Important Tips You May Have Forgotten with Head Pro Steven Snyder

Hi, I'm andre Ato.

I'm from Henderson, Nevada, and I play at Revere Golf Club.

And this is Golf Smarter.

Number four hundred and fifty eight.

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Well, I think, just like the golf swing, there are certain basic fundamental things that everybody needs to go through. You have to have a very sound fundamental putting grip. Whether it's the traditional reverse overlap grip or whether it's left hand low or the pencil grip or the claw or whatever you like to do. You have to have a sound fundamental grip that does what your grip is supposed to do in the putting stroke, and that's to work together with your arms and do not break down

Head professional Steven Snyder with important tips you may have forgotten. This is Golf Smarter. Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast. Steve.

Hello, Fred, how are you good? How are you?

I'm doing well, Thank you very much good. I'm so glad that you joined me here in the studio today. We've known each other for a long time. Our kids played little league together before the baseball strike, that was pre ninety four. We've known each other a long time. Yeah, but we've never discussed golf in all these years. And I've you know, I've already been playing. I didn't even know that's what you did at the time. I didn't start playing until like ninety six or something, ninety eight.

Thanks for having man, I'm gonna enjoy it.

Well, great, great, So let's talk about first of all, Indian Valley Golf Course. How long have you been there?

What do you do I've been there about eleven and a half years. I'm the PGA head golf professional. I work some hours in the golf shop every day. I merchandise the golf shop. I do all the inventory of clubs and clothing and things for the members and for the public, and I teach in the afternoons. I organize our junior golf program for the summer, and everything that a head golf professional would do working for a Indian Valley corporation.

Okay, it's interesting because I think that most people have this idea that it would be great to be a golf pro because then I can just play golf and give lessons. No, no, it's much more than that.

Now we have a very very active men's and ladies club and I play. I try to play with the men's club once a week. I don't make that happen, but I try to play with the men's club once a week, and they encourage us to play. All the golf professional staff, but once a week is about what I do.

Really, do you miss it?

I do, But it's my business. I'm not in the business of playing golf. I'm in the business of golf, so I do all the different things around the playing part of it. And I think I have and I've been a PGA member since nineteen eighty, so I think I have a pretty good knowledge of the operation of the golf industry and enjoy all facets of it.

When you're studying to be a golf professional teaching professional, do they also teach you like business? I mean, it's like you're going to have to run a pro shop. Here are the things you need to know.

Yeah, they do. I think you learn a lot of it through the School of Hard Knocks. But yeah, the PGA has an education program that takes about four years or five years to go through, depending on how long you stretch it out, and they teach you everything from owning your own golf shop and open to buy program, turf grass maintenance, golf cart operations, and golf cart mechanics.

The hard knocks. What's the biggest surprise for you.

The biggest surprise with the golf industry.

Yeah, since you've been doing it and when you came out of school and stuff, it was like, WHOA, I didn't expect that.

Well, I think like everybody, I mean, we get into the golf business because we like to play golf, and I think that's probably the biggest surprises. You don't play as much golf as you would like to or think that you should, because you're too busy, and by the time you've worked your eight hour day or nine hour day, who wants to go out and play nine holes. We do it, but it's a little harder to motivate yourself to play golf under those circumstances.

I can't Every teacher I've ever had a conversation with doesn't play as much golf as they'd love to. And when people ask me, oh, I love to play golf, I would love to be a teacher, and it's like, well, those are two real different things they are. Being a teacher is one thing. Being a golf instructor it adds to that. But if you love to play golf, you may not want to get into the golf business because you're going to get burned out, you're going to start hating it.

Yeah, there's a lot of people that they get in and they get out shortly after, and they get into a regular job, and they end up playing more golf than when they were in the golf business, you obviously lose some of the perks of being able to play your golf course, but you probably play more golf when you're not in the business.

Yeah, you probably do, Probably do so. Indian Valley is a course that I've talked about many times on the show because it is my home course. I leave next to a golf course that I don't play that much. But it's only, you know, a ten minute twelve minute drive for me to get there, and it's a challenging course. It's a fun course. It's a great walk and a lot of people probably don't do it. It's like seven and a half miles or something.

Pretty good size walk, and.

