I'm new to this game. I'm trying to do this whole scratch to scratch thing, and I just kind of like invoked to them like I'm really hard working, Like you're not gonna get a half student in regards to like I will like blood, sweat and tears is like the definition. And so I
think they were just also just bought into the journey. And then after kind of seeing like my relative dedication of just like constantly practicing, practicing hitting them up at two am with like questions, they got more and more bought in. And so he was like right off to beat. It was like, yeah, like this is crazy, and I get a lot of emails like that's like you're pretty pragsy, but I'm in a big ninety five percent of my emails for like, Hi, this is Eric Christiansen from Seattle, Washington,
and I play at the West Seattle Golf Course. This is Golf Smarter number eight from Scratch to Scratch. A beginner documents his quest to become a scratch golfer with Jerome Ruff of This is Golf Smarter sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf mines to help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ. Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome to the Golf Smarter Podcast.
Jerome, Hey, Brad, I's going it's going, well, this is gonna be fascinating for me because you're actually in a position that I almost all most was when I started this podcast. Now, I started this podcast in two thousand and five. I started playing golf. Oh. I had been playing golf about five or six years at that point, and I was looking for free lessons basically, So I started calling teachers and asking them, would you like to be on my podcast? And they're going, what's a
podcast? It was, you know, It's like, well, I couldn't say, well, you know, on your iPhone because there were is no iPhone in two thousand and five when we started. No, it's gonna be on you know, on YouTube and Apple podcasts. And they're like, what are you talking about? Anyway? iTunes? You heard about iTunes? Nope, never heard about iTunes. But anyway, I was new to golf, and so I was, you know, curious to learn as much as I could, but I had a sense of what I was doing. What are
you doing? That was a long way to get to this question, But what is it that you're doing. Uh, yeah, that mean that's a great question. And so, um, my main goal is obviously to reach scratch become a scratch golfer. Um. But the whole caveats I'm starting from scratch, never really played golf before and trying to embark on this Ardie's journey toward that that zero handicap and basically partnering up with the greatest coaches in the
world to try to get me there high level. Yeah, right, What to you what do you think about when you say, hey, I want to be a scratch golfer or reach scratch. What does that mean to you? How would you define that? Yeah, so I think you know,
to be a scratch golfer. Yeah, the handicap is like zeros from my first inclination, but also do it in like a regulation course where it's not like I think in my YouTube channel right now, I've only been to like these part threes where it's like eighty yards to the pen, and so scratch golf to me is like become like an elite athlete, zero handicap in a more regulation type of course consistently, and so whatever that takes, I am willing to do. Okay, and do you you're really starting from like you
said, from scratch, you've never played golf before this. Yeah, so I think on my first episode I gave the disclaimer that I was maybe like fifteen to twenty days in. But besides that, with fifteen and twenty days in of like I went to the rain, I was hanging up friends, and then I hit like a ball or two. So nothing like serious or
anything of that nature. But I think I was maybe even worse than when I started this channel throughout those fifteen days, and so more or less I would say scratch, But those for fifteen days basically ensued me to kind of pursue this just because I essentially got one good shot and I was like, yep, I'm pretty much addicted to this game. Now. That'll do it. One good shot is the thing that brings us all back, as we can have a real frustrating day and then all of a sudden, we have
a good shot. And I love this game. So did you play video golf as a kid? Did you? I'm really baffled by this journey, But what launched it? Yeah? So I've never done anything golf related and never watched golf, never played any golf, video games, or anything of that nature before picking up the club. I think, so my background,
like i've I'm a big basketball player. I basically started playing basketball since the age of like four, played it all the ways of varsity basketball, had opportunities to kind of potentially go play college, and then after college, I think I was always like striving for something relatively competitive, and my body kind of wasn't here to play basketball and try to be elite basketball player anymore.
