Hi, This is Mike Carley from Loudon, Tennessee, and I play at Telecool Village Tokua golf Course.
This was Golf Smarter number nine hundred and sixty three.
During my twenties, in addition to being an avid golfer, I also played a lot of billiards, including some competitive billiards. I was living in New York City at the time, so you can imagine there's some good pool players out that way, and I had the chance to play for the first time on what's called a tight pocket table.
It's a descriptive name because it's tight pockets, and so what they've done is they've put wood shims into the sides of the pool pockets to shrink it by probably a half inch on both sides until it's fairly bigger than a pool ball. It's really challenging. You miss a lot of shots. It's very exacting, but as soon as you switch over to a regular pool table, you feel like you can't miss it. Almost feels like cheating. The
pockets just feel so big. For sure. I think that experience was floating around somewhere in the back of my mind.
Simplify and fine tune your putting practice and warm up with Potter Cup by Matt Davis. This is 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. A little heads up about this episode before we begin, because there's more today than what you're expecting. When I first recorded today's episode, it felt a little shorter than what I usually deliver. So
here's what we're going to do this week. We're going to feature two guests on two different topics, which is going to make this episode a little longer than usual. Hope that's okay. But it's a podcast, so you can posit at any time right now. If you remember, a couple of months ago, PXG sponsored Golf Smarter to talk about their new Black Ops driver. I went out for a fitting, recorded it, and then used that recording to
create the ads that ran in the podcast. Well, a couple of weeks ago, I was very pleased to hear from my agency that PXG has renewed for another run once again. PXG invited me back out for another fitting, this time for Fairway Woods, A Hybrid and Irons. Yeah, I can honestly say that part of my love of doing this podcast is I get some pretty cool perks along the way. But here's what I wanted to explain.
I learned so much from the fitter Brandon and found the fitting process to be so interesting that I wanted to share it with you now. Next week the PXG campaign is going to begin. But what I'm including in today's episode is completely my choosing, and in no way did PXG or my agency just that I do this, nor am I getting any extra compensation for including this
in the episode. The full fitting was about ninety minutes, and I've cut it down to under thirty so you won't hear a lot of ball striking or downtime, and much of our conversation was tightened up to remove the dead space. I learned a lot during the fitting and felt it was worthy because I'm pretty sure you'll get something out of it too, especially if you've never been fitted for clubs, which could make a huge difference in
your game. This is my fourth club fitting since I started playing golf in the late nineties, and each time, as my game progressed and I've learned more about how to be a better, smarter, golfer through the podcast getting fitted definitely improve my game. But for now, welcome to the Golf Smarter Podcast.
Matt oh Fred.
It's an honor to be here. Thank you so much for having me today.
Well, it's my honor to have you on the show because I love talking to people with unique and interesting ideas. And when you get an idea that's as like slap the forehead, Why didn't I think of that idea? Is exactly what you did, and this is something your product now sits in. I'm just teasing this, but your product is now in my golf bag for all the time because when I get to warm up for around, I use these because it does help. What we're talking about
is a brand you've created called Putterer Cup. Please explain putter Cup for me.
Yeah, it's it was a tough name to come up with because it's it's not necessarily a cup, but it certainly is part of putting. And so I can I have them here and I can show them to you. We currently have two products that are out in market today a third one that's coming down on the pipe
pretty hot. But these are golf hole inserts, so they are there to be inserted into a golf hole, and they're really based on this premise that it's my personal belief that putting doesn't need to be overly physical, overly mechanical. It's a very simple act, but we can complicate it pretty quickly, and so these are really meant to be counter to that. And so one of them is called the speed bump, and I'll hold it up so you
can see. It creates this three hundred and sixty degree raised incline around the golf hole, which does a couple of things. It forces you to make sure you're not leaving it short. Primarily, that's kind of one of the big ones, as you're thinking, I have to hit it hard enough because there's this little bit of resistance. But then there's the secondary benefit of because it's this three hundred and sixty degree ridge, if it's offline at all, it can also get deflected, even if you have, say
the right speed. And so once you're standing over a putt, especially the short ones like six feet in under, and your knees might start knocking. This is meant to kind of help clear the noise and give you something really simple to think about, which is I'm going to just try and get it over this bump. So that's one of them.
Let me just say that the Golf Smarter community is probably aware of these products because you actually were an advertiser on Golf Smarter, and we appreciate that very much. So I have talked about how one of my favorite parts about a training aid that doesn't it doesn't require batteries or it doesn't require you to plug it in at night or download anything. It's just a putting aid that is simple, concise, and pretty easy to figure out as soon as you get your hands on it.
Yeah, and I'm a golfer. I've been planning for thirty years. At various times I've gotten the handicapped down to single digits, depending on nice where I'm at with my family life, and you know.
The profession of things, the fact that you get to play golf, Yeah.
Which I hope to play more of here in the near future. But I've I've purchased training aids as much as anybody. And I grew up without a ton of formal golf instruction, but I was largely self taught, give or take a little bit of guidance. During the summers when I'd get to visit my grandfather, which is whom I learned from, but certainly no formal instruction when it
came to putting. The biggest lesson I ever got was firm in the back of the cup, and that was usually when we were playing, you know, for a nickel or something like that, and i'd have before.
Your grandfather was gambling with you.
We play match play for five cents a hole. Yeah, that was by the time I was That was that was by the time I was probably a teenager.
Okay, so then you had a nickel? Yes, wait wait and if you if you he beat you, did you have to pay up?
Oh?
Yeah, and made you pay.
By then, more often than not, I was winning. And he had a dime that he kept on his bureau until the day he passed. And it was one of the one of the days that he took it from me and he let me know about it. Yeah.
Great story.
