Hi.
This is Jim o'donald from Sun City, West Arizona, and I played Corna Bella golf course. This is Golf Smarter number ninety seventy.
I'm a third generation golf pro. Our son is a fourth generation golf bro. My grandpa was a greens keeper and he built courses and was a golf pro in the Atlanta area starting one hundred years ago. His son and daughter, my dad and my aunt were always in the golf industry. My dad's first name is Rell. He worked for McGregor and then his sister, my aunt Louise, is one of the Ladies' Hall of Famers. I got
my first lesson drummer when I was eighteen. I was on the back nine with her, the first time I'd ever played with her. So I'm all excited. I'm having a great time. And she hits this drive out there and at the time, she is fifty five years old, so she's still playing in the LPGA tournament at this time,
the LPGA Championship. About halfway through the back nine, her drive starts at the right son of the ferry like always, and it kind of falls to the right a little bit and it goes a couple of steps into the right rough in the cart, and ancess starts driving, and I said, oh, why you didn't like that drive, did you? And she stopped the cart and she took me right in the eye. She said, I don't know, Joel, I don't care. I said, well, I thought you've been hitting
that little draw all day. I thought you wanted to draw back. She said, well, I do want to draw back, Jel. It's been drawn back all day. But that would just stayed a little to the right. But I can still get three or four from there, can't I, Joel, So that drive doesn't bother me in the least. That's the main difference between players like me and players like you, Joel. I enjoyed my good missus. Players like you y'all complain about your good missus. She said, Joel, this is the
main thing I learned from Bobby Jones. All par golf is, Joel, is getting your drive out there somewhere where you can swing at it, getting the next one on or around the green, and then you get down in two shots from there. I do not have to make one perfect swing to shoot par golf.
It's time we learn how to appreciate our good missus with PGA Master Professional Joel Sucksist.
Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips and insights from great golf minds to help you lower your score and raise your golf IQ.
Here's your host, Fred Green. Welcome to the Golf Smurter Podcast. Joel.
Thank you, Fred, it's an honored to be here with you.
Oh, it's great to have you on because I always like getting instructors on, and it's a treat to have a PGA Master teaching professional on. What's the difference between a master professional and a PGA certified Instructor's that's a very good question, and well to start off, that's pretty good for me.
I'm one for one indeed, indeed, and again I'm honored to be here because you have been doing it so long. I've checked out a few of them over the years. So it's like I said, it's nice to be one of your valued guest heres. So thank you. But there a lot of the confusion comes from the fact that people think the PGA Tour and the PJ of America are the same thing. Who are casual golfers. The PGA Tour are the two hundred famous guys that we see
on TV every weekend, and we enjoy seeing them. But they're only about two hundred members of the PGA Tour. But the PGA of America has thirty thousand members, and I'm one of those thirty thousand, and we're the club pros. We're the fellas who run the shop at you know Hard Scrabble Country Club or you know Glenn Meadows golf Course down the road, un municipal golf course down the road. We're the fellows who run the shop there, who operate
the business. So they are thirty thousand of us. Now, there are twenty four different types of PGA of America member, and so maybe a head pro to driving range is classified as an A two, whereas a head pro to golf course who's a PGA members classified as A one. I'm called an A six because I just give lessons all day long, every day since nineteen ninety two when I left Sea Island to go down to the Jacksonville,
Prontavidre area. And then in two thousand, I had been a member for ten years and I had had some good success as a teaching pro, and I'd done a lot of studying to become a master professional, and so in two thousand I became a master professional. And that's just because I've done so much education and kind of a thesis, like a graduate level thesis, a big workbook. I presented and passed a oral test with some mucky MUCKs down in Florida, and so they called me a
master professional. Since two thousand and they are about three hundred of us now I think in the United States that are master professionals, But about two hundred and fifty of those master professionals run courses. They're a head pro or a general manager at a country club or a public course or a resort. But only about one hundred of US master professionals tea each full time. Like me. I think they're only about one hundred of US or
one hundred and twenty of US. Maybe I'm one of those hundred and one hundred and twenty mass professionals in the country who just teach. We don't run a course, you know, we don't manage the employees or run the tournaments or run the food and beverage. We just give lessons all day. And I've been doing that since nineteen ninety two. Like I said, when I left Seattle, so a mass professional just has a higher level of education,
certification and accomplishment. And then among PJA Master professionals, there are only about one hundred of us who actually just teach all day, just give lessons. We don't run the shop. We're thankful for the guys who run the shop so we can have a beautiful goal for us. You are in a beautiful driving range and a beautiful resort to go to because of our fellow professionals, So that gives
you a little lightly. I'm just one of the guys who just teaches all day and happens to also be a mass professional.
And do the master professionals also instruct PGA instructors.
That's a good question too, man. I appreciate that the I have done a few classes over the years. It's some of our chapter or section meetings because the guys knew of my reputation wanted me to do that. I've also taught classes at the Professional Golf Management Program at Ohio State University, where they train college age students who want to become PGA members, and I've enjoyed doing that about once a year for about eight years or so. I taught a class up there for the professional golf
management students who are burgeoning PGA members. So yeah, so quite often we'll get called upon to tell the guys, you know, the things we've learned over the years.
