Integrated Approach to Game Improvement with Jeff Ritter

Golf Smarter number three hundred and fifty five, published on October thirty one, twenty twelve. Trick or Treat.

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I've had clients come in and say, you know why I should be I practice all the time.

You know I should be able to repeat this.

You know I should be able to hit a bunker shot or a pitch shot, or hit a t shot.

Like Tyer Woods. I mean, I had people say that, and.

I said, you know what if you told about the Tyler woodsy punch in the face right now? Why because he's one of the world's greatest athletes and he spends about five thousand percent more time working on his game.

Than you, And why in the world would you deserve to hit it like Ken? Can we talk about this?

Worrying on Golf's not about who hits the best, It's about who misses it the least people have to understand that in a coaching environment, if you're open, you are going to perform at a much higher level, and you should do that immediately. But to own it and take you to the course and stand there with half the people in your clut membership looking at you and rip it down the fairway just like coaches there. It's not going to happen until you deserve to have it happen.

It doesn't take a.

Lot of hard work to experience great ball flight, but it takes a lot of hard work to own that ball flight.

Jeff Ritter on his integrated approach to being a better golfer. This is Golf Smarter.

Each week we tap the best minds in golf to help lower your scores with tips, drills, insights and advice in conversation with course pros, architect authors, players, teaching gurus and coaches.

Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast.

Jeff, Hey, Fred, thanks again for having me.

You're quite welcome. I need to apologize to the audience for being a little bit late. I know some people like to download this immediately, but I've had some technical issues, and strangely enough, this is the fourth time that Jeff and I are trying to record. We've recorded two episodes already and they disappeared, and so we're trying to get so we're really well rehearsed. This is the first time we've had a rehearsed Golf Smarter podcast. You ready, I

Yeah, thanks, Red.

The integrated approach is really just trying to create an extension of the golf performance aspect of things. I mean, my expertise is in the technical aspect of how to change or improve your ball flight, you know, from tee to green. That's what people come to me for first and foremost on a daily basis. The things that I'm interested in personally and have been for a long time.

You go beyond that. I'm really into too, fitness.

I'm really into the mindset aspect of high performance in sport. And I'm also very much into nutrition now because as you know, my fiancee came in a row is a nutrition coach.

So all these things.

That you know I've engaged in on my own over time have led their way into my coaching. And what I've found is that that technical environment becomes a lot more filling and inspiring when you show people not just how to hit it a little bit better or putter chit better, but you show them how they can incorporate some of these other ideas using golf as a vehicle, and it doesn't only improve their performance on the course, but it also really improves it off the course as well.

And this past summer, I want to catch up. It's been a while since we've spoken, and we'll talk about the individual elements of your integrated approach. But I think this is going to lead us to that this past summer, you were running the Nike Junior golf camps down in Monterey. How did that go?

It was absolutely fantastic. We were there for us six weeks. We entirely sold the program out. We had a waiting list about sixty kids deep. And you know, it's not too bad being down there in Pebble Beach right in the middle of the summer, whereas an Arizona sweating my butt off.

So I've been involved with.

With Nike golf schools and junior camps for about ten years now. Actually, all the golf camps and football and basketball, baseball, soccer, anything that has a swoosh on it's actually run by a company out of San Raphael, near your area.

Called US Sports are known as San Rafel.

I guess so right, thanks for the correction.

Yes, yeah, it's like you don't want to say Frisco. You got to call it San Francisco. It's you know, when any of you hear is San Raphael, you know they're from out of town San Rafel.

Well, you know I'm from Lancaster, PA, which most people think is Lancaster, which is certainly not correct.

So well and actually in southern California it is Lancaster.

Yeah, well they're wrong.

But I've been involved the company for a long time and last year around this time, they named me their national director of Instruction for the golf schools in the camp. So my first order of business was to really try and do the best job hossible, trying to run what we think is a world class experience, you know, in the Pebble Beach area. So you know, we've had kids

Said, you know, Google online, Sure, online, but I mean, obviously, uh, you know the name Pebble Beach, the area of Pebble Beach, it's it's you know, it's it's synonymous with excellence and excitement and the best golf in the world.

