Shooting Par… In Less Than an Hour! Speedgolf with Jaacob Bowden

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Well speak alf Since time as a factor, there's really no time to walk around the green and read the pod small kinds of different angles.

You just got to get up and hit it.

It's amazing how often the instincts are correct.

It's easy to overthink things. So the idea of just.

Getting up, taking a quick instinctive look and then just putting it and then going on, it's really amazing how well you can put like that. You know, on the first day I had four or five birdies, so that's one of the benefits, I guess. And then since you have to run with your clubs, most guys play with four to seven clubs. I played with a driver, a twenty degree hybrid, a five iron and eight iron, and a fifty two eree wedge and then a putter. Really, that's all the clubs that you need to be able

Shooting par in less than an hour with Jacob about 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, architects, authors, players, teaching gurus and coaches.

Here's your host, Welcome back to the Golf Smarter podcast, Jacob.

Hello friend, it's nice to be back.

It's good to have you back. Where are you today.

Today? I'm in Zurich, Switzerland, and that is home. Yes, home for right now, home.

For right now. Ah here we are recording at the beginning of November. It's getting to be the off season for golf for you. Correct it is?

It is? Oh?

Sure, it is your season up there.

In Switzerland.

It's a lot of the courses are starting to close now, and most of them will be closed within the next month, kind of December, January, February. Most of them are closed, with the exception of a couple like covered driving ranges or a course here and there that you can.

Go out on if there's no frost.

So normally in the winter time like this, I'll find my way to some warmer destination for a few weeks to break up the winter.

Yeah. Yeah, well I can't imagine that it's a golf destination.

No, not really.

For those who play golf there, it's like, get me out of here.

Hell, there's some good courses, but.

Come on, are there bad courses anywhere? If you're on a golf course, this is good.

Right, right.

If there's a golf course, then it's a good course exactly exactly.

So generally, you know, and the times that you've been on the show, we've talked about your your website, Swingman Golf and swing speed training, increasing your swing speed and the instruction you give. But we're going to change gears a little bit and talk about a different type of speed because you recently participated in the Speed Golf Championships.

Speed Golf World Championships.

Yes, I'm sorry, the World Championship.

Yeah.

Wow, So and that happened abandoned dunes on the West coast of the United.

States, that's correct.

How did you get from swing speed to speed golf?

I was perusing on Facebook one day and one of my family members came across a video that was a time lapsed video of a guy named Chris Smith playing around to speed golf abandoned dunes, and I thought the video was really a cool video. And sometimes shortly after that, I saw promo for the World Championships, and so I contacted the tournament organizer and I was able to get in.

You know, it's interesting because I did a little research before we did this, and I, you know, I typed in Speed Golf Championships, spandon Dunes and I'm sorry, Speed Golf World Championships didn't do and I found that Chris Smith video. I will put it on the on Golfsmarter dot com on the blog because it's really compelling. It's you know, it's interesting because it's only like seven eight minutes long, and you feel like you got the point

Yeah, it's it's it's really well to Yeah, they did a fantastic job, and it's yeah, it's hard to not continue watching it, even though you know what's going to happen. But it's there's something really amazing about someone shooting under par in under an hour on a course like Bandon Dune.

All right, so, now that you've let the cat out of the bag, explain what speed golf is so we can we can then we can attack my list of questions about it. But what is speed golf?

Uh, it's basically like regular golf, except that you.

Run in between shots.

So the total score your your total score is your running time or just the time that it takes you to play, plus your regular golf score.

Yeah. So I didn't get that when I was looking at the when I was looking at the at the scorecards here, it seemed like the guy who won wasn't the lowest scores, nor was he the fastest runner, but he still won.

Well, it's a two day competition, okay, and so yeah, I forget his exact numbers, but he was a little bit over a little bit over par, I think, on both days. But then under an hour both days, and just the total combination of his two times and his two golf scores were enough to win.

Let's absorb this for just a second. He played eighteen holes in under an hour and shot under par.

My two rounds were over par.

My first round was seventy five, but I was The first round was seventy five and sixty one minutes, and then I think I had I didn't play as well on the second day.

I had seventy eight in fifty six minutes.