Now you mentioned there's a one, A two, and you're in a six. Is there a three, four and five?
Yes.
Indeed, when I became a member in nineteen ninety, a PGA member in nineteen ninety, I was working at Sea Island at the time, and I think there were nine different class A card members, nine different types. A one was a head pro to golf course. A two is a head pro to driving range. A three was I think a tour player. A PGA tour player in fact is a three in fact okay, and so that's that. And then a four I think was like a past
president of the association. A five was something else. So in nineteen ninety there were six or about nine classifications, you know, because you're doing different work, so they decided to kept different classifications. And then now that it's up to a twenty four. Oh so now see, if you work at Golf Galaxy, you can still be a PGA member.
In the old days, if you weren't a head pro to golf course or driving range, green grass, and you went to work at Walmart and even if you sold golf equipment there, you couldn't be called a PGA member anymore. You left the golf industry in their mind. So they've done a lot of improvising in my lifetime where now you're up to a twenty four, and in fact, it's
kind of cute. A twenty four is a PG member who cannot be classified as one of the first twenty three classifications, so he's just you know, you might be a golf course architect, you might be a college golf coach. You might be a club repair guy all day long. Again, you might work at an off course store, so all
these possibilities. Now you can still be a PG member and do all these things that older people would say that's not the traditional golf pro at a golf course, But you can still be a PGA member now, and so it's been pretty interesting to watch. So, yeah, we're all the way up to a twenty four.
Wow.
Is there a B level or is it just.
A that's a great question again, Fred, the B level of B, it doesn't go past B A B one. Let's say a B one is an associate and apprentice. So let's say you're you're they pro at Uh, what's Martin? Isn't that Martine where you live? Martin Martin and so and what's that. There's a nice club out there that's had some USGA championships.
The Olympic Club.
Yeah, okay, yeah, Harding Park. Let's say it's Olympic Club in fact that Yeah, So the head pro at Olympic Club, who's a PJ member, he has an assistant pro who's called an apprentice or an associate, and he's a he's actually becoming a member, right, he's going through his apprenticeship.
He's learning, so he is called an associate. He would be called and let's say he works in the shop, he would be called a B one okay, and then when he gets his membership, he would be called if he stay, because if he becomes the head probably is called an A one. So B one is basically a PGA apprentice associate.
Okay.
They're learning with ropes and that goes from B one I think through BE twenty four. So if you're an assistant pro and you haven't gotten your membership yet, you're a B eight, you're bait because you're not quite a member yet, so you're b you're considered as an apprentice slavish associate.
So I guess as a podcaster, I'm like Z ten.
Oh, that's a good question. I think there might be a classification.
There is one for media classification.
Yeah, executive. You could be a pg member in executive management, where the people who run like a local golf association, like the California Golf Association, you know, something like that, the people who run your amateur tournaments in San Francisco area. That a PGA member if he wanted to transition from being in the green grass world, he could run the local golf association in your city, and some of them do that. So yeah, and I bet you could be a broadcaster.
Okay, well maybe, but I do help at the first T. Indeed, I kind of coach at the first T and maybe I can get myself up from a Z to an X.
Indeed, I tell you I was at the playing ability test on Wednesday here locally. What is that nineteen eighteen men and one lady trying to become a PGA member in the sense that they were trying to pass the playing ability test and at three or four of them were over the age of fifty.
Good for us.
It's not always just the college age guys that are getting in the business.
Great, great, all right, So there's so much to talk about golf instruction. If that's what you're focused on doing every day, is instructing amateur golfers recreational golfers, then I'm going to want to get deep into that because I'm sure you see a lot of the same thing over and over and over again.
Exactly.
This is an audio podcast. You can't not here, Okay.
So you'd like to know what some of the same thing is.
Yeah, and we'll do that after this, yes, sir, after this, all right, Joel, let's get into it. Let's talk about golf instruction. This is really what it's all about here. And you know what people are doing when they walk in and how they've changed when they walk out. What do you see on a regular.
Basis, Well, what I have found over the years, Fred, believe it or not, is that you and I and the guy who shoots a hundred actually played just like Bryson.
Oh well, that's good to know.
And Tiger Woods, believe it or not. And what I mean that is we're all fighting the same battle. All of us have a personal bell curve, all right, I say our bell curve stands for PGA poor good average, all of us. All of us, sixty percent of our rounds are average. According to U. Tucker's statistician a lawyer
or girl who's just majored in math in college. It's a fact everybody has sixty percent of their rounds begin average and twenty percent of their rounds being on the good side of their bell curve and twenty percent of their rounds being on the poor side of their bell curve. So I call that your personal PGA. Belkerk poor good average is what PGA stands for in this scenario. And what I've found is that there are three things that really determine where you fall in each and every round
on your personal bell curve. Whether you are Tiger Bryson, Fred or Joel or missus Kerfluffle at.
The club, be nice to missus Kerfluffel.
Indeed, absolutely, mister A.