So even though we don't actually play Pebble Beach. We do play a lot of Pebble Beach properties. We play Spanish Bay and Spyglass, and we played Delmani. We also take the kids to Poppy Hills, which is not owned by the Pebble Beach Company, but it's within that del Moni force, so you know, it's great golf. We put

Had a great time with it.

Amazing. Is this an exclusive camp? I mean, do these kids have to try out audition to get involved now?

Not at all.

Actually, if they just go to US Sportscamps dot com forward slash Golf, they can actually search not only the Peddle Beach camps, but up to seventy nine other locations. We're run camps like this throughout the country and there's different skill levels. We have the regular camps, which are open to all abilities ages ten to eighteen, and then we have the advance camps in the literary ture. We'd like to have the advanced campers be passionate about the game.

Because when they show up, they're going to get a lot of golf.

So if there's a parent out there that says, I'm just going to put them in the advanced camp so much that the instruction is any different, because the coaching staff is the same for both weeks, it's just that the environment's a lot more more intense. So if your child is just getting involved with the game and you throw them in there with a bunch of, you know, stud high school athletes, they might not have a very.

Good time because they're going to feel like they're way behind the curve.

So it's just important that you know, kids and parents are honest with their ability level and realize that no matter what camp they go into, the coaches are the same, and the coaches are trained to give the kid exactly what they need based on their skill level.

I love when you mentioned they're honest about what their game is. And that is not exclusive to child golfers, to young golfers, junior golfers. I would think for all of us. Is that something that you do with each of your students, You talk about or you try to get them to be honest about where their game is.

Yeah, I try and get them to be honest about where it is, but I also try and get them to be honest or authentic about where they'd like it to go. You know a lot of people they come in for a lesson, and you know, only only ten percent of golfers, for it, take golf lessness. So's there's ninety percent of people that play golf out there that are not actively engaging in a coaching environment, whether it be in person or online.

And isn't it only ten percent of golfers ever break one hundred.

I don't know those numbers, but yeah, it's a hard game. Yeah, it is very is a very hard game. So every year, just as many people that get turned on by the game, they get they get turned off by the game. So it's really up to us as coaches in an industry to get people excited about their games and excited about this experience that we call golf, and to find ways that make them want to stick with it, and the fact that the game is so hard.

Is a little bit of a challenge, you know.

I've always kind of liked this idea that if I'm going to try something and I'm going to stick with it, I want to be mediocre fast, you know what I mean, I'm going to put some skis on my feet or strap on a snowboard. If I'm falling down the mountain all day, then the next day, you know, I'm going to figure out something else to do.

That, you know, is a little bit encouraging. And the same thing with golf.

If you're missing it and losing balls and it's taking you forever and you're just not having a good time with it, then why would you come back? So it's really up to coaching to be able to reveal to people very quickly how good they can actually be. And when people start to get a taste of what it's like to have success, they want to come back for more.

Have it and you have it forever.

You see with tour players, you know, one day they go out and shoot sixty two.

The next day they go out and they miss the cut.

So it's all about embracing the challenge associated with the game. But very early on people have to have that taste of success. And as it relates to the people that are already involved with the game.

You know, Fred, about.

About seventy percent of my clients are from from outside of Arizona, which is which is an amazing thing.

And really incredible because you know, there's so many golf instructors who are struggling to get any clientele at all, let alone have them from out of town. I mean, you said only ten percent of golfers take lessons.

Yeah, And the thing is that a lot of that was due to very active in social media, you know, as you know, I've got my YouTube channel at almost five million views.

Now.

Right before we got on the phone, I talked about two clients that I've actually secured my services to fly to Sydney, Australia and spent about two weeks coaching then down there.

But the thing, did they discover you on YouTube?

Is that?

Is that how they found you?

Yeah?

They sure did.

Wow found me on YouTube and they came out here the last two years and spent about a month working with me, and then this year they just decided to stay in Sydney and offer me a trip out there.

Me as sort of their last resort, so to speak.

