Hi, This is Rich Claer from Middlebury, Indiana, and I played golf at Savanas Country Club in Three Rivers, Michigan. This is Golf Smarter number.
Four hundred and seventy eight, published on March three, twenty fifteen.
Welcome to Golf Smarter mulligans, your second chance to gain insight and advice from the best instructors featured on the Golf Smarter podcast. Great Golf Instruction Never gets old. Our interview library features hundreds of hours of game improvement conversations like this that are no longer available in any podcast app.
For me was kind of hit and miss. It was elusive. You know.
I developed an attitude that if I wasn't going to be a great striker the ball, then maybe I'll be a great putter and have a great bunker game and pitching game and have.
A good attitude. You know.
I had to develop my ball striking skill over time. And I've always been a good player, and I think that most golfers would look at my ball striking and say, hey.
It's pretty dark good.
But there's a difference between the way Fred Couples hits it and the way Bubba why And hits it. And then the way that I hit it in high school. You know what I mean, There's just a difference.
So you start searching.
For Hey, how do you do that? What do I need to change to be like that? I think that's for me where the spark came in coaching is being able to take in some knowledge to apply it, to learn to make a difference not only for myself, but to make a difference for the people at the club. I gave my first lesson when I was sixteen. Yeah, I played golf with the members. You're better than they are, and they say, oh, hey, can you help me with this? And I just kind of made it a challenge to
deliver a result. So I would say that my attitude towards the game splintered into more of a coaching path versus a playing path at a very very young age. And there was a multitude of Factorier's associated with that. But one was struggling with my own game, being a little bit undersized and falling behind the curve, and the other was hitting balls next to a guy like Jim Ferick every day and just seeing someone that was clearly better than you were.
The joy of hutting yeah, right with Jeff Ritter, this is Golf Smarter. Welcome back to the Golf Smarter Podcast.
Jeff Fred. So good to be back, my friend.
Oh it is so great to have you back. Man. I went through the list. This is the twelfth appearance on the Golf Smarter Podcast for you, Is it really Yeah? Yeah, you've been You've been showing up here beating down my door notes the other way around. I've been beaten down your door to bring you back ever since like late twenty ten.
Wow. Yeah, that's awesome.
I've always had such a great time talking to you, and thank you. I'm connecting with your listeners and we've had some big life changes the last couple of years, and it was great to, you know, to get your email and get the invitation to.
Be back on the show.
Oh, thank you. Well, it's great to have you on because I feel like I get to brush up against greatness. Is as close as I'm going to get. Your brand is spectacular and just continues to grow. So let's just get started. What is going on with make the Turn Challenge? We will? You announced that it was coming up here on the podcast well over a year ago, and you gave us some hints to it. But now you're well into it, aren't you.
Well, yeah, you know.
I remember that show, and one of the things I always tell people is that when you declare what you're going to do to the world, not only helps you activate it, but it also makes you actually have to
do it. So I remember putting it on that show, going gosh, I hope this whole thing can come together, And it really did in fantastic fashion because I think when we talked to you, I mean I'd only filmed like a pilot episode, and Golf was interested, and it just turned out to be something that was way bigger
and better than even I could could have imagined. So basically, we filmed fifty video challenges in the areas of golf performance, mindset, fitness and nutrition, which are really the four pillars of performance that we like to coach at make the turn of what we now call MTT performance, and we submitted them to Golf Digest. They put about every single week on Tuesday is a challenge number last challenge of our series, so every single week for it, and then only put
out a video on Golf DIGESV. It was actually pushed out by Condonast Magazine group and I went to AOL, Yahoo, Huffington Post, you know, everywhere the condonast magazine would push out digital content. It went and it really took off, and we found out that recently that it was the number one watch program on Golf Digest TV, if not for the whole year, at least for certain spots. The numbers were astronomical and Golf Died which was really cool.
They actually let me do a weekly blog in association with each one of the videos, so there's always that story behind the story. So the tip is, you know, about one and a half to three minutes or the challenge, I should say, But then if you wanted to learn more about, you know, my inside perspective on where it came from from or what inspired me, you can actually go to a golfdis dot com.
There's a blog section called the.
Loop and you can go ahead and read all about it.
So it's archive at golfdies dot com.
Hill you have to do is click video search, make the turn, and any of your listeners can go ahead and watch them all and enjoy them.
Well, Lis, it's been almost fifteen months since you were last on. Let's talk about some of the different challenges and explain what this actually means to people who've not heard about this yet.
Yeah, I mean, you know, as a coach, you know a lot of times you're asked to create all these these how to tips or how to videos. You know, this is how you stop slicing it, this is how you stop topping and whatnot. And you know, I wanted to do something a little bit different, which really wasn't a perspective on how to do something.
