Golf Smarter number three hundred and fifty one, published on October two, twenty twelve.
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 In.
My time on the first tea and talking to people on trying to promote this just on an individual basis, guess where the most complaints have come from?
Women? Absolutely, Oh, you're kidding, as is this going to be as like outrageous ladies?
I know, that's what I mean, that's the outrageous answer. I mean. I've had them go up one side of being down the other dress me down about wanting to move the teas up so more women could enjoy the game. And yet what's the big movement by the PGA of America. The great untapped resource for more golfers is women. Okay, let's have them play from the equivalent of seventy four hundred yards. Guess what will happen. They'll be slow, They
won't have any fun and they'll quit. Literally annually for thirty years, I've heard that the great influx of golfers we're going to be women. It has never happened. One starts, one quits. I mean, women aren't stupid, for heaven's sakes. Maybe if we made the game a little more amenable to them on course, maybe they'd stick around for a while. What happens to clubs is the good women players don't want to give up their advantage.
Former CEO of Adams Golf, Barney Adams, on d and forward.
This is Golf Smarter, sharing tips and insights from golfers and golf professionals to help lower your score. It's worked for your host, Fred Green.
Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast. Barney.
Well, thank you for having me on.
And thank you. We're doing Skype. You and I are looking at each other, and you've just entered a whole new world, haven't you.
Yes, I have. I'm doing. I'm very uncomfortable. This is like leaving the country or something.
There for me. You are in a different part of the country. You're actually in a different part of the planet right now.
Yes, yes, I'm in that. I did a story one time on the internet. I went viral and I had to look it up to see what it meant. So that's that's where I am. What was the story that was the original ta at forward story?
Oh? Really? And it went viral, and you like, what does that mean?
People kept asking you say, hey, your story went viral, and I thought it was a disease. I didn't know what it was. There was something wrong with it.
Well, welcome to Skype, thank you, and so now and and to make you even more uncomfortable, we're looking at one another.
Yes, I'm looking down. I'm not looking at you, So it doesn't mean I'm looking at my shoes. Well, I know it's a case with socks.
But do you know what, as you're looking at your socks, I'm looking at the top of your head because you're you're tilting your head right into the camera.
I have a Texas A and M sweatshirt on for my grandson.
Oh is that where your grandson goes?
Yep?
Well I have a us C shirt.
On right now.
Okay, yeah, okay, that's the end of that conversation. Yes, but let's talk about ta it forward among other things. I mean, there's about one hundred things I wanted to talk to you about, but I think that we should start with ta at Forward.
Okay, what is it?
Let's start from scratch here. What is t at Forward?
It's very misunderstood.
Well, here's your soapbox, my friend.
Yep. The name implies that it's about moving people up one or even two sets of t's, and that's not true.
Oh yes, and that's exactly what I thought it was.
Yeah, I know everybody does. And that was my kind of my message to the PGA when we started all this. This is a lot more complicated than just moving up a set of teas. Because speaking as a as a golfer, obviously there are some whole the whole thing. I got
to back up a step because I put it in perspective. Sure, I had played around a golf I go out to the California desert in the winter time, beautiful place, beautiful weather, beautiful courses, et cetera, et cetera, and I had played golf that particular day, and I was sitting home in the evening basically whining to myself about what a lousy time I had, And then I thought to myself, you know,
this is really dumb. You just played in a beautiful golf course with nice guys, good weather, et cetera, and you're sitting around complaining. You know there's something wrong with you. Well, then I got looking into it deeper. You know why was I complaining? Well, I didn't really have a good time. Well, why didn't I have a good time? Et cetera, et cetera. And basically, when I finished all of the analysis, and when on the internet looked up I do know how
to do that. I went on the internet, looked up data and so on and so worth. We had played that day from sixty seven hundred yards. What I figured out the difference between relative distances between tour players and amateur players. That was equivalent to a tour player playing from roughly eighty four eighty five hundred yards. Wow, exactly, wow, And no tour player would do that.
That's dumb, No, I mean, the courses are being made longer and longer and longer these days, but is that to anybody's advantage?
Well, like I say, why why do why do I my skills need to play from the equivalent of eighty four hundred yards?
And what do you what your index about? So we have a sense of your.
