highest level, it's sort of that way too.

42:52 I mean, you have some you have some things that you. Can draw upon as a as an experienced player, that you might be able to fix in a round of golf. But usually it's the simple stuff. It's breathing, it's a little more relaxation, it's getting rid of the noise. Right, use your head everywhere, right. It's that's the stuff, and it's it's just you know, not making yourself the enemy, really, and that surprisingly. I mean, I used to have guys call me a lot before tour school, and not so much and more they're getting older, but but they'd call. Me for about putting. And you know, how do I because I've historically been a pretty solid putter, and John, what do I need to do? You know, inevitably it's like, well, you need to stop trying to make pots.

43:42 What did you just say? I said, you need to stop trying to make pots? What do you mean that's why I'm calling you need to make more pods? I said, well, stop, I go. What do you mean? I said, your only object? Your only job is to hit the ball, figure out what the line is, hit it on that line with the appropriate speed. You're not responsible for it going in. So you can't you can't be forgetting it, can't. Be making the putt while you're trying to hit it. You have to be here, you have to be present. And this is from a guy that has a panic disorder. So I understand the biggest thing in the world is being present, being accountable right here. And I don't mean to laught you, but no, no, no, it's true. No, it's true. So you know, uh, you know, golf has always been my moment of zen, you know, because I can. I'm much better with twenty thousand people, at least I used to be with twenty thousand and ten thousand people watching me than I am in a hotel room in Wichita by myself.

44:33 You know. I mean, I'm having. To read a book, I'm doing sit ups, I'm doing push ups, I'm stretching, I'm doing whatever I'm reading, you know, So being so I'm able to focus, you know, I can. It was natural for me to take my situation on it with a golf ball and make what's what needs to be accountable right here, to make the whole objective for most people to play better, whatever it is. And I think, and I've played with athletes in all different sports through my profession as a golfer. They come to me in pro ams, and they're all drawn to golf for some you know reason, And I think part of the reason is is they realize it takes them back to what I call the original sin, which is, you know, there's a little there's this thing. There's this moment at some point in their lives where they decided that if they focused on this thing, it would captivate them for a really long time. And they enjoyed that process. And they see in golf that it's unless they give in to it, that unless they immerse themselves in the moment like they did with their other sport, which they probably can't do full time anymore, aren't doing full time, that they're able to kind of do this at golf again.

45:48 And they love that process. So guys that and women too, and just guys, the ones that get better are able to immerse themselves in that moment to moment process in a round of golf or even in their practice, and there is it is a sort of meditation. It's a meditation of what's present right now for me to do. And that's target oriented. That's not ball oriented, right, and that's that's that's sort of like the fun process. And we kind of lose track of that a little bit. So you know, I say to my amateur golfers, beat everybody hitting a bat. And my whole motto has always been never let a bad golf swing get in the way of a good round of golf.

46:29 Hmmm, right, I'm going to write that one down. Right, So so you can't blame it on your swing, because that's just placing the blame someplace else. That's just passing it down. You know. You get to sign the scorecard. No one, No, at the end of the round, no one said I had the best golf swing this week. No, you sign your name, right, they don't sign you don't sign golf swing. Oh, my golf swing won the tournament. No, I as a person. Won the tournament. Right. We think tiger Woods golf swing changed all that much? Now you think wedge games changed all that much physically? Probably not. His relationship to that club right now, to those clubs, to those shots has changed, but he mechanically it's probably not massively changed. So so there's the art, right, there's alchemy.

47:15 How do I mixture that and how do I bring that out of me to make it make it as good as I can? And that's where that's the fun, you know, And it's always has been that way. You know, the Scottish understood that in its infancy of the game. Amazing, All right, John, we've come outside now to the golf course that I live next to, and we're gonna do You're gonna do a little tip here on consistency. The number one thing you can do to improve your iron plate is make sure that the low point of your arc is in front of the ball. So one way to do this without practice, without using any golf balls, find a fair way bunker, make a lion in the sand. So what we're trying to do is to make sure our low point of our arc is in front of the ball.

47:58 We're gonna imagine this a line. Is the ball we're. Gonna set up, and we're going to make a golf swing, and the low point of our arc should be slightly in front of that sand. Let me do it again. Now, the opposite of that would be this, See here are my line here. The opposite would be which most of my amateur students do is they hit behind the ball. What we're trying to do is to make sure that you hit in front of the ball. Let me show you that one more time. If this is my line right here, I went the club. The low point of my arc to be up over there, right, so I'd hit the ball first, And now I found the low point in front of the ball.

48:41 Let me do it again. If you can get the low point of your arc in front of the ball, your shots will go straighter and farther