So after the first day, I was sitting fifth, and I knew I figured that I need to win. I needed to come in five minutes faster and just clean up mistakes a little bit it and I came in five minutes faster, but unfortunately I just didn't play as well the second day, so I ended up remaining in fifth place, and my total score was about six six back of the lead.

So it was it was which is really close to the lead?

Actually, you know, you maybe make three or four shots less and then you saved one or two minutes from having to run around for those shots, and then it's right there.

So I was close.

It was It was really uh an honor to be in the mix with these guys, especially with it with a guy like Chris Meth. He's a great guy and he has a Guinness the Guinness Record for speak golf. I forget exactly what it is, but I think it was a sixty five five under and I don't know exactly forty.

Three minutes or something like that. We know, it's just it was just really amazing.

Well, you know, and Bandon Dunes, I've yet to play there, but I've not heard anybody come back from there saying, well, that was a breeze, that was easy. Is a tough course?

Yeah it is.

And it's it's like true Links golf too. It's right on the coast. It's absolutely beautiful.

And you know, I've heard people say that it is the closest thing to true Links Scottish golf that we have in the United States.

Yeah, I would agree.

I've played a number of Links courses in the US, and although they were quote unquote Links courses, you couldn't really run the ball up to the green or you know, pup from fifty yards away, but Bandon you can do that.

They have five courses there. It plays.

I don't know if any if you or anyone any listeners have played Saint Andrews. But it's the only course other course outside of the UK there the only one in the US that I've played that really does play like a true length course.

I remember one of the par threes was I don't know.

One hundred and somewhere between one hundred and thirty one hundred and fifty yards or something. And normally, you know, I could hit a wedge or a nine iron on that on a hole like that, but I hit a five iron and just carried it about halfway and then just rolled it up to the pin.

So you hitting it right into the wind, you just headed right into the ocean? Is that why?

On that particular shot, the way the whole funnel, I was tired and out of breath. The idea, the idea of taking a taking a little just kind of bunting a fire just seemed like it would take a lot less energy than taking a full swing.

So oh, well, you know, and I want to talk about the mental strategy of something like this, it's got to be completely different, but I'm not there yet. So it's I'm still having trouble because I don't even run. I've never been a good runner. I just can't imagine. I know that if I like I dropped my towel and I realize that, you know, on the next hole, or I left my club on the last hole or something like that, and I run back to get it and come back, it takes me three holes to catch my breath.

Right right, right, Yeah, there is there is a level of endurance that's that's required. A normal golf course is going to be four plus miles and then and that's straight from tee to green, so no one's hitting it straight. So you got to add in the zigzagging, plus the distance between the greens and the tea boxes, and then depending on how hilly it is, that can add in a lot of time. It really ends up being maybe five or six miles, you know, I get again, it depends on the course.

But then.

And you're having to not only be running that with all the stopping and starting, stopping and starting, but you're car carrying your.

Golf bag as well.

So it's there is a level of definitely a level of stamina and conditioning that's required to be able to do it at a at a competitive level.

I'm staring at at the numbers that you said, your first round, you you shot a seventy five and sixty one minutes. Your second round you shot a seventy eight and fifty six minutes. And I'm trying to figure how did you get three more strokes and five less minutes. And I just realized, Oh, it's got to be on the putting. I mean, how do you how do you do it in less time and have more strokes? That that's what baffles me.

But right well, I I.

You know that that's I don't know. The first day I played, I played really well. I had four or five birdies I think, and then uh, but I you know, on these Bandon the old Mac course at Bandon has huge greens and there's all kinds of undulations, so if you get on the wrong part of it sometimes it's you know, you're lucky to have You're lucky to get up and up and into two putts. I must have had, I forget exactly now. I think I had a three three putts and a four putt.

With a seventy five. So wow. So I actually played pretty good that.

Day, yeah, clearly.

And this was this was my first real go with in the competition with the speak al, So I didn't really there's a little bit of learning as far as there's a learning curve as far as how to pace yourself.

So I felt like, you.