Well, it's skills, it's a say, it's rapidly escalating along with my age. It's it's about ten now, I think, and it's it's but all the all the indicators are going up, so it's it's anyway. So as I got into this DOMI that for whatever sets of reasons, amateur golfers have gotten to a position where they're playing courses that are much longer than the tour would play. Now, golf lost one point one million people last year. That's a one between one to one and one four depending
on which data source you access. And the reasons given were no fund too slow, not cost, no fun, too slow, and I'll get the cost. Well, if you're playing from eighty four hundred yards, guess what, it's going to be slow and it's not going to be any fun, so let's play. Then I got when I looked at the tour data, the average iron hit into a power four
on tour is an eight iron. Now you ask your friends how many of them average eight irons into the power four and the courses they play, and if they're honest, the answer is none, maybe one or two? Okay, maybe, I mean you might hit one or two eight irons, but you don't average eight irons. You're hitting hybrids or hitting fairway woods, et cetera. So the whole idea behind this was to promote courses being set up so that the amateur players would hit second shots from the same
relative area to their games that the tour players do. Now, to make it more specific, what I advocated was that the PGA of America, in partnership with the USGA, come up with a series of small markers. Figure something that's no more than three inches in diameter, and you put that in the fairway to one hundred and forty three yards, which is a relative distance for the amateur compared to
the tour player. And you tell golfers, look, if you want to play the same game the tour players do, you tee it up to a point that get you somewherees in the vicinity of that marker. It's that simple. Some of you are going to be behind it, somebody you're going to be in front of it. But guess what, on tour, some guys are longer, some guys are shorter. I don't care. Just play from that vicinity. For women, it's one hundred and twelve. That's what tea at forward
is all about. It's not about moving to the front tees because on some holes, if you move to the front ties, you might be in a ninety yards because it's already a shorter hole. Don Versely, on par fives, for most of the par fives parameters, i'd actually move the tees back because if you have a par five, a big par five, say it's five seventy, all right, the average ameter, let's figure their t shot at two twenty.
It's somewhere. It's between two ten and two thirty, depending upon the speed of the fairways, et cetera, et cetera. Now I understand, I'm an old club fitter that everybody that plays golf hits at two fifty or sixty. I understand that at the very length that's right. Unfortunately, that's a fantasy. But it's a fantasy all golfers live with, okay. But the truth of the matter is it's roughly two
ten to two thirty. So we picked two twenty as an average just to pick a number, and then on their second shot, because it's going to roll along the ground if they hit it well, it's another let's say two ten two hundred yards. So let's say we got two twenty plus two hundred, that's four to twenty plus four plus one hundred and forty is roughly five sixty. So you can see where I easily get to five
sixty even five seventy for a par five. I really dislike par fives that are roughly between excuse me, let's say four eighty and five twenty, because for ninety nine percent of the ambiturs, they're three shot holes you could hit. You could hit virtually anything off the tee, could hit an iron or a fairway wood, another ironer fairway wood
and still have fairly short iron into the green. So actually, on my golf courses, well, the par fours would has a rule, gets shorter, but they would be strategically shorter because someone have dog legs and so on. The par fives on the whole would get longer. The par threes are kind of a toss up because it depends upon how the green is laid out. If it's a Rodance style green with a lot of bounce area in the front and no water around or anything, could be longer.
If it's forest kerry could be shorter. But my point is that the essence of the movement as I originally construed it is not about moving to the frontiees. That's an oversimplification.
So if I can interpret what you're saying and get this straight, you're saying that the goal is to pretty much make it so everyone's kind of try getting to the point where they can hit their eight iron in as their approach shot.
Roughly. I mean, let's listen, one picking a number. For some people, that's a six iron. I understand that. Okay, you're looking.
At a number, not an iron, so that's correct.
I'm just looking. I just want to What I'm trying to do is say, look, if you went up to play, if you will, let's all right. You can go up and you get a chance to scrimmage with Golden State. They're not going to move the baskets to twelve feet. No, they're gonna let you shoot to ten foot basket, right, That's all I want to.
Do, right right, But if you play with the Mavericks, will they put it up to twelve feet?
Thank that I've been worked one out with him regularly. I'm thinking I'm making a comeback. But we I mean, think of the publicity value, I mean I'd be the only guy in the NBA with an artificial need. Okay, I mean that's worth a lot of money to that man. Oh yeah, that's a marketing them right now.
