Episode 20: Joe Mayo

part of golf again. And I can't remember exactly where we were, but my father was a cancer patient, still is, and we were in a physicians off at some point and I picked up some type of a golfing magazine, don't remember what it was, and I heard about TrackMan to Opper Radar, and that really really made me go, Wow, maybe this is what I've been looking for. There was a doctor and a caesiologist here in Las Vegas that knew me and liked me, and he believed in my abilities.

I don't know why, but he did. And he said, hey, let's get a track Man. I'm like, wow, sure, let's go ahead and do that. I've got five hundred bucks in my checking account, so let's go ahead and get one. There were twenty six thousand dollars and we got that thing. And you know, at that time, there are no there's no Internet forums, there's no user's manual. I mean, you're on your own. It's sink or swim. So I just plopped that bad boy down and I just let everybody

come hit shots for me. And I started seeing all these patterns and began putting together ball flight, if you will. And I started to notice that, you know, no disrespect to those of the past, but I began to see that what we believe to be true was not true. And the golf ball did not start on the club path. It started, you know, as you guys know, basically where the face is pointed, not one hundred percent, but basically.

And I took that and I started putting videos on the internet, I don't know, twenty ten and some people saw those videos. Brant Waite, you guys know, PJ tour player saw it, and we developed a friendship and literally it changed my life.

I think that's one of the things you've inspired so many not only helped so many golfers, but inspired a lot of golf teachers to open their eyes to that. So I feel like you've reached a lot of folks. Who were some of the other teachers. I know you just talked about figuring out a lot of this on your own because there was no instruction, Manuel, But who are some of the teachers, PhDs, academics, whoever, Because you have not been afraid to, you know, reach out and

make a phone call and ask questions. That's what I love about you. Who are some of those folks that have helped you along this journey level up your knowledge?

him about biomechanics as well. And I'm sure I'm leaving others out, But I don't ever want to make it sound like I did this on my own, because that is absolutely not true. And you guys at ping have been an invaluable resource and I really appreciate your help and support over the last ten years.

don't think it still starts on the path. It might become fifty to fifty or fifty five to forty five, but without question, the number one ball flight issue was the golf ball starts where the path of the club is and it curves towards the face, and that is dead wrong. As we know, that's absolutely backward. Which it starts basically where the face is pointed, and it actually curves away from the club path assuming your face hit.

And I think one of the biggest revelations of track Man for the masses, and it should be the biggest revelation, is how the angle of attack, the angle of attack can be judge, jury and executioner. And I remember, oh my god, twelve years ago this is twenty twenty three. Right guys. Twelve years ago minimum when I did a video where I said, if your angle of attack changes from down of you know, I eat iron to driver and you're trying to hit the same shot, you cannot

be aimed in the same place. Yes, when you start thinking of the three dimensional aspect of ballflight, the three dimensional aspect of the club movement. You know, we've been told for one hundred years that you got to have good grip, good stance, good posture, but you got to have good alignment. And I don't know what good alignment is because the best players in the world are aimed

all over the place. Yeah, And I'd like to give just a quick, quick, little synopsis if if someone wants to hit a nice little draw with a seven iron right handed golfer, Well, we know that the club phase needs to be pointed somewhere right of the flag at impact to start it there, and we know the club path needs to be slightly right of that phase to

make it curved back to the hole. That's what we know. Well, ball sitting on the ground and with a seven iron it should be that means that golf club is going to be moving down toward that golf ball, but it's going to be moving out to the right some amount, and that out helps us produce the path that we need to hit a draw. It does. So what I'm getting at is, with that seven iron, it's very reasonable.

It's it's very plausible for the golfer to have good old fashioned straight railroad track alignment because the down helps the out, which helps the draw. Next thing, you know, he goes to the next te box, he tees up a driver to hit that same draw. Well, not his angler attack is up. Let's say it's up to it, which is very plausible as well. He and not have that same alignment because with the seven iron, that down

produced the out, which helped him. But now with the driver, the up produces a leftward path, which does not help him. So now you got to ask yourself two questions. A. Are we going to change his upward angle of attack? And I would say, heck no, not with modern golf, not with the modern equipment. No, we want to launch this thing in the air. That's that's a good thing.

It's a healthy thing. So if we're not going to change the angle of attack being upward, how are we going to defeat the leftward club path, which is actually our enemy. The answer is, we're going to aim to the right, and we're and this is what I say. I've been saying it for ten years. You have to aim right enough to counteract the left created by the up.

going on. So at the end of the day, the bottom line is this, In my opinion, every modern instructor not only should know this stuff, in my opinion, he must know this stuff. He must understand the three dimensional travel of that golf club.

it onto the course with his feels. You know, how do you marry having that technical side of things with Okay, I'm an athlete.