I mean, now I'm really intrigued here. Let's talk about what the commonality is because to always noticed, I've always kind of noticed that it's like any given day you can go ten strokes either direction, and I guess the lower you go that narrows down dramatically. The higher number you have on a regular basis that that could go beyond ten strokes. But yeah, any day.
Right, and that's what I'm saying. You go out, you don't know where you're going to fall that day on your PGA bell curve, but I guarantee it. You know, Bryson's personal bell curve is maybe let's say sixty five to the good, this poor would be seventy four, and his average would be sixty nine. But I'm going to say I have the same bell curve in the sense that it's sixty percent average, twenty percent good, twenty percent
four mine. If I go out right now today, the way I'm playing this season, if I played poorly, I'd shoot on a normal course, normal weather, about eight eighty or eighty one is poor, and then my good would be like seventy, you know, seventy seventy one. My average would be seventy four, seventy five or seventy six, something
like that, and it would be silly. But from some guys who are in my position, they go out and they shoot seventy five and they say I had a terrible day, when maybe if we really looked at the at God's video on their real scores on their personal PJ bell curve seventy five, maybe it might be to the good side of their belt curve. So I would say that PJ master pro who doesn't really honestly know
himself is deceived, or he's arrogant or something. And so I like all students, whether they're a club pro that I teach, or a mini TOURU thare I teach, or a guy who's just starting out to understand. Look, you have a personal bell curve. Let's just try to get your belt curve to inch down like an inch worm
and gradually get all three of those scores. You're poor, you're good on your average a little lower, you know, by just populating the good side of your bell curve a little more often, so that side of the bell curve fattens up a little bit. The poor side of the bell curve goes a little farther away now on your bell curve. And there are three things that I've found this is how we all play, just like Bryson
and Tiger and Rory. There are three things I've found that really determine in each round were you're going to fall on your bell curve. So I can say those three things, pread.
Do you think please?
Okay, there are three things that create big holes at any level of play. When I first start teaching down full time down in Jacksonville pant of Bedre area, these guys be hitting a grate on the video, I'm thinking, man, this guy's hitting it great. You know, he shoots ninety ninety five and he's hitting a grate warming up. And I get him on my eight star video and said, wow, you know, mister Jones, that looks fantastic. You're hitting it great the less he's his goal. I love your lessons.
I am hitting great, joy I said, yeah, mister joneson I'm hitting it better than me. I mean, what are you shooting? He says, Oh, Joe, I'm still shooting about ninety I'm still shoot about forty five in my nine hole league, you know, But I mean, I love your lessons, jo All, I'm hitting it great, and so I'm he and I are excited. Glad he likes the lessons. Glad
he's hitting it better. But it confounded me. It's like, why are these people, some of them hitting it better than me, and they're shooting ninety and I'm shooting low to mid seventies. And so I started doing a lot more playing lessons at the Beautiful Horses down in that area in Jacksonville in front of your driven What I found out, this is how I found it out. They have six or seven holes that he says, Oh, man,
I'm having six or seven holes like a tour player. Baby, I'm about even one, two, three over, man, I'm going. And then I have two or three holes like a blind man. You know, I make a trip on a double on a double and I shoot my forty five.
You know what I like to call that?
What's that friend?
Ray Ray Golf? Yeah, sometimes I play like Ray Floyd. Sometimes at play like Ray Charles.
So I'm sure you've heard this lament before. Oh this is thirty years ago, and I'm really confounded. So I started doing a lot more playing lessons, and this is what I found those big holes. They have a drive out of play, they missagreeing with a pitch, or they three five or do they do all of them my moth and but on the other holes. So that's why they play six holes one over and three holes eight over,
which equals nine over for nine holes. And I'm like man, and so I started quantifying this thirty thirty five years ago, and I've been quantifying it ever since. And I've constantly whittled down the kind of stats I keep depending on the level of the person and the level of what I'm learning, as I continue to teach every day and try to be humble and and open minded just at whatever facts the student and I are learning about their
game and what I'm learning about golf in general. And it's really a lot of fun to show that to people, to say, yeah, you and Tiger played just the same game. You're fighting the same battle. I could show you all kinds of tour player scorecards because I had to find stats a lot different than pretty much everybody else in
the industry. And I can show you how Bryson he didn't I called these three things bozo shots, by the way, so I could show you how Bryson did not have a bozo shot at the US Open this year until the sixteenth old of the third round on Saturday. He missed the green of the pitch, and then he pitched
on a two buttted cru his double. But he up until then, he had not hit a drive out of play, He had not had a three butt on those crazy Pinehurst greens, and he had not missed a pitch green with a pitch on those crazy greens where guys are missing pitches all day long. Bryson was a bad man that weekend four days, and a big part of it, I'm telling you. The reasoning won is the same reason a guy will shoot ninety four and have his best ever, all right, is because he had fewer bozo shots than
he normally does. And that's why that ninety four shooter got to the good side of his bell curve. Bryson got to the good side of his bell curve, just like the ninety four shooter. Bryson did it at Pinehurst during the US Open that weekend, and he wins by a stroke. You know, so I can figure and where the stats would be the same. The traditional stats or even some of the more modern stats that are being kept, would say all these two guys played the same like
Bryce in that weekend. It strokes game was twenty third in the field. So but in the way I keep, the way I describe the reality, he only had one zero bozo shots the first day, zero bozo shots, the second day, one bozo shot. The third day. He had five boso shots the last round, but was still able to win by one.