Yeah sure, I'm sure the Cuban would love to discuss that with you.
Right yeah. I mean it's a big deal. It's it's a money maker, it's it's it's guaranteed. I just want a piece of it, that's all.
Actually, Actually, we have a minor league baseball team here in Marin County. This was their first year and in the last week of the season. Do you remember Bill's spaceman league?
Oh? Sure I do.
Yeah, Well Bill, he played for Boston in the expos. He holds the record as the most starts for a left hander in Red Sox history. Right pitched in the seventies. He grew up in this county. He went to the same high school my kids went to. He pitched a game. They paid him to pitch a game at sixty five years old.
Good for him.
He pitched a complete game, went one for three with a sacrifice and an RBI at the plate, and got a nine to five victory.
I think I remember thinking about him that he always kept himself in great physical condition.
He was said, well, I'd say he's got a nice beer belly popping through the bottom of that jersey of his. But he does play. He still plays hardball.
He lives right with that arm, you know, because you'd hurt yourself that.
It was hilarious. He was throwing junk up there. It was so much fun to watch these these youngsters just totally baffled by what he was throwing at him.
But Clemens is going to start for Houston. You know, Amy Houston can't throw anyway fifty.
I mean, come on, that's not the kid. He's a kid sixty five. This guy was pitching and it was what nuts. And it was a bunch of old hippies sitting in the stands. It was Hilo.
They're both throwing from ninety feet, aren't they?
Yes, they are.
They didn't move the mound back to one hundred and twenty feet.
That's correct.
That's my whole argument about golf.
Yeah, I had this visual in my head that we were going to put a hotel sign called the eight Iron Inn.
Because you're in that business.
Yeah, one hundred and forty three yard approach. Okay, So how do we do that? Where did then where do we tee up from?
Well, we're I don't care where your tea up from. I mean, come on, you guys are smart people. Figure it out. I'm just going to show you where you.
Tea wherever you want your your initial tea shot. You can go from wherever you want, as long as you're at approximately one hundred and forty five yards to your.
You'll figure it out. You'll figure out what set of tea's worked for it.
Well, it seems like especially on golf courses where they're mostly people and if you have an artificial need, do you walk a golf course or you take a cart?
Both the bens where I play.
Yeah, yeah, So if people are in golf carts, they're never going to talk to each other. Then if they're all teeing up from different spots the tea.
You're not gonna tea. But that's my point. You see, you got them tee it up from different spots because you're trying to get them all to one hundred and forty three. That's one of the misconceptions. We tee them up from the same spot and guess what some of the guys are going to be longer and they're gonna hit it to one hundred and twenty and some are gonna be shorter. They're gonna hit it t one hundred and sixty.
Then why is that different than having multiple take exactly?
Why if you're playing against me and we're playing for something, okay, okay, I'll play for that, all right. We're gonna play for something, okay, And I'm let's say, for the sake of argument, I'm longer than you are, okay. And I got a six iron into the green and you got a hybrid. Okay, who's got the edge? You do? You bet your life. Now we play from the t's that I want us to play from. And I'm still longer than you are. You've got a seven iron into the green, and I've
got a nine iron into the green. Who's got the edge?
You still do? But it's right.
But now, all of a sudden, and now you stick seven iron up there fifteen feet, which you probably couldn't do with a hybrid. And now I got to hit my shot and it's for a couple of bucks, and you're looking at me and say, here, good luck, Barnyard.
You know what you made me very nervous. I thought you were going to tell me where to stick that seven iron for a second.
Yeah, you see my point. Yeah, And that's that's one of the misconceptions. It's we're going to have people tee and off all over the place because everybody has to get to exactly one forty three. Ain't gonna happen, right right, ain't happen.
So why is that different than having the blue teas, the white tea's, the black tea's, and the red teas.
I don't care what color they are. You can make them polka dot.
Why is that different? Why does that make that a different program?
Because we now understand where we have to drive the golf ball to to play the same equivalent game as the tour players. That's the big that's the that's the mitigating factor.
That's different playing the same game is.
Okay, equivalent rank you are going to be as good as they are, and you're not going to hit your eight iron one sixty like.
They do, right, oh god.