There's only one level hole. In my head, there's only one level hole on the course. Right. Everything is you're hitting your lot ups and downs, lots of ups and downs, lots of ups and downs. And that's one of the things I want to go over is how to play those shots, how to take advantage of a course that is far from level. I mean, the greens are fair, they're quick, and you've got to play your shots. But it's a it's not an easy walk. It's a great walk.

It's yeah, it's a great walk. A lot of people of older people, younger people do like to walk the golf course. So the front nine is a little easier walk than the back nine. The back nine gets a little bit more up and down the hills once you get to fourteen right fourteen through seventeen, but it's a good challenge. It's not overly long distance wise, it's even from the championship teas. It's about sixty three hundred and

So it tests you, yep, and there's a lot of blind shots to greens. You know, it's always good to have course knowledge of what you're doing, but you don't always see where you're going. You can see the flag tip, but that it ends up being it.

Yeah, there's a number of shots where you're hitting up to a green or you're hitting over a little bit of a rise, so yeah, you're gonna have some some blind shots, not a lot of blind shots, but some.

And also that back nine it can get pretty windy on that too.

Fifteen sixteen, yep, yep.

But there is one of the greatest features of any golf course, definitely in the county, that I've ever seen, is you have an elevator. It goes between fourteen and thirteen, fourteen and fourteen. What's the history of that? How did that happen?

Well, the boss likes to say Jeff McAndrews is the general manager and Jeff Senior is the director of golf. And they like to say.

Any family business.

It's a family business. Oh, they like to say, anybody that would build a golf course it has an elevator, that's got to be an idiot. But the elevator's been there and been redone and remodeled several times. And it's basically a tram ride for the walkers to get him from the thirteenth green to the fourteenth tee. And it's a beautiful ride. I've done a couple of times just to take the ride up there. And you have a view of Stafford Lake and you have a view of

Last time I played, when I had my really spectacular round after I came back from vacation, and we got matched up with these two brothers, middle aged, big boys, big like. These guys had to take the cart. These are not walking guys right their cart. I had to push their car, produce my cart to push their cart up that hill because they were going, ah. It's things running out of steam and it's like no, you're kind of waiting it down. It made it a little tough.

Well, Indian Valley actually is on water District property, so the owners of the golf course don't own actually the property, but we do get our water to irrigate from Stafford Lake. They've asked us to cut back twenty to twenty five percent, which we've done. So a lot of the perimeter areas that normally would get irrigated this year did not get irrigated. And you'll see some areas where some of the questionable grasses have burnt out, but the basic golf course has

So that's the strategy here is just to avoid the outside areas.

Eliminate all the perimeters that you don't need to water. The area from tee to green on a par three, you don't see those getting watered at all, and they they have gotten watered in the past. So we've cut back as much as we can and as much as they've asked us to, and we're all keeping our fingers crossed for this winter.

Right I'm really hoping for some lousy weather here.

We'd like to sell some rain gear. Yeah, you've got a lot of backgear. You've got a.

Lot in the back room that you haven't been able to get rid of for least the last three years.

Yeah, we've got plenty.

Oh man, that's a shame. One of the other features that I just love about your golf course, and I had this idea one day. It's like, you know, I have to walk my dog every morning, why don't I just take her with me on a golf course. So I googled dog friendly golf courses, thinking I'd never even heard of such a thing, and just that weekend there was an article about two courses in Marine Indian Valley in San Geronimo that are dog friendly. How did that come about? And what does that mean?

You know what, I don't even know how it's come about. It's a great feature, and we have a lot of people that take advantage of bringing their dog up of some on a leash and some just on command that are well behaved. And we haven't had any problems from the dogs or from customers saying that I don't like to play when people have their dogs, or it's just a great feature and we all love our dogs, so a little bit more quality time and a little exercise

It's amazing. And you know, some people just put the dog in the cart and drive from the car. I thought, no, I'm just going to bring her with me and I'll keep the leash on her and let her drag it, and then if I need to grab her, I will. You know, if a skunk runs across the fairway or something, or a deer and she wants to go after it.

We do have some wildlife, you know.

Yeah, you do some beautiful wildlife out there. It's great because you're pretty isolated. We are, which is really nice in West Morin, and it's there's no houses on the course at all.

The closest house, I guess would be left of three fairway. There's a couple of homes back on ranches, but they're not right on the golf course.