Yeah, but not a ton of formal instruction, and certainly not when when it came to putting, even full swing. I didn't really get a ton of instruction until my adult life and got into the world of trying out training aids and the ones that I that I tried with putting were reflective of what's out there today. A lot of it is focused on either getting you to stand a certain way or to take back the putter just a certain way and have kind of a uniform arc to your putt, all in the name of trying
to get it started on your starting line perfect. But the more I used those, the more I would find myself frozen on the actual first screen because all of those visual things were not there anymore. Or you have to set them up in just such a certain way that you're taking the same put over and over and over, which might help you groop a putting stroke, but you rarely get the same putt twice once you're on the
golf course. And so they didn't they didn't stick with me, and oftentimes I felt like I was thinking more about whether or not I was taking it onto the golf course, and I wasn't thinking about the objective that was in front of me, which was you got to get it into that hole, or if you can't get it into it, make sure it's a very easy tap in. And so these training aids potter Cup kind of reflects that that upbringing that approach to putting, which is it's it's it
should be simple. You know, you can hand a kid a putter and within minutes they'll start figuring it out without a lot of formal instruction.
You know.
I'm a golf smarter listener. And it was it was just a few weeks ago that you replayed I took a note. It was an episode with mister Manzoni uh where he kind of gave a bit of a speech on putting and the importance of keeping it natural and
not trying to manufacture anything. And while I never had the honor of meeting the man, I think he would appreciate and agree with some of the key design principles that I had in place with these, because it's really so far away from mechanics or trying to manufacture a stroke, and it's really more about just making more putts with whatever stroke you have.
Yeah, and I apologize to the audience for both of us holding up visuals for an audio podcast, So we'll continue to do our best to describe exactly what we're talking about. What I'm holding here is probably one of the early iterations of this. Is that correct?
That's correct? Yeah, So I am a I'm not out of my garage. So I can't officially sam a garage startup, but you know, I am a what can be called a solopreneur, an entrepreneur, solo kind of stepping out to
this world on my own. And yes, so I went through the process of working with computer assisted design firm so that I could get my three D renderings kind of ready for manufacturing and kind of learning all about how to translate that into injection molding and some of the limitations that come with you know, how small of
a shape you can make and produce reliably. And so, yes, Fred, the ones that I sent you back a few months ago, that was of our our first batch, our soft launch batch, reflecting kind of V one version one of the design, and we do have our second wave coming. We did make a couple of tweaks to one of the products, and we actually have a third product coming out as well.
Well. The thing that I am so attracted to this conversation and when I was excited to talk to you is guy like talking to solopreneurs as one myself. But I'm always curious, like, where did the idea come from? How did you decide? Oh wait a minute, this is a potential product that could work.
Yeah, so there were there were two kind of more obvious inspirations behind it. So one is, during my twenties, in addition to being an avid golfer, I also played a lot of billiards, including some competitive competitive billiards. And I was living in New York City at the time, so you can imagine there's some good pool players out that way. And I had the chance to play for the first time on what's called a tight pocket table,
and it's a descriptive name because it's tight pockets. And so what they've done is they've put wood shims into the sides of the pool pockets to shrink it bye, probably a half inch on both sides, until it's barely bigger than a pool ball. And I remember, it's really challenging. You miss a lot of shots, It's exactly, it's very exacting, but as soon as you switch over to a regular pool table, you feel like you can't miss. It almost
feels like cheating. The pockets just feel so big. And so for sure, I think that experience was floating around somewhere in the back of my mind. And yeah, and then secondly, I'm up in the Seattle area and We have a local now chain of mini golf pubs. It's called the Flat Stick Pub. I've gotten to know the owners over the years. They're wonderful guys. But when they first opened, they had these tiny cups, just like a
tight pocket table. It felt like they were barely big enough for the golf ball to get into, really, and I remember that after having played there a few times. Once I was out on the golf course, I was visualizing their cups because it was so exacting, and I found myself making more putts because of it. And so a couple of I think, just again, those are like visual representations things that I've experienced that I think we're
kind of floating around in there. And then I think there was just this kind of great convergence of some of the life experiences you have to have wants, an idea comes to figure out how to make it happen. I've always had an entrepreneurial bug ever since childhood. I was the kid who was knocking on doors asking if I could know your lawn for a few bucks, and that's just, you know, that's always that's always been part of who I am. And then certainly a love of
golf I've been planned since I was thirteen. I could never stop. I love it too much. And so certainly those two parts of who I am have floated, floated around for a long time. And then I had the chance to just be lucky in my life. My wife grew up doing professional ballet, and I had the chance to watch her, coming out of the pandemic, start a
ballet studio and start her own business. My career by trade has been market research, corporate market research for almost twenty years, which has functioned as a great slow cooker for some of these kind of inner ambitions of learning how to kind of take something that's an idea and put it all the way through into how you bring something to market. And so there were these aspects of life that were happening, and then I'd had these kind of design inspirations for you know, what can help make
people better at something just by concentration. And so it was. It was November of twenty twenty two. We have two young kids, and one of my kids woke up that night. I was feeling ill, so we attended to him, and before I could fall back asleep, just the idea for the speed bump popped into my mind. I reached over and kept my wife from falling back asleep. Thank you to me, wife. But I said, hey, I think I just had an idea for something that I think any
golfer could use. You don't have to be a scratch, you can be just starting out. You could be any age because it operates on this principle that putting is ninety percent mental and you will make more putts just by concentrating and keeping your mind clear a bit more. And it started with the speed bump. Over the next few days it kind of morphed into the second product, which is the center cup, which is more of a traditional whole reducer. There's no kind of bump to it
or anything. It just shrinks the size of the hole by an inch, so it's a bit more like a tight pocket table design. I can tell you I've seen whole reducers out there. This is not the first whole reducer that's existed. The thing I like about it, though, trying to figure out how to insert something into a golf hole is not as straightforward as you might think, because there's variation in what's out there in the world.