They've been frustrated with the game for whatever reason in their local market, they hadn't been able to make that turn, so to speak, and they come out to see me because they're looking for an answer, you know, and if they don't get an answer, their enjoyment for the game is probably going to be extinguished.

You know, so I take a lot of.

You know, care and time into trying to come up with a plan that's going to get them excited about their game again. And that comes down to very quickly showing someone, you know, how they can hit it better than they ever hit it before in a short period of time. Or make that one swing change that you know they've worked on for years and they hadn't been able to change, and all of a sudden, wham, you know, in fifteen minutes they see it.

You know.

That's the thing that's exciting to me. And once I get people believing in themselves, then it's really easy to start introducing them to some of these other components that we call the integrated approach. You know, so if somebody comes back, you know, a year from now and they go, you know what, you know, I won my club championship,

I'm not going to hold you to these numbers, but when you say only ten percent of golfers take lessons. Of that ten percent, how many do you think take more than one lesson? I mean, is it a lot like, Oh, I'm going on vacation this week, I need a lesson, and it's like the only time they ever take a lesson.

Well, boys, it's hard to say.

I'm actually a member of this business group called the Proponent Group.

It's actually run by a.

Gentleman named Lauren Anderson who used to be with a golf magazine, Preeer.

So he throws out.

These stats all the time to us as members because we need to learn about the market that we're dealing with as coaches and what opportunities exist. So I don't know what that answer is, but after this conversation, I'm going to ask him what that is, because you're right, some people might go out for that one lesson and be totally turned off.

This is way too hard. I didn't get it. I did better before I even showed up.

Whereas another segment of the population might have that great coaching experience where they want to develop something that's more personal and ongoing with more of a game plan.

And you know we've talked.

About in the show before that there's two different kinds of lessons, right, we said, there's corrective lessons and there's developmental lessons. And the corrective lesson is when you know, Fred Green shows up on my lesson team when he's on vacation and says, you know, hey, Jeff, I am slicing it out of balance.

Can you help me because.

I had to play the Raven Golf Club Phoenix tomorrow and I want to play really well. I've been looking forward to this. I mean, that's a corrective lesson and one can I get your ball in between the trees. The developmental lesson is when you come out and you say, hey, Jeff, you know I'm a ten handicap, I want to play like a five, or I want to play like a stretch or I had this goal to win the club championship.

You know, that's more of an ongoing relationship.

So from a coaching perspective, you've got to be able to show people the light, you know, very quickly in both of those circumstances. Otherwise you're not going to be able to get them to number one, enjoy the game if it's corrective, or even come back to the game if it's developmental.

What I'm curious to know when when somebody comes to you most of the time, are they just saying, I just need to be consistent, you know? Is that what happens? It's because that's what I hear a lot on the golf course. God, if I was only consistent, I'd be so much better. It's like, really, you think that's all it takes?

Yeah, Sometimes they say that, and sometimes as you say, well, let's just you know, remove the good one and then you'll be consistent. We'll just take that nice powerful draw out of the mix and then then all will be rolling along the ground like like you've been hitting here. But you know, sometimes they say that, I mean that that's sort of the cliche thing to see because you know, they feel like, you know, they have the ability to hit quality shots, but they can't do it consistently.

You know, another thing that happens with my clients a lot.

I mean, I've been very blessed that the majority of my clients, I mean they have what I would call a high golf IQ And to me, that means that they're they're into the game. They practice multiple times per week, they enjoy playing in events at the club. You know, they're on YouTube and E golf, DIYED disc magazine. I mean, they are they're in it to win it, and they've

They just don't know how to how to fix it.

So when people come to my lessons, a lot of times they're in many cases playing with or practicing with very good relevant ideas.

You know, so they're not entirely lost, so to speak. It's just that they don't know how to how to make that change.

So in a coaching environment, it's my job to stretch the player mentally and physically, uh to the degree that's necessary for them that actually make that change. Now, in some cases I have to present the entire entire plan to it, but it's kind of nice when a client comes in and they're halfway there and you show them that for them to accomplish their goal, or they're really not that far away.