It was more of a.
More of a nudge or a push or a means of activating people to go out and try something new. So from a golf performance based perspective, you know, we had drills associated with your perfect rhythm. From a mindset perspective, we had awareness exercises that we talked about in the past with the paper clips, which were designed to help you become more aware of when your attitude stinks, you know, and maybe that's going to help you on the golf
course or off. For the nutrition challenges, when we had that called mind Over Menu, which was basically, you know, you get off the eighteenth hole and you go to the clubhouse and you're you're hungry and you're going to
eat something. You know what can you actually order on the menu or what can you swap out on the menu to help you maintain your health goals, your weight loss goals, or you know, things that are important to you that you sometimes fall off the rails with just because you're starving.
You're craving those carbs and whatnot.
Yeah, right, give me, give me a load of fried food and some alcohol.
You know, that's kind of.
What happens, you because when people are on the course spread, they don't they don't drink enough water, they don't snack throughout their round, They get tired, they get thirsty, and all a sudden they hit the clubhouse and it's like, man, how fast can I get a pitcher of beer in amount of nachos? And you know, and I'm a guy, you know, and I like watching sports, and I like my occasional beer, and I like my occasional you know,
nachos and whatnot. But the thing is is that people just you know, they they set themselves up to fail where those experiences happen way too often, you know.
So we like to get people.
To you know, set aside a day or two which is your cheap day, you know, sort of on a Saturday or Sunday, that's your golf day and that's sort of what you want to do.
Hey, that's fine.
But you know, if you're active and you're out there, and if you're traveling with your with your company, or you're with your family, or you know, you're just a busy guy or woman, and you know, life gets in the way. You know when to make sure that the choice that you're making don't get you spiraling down to the point where you're you're sluggish and you're you're unhappy, and you're gaining weight and poor energy, and you don't sleep well and you got inflammation.
And on and on and on.
So you know, the the Challenge series was kind of using golf as a tool for positive activation in the game or out, and every lesson was designed to to be there to help you learn something about yourself, to help you have more fun with the game, but also to uh to really give you some tools that we think can really help your lifestyle in every endeavor, even when you're not on the golf course.
Well, that's part of the reason why I've always loved to talk to you, because it's not just swing mechanics with you.
No, it's not, you know, And the thing is that with our with our brand, you know, I'm sort of the the chief ambassador behind the movement so to speak. You know, I conjured up the the concept a few years ago. But you know, everything that I do comes from me really just wanting to create a brand that that keeps me on point and makes me want to be the best I can be.
And you know, I had a.
History in fitness, not as a coach, but as a participant where my life was really transformed by some some key people. So fitness became part of you know, my life and what I like to infuse into my coaching.
Of course, I'm.
Married, you know, a nutrition coach, you know, so the nutrition component, you know, became part of my lifestyle. And then spend a lot of time with the fantastic friend of mine. His name is Chris Doris. He's a Fortune one hundred and five hundred leadership coach. He's worked with PGA tour players and whatnot, and you know, all of these mindset topics that we've gone over over the years
have come from Chris. So, you know, make the term became you know, golf performance, which is my especialty mindset, fitness, you know, and nutrition. But we always like to say, you know, however good you think you can be, you know, we believe that through.
Good coaching, you know, maybe you can be even a little bit better.
So we're all about raising the bar, increasing expectations, and then creating a strategy to take concepts that are inherently complex and make them simple and doable and sustainable and really get you excited about prospects for you on the golf course.
Raw, it's fabulous. So what is the future now that you've been doing this for fifties seventy weeks.
Yeah, well it's it's exciting. So it's not the end of the line at all. So Golf Die Just is really excited about the success of the series and this first series, I mean it was it was a hard one, Fred, because you know golf digests, you know, they've never filmed
fifty of anything for one one problem. If you go to Golf Die Just TV, they have a lot of different really great series that they that they run, but a lot of them are you know, ten episodes or fifteen episodes, and it's just you know, it's it's a cost issue.
It just takes a lot of Yeah.
Oh yeah, video is expensive.
Yeah, it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of money. It's difficult to get locations for extended periods. So you know what I did is I said, hey, this is what I want to do. I know it's ambitious, but if I if I can pull it off, will.
You run it? Of course they said yes. So this first one was sort of all on me.
I hired the video crew, I wrote all the challenges, I secured all the locations, was able to define some sponsors to help some for what we did, so we kind of went big and yeah. So now Golf Digest they're excited about talking about, you know, creating an offshoot of the video challenge series and doing something else that's still within the the MTT genre. So it's all about building the brand and you know, sort of being that lightning rod for personal activation. So that's the first thing
which is exciting. So I guess I got to get working on what's going to be next there. And then the other thing that you and I talked about was the fact that we recently became.