And so with my first crack at it, I thought to myself, well, a golf hole is four and a quarter inches. They're all four and a quarter inches, and so I'll make the speed bump fit in a golf hole that's four and a quarter inches. Well, that's not exactly true. Depending on what course you play at, you might have varying cup styles, particularly on the practice screens, and some golf courses have cups that go right up flush to the surface of the ground. There's no gap
for a potter cup to fit into. And so that was a good learning and you'll be happy to hear, and I'm happy to get you a V two where we've adjusted that kind of base portion of the product so that can fit into any golf hole, including you know the ones that, for example, indoor golf facilities might have a turf practice you can use potter cups there as well, and so it addresses that issue because those almost never are the full four and a quarter inch golf right.
And that was the first thing I did, is I've talked about that. I have a practice putting green in my backyard and I went right to it and just tried to reduce the size of the hole, just to make sure that my entry point, you know, is a lot more concise.
Yeah. Yeah, And so I've heard you mentioned a couple of times you recently switched over to the DF three from LAB.
I two have, and now you're doing a DF three on the broomstick.
I don't have the broomstick.
I just moved over to it. I've just played a couple of rounds with it, and I really like it. Yeah, I'm a complete lab rat. So yeah, I was.
Going to ask if you'd heard that term, because that's what some some friends of mine are now calling us.
Yeah. Actually they're even now have merch with the labrat logo on it, and my my putter headcover is the lab rat the labor Yeah. Yeah, I'm not saying that I came up with that term, but I went early on with with Sam Hun I had mentioned I'm, you know, labrat. I just mentioned it. Whether that's stuck or you already knew it.
Yeah, So my experience has has mirrored yours with that, and it's easier to kind of roll the putt where intended, right the start line. And so I'd like to think that, you know, putter cups help you train your eye and get your eye where you want it to go and then hopefully you have putter that you can consistently get it on your start line. And I don't mean to put down any of the other training aims. I think anything that helps you do the same thing, whatever it is,
over and over again, will help. Right, it's whatever your stroke is. As long as you're comfortable, your grip feels comfortable, and you can reliably kind of get it on that start line every time, all the more power to you. I just in my experience, I felt like I was fighting my natural putting stroke more than more than I wanted to.
Yeah, well, let me say right now, let me congratulate you, because the one thing that I've noticed in all these years of talking to solopreneurs who have an idea is that you have to have a supportive partner at home, because if you're trying to develop something and grow it and build it from nothing, from just an idea that you had. Once you start hearing the fingers tapping on the desktop or on the you know, on I don't mean computer desktop, I meant like on the kitchen table.
All right, once you start hearing the noise like this, like, okay, you've done yet, did you get your job, your la las out. You know, are you are you ready to go back to work? If you have somebody who's not doing that, you're way ahead of the game. It's really critical to have that support at home.
I am very lucky and she can relate. Ballet is obviously a very different business than a golf training aid, but she can relate in so many ways. And it's an amazing time to be doing this. I mentioned right like, I've had that kind of drive since I was a kid.
But the resources that are out there, even if it had been twenty years ago, I don't know if I would have been able to make the kind of progress that I have in the time that I have, just because you know, you can pop open a web browser and partner with so many different people with different areas of subjects matter expertise, whether it's computer design, whether it's prototype three D printing, even finding manufacturers, it's all. It's
all out there. It just requires diligence patients, and like what can happen when you find out every golf hole is not exactly four point two five inches some course correction and some learning at thrink.
I understand you do some work up in the Seattle area with First Tea.
I do I do that cup?
Or is it I got to know?
I got to know First Tea largely through the first chapter of my career. There's a pretty prominent First Tea fundraising scramble that happens once a year in October up here, and I've played in it for ten years, eleven years, and it's always the same folks from the First Tea are there every year, and so we've kind of become
acquaintances that way. We recognize each other every year. And I placed just so much value and appreciation for their mission and what they do, because I would have been the perfect kid to participate in it had it existed where I grew up. So I grew up called Waterbury, Connecticut.
And why would you been a great candidate for First Team?
Well, as I understand it, it supports areas where kids don't necessarily have the resources to go heavy into golf. And I loved golf and I was lucky. You know, we never were short of food on the table, but finances were always a tension in my family. And so my first set of clubs was a set of Hogan Edge forged Irons, from the late eighties. It was a set of hand me downs from my grandfather. That was the set that I learned to play with.
I hope you pay for those No, No.
Except for that dime exactly bureau from from beating me in match play. And then my high school was lucky to have six kids to have a golf team, uh and a volunteer teacher to coach it. And I used coach very generously, wonderful man, but in no position to teach any of us how to play golf. It was more of like a supervisory type Roland So but I loved I loved golf and would have been there had the first he existed in the area where I grew up and benefited from the lessons of golf growing up.
It's it's definitely part of my part of my DNA. I can tell you that's.
What I love about doing that work. I mean, I've now for the last couple of months, I've been coaching on first tea when I'm not traveling, and it's to me, it's not so much teaching young kids and I'm working with six to ten year olds on how to play golf. I'm trying to teach them the values that the golf in parts so that you can be a better person. Yeah, and I think that golf has a lot of lessons like that.
Yeah. So I decided pretty early on that if there was an opportunity to partner with the First Tea with Potter Cup, I would want to do it. I believe, I believe in companies that do good and do well, and so for now it's it's pretty simple and straightforward. We just donate five percent of our sales to the First te so that the more we grow, the more
we can support them. Who knows what the future might hold in terms of growing that partnership, but for now it was a great start and I do I value what they do for kids so much so if I can, if I can help them to do that, I absolutely want to.
That's phenomenal. Are you open to suggestions on ideas for this?
Absolutely for putter Cup, because I.