No, there's a lot of room between that house and the and the fence. You're right there is that house two houses over on number three fairway, which is a par five, and you're spend more time looking for your ball than you notice. The only thing you would notice is if their horse comes up to you and wants to say hello, and you're walking by the fence looking for your ball.

The horse is pretty well trained. He comes over when he sees the somebody bringing him an apple or a carrot, and that happens quite a bit.

The first time I brought my dog out to the course, my friends that I was playing with that day, they were like, really, you brought your dog, and I'm like, yeah, it's a dog friendly chorus. I'm gonna just give it a shot. Well, by the end of the round they were thanking me for having the dog out there because it calmed everybody down. Whenever they got like frustrated or angry upset, they go over and pet the dog and

Yeah, there's no doubt about it.

So why do and you've never had I mean, hopefully each person that does this is a good dog citizen and they'll clean up after their dog, because you would hate to find, you know, your ball and a pile of poop.

Right, Yeah, we don't have any problems with that.

No. I brought bags with me and she you know one time, Okay, fine, just put it in the trash in the next hole. No one's gonna care.

Yeah, right, no, they the dogs are fine. The dogs are are so well behaved. Probably more behave than some of the players from time to time.

Oh yeah, yeah, I never had a dog bark at the time that I was on a backswing. I can tell you how many times each round that we're all be in a backswing and I'll hear somebody who's probably missed a putt. You can hear them from another Okay, okay, calm down, guys. Yeah exactly. Is there anything that you guys treat the ground with that we should be concerned

No, we're pretty restricted by the water district because we are on water district properly. That's interesting that there are a lot of chemicals that we cannot use. So no, we're we're very animal friendly. Yeah.

Absolutely, it's such a I don't know why more courses don't even consider it. Have you heard of other courses that are have had trouble with it, or even courses that do it? No, the two here in this county. No, I have not really, No, it's bring it up.

Yeah, it's a fun feature.

Yeah, well, what so, so you know bring When I say bring it up, I mean like an upcoming PGA professionals meeting. You guys have regular meetings and conferences and things. What are the struggles that everyone's discussing these days? As far as you know, we're all losing business left and right. How do we get them back?

Well, we got to a point where we overbuilt, so there were too many golf courses and too many options, and play was just going.

Through the roof, and which was a great thing.

Nobody saw a decline happening, and all of a sudden, the economy hits and people either have a budget for time or for dollars and they can't play as much golf.

Right. So well, and you also have the Tiger factor. You have somebody who's not as charismatic, who's leading the tour and making headlines of people going, oh, I want to do that, I want to do that. There's really I mean, Rory is a great player, but he doesn't have the or the you know, the press appeal of a Tiger. And I'm talking about press appeal. Even before Tiger's mishaps, he's still the press loved him, right, and that's going to generate a lot of business for the industry.

Well, I think we're looking at areas where we can expand the golfer base. Everybody has now an email list, a base of emails that you can send out specials and invitations and promotions that you might have from time to time to try to expand on who you're advertising to. I think the inevitable thing is that there are going to be some golf courses that close, and that does happen. But we're trying to go from the positive standpoint, how do we get a few more people to play golf?

Do you have a sense of the average customer at Indian Valley how many times a year they play at your course, Because, like I'm one of the members, you know when you're lesser members. But I recently did a check because my son was asking me, and of the last thirteen rounds that I had played, I played eleven different courses in Marin, Sonoma, and San Francisco, so I don't always go to Intow Valley it's my go to, but I play a lot of courses. So do you have any sense of how often.

Well, we have an annual membership right with about two hundred and twenty five or so, either single members or family members, and they play more golf, obviously than the general public plays. I think the average family member probably plays two to three times a week. Then the one extreme would be we have one member that played three hundred and eight rounds last year. Wow, they weren't all at Indian Valley, but he posted three hundred and eight rounds of golf. That's a lot of golf.

That's a lot of golf. Well, that's the beauty of living on the West Coast when you can play twelve months a year.

And we had a year where the weather was more conducive to playing. We didn't have much rain, so he played golf.

I have a listener who I actually just did a show with because he's a physical therapist as well and is a certified TPI instructor and he lives in Ottawa, Alberta. He lives in Alberta, Canada, and he's already had over two hundred and fifty rounds this year. And he doesn't get to play for like more than five or six months a year, right, but he plays two rounds of golf every day, at least two. He'll play thirty six holes.