And so I picked up golf. Realized it was like a really good game just by yourself, and so you could always kind of just grind without really any limitations on like other things. And so this is kind of the alternative to like my inklingk for something super super competitive again like my old days. So now I'm here, wait a minute, how old are you? Uh t twenty eight, twenty eight, So don't give me this olden days crap. Okay, So you played, you played, You played basketball as a
kid. Um, and the highest level of basketball competitive basketball you played was high school college. Yeah yeah, uh it was yeah, varsity of high school. And um, I was trying to play basketball at a D one college. I think I missed the the tryout or like the cut line by like one game in regards to like performing UM, and then I think a couple of D three schools we're like in the roadmap. But I kind of
figured, and I'm kind of told this to people. I was like, all right, am I gonna go to the NBA, And then I just looked at Lebron James and I was like no. So so then I just decided I'm just gonna go to college for academics. And then I went to UC Berkeley UM and then kind of has done engineering there. Okay, but you didn't play basketball at Cal. No, No, no, not at
all. Didn't even try to walk on. Uh. It's funny because, like a lot of people, I would play with some of the players at like open open gym, and uh it was really fun, like you know, playing with college players, and I was up to par in a little bit. But uh, and some of some of my friends were like,
yeah, I just go try out. But I think doing engineering at Berkeley was pretty intense for me, and so I just didn't have any time to kind of accommodate anything besides like studying engineering, and so I kind of resulted to kind of do that. Yeah, okay, so you watched Lebron on TV and said, yeah, I never gonna be able to compete at that level. When you were at cal, did you happen to know Colin Morikawa? Because he was at Cal as well, and now he's one of the
elite players in the world. I didn't know Colin or anything like during that time. I didn't even like have an eye toward golf, so I didn't know literally anyone except Tiger Woods and so at Once I joined this U and it was funny because the first YouTube video and I was like, I really want to like emulate somebody. And I was like, see, I got recommended this guy. I was a colinghim who's called americawah, and I was like watching him and I was like, man, I really like this guy's
swing. And then I did some background and I was like, oh, this guess from Berkeley. I think he's like a few grates under me. But uh no, I didn't know him at col Bis. I could say I'd love to swing for sure. No, because in one of the videos, you're working with your coach and he says, do you want to be Colin Moore? How a do you want to be a Matthew Fitzpatrick. And I got the sense you're going, I don't know who those guys are. It's like, I don't know what you're asking. What do I want to
be like him? I don't know what you're asking. Yeah, yeah, it was good, good assumption there. So if you don't know who these guys are, these elite golfers in the world, and you've never watched them, what made you think that you can compete on that level. I don't know if I could compete. I just know I want to get really really
good at golf. And I think maybe we all well maybe, and it's actually maybe, it's actually a good thing that I don't watch them, because I watched Lebron a lot, and maybe I'm just disguised by not watching them. All right, So yeah, I think, um kind of like an Ostrich. It's kind of like an Ostrich sitting in sticking its head in the ground, going there's nothing wrong with the world. I can't see it. It's like I can't excuse me. Um, Okay, So I tell me
about your process of picking a teacher. Yeah, so, um, I think so as my channel kind of resembled I have a few teachers in the realm of teachers that I try to like pick I guess that isolates one specific
aspect of the game. So the mental side of things, you know, as doctor Critic commander, Um, he was a mental officer for the Tokyo Games, and so he I was actually kind of talked to a couple of things and we essentially kind of just vibed a little bit and he was like, yeah, I've ever experiencing golf, and UM, I was just you know, um our conversation initially, like it was great from my full swing. I really wanted to focus really on so and is really good at fundamentals
initially, Um, just for for the way things process. Right now, I'm still kind of figuring out, like who's the best coach for me. I think where I'm like two months in and so you know right now is Mike Guidra, and you know, he's been really helped full and certain things. But I'm still trying to figure out, like the best coach in regards to like how I learn. I think there's so much information right now coming
at me. There's a lot of things that's changing in my swing, my body and all this stuff and so I think, you know, that journey in itself will be an entirely different journey of like trying to find the perfect match. And then for my putting coach is Derek Outta who is Zanders And
so that was just like I gotta get this guy. And it wasn't like, oh, like you know, like I didn't really have like, oh, I want to look for this specific thing in a putting instructor, because like I said, I was kind of like blinded of like what the star game is. And so you know, that was kind of more of like, oh, yeah, if he's teaching somebody who could get who's really good and has other people under his belt, and it's probably gonna be a good
fit. And like, personality wise, me and Derek really do really well together. I think his background is in basketball too, and so we kind
of vibed. And then for my body, I just kind of reached out to like the best physical therapists and sports performance UH specialists in my area, and UM, right now it's like Cattles Fitness Cattleist sports performance in physical therapy and so UM, I think there's a a lot more people that's going to join the channel that I haven't shown yet in the next couple of weeks,
which I think is going to be exciting. But um, that's kind of like my initial process in the in the first two weeks two months on this journey, too many more questions that I need to go over, and we're going to do that. Um, But we have some great sponsors, and I know I'm warning you now, please don't fast forward through these commercials with these sponsors want to be part of this podcast, so give them their time and we'll be back. Jerome. Your your process of finding various instructors to
work with. Did you start with a sports psychologist or did you start with the swing mechanics physical I started, Yeah, I started with all the full swing coach. I think in my initial journey, I was like meeting with a couple of people there. I wanted to solidify that for the least initial term, like the short term, and then I think that kind of led me to a lot of conversations other people. And so it was that person first, and then the putting coach was kind of like in the works coming
in. But then that started branching out because I actually had like a shoulder impingement and then a fractured patella, like right before this journey, and so I was like, Okay, I need to fix this part of my body to you know, get to a certain level because a lot of these people are like, yeah, you just need to turn your hips, turn your hips or do this as your shoulder. I was like, oh man, I can mentally know what to do, but it's it's weird because I can't
get there or just like slight pain. And so that I was like, Okay, this is kind of just a necessary entry thing. And so the physical therapist and the sports psychologist kind of came after that. I think the sports psychologists started creeping in once I was getting like relatively okay in my swing, where I'm like, oh my god, now I'm just super frustrated. And so I think things have kind of just residually kind of entered the channel
based off of like certain events that's happened in my in my journey. And you're you say, you're twenty eight years old. You went to cal engineering degree, so you're probably out of school now for five maybe six years, right, more or less yet, Yeah, so did you get a job right out of college? Where were you doing? Where were you living. Yeah, So after Berkeley, I lived in at the what's called San Francisco.