Have one suggestion, and you know, I've talked to so many different golf instructors, especially love talking to people about putting. And one of the things that even when I was getting my tutorial from Sam Hun about how to use the broomstick, he was going to suggest because we were talking about pace, right, because it's not just the line,
it's the pace as well. And something I think I saw a video with Dustin Johnson talking about this and why his putting got so much better, is that you think of the hole as a clock face and the direction you're coming from is six o'clock. But most holes don't go in directly at six clock. Maybe they come
in it five o'clock or seven o'clock. Right. So my suggestion, I think it's obvious where I'm going with this is marks, you know, like twelve marks, just like a clock face, so that you can aim for a specific mark to get the ball to roll intwo from that direction.
It's a great suggestion. I love it.
Okay, we're partners now.
Yeay. One of my one of my favorite drills.
I'll take that dime from your grandfather for that idea, okay, deal.
One of my favorite drills to do actually with the speed bump is to take twelve golf balls and make a clock face.
Yep.
And it's it's not a long but it's only three and a half four feet and the goal is to try and make all twelve. I've made it up to eleven. I have yet to make all twelve because it is it is. It's tricky, you know, it makes it makes the effective size of the whole smaller. But I can say that as soon as I take it out, I do make all twelve regularly, which is which is the ultimate gold.
It's amazing to make the.
Real to make the real whole feel.
Yeah, Like I would do that drill frequently as well. And when I was using my thirty three inch putter, I would just put the putter head in the cup and then rotate it around, placing a ball at the end. He just went, wow, you know what. I just realized, Oh my gosh, with the broomstick putter. And they say, is that inside the leather now forty inches long? Yeah, that's in the leather.
We're good.
Yeah, they got a lot of gimmis coming your way.
I'm gonna my friends are gonna hate me for that one.
I'll tell you, well, we do to your point around feedback, we do have a couple of exciting things coming down the pipe. So one of the one of the things that's been the most encouraged as as this has has gone along, as I've had folks from the industry reaching out and so for example, I've had a number of PGA not touring pros, but PGA professionals, teaching professional teaching
professionals reach out and pick them up. And so to have folks who like yourself, have have seen probably everything in the way of training aids, to have that kind of positive feedback has been really really wonderful. But also retail channel. So I listened to your recent episode with the co founder of Red Rooster, and you were asking about direct to consumer versus the retail channel and just kind of the nature of the golf industry and how
to pick the right path for putter cup. Certainly, this is something that I want to get onto store shelves. That's where you know, so much of the golfing population is likely to see something for the first time and buy it. And so another great vote of confidence has been actually retailers and distributors reaching out as well with
interest in potentially carrying putter cups. It's just another great kind of vote of confidence that people see something that is on the rise and something that they want to get involved with early on. So I wouldn't be too surprised if within the next few months here you might start seeing putter cups on store shelves and some retailers near you. So that's that's been a great again, great
vote of confidence that we're in the right direction. Of course, I mentioned I'm doing this all myself, and that includes learning how to create content, run ad campaigns on you know, whether it's Facebook or Instagram. And actually just this week we had our first kind of video go viral. As of the last time I looked her up to eighty five thousand views on a video of the speed bump in action. Really simple video, just kind of showing how
it works. Right, anything too hard, too soft offline, it's going to punish you a little bit, but it'll make you better as soon as soon as it's not in the hole.
So is the PGA superstore or Worldwide Golf come to you and say, yeah, we'd like to put these. Let's start with a half a dozen of these in every one of our locations. How's your supply chain? Can you pull it off? Oh?
Ready to go? Ready to yeah? Yeah, that's and that's kind of always been been the goal. I've had fun. It's certainly been a lot of great learning to specifically how to describe them because they're different from other plutting training. It's again, it's not about your stroke, it's not about your stance. It's just you and the hole. As much as the real thing is you can can get. And so yeah, we've onboarded a new manufacturer recently to increase
I think the quality a little bit. We've got some nice branding now silk screen printed right onto the products, which makes it look real good. But we actually also have a third product, and personally selfishly but also because I think it works. All three of them have a distinct use case. But early on I realized not every practice screen even punches golf holes anymore. Some of them just put posts in the ground, and you know, to each their own. Some people stick a tea in the
ground and put to a tee. But if a golf hole is something that you want to put to, and certainly you need a golf hole to use the speed bump in the center cup, those practice screens are kind of off limits for Potterer cup. And so I realized that, and so our third product, which I'll describe it to folks, but it's essentially a portable golf hole. It's it kind of looks like a silicone frisbee with a golf hole
cut out of the middle of it. But it employs the same benefit as the speed bump of having that kind of raised edge around the outside. So you still have to give it a little bit of speed, but not too much or it bounces over it and it's got to be online or else it'll get deflected. But now you can you can kind of get the benefits of the speed bump anywhere. And so we're calling this
the to go cup. It's going to be you know, part of what I think is going to be the three pack is what you're going to likely see on store shelf.
How deep is your to go cup? I mean, if you if you hit it in and it goes in the hole but it's a little bit strong, will it bounce out and keep going or it will it is shallow enough that it will hold it steady.
So let me answer this a couple of different ways, because like, let's say you're putting in your living room. If you have thicker carpet and that's what you're putting on, this height of about three quarters of an inch is very likely going to hold to itself. But if you're on a practice putting green or like let's say you're in a hotel room where your carpet is not as thick and it's running a little bit faster, the same
speed would carry over the hole. And so one of the things we've done to address that is, you know, I mentioned the speed bump. We updated it so that I could fit into any golf hole regardless of what the cup situation is. You can actually take the speed bump and plug it directly into the to go cup and so it actually adds it adds some height, and it's you know, it's very precisely engineered that it's a you know, perfectly flat edged there. It creates that unbroken edge.
So if you are on a faster surface where it doesn't get to be too hard to pop it over that to go cup, you can add the speed bumper and it will give you that extra heighth thing you need, perfect perfect, And if you're feeling and if you're feeling really sadistic, you can also plug the center cup into it as well, which would give you that three in a quarter inch golf al instead of a four and
a quarter inch golf all. So they're meant they're meant to compliment each other and really give you the chance to benefit. And a number of locations.