Partners with the Golf Channel.
So the Golf Channel has decided to get into the Golf instruction slash growing the game business so to speak, you know, And they're not doing it by trying to create a standardized, you know, methodology on how to coach.
But what they've done is they've identified.
Some key coaches and some key locations throughout North America that they want to partner with, being business with and try and grow the game with. So coming Masters Week, people that watch Golf Channel programming are going to start seeing a rollout of a new initiative called Golf Channel Academy. And they had a show called Golf Channel Academy.
Yeah, I was gonna say, that's not a new initiative that's been around for a while.
Right, Yeah, that's that's the TV show.
But the Golf Channel Academy now is the actual hands on academy experience that people throughout North America can can engage in. So right now, I think they've got about forty locations by Master's Week, I think they're going to have about fifty locations. As you look globally, in the next five years, they're projected to do as high as one hundred and fifty locations.
But base these are This isn't like an online initiative or an app initiative. This is a physical presence. Sign up and go go to the golf the academy itself.
That's right, you know, So basically.
That's a good brand to put the name on. That'll get a lot of interest.
Yeah.
So, so basically, our our MTT Performance Academy here in Pebble Beach is a Golf Channel academy, So it is a brand within a brand concept. The Golf Channel is
going to help us with marketing and distribution. We have a territory right now which hits most of northern California, so people that are in our region are going to start learning more about MTT at Poppy Hills, learning more about our staff, and we're going to have the interest in support of the Golf Channel to be able to create a product that's honestly better than we could do
with our own resources. You know, it takes it takes a lot to do something really special, and the Golf Channel wants to do something special, so they're trying to help, you know, good coaches and great locations elevate their game, so to speak, with the Golf Channel and NBC style resourcing. So it's a pretty bold move. There's a gentleman named Todd Wilson who's the CEO of Golf Channel Academy, and his.
Sort of history and business comes from NASCAR.
He's actually the CFO of NASCAR and operates within a brand, within a brand strategy where franchises have territories throughout North America. So basically we're doing the same thing with golf instruction here. So the great thing is is that, you know, what we're doing is just going to keep getting better. You'll start seeing me more involved with Golf Channel programming. I've already done a bunch of videos that have already appeared on shows like Less and Team Live.
Might have an.
Opportunity here soon, hopefully to host one of those programs. The Golf Channels launching a new digital magazine this spring as well, and I was lucky enough to get the cover of that first digital issue.
So yeah, so.
It helps to be handsome, I.
Tell you what I mean.
I've really been so fortunate to just get a great response from dies in Golf Channel, and you know, it's kind of like the whole you know, twenty year overnight success for it.
I mean, I remember my sure, you know, you know, none of this would have happened if you didn't meet Kate.
She will definitely tell you that. For sure.
I'm going to tell you that too.
Every idea that I think is mine obviously comes from her. You know.
My first article in Golf Diedist was April of twenty fourteen, and no, excuse me, April two thousand.
Yeah, okay, April and April of.
Two thousand was my first Artiflin Golf Dinist. And it was just a little one pager. It was at the back of the magazine, you know.
But what was it about.
It was a pitching story.
Of course, I knew you would remember. You always remember your first Yeah it was it.
Was a picture, Yeah, absolutely, it was a picture.
It was a pitching story.
And it was just all about, you know, being able to better control distance and rhythm and get some predictable length out of your shots inside of one hundred yards. But you know, I had worked as a coach for the Golf Digest schools.
About two years prior.
And the thing is is that you know, when you work for the Golf Digest schools, it doesn't mean at all that you're going to get in Golf Digest magazine. That's just not how they how they do it right. So you could work for the Golf Digist schools forever and never get in the magazine. But I really wanted to do that. So I had written like forty story you know, ideas down, you know, with a short paragraph sentence or two on what the story was about. And I sent them to GoF Digest and I didn't hear
anything back. And then I called and I didn't hear back. And then I said, Hey, I'm gonna come up and visit you guys, you know, knock on the door and you know, poke around a little bit. So I went up there and really, just through you know, persistence, I got them to cave and pick one and that story
went in. And of course, you know when you get your first magazine story, you go out to like, you know, the grocery store, and then you show up with no grocery, you know, the checkout line and you got like twenty magazines, you know, and the lady behind the checkout counter is like, oh, you know.
Would you happen to be in this magazine?