But we're gonna have you hit your eight iron and play from an equivalent distance because we're gonna make the game faster and we're gonna make it more fun. And what happens. When you start doing that, things enter the equation that have been absent for a while, like cars and an occasional birdie. You play faster. I mean, I think one of the great travesties in golf was the definition of the four hour round, because if four hours is the average, then I guess four fifteen or four
to twenty is okay. And I can crawl most golf courses with my bad knee in four twenty that's to be that's ludicrous. But anyway, you'll speed up play and you'll, as I said before, you'll have more fun and and you should, and you will stem the tide of people dropping out because it's an enjoyable experience and also enhance
the app opportunity for people to start playing game. You know, let's let's say we're going to get eight new golfers and we're gonna sum some lessons and you know, outfit them with clubs and all of that kind of stuff. And now we take it with a golf course and tee it up from eight thousand yards. You know, it's like driving people to a bad movie. You can go in a limousine. You can give them popcorn, you can do all kinds of things to make it a better deal. But at the end of the day, it's still a
bad movie. Right, let's fix let's fix the movie. Right.
But the experience may have been a little better because it cost them nothing maybe if you're being maybe, but it.
Took a long time.
See here's what I don't understand about this, Barnie. And and maybe I'm missing something. And usually when I play with people and we're trying to decide what tea boxes we're playing from, they'll say, oh, well, let's see, this is sixty six hundred yards, this is seven thousand yards, this is sixty two hundred yards. Let's play from sixty six. And I'm saying, why does that matter. Let's look at the rating and the slope. I always to me that
is the the great equalizer. When I say, oh, but you know, if you play from the front ties, it's a one twenty two. The middle ties is a you know, a slope of a one twenty eight, and then you one thirty five. Well, I'm not good when I I don't play as well from a slope of one thirty five, and I score really well on a one twenty. So I try to play one twenty eight to when you know one around and there. Why you keep talking about yardage, but you're not talking about rating and slope.
Who cares? Don't get me started rating and slope. You know, I belong to a golf course that's seventy one hundred yards from the back and sixty one hundred from the front. I have the same handicap from four different sets of tees. That's impossible.
Yeah, that's impossible.
Yeah, but it happens all the time. I get letters all the time from people on that subject. I don't I don't even go there. So you think the raising I'm a very simple person. You had to teach me how to make this phone call. You know, I have very limited capabilities. I just want a little marker out there that says, hit the ball around this area, and you'd be playing from the same relative distance as the tour. No more, no less.
It's all based on yardage.
It's all based on yardage. That's correct.
And you say rating slope is something that is making it too complicated because.
No nobody canel You know, I sit on the tee the other day and conduct a little experiment because all the guys that hit it two fifty, and I had we had a flag out there, and we had a gun and we lasered it and it was too eighteen.
So I said, well, obviously, if it's too eighteen and you hit it two fifty, you should carry that, right A nobody carried it, of course. B very few guys got there in less than the first top. And see they all left still thinking they hit it two fifty.
So we were back to the yardage.
Yep, I'm trying to I'm trying to boil this thing down to the narrowest possible, simplest possible explanation, and quite frankly, I have a I sort of have another plan, except it's a little lot on my purview, but if I could find one, if I could find a sponsor, I would initiate a series of tournaments kind of like the ultimostmobile scramble type of thing, except that it would be
a different format. But to get people used to playing from these distances, I think that would be a great way to kick this thing off.
And so you're you're taking some credit for this idea of the t and forward idea, the concept of the yardage and getting people to play it or I wrote.
I wrote the original story, and then I got contacted by the PGA and the USGA and they said, this is a good idea. And they said, uh.
And it never crossed their mind before.
Oh, I'm sure it did. As a matter of fact, I got I got the letters from some of the guys I knew in the media that said, hey, you know we've written about this before too. You know, there's nothing new in golf. I think I just took a little different approach by equating it to tour players. And I caught on, that's.
All I see. I see that that was your hook.
Yeah, I guess that's you know, it's it's I'm not interested in taking credit for anything. I'm an old person. I like peace and quiet. I'd like to play from teas where I can enjoy. I play golf with Lee Trevino.
Nice.
Last I heard he was. Last I heard he was a pretty good player.
Yeah. Is he a lot of fun to play with?