M mainly just worked in tech, which is a classic thing UM and was a data analyst and then became a data scientist and then software engineering, and so did those in Common nationed some business roles and so kind of had like both sides of the spectrum. And then moved from like San Francisco, and after living there for about two to three years, UM moved to New York. Lived there about three years, and then the incident. I decided I'm gonna do this. I just bought plane tickets and flew to San Diego
so I can play golf all all year. And this, Okay, you're really blowing in my mind. You're so you decided, oh, I'm just gonna chuck all of this. Probably you you got some you work for some tech company that paid you well and and you cashed out on that. But I'm just assuming, Um, but you decided I'm gonna do something crazy, and I'm just gonna move to San Diego and start playing golf. And you, I'm just assuming your parents are going you what you're doing? What or
have you even told them that you're doing? This yet. Yeah, it's it's got a it's got comical because I'm actually still working my full time job and so I'm I am a software engineer at a startup, which is like very high pressure because there's only six of us who are trying to build this thing. And so that's eighteen hours of each day. Yeah, I work about ten to twelve hours at my job, and then the remainder of the
day I play golf. Um And so I wake up at four thirty am every day and then I basically code for about ten to twelve hours, which only brings me about two two to four pm, and then from there until ten I'll play golf. Wow. Okay, and your parents what do they and your parents what do they know about this? What do you I don't think they know it yet my entire okay, all right? And and I'm assuming golf was never part of your family's background either. Oh no, that
and I think they think golf was boring sport whole time. Where did you did you grow up in the Bay Area as well? Odd? No, So I'm Filipino in Spanish, but I was born in Japan and then moved to the Philippines and then I moved to Canada and then from there moved to the States, bounced around like every other year in the Bay and then from
the Bay the New York and San Diego trajectory. Okay, okay, yeah, whose idea was this for you to create a YouTube channel that will follow your journey on becoming starting with never touching a golf club, not even knowing what to put in a golf bag, and what everything you're putting in a golf bag? What it does? I mean, I'm assuming that just from watching the first couple of videos. Whose idea was this to create this journey
on YouTube? Oh? It's it was completely mine. I think like on YouTube, you know, I think there's a lot of great instruction, but I think, well, it was lacking, especially for me, just empathetically thinking about myself as like a beginner who didn't know anything, Like I would watch a lot of these great instructors, but they really weren't being asked like questions of like a beginner or like oh, I'm like so new to all this, how am I going to modify it to? Like my swing?
And so I thought like, not only you know, I would love to get better at golf, but you know, provide like a channel and medium where people can you know, relate exactly how like when they're in those shoes, are like, oh man, I'm a beginner, like you know, this guy's saying there were a lot of great stuff, but I don't really
know how to comprehend all that. And you know, you could see my videos, I'm kind of like maybe lost sometimes like oh and maybe ask maybe it's like simple maybe you look lost alive and I wanted to ask you about that, but Dad, I'm sorry, no, no, no, that's totally fair and exactly like I said, full transparency on like every single aspect of the game. And so I was thinking, eventually, you know, I'll go through this journey where I'm a beginning beginner, maybe go into intermediate,
and hopefully maybe in a couple of years be more advanced. And so having that like journey that people could follow and like at any time and any moment in the channel, they could just drop in, I was like, oh, I'm actually an intermediate right now. Let me go into this area and they could like relate or I'm a beginner like Jerome in the first five months, I could just start watching these videos and or like, oh, man, I'm already almost scratch. Maybe I'll go into the advance section.
And so I feel like that would, I guess, in my mind, was like a huge value that you know, could provide great value to like people watching it, just a little different form from like all the videos out there. And so yeah, that's what I was initially thinking when I was like, oh, let's maybe create a YouTube channel around it. Yeah, I mean when I first started doing the podcast, and I was for many
years into it, and hopefully I still. But when I hear a term from an instructor that I'm not familiar with, I'm fine with going wait a minute, I'm not familiar with that term. Can you please expand on that and tell me what that means? And so I get the whole thing of coming at it from somebody who's somewhat of a beginner. But again, I've been doing this now, I'm in my eighteenth year of talking to teachers. I've learned a lot, and I still feel like I'm I'm on a journey.