And you if you not that I have how, but I can tell you if you try to slot something by him that just doesn't pass must or you're gonna hear about it. And so he's a smart kid, which is good for me, because you know me, guys, I like to get a little technical with times and talk about wrist angles and tilts and all that kind of good stuff, and he loves it. He's that stuff like candy. But at the end of the day, make no mistake

about it. What you have seen out of Victor the last two weeks, specifically, what you've seen this year, It's not been some magical, mythical golfing phenomenon that I've been brought that I've brought him through teaching. You're just simply dealing with a Ferrari. You're dealing with an absolute world class primetime player. And as I said in an interview I did a few days ago Withgitor International, all he needed was a little good math and a little good science.

This is what I told Victor when we started. I said, with your talent level, with your ability level, if my information is correct, if what I'm telling you is correct, then we must see results. There can be no other way. And if we're not seeing results, then most likely what I'm telling you is not valid. And guys, not to fluff my feathers. But what I have told him to do, he has caught on to it immediately. You guys have seen the results. The golfing world has seen the results.

And one last little snippet, we did not be in short game until Riviera on Tuesday. He had a photo shoot on Monday. We started on Tuesday and he and his caddy, Shay were standing there and his agent, butler Butler Melnott were standing there with me, and I looked at him and I said, guys, this isn't going to take long. This ain't gonna take long. And I'm not so sure they believe me, but I believe not in what I'm saying. I believe that he could do it.

And as you guys have heard me say before, anybody that can take a four iron and put it on the back of the ball at one hundred and five miles an hour and hit a shot dead straight from two hundred and fifty yards away to a flag, don't tell me he can't chip a golf ball. Don't tell me that he can't pitch a golf ball because I don't accept that theory. I don't accept that hypothesis that this kid can't chip a golf ball. Yeah, and now the world is seeing that he can. Yeah.

he's feeling. So give a little overview there of those changes in the three D delivery and maybe some of the angular rates right of victor short game, you know, before and after some of these changes that were making you know, angle of attack, delivery, things of that nature.

too steep. Yeah, I'm not engaging the bounce. Oh my god, I've heard engaged the bounce for two million times. I've heard that. And he believed that he was too steep. Well as Marty, as you know, that was absolutely incorrect. And all things being equal, a steep angle of attack moves the low point more forward. And if the low point is more forward or shall we say contact with the ground, because contact with the grounds not thisssarily your low point. I'm just trying to keep it simple for

our viewers our listeners. So as the angle of attack becomes more steeper, all things being equal, the low point becomes more forward. Well, if the low point or the contact point with the ground is more forward, then that means I'm not chili dipping it anymore. That means I'm not fatting it anymore. It means I'm catching ball first,

And make no mistake about it. When you are trying to chip at the PJ tort well, when you're trying to chip at any level, if you cannot accurately predict contact, if you cannot accurately predict the speed of the ball off of that face, you cannot chip, and you sure cannot chip at the tour level. So what I did was I said, no, you're not too steep or too shallow. We started moving the angle of attack dramatically more down.

When he came to me, his angle of attack on a chip or a pitch was three or four degrees down, and now it's twelve. He can stand there and rip them all day long with his eyes closed now, because what the technique has allowed him to do is catch good, solid contact with a high frequency, which allows him to predict what the ball is going to do before he hits it. And if you think about it in common

sense terms, that's that's that's that's the good sauce. That's that's the secret to chimping is being able to predict what the ball is going to do. Uh. And with that steep angle attack, now that low point is dramatically more forward, which increases the probability of a solid hit. That's all he needed, guys. And unfortunately he was told, well, you can't shift if your wrist angles like that going back.

Well we know that's true because Jordan Spied does it, and Dustin Johnson does it, and Brooks Koepka does it. And the last time I checked, they're all major champions. They were all normal in the world. When I showed him those videos of those guys doing that, there was like a light bulb moment. He was like wow, because all this time he had been trying to roll that

risk in the backswing cup cup that wrist. No one had ever said, no, no, no, no, no no no. Let's get the bottom vector of spin loft, which for the viewers out here, that's the angle of attack. Let's work on the bottom vector, which moves the low point forward, which allows you to predict contact. Because Marty, this is what I believe to be true when we're talking spin loft. And you know, Victor had that little spin loft thing on the interview the other day. He said he learns

spin loft. Well, as we know, spin loft is just an angle. You got the angle attack on the bottom, you got the dynamic loft on the top. In my opinion, the bottom vector is where the money's made. Anybody can have a good top vector. I can just just open the face that points the top vector up in there. Just open the face, yep. But bottom vector that's where the money is made, and that was his problem, and in my opinion, it is the problem when people cannot

chip and pitch. They don't have the low point or the contact point with the ground far and a forward. Therefore they're hitting the ground too soon and then they're hitting it incorrectly. And after about ten thousand unsuccessful attempts, then you start doing things to not hit the ground, and that's when this thing can get sideways quickly.