Yeah? And he hits it two fifty five off the tea, not two fifty three, not two fifty seven, two fifty five. Wow, that's the world he lives in. Or you know what teas he plays? He plays the up tease. Why because he said, you know, you know exactly what he told me. He said, I want to be able to hit the same shots into the green I always did. And there it is, there it is. I mean, this is Trevino talking about and I promise you I've never seen an amateur at any level that can hit the ball close
to it as well as he hits it today. And I have been around.
Yeah, you've seen a couple of golfers play.
I have been around.
I see a huge stumbling block in all this golfer's egos.
No fooling. I'm glad you caught onto that.
Because guys play from the blues today.
Why I belong to a men's club. Give me a break. I live with this stuff. But I'll tell you there's another there's another reason too. It's a little more subtle, but it's equally powerful. And one of the great things about golf is that it's played to a set of standards as a general rule. And I mean they can always find exceptions, but it's played to us a very high set of standards.
I might add.
People play by the rules. For example, in the equipment business, if you come up with a golf club that's miraculous but doesn't fit the rules of golf. People won't buy it. They want to play by the rules, which to me is adds a veracity to They also be willing to
play from the same distance the tour players do. But the bottom line is that when you have this sense of integrity about the game and all of a sudden you're playing from distances that are twenty thirty forty yards closer than you used to, you feel guilty, You feel like you're wrong, you feel like you're cheating. That's part of the educational process. It's not true, but that's the feeling. So that to me is as strong a feeling as ego.
And I'll give you a little one that you would never figure in my time on the first t and talking to people on trying to promote this just on an individual basis, Guess where the most complaints have come from.
Women? Absolutely, Oh you're kidding, is going to be like outrageously.
I know, that's what I mean, that's the outrageous answer. But but I mean I've had them just go up one side of me and down the other, dress me down about wanting to move the teas up so more women could enjoy the game. And yet what's the big movement by the PGA of America. The great untapped resource for more golfers is women. Okay, let's have them play from the equivalent of seventy four hundred yards. Guess what will happen. They'll be slow, they won't have any fun,
and they'll quit. I've been in the golf business almost thirty years. Literally annually for thirty years, I've heard that the great influx of golfers we're going to be women. It has never happened. One starts, one quits. Maybe if we made the game, I mean, women aren't stupid, for heaven's sakes, you know, maybe if we made the game a little more amenable to them on course, maybe they'd stick around for a while.
And you think, what happened one of those things.
Yeah, what happens to clubs is the good women players don't want to give up their advantage. Oh right, that's simple.
And how much? And I've always felt this way about like the Golf channel, is that they cater if that's the right word to the single digit uh. You know players, the better players who aren't willing to give up the ones that you're talking about that. Aren't willing to give up something and you know there's such a small minority of golfers.
Sure, but but you got one thing about golf. Uh, it's a top down influence game.
Absolutely.
I mean you go out in the range and watch to see what the eighteen handicapper is doing so he can get better.
No, I watched TV, gotcha.
Yeah, you know, so it's it's understand I mean I understand that I do, however, fault the Golf Channel. It's one of the advantages of being old and retired, you know, I can speak my mind.
And being on a podcast that nobody's listening to.
Exactly right. They ought to be all they ought to be all over this, and the reason they ought to be all over this is it's good for their business. Yeah, it's a business decision because when people quit the game, that's viewers. People take up the game, that's viewers. They ought to be the champion of this movement.
Before when you said too slow, no fun, I was always saying too slow, too hard.
Yeah that's semantics. Okay, you think, but I argue against it cost what I do talks on this thing. Oh well, the game's too expensive, I say, I I absolutely disagree with that.
Oh, because that was my third point, and you weren't. You were going to bring that up. It's like it's too it's no fun or too too hard, too slow, and it costs too much.
I don't believe. I don't buy that for a second. Sure, pebble bee'st costs too much at six hundred or something like that. I mean, you know, give me the exceptions value. How much would you pay to go to a bad movie?
Yeah, well I'm still forced to pay ten bucks?
But help? I mean, really, how much would you pay to go to a rotten movie? If you knew up front it was going to be bad? You couldn't. You can't make it cheap enough.
Right now, I'm saying, wait till it comes out on cable.
I'll give you ten dollars if you go to this rotten movie. So now, never mind. It's value. If the game is fun, if people enjoy it, they'll pay a fair price.
And what's going to make them enjoy it more.