So you eat a sink or swim there, get better or ya kuia one or the.

Other exactly exactly. So of all the conversations that are going on these days about how do we bring more people in, there's some outrageous ideas being you know, the first one comes to mind, like fifteen inch hole and you know, moving the t's up to play it forward concept. Have you guys done anything or you would you consider doing anything that is special to bring bodies in or you.

Just yeah, I think we would, And we wholly support the play It Forward program and we've promoted that, probably not as much as we should, but we have promoted it some. I think everybody would have a lot more fun if they played a golf course where they could shoot a good score and was a little bit more usually friendly. I think that's the point we got into

That they're charging you one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars to do.

So fees can be high. Yeah, the feest can be high. We promoted from that from that avenue the twelve inch cups. I don't know that we're going in that direction. I wouldn't be a fan of that. I'm still more traditionalist and I'd like to see other things explored before we go to a twelve inch cup.

Well, just if you play the fifteen inch hole or the twelve inch hole, just don't post your score. But hey, you're gonna first of all, you're going to probably play a lot faster, and you know you're going to score a lot lower, you're going to make a lot more putts.

I'd have less frustration.

Yeah, yeah, And if it's a way to get people, you know, excited about it, have fun. I don't know, I'm kind of on the fence about it. I've heard many conversations. I just don't wanted to disrupt normal play. It would have to be a designated time or a day or something. But I don't know.

I'm just more traditionalist with the golf that the history of golf and the challenge of golf and being a golf professional. I'd like to teach people and get them to play a little bit better. Maybe they'd have a little bit more if they're more fun if they played a little bit better. So I would attack it from that direction. And then the idea, I mean, there was

And that was the play it forward, And that's the.

Play it forward I did. And I think everybody would score better and they'd have more fun doing that.

No question, And drop the ego, folks. Sure you know it's like, I don't have a problem playing the whites. What's the problem. I'm going to have a better score probably.

Or the reds. And we took the names off of them. It's not ladies team in exactly, it's Redswhites, it's forward, t's middle, te's.

Yep, yep. But are people taking advantage of the do they? First of all, do they understand the concept play it forward? Because I don't know if that name really explains what it is. And we had Barney Adams on who it was his idea, and we've talked about it and talked about the name and how it doesn't come up with anything. But do you think people are actually a significant number of your or even a minor number of your customers are taking advantage of that content?

Well? I think they are. In fact, I just before I came over, I met with our nine old Ladies group and they're playing a couple of teas that we don't even have team markers at right now, because they want to play it a little farther forward, and they want to have rounds go a little bit quicker, and they want their higher handicapped ladies to enjoy themselves a little bit more. So. I think there's instances where we're making it happen.

All right, let's get into helping the average golfer, and that is what we do here at Golf Smarter. It's like, I'm a guy with the right equipment and a bunch of questions, and I want to get my game better. I don't want to talk about what's going on in the tour and how much money they're making or not.

Well, I might even take one step backwards from there and think about how many people play golf that don't have proper equipment, and so you might think about addressing the issue of what's in your bag and how to use what's in your bag. The sand wedge is the most versative, versatile golf club in your bag. If you're not using it to do a lot of your pitching and things around the green. Then you're cheating yourself. So you need to learn how to use that. Hybrid clubs.

What clubs should you get rid of to so that you can replace with three hybrids?

The three iron is almost obsolete. The two irons nobody even makes anymore. Wow, So most of the sets start with four or maybe even five iron, and a five iron has got enough loft and a short enough shaft that most people can feel confident enough to get the ball up in the air with a five iron. So then you go four iron three iron in the hybrid set, and they're built like a fairway wood and they'll get launch the ball up in the air and it'll land

Yeah, I am such a huge advocate on getting fitted. It makes me crazy when I have friends out there and goes oh, look, here's my new driver. It's like, oh, did you get fitted? No, I just swung. I took a couple of swings at the golf shop into a net and it felt good, like.

Bad move, bad move. And then they can do a decent fitting at a golf shop where you're using the computerized equipment. I like to see the ballfly. So when you're outdoors and you can see the initial launch angle besides what you're reading on the computer fitting, and you can see the spin rate, and you can see the curve of the golf ball. You're going to find out what kind of shaft and whether you need a softer

Yeah, and I'm trying to think like getting fitted than not hitting into a net. I mean, actually seeing the actual ballflight. You can learn a lot more from that than just I mean, the computers are pretty awesome.