Well, I want to make sure that everybody knows that it's puttercupgolf dot com. And when we were running the campaign, you offered golf Smarter listeners twenty percent discount if they use the checkout code golf Smarter. Is that still in effect.
It's still in effect, it's still awsome.
And what's your price points?
Yeah, so if you want to buy just one of them, they all sell for seventeen ninety nine individually. We of course believe that each has its own benefit, and so ninety six percent, ninety six percent of our transactions are what we call the pressure pot combo. It's both of them, both the speed Bump and the center cup. And with that one's twenty nine ninety nine, so we've kind of rewarded, you know, folks who are buying both.
Oh yeah, a great deal one and so.
Yeah, with that golf Smarter code and the twenty percent off of that, you're you're getting down to I think it's twenty four and then still TBD on what the three pack is going to cost at retail. That of course involves conversations with the stores as well, but I do think that three pack is what you're likely to
see there. I think that the to go cup is likely to have the most individual demand, and you know, I should note if you want to be notified when the to go Cup is publicly available, you can sign up. I've never sent to this day a single marketing email. Yet I receive a lot of marketing emails, and so I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of them, and I fully intend the first one I send to be the announcement that to go come.
Have you tried anything like the kickstarter or anything like that just to get the exposure and maybe even get some investment so that you can bring that one to market faster.
I have not yet.
I've so far I've been able to navigate without having to worry about outside investment. Personally, that's just by iterating small, but.
It's also a great way to get your exposure out there and people.
It's a really good point.
You're not looking that these aren't going to be partners or just people who go, yeah, I want one of those, but I'm gonna I'm going to buy it a little bit of a discount now until you get it out. Yeah.
Yeah, and I heard I heard how how big of the stuff that was for Red Rooster.
Yes it was, Yes, it was definitely, dude. Thank you so much for sharing this with us and for coming on the show to discuss it more fully. I really appreciate it, and we shall all the lock in the world.
Thank you well, Thank thank you, Fred, and and thank you for answering an email from you know, an upstart golf entrepreneur several months back. You're just such a kind ambassador for this game, and so I appreciate how gracious you've been and inviting me and keeping in touches. This has happened over the last few months.
Fred. I'm Brandon, Hi, Brandon Fitter here with PXG. Px's always been ahead of the game as far as technology with the Irons and definitely the Wedges, but it's fair to say they've been a step behind all other manufacturers with drivers until this Black OPS came out. It's just
like a world difference between like the past generations. They don't even call it like Gen seven, to call it complete rehaul of manufacturing engineering and the name of it right, so it's called Black OPS they started with like pretty much the same, very similar manufacturing process to Calloway. They've always been really good drivers.
It was I was. I've been a Callaway driver guy for years.
It's very fair to be one. Pretty much all carbon design, so the soul in the crown of the club is pretty much made all of carbon. So when that does is saves the engineer weight so they can take that extra weight and put it behind the face, making the face super hot and super consistent. From what I've seen in the base, definitely one of the best drivers in the market, if not the best market driver in the market. So I'm glad you already have it. So I'm not
doing driver? What about Woods? So we're doing I've been told it's everything from just no wedges, just irons, driver, whatever you need. But you already have the driver.
Well I have the driver, Okay, I have a so call Away three wood and a five wood and a four hybrid.
Okay.
I'm fascinated by many drivers.
I wait for them to come out with it.
Yeah, I'm fascinating, and I would like to go all the way down to gap Wedge.
Okay, but not the highbrids and woods. Take a peak of them.
If if you know, if I could be a full p X you bag, I'd do it.
Let's do it all right. So you said you already warmed up a little bit, Yeah, little bit.
Yeah, I'll take a couple more songs playing with now. So interestingly, these tailor made Q eyes are less than three months old. Yep, so I've been playing with these for about three months, and I if I got rid of him, it's like, okay, okay, I'm a ten point nine index sixty nine years old, right, so things are slowing down.
You're a liar. You're forty nine years old. Thank you.
You're younger than both my children. I can tell you right now.
How old do you think? I am?
Thirty two?
Correct?
Good, guess right?
I look my age? Cool? Yeah, what is it?
Twice week week?
Okay?
Cool?
And you got a net in the backyard?
I do putting green like this. I'm a labrat. I love lab golf.
I can already tell we're gonna make a little bit of improvement.
Awesome. So how did you get to be Were you trying to be a pro a professional golfer? Yeah?
No, no, I was in sales and I was living in Los Angeles, so I was a car salesman by day and then by night I would do stand up comedy. Really, I was just so stressed out with life, I bet. And then so I grew up playing golf. I grew up playing all sports. I played college basketball, I played high school golf.
Where'd you go to college?
Settle Back Junior College. Okay, yeah, they had a really good sports program. I got to watch them win the state championship from the view of the bench. Nice a great view. But anyway, So I was in sales doing stand up comedy and just like just a tense, stressed human being not having a great time. And then I started playing golf again and I realized, like, bro, you are so much more calmer of a human being on a golf course. Like patient, It's like everything you need
to be be a human. He's got a job at a golf course and at like a retail store, and it was doing fittings there, and then from there I started. I got a brief job as like a demo tech with a different manufacturer, and then from there I was I worked for Club Champion, the fitting studio. We heard of them. Yeah, So I was there for a number of years and then from there I jumped to PXG. Very cool, so I kind of like it's like, I gotta be in the golf industry.
Do you like PXG's product.
I love it, honestly, So I've had a chance to like see all the different brands and whatnot. B actually has stuff for the better like the tour pro player. Right, we have blades and CBS, but for the amateur golfer, even if you're a scratch golfer. I've met I've been a guy that day is a scratch golfer and he plays our XP's and most forgiving ahead because he's a little bit older and needs the distance. They definitely perform, if not one of the best, definitely probably the best.