Playing it from the properties or they're not beating their brains out all.
The time making the game easier.
I don't think whoa whoa, whoa where Where did easier come into all that? I must have missed when I said that.
No you didn't. I'm sorry. I'm saying. I think it's it's about scoring is going to make it more fun, better scoring. So many people.
Are like, really, really, and you're gonna score better when you get up there.
No, it's still going to be hard to do.
You bet your life it is. It's a whole Believe me, I've had this. I had this conversation. I talked to the guys I played with and I talked to them to moving up a set of teas, and of course they gave me a hard time. Blah blah blah blah. We got around to one hole and everybody had wedges to the green. Nobody hit the green. And I said to him, I said, gosh, this is really getting easy from up here. I said, we're going to shoot nothing. Yeah, right,
it isn't easier, it's just more relative. I guess that's a double comparative. It's just relative.
Yeah, it's relative. But is that significantly changing it? You think that change makes it? The change?
I know it makes a huge change. Really, I know what because I've heard from other people, I've forgotten how much fun this game could be.
So how do you do when you step up to the tea on the first tee? You got your foursome together and say, all right, we're going to do a little bit differently today. We're going to play from. And what is it that you're agreeing upon?
I don't know. You're gonna play fro whever you want. You're just gonna know that out there there's a marker and that's where you should be hitting your second shot from. And you'll learn, I mean, come on, golfers aren't dumb. They'll figure it out. There's there's this mental there's this thing.
I don't know what the word is that we have to present golfers with Christine specific information, like there are a bunch of morons, you know, they don't know what to do, and okay, now you have to go to this tee and then step three steps backwards or do this? Come on, Golfers are are as a rule, are very
intelligent people. If they know that it's that the relative the ten foot basket is out there where that little marker is on the fair way, and they also know that it's okay to be a little short of it or to be past it, because after all, it's an in, it's an you know, it's not a specific game. They'll figure it out. I don't have to. I'm not gonna tell them. That's that to me, that's nuts. That's that's where you get into trouble. Well, I should play here
because I hit a two sixty off the tee. Oh okay, you don't. But now what do we do? That's why I say I get away from all that stuff.
So then the buy in from the golf courses to participate in this is nothing more than putting a marker at one hundred and forty x yards.
Yeah, and having it. I think having it. I think it should be done under the auspices of the PGA, where the regional guy comes out and you know, officially, you know, says yeah, we've just signed up you know, the fred Green Country Club and so on, and they got the markers, et cetera. Then that I would also I would also suggest that they started off with an event, because there's an education process involved to do just what you were asking, to help people find out where they
should tee off from and so on. Yeah, maybe a series of events, but I mean it's more than just sticking the markers in the fairway. That's the first step.
Yeah, I think the education process is huge, and I appreciate that you're giving me your time to educate us because I'm still a little baffled on some of this stuff.
I'm wondering, well, you're slow, you're slow, but you'll pick it up.
It's my internet connection.
I understand.
Party.
If you listen, what do you think about this? It's not eight you'll say, Holy I got it now, I understand.
Well that's why, hopefully can we continue to do you have to run? Or can we continue talking about I'm retired? Okay, So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do part two of this conversation. We're going to hang up right. We're not going to hang up. We're just going to let people know that part two of this cover. Yeah, we're gonna go hang up right, and and we're going to tell everybody that the Part two of this conversation is going to be a Golf Smarter for members only episode.
So if you want to hear more about what Barney has to say about this, and actually, if you don't mind, I'm gonna want to dig into your history, a little bit about how you got to golf, and he's looking up in the sky. He's like, I'm so bored listening to this. He wants to eat. I want I want
to know the history of Adam's golf. I'm not gonna about not what's going on now, but how you got started that coming from cause you mentioned me you came from Silicon Valley, So I don't see that you came from being a golf pro and had an idea for a golf club, but you sure turned into something big with that way.
I looked up with this guy because at this stage, because I've gone I've done this many times. I always invent something new every time.
Awesome. All right, So Part two of this conversation with Barney Adams formerly of Adams Golf, namesake of Adams Golf on golf Smarter for members only, So please go to golf smarter dot com and join today so you don't miss this or get access to all of our archives of well over three hundred episodes of the golf Smarter podcast. Barney, thank you so much for greed for part two and for coming on explaining to forward.