I was never on a journey to become a scratch golfer, but last year I did achieve becoming a single digit handicap golfer and that again, I was kind of surprised, But after all these interviews and learning so much from so many different people, I've been able to incorporate a lot of that and it's helped me a ton. So I wish you well on your journey. And we're not done talking about this journey. Okay. It was your idea that you have a cameraman. Do you have a crew or just a guy
who's following me around with a camera. Oh? Yeah, I have a few people helping me out. Like I just kind of like reached out to a couple of people in Marry. I was like, Hey, do you want to help like just film me at times? And so it's nothing like professional I don't have like an agency or anything of that nature. I just like ask a couple of people, Hey, I'm doing this thing, Like do you want to come out and just film me when I'm going to the
course or like lessons. You're like yeah, sure, And like a few people helping the edits And because like initially, like my past, like I liked editing videos and I was like, oh, I could probably do some of this a little bit, but you're running out of hours in the day, when are you get to head this things? Like what are you going to do that? Yeah, and so I just reached through a few folks
like hey, do you want to help like edit? Um, you know, I'll give them a little direction in regards to like the voice to tone a voice like you know, just like express. And I think like right now, like we're not even doing too much edits because I was like, let's just make it super super raw and transparent so that people can you know,
not get like a lot of cuts. I think, you know a lot of YouTube videos like oh, let's just make crazy cots the best parts and I'm like, now leave everything all bad, all good like um and so um that's kind of like produced like editing time as well, because we don't need like the craziness to b s edits or the crazy other stuff edits.
And so yeah, just a few folks. Um. And sometimes you have cameras going so you have a cameraman and you have an iPhone on a or you have a phone on a tripod that's getting a different angle, so you do have to do some edits going back and forth on that I did. I did notice that as a video editor, those are the things that I noticed, like, what are you shooting with? Who's who's shooting? Is he on it? Is he using a gimbal? You know? So
all right, another time out and we'll be back after this. Now you're what two months into this journey? Yeah, I think proximately episode sixty three that's basically my un like how many days? Sixty three days? So you're doing an episode every day every day? Yeah? Wow, And congratulations you're you're getting a lot of traction on YouTube. I'm quite surprised of how many
people are subscribing and commenting. That's pretty impressive, um for a ranked beginner, because golfers don't have a lot of patients, experienced golfers from what I have witnessed, experienced golfers don't have a lot of patients with with brand new players. So it's a good thing you're going out to these part three choruses, you know, where a lot of beginners are getting their start and trying
to figure things out. But one of the last video that I watched is you working with your swing instructor, Mike, who I don't know why, but he sounds like my eye doctor. I keep waiting with the number one umber two number one or number two, number two or number three. But he's very patient with you. He is, how did you enlist him with this concept of I'm gonna become a scratch golfer and I'm gonna document my journey on YouTube. And he said, I'm all in, no, how did
that happen? Yeah, it's it's pretty funny. I've gotten a couple of those questions too. And I am more or less just cold called like these instructors and or emailed them and just said hey, like I'm I'm new to this game. I'm trying to do this whole scratch the scratch thing. And I just kind of like invoked to them like I'm really hard working, like you're not gonna get a has student in regards to like I will like blood, sweat and tears is like the definition. And so I think they were
just also just bought into the journey. And then after kind of seeing like my relative dedication of just like constantly practicing, practicing hitting them up at two am with like questions, they got more and more bought in and so but he was like right off to bed. It was like yeah, like this is this is this is crazy and this is and I get a lot of emails like that's like, you're pretty crazy, but I'm in it, and
so I think my emails were like that. I wouldn't be surprised. That's what this podcast is basically going, you're crazy, dude, you're crazy. And so when Mike said, yeah, I'm in here's my hourly rate, or he's like he's just doing this for the fun of it now, Yeah, no, I still uh yeah, pay these coaches. Um yeah, okay, So the last video I watched with you and Mike was the one was like he was giving you information based on how to break one hundred,
how to break ninety, how to break eighty. So that was probably just a couple days ago. As we're recording this um and a lot of the stuff that he was saying to you, he would ask you a question, you'd kind of nod your head, but I get the sense that he had no idea what he was talking about in many of these things, Like you know, like he goes by pretty fast. He's really because you're asking him
for so much information all at once. I'm trying to absorb this that he's saying stuff that am I right in assuming that you're kind of lost, and a lot of things that he talks about for that one specifically, like I definitely absorbed the information, and I understand it's because, like in previous episodes, he did mention those things to me in parts, and so he was kind of just putting an aggregation in like it into this lesson, and so for me it was kind of review which was great, and so that was