And you're like, oh yeah, maybe, uh I think so possibly. Then you like flip to the back and You're like, there it is, but I'm but anyway, that was that was how the whole thing, the whole thing started, and you know, I just kind of realized that, you know, you got to you gotta be persistent, and just because someone says no, it doesn't mean that it's not good or valuable. So I never got discouraged when I sent
something out and nothing came back. I just did it because I loved it, and I kept on spreading it
around and making relationships. So it's really just kind of cool to, you know, talk about this with you and think back to the first story and then you know, back then, if you would have told me that, you know, later in my career, I'd be spending you know, fifty consecutive weeks on golf Digest dot com and be doing series with success that we did, and then have these other opportunities and then you know, moving to go you know,
the Golf Channel and NBC. I mean, you know, I'm a lucky guy and it's just so fun to be able to get up every day and do stuff like this. I mean right now, I mean, I'm working, I'm talking to Fred Green, you know, and I love it. You know, so I'm happy to be here, and you know, hopefully we can give some awesome stuff to your listeners today and get him excited about you know everything.
Well, it's you know, it's one thing to you know, spend all that time, and you said you're lucky, and there's no question there's luck involved with this, but you you know, it's the ten thousand hours thing too. You've worked very, very hard at it, and I'm sure that you're the envy of many golf instructors, but you have
this innate sense of how to make it work. And a lot of people are just you know, they're golf instructors and because they were good at golf when they were a kid, but they don't have the business sense or the marketing sense that you have. So congratulations again. I can't be more excited for you.
Well, you know, I was talking to one of my clients.
One of my clients is a gentleman who works for for Apple Computer and we I just had this amazing day, Fred I got to tour Apple.
Can you believe that I got to go up there?
Come on, you're not even a geek, You're just a golf I just golf.
But I've been a stockholders, but I got to tour Apple. You know, this this gentleman I have been friends for a few years and he just he's just the kind of guy that you know, some people are the early adopters. You know, they they drink the kool aid. They get exactly who you are and what you kind of stand for and what you're going for the moment that you know you start talking to him.
You know.
So he's all about everything that we do with our with our brand here, and you know, we were having lunch, and you know, he understands that it's it's a challenge to be in this kind of a kind of a business. It's a challenge to grow and to evolve and to
develop and adapt. And you know we started, you know, talking about the app put in and all the things that I've done, and I've I've driven my car cross country fifteen times, Fred, you know, moving from you know, Arizona to Palm Springs and then up to northern California and then going out to New Jersey and then working on Long Island, then back out to California. I mean,
it's just back and forth and back and forth. And you know the thing is is that sometimes, you know, when you're when you're young, and I still think I'm young.
I'm turning forty three.
Uh you are forty three, but well, you know what I mean, when you're when you're when you're really young, and when you get out of college, you're like, hey, this is the way life.
Is going to be. You know, I'm gonna maybe I'm gonna make a bunch of money. I'm gonna live here, you know. And the thing is that, you know, life is is a lot more.
Uh more challenging, and sometimes things don't happen the way you think they would, and you know the way that I thought it would happen. Honestly, when I got that first article in Golf Digest, I thought that, well, you know, Jim Flick was in Golf Digest and he was a hero of mine, and Peter Costas was in Golf Died.
I just figured that if you were in Golf Digest, then you were going to be the director of construction at the world's greatest resort, and you were going to charge X for a lesson and you would be jam.
Packed for months in advance, and hey, the world's your oyster.
You're hitting golf balls and you're you're making people happy, and you know, the business changed a little bit and all of a sudden just because I had one story cuff digest that didn't that didn't that didn't happen. You know, So you work and you push, and you know, it's all about trying to find this this tipping point, right. You know, it's like this bucket of beans, and it's like I'm going to try and get this bucket of
beans to grow one bean at a time. Then hopefully one day it's just going to fall over and then I'm going to have this you know, this career that you know I've created in my in my head, and you know, obviously it's a it's a challenge, right. So anyway, so this gentleman said to me, said, you know, so why do you continue pushing the way you push? Why
do you continue trying to be creative and innovative? And you know, why are you trying to build this thing which is so big and so robust when maybe some of your counterparts are are content, you know, just putting teas in the ground and you know, teaching one person at a time and whatnot. And I said, you know what I said, I realized not too long ago that I am a lucky person. And I realized that, you know, depending on you know, how six desciful things are from
day to day. I firmly believe that, you know, worst case scenario, will always be able to pay for my rent. Right, so I'm not going to be homeless, right might not live in the house I'm gonna.
Live in, but I'm not gonna be homeless.
And I always also believe that, you know, I've got friends in my life that I think will will always support me no matter what. And I'm lucky to be married to a woman who takes care of me and cares for me deally. So if I have all those things right, then I really had everything that anyone would need. And if that's the case, then why in the world would I get up in the morning and not try for anything less than exactly what it is that I.