Know, you don't want to leave any and even leave anything out there, but you don't at the same time, you don't want to wear yourself down so much that you have trouble completing around or completing your shots. So it's it's it's a little it's a little tricky to kind of get the hang of it. So the second day I figured like I could clean up my transitions a little bit to to make them faster. That would pick up a little bit of time, and then just try to run a little just try and run a

So amazing. So how do you train for this? Are you a runner? Generally?

No, I I have.

I'm thirty six now, and when I was in my twenties, right after college, I did some a number of five k's and ten k's and triathlons, and I did a marathon too, just for looking for ways to continue to stay in shape. But then I got away from it, and so when this came up, I was it was kind of a way for me to I saw it as a way to give me some extra motivation to get back in shape.

So I started.

First, I started on a treadmill just to see if I could I could do five miles, And at first I did five miles in about a little over fifty five minutes. Actually I did it on the track. And then just to kind of ease my joints into it, I started on a treadmill, and then I did a little bit of track work, and then I did some trail and city runs just running around the city as well.

It just kind of built up to it.

And then over the course of two months, in the two months that I I found out about it and got in and then the actual competition, I dropped down my five mile time down from fifty five minutes to a little over thirty six thirty six twelve I think.

So I really improved my conditioning a lot.

And if we did it only two months, yeah, yeah, so I was pushing myself pretty hard and.

That once. If you can do five miles in yeah, you really need to be able to do it under forty minutes. Probably the stronger runners could do it, and maybe thirty minutes five miles the stronger speed golfers, And I was thirty six my running there were some guys that were faster than me, and there were some guys that were slower than me. So conditioning wise, I was kind of in the middle of the pack there by the time the competition willed around. But all of us

I did recognize that name when I was looking down the leader list.

Yeah, so there are you know, it's not just you know, average Joe golfers. We're all good golfers and we're all you know, pretty decent runners.

Well, that was one of the things that I noticed when I was watching the Chris Smith, the Chris Smith video that was a promotion for the World Championships, is that guy can putt. I mean he was nailing birdies from twenty five thirty feet and it's not like you get the opportunity to line up your putt.

Well, that's one of the you know, they're not everyone is of course going to want to do speed golf. But there are some things that you know that that Chris does and that the other guys do, and that that I've learned just from my experiences to speak golf, that you can apply to your regular game, like with speak golf, since there since time is a factor you know putting for you mentioned, there's there's really no time to walk around the green and and read the puff

Degree woods and then a putter.

So you know, another thing is is when you play with that, really that's all the clubs that you need need to be able to play. It gets away from it. It teaches you to play shots. So there's very rarely a time and speak golf where you'll have a shot that's a perfect distance. And for that matter, you don't have time to like calculate the distance.

How do you figure out It's like, okay, so I'm now one hundred and sixty five yards here, usually one hundred and sixty five yards, I'll pull out my what You'll you probably pull out a seven iron or something, and it's like, you know, and which bad club I'm gonna you have to calculate that while you're running to the ball, but you have to like, Okay, there's the ball, there's the hole. N it's about I mean, how do you know?

Well, that's something that is kind of a lost art, I guess, and with a lot of golfers in modern golf, I don't know. Back fifty plus years ago, there weren't laser range finders, the courses didn't have sprinklers.

That were marked.

It was more of just a look, you pick out a club that you think will do, get to hit it where you want to go, and then you just you just go up and whack it. So golf speed speed, that's another thing about what the speed golf is.

You know.

I got up to that par three there, for example, and it was one hundred and thirty one hundred and fifty yards, and I thought, well, I could hit an eight iron there, but let's take my five iron and just just.

React to the target. It's just as you're running up to the.

Shot, you very quickly decide the shot you want to hit. You pull out a club, you just look at the target and then you instinctively swing. And it's it's a little scary to play that way. At first, but you know, again, it makes golf more instinctual. It takes out a lot of the conscious thought and overthinking that kind of rex people's games. And it's it's really amazing how how well

Outfielders the ball well, well, like for defense, if an outfielder it gets a ball like he doesn't you know, pull a range finder out of his pocket and then check the yardage to third base or a second base or whatever, and then calculate how.

Far he has to swing his arm back and in whatever he just looks and throws. And golf can definitely be played like that and play like that really well too. So you know, that's that's another one of the things that you know, you may not want to play speed golf, but that's one of the things that you can apply to the regular golf game.