Because he had that miracle shot on the from the bunker on eighteen right.
Absolutely, Yep, he had his drive out of play there on eighteen. That was one of his three drives out of play that day, but he hacked it out off the route up around the green and then got up and down beautifully historically, So those are the three things they're really for even Bryson Tiger, Rory Joel Fred and mister and missus Kirk Fluffel at the club, those are the three things that really dictate where you're going to be that particular day on your personal unique Dja Belker Wow.
So I would look at it as you know, the guy he has a great swing, it's working well, but he's not working on a short game. He's just working on the full swing, and he doesn't have the feel or the touch to like what may be the hardest shot in golf actually is like thirty yards out right to the flag.
Exactly. There's so so that's the negative part of those three shots. The bad thing when all of us do it is and I can show that tour players do it, you know, and I've kept track of that over the years on certain famous twil player rounds. And you know, a drive out of play missing a green with a pitch, which I call a three pitch quote unquote, just to make it sound nice and derogatory like a three putt. So a drive out to play a dupe a three
pitch and a three putt. So the converse of that is when we do get the drive in play, when we do get the pitch on the green, and when we do two putt. So the beautiful skill there that the best players have gotten better at than the rest of us is being able to get a drive in play, being able to get a pitch on the green, and being able to hit your first put the perfect distance so that your second putt is a short putt, you know, a little tapping right right. And that's what we need
to get good at. We need to get learn how to get good drive and play, how to get a pitch on the green, and how to get that first butt the perfect.
Distance for a golfer. To understand your concept of PGA poor, good and average in relation to their scores, and they're what they generally shoot. I would think that once you understand that, the mental game changes dramatically, right, because when you are having those three holes where you're eight over, you're beating yourself up pretty good and will probably impact the rest of your round.
Exactly. Oh okay, absolutely and so and that's why a big thing with my teaching I call my teaching golf success, because I really want everybody to learn what they're doing right, even more so than what they're doing wrong. And so I spent a lot of time teaching my students, this is what you're doing, This is what you're doing right. It's like a lawn, you know, if you get if you've got, don't come help me with my lawn. I got a weed problem, I say, well, really, you don't
have a weed problem, you have a grass problem. If you've got more grass, like a golf fairway, you get all this grass, there's just no room for the weeds. So I want to help you learn how to get that drive in play. Let's get the good stuff going. What are you doing right on those drives you get in play? What are you doing right on those pitches where you hit the green. What are you doing right on those putts where you've hit the first put the
perfect distance. So absolutely, you've got to learn what you're doing right, I feel, and let's make that grow and blossom and then there just won't be any room for the weeds.
Right.
And And do you spend time, especially in teaching lessons, do you work with a person on their mental approach and how they're keep them from beating themselves up getting in the her own way? As Joe parent would.
Say, Yeah, indeed, indeed, And what I'd do absolutely, I'll tell people the story I first got this, a beautifully learned lesson on this when I was eighteen years of age. I had just turned eighteen. I was away from my golf side of the family. I'm a third generation golf pro. Our son is a fourth generation golf pro.
Wow.
My grandpa was a greens keeper and he built courses and was a golf pro in the Atlanta area starting one hundred years ago. His son and daughter, my dad and my aunt were always in the golf industry. My dad's first name is Rell. He passed away about thirty years ago. He worked for McGregor from nineteen forty eight
to nineteen seventy four, and then his sister. My Aunt Louise is one of the Ladies Hall of Famers, one of the founders, and she there were only three ladies who won more tournaments than my Aunt Louise on the latest tour, and I was playing with her. I got my first lesson from her when I was eighteen down at Saffaire Valley, North Carolina. I was on the nine with her, the first time I'd ever played with her.
So I'm all excited. I'm having a great time. And she hits this drive out there and at the time nineteen seventy eight, so she is fifty five years old, so she's still playing in the LPGA tournament at this time, the LPGA Championship. She could still play pretty well at
age fifty five. About halfway through the back nine, her drive starts at the right center of the ferry like always, and it kind of falls to the right a little bit and it goes a couple of steps into the right rough and so we hop in the cart and recoll her Aunt Sis in our family, and ant Sis starts driving and I said to her, I said, oh, wow, an Sis, you didn't like that drive, did you? And she stopped the cart and she looked at me, looked me right in the eye. She said, I said, well,
what's wrong with that drive? Why did she goes? I don't know, Joean, I don't care. I said, well, I thought you've been hitting that little draw all day. I thought you wanted to draw back. She said, well I did. I do want to draw back. Jel's been drawn back all day, but that one just stayed a little to the right. But I can still get three or four from there, can't I, Joel? And I said yes, ma'am, yeah, yeah, And she said, Joel, So that drive doesn't bother me
in the least. She said, Joel, that's the main difference between players like me and players like you, Joel. At this time, I was about a seven handicap. I was eighteen years old, break eady on a good day, she says, Joel, I enjoy my goodnesses. Players like you y'all complain about your good misses. She said, Joel, this is the main thing I learned from Bobby Jones in Atlanta, playing with him all the time at East Lake and other places.