Want, you know, out of my life in my career, you know.
So it's all about just you know, being authentic and going big and knowing that, you know, I got so many hours in a day like the next guy does, but you know, why not just spend those hours kind of going for it, you know, as opposed to doing something something less, you know. So that that was my answer, and I think that's the thing that keeps me thinking big and you know, trying to be bold and trying to create some things that are exciting.
When people like you are growing up and you're loving golf and doing this thing, their their vision of doing something great is on the tour. It doesn't sound like that was your thought ever. It sounds like the teaching part was always where you were headed. Well, or I may be misreading this, No, I mean it was.
Sort of by default. I mean I grew up idolizing Jack Nicholas. You know, Jack was my hair. I remember watching him win the eighty six Masters, and its just beside myself with excitement, you know.
And then I would go out to the practice Punny Green.
My dad was a club pro, so I was on the golf course every single day, loving and chipping and pitching and playing golf. And you know, Jim Furick was a junior member at our club and on my high school golf team. In fact, I just reconnected with him down here at the at and T for the first time in a long time. But I mean, yeah, I mean, you want to you want to be a tour pro.
But the thing is is that you know, when you're in high school and you're hitting balls next to Jim Furick and and he is who he is and you are who you are, and it's just not quite lining up.
Yeah, well he wasn't the way he was in high school the way he is in high school, and you had to be standing there going how are you able to get the ball where it goes with that swing?
Well, it wasn't so much that, it was just I mean he was playing. He was playing in you know these A J G A tournaments, you know, so he was like a little mini tour pro.
I mean, you know where I grew up. I grew up in a small town.
I grew up in Amish Country, Pennsylvania, right and in Lancaster, PA. You know, if you're going to play in a golf tournament, you know, you and your friends, you know, get in a car or someone who you know who's old enough to drive, they pick you up and you drive an hour at most, and then you play a municipal course and you know, after you're done, you know, you get yourself a sandwich, you know, and a drink, and then you get the car and you go back home and
mom and dad say, hey, how'd you play? And You're like, I shot whatever.
You know.
Jim Furick was was going to the airport and getting on airplanes and flying to places like Sea Island and Sawgrass and you know, playing in these these tournaments which were like like tour events, you know, and he was winning them.
And I remember, so.
That put a perspective on the whole thing for you of I'm not in that league.
It was just it was just a whole different, different thing. And he was, you know, I was a little bit undersized, you know, growing up. I mean some people would say I'm undersized now, but I mean but when I was in high school.
I mean, Fred, when I when I when.
I turned sixteen, Fred, I couldn't see over the steering wheel of the car that my parents bought me, you know, for my sixteenth birthday.
They bought me in nineteen eighty.
Four, subrew gl which is no you know, uh, you know, pickup truck, you know, suv monster.
No, it's no deep dish pizza, no, yes, exactly.
Right, you know.
And I had my license, Fred, I had my license for thirty minutes and I and I wrecked my car, well all four tires, and I ripped off the bunker, the bumper.
Rather the bunker, I mean.
So, I mean, I had, you know, some some challenges where you know, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm never going to grow and you know, parents taking you the doctor and the chronologist, and he's like, he's going to grow.
I don't worry about it.
But anyway, so I had this Jim Furrit character who was full grown, you know, winning tournaments nationally, you know, hitting the ball, shaving shaving, you know, I guess, you know.
The the gap just looked really, really wide.
And you know, I'd struggled with my game a little bit at the end of high school, and but I was at the same time, I had such a strong desire to play great and and that's when you start reading books and watching videos and asking your parents.
For for more golf lessons. My dad was a pro.
But yeah, but you.
Know, we used to you know, get in the car and drive to you know, the best coach in town. And sometimes we would get on an ever plane and we would travel out to a place like Scottsdale, and I would be lucky enough to have Dad buy me a lesson from someone like.
A Jim Flick, you know.
So, I mean, you know, I always had this strong desire to play well. And you know that's where I think you start reading about the how associated with the what. You know, most most people, like you know, Jim Feerick was always kind of able to make a move that gave him what what he wan it. I'm not saying he didn't practice hard, but you know, some people just have that natural sequence of motion that lets him hammer it. I mean, you know the Ben Hogan's and the Lee Trevino's.
I mean you know they didn't start off, you know, hitting at like thirty handicappers. You know, there was something about them, you know, just like a kid can sometimes step up and hit a home run in baseball. I mean, they understood how to put the club head on the ball to create a certain feel and sound and you know, kablamb, you know what I mean. And they hone that over time. But you know, for me, you know, it was kind
of hit and miss. It was elusive. You know, I developed an attitude that you know, if I wasn't going to be a great striker of the ball, then maybe I'll be a great putter and have a great bunker game and pitching game and have a good attitude. And you know, I had to develop my ball striking skill over time. And I've always been a good player, and I think that most golfers would look at my ball striking and say.