That does speed up play.

But then it teaches you to become a better player too, because you learn to be a little bit more of a shot maker and uh and and just play instinctually and play by fuel and Yeah.

One of the core values of golf smarter is the mental game. How important and in your general golf life, not speed golf, but how important to you is the mental aspect of golf.

I think it's really really important, especially now as a better player. Technically, I have a good enough technique that I can do all the shots and I know how to hit all the shots. So for me now, I think most of my improvement here.

Is just is just on a mental level.

So then how do you apply that when you're running to the ball and just trying to find the ball, especially abandoned I've heard the stories of the fescue there. It's not it's easy to lose balls there, but you know, finding the ball and then looking up towards the flag. Uh, And then you know you've got to get all that in in the in the seconds that it takes for you to get from one one shot to the next. Where do you where does the metal game come in there?

Well, I guess because the time is such a factor and you just uh, you kind of almost are taking a little bit of your your conscious brain out of it and playing more on a subconscious level.

You just.

Uh, run up to a shot, pick a club, make a swing, and then go and you don't have time to you know, if you mess up a shot, you don't have time to kind of fuss about it. You got to move on real quick and make a decision about the next shot. So in that sense, it's it's been good as well for me mentally. Speak OFLF is that you have to put the shots that you've played previously behind you because the next one's coming up right away.

Yes, it is. What what I'm like running down all my different points that I want to go? What what's the difference in the rules? You can't play the exact same rules. Oh yes, we normally play when it takes four and a half hours to five hours to play around of golf.

There there are slight, uh two slight modifications. One is that you're allowed to leave the flag in in the interest of saving time. Okay, it makes sense, so you just, yeah, you don't have to worry about taking the flag down or put it back in, and just go up and put it and then the second rule is if you hit out about if you lose a ball, then you're allowed to drop kind of like a lateral hazard on

How do you like that rule?

I like it well, for one, I mean, it saves time. If you ever visible, you don't have to go all the way back. So slow play is, you know, as the problem was with golf. So so that's you know, I kind of want the idea of that.

It's I've always up the game a little bit.

Yeah, I mean, I we talk. Slow play is terrible. How long it takes to play around golf is terrible. I've always thought, just do stroke and distance, just keep moving forward. Know, it gets too easy to just you know, when you tee off and you know you've hit the ball out, just drop another ball and hit another one, you know, and it's like okay, I'm hitting three. Oh, okay, I'm hitting five. Okay, I'm done with this whole. I

Right, Yeah, you know, golf is a game of integrity, so you just yeah, you know, you're trusted to play play the shot.

On your owner, you know. And that's one of the cool things about golf, is it.

You know, it's but if you had time to ever stop and go oops, I just broke a rule because like you're moving so fast, there's got to be something else that you've done. It's like, oh that that's a no note. Okay, call a penalty on myself.

Really, I've never had a problem with that.

There there was one incident, I think on the eighteenth grade, after the first day, guy as he was going.

Up to putt it. I think he putted it while the ball is still moving or something, or.

I forget exactly what the situation was, but he basically just called a penalty on himself, added it to a score, and then.

You know, so it's I guess he just treat it like you would with any or more on the golf.

And that's while I was watching the video, I noticed that, you know, how often do you put the ball. You've got to you put the ball, and then you don't stand there and wait and watch the ball like you're following the ball. Especially on a long putt, you put it and you following it all the way until it stops. You got to make sure it stops. Then you've got to tap it in hopefully if not it's a four or five foot or you got to put it in. And you know, like you said, you had a bunch of three putts.

Yeah, as soon as.

In the three putts, I don't think that that I had weren't necessarily from bad putting. It's just the greens are are really huge and undulating, and if you get part of anyone would have a difficult time. So in general I felt like I putted well, it's just I was in some bad I put myself in some bad a few bad places on that first day.

There's a couple of different divisions that I saw on the scorecard. There there's the Elite division, which you were part of, how did you qualify for that?

I based on my scores just as a professional and regular golf plus plus the times that I had a number of years ago demonstrated. I guess that one I was a good golfer and the two I was capable of running fast enough to be competitive. So they just looked at some some prior running and golf results to make that determination.