Old Man Parr Joel all par golf is Joel is getting your drive out there somewhere where you can swing at it, getting the next one ho or around the green, and then you get down in two shots from there, Joel, I do not have to make one swing to shoot for golf, I said, Okay. Then she started driving the card again, and so, Fred, I've been trying to essentially learn the relevance of that lesson I learned that day when I was eighteen years of age at South Valley,
North Carolina, from my Hall of Fame aunt that. Of course, my logical reaction is, well, why am I trying to make my swing perfect? If I'm shooting around eighty, there must be something I'm missing. She's the LPGA Hall of Famer. I'm the eighteen year old seven handicap. I don't understand what she's saying, but I think I should probably seek to understand it because it works for her and Bobby Jones.
So yeah, it's a totally different paradigm in terms of the mental game of Fred, which is why I like golf smarter, you know, And I tuned into your podcast off and on over the years, the last ten, fifteen years or twenty years you've done. So it's like I like golf smarter and harder both. And so that's the mindset of a Hall of Fame player Bobby Jones, Louise Suggs and others. So yeah, I work on it in the lessons tremendously with people to help them enjoy their
good misses. Be like the Hall of Famer. Enjoy your good misses. Don't be like the other ninety shooters you play with. And when the ninety shooter hits it a little thin out into the two steps into the right rough about one ninety or two hundred, and he gripes about it, don't you be like him? Just shake your head and think the Hall of Famers would enjoy that
good miss. The ninety guys who are staying ninety shooters for ten, twenty, thirty, forty fifty years, they're gonna cripe about that good miss and they're not going to improve.
Wow, that's an amazing lesson because there is no perfect in golf, and striving for perfection is just like and yourself over the head with a bat.
I mean, it's just you're not going to get there. You have to accept what it gives you, right, And that's why we keep going out. I mean, so many people. They'll go to the driving range for the first time, or they're with a friend, or they're doing something and they get one swing it all and that's all it takes, right, It's just one swing where it works, and you go, oh, I love this game and you're and then it's a constant search for the rest of your life to do
it again. And even if you do it, you're like, Okay, I want to do it again. Guy once said to me, you know I want for Christmas this year, and I said, what's that and he said, two good swings in a row.
Yeah right, Yeah, So I still think it's fun to strive for that perfection. Oh sure, And of course we all agree that. You know, I don't want to try to hit it bad, you know, but what ansists taught me that day, and again, like I said, this created her. It was a big part of creating her Hall of Fame career. And she learned it from Bobby Jones, which helped it. You know, he got a lot more chilled out on his missus and that helped him start winning majors.
Was to still keep trying for perfection, but understand golf, real golf well enough to understand what is golf success for each of the five shots in golf and then accept it and say, sweet, I can play par golf with that, maybe if I missed it well enough and to be able to recognize that, to be hip enough to your own self, your own golf game and golf in general, to say, sweet, can I give you a couple examples of that?
Please?
So in my newly published book here that you said I could mention.
Here, please do and tell us the title It's.
A golf success before every round, and Fred, you can see here. Since you and I are on video and most everybody else is on audio, they won't see it, obviously. But there's a three colored chart there at the back of the book that everyone who's read the book has said, this is so helpful, Joel, that the yellow is what the shot actually did. In the middle column there what the ball actually did. The green is the golf success that the Hall of Famer's mindset their reaction to that shot.
The red is the average guy's reaction to the shot. All right, So, and I like to say, they're only five shots in golf, essentially, drive, approach, pitch, chip put, so a drive it goes in. Here's the ball result, Fred, So this is the yellow column. On this particular example, he goes into the edge of the left of two hundred and twenty yard from the tee. The average guy in his old golf paradigm. He says, Man, I'm mad. I should have been in a fair way at two
hunred and forty and fifty yards. But in the fellow's new golf paradigm. If he reads my book, you know many of my students have adopted this paradigm. Not all of them have. Ah, life is real, right, But the guys who are improving the most, of the girls whore improving the most, the juniors I teacher improved most have adopted this new golf paradigm. Now, the same ball result, it's in the edge of the left roof two hundred and twenty yards from the team. Now in the new
golf paradigm. Instead of being mad, that should have been two fifteen, here's the new golf paradigm. Sweet, I have another drive in play. I know I hit it on the heel a little bit and gotten the left ruff a little bit. That's a fact. It's also a fact, baby, this is a drive in play, and it is not gonna tend to put me towards the poor side of my bell crew. Sweet baby, I got another drive in play.
Just because you're not on the in the fairway doesn't mean you're not in play, right, I've got a ball in play. I didn't lose it. It's not underwater. I'm just I'm just enamored with learned to enjoy the good misses.