Hey, it's pretty dark good.
But there's a difference between the way Fred Couples hits it and the way Bubba Watson hits it, you know, and then the way that I hit it in high school.
You know what I mean.
There's just a difference, right, so you start searching for you know, hey, how do you do that? You know, what do I need to change to be like that? And I think that's for me where the spark came in coaching is being able to take in some knowledge to apply it, to learn to make a difference not only for myself, but to make a difference for the people at the club.
I gave my first lesson when I was sixteen. Wow, just you know, you plague off.
With the members, you know, and you're better than they are, and they say, oh, hey, can you help me with this? And I just kind of, you know, made it a challenge to deliver a result. So I would say that my attitude towards the game splintered into more of a coaching path versus a playing path at a very very young age. And there was a multitude factors associated with that. But one was, you know, struggling with my own game.
One was being a little bit undersized and falling behind the curve, and then the other was hitting balls next to a guy like Jim Ferrick every day and just seeing someone that was clearly better than you were.
Your history, what you're doing, your initiative all absolutely fascinating to me, and I'm so glad we got the update. But to what you said just a moment ago, well, hey, can you help me with this. Can we talk a little bit about putting absolutely good enough? So we all know hopefully we all know distance and direction right? The most important part of that is distance. Most people think
the beginners. I love talking to people who are just starting to play golf and you asked them the question distance and direction, and they oh, direction, you got it right. And then but yeah, you put it seventeen feet past the hole, but right, versus putting it twelve inches outside the hole. But it's whole high. Right, So I'm assuming this is correct distance and direction.
Ye distance direction, and then green reading would be the.
Think through and green reading. Okay, so let's I want to pick those apart from it. I my game's gotten better, my putting's gotten worse, and so and sometimes it's distance and sometimes it's direction. I feel like I'm a decent green reader that I'm pretty good with. I mean, people are like, wow, that was a good read. But it's either coming up short or it's going just your dude, just to the right or the left. It's nothing, you know, it's not consistent right or left. It's if it was,
that would help, but it's not. Let's talk about this the distance part. I need some distance drills.
Yeah, well, I mean distance with any shot. I mean, it really comes down to number one, the quality of your contact.
Right.
So I mean, if you're hitting the ball all over the potter face, you're not going to have any predictability in your distance. And then from there it comes from I would say at the start understanding that the correlation correlation between swing size and rhythm associated with getting the ball to roll in particular distance.
You know.
So for example, I.
Had a junior golfer out here the other day and his distance control was all over the place, you know, So we used to start kind of going back to basics, saying, you know, and putting. We're trying to create a stroke. A way to imagine a stroke is to imagine a pendulum on a Grandfather clock. And one of the things about a pendulum is that it swings back and through an even amount on both sides. So I just go ahead and I hold the putter between my fingers and
I get it swinging back and forth right. And as it's swinging back and forth, you know, I'll start creating a cadence. Sometimes I'll say one to two, sometimes I'll say TikTok. Other times I'll say it back through. And I'm trying to get this student, you know, whether it's a junior golfer or someone who is advanced in years and has played the game for a long time, to kind of get reconnected with a pendulum swing.
And a pendulum rhythm.
And then what I'll do is I'll keep on making those audible sounds one to TikTok, back through, but I'll start to shift the size the pendulum is swinging, you know. So I'll go one, two, and I'll make the putter swing within a small arc, and then I'll go TikTok, and I'll make it swing in a bigger arc, and I'll say it back through, and I'll make it swing on a bigger arc yet. And the thing I'm trying to get across is that, regardless of swing size, the rhythm is the constant.
It's always the same.
Right.
So once we can do that, you know, we'll just try and make some strokes where you know, I'll have the student put a ball any distance they want. I'll see, go ahead and put it about about ten feet, it doesn't really matter. They put it ten feet, and i want them to feel a stroke that's in rhythm, you know. One, two, hold the finish, see how far the ball goes. And then I'll say, okay, now let's go ahead and put the next ball one putter length longer than the first ball.
So the only thing to change is the size. But we're going to try and feel that same beat, that same rhythm. So we'll try and create these little rungs of the ladder that start close and then go farther away. And then once we do that, we might put a ball a longer distance and then work the ladder back towards us. But it's all about just trying to get sort of tuned into what is going to produce distance aa, b C, so.
On and so forth.
From there, what we might do is you have them grab their phone and go ahead and find a free electronic metronome app.
Right, there's a ton of them out there, right, So you find an app.
And then what we might do is we might go ahead and start at a very low beats per minute, like fifty beats a minute, right, so at a pace that you would never put at. So you turn on this metronome and you start hearing this beat just like you would if you were playing a piano or in a guitar lesson with someone right now. Obviously, musicians they have to play to a beat in a rhythm, and that's what makes a band sound enjoyable to listen to
versus like a big train wreck. And what we'll have them do is start to hear this metronome beat, and then we'll start to try and roll putts where they match the backswing and follow through to the beat of the metronome. And the reason I like to start at a very very slow pace is number one so that they can match the beat easily, but also so that they can start to feel what it's like to be held back, you know what I mean, to be at an uncomfortably lethargic pace.
From there, what.
We'll do is we'll take that metronome and we'll zip it up to a ridiculously high number, something well over one hundred beats permitted.
And now it's going, you know.
Tick, And now they have to match the beat of something that's really really fast, and of course they feel like they're being pulled forward to an uncomfortable degree. And once they can do that, then we try and find a rhythm that's really comfortable for them, somewhere between.
The slow in the fast. Let's say around you know, seventy nine eighty beats a minute. Everyone's different, you know, if you look at golfers and their golf swings, if you think about a slow rhythm like a Larry Mize, you know, versus a fast rhythm like a Nick Price.
I mean, everyone in their lives, they move and they talk and they act at different speeds. So the rhythm that's going to be perfect for you is something that's totally unique. But once you find that rhythm where you're like, hey, this feels good. Now, all of a sudden, I'll have them putt right around the green to the beat of a metronome. And just like a musician would play guitar or play piano or play the drums to the beat
of a metronome as well. So now they get really tuned into the fact that there's a size to a stroke, which should be relatively even, but there's definitely a rhythm that's unique to them that needs to be the constant or the glue between the short, the medium, and the long strokes.
Does that rhythm going very slow to very fast? Does that also dictate how far the ball is going to go? I mean, like, if you're going really slowly fifty beats, is the ball going to generally you're going to hit that harder, it's going to go farther, and then with a with a quick rhythm, it's going to be a shorter putt. Or are you always trying to find your rhythm for the distance.
Well, your rhythm is going to be constant whether it's short meter or long, right, So that's that's yeah, that's the idea. But the thing is that when you change the size of the swing within that rhythm. Obviously the overall speed is different, right, but.
Staying at your staying at your comfort zone rhythm.
Exactly, So obviously good.
If you're making a bigger stroke, right, the stroke's going to have to move faster to fit within that same beat.
Right. So obviously it's going to have an effect on distance.
But you know, most people when they're out there for it, it's just that they're not really working on anything, and that's and that's the problem.
Right.
So with putting, you know, when people come out and they say, you know what's most important, I say, well, it's got to be this, because, as you pointed out, you know, you can miss it a few inches right or left, but then you can also miss it, you know, a number of feet short or long. And I found that even the worst aimers in the world, you know, if I show them where the hole is and I say, go ahead and roll me a putt, they don't put it ninety degrees to the left. You know, they kind
of aim in the vicinity. They might not read the green, but they're pointing in the general direction of the hole. But that's the same person I've seen them put it fifteen feet past right, So the error of fifteen feet is a lot more to their detriment than you know, even a foot or two right or left.
So if you have good pace.
And even reasonable aim, then you're going to be in a good position to you know, have a short second putt and all of a sudden you have a lot of two putts, you eliminate three putts and you start, you know, shaving those those strokes. The next thing that I teach after distance is is how to read a green, because if you don't know how to read a green, it doesn't do you any good to be able to start the ball on a straight line with proper path
in face relationships, you know. So the third thing I actually teaches is direction ohe green?
Oh so green and green reading is second for you.
Yeah, so if you think about it, you know, Dave.
Pel's who was my first boss, and I did a lot of research and basically said the average golfer underreads putts by up to seventy five per So, you know, imagine if you were in a a cold weather climate. Let's say you live in Green Bay, Wisconsin, right, and you love golf, So every day you you set up in front of your TV and you say, I make a hundred perfect strokes in my putting track, right, And the putting track is designed to give you a reasonable path and face that would move the ball on your
intended line. And let's say you do that for for six straight months, so you hone this perfect stroke. Opening day, you go out to your home course and on the very first put you underread the putt by seventy five percent. The only way you can possibly make that putt is if you take your perfect stroke and you alter it to push the ball or pull the ball to a higher line by path or face manipulation. So basically, if you can't read a green, there's no point in even trying to create a reasonable.
Path and face because it's just gonna be a big waste of time.
Now, if Fred you can find the proper line through understanding how to read a green, and then you can roll the ball at a desired pace, Now, starting the ball on that line becomes the most important thing, and that's where spending some time training path and face in
starting line would be really, really helpful. But I think that when people learn how to put they're always trying to create this perfect looking stroke, when in reality, it all starts with creating a smooth with roll and then being able to judge slope in a reasonable way so you know where to start the ball, and then from there start honing those little nuances and path and face to close the deal.
Fabulous, awesome, thank you, thank you. It really helps. I'm going to get off the phone with you because I want to go start working on it right. Well, and that's you know, that's and that's just my opinion, right, No, that's okay, I trust your opinion, but.
That's you know, I used to spend a lot of time.
Working on my path and my face, right, And the more I focused on those things, the less putts I made. Because I wasn't connected with putting a smooth, beautiful turf hugging role.
On my golf ball. I wasn't connected with.
The challenge associated with solving the problem of judging slope and grain and all these things that make you know, uh, golf golf fun. You know, all I was focused on was, you know, what does my swing path look like?
What does my putter face look like?
And I was standing in these little devices all the day along, just going back and forth and back and forth, and I would go out and I would hit the worst looking putt you've ever you've ever seen, you know, and that became really frustrating.
So, you know, the way that I teach putting.
Was really born a lot from my own frustration and putting and understanding that you know, all great putters they roll the ball nicely. The ball doesn't hop up in the air, it doesn't skid, it doesn't do all these weird things, you know.
My balls.
You know, I was spending all this time working on my stroke, you know, directional mechanics, and then I would put these balls, you know, and they would roll towards the hole like like a like a drunk lumbering down Main Street, and like in that ball wants to go anywhere but the hole. And it wasn't until I start to soften my hands on the grip and become less rigid with my mechanics and start to feel some rhythm and some flow that my ball started to behave the
way that I wanted it to behave. You know, I was also a big fan of Ben Crenshawn. Have you ever seen Ben Crenshaw roll a ball in person?
I mean it.
It is a work of art. You know what he does just rolling a ball ten feet across the grass, you know, And my ball wasn't doing that, you know. So it wasn't until I started focusing on rhythm and roll and just trying to make the ball behave in a more beautiful way that I started to make putts and get back into the joy of putting. And yeah, I've worked on path and face since, but it's never been my number one priority as it relates to making putts.
Are enjoying putting?
Now people have really bad path and face mechanics and they can't start the ball anywhere near their intended line and do the need.
To work on it?
Of course you do, right, But for me that's number three. In the years past, it used to be number one, and I gotten.
Away from that fabulous. Well, you gave us the name of the show today too, the Joy of putting.
I love it.
I love it. I love it. Listen. You mentioned that your first published article was a piece on chipping. Was how about sharing the tip from the article?
Well, it was all about so.
One of the things I learned when I worked for Dave Peal's was that it's one game made up of many games, right. And the thing is is that in golf, I mean, there's a lot of different attitudes that you have for different shots. And Dave would always say that you have a power game, which is basically how hard and how far can you hit the ball, and then you had a finesse game, which was hitting a short soft, and you had a putting game, and then you had
a mental game. So all these games together, if you were fairly proficient, would lead up to having one great round of golf possibly. And thinking about the finesse game is that the finesse game has different from the power game and the putting game. And the biggest difference that we talked about in the story was the dissociation between your hips and your shoulders that you would normally have in the wind up and strike for power based golf shot.
So basically, when you turn your shoulders back right and then you'll let your hips wind up in a power shot, there's a difference between those two, right, and then as you transition from the backswing into the downswing and that gap increases, you generate a little bit more ability to create a massive swat into the back of the golf ball, right. So being that in a finesse shot, it's more of a rhythm may swing.
We tried to eliminate.
Some of this disassociation as a means of taking away some of that explosive power. So basically, the tip that I rode for Golf Died just back in April of two thousand was a direct ripoff from my time at the day of Pallas Short Game School.
So Dave, if you're listening to this, you get full credit for this and a lot of other stuff that I've written.
But anyway, basically about when you turn back and then you turn through, we're trying to keep the upper and lower halves your body moving more in unison. Right, So as I turned my chest away from the target, I want my belt buckle to turn away reasonably to a similar degree. And as I was turning into impacting the fall through, I was trying to feel like those two parts of my body were staying more together. And that's
what Dave used to call a finesse turn. So basically, like putting is stroke size and rhythm, with pitching, we would try and make it swing size, rhythm, and then of course club selection, we would try and eliminate the component of trying to disassociate the shoulders from the hips to create that powerful X Factor style wind up in delivery that you might have with a big driver. A powerful shop in the fairway