Computers are awesome. The computer can tell you from the initial contact with the golf club the spin rate, launch angle and all those kind of things. It's ball speed, those kind of things that you're interested in. But from a naked eye. You see the ball launch off of your club face. You see the initial spin rate, balls that take off and they start low and they rise. You know, there's too much spin on the ball. I'm I'm a field person and I have a trained eye.

Interesting. That makes a lot of sense. But there's a lot of people who don't aren't using taking advantage of that. Well, they don't have the room.

Well, and if you if you come to a to a golf shop or a golf club where you can hit balls and you can see the ball fly. Everybody that does the club fittings, and I'm included. We have three of us that do club fittings at Indian Valley and we can club fit you and the club fitting doesn't cost anything.

Yeah, that's a huge advantage that people don't realize. It's like, you know, it's not going to cost you anything and you're only going to do better.

Yeah, it's just gonna help.

And what are the things that are gonna for me? When I got fitted. One of the first things that started happening is my drives. I got a new driver and they were going longer, and the dispersion they weren't. It wasn't flying to the right, it wasn't flying to the left. Once we made those adjustments, I was just you know, you put more balls in the fairway, your scores are gonna go down.

You can have a lot more fun when you're not in the trees every.

Hole, yep, yep. And you guys have trees, yes.

We have trees, and we have fairway bunkers a few, and we have hazards that you can get yourself into. So getting yourself fit for the proper clubs is a big thing.

How do you keep the bunkers in good shape with the drought.

Well, sand traps on the fairways are not going to get as much use as up around the green so they take a little bit less maintenance. But sure the green side bunkers they get maintained on a daily basis, and they get upgrades throughout the year as need be, you know, refilling the sand or re raking the sand to get them to where they're more playable, because they do get hit with irrigation and they get hit with storms in the wintertime, so you have to do some maintenance. Yeah.

I was up at Foxtail North this past weekend up in Rohnert Park, and the bunkers were like playing off a hard pan and it was like unfortunately, it was like when I played at Pasa Tiempo that was just dried out rock hard, looking ugly. But the bunkers just work hard, really hard.

Yeah. I'm not very comfortable to hit a sand shot next to a green and right not have a great deal of sand in there. But we do a pretty good job keeping the sand.

Why are they just not refilling the sand or it's just because it's so wet.

The economy hits in a lot of different directions.

YEA interesting. Interesting, all right, Now let's see Okay, so we talked about equipment. We talked about playing the correct teas. Okay, now let's get back to those uneven lies.

Uphill downhill side hill lies. Yeah, some of them more difficult than others. I think the biggest basic thing that everybody needs to think about when you're on a hilly golf course is getting your body level to the slope that you're trying to play. For instance, your spine angle where that is and being perpendicular to the ground. So uphill lies, you're going to tilt your body and get

So you want to make sure that your body is perpendicular to the ground right, not to perpendicular to gravity right right, so you're not like trying to go you be straight even though the ground is at an angle, and you want to be up and down as far as gravity's concerned.

Right, the spine angle to the ground has to be at a ninety degree angle. So if you've got an uphill lie, you want the club to be able to swing up the slope and not swing into the slope.

And then what about ballflight coming off of a shot where the ball is let's say above your feet.

Okay, so you got a ball that's going to go up up the hill a little bit, it naturally adds more loft to your club, so you need to club up. If it's a five iron shot, maybe you need a four iron. You need something that's going to have a little flatter face because your launch angle is going to be higher, and then vice versa. If you're going down

Number eight at Indian Valley, Part three, All up hill.

Hardest tool on the golf course.

The death of Me. It's it's got a narrow green going left to right. So when you're looking at it, it's the width of the green, it's not very deep, and it's all uphill to the green, and it's the green is on top of the hill. And if you even land on the green, you your chances are you're going to bounce off and go back down the hill.

Very difficult show.

Very difficult shot to get the ball to stay on the green. Playing from the whites, you're probably it's like one hundred and thirty five hundred and forty yard shot. But with the uphill you got to add two clubs. Then you got the wind in your face sometimes or the wind behind you. It's either in your face or behind you. How do you what do you recommend to play that hole or a hole? That's that that complicated?