Okay, I'm gonna throw a curveball in this conversation because it occurs to me that and I'm definitely guilty of this. How do you know that you have the right coach? What is it that we should be looking for or how do we find a coach that works for us?

The way that you know you have the right coach is that in that first lesson you should get better immediately. And that's putting a lot of pressure on coaches out there, But I'm telling you, if you take a golf lesson and the coach patch you on the back and says, don't worry, Fred, you're going.

To get it.

You're not okay, because if you can't do it when the coach is there, there's no way you're going to figure it out on your right. Now.

I'm not saying that you have to hit perfect shots, but what you have.

To be able to do is see contact in ball flight and results that are that are way different than you've had before, and if they're not perfect, in some way much much closer to what you're looking for. So if your issue is you hit the ball off the toe and you take huge dibts and you slice the ball to the right every time, if that's your pattern, at some point that lesson you should have a shallow, a centered hit and a ball that curves the other way.

I'm going to go ahead and stick with you in the program.

But if you keep on seeing the same result, it means that the game plan is an accurate or the coach doesn't know how to stretch your mind and stretch your by to the point where you can actually make make that change. So I always tell people when they come out to my lesson, tee, you have a certain level of expectation, but I guarantee you that that my expectations of the learning environment and the results we're going to get are even higher. So I don't try and

And it's okay if we walk away from a lesson that there was no moments of okay, I got it. That we should try other coaches.

Well, I mean people that they shouldn't.

Worry about hurting their feelings right.

Well, the thing is when people want to try on the coaches if they haven't seen any results, you know, and the results could be you know, it looks better. You know, I'm not reverse pivoting anymore. I'm finally getting my way to my front foot. My swing plane is flatter, like I mean, it's got to look better and perform better.

But you know it's going to be a journey.

I mean.

The thing is that I expect people to improve immediately, but that doesn't mean that they are going to be granted with immediate ownership over the new skill level.

You know.

So here's the whole thing.

I mean, you can change your ball flight right now, but to go to the first t and the second team and thirteen own that ball flight, I mean that's going to take you know, patience, will and discipline. It means you've got to go out there and you got to put in, put in the time.

And I've had.

You know, clients come in and say, you know why I should be I practice all the time. You know, I should be able to repeat this, you know, I should be able to you know, to hit a bunker shot or a pitch shot, or hit a t shot like Tyer Woods. I mean I have people say that, and I say, you know what if you told about the Tiger woodsy, you punch you in.

The face right now.

Why Because he's one of the world's greatest athletes, and he spends about five thousand percent more time working on his game then.

And then you know why in the world would you deserve to hit it like him?

You know, he puts all that time in. So we talked about this before. You know, golf's not about who hits the best. It's about who misses it the least people have to understand that in a coaching environment, if you're open, you are going to perform at a much higher level, and you should do that immediately.

But to own it and take it to the core and.

Stand there with you know, half the people in your club membership looking at you, you know, while they're holding their mint julips, and rip it down the fairway just like coaches there. It's not going to happen until you deserve to have it happen. And that comes through that journey. And that's why golf is exciting because you know, it takes a lot of hard work to play at a high level. It doesn't take a lot of hard work to experience great ball flight, but it takes a lot of hard work.

To own that ball flight.

Now, let's get back to the integrated approach and the different elements of it that requires more than one lesson or does that get all tied together when you meet with somebody on that first day.

Well, I mean when people come out to see me for a lesson, they're coming out, you know from my time personally, which is dedicated to that area of golf performance, which is the technical aspect of what we're trying to do in terms of creating.

A game plan. Now, as they learn more.

About my brand and what I do, you know, then of course they can schedule additional time with a nutritionist, or they can schedule time, you know, outside of the lesson to go over and work with our fitness team or mindset coaches. So you're going to have to be willing to commit to spending some time outside of the lesson if you want that in person experience. But although the writing that I do, the stuff I do on YouTube, the stuff that's on my blog, it has valuable points of directions, so to.

Speak, for all of these things. So I want people to be able to kind of see.