like this. He was like a twenty minute analysis where I was pre to him and guys, this is the honest truth. Sent that video analysis to coach Brighton, coach Dharr because I wanted complete transparency. I wanted everyone to hear what I was saying to this kid. I told him, if I'm not mistaken, I told him five times in that video, stay away from golf instruction, stay away from golf, including me. Stay away. You are going bleat. It's a

matter of time. And I said, you need a good caddy and a good lawyer, not a good golf bro. So he decided to come out and see me in November of twenty nineteen and we went out to TPC Summerlin and he just put on a ball hitting exhibition. He's hitting four irons off the ground, He's barely touching the turf, launching this thing two forty straight as you can point. He put out the driver and he's hitting it out there three hundred and twenty yards with a two yard cut. And when it was over, he said,

what do you think. I think that you don't need a golf instructors. What I think? And we went back to my house that night and I had a little bourbon and I said, Victor, you're a great kid. I want to be your friend. And I said, if if you want to drink bourbon, if you want to play poker, that's fine. I'm your guy. But we're not going to do golf instruction. We're not gonna do that. So as an instructor, guys, As an instructor, I knew that I

had a generational talent sitting in front of me. I knew that I had a player sitting in front of me that quote unquote could take me places. He could he could take me places. I was not going to have that. I was not going to allow that. He did not need my help. He did not need instruction, in my opinion. And I told him no. And that's a factual statement. If you asked Victor, he'll tell you that. And then he went on his way. And fast forward to December, he calls me and says, Joe, would you

take a look at some swings? And I did, and when I saw them, I hit rid. I'll immediately, I said, Victor, what on earth is going on? And I gave him some preliminary thoughts on what to do. He was not extending his nearly fast enough. We'll just keep it there to make it short and sweet. Had some success, comes

out to see me in Las Vegas. We go out to the Summit Club and when he called me in December, his angle of attack with a seven n iron was almost nine degrees down, eight and a half degrees down. And as I said five minutes ago, when that angle of attack is down, that's trying to push the path to the right. He's trying to get cuts pass moving to the right. And the more he tried to swing out into the left, the more the angle of attack went down, which the path went to the right. He

was a cat chasing its tail. He couldn't get the path left of the face. When he comes out to Vegas and I get him to extend his hips, angle of attack goes to four degrees down immediately, and now he can get the path over to the left of the face and start cutting the ball. But the big deal was I sent him down to Dallas, Texas to

see my good friend John Sinclair and Marty. I know you know John, and I trust John Sinclair implicitly when it comes to three D capture, specifically with AMM three D, which in my opinion, as of today, it's the best. It's the best we have today, and John is the

best with that. And never forget what I'm about to say for you instructors out there, if you ever are fortunate enough to teach a player of this caliber, you must get three D. You must because the camera will lie to you, your eyes will lie to you, and if you didn't need three D, there would be no such thing. But I knew that dealing with Victor and dealing with a player of this caliber, I had to know.

I sent him down there. My suspicions were confirmed, not to say, wow, Joe, you're right, but fisions were confirmed which allowed me to then proceed further down the road of helping him. And there is no way, no way that I'm going to touch the golf swing of a player at this level without knowing what I'm doing, and the way to know what you're doing is to get to three D.

And that's that's where I think, you know, the future is very bright for the everyday golfer because more and more that technology is coming right and we're using things like learnings from our focal our three D motion system, which is very focused on what the club is doing, and passing along insights from there to the everyday golfer.

One interesting thing Joe I wanted to ask you about Victor was he has the lowest you know, there's a lot of different ways we can define closure rate, but he has the lowest closure rate of any of our tour players we've measured. This means like coming in from P six chaft parallel to the ground to impact, that face is already relatively square and it's only closing like twenty degrees from P six to impact, where we know one of our other tour players it might be forty

to fifty degrees right in there. Right, what is the relation between Victor's unique wrist angles and that closure rate? And then my relate to that, to that Joe is like, you know, how do you tie what he does in his full swing to his short game? And maybe that can that could come second to that that question, Well.

how it's measured. Yes, but let's be fair, let's be honest. There are world class players who have a high rate of closure. Yes, there are, uh and the key word is rate. So if you look at a player that has this this big swivel after impact, that doesn't mean they had a high rate of closure because they could have been closing this thing all the way down, which means the rate is not quick. The rate was slow. The total amount of closure was great, but the rate

of closure was high. But as far as Victor is concerned, Marty, I had nothing to do with it. How he learned to do that?

not gonna happen. And as I said, when he saw the videos of Dustin Brooks and Jordan, it gave him the freedom mentally to say, wait a minute, this is okay. Yeah, And this is what I told him. I said, if you want the face open, just open the darn thing in address. Just just let it. Lay it wide open on the bunker, lay it flatten the bunker opened the face of a dress. And I think, without question, part of his success of being able to pick up on this stuff was I did not tamper anyway with grill

for rotations and wrist angles. I did not so any of the little finite moves that he's making that's on him.