Well, like you said, if it's if it's into the wind, you have to only have to club up. You're clubbing up because it's uphill.

And that's what a two or three club difference.

It depends on how strong the wind is. That's just something that's a judgment called there's.

No wind at all, that kind of elevation change going uphill. You know, I think if something to decide how many clubs that you want to go up.

Well, I think it depends on how high you hit the ball. I think it's a one club difference going up that hill. So from one hundred and sixty yards I would hit a six iron. I'd normally hit a five iron going up that slope. But you also want to think about the green itself. You don't want to be long there, so any kind of miss needs to be short, because at least you have a chance from short to chip and put and get it up and down.

Yeah, but even if you're a little short, that thing's going to hit the edge of the hill, take one bounce and just fall off to the right and now you're down by the fence way below the hole.

No doubt, a very difficult hole, but.

It's not ranked as like the highest handicap hole on the course.

Though, I think purely because of the yardage, just because one and forty one hundred and sixty yards depending on where you're playing from.

Yeah, last time I think that I I stayed just just on the fringe, but on the back fringe of the green. Plus, you don't necessarily want to attack the pin on that hole. You just want to get to the middle of the green as best you can.

And you always want to favor left. Why because there's more forgiveness to the left side. Anything that hits from the middle of the green right is going to fall down that slope and you're going to have a much more difficult ship in.

The front side of the green. But on the back side, if you go it's narrow there, it's narrow so you go a little bit. Yeah, now you're all the way on the back end again and there's a big oak tree.

Right, there's never been there myself.

Well, let me tell you about that hole, Steve. It can happen, you know, when you're on the other side of the green and you've got to come up. You want to take a nice high lofted club just kind of floated up, but you can't because there's a tree there.

It's a big oak tree.

Yeah. Well, I hope you never do get to introduce yourself to that.

It's a difficult shot from long.

What's the best score at the course? What's the course record?

Fifty nine? Wow, Felix Cadinho shot fifty nine senior fifty nine when, oh god, it's been fifteen years ago.

Probably really Yeah, that's interesting.

He's a very fine player, and he plays Indian Valley very well. He's had a lot of close calls to that. He shoots a lot of sixty threes and fours.

Wow, that's amazing, pretty strong. It's your best friend at Indian Valley.

I'm trying to think about my best I think probably about sixty six or seven, which is good for me. I'm not a. I don't make a lot of birdies, but I don't make a lot of bogies either.

Is where's your what are your issues if you're not making a lot of birdies.

Well, my strength is my t shot. I drive the ball straight and not very far far enough, but not very far, so I don't get into a lot of trouble. And I'm good with the short game. My iron play is probably my weakest part of my game, so I don't get into a lot of trouble.

And how many pets around do you put in?

Well? I played in a tournament last month where I had thirty one puts the first round and twenty eight the second round, and twenty eight is good. Yeah, I'll take twenty eight every time.

Oh yeah, oh yeah yeah. Get me around the thirty mark underneath, I'd be very happy, absolutely hate.

Those three puts unless you're only hitting about three or four greens around so.

Well, right right, And if you are coming up short to be able to have enough of a short game to do, give yourself a five foot.

Or less to get it up and down.

Yeah, that's the key. It is how you score. I'd tell you score as a golfer, not as an instructor, but as a golfer, what's the best advice you've ever received about playing golf?

The best advice I've ever received. I think there's a lot of people who try to find that magic moment in their game that's just going to make them fixed and they're going to be able to just play better. And I think the patience that everybody needs to have if you're making a little swing chains that you're patient. Your patient on the golf course. If you miss it a shot, you try to get it up and down and you try to make it up on the next toll.

Do you give playing lessons as well? Just go out on the course with people, and I do.

I don't have the time to give too many of them. And I feel like if you're going to give a playing lesson, there needs to be something specific on the golf course that you need to work on, whether it's your strategy, it's stuff around the green, different lives around the green or even just uphill downhill side hill lies that we were talking about. Those are things that you can't do on the driver range right exactly.

And what is glaring to you when you're out doing a playing lesson that you'll see just so common as a mistake.

Lack of knowledge of the short game is probably the biggest thing. I've worked with some really good players who don't understand the loft and the d loft and being able to get the ball up and down around the green the basic mechanics.

And that would be the key to really scoring.