But the feel for our like our game improvement clubs or our hollow body clubs, is unreal compared to like the titleist T two hundred or those qis like those to me, those feel very plastically, plastically and clickie to where ours even though they're hollow, they're five times forged, so it still has a nice buttery feel like a blade would, but has all the benefits of like a game improvement club. I love pgs. I'm a too handicap, and I've hit more greens in regulation now that I switch to PXG.
I'm excited.
Yeah, so let's go over this a little bit.
Okay, carry number is.
Definitely at one fifty. These aren't bad clubs for you. Seventy three mile an hour club speed. Not too concerned with that. That's how fast you swing the club, right, right, It's not good, bad, ugly, that's just how come to the realization.
Look, if you want tit the ball farther, you've got to increase. Your body strength is.
Exactly fixed that the swing speed the gym or a time machine. Yeah, I don't tell either of those, so I am not concerned with that. What I'm concerned with is ball speed. Your ball speed is one hundred and five miles an hour on average, So for swinging seventy three miles an hour, five mile an hour ball speed is kind of fantastic, like out of this world. The
reason I say that is your smash factor. Now, smash factor is going to be club speed divided by a ball speed, So it's like how efficiently you're transferring an energy from the club to the ball. PGA Tour average for a seven iron be around one point three to seven, right, and you're exceeding that at one point four to three.
And isn't like smash factor. One point five is the ultimate goal, isn't that it?
That is the USGA legal limit on how hot a club can be, and that's usually set. That's set for a driver. So if a driver gets tested at the PGA Super Show and it starts showing up at one five to four one five, the manufacturer has to pull it from production and redesign it because they've made it too hot.
Wow.
I guess a couple of years ago Wilson did that and it kind of killed their company for a couple of years because they've made a driver that was just crazy hot. So one five zero is the max it can be. But that's gonna you're gonna see that in like a driver. So for a seven iron, one to three seven is a tour average, and you're at one point four to three. So keep an eye on the mailbox. Your tour card could be coming soon.
I done that again. I played from the whites.
I did want to see something here. Where are we hitting this on the fase? Oh? A little high? That's interesting. It sounded low. Launches at eighteen, which is good. Spin is super low at forty one, I'd say the biggest thing we got to do is get this ball up in the air a little bit more. Really, Yeah, you're hitting a seven sixty nine feet in the air and your land angles at thirty nine. PGA Tour average would be forty five to fifty and so wow, PGA Tour
is a long way away from us. Oh yeah, but if we can get closer to that forty five number, you're gonna have a better chance to stop in the greens because right now your ball's rolling out about fifteen yards, and if we can cut that down to like twelve, I'd say that's the biggest goal.
Okay, Now it's interesting, is just the practice swings that I've taken so far that looks like my ball flight?
Yeah it's nice. Yeah it's one flat, which is good, but it doesn't.
Feel like I feel like I've been hitting them high for me here, which is great, but you're saying higher.
Yeah, and it's launching good, like it comes off the club good. It just kind of dies out and falls out of sky because it's not spinning it all. Your spins at like thirty nine hundred I'm gonna have you hit the P head. Okay, we can go to the XP for we're not feeling the PEE, but the P is instantly going to get us a higher ballflight. And if you're shooting eighty one, you definitely can strike the ball a little bit.
So you're going through the bag that has all the regular shafts in it.
Yes, sir, I want to grab some that's a little heavier, a little lighter, and just kind of find your sweet spot as far as weight.
Wow, that felt great. It looks beautiful. That seemed much higher.
More ball speed on that definitely more height. That's the ball. That was crazy?
What is that?
So? Like I said, you hit yours mathematically almost as far as you could hit yours, and you hit that one a little That was one hundred and eleven ball speed compared to the one oh six. Whoa, that's a great shot.
Thank you. There we go.
It's a great ball. See when you hit it flush, it definitely gets a little higher. I do also want to have to hit the XP, but if we were to hit the XP, I would make it two degrees week going XP two week. Basically, it's like it's gonna match the lofts of the P, but with the forget more forgiveness. More similar to your QI, but with more loft. One of my most popular fields that I do.
What are the different heads?
Can you explain each two? So this is the xp our most forgiving model. It's three eleven. Three eleven means rifleman in the Marine Corps. Everything's kind of an od to the military bee Bob Parsons, So XP's are most forgiving. The P is pretty much similar technology, different lofts, little
weaker lofts, but noticeably smaller head. And then you jump to the three seventeen it's a sniper in the Marine Corps, and the T head So all three of these are hollow, meaning on the inside it's forged, but on the NDEs injected with our Like on the GEN sign it's called our quantum core. On this T it's gonna be our polycore, so essentially think like a bouncy ball. So it's still very forgiving in the tea and in the page is
a little bit smaller than XPEME. And then you got our black ops heads super game improvement, very big design.
Wow.
The biggest difference one is cost and then also it's cast it instead of forged. Some people don't tell can't tell the difference. I like to look at this as like our new to golf line. So some people come in, they're getting into golf and not trying to break the bank. Straight to the black ops heads, because they perform just as good as any of these heads. To me, they'll definitely feel a little different to the guy who just started playing off. He's not gonna know the difference, except
for this one probably goes a little straighter. You can see it's taller too. Yep, you haven't really missed off the center of like you've been left and right of the face a little bit, but you're pretty much catching that center groove. So I don't even know if this would even be that.
Necessary for you being the black ops.
The black Ops. That's a great ball.
Yeah, it looked really nice. That seemed to go forever. Yeah, it was right online.
It was one hundred and ten ball speed. This is the XP head.
Is that the change you made? Yep, hit it finn, but hit it well still. The line was really good.