kind of like nodding. But the great thing I think about this journey and documenting it is like once I get home, I'll just review it again and I'm like, oh, yeah, that makes for sure sense or I just need to like recall, but yeah, I think the majority of the things has made sense. I think my biggest disconnect at times is like I'll mentally
get it. I'll know like, Okay, this is exactly what I need to do, but it's like my body isn't following suit yet, and so I'll like, all right, and you get in this position, in this position, do this, this will lead to this type of shot. But going a million miles an hour and hitting a ball in a mill second, I think is like the biggest story. I'm like trying to get all those things and do it in like less than a second has been the biggest disconnect
for me. But similar to like, I guess, I guess this is why I'm not super discourage. Is like when I was playing basketball, that's pretty much the process where I would just do the same thing over and over and over. Eventually I'm like, Okay, I'm good enough to do it, so I have that frame of reference. But yeah, to answer your question, mentally, I understand, but physically hasn't followed up with what I'm learning and has your sports psychologist let you know yet that the more you think
about it while you're doing it, the less success you'll have. Yeah,
actually today is that right? With that same concept, And so he gives like mental exercises and like stiff stuff to think about in regards to like cognitive cognitive abilities in regards to like, don't think about all this, but you will basically have that in the next couple months since you're trying to learn everything, but eventually it's going to be so rinse and repeat that you're just not going to think about it in your body's gonna just follow a false suit.
And so that's helping me put things into mind because I'm just going like, oh my god, after five hours, I still can't get this. And they're like, you have to like put this irrelevance. You're two months in, Like you shouldn't be acting like you're a scratch golfer yet. And I think that's got my mental mindset all the time, like I need this now, and I'm like, I think I should be here by relatively, I
think I'm okay. Well, you know it's something that personally for me, like I said, this is all about me becoming a better golfer and getting all this information. And I was probably into my sixteenth or seventeenth year of doing this when I got that concept of when you think about what you're doing, it's not good. I mean, I always talked about the mental game, and I always consider the mental game as how I don't beat myself up
after a bad shot and just let that go. But then all of a sudden, I made this subtle adjustment to not thinking about the things I need to do during the swing and just letting my body do what it does. That all of a sudden, I became a better golfer. And that's when my index dropped like many points in just a few months, I was playing so much better golf. But golf is not like a fixed thing like basketball. The court is the same size wherever you play. The basketball hoop is
the same height. No matter where you play every golf course, you're going to approach every golf course every golf shot. Even if you play the same course over and over and over, every golf shot is going to be a different shot than you've done before. So it's not like you can just pull that back from where you were in the past and say, Okay, I've made this shot before. It it just doesn't translate. So thinking about all
those things can make it really difficult. Yeah, by putting coach, I think by maybe three weeks and was like, this is way different from basketball because you're not training for one game. You're basically training for maybe like fifteen games into one where you have your long irons, short irons, you got your putting long putting, short putting driver, all these different things and they're slightly different in nuance. And then combine that with the permutation of different courses,
different positions. And so I was and he's like, I mean, I applaud you. Let's get on this journey. But just be aware. This is not like basketball, even though bast player and then I was like, I'm in it. I love that he says, I applaud you because when he when he turns his back, he's going, WHOA, who is this guyl? What is he doing? You're right, people are proud. You're crazy. You're absolutely crazy. That's what I loved about it. I watched a video. I'm going, oh, no, I have to talk
to this guy. I have to figure out what the heck he's thinking about. Um, Okay, we're gonna take another time out because I have another question. But it'll lead to a longer conversation, so we'll be right back. Let's hear what's going on in Golf Smarter Mulligan's. This week on Golf Smarter Mulligan's is part of our continuing tribute to doctor Glenn Albaugh, who appeared on Golf Smarters six times, but we lost him at the age of ninety
one this past February when he passed away. This fourth episode, which is a continuation of last week's conversation, was originally published for members only. That means that even if you've been listening to Golf smarters since it was published in January of twenty fourteen. But you weren't a paying member, then you've never heard this one before. This episode talks about the preshot routine from the mental
side. When we practice the inner game, the trust drills, we're practicing the end of the routine, because a preshot routine begins with a commitment to a strategy, and we do that in our thinking brain. Then we leave our thinking brain, we step in an aim, we visualize the shot, then we take aim with our club face and our body and of course our mind. And then we moved to the last part of the routine, which is trusting, which I mean retaining the image of the target, feeling this
link that matches that, and hearing the sound in advance. But we practice these separately and then we put them all together in our pre shot routine. So the inner game the trust drills are the end of the pre share routine. And then when we were able to make that walk from the practice rain to the first tea with a swing, we can trust. That's golf Smarter.