It'll help you create a Hall of Fame career maybe, yeah, yeah. And so driving play people ask me what do you mean by driving place? And it's pretty much what you said there, Fred. Basically, like my aunt said, I can swing at it. I don't have to bend it around trees or slice it or hook it around or over trees,
or take a company shot that drives in play. You know, if left rough, Joan Carner told me forty years ago, because I've got to know some of those other Hall of famers that my aunt has befriended over the last sixty seventy years. And Ms Carner told me a long time ago. She said, lay up so I can have a forearn from the fairway. Oh way, I'd rather have an eight or nine iron from the rough. Than a forearm from the fairway all day long, you know. And
missus Carner understands this. She's breaking her age now in major championships.
Amazing.
So yeah, that's a drive and play is you have a swing at it and you don't have to bend it or hooked it around trees. If you have to bend or hooked around trees or take a puny shop or go under some limbs, you have to change your approach shot, then that drives out of play right right.
And with those out of play, what we like to say here is never follow a bad shot with a stupid shot.
Exactly right exactly.
It's like, oh, well, you know, yeah, I'm in the trees, but I can see the flag from here. No no, no, no, no, no, you're looking at double bogie. Easy, Just put it back in the fairway, go for the bogie and be happy, right yep, or as your aunt would say, no, no, it's a good mess. We can we can still part of the hole.
Yeah, and that's uh. I'll tell you another example. Another way I teach this to people. I have people play a scramble, either two or three or four players. Just played one Aaron Woods here a few weeks ago to historic public course here in Cincinnati where a lot of the McGregor guys played back in thirties, forty fifties and sixties, when they'd come into the McGregor factory on Spring Grove Avenue, a few minutes away from Shearon Woods. And it was
very interesting. Fred, I could show you this, you know, if we had the little charts, I could show you. It's amazing. Those guys' full swings. We used about as many as these guys full swings as we used of mine. And we actually used about the same number of their short game shots as we used of mine. All right, and these guys are ten to fourteen handicaps. And so I asked each of them afterwards when I showed them
the chart that I kept unbeknownst to them. I didn't want them to be self conscious about it that I was keeping this, but I showed them. I said, look, why is it that your good shots are just as good as mine? But you guys shoot eighty to one hundred and I shoot seventy to eighty. And these guys are pretty smart. They're all students of mine. A couple of them picked up on a pretty guick. They said, Oh it's my when I hit it poorly, my misses are not as good as yours, jal I said, exactly.
And you're you're not going to improve in golf as quickly as you could and as enjoyably as you could if you don't start enjoying your good misses. That's the key. Such a huge aspect of what my aunt taught me that day forty six years ago, and what the good players have learned. They enjoy their good misses rather than griping about them.
Attitude, it's about your attitude, right, and attention and attention. Like you, you in a place that you're not comfortable with, you're going to add tension to you, to your shoulders, to your neck, to your arms, to your body, to your swing right, and just if you just can breathe through it, relax and just you know, accept what happened
and move forward, you can shoot lower scores. Indeed, and I think I think that's what's I've tried to accomplish all along in doing this podcast is getting advice from people like you and getting insights that really helped me go, Okay, I'm good here, and I've been able to you know, bring my index down and have more fun playing.
Indeed, and again that's that's absolutely a huge part of the middle game. And I say, it's not, you know, blowing smoke up somebody's fanny. You're trying to just put on rose colored glasses or the power positive thinking. I say, no, this is based on facts. I have thousands of scorecards that I started keeping thirty and forty years ago that where I was trying to determine what causes me to have a good score, what causes me to have a
bad score. And then when I started teaching in nineteen eighty seven and then full time in ninety two, I kept keeping scorecards. Facts. These are facts. It's true, it's mental game, but it's not just blowing smoke up each other's vand and you're trying to stay positive and all
this stuff. You know, it's hey, man, if that drives in the right rough, it really is not going to hurt your score unless you mentally, like you're alluding to threat, you mentally allow it to start cranking your angstuff and you get all gripe because you didn't make a perfect swing. When the Hall of Famer would tell you, I don't need one perfect swing to shoot far.
Wow. That is a lesson that we all need to walk away with. You had mentioned in an email to me as we communicated back and forth setting this up, that you said that ninety nine point nine percent of golfers don't really know that they have the solution. What does that means?
Thank you for asking. It's because they have the solution right there in their game itself. I say, you know a great educator on the near West side of Chicago, in the poverty stricken there in the near West side of Chicago where I live in Chicago, in nineteen tenth grade, in the bad neighborhoods, that she was known as a great educator. She helped a lot of kids get out of poverty. She said, my job is to draw it out of the students. I think it's in there. It's
not to pour stuff into them foreign to them. I just need to help them find it. The student and I together are working to find what's in them that that's good, that's workable and passable. Let's draw it out and let's make that blossom. So players keep a scorecard, is what I'm saying. And if they keep a simple three line scorecard, I can show you this is mine
right there from this morning. You know, I keep the simple three line scorecard there of my score and then three pitch and three putt and do and just just mark it down, total it up at the end of the day. That particular round, I shot three over, and I didn't have any three pitches and I didn't have any three putts or any drives out of put So I shot three over, which is, you know, about one or two above my average for ninemals.