Oh absolutely. I mean, you look at the average player that can hit a t shot two hundred yards and hit a second shot one hundred and eighty one hundred ninety yards. They're in that fifty yards to the green area that they need to make sure that they're one on the green almost every time or every time, and that they're in a range that they're going to have two putts maximum. That's a bogie golfer, right.

And that would be a beautiful thing for a lot of people.

It would be a really good thing for a lot of people.

Yeah, what I see a lot and don't know how to well. I don't offer any help because I'm in no position to do it. But what I see a lot is, especially on the short game, is people sweeping at the ball. They're not coming down, they're not you know, trying to control it that way. Why do people just automatically think you just got to slide right under the ball and they don't get the hit the ball hit the ground concept.

Well, I think down equals up and golf, so for the club to swing down, that sends the ball up. But psychologically it doesn't make sense. The golf game is played with the ball in the air, so most players are trying to get the ball in the air, help the ball in the air, and they're not allowing their club to be able to get the ball in the air for them. So yeah, that's part of the mechanics.

Yeah, I'll tell you what I do when I to practice my short game when I come out because your driving ranges a hill, so I need to We'll get to that in a minute about how accurate it is when you're hitting on there. But what I do is, you'll generally there's never a lot of people on the driving range. People don't just come out to Indian Valley just to go to the driving range. There's other places they'll go.

For trying to make it that way that we're trying to make it a little bit more of a destination practice area.

But I agree, Yeah, I mean probably Peacock would be, you know, a destination practice area in this county. But what I do is, so generally when I go up there, there's only one or two guys, if any up on the range, and what I do is I will just take a handful of balls and try to get try to hit it to the mat because I can retrieve all my balls, but I'll just go, Okay, this one's

Well, I think I think we're going to offer a nice little practice area, destination practice area. It's you can get your bucket of balls and you can go hit a few bunker shots and you can hit some wedges and then go up and hit the rest of your golf balls, so you're fully warmed up before you go out to the first team.

Oh that's great. That's really exciting. When do you guys think you'll have that open soon?

I hope the grass is in there pretty good right now. It's up to the superintendent when he thinks it's ready to go, but hopefully soon.

Yeah, you've been doing a lot of work on the driving range over there.

We have. Yeah, the area right in front of the tea box has now been leveled and that is now grassed as well. It won't be a grass hitting area, but cosmetically will look a lot better.

Yea.

And realistically, when you go down to that driving range, if you're really working on practicing, then you're gonna hit your seven eight nine pitching wedge, you're gonna hit your shorter clubs. If you're going down there to warm up, then you hit everything.

Yeah, I one or two swings with the driver, but mostly it's you know, working on you know, because that is a warm up is my practice time. I don't get enough time to go out to a range, so I'll focus on my short short clubs.

And you know that's where you're going to score anyway.

Right, exactly exactly so, but your driving range is on a hillside it is, and you have flags up there and you're saying it's one hundred and fifty yards one hundred and fifty yards. Define thee hundred and fifty yards when you're hitting it on a hill, I mean, is it actually one hundred and fifty yard shot or no.

Well it's one hundred and fifty yards, But whether it plays one hundred and fifty yards it depends on what kind of loft you're going at it with. For somebody hits the ball pretty high, it's probably going to be fairly accurate. But for somebody who's not lofting the ball as much, it's going to feel like it's a long ways to that one hundred and fifty yard marker. So it depends on the trajectory of your shot.

But when you're playing a hole, like when we talked about on number eight, when you have an uphill sh that's we'll call it one hundred and forty yards, you have to account for you know, the ball is gonna so when it's uphill, it's gonna be a little bit

You know, there's a lot of factors in golf besides just hitting the golf ball that you always have to weigh in on the temperature. The ball is going to always go farther when it's warmer, the wind direction, the uphill and downhill side hill lies, those always play a part. So when you're working on number eight, you're hitting it one hundred and forty yards up the hill. For me, that shot right there is probably a seven iron because

What is your specialty as an instructor. What do you focus on the most or think that you can help somebody the most with.

Well, I think I can help people with their full golf swing, But I think my specialty is probably with the putter or with the short game. I think I have a very good technique to teach the putting stroke, and I think that I have a really good technique that I've developed over time and tested and trial and tested with the short game, everything from a little short pitch shots to fifty thirty forty fifty yard web shots.