You see over my head. By the way, that's a signed I want you to know, a signed picture from my hero, Arnold Palmer.
I was going to ask about that because I've been scaring you know, every time you look at your socks. I've been looking at that picture.
Going, well, that's true, and the light reflects off my head and it kind of blurs the picture. So I wanted to be clear.
No, it doesn't blur it at all. It makes it look like he's under a spotlight.
Yes, all right, Part two coming up.
Well, once again it's time to talk to Terry Kaylor's CEO of Score Golf about your questions on your short game, and then Terry answers them, and if he answers your question on the Golf Smarter podcast, you are going to receive a customized Score forty one sixty one money club for yourself to try out at no charge. Right right, Hey, Terry,
I'm doing well. Thank you got a great question here, because I think it's something that's on the mind of almost every golfer, you know, as they continue to progress in their game and they're starting to figure out that they can't do a lot of stuff. This one comes from Steve Zintas of Baltimore, Maryland, and he says, when I watch golf on TV, I noticed there are several times when players hit short, little pitch and chip shots, the ball would hit the green stop and then back up.
Other times the ball would run out. It does when most of us hit the ball. So how is it possible to get so much spin on the ball from such a short distance with less than a full swing and obtain that kind of reaction.
Well, that's a great question. See spin is one of the great mysteries of shots. And you know, I want to start. There's a bunch of different elements that affect your ability to spin the golf ball. Let's work from the hole backward. One of the first elements is what kind of greens are you hitting into?
And you know, a bent.
Grass green that's a little on the soft side is gonna it's going to take more spin and react and grab the ball better than a bermuda grass green that's that's firmer. You have different so different turfs are gonna are gonna, you know, allow that spin to take effect. The other thing is that a lot of people don't look at whether you're pitching that ball into the grain or against the grain. It has a lot to do with how you can make that ball react when it
hits the green. A third element is the slope. Are you hitting it into a slope? Are you hitting it into a down slope? Has a lot more has a lot to do with it. You take those variables out, let's go to what happens between the green and the club. You've got the golf ball, and the pros all play
a very high spinning golf ball. A lot of amateurs are playing these balls that are more distance oriented, maybe a little lower price point ball, which is fine, but I always recommended to people forget distance, play the highest spinning ball that you can find, and it's going to give you more control around the green. And all the balls are long nowadays, I mean you're not going to give up three or four yards, and I mean what
the ball ends in the fairway makes a much bigger impact. Well, then you come back to the moment of truth, the club ball impact point. And for a golf ball to be imparted with the maximum amount of spin, a few things have to happen. One thing is is that the ball has to adhere to the face of the club and get a good friction on the face of the club, so if you're in grass, if you're in you know, have a little moisture on it. If the grooves on
your club aren't clean. These things all will will reduce the amount of spin you can put on the ball. One of my favorite little tricks for when I want to hit a higher spinning shot is I like to focus on the on the forward edge of the ball, the side of the ball closest to the hole, so that I can make sure I make ball first contact, that I that that club is on the ball before it hits you know, the turf. But there's also and one other thing you have to understand about the tour players.
If you want to learn to spend the ball like them, it's really pretty easy. Go invest thousands of dollars in lessons and spend at least three or four hours a day hitting these little short.
Cuts, because that's what they do.
As the commercial said, these guys are good and they practice, and when the when the groove thing changed a few years ago, these guys all went out and spent hours and hours and hours and hours with their witches and their arms in their hand to try to understand what the new spin was like, and they all learned how to spin the ball just as good with the new grooves as the old grooves. And it goes back to
practice practice. There's a technique that I had a tour player showing me that these guys are all perfecting now that they're they're letting the club release more. And you look at a lot of amateurs and they get their hands way out ahead of the ball and they kind of hood the club down and they're very stiff risted, and they turned their their fifty sixty three sandwich into a forty eight or forty nine degree club. They've taken
the bounce out of it. And that's not the way to get spind The way you want to maximize the spin is to let that club, you know, you get the club back, let the club fully release under the ball, so the clubhait is almost passing your hands when it makes contact on that little short shot, and you have a little higher acceleration in the clubhead. But you're also
adding loft to that shot, and that increases spin. But bear in mind, the golf on TV that we watch is designed for TV audiences, and TV audiences like to see these guys shoot twenty and twenty five under. You know, those of us that are seasoned golfers, we tend to like to see them grind to shoot even par. But that's not what TV is about. So to go back to practice feeling a real crisp click when you hit the ball, to let you know you're really making ball
first contact. And don't get all excited about backing the golf ball. I mean, you're not going to probably do that.