Mulligan's episode two hundred twelve, the fourth of six episodes in our series featuring another incredible metal game coach whom we recently lost but allow his legacy to live on. Doctor Glenn Albaugh, author, coach and pioneering sports psychologists. Check the show notes or our blog posts to learn more about Glenn, how to get either of his books, Winning the Battle Within and The Clutch Golfer
Formula, and get information about donations in his memory. Please subscribe for free to both of our golf podcasts, Golf Smarter, published every Tuesday since two thousand and five, and our sister podcast that revisits the best of the Golf Smarter show, called Golf Smarter Mulligan's being released every Friday from wherever you're listening right now. So the first round that I watched, um, you play, you go out for the first time on a on a Part three course.
First of all, dude, you're driving in a cart. Part three course. You can walk the golf course or is that because because the camera and wants to be not not have to walk? Yeah, I guess there's Part three courses. They won't allow me to walk with a camera person or a spectator and so it's like, yeah, so I have to get a cart every time, and I'm like Oh my god, it's cutting into my butget But yeah, do you have a budget here? Do you have Like?
Okay, after five years of doing this every single day, I'm gonna explode. I just need to take a break. Do you think that it could take you five years? Do you think it could take you fifteen, twenty years? Do you think it's going to take you six months? Oh? Um, I'm well into it for at least five to ten years for sure. I'm like, I'm in it for the long haul. I think a lot of people on like instantaneous gratification, but I'm like willing to do
whatever it takes. In regards to bid Jet, I don't want to really disclose too much of that, but no, no, I am. Yeah, basically you want to basically do this until I go completely bankrupt. Well, luckily you're still working. That's a that's a good thing. I'm glad to know that you're still working, because as a parent, I would be slapping you upside the head, going what are you doing? Go back to
arc um. Now, there's so many things about golf that you don't necessarily learn from an instructor, but you learn from being out on the golf course. Right, And you don't learn from hitting balls that are driving pounding balls away to driving rates that you learn while you're playing with other people, like the parts about being a good golf citizen or about golf etiquette, which I'm not necessarily a huge fan of those traditional things, but a lot of them
do make sense once you get into the game for a while. Has any of that been introduced to you yet? Yeah, So I think that's a great point. And I think that not only my coaches and the YouTube community, because person coming in with no idea what this game is about, like golf etiquette and all that stuff. I've kind of just like wandering like well, hitting balls and like learning about like people walking in people's line. I
never really knew that was a thing. And then like where you're supposed to stand in regards to like putting, I knew like you shouldn't be talking. That was like probably the only thing I knew. But like I'll just read the comments and you know, always good advice, like you a proper etiquette
is this is this? My coaches will like kind of off hand say some stuff like that, and then I'll have like really, which I think I've been fortunate about it is like having random partners, um not only be like willing to like you know, except that I'm like filming, Um, I try to go as fast as possible, but like they'll always be like hey, like, um, you should kind of do this this and this, and I'll like preface this. This is like some stuff that has not even
shown on YouTube. I'll like ask them, hey, like I'm a beginner, like let me know if you know some things I'm doing is incorrect or like etiquette wise, because I have no idea and so um off camera, they'll just like hey, by the way, like, um, I'd do
this next time or whatever it may be. Like the other day, just learned like there shouldn't be like all the balls on the putting green when like people's putting, so like try to put like your your marker there as soon as possible, and so like before I think like episode two or three, I'm like just leaving anything there, just kind of like waiting around. And
so I think definitely progressing there. Um and I'm thankful for everyone's kind of helped me be is kind of like the end headlights type think a critical part of playing golf is knowing how long you hit each club. And I got that sense from one of your first rounds. It's like, I like this club, I'm just going to keep hitting it. And it was like, no, no, kid, you can't just keep hitting that club thinking because it's not the club, it's you that does the work and then the club.
The club face is what the difference is between how far the ball goes as long as you have a consistent swing, which is yours away still for you to do that. Have you rounded out your back? Have you completed because I know Mike went through your back going yet you don't you need this club? You need this club, You need this club. You don't have this Why do you have that? Have you completed a full set of clubs yet? Do you know how many clubs you're supposed to have in your back?