Are we going towards a world where the best in the world's golf swings are all going to look relatively different, considering guys like Victor can kind of do it in a different way than a Rory does it or a Brooks does it and be just as effective.

getting the ball. I think now with three d uh and with information being released, it's helping the instructor understand what's going on and say, you know what, it's okay to be different. And I'm just gonna go on the record right now with Victor hoven Uh. Anybody that tampers with that gross motor pattern, that overall gross motor pattern, that signature that he has, you should be horse whipped

because you are looking at a world class machine. And guys, what I've done with him has been minimalistic, and I just tried to put him back to what he used to be. That's all, nothing more. And I want to stress the credit goes to the kid. Yeah, involvement in this was you know, like I said, just a little bit of math, just a little bit, but yeah, that

is that you're looking at a finely tuned machine. And I also want to say, if we had a clone of Victor, if we had Victor A and Victor B and they're both standing on the range hitting balls, and Victor B cosmetically looks like Victor A, that doesn't mean Victor B is going to play like Victor A. The cosmetics are just that part of it. When we start talking about kinetics, then you've got to ask yourself, what about the emotional component that Victor has to play golf

under this tremendous pressure. There's not an instructor on the face of this earth that can teach that.

kind of define that as MEW. We've talked about this this thing MEW. Victor and I, Me and you and Victor have this funny running joke going about it. But the more you hit down, the less time you have to pick up water debris, get grasp between the ball and the face. He's also switched to our glide wedges, so we have really we have a hydro pearl finish which sheds the water. It's hydrophobic and this type of stuff. Overall, we're just kind of compounding the alignments with having a

better predictability of the friction. And I think that's also as a player, what's put you at ease, right, it's that unpredictability that can kind of drive you crazy with the short game, right one hundred.

And when a player of Victor's talent level, when they get out there and they do this, you know, a few hundred times a few thousand times, and he sees the predictability.

gonna come from. So the viewers or the listeners need to be cautioned that hitting down in and of itself is not the answer, because remember spin loft has two components. You got the down and you got the loft. I could, I could. I could hit down more and just take the loft with me. I need to hit down more and get the loft. I need to open that angle up. I need to open that thing up. Right there, you go.

Need to open that spin loft angle up. And when you do that with friction, you're going to get that high spin rate, no question about it.

spin off of tea correct. But then chip, you know, normal chipping and short game and this kind of goes back Shane, I kind of thought of that topic of Shay. Victor's caddy talked about the wind being light and variable r give some nightmares. Well, I think reading your lie

around the greens, you got light and variable friction. You know, it's kind of light and variable wind, and that's where a lot of that short game in predicting the lie, reading the lie in Joe, I think that's where you've done magic with Victor, getting to hit more down, get more clean contact, more predictable friction, a higher percentage of the time.

the low point was actually back, not forward. And you know, with him, when he hit the ground behind the ball about two thousand times in a row, what's he going to do? He started actually leaning the shaft forward right to not hit the ground. Well, when you lean the shaft too far forward, now you start closing the spin loft down because the bottom vector's not down enough and

you're delofting the club, so you're shutting spin loft down. So, as you know, Marty, even if you do get clean contact with a shut down spin loft.

get that? And I know people, Peyton, I know people. So I've got I've got some really really good pieces and it's just been a hobby of mine. I enjoy the history behind it. But believe it or not, guys, some of my most important pieces are the three victories, the shirt that Victor was wearing on Sunday at Memorial at BMW, and the Tour Championship. I have all three of those. So those are three great the great pieces that I'm that I'm very proud of, very.

us on the R and D side. And I think you've influenced a lot of the golf instructors out there, and so I just want to thank you for your help to Victor, but also helping level up all the golf industry. You and Grant Waite early adopters, a tract man and being practitioners, I think has really helped a lot of us. And and we appreciate everything you've done for the industry and you're doing for Victor right now.

So thank you for coming on and spending time with us, Joe, and sharing a little insights about you know, this this great athlete that we've had the pleasure to watch here lately.

him so much, but no, Paul is very kind. But at the end of the day, guys, this has been a pleasure for me and I have learned just as much from Victor as he has learned from me. And you know, full disclosure, I've never had a player that is going to be potentially number in the world one day. I've never had a kid that can do what this kid can do. Yeah, for all of you old college basketball fans out there, there was a famous coach called His name was Adolph Rupp. He coached the Kentucky Wildcats

long ago. He had a great statement and he said, you don't win to Kentucky derby riding a mule. Don't ever forget that. So if you want, I tell people, if you want to become a great tour instructor, find yourself a great tour.