That's why I love PXG's. You definitely missed that one. We heard it. You even said it. Yeah, that was the same distance as your club is one hundred and fifty one yards total or Kerry Boom.
That one went further.
That was pure Yeah, okay, so this works. We're going to test that first shaft and I would definitely do the XP's two week As far as the head, so just adding two degrees aloft, that's going to pick our height up a little bit where we need it to be. But just the construction of this club, you're heading it way further. But I think what is cool about PXG and it kind of separates us. Everybody that I work with at the store has been fitting for years with
other companies. It's kind of like a recruit like they brought in really good fitters already, and then they train us on the prop. Extensive training on the product, so we know the product inside and out. But as far as the fitting process, what's gonna work for certain people swing putting the pieces of the puzzle together, as far
as the numbers on the track. Man, everybody I work with at the store, we've all been in the golf industry forever and so fitting is like bread and butter to us, and I think that's what separates us right there.
Yeah, that's probably the best shot so far today.
Take a couple with this one. It's definitely going to be this or that our three hundred.
Oh yeah, wow wow meliky.
Yeah that see, that's the potential of this club. It was one hundred and sixty three yard carry.
Whoa that, don't screw up my game.
There will be an adjustment period.
Oh yes, yeah, and then it's drawn at the end there it's yeah, starting off right, but it's last two come back in. It's nice. That was the kind of shot that on the driving range people go, Okay, I'm done. I'm not gonna hit anymore. I don't want to waste.
Them for sure.
What does that?
My grandpa used to tell me I'd take me out the range light at night and spend the night at his house. He'd be like, Papa, let me hit war more ball. I got to end on a good one. And he'd be like, you ain't got it in your son, get in the car. Then I will be here all night, okay, so r on me all the time.
Yeah. One of my listeners told me a story about that. When he was young, playing with his dad, he threw. He got all upset and threw his club and his dad said you're not good enough to throw your clubs.
That brings back memories. My grandpa used to be it was a big time club thrower. And he told me because we've been playing a lot of golf that summer, and he's like, brand, I know you probably just see me cussing on the course stone clubs. That's not you. Don't do that, all right, you're a kid. It's not the way to behave on a course. It's not good, you know. Don't don't be doing that stuff. You have
big oldong lecture on the drying range. We go to the first tee, he skanks his drive and then just yet like cousins and just throws his driver down the middle of the fairway right after he just told me not to do that. I'll never forget it.
That's a do as I say, not as I do, grandpa.
Oh it's beautiful.
Yeah, I love that.
Shut boom.
Wou'd you figure out?
So your your clubs, like I said, worked very well for you. One hundred and six ball speed for only swinging seventy three miles an hour. It's outrageous amount of ball speed. You're getting every last bit out of it. A little low is one hundred and fifty one yards carry rolling out to one sixty five. Now we are at one hundred and ten ball speed smash factor one four to seven for a seven iron. Just so efficient carry is one sixty, so it's nine yard. It's one
sixty point nine, so it's almost one sixty one. So let's be fair and call it rounded up a point and a ten yard gain of carry. It's still going just about the same height as yours. What I would suggest we do is we do make it two degrees weak and loft. The carry should probably stay at one sixty because now it's staying in the air longer. It's just less rollout.
And we're hitting off of mats. Yeah, we're not heading off of grass, which I love hitting off of matt.
I wish I could take one with me. Yeah, I'd be on tour if I could play off a matt. Sickening. I've seen people like I hate warming up practicing on mats. I kind of feel the opposite, like I like practicing off of mat because then I don't get like tormented by the game of golf. Correctcause you a good shot is a bad shot is still good. A good shot feels great off of mat and so maybe you're you're
not that great of a golfer. Anyway, it's like you're gonna go torment yourself on grass the clubs are all dirty, Like at least this boosts your confidence and you take it out on the course. You're probably gonna shoot the same score no matter what. If you're practicing on a grass or matt, you're gonna shoot the same score ially. But if anything, you have more confidence going from matt to course, you might actually score better.
I completely agree with you, And to me, most of the grass ranges that I hid from are sand, so you're hitting off of sand. So it's like, you know, because they have to refresh the grass all the time, and you're not hitting off of you're hitting off of sand, and it's correct, makes it more difficult. One of the shots that I like to practice with my seven iron because of or than California, is the low one hundred yard shot, yep, because of all the trees that I get under.
Yeah. Same, I'm too good at a punch cut out of the trees. I'm way too comfortable having to like hit a five iron fifteen feet off the ground and wrap it around a tree. Too comfortable at that. Now building of the set, do you go through four iron or five iron? Five five? Like it?
Five? Then hybrid? I had a three hybrid and four hybrid. I jumped the three hybrid and went to a five wood.
So yeah, three wood five wood, Yeah.
Three wood five wood. According to Arcos, I'm hitting this driver like to forty to two forty five ish is like there range on that.
Yeah.
One of my favorite things about my Black Ops driver is the magnetum, the headcut. Yeah, that you can just kind of stick it because I don't take carts. I always walk just so you walk with this bag. No, No, I'm a I'm you know. It wasn't a brutal walk to Chambers Bay last week, which is seven point two miles with a lot of that's crazy man elevation change.
One of my schools of thought with fitting is that top end of the bag is where we can get more creative and really tailor it to your game, right, Like do you need this club that club or the third right, or do you need you know, hybrid in two woods or is it just one of each or whatever it may be. It's got to fit, not only like your ball speed numbers, but also your style of play. Oh, Bobby, did you write with fitting that driver? That was pure? Kids?
Go to your room, Dad is home. That is what I like to say about that one that was popped my caddy at Chambers Base.
Your best club in your bag. You just need to get a little more confident with your irons. It's like, oh, they're still.
New, give me another swing or two. Basically, what I'm trying to do is, like I know the average ball speed on your seven iron right now, I want to get the average ball speed on your driver and just kind of fill in the gaps between that five iron and the driver there it is one one okay, and even get all of it or no, you're good, okay. So explain to me what you currently have in between the five iron.