Not really, not yet? Um, But right now I think I have high hybrid I which I probably you should get. I have like a three wood a driver five six seven eighty nine fifty six sixty potter um pitching wedge and I think it's called like an attack widge um or a log widge And that's all I have right now. Um. But like even even at
the courses. Right now, I'm not too comfortable like hitting like the longer irons or the driver or the three wood yet, and so I'm mainly just trying to like optimize my distances and like my game around the other stuff while I learned about the other stuff as well. So a lot more holes in the bag. But I think as my my game progresses, I'll probably like invest in more of that stuff. Do you know that there's a limit of how many clubs you can carry? Are you a worry? No? What
is it? I learn everything? Go find out for yourself. Um, twenty two clubs. You're just allowed to carry twenty two clubs. That was for the audience. Um, so wait, do you look? Is your seven iron is your favorite club? I think nine iron right now is my favorite club? And how far do you hit your nine iron? Do you think? Not? Not's the what I'm not asking. What's the longest you've ever hit your nine iron? But what do you It's like, Okay,
I've got this distance, that's my nine iron. Do you know that part yet? Yeah? I would say my nine errands around like one twenty five to one thirty five, Um, and then see, but it's so sporadic because uh, I went to this range and I think one of these videos it's gonna drop soon. And like I hit my seven iron like two thirty, and then I hit my five hour in two seventy five and it was
definitely luck of like hitting it exactly where it needs to be. But I was like, I don't really have engauge of like what max distances or my averages for the longer irons. But whenever I know it's like onety one fifty, I'll be like, hit a nine or eight. Okay. Are you familiar with Bryson Dashambo? Do you know who he is? Yeah? Okay, I've interviewed somebody who was his caddy for a while and he told me that Bryson Dashambo hits the seven iron two twenty. So are you sure you
hit your bar you hit your seven iron as a beginner. Are you sure that's how far you hit it? That's the thing. And even at one point Mike asked you about the length of a club and you gave him a range of like twenty yards and he guess, no, no, no, it's not the answer. You need a number. Would you tell me what how far you hit it? That's why. And this is going to actually be on like a video that's posting suit and we like asked the people.
I was like how far is this? And we all raged. It was like yeah, three died and then I hit the seven iron the five hourn and then we were we did the bath and we're like, wait, this is two hundred and seventy five yards and so uh and I was like conferring with everyone and they're like, yeah, dude, you you sent this five iron two hundred and seventy five yards. And then we did that for the
next one. We're like, yeah, you sent the seven with a two hundred twenty twenty two twenty five on like a two ninety or whenever at Bebo. And so I was like triple checking because like my range finder isn't great, So I'd like to ask everyone else and like I'll drove their drivers by like fifty yards and so again like never hit that lucky thing, but uh, usually it's not good. I'm are you sure it's not one seventy five and one fifty not two seventy five, because that's that's and was it going
straight? Yeah? It was perfectly straight? Um, because yeah, you could it could be a phenom. I don't know. Maybe I don't, but it was like the best thing I ever at the eel C I hit one hundred percent horrible four because I just like used my entire body. But I kind of knew it was that because like the next club I hit was a fifty sixty three on a three nineties. I was like, we're not a three fifty six. I think it was a nine. But so but
then like I said, what outliar case never done it again? But um yeah, yeah, unbelievable. This is so much fun. Um. So you have not even established a handicap yet. You haven't played enough golf to establish whether you're a twenty twenty five, thirty or or at ten right now? Right yeah, No, I've only been to these three part threes. Um. I think for me, I was what I think I'm going to
try to get like a handicap, like at the three month mark. Um, I want to be able to hit a driver at first, and then uh kind of just understand some other stuff that you know, I've been doing incorrectly, and then I'll go to like a regulation course and then probably get my score then. Um, not too far from now, but um, no, no handicap yet. Do you know what it takes to get a handicap? I know there's like a lot of math that goes into it,
but I think there's a what it means. I don't really know too much. I just know like it's relative to the what you have in relevance, like Scott zero, So like a bogie I think is like whatever, getting a bogie on average on eighteen and then over like fifty two holes or maybe that's wrong. There's something of that nature. I don't know. You need, you need, you need to have ten rounds that you've put into the
system before it'll kick kick back a handicap to you. And it's base and a handicap doesn't show what you're scoring is it shows what your potential is. So it takes your of the last twenty round that you've played, it takes eight of them and takes the best eight and say, okay, this is your potential. And a handicap is really based on gambling. Golf is a gambling game. Are you aware of that? No? What does that mean? Ah? Well it you'll you'll get out once you get to eighteen whole
courses and you hit a five iron two hundred and seventy five yards. Sorry, I'm laughing. People are gonna go, Okay, how much money is on this round? What are we paying? What are we playing for? Right? And it's like and they're gonna want to gamble with it. You're gonna want to put money on for you to back up your your game. And so it's based on your handicap, and a handicap just levels out the
playing field so that everybody. So if you're a scratch golfer and you're playing with a ten handicap, then you have to give them ten strokes basically depending on the golf course because it's from course of course, all these things I'm
throwing at you, and so they give. So that means that if at the end of the round and it's a par seventy two course and you shoot eighty two because you're a ten handicap, you know approximately, but you know, you shoot an eighty two and they're a scratch golfer and they shoot seventy three or seventy four, would then you would take that handicap into consideration you
beat them. So yeah, but you're gonna you're gonna come across people that are gonna, you know, or they'll want to play for money and they're gonna want to gamble, and that's the whole point of golf from the beginning, and that's why the handicap system was created from my perspective, so that everyone's playing on the level playing field and you can compare apples to apples here, So that's what that means. Getting to scratch, getting to single digit
is hard enough. But you'll hear and you'll probably do a tremendous amount of research. You'll hear people talk about getting from a ten to a seven is hard. Getting from a five to a scratch. Giving from a three to scratch is super hard because you have to be incredibly consistent on shooting part or better on a regular basis. And you'll once you start playing in a regular regularly, you'll either start to hate the game because you're you're so enthusiastic.