Okay, so that's on the good that's on the average.
Yeah, average side of jewels average part of Joel's PJA Bell curve. And so so I'm saying every player has that because they're shooting the scores. If they would only keep that and then total it up at the end and say, oh man, I shot forty one, that's about average for me, but I had two Boso shots. Without those, I just shot thirty nine. Then I'd be on the good side of my bell curve. So I shot thirty nine good enough shots today that were good enough to
shoot thirty nine. I just had two bozo shots that randed up to forty one. So if you had a baseball game where the score was thirty nine to two, you would say that one team creamed the other team. Right, you had a football game where the score was thirty nine to two, you'd say, oh, they creamed them. And that's how I'd want you to look at that. See, man, I had thirty nine good enough shots today. To shoot thirty nine, I'd be on the good side of my bell curve. The two extra boso shots. He's ran up
to forty one. I'm getting so good. I'm gaining on it. My bell curve is getting the lower gradually.
So that's what everybody is gradual, right, I mean they moving the bell curve. Has got to be gradual and don't have too high expectations and definitely don't think, okay, so if I shot throughout a number eighty five last week this week, I can definitely shoot in eighty four. Don't do that to yourself, right.
Exactly. So that's why I say every golfer has it in them right there in their round. If they would keep this simple scorecard and so and then if a student, if and when a student starts doing that with me and they start putting it on a simple spreadsheet, I call that their golf mirror. You know, Fred, You know, you and I we were cool when we were kids because we had hair down to hear baby, yes, yes, down to the middle of our chest. We were cool
as can be baby, in the sixties and seventies. But I'm not surprised when I look in the mirror right now and I find out that I don't have the longest hair in class anymore, you know. I mean, because I've been looking at the mirror every day the last fifty sixty years. But golfers get surprised when they shoot the different scores because they're not looking in their own
personal mirror and they're frustrating stuff. And I say, hey, baby, don't be surprised if you shoot eighty six, if that's you know, come on, get real, you know, like I'm saying, I'm the PJA master teacher, big chie schmuck o here. But man, if I shoot seventy four or five, I gotta admit that that's about average for me, you know.
And if I said, oh, that's a terrible day, I should shoot sixty eight, then I'm either deceived or I'm just really arrogant and deceitful to what I'm saying to other people, and we want to be real and honest and have fun and be into it for the intrinsic nature of golf and an enjoyment of the self satisfaction of I'm getting better myself. I love the challenge. There's no defense in golf. I'm not playing Fred. He does not block my shot on the fourth hold and run
up to it and block my shot. You know, we're playing ourself in the course. So I call that the golf mirror. And I've seen people improve ten to fifteen twenty shots in a year on their golf mirror without having to do a lot of work on their full swing quite often because quite often their mistake is a three pitch or a three put that's really run their score up. And getting a drive and play isn't that hard for people once they get interested in it, like you said, give their attention to it.
It's one of my favorite parts about golf is that it's an individual game that you play in a group.
That's a good way to put it. I've never put that.
Think it really is. You're in your own world, you're doing your own thing, but you're socializing at the same time. But you know, and it's not a team effort, although you know, you talk about Bryson and his bell curve and he's I don't know if you've noticed what he's been doing on YouTube lately, but this break fifty, which I absolutely love the concept of it. Right, And and a friend of mine who I play with regularly, and we're very evenly matched, and we're always like, how many
strokes you give me? It's like, why am I giving you strokes? You belong to this country club and I'm coming here, so you have an advantage, and it's a two stroke different way. Let's just you know, So I suggested to him, wait a minute, let's move up to the next set of teas and try to shoot par. We'll do a scramble, we'll play best ball and combine our efforts. Now make it a team sport, right, We'll combine our efforts and try to shoot par. And if we shoot par next time, let's try to break.
Seventy exactly, move back to set.
Maybe No, I'll stay forward. I like moving forward.
Yeah, the result I call it K through twelve for golf. I have people. I love the Operation thirty six program. I've been doing it for thirty years with people and I'm glad those nice young PJ pros in the Trianglaria of North Carolina turned it into a company, you know, about ten or fifteen years ago. So I have all my students start at twenty five if they want to do it, if they're open minded to it, start twenty five yards. Let's see if you can break thirty six.
Let's go. If you can break thirty six from twenty five yards for nine holes, let's go back to fifty yards. I've played two hundred rounds from twenty five yards the last few years. Bread Wow, because I love just keep reminding myself, I'm trying to shoot a score here by hitting my pitch, chipping put the perfect distance. And I know this will help me when I play it, you know, thirty two hundred yards, thirty four hundred yards for nine holes.