And then there's an amateur divis as well, and that's broken up by age.

There was an amateur division, yes, but I don't to be honest, I don't remember how it was broken up.

Yeah, based on the scoring what I saw in my research. It was based on you know, they have over fifty, under twenty, you know, twenty to twenty nine, thirty thirty and that kind of thing. So what I'm really fascinated is where and how do you practice? I mean, how can somebody say, yeah, I'm going to go to my local golf course and I want to play speed golf. Well you can't just tee off at noon.

Right right. That is one of the trickier things about it.

So one either you got to be the first group off or the first person off, yeah, for the day. So well, you know, which for some people that like running and like golf, you know, you can go and get the first tea time and go out and play nine holes or eighteen holes and get your cardio done and then be off to work. So so being the

Oh that's true. You think you can do Yeah, if you think you can do the round an hour, hour and a half and the sun's going to set it now, it's setting at five o'clock, you can see off at three thirty because mostly by three thirty people are on. The last group is generally on the twelfth to eleventh, thirteenth t at that point.

Yeah, so you can do nine holes maybe that way, and then.

Perhaps if there's if you're out by yourself and there's there's several holes between you and the next group, or you and the group behind you, you can lou back and just play play the holes, play play them over again, or adjacent holes, just run and do them twice. That's another way. I was kind of lucky I got to practice uh at a at a country club that that was had very very little traffic. So I was just able to go out virtually about any time of day and and be able to do it and there'll only

Two different games though, right right, really, how do you I mean that's not training for a competition like that.

Yeah.

A few times I went out and I ran I did uh jogs with my bag, just regular city jogs.

I live in the city, so I would just go out.

And jog with my bag, jog you know, three hundred yards stop with the bag down, Yes, for ten seconds.

It looked kind of funny.

Yeah, I'm thinking about driving down the street and there's you know, I see joggers all the time. There's jogger with a golf bag. It's like it's a matter about did you lose your ball?

Yeah, yeah, I got some funny looks.

That's right, all right, Well, let's wrap this up with what the tips you know? I mean, you just got into this, You trained for two months, and all of a sudden you're in the World Championships. Obviously, I don't want to this isn't a derogatory statement, but there can't be a ton of competition if you can, you know, just in that amount of time be part of the World Championships. You did get a chance to practice on that course ahead of time, didn't you.

Yeah, it was like a normal tournament we had.

The tournament itself was two rounds on Saturday and Sunday, so they let us have practice rounds on Thursday and Friday.

What can you share with us? What tips would you like? Okay, I didn't know this going in, but now that I know it, let me tell you. Here's what you need to know if you want to get into speed golf.

Well, if you want to get in to speak golf you and be competitive, you probably need to be able to shoot shoot around par on a regular round of golf, and you probably need to be able to run five miles under forty minutes.

So if you can do.

That, then you have a chance at being fairly competitive.

Yeah, but you had no aha moment, no epiphany about the whole thing that you were doing. It's like, oh, shoot, I wish I would have known that. I mean shoes, you're wearing normal golf shoes.

That's one thing that's different. Well, most of us will wear running shoes because that's a little bit things are to run in those. Yeah, but a lot of it was was just learning on the fly. Some guys well actually a lot of the guys were wearing rain gloves because your hands start sweating.

That's a good one.

So even though you know it's.

Not raining, your hands are getting soap, so you don't want your hands to slip on the and you don't have time to change gloves. So guys will just wear rain gloves. That's that's one. Guys will wear running shoes. The bags that we use are special carry bags. They're they're kind of like a half bag that you can grab in one hand and run with.

Those. Those are useful.

But you know, a bandon is not because it's on the coast. It's on the Oregon coast and it's generally foggy and windy and moist at the very least. Did you have any issues with slipping in your swing because you're wearing you're not wearing any cleats at all.

No, I didn't. Maybe other people did, but I didn't.

But fascinating.

You know, maybe you've heard about guys practicing in their bare feet or I think playing in running shoes also, at least for me, it helps me make a more controlled imbalance swing, because if you're swinging all over the place, you'll slip and lose your balance.

So playing in the running shoes was actually not a problem.