I love your enthusiasm. You're so enthusiastic that you haven't had any problems yet. You don't know, like all the things that are gonna come in and say, this is golf. You can't be that good. The golf gods are watching and we're not gonna let you be that I'm being a bummer. I'm being an old fart, and I apologize. I don't mean to yuck on your yum and and and put any dampers on your enthusiasm. I think it's I think it's admirable. I just think it's outrageous. Oh, one
hundred percent outrageous. All right, well, man, again, what's the name of the channel on YouTube? It's just my name, Jerome roof In. But yeah, every episode is a scratch the scratch episode, and yeah, check that out. It's entertaining. Look it up. It's entertaining and you'll learn stuff because I even picked up a bunch of things watching. It's like, oh right, there's reminders in there, there's a little new and golf is nothing but nuance. Man, it's just the amount of nuance.
And again, I've been doing this for such a long time and I pick up new stuff all the time that I go, oh, that's gonna help me. So I want to thank you for helping me as well. Oh well, it's been a pleasure, and hopefully the future content can help you and everyone else watching. Welcome back to Fred's nineteenth Hole. So my wife returned from being with the grandchildren for two weeks, and that allowed me to continue to work off my winter layoff and prep for my trip to Abandon Dunes
next month. Happily, of the six rounds I played in that time, my final round at my favorite course, Rooster Run in Pedaluma, was the best. It started great with birdies on one and two and had only twelve puts on the front nine and I made everything inside of fifteen feet. It was so much fun. Now My ball striking was much better, and I ended up shooting a thirty eight and thirty nine seventy seven. What I'm recognizing is that when I can keep my butts under thirty two for the round,
I have a decent chance of breaking eighty. Easier said than done, right, And while I'm at it, can I comment on the handicap system for a moment? I know that I tried to explain how it works to Jerome near the end of the episode. But if our index is supposed to represent our playing potential, can you please explain to me why in the world we use that for competition. When my buddy Neil and I play together, he says I have to give him six strokes or more. Yet almost every time
we play one of us wins by no more than two strokes gross. My suggestion is that we look at three different numbers when competing. Sure, showing your potential is a great number to be aware of, but taking the eight best rounds over the last twenty isn't an honest representation of how we're playing. The anti handicap, that is, taking the highest eight scores over the last twenty also represents what your potential is when everything isn't working, which is more
often than not. So why can't we just take the average score over the last twenty rounds and use that well? Because people pad their numbers. But for instance, over the last twenty rounds between November nineteenth and May twentieth, almost exactly six months from me, my average score is eighty three point four. Does that actually coincide with me having an index of seven point eight.
I'm sure I'm missing something, But if you can explain why this is the best system for competition, I'd love to hear from you and get that. I'll listen. Just tell me why. And what about our newest ambassador, Eric Christensen from Seattle, Washington. Does he play up to his best eight rounds every time out. I don't know, but I do know he's going to get better now that he's chosen to receive Tony Manzoni's video of the Lost Fundamental, and all he had to do is leave a voicemail which you heard
introducing today's episode. You two are eligible to win one of three great prizes just for leaving a voicemail of where you live and where you play. You can select Tony's video a glove and glove storage compartment from Red Rooster golf dot com, the unique glove subscription service that offers many styles of gloves and twenty six sizes for both men and women. Or you can get a box of X one balls with the golf Smarter logo from Odin Golf, the golf brand
that sponsors and pays everyday golfers. These tour quality balls are a fraction of the price of what you'd usually pay, and when you use the code golf Smarter at checkout, you'll receive an additional twenty percent off the order. Their link is in today's show notes. And let me say one more thing about Red Rooster golf gloves. As golfers, we are not only superstitious. We like ritual. I mean, how many times have we been told on this
podcast of the importance of a preshot routine? Right well, subscription to Red Rooster golf Gloves have fallen into that discussion as well. I really look forward to getting a fresh, new glove delivered each month so that I don't have to think about wearing a dried out, crusty, funky glove that I've been
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