And the driver hybrid?
Two woods okay, and what situations do you pull these.
Out at two hundred and the five three wood I'll go to fifteen ish.
There's your confidence level with the woods compared to the hybrid.
The hybrid sometimes concerns me, but I also flec him in the rough the hybrid and don't have to hit it so hard. But I've gotten confident with these, like the three. Yeah, I do makes sense.
I almost think that it's because you get these new ars irons ten yards further.
It might not throw my game up for a while. Oh is that right?
Maybe, but it might not be that necessary. But we could just put one in the bag of this just for funds easier. Okay, what you got black ops for hybrid with the same shaft that's in your irons? Uh huh beautiful.
A little bit of a fade, but solid. Let's see if I can put it down that line there.
You give me a favorite, k Hey your hybrid a few times? Sure, that was a good shot, really good.
Your face was like, yeah.
It's good. Spends a lot. I'm gonna make you something real quick.
Okay, wow, and this is a seven Never hit a seven wood before.
They're fun becoming my favorite club in the bag.
Is that right? Oh yeah, instead of a hybrid.
Yeah. I can't hit hybrids at all.
Oh that was pretty very good.
Yeah, I went up high way higher.
Yeah. And is that the point of the seven wood to get it up in the air.
It depends. Everyone's different. Sometimes people launch hybrids so high and then this usually flattens out the ball flight. Other people it's the opposite. It's a lighter head. The center center of gravity is more back in the club, whereas the center of gravity on the hybrid's very up front. So some people have a tendency to hit hybrids a little bit hooky, and they hook them a little bit. Either launch real high or launch real low. When you
hit this one good, it definitely goes higher. Yeah, I don't know if it's as consistent as the hybrid is for it. You don't hit the hybrid bad.
Blow?
Yeah, I shake eponymous, Take one more the prove it?
Swing race that from the memory bed right here.
Let me help us out real quick. Delete that file.
What are you adjusting here?
I'm making the li angle flat and what was it before? Standard? Okay, that's better.
A lot better. Hit behind it again. I heard it.
Take a couple more now that's on flat. I don't like it.
You don't.
No, here's what we're gonna do. Put this hybrid in the back. I have a feeling that your five iron is gonna go as far as that hybrid is. Wow, But just to be sure out on the course, put the hybrid in the bag. But I kind of have a feeling just like ball speed wise, Like if you're so, if you're seven irons one hundred and ten ball speed, then your six iron will be one fifteen and your
five iron will be one twenty. That hybrid and your hybrid were both hitting one twenty ball speed, which means that's what your current your new five iron is gonna be. So in theory, what you could probably end up aiming would just be five iron straight to five wood three.
Wood unless I'm in the rough.
That's where the hybrid rescue comes into play, exactly, put it in the back beautiful. Yeah, see that ballfly right there. Yeah, that was It's not a stinger, but it's just nice and flats using spin to climb up in the air. Twelve to seven would kind of just launch straight up. Yes, that's why we would go hybrid.
So do you get more roll on the hybrid than on the seven would for you?
Yeah? For sure? Uh huh oh yeah. Like the role you're getting is like fifteen yards from two hundred yards out. I mean you're complaining. You know, if you hit a green from one hundred and eighty yards out rolls up to two hundred, you know, the flags in the front, and you rolled it to the back of the green from that distance. You're not complaining.
No, I'm not complaining. I'm taking boughs. I'm hitting it down the line.
Every time flat you having like duff one off the turf the whole time. It's just going from sitting right here to kind of sitting like that. Yeah, love it? Cool? Cool? So for the three wood five would yeah, since how you don't necessarily compress it super well, right, meaning we don't have to go any stiffer than what's in your driver. In your driver works very well. I wouldn't want to go softer than that, just based on your speed. That's a great ball. I'd keep what's in your driver into
the three wood. In five wood usually that's a good place to be, just kind of match the Woods's fifty five will go sixty five gram and the three in the five. Unless someone like cannot compress the ball or they compress it too much, then we'll have to go softer or siffer. That's not the case here. Get you the three and the five in the same setup as the driver.
Cool oops, inside out.
There you go.
I didn't love the swing.
But I like the result about the ball.
Thank you.
Yeah, so I just put the three wind and five wood on flat as well. Okay, the hybrids in the woods are on flat, irons are on standard. It's just two week in long.
Okay, love it.
Love it all right, So we're done, done, We're good. Listen. As I went to college to study radio and TV production and have spent my entire adult life recording one thing or another, I really enjoy slapping a wireless microphone on myself and whomever I'm talking to or playing with, like we did with Sam Hahn a couple of weeks ago, or my round the Olympic Club with Eric Scholberg back in June. And I'm still editing the conversation I had with my caddie at Chambers Bay, and that's coming up
in a couple of weeks. But i'd really love to hear your thoughts and feedback on these remote recordings that I do out in the field and do they work in the podcast. And again, even though PXG is going to be paying for an ad campaign that starts next episode, this segment was not paid for, but I really do appreciate their support. This week's Golf Smarter Ambassador was Mike
Harley from loudon Tennessee. As a Golf Smarter Ambassador, Mike has received a free link to Tony Manzoni's video of the Lost Fundamental, which was his gift just for sharing with us where he plays, where he lives, and which episode number this is. I'd like to invite you to also be a Golf Smarter Ambassador and choose from one of three great gifts that you'll receive once you play.
Need to do is introduce a future episode. Just write to golf Smarter Podcast at gmail dot com and I'll get back to you with some very simple instructions on how to play. If you have any questions, comments, feedback on remote recordings, or suggestions for upcoming episodes, please write to golf Smarter Podcast at gmail dot com or click on the Heyfred button when you visit golfsmarter dot com