What my brand is all about, to be able to read something or see something on video and start to put it into their lives. And if they really want to get deep into it, then of course they can engage in that one on one interaction with a part of my performance team.

I recently received an email from you about your new initiative called make the Turn, and is this all part of your integrated approach and explain it please?

It is it is make the Turn.

It's really a it's a high performance lifestyle based initiative, you know, to try and get people excited about the game and to get people in position to experience you know, great success and amazing things. You know, in all these areas. Golf performance mindset fits nutrition. So when you make the turn, it's when that level of possibility is revealed to you and you feel like it's it's attainable. You know, it's

Sometimes there are the.

Things that we eat and how they make us make us feel. It's how strong and how flexible we are, and you know whether or not we like walking around or for a joint sort of back hurts. And of course then it's going to the golf course and you know, being able to see that ball sing through the air and hint, the golf ball grade is the amazing feeling, you know, and the more you can do that, you know.

Level of enjoyment, entertainment goes up.

So just trying to create a platform through this program to get people dialed into this whole lifestyle based approach to playing well and living well, and I really think that they're very closely intertwined, and there's so many opportunities, not only in a golf lesson or in a coaching relationship, to be able to tap into some of these other

Challenge in the area of golf performance.

The next Friday it will be a mindset challenge, and then it goes on to a fittest challenge and then a nutrition challenge. So it's basically getting up in the morning ford and seeing something in one of these four area that's going to give you a sense of purpose as you go to the golf course or as you move throughout.

Your day and one of the things with golf.

I mean, you know, we've been talking about golf for a long time, and golf's been in magazines on TV, and you know, golf is all.

Just tips, tips, tips, and you know, as a coach, I.

Started really getting tired about looking at something that's just a tip that doesn't have any kind of purpose or movement behind it. So what I'm hoping to accomplish with this make the term challenge program is for someone to engage in each challenge and then be able to start seeing a positive change in their golf game, in their thought processes, in their nutrition, in their their waistline, and how their body feels, and at the end of the year look back and say, Wow, that program got me

I'm intrigued. What is the time commitment your and are there report cards? I mean, how does that work? And how much are we supposed to be doing each week with each challenge?

Well, it's it's a very low time commitment.

For example, a golf performance challenge might be as simple as if you're going to go to the range on Saturday, I want you to go ahead and complete this one short game drill for example. Some will be more difficult at some mobile bit easier, but it's not something where you have to spend all day doing it. It's just going out there instead of just whacking balls, you know, having some purpose behind what you're doing, and trying to

Your local clubs.

So you know, life is all about rating momentum. Anyone who's been involved with fitness or running or anything like that, you know, once you get a little bit of momentum, a little bit of steam in your engine, it's.

Amazing how much farther you can go.

So this program is designed to get people started and to build momentum slowly over time, so that the sum of all the parts, so to speak, lead up to a much greater hole which is hopefully exciting and inspiring and gets people pumped to.

Be involved in the game. That's all.

That's what I'm all about, is helping people get pumped about their golf games. And because I've got this great team of people around me, you know, we have the ability to expand on that influence into these other areas as well.

I'm pumped, I'm ready. And when does this begin? At jefferd or Golf. Got jefferd or Golf Facebook page, jefferd of Golf Facebook page, and when does when's the first challenge being issued?

I'm hoping it's going to be out.

I don't want to get the deadline here too close because we've got the holidays coming up. But I've been actively doing some video in some writing and putting the challenges together.

So we'll have.

About thirteen challenges in each category, but I would imagine in the next six weeks you'll start seeing them there. And one thing people can do is they can just go to my Facebook page, which is jeffer Golf. Another incentive form is fred, I'm giving away a pain Answer driver this month, so going to give away pay Answer driver. And it gave away one, We're going to give away another one. So all they have to do is like the page and they can actually register right there.

Okay, and wait now, this is what you're talking about November twenty twelve this month or October twenty twelve this month.