You're not playing the same kind of greens. But you know you can learn to check the ball a little better than you probably do, and that comes from using all the loft on the club and letting that club release through the ball properly, making sure you have really good crisp contact, and you're using a golf ball that really takes spin, because some balls don't take spin very well, and you don't, you know, you're just going to be fighting a losing battle if you're If you're doing that,
make sure the grooves on your club are clean. As I said, I mean grooves that are filled up with dirt, they're not gonna spin the ball well. Make sure the face of the club is clean.
I'm so glad you're repeating that because you know, like I'm nuts about taking my little metal brush after almost every shot or before every shot and making sure that the grooves are you know, debris free. And people look at me like why do you carry so much junk? It's like, are you kidding? Do you know what happens when you get all the mud on. It's like hitting a ball that's gotten mud all over it. It's not gonna react the way you hope.
No, it really doesn't. I mean, the equipment, there's a lot happening in that millise that the ball is in contact with the face and good, good clean grooves, a good club that's not worn out. But a lot of it's about technique and don't try to chop down on the golf ball, and don't worry about this really you know, harsh descending blow, you know, any kind of a I mean that's kind of hard on your joints and everything
to be pounding into the ground like that. But just look at work on really crisp clean to contact and work on kind of pinching that ball into the turf and letting that leading edge of the club be where you make contact and practice it. Steve, I mean, it really is about your short game. If you want to
be really good, you've got to practice it. And you know, you can go out in an hour and hit one hundred to one hundred and twenty little short game shots because you're not taking these big wind up golf swings, and and you'll learn a lot. I mean, just practice different things and experiment, have fun, be creative and say, wonder what happened if I kind of do the little flippy thing with hands, and you know, just learn a good technique and learn what you know how to do.
And then when you're in the golf course and you're trying to determine what kind of shot you want to into that flag, walk up there and look at the green. See if the green is running you know, at you or are away from you, and you know feel the green. Is it firm and hard up there and you're going to have to allow for some rollout? Or you know, is that green a little mushy under your feet? You're saying,
you know, this is pretty cushiony. Some greens they have a thick thatch of grass and it almost just like a spring. What you're you know, the green that you're going to be able to really stick the ball on it's going to be a little soft under your feet, but it has a very thin layer of grass, so that you know the grass isn't providing a sponginess.
Fabulous. I you know, I just I can't tell you how much I love this part of the education that we're getting on this podcast because it's so specific and it's not necessarily mechanics, right it there's elements of it, but there's so much more to it, and I really appreciate your knowledge on this, Terry. This is fabulous.
Well, I mean, you know, I've spent a lifetime studying this game and thirty years in this industry and studying equipment and effect. And why do I want to, you know, die with all that knowledge? I mean, the only thing that to me, the fun thing about knowing something this year and it with somebody that'd like to know it. You're and so I take great, great pleasure in that.
You do a great job. Thank you well, Steve. Congratulations. You are now eligible to have a customized Score forty one sixty one money club made for you, and the folks at score Golf will help you do that. Tell us about the information they can fill out that will help you determine which is the best scoring club for them.
Well, you know, what we've done is really recreate the short end of the set. It's no longer about being satisfied with a nine iron and a pitch that that match or six iron looked like a six arm, because that's not the right way to design those high loft clubs. Just no longer about playing quote wedges. The reason we don't use the terms we don't make wedges. What we're
doing is so far evolved from wedges. And I've got a collection of old wedges, and your members have heard me say this before, but I've got wedges from the forties and fifties that you can't tell the difference between them and a twenty eleven model or a nineteen ninety two model. There's been no evolution in this category. And the high loft golf clubs in the old days, Ben Ogan and all those guys, they never hit them over
twenty five or thirty yards. But we use these as full swing clubs now, and all that weight real low causes blending trajectories and inconsistent distance control. So every golfer has got their own right prescription.
Phenomenal, all right, thanks so much, Terry. We'll talk to you
Soon, okay, thank you Fred