And I think actually for me it made me makes me swing a little bit better because.

I have to swing in control.

You have to be in balance.

Right.

Well, hey man, thank you so much for letting me know that you were involved in this. You were right. This is a great topic for golf Smarter. And again, if anybody is interested in seeing what Jacob's doing on his website in his not only you know the speed golf, but also his swing speed training, you should check out swingmangolf dot com. Jacob, congratulations being the fifth best speed golf person in the world for twenty twelve. Thanks, that's pretty awesome if it's an honor with you, sir.

If people want to watch this, the CBS was actually there filming the event.

Oh cool.

And they're going to air a thirty minute documentary special on the Speed Golf World Championships before the third round of the upcoming Masters.

So there's for the twenty thirteen Masters.

Yes, yes, so if you'd like to watch it and just kind of see who these crazy people are running around the golf course and were.

You Were you interviewed by these guys by CBS.

Yeah, yeah, since I was one of the guys in contention, I was pulled away and interviewed and I didn't.

In the last day.

I even though I knew I wasn't quite playing my best golf wise, I knew I was in contention because the last three holes I had the cameras following me on the cart so.

Wow, because they couldn't run and keep up with you.

Yeah yeah, cart right right.

So you know, I don't know how it'll turn out, but I'm really curious to see what I think it should be.

Really cool Bandon. It's a great place speak alf.

A lot of fun that the people that get involved with it are really great people.

So I'm looking forward to everybody.

Mark your calendars now for the Saturday of the Masters before broadcast to watch the thirty minute documentary special on the World Speed Golf the Speed Golf World Championships, and check out Jacob Bowden in there. Jacob, thanks so much for coming back on the show and congratulations again.

Yeah. Thanks, it's always fun.

Yeah, Kat had to get into the show.

Huh, sorry about that.

Well, it's time once again for the score Zone Short Game Academy with our wedge guy, Terry Taylor.

Welcome back, Terry, Hi friend, it's really nice to be back on with you.

Thank you very much for coming back on. Because here on the score Zone Short Game Academy, what we do is ask the audience to send in a question about their short game and they go to Golfsmarter dot com, click on the score Zone Short Game Academy button, submit a question, and if you choose their question, you award them with two things, actually three things. First, they get a Golf Smarter divot tool, the world's greatest divot tool. Second, they get a club of their choice customized for them,

Joshua, you have what we call wedge elepsy, and it really because you've hit some bad shots. Now you're very anxious when you hit that shot. Now. I know you won't see this, Joshua as an advantage, but the fact that you live in Minnesota and you won't see grass for five or six months, it's going to give you an opportunity to fix your wedge ellipsy because it is

This, and all those in Australia who are just getting their season started.

Yeah, I forgot you guys down under.

You.

I was just in Zeeland a few months ago, so wonderful blake. But anyway, so when you're hitting your short shots around the green, there's three keys you have to zero in on. The first key is slow down everything. Forget this accelerate through the ball thing. Forget all of that and work in slow motion. This is like driving in a parking lot. You're going to be very careful. You're moving very slow and you're maneuvering your car into a parking spot. And I talked about this in one

Weedg elepsy. But let's I want to dig deeper on this only because I do have this affliction as well, and I know that there's there's a confidence thing that goes on with it that I'm like, oh God, I don't want this shot. That's why for me, I'm not one to hit the ball as far as I can, because I would I'm much more comfortable being one hundred yards or one hundred and twenty yards out that I

All right, let's outline some basics both for both of you guys, because I got two wedge ellipsy sufferers here, and there's probably a whole bunch of you other guys out there that your closet edge ellipsy sufferers. I've been there myself. Posture and setup is very important when you're hitting a short shot. Your weight needs to be about seventy percent on your left side. You're not doing a

Awesome, great, thanks Terry. Listen before we go, I have this idea that I would like to do upcoming on our next members only episode. I would like to invite you to come back on and let's go through. You know, we've been getting so many questions and obviously you can't answer all of them, but maybe we can pick a couple. And I'm sorry, it's going to be up to Terry and his marketing crew whether these people get a free

No, that'd be great, love to do that. We'll do a little deeper dive into some questions that take a little more time and hopefully give your guys some real value. SA