When I've gone into stores and ask a salesperson about, you know, clubs they have distinct opinions and then getting fitted on all the different clubs. But when you bring up a putter to someone like that, they'll go, you know, it's all about feel. It's all about how you feel. And when you start taking instructions, they'll start you with position, grip, and alignment. There's the basics of the full swing. And then again they come back there's so many different ways

Well. I think, just like the golf swing, there are certain fundamental, basic, fundamental things that everybody needs to go through. You have to have a very sound fundamental putting grip. Whether it's the traditional reverse overlap grip or whether it's left hand low or the pencil grip or the claw

Dave Stockton was on a couple months ago and he mentioned that because I'm left hand low and lag, putting can be difficult for me, and he said, change your grip for the longer ones. What's your thought on.

That, Well, that's probably very true because if you're a right handed player playing right handed, your right hand is your power supply. So if your right hand is basically taken out of the stroke by having left hand low, you don't have the same kind of feel and being able to roll the ball at longer distances. So I would agree with that.

Interesting, Well, I want a lesson. I want a putting lesson from from here. That would be a lot of fun, because that's to me, that's where I'm You know, three putting can ruin your whole round. It can just get into your head and think you're having a terribly. You can be green and every fair way, hit every green and regulation and you're three putting and worse and you just become a miserable human being. No doubt, it'll just I suck because you can't put it.

There's no reason why a fifteen eighteen handicapped player can't be a good putter.

And then they won't be a fifteen or hit the right. Yeah, they can drop down to twelve quickly with that.

That's true.

All right, Well, I'm going to take you up on that, because what do you think about the ruling on the long putters and attaching to the body or not attaching the body or.

I have mixed emotions. I mean, I'm for anything that's going to make golf easier for people, and I think the long putter when it came out, it took players who had real problems with the putter and gave them a whole new feeling a bit about playing golf. It's

Yeah, that'll be allowed. Okay, traditionalists, Yes, there's there's new fangled equipment all the time. The technology has changed so radically in the last ten years as far as the materials used. Do you like that or you think we should go back?

Well, I think the USGA has a good handle on what's going to happen with the equipment and the golf ball. And they're only going to allow the golf ball to go so fast off the club, So the golf ball is only going to fly so far. And they keep tinkering with the feel of it and the initial launch angle and spin rate and those kind of things. Will probably tinker with the ball a little bit, but the club material that's probably something that will change over time.

Just did a conversation with an author who wrote a book about the nineteen sixty nine Ryder Cup, and we had it on just as the Ryder Cup was happening. And one of the things that fascinated fascinated me about reading the book was they talking about how in the early sixties there was a different sized ball in the US being used versus the one over in the UK. It's a little bit smaller, like eighty one hundredths of

Actually, David Ferridy is a fan of making the balls bigger, bigger, slightly bigger, which will reduce how far they go.

Would you want to do that? Everything is trying to make a game longer.

Well, and trying to get an equal playing field, and trying to make it to where the long hitters can't hit it fifty yards by you making the ball slightly bigger will make the ball go a little bit shorter. I don't know if I'm a tremendous fan of that idea, but.

I think that way we have different tea boxes, that is till the long hitters can stand back there and you don't have to play. Not everybody in your forest them has to play the same tea box.

It's okay, that's true, and I hope we're to the point now where we're not going to see Augusta National have to go to eight thousand yards. And you know, all of our local golf courses have to get longer, longer to make them viable.

But ninety eight percent of the players can't play those long courses anyway. I mean to build courses just for the tour.

That's true, and I think, well that was the ego build that we had for a number of years, and now I think we're much more reasonable about what the golf courses need to play. Like, we have some golf courses in the area here that maybe worked a little bit too hard when they were first built, a little too severe, and people play them a couple of times and say, I don't want to go back there. So now I think they're softening those courses up and they're

Yeah, they should. And most people shouldn't be playing the back teas anyway, that's true, unless you are included.

Six sixty year old guys don't need to play seven thousand yard golf course.

You know, it's very funny. Well, Steve, it's so great that we've finally got a chance to do this. I really appreciate you taking the time to come out and have this conversation with you. I've been waiting for a long time to do this. I've threatened you for years to do this.

Thank you for the invitation.

So thank you so much for coming. And I look forward to two things. One seeing you out there every time I come out, and to getting that putting lesson. I need the help.

I'll be glad to help gain it.

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