Well, actually we're going to give them away multiple months. So if somebody enters today and they don't win the next driver, they'll be enrolled to actually win either a driver beyond that or another prize. They've actually got a top secret sweepstakes giveaway in order, which is going to be.

It's going to be big.

Fred Am I eligible to it.

I told you before if you want some one, man, I think that would be possible.

Okay, I don't want to talk about it anymore then, so listen, here's what I would like to do. Because we've hit our time limit for today because I want to get to our score Zone Short Game Academy. But here's can you come back? We'll do another episode next week, a members only episode, and can I drag out of you a couple of these specific fifty two of your not all fifty two, but a couple of the make

Fred sounds good, can't wait.

It is time once again for the score Zone Short Game Academy with our wedge Guy Terry Kaylor Hi.

Terry, Hi Bred. How are you doing.

I'm doing well, thank you. I just want to remind all of our listeners that they can participate in this segment of the show. If you have a question about your short game, we invite you to go to Golfsmarter dot com and click on the button that says score Zone Short Game Academy and Terry along with his blog the wedge Guy dot com. Is that what the u r L is for your your blog?

Yes, yes, it is.

Okay, so yeah, he even addresses I've been reading the Wedge Guy blog and I've seen some of the questions that have come up on Golf Smarter on your blog. Thank you very much for doing that.

Well, you know, people have questions. I want to provide answers when I can.

And why not. And we actually have a question today. This one comes from longtime Golf Smarter listener and supporter. Thank you, Hugh Deandrade out of Summit, New Jersey, and he it's a very simple question, but I think it's a relevant one because I want this answer as well. It is, Terry. You frequently speak of the release. Would you please define and explain that term.

Well, I'd love to, Hugh, thanks for asking, because I just out in Las Vegas last week and speaking to a group of LPGA teaching professionals and we got into a dialogue about proper release of the golf club and they all agree this is one of the most misunderstood

That's the very first time that had Ben Hogan's secret has ever been revealed on this show.

Unbelievable from the wedge guy. So but Hogan talked about pronation and supernation and all this, but what he really meant is the rotate. And to me again, I said, my opinion is this rotation of the hands. And if you have a golf club in your hand and you do this, watch that I told you. You move your hands one foot toward the target from just behind the ball to just in front of the ball. But while you do it, you do this full one hundred and

You know, as we record this, we're in the midst of the twenty twelve Major League Baseball postseason, and Terry's from Texas. I'm from Bay Area and in my Oakland areas kind of beat up on your Rangers and now the Giants are doing well as well. But my point is that with these super slow mo cameras that Fox keeps using, I have noticed that when they show a batter swinging the bat to hit the ball, the rotation like you're talking about of his hands as the ball

It's similar. But if you look at when and as all of your viewers watch golf on TV and watch the destructional videos, really watch the pros with their short clubs because they're moving slower. Everything's happening slower, and you have a better chance of seeing it. But when you get an opportunity to look down the target line. You'll see a lot of times they'll have a camera angle, even in the magazines, from behind the golf and looking straight behind the golfer down the target line and look

Phenomenal. Thank you very much. Great explanation. It really clarified a lot for me, and now I have something to focus on on that that on my short game swing there. That's great. Thank you. All right, great question, Hugh, Good job.

It was very good, Hugh. Thanks for asking that because I love talking about this topic. I like showing people this because it's the aha moment for most golfers when they really understand this concept of release.

And over the last couple of shows, I'm sure that people have realized. And please keep submitting your questions. And your question, of course, may be something that's plaguing you in your game, but just think about the fact that you're not the only one. And the type of questions that Terry seems to be responding to are those that he knows he hears a lot from a lot of different people. So your your question may be about your game, but it also could be covering a topic for a

Do you agree with that, sir exactly? There are millions of golfers and there are dozens of problems, so everything, every problem somebody has is shared by thousands of other golfers. So please ask, please send it in. And there are no stupid questions. There are only questions that don't get asked.

There you go. That's it for today, Terry, Thanks so much. We'll talk to you in a couple episodes and hopefully it'll be another question that will cover information for all of us.

Well, I look forward to it, Fred, and we'll talk to you then.