And believe or not, fred, I have these big, young, strapping, you know, tough yuppie boys, twenty five thirty years old. A bunch of them love this. They love playing from twenty five yards. Say yeah, baby, let's get they break it, and then they get to fifty and they get yeah, and then maybe they miss it at fifty or you know, like Oh, I can't believe that, and that helps them. See. Come on, man, there's some grandmas who can break thirty
six from fifty yards. Man, you missed the green with a pitch four times and nine holes and your three butted five times. That's why you didn't break thirty six. Now let's go back to three thousand yards. But you're still going to be the same thing wherever you go. There you are. You're still gonna be the short short game player from thirty two hundred yards as you are from fifty. So it has been so much fun, Fred, Yeah, I'm with you, man, be open minded. I'm a leftover hippie,
you know. I mean, we don't have to do what the authority figure tells us all the time, you know, rebellions, authority, trust, no one over thirty, you know all that stuff. Let's live a little. It's recreation and so yeah, man, it is so much fun to show people this and say, let's get gradual about this, you know, let's gradually improve. It's K through twelve for golf. Is what a friend asked me one time. He said, what do you call that, Joel? That gradual progression? So you don't get mad at the
ninth grader, I mean the second grader. He's getting all the right answers in second grade math class. And then he said, sweet, let's throw him in the ninth grade algebra Trigg class. And then we get mad at him because he didn't get all the right answers. No, but all those ninth graders who are getting all the right answers in algebra Trigg class at one time, we're a second grader. So let's have an objective measure, just like traditional Western schooling. Let's do the easier stuff first, and
when you master that, let's go the next. Let's go to the next. And so so I love that, and I believe it or not. Like I said, there are a bunch of young strong you know, disc golf players and soccer players and baseball players and big strong guy. Hey this is cool man, I like this. I'm getting there.
Yeah, okay again. The book is called Golf Success Before Every Round by Joel Suggs. You can find it on Amazon. Correct, great, find it online. And you also have a YouTube channel, yes, that people can see more from your stuff. And Joel, you're gonna have to come back because I want to know more about your family. History. I'm really intrigued about hearing from your son all the way back for four
generations of golf instruction. That sounds fascinating to me, and I think it's worthy of more time here on Golf Smarter. I really appreciate you coming on. Thanks so much for coming on back.
Thank you Gret for having me. Like I said, and Georgia go out over the years, off and on. Great to be with your person.
Oh he is somebody we will get back on the show again. There's too much to learn from him to let it go as simple as that, and great stories about his family, too unbelievable. So this episode, and this is what I love about being able to do podcasts these days. It didn't happen like that when I was first starting out. But I prepared this episode last week because right now I'm visiting an old friend who lives
in Hawaii on the island of Maui. Actually, Richie's the guy who got me hooked playing golf in the late nineteen nineties. Not sure if I'm gonna be able to get some interviews while there, but I am trying to secure one. Next week, I'll let you know which three courses we ended up playing now. As I mentioned last week, I want you to keep your ears open because we're just an episode or two away from securing all the
details and announcing our next Golf Smarter adventure. This time, we've got openings for three foursomes to meet in Alabama and play five courses on the legendary Robert Trent Jones Trail during the last weekend of March twenty twenty five. I really hope you can join me and other Golf Smarter listeners because I've always wanted to play the trail, and when the Golf Smarter Listeners get together to play golf, we have a blast. Details on all of it coming soon.
This Friday in Golf Smarter Mulligans will get the first of two conversations with Bob Foreman. The first one is called your Posture Could be the Key to fixing your game.
Part of the assessment that I do on golfer is there is a balance element, and you'd be surprised how many I would say close to eighty five ninety percent really have some issues with balance. And when you're moving your body parts in different directions all at the same time, I mean, balance becomes a vital component as you're trying to shift your weight from your trail leg to your target leg. I mean, if you have a balance issue that's going to play havoc with your swing and your
playing performance. You know, we don't practice it. The second issue is that a lot of us tend to lose strength, especially in the lower body. That correlates to the inability to maintain balance and such. So it's important to make sure that you do get checked balance. And even if you don't, I mean, just to practice it. Just try to balance on one leg and see if you have a tougher time trying to balance on your right leg
versus your left leg. You'd be surprised how many people are good on one side but terrible on the other. You just need to work on it to make sure that you're kind of balancing out your balance sort of.
Speak originally from November twenty twelve, episode three hundred and fifty nine has even more insights that I know you'll find interesting. I want to thank this week's Golf Smarter Ambassador, Jim O'Donnell from Sun City, West Arizona. Now. Jim received all three of our gifts, including a glove and glove storage compartment from Red Rooster Golf, a box of the mind blowing Flight Path golf tees, and a link to Tony Manzoni's video of a loss Fundamental. I'd like you
to get all three gifts as well. Just write an honest review and send me what you wrote and where you posted it. Once we confirm that your review is public, I'll email you with the instructions on how to receive your gifts. Or if you'd like, you can introduce an upcoming episode and tell all your playing partners that you
were on your favorite golf podcast. If you have any questions comments, want to open a future episode with where you're from, where you play and the episode number, or you've submitted a review on your favorite podcast platform, or maybe you have a suggestion for an upcoming episode, Please write to golf smarterpodcast at gmail dot com or click on the Heyfred button when you visit